Chaos, Make it Your Ladder

This life affords us many opportunities. It is up to us to be aware enough within each moment to see the chaos for what it is or to see our way through the distractions that often surround us in order to achieve what we can. Each moment is truly an opportunity for greater awareness.

Too often, we may enter into situations with attachments and expectations in how we desire the shape and feel of the resulting outcomes to be. This leads some to anger, disappointment, even despondency when our big plans don’t work out the way we want. What benefit do any of these reactions have or gain us, or anyone, either in the moment or especially in the long term?

Aren’t we punishing not only ourselves but also others for making the best choices that we could at the time when we think in this limited fashion? Why would we do that to ourselves or anyone else? Would it not be better to be open to any results in order to best learn from our experiences?

Of course, it is natural when we are attached and the object of that attachment is missing, taken away, or never materializes to have a negative reaction or response. This is why training the mind to analyze those attachment dynamics is crucial when we enter into any endeavor, especially those endeavors that we have specific intent to do benefit for and with others. 

If our intentions are clean and clear of attachments, it allows us to seize on every opportunity presented to us by the natural chaotic factors present in modern life and from the natural effects from all of the causes we create from our actions. 

‘Okay, This path is done. Thank you for the lesson. Bless you. Now, up that chaos ladder to a more beneficial-for-others dynamic, thank you very much! Not after I deal with the anger and loss, but right now.’

+Wonderful World 

If there is no attachment, there is a freedom to be an intentional person. Every misstep, obstacle, obstruction, and absolutely every breath becomes but steps and stones on this ladder we’ve been climbing . . . to where . . . it does not matter because we have intentions connected to every action and every word. When we add, accumulate, and hold onto our attachments, it weighs those intentions down as well as our potential. 

More importantly, it obscures awareness. How does it do this? When faced with new information, experiences, or results that directly or indirectly contradict those intentions, we are immediately capable of absorbing this new data and adjust our actions as we breathe our very next breath.

The Joy in Virtue: Waking Up from Laziness

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Laziness in Buddhism is unique. It is loosely defined regarding a mind that finds no joy in virtue. This may seem an extremely confusing way to approach the concept of laziness. However, in my exploration of the Buddhist approach to laziness, I found some astounding corollaries to modern life. 

Buddhism identifies three specific types of laziness: indolence, unwholesome actions, and self-deprecation & defeatism. (The Nectar of Manjushri’s Speech, Pelden) 

Indolence

Being indolent is to have a disposition avoiding exertion, causing little pain or to avoid pain by remaining inactive.

Indolence is a very curious form of laziness. In modern culture, we have depression. One of the symptoms of depression is staying in bed, hence remaining physically inactive. It could be seen here that the pain and suffering of staying in bed and the isolation that comes from depression is far less than the perceived pain and suffering of leaving that bed. It certainly is worthy of further exploration. 

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However, indolence here is not necessarily regarding physical exertion, which are limited. There are infinite ways we avoid exertion mentally and emotionally. We often don’t consider . . . anything. We hardly ever consider . . . nothing. That’s the laziness referred to here.

It’s actually possible to have so much joy from even the most mundane of human activities. In fact, it is through these daily activities that we should strive to experience joy every single day. Our lives don’t have to be some grand love affair or adventure on the big screen to have joy in every day.

Imagine waking up and finding joy in what you can do today.

Unwholesome actions

Many Westerners immediately misconstrue Buddhist terms like ‘unwholesome actions.’ Gossamer covers the minds when some hear these terms, thinking they can never live up to some expectation of always being perfect people. This is simply not the intention.

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However, intentions are crucial in all that we do, and that is what is meant by unwholesome actions with regard to laziness. What are we really after with our actions today? Tonight? When we rise in the morning? Knowing what the intent behind every action sounds exhausting, but it can be liberating and exhilarating. 

Imagine the freedom and the joy in making every action you take matter to you. 

Self-deprecation & defeatism

Here, the defeatist attitude is becoming immune to the pains and sufferings of self and others. If we examine this closely, this ultimately becomes a conversation about greater awareness and emotional openness. 

In our modern society, some focus so much on their own pain that it eclipses the suffering of others, even their loved ones staring them in the face or striving to help alleviate it. Others, avoid feeling and experiencing their own suffering, obscuring it through acts of kindness, hostility, or ambivalence. Both methods block awareness and create barriers between all of us. 

Imagine letting go of being perfect. Allowing yourself to not have to hold it all together and demanding the same of others. Imagine making a human connection with every person, first yourself. You deserve it. You need it.

+Wonderful World

Laziness is not something to look down on yourself about. It certainly isn’t something we should look down on others about. It is only part of our human condition. What is wonderful and beautiful about this human condition is that we can break out of this laziness and experience the joys of the virtue of being here and now. We don’t have to be perfect because we are not. But, we can wake up to joy with every breath we take. 

Go Lightly with a Joyful Heart

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The lichen hanging in the trees wafts to and fro,

Stirred by every breath of wind;

Likewise, all I do will be achieved,

Enlivened by the movements of a joyful heart.

-Shantideva

As this year and every day begins, go lightly with a joyful heart.

Our intentions fundamentally shape everything we do, every word we utter, every thought we think, and every feeling we feel. Exploring what those intentions are can transform every moment. What once was lacking becomes abundant with possibility simply because we are present within it. 

Open your eyes

Open your ears

Open your arms

Open your hands

Open your heart

Now,

Open your mind, and let the joys of intentional living transform this world. 

Seeing Through the Difficulties with Others

+Amazing World 

Family and friends should be able to see through and around difficult issues. It's so sad and tragic that so many cannot. The way I see it, most people have not had the blessing to learn about themselves, others, and how to better relate with both. For that, they deserve patience, understanding, and above all compassion.

They also don't mean to do, say, think, or feel such terrible things either. They just don't know how to do any different. They also don't have enough awareness of themselves to acknowledge that they need guidance. It's actually completely understandable. 

For that I knew I needed help, went out and received that guidance, and that even though repeatedly the system failed me so many times, I simply never gave up. I continued to get back up and fight for a better today so I could wake up and create a better tomorrow, not just for myself, but for everyone I meet.

I really have so much to be thankful for every single day I wake up, with every breath I take, and with every person I have the pleasure to meet. That's my motivation for my daily living.

The Healing of Relating: From Esoteric to Mental Retraining

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Being how and what we are is not separated from the experience of those around us. Feeling and experiencing happiness is a state of being in most if not all cultures. It is an individual experience that has benefits to those in the vicinity of the person experiencing it. However, some people have varying capacities to empathize and relate to each other in reciprocal ways. 

This isn't a simply esoteric discourse, either. 

There are biological and neurological components to how we relate to each other that are based in actual scientific evidence. 

Mirror neurons are present in our brains that connect our experiences and sensations with each other, everything, and our perceptions of both. The presence of these mirror neurons have been proven in primates and other animals. Although direct proof of a human mirror neuronal network is lacking, there is ample indirect evidence. When human beings perform an action, certain areas of the brain are stimulated and are observable using fMRI. These same areas of the brain are also stimulated when the same person observes someone else performing the same action. 

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For some people in modern society, this reaction has become reversed for some reason. People instead experience the happiness or other positive characteristics of others as negative or harmful. These people have internalized issues regarding their own states of mind and being.

This can be seen through the lens of the over-personalization of the  experience of others. In other words, somehow the feelings and states of mind of others are somehow focused directly and personally at oneself. 

These people are somehow shut off to the positive or beneficial emotional or mental states of happiness, joy, and relief within their own minds. They simply create the perpetrators as those experiencing the positive or beneficial states of being.

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This is similar to a negative feedback loop. Observing positive experiences and situations begins a mental-emotional process that has the reverse, compounding effect of previously existing negative thoughts and feelings. This would seem to indicate a general lack of empathy or even reverse empathetic response for those with this affliction. They have stopped relating with others and their environment in a realistic way. 

Whether or not a person is openly happy or not will have no negative or positive effect on someone in that shut off, over-personalized state of being. In fact, the continued sheltering of people from the positive, beneficial mental and emotional states of others can foster and perpetuate those negative, self-defeating patterns. 

What can we do to break these patterns within ourselves and within others?

We have to retrain our mind to relate in a more healthy, realistic, and beneficial way with others.

+Wonderful World

It’s also crucial to understand that there are absolutely valid reasons why the human mind alters the way it relates to itself, to others, and to its environment. The mind does this to survive and to adapt to circumstances and situations. 

If we do not apply understanding and patience to ourselves and others at every step in this mental retraining process, we are setting ourselves up for relearning and reinforcing mistaken and broken ways of thinking.

This is not a process as simple as turning on the lights with a simple switch. However, the more times we attempt to do something different, the more times our mind will learn this is what we want to be doing. We want to reconnect to ourselves, to others, and to our environment. We have to keep at it. 

For some reason it became easier to stop relating. Although that was understandable and is understandable to return to repeatedly, as it had become the routine and the new normal, we are deciding to do something different. 

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We are actively deciding this. We are making a new choice.

It is in beginning to make those positive choices to reconnect and renew our relation, first to ourselves, then to each other, then to our surroundings, that we become reconnected to our presence and awareness in the present. Not based on some past hurt, either, but based on a belief and the actual reality that we are all connected.

Initially, we may have disconnected to protect ourselves or others. 

Today, we reconnect to heal ourselves in order for us to be more present and aware to clearly see ourselves and others.

We can do this. We always could. We always have. We choose again. We choose today.