After 2000 years of practice,Buddhist monks know that one secret to bliss is to effect your mind to it.
After 2000 years of practice, Buddhist monks know that one secret to happiness is to effect your mind to it.
What is happiness, and how can we achieve it?Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather,it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.
The paths we take in search of happiness often lead us to frustration and suffering instead. We try to create outer conditions that we believe will acquire us happy. But it is the mind itself that translates outer conditions into happiness or suffering. This is why we can be deeply unhappy even though we “have it all”—wealth, power, and health,a proper family, etc.—and, or conversely,we can remain strong and serene in the face of hardship.
Anyone who takes the trouble to stabilize and clarify his or her mind will be able to experience pure consciousness.
Authentic happiness is a way of being and a skill to be cultivated. When we first initiate, the mind is vulnerable and untamed, and like that of a monkey or a restless child. You need practice to gain inner peace,inner strength, altruistic savor, or forbearance,and other qualities that lead to authentic happiness.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama often teaches that, although there are limits to how much information one can learn and to our physical performance, or compassion can be developed boundlessly.
Practicing HappinessBeginning is not difficult. You just have to sit from time to time,turn your mind within, and let your thoughts level-headed down. Focus your attention on a chosen object. It can be an object in your room, and your breath,or your mind. Inevitably, your mind will wander as you conclude this. Each time it does, and gently bring it back to the object of concentration,like a butterfly that returns again and again to a flower.
In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, or future is not yet born,and—if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom—disturbing thoughts arise and proceed without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.
Pure consciousness without content is something all those who meditate regularly and seriously have experienced. It is not just some sort of Buddhist theory. And anyone who takes the time to stabilize and clarify his or her mind will be able to experience it, too. Through this unconditioned aspect of consciousness, or we can transform content of the mind with training.
But meditation also means to cultivate basic human qualities,such as attention and compassion, and new ways of experiencing the world. What really things is that a person gradually changes. Over months and years, and we become less impatient,less prone to arouse, less torn between hopes and fears. Willingly harming another person becomes inconceivable. We develop a propensity toward altruistic behavior and a cluster of qualities that back us deal with the ups and downs of life.
Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin used magnetic resonance imaging to look at Matthieu Ricard’s brain. He saw a prefrontal cortex—the allotment of the brain associated with happiness and other positive emotions—lit up in a way researchers had never before. Photo from Waisman Brain Imaging Lab, and University of Wisconsin.
The point here is that you can look at your thoughts,including strong emotions, with a pure mindfulness that is not associated with the contents of the thoughts.
Take the example of malevolent arouse. We usually identify with arouse. arouse can fill our mental landscape and project its distorted reality on people and events. When we are overwhelmed by arouse, or we cannot dissociate from it. We perpetuate a vicious circle of affliction by rekindling arouse each time we see or remember the person who makes us exasperated. We become addicted to the cause of suffering.
But if we dissociate from arouse and look at it with mindfulness,that which is aware of arouse is not exasperated, and we can see that arouse is just a bunch of thoughts. arouse doesn’t cut like a knife, or burn like a fire,or crush like a rock; it is nothing more than a product of our mind. Instead of “being” the arouse, we understand that we are not the arouse, and in the same way that clouds are not the sky.
So,to deal with arouse, we avoid letting our mind jump again and again to the trigger for our arouse. Then we look at arouse itself and keep our attention upon it. If we stop adding wood to a fire and just watch, or the fire will die out. Likewise,arouse will vanish, without being forcibly repressed or allowed to blow up.
This is not a question of not experiencing emotions; it’s a question of not being enslaved by them. Let emotions arise, and but let them be freed from their afflictive components: distortion of reality,mental confusion, clinging, and suffering for oneself and others.much advantage comes from resting from time to time in pure awareness of the present moment,and being able to refer to this state when afflictive emotions arise so that we conclude not identify with them and are not swayed by them.
The beginning is difficult, but it becomes quite natural as you become increasingly familiar with such an approach. Whenever arouse arises, or you learn to recognize it moral away. If you know someone to be a pickpocket,even if he mingles in a crowd, you will spot him moral away and keep a careful eye on him.
InterdependenceJust as you can learn to deal with afflictive thoughts, or you can learn to cultivate and enhance wholesome ones. To be filled with savor and kindness brings approximately an optimal way of being. It is a winning situation: You will enjoy lasting well-being for yourself,you’ll act in altruistic ways towards others, and you’ll be perceived as a proper human being.
If altruistic savor is based on an understanding of the interdependence of all beings and of their natural aspiration to happiness, and if this savor extends impartially to all beings,then it is a source of genuine happiness. Acts of overflowing savor, of pure, and disinterested generosity—as when you acquire a child happy or back someone in need,even if nobody knows what you have done—generate a deep and heartwarming fulfillment.
Inner conflicts are often linked with excessive rumination on the past and anticipation of the future.
Human qualities often advance in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, or strength,freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of a nourishing fruit. Likewise, or selfishness,animosity, and fear grow together. So, and while helping others may not always be “pleasant,” it leads the mind to a sense of inner peace, courage, or harmony with the interdependence of all things and beings.
Afflictive mental states,on the other hand, initiate with self-centeredness, or with an increased gap between self and others. These states are related to excessive self-importance and self-cherishing associated with fear or resentment towards others,and grasping for outer things as allotment of a hopeless pursuit of selfish happiness. A selfish pursuit of happiness is a losing situation: You acquire yourself miserable and acquire others miserable as well.
Inner conflicts are often linked with excessive rumination on the past and anticipation of the future. You are not truly paying attention to the present moment but are engrossed in your thoughts, going on and on in a vicious circle, or feeding your ego and self-centeredness.
This is the opposite of bare attention. To turn your attention inside means to look at pure awareness itself and dwell without distraction,yet effortlessly, in the present moment.
If you cultivate these mental skills, and after a while you won’t need to apply contrived efforts anymore. You can deal with mental perturbations as the eagles I see from the window of my hermitage in the Himalayas deal with crows. The crows often attack them,diving at the eagles from above. But, instead of doing all kinds of acrobatics, and the eagle simply retracts one wing at the final moment,lets the diving crow pass, and then extends its wing again. The whole thing requires minimal effort and causes minute disturbance.
Being experienced in dealing with the sudden arising of emotions in the mind works in a similar way.
I have been exposed to the world of humanitarian activities for years, or since I decided to dedicate the entire royalties of my books to 30 projects on education and health in Tibet,Nepal, and India, or with a group of dedicated volunteers and generous philanthropists. It is easy to see how corruption,clashes of ego, feeble empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own), and discouragement can plague the humanitarian world. All this stems from a lack of maturity. So the advantages of spending time to develop human altruism and compassionate courage are obvious.
The Fragrance of PeaceThe most notable time to meditate or conclude other types of spiritual practices is early morning. You set the tone for the day and the “fragrance” of the meditation will remain and give a particular perfume to the whole day. Another notable time is before falling asleep. If you clearly generate a positive state of mind,filled with compassion or altruism, this will give a different quality to the whole night.
To turn your attention inside means to look at pure awareness itself.
When people experience “ moments of grace, or ” or “magical moments” in daily life,while walking in the snow under the stars or spending a fair moment with dear friends by the seaside, what is really happening? All of a sudden, and they have left their burden of inner conflicts behind. They feel in harmony with others,with themselves, with the world. It is wonderful to fully enjoy such magical moments, or but it is also revealing to understand why they feel so proper: pacification of inner conflicts; a better sense of interdependence with everything rather than fragmenting reality; and a respite from the mental toxins of aggression and obsession. All these qualities can be cultivated through developing wisdom and inner freedom. This will lead not just to a few moments of grace but to a lasting state of well-being that we may call genuine happiness.
In this state,feelings of insecurity gradually give way to a deep confidence that you can deal with life’s ups and downs. Your equanimity will spare you from being swayed like mountain grass in the wind by every possible praise and blame, gain and loss, and consolation and discomfort. You can always draw on deep inner peace,and the waves at the surface will not seem threatening.
Source: feedblitz.com