Click To Join In On Facebook
Personal Change
In a lecture on Spiritual Materialism, I remember Chogyam Trungpa Ripoche describing the phenomena of pursuing one spiritual path, then another, then another. It’s a bit like a kid in a candy store… “oooh, I want that one…. no that one…. oh no that one!” The point is that this constant jumping from one path to another does not lead to real spiritual progress, just to jumping.
That basic idea applies to everything in our lives. Do you know someone (maybe yourself) that constantly jumps from one thing to another and never seems to get anything done. Many years ago I had a business partner that seemed to actually prefer constant activity to making money. It was amazing. We would have a signed deal on the table that meant a lot of money, but he would drop that deal to pursue something new. Needless to say, we weren’t partners very long.
It’s the same thing with diet and exercise. Try one thing, then try another, then try another. Sound familiar?
The fact is that in order to make real progress we have to stick to something and actually do it. That’s doesn’t mean you have to pick the first thing you run across and stick with it. It might take a little time to find something that you really like and resonate with. But once you’ve found it, then do it and stick with it.
And that takes us to a little more in depth consideration of the human mind. Have you ever noticed that our minds just love to be entertained. Well, just in case you haven’t thought about that take a look at all the TV, radio, movies, sports, books, magazines, etc. that are surrounding us. They’re all one form of entertainment or another. Some are obvious entertainment, while others like news programs are more subtle because they’re informative entertainment. Somehow we rationalize that something that is informative has a higher intrinsic value than say a cartoon.
It’s not particularly useful to debate if news stories are more valuable than cartoons, but it is important to realize that when we are being entertained we are not doing anything. And to achieve anything you must actually do something… and that means you’ve got to distinguish being entertained from actually doing something.
To read about one spiritual path after another so that you can talk about them intelligently at cocktail parties is absolutely not the same thing as actually following a spiritual path… say by meditating year after year. In fact, I remember when I first started studying Zen being asked by my Zen master if I knew much about Zen and Buddhism. I proudly responded, “Yes, I’ve read quite a few books about them.” With a very serious look on his face he responded, ”Oh, well that’s ok. I think we can overcome that.”
In the final analysis it is the ego being entertained and the ego that inflates itself by placing a value on the entertainment. It’s the ego that says, “I am learning this new thing, so now I’m smarter.” The funny thing is that this whole approach to happiness is based on the mistaken notion that one’s ego is inherently existent and a valid point of view… at least mistaken in Buddhist thinking. Doing is different than thinking you’re doing.
So, the thought for today is to distinguish when you are being entertained or entertaining yourself mentally from when you actually are accomplishing results. Then remember that extraordinary results are achieved by small continuous efforts… by actually accomplishing daily victories.
Working on my bucket list. Remember the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman? It’s the list of things you want to do before you die. This is a serious exercise in setting your priorities. I’ll keep you posted because it’s turning out to be a bigger deal than I expected.
Triggers
Have you ever noticed how you tend to do the same things over and over again in the same way. I am not talking about things like getting up at 7AM to be at work by 9AM. The only thing about that is that you can change it by either moving or quitting. What I am talking about is how you tend to react to certain events in a robotic fashion… like a good robot you follow the chain of events programmed into you at a subconscious level.
Let me give you a personal example. Over the years I have learned that eating a lot of food for an evening meal really doesn’t seem to fit my metabolism very well. I don’t digest it well so it keeps me awake, I try various things to go to sleep like meditation, reading, and even sitting in front of the TV. Usually, none of them work, but I try them anyway. Finally, at about 4AM I have digested enough of the food to fall asleep, so I go to sleep. Then when I wake up I feel totally exhausted because I never sleep later than about 8AM. So, it’s off to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and some carbs to pick me up in the morning… well, at least until about 11AM. Then it’s time for another pick me up because I have put myself in the blood glucose yo yo. Are you getting the picture here. Eating large late dinners precipitates an entire chain of events that run throughout the night and next day… they used to end up precipitating a low blood glucose crisis that started the whole sequence again on the next day.
So, the idea here is that some event Triggers a near robotic set of responses that you follow just like an actor in a Broadway play following the same lines in the script night after night after night. It might be the certain way your spouse says something to you that sets you off into the same pattern of thinking and acting.
Mind Watching
Usually, these robotic patterns are not good things. They end up producing bad results and they are quite mindless in the way they operate. So, if you want to stop the bad outcomes you’ve got to catch hold of the chain reactions and stop them. That is, you’ve got to recognize when you are back into a repeating script and stop engaging in the play. And that means you’ve got to recognize how one event triggers another event and how that event triggers another and so forth. Ideally, you want to find the initiating trigger and stop the pattern at the source. But, stop the pattern somewhere if you can’t find the source trigger.
In my own case, I have discovered that the source trigger for the big meals at night is a need I have to socialize over food. When I eat at home by myself, then I never eat large evening meals. When I eat at restaurants by myself I don’t eat large meals. In fact, I have the restaurant box half the meal before I start eating. However, when I eat with others I tend to throw caution to the wind and pig out. I am working on this a bit more to get to the real trigger of it all.
The secret is realizing that all the Triggers and patterns ultimate come from the mind and the secret is to begin to watch how your mind works. Fortunately, Bodhidharma wrote a wonderful essay called On Mindwatching. I have a wonderful translation of this work. The translation is unique and was done by several Zen students and I under the guidance of Myo Bong Snim, our teacher.
The Premise
- Palenque Mexico
The History Channel ran a show called Apocalypse Island. It a nutshell, it was about an island in the Pacific and off the coast of South America that one archeologist claims has a Mayan sculpture that will bring light to their final predictions for December 21, 2012. One of the Mayan kings of Palenque was said to be the person who directed the construction of the 100 foot tall sculpture.This particular island will be the only spot in the Western hemisphere that two major astronomical events can be observed from in 2012. The first of these events is called the Venus Transit. It occurs when Venus passes across the face of the Sun. The Sun and Venus are both important in Mayan astronomy. The second event is a lengthly total eclipse of the Sun. This is coupled with the alignment of the earth, the sun, and the galactic center in the galactic plane. The three events of the Venus Transit, the eclipse, and the winter solstice all occur on Mayan holy days in the year 2012.
The Results
Well, we were taken to the island by the magic of video and were taken to the site of the Mayan sculpture. I’ve got to say that on the basis of what I saw on the video, this really wasn’t much of a sculpture… and I’ve traipsed around in the jungles of Mexico and Central America looking at Mayan architecture. I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Even the computer enhanced drawings really didn’t look much like Mayan sculpture. Of course, I wasn’t there. It’s going to take a full scale archeological dig to discover any real secrets that may be hiding there.
The Takeaway
The bottom line is that on December 22, 2012 either the world will be here as we know it or some massive extinction event will have occurred. If the former, then all this is 2012 stuff is no big deal. If the later, then what the heck can you do about it? If the earth is hit by an intense gamma ray burst, or a giant solar flare, or the Yellowstone Mega Volcano erupts, or whatever, there is really not much that can be done about it. The more interesting hypothesis, and one that you can actually do something about, is the notion that there is some spiritual transformation significance attached to December 21, 2012. Some born again Christians I know believe that is when they are going to be taken away into Heaven. Frankly, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Prepare yourself internally for what might happen then ride it out and see how it really plays out.
Posted in The 2012 challenge
Discover The Most Proven Diet Program In the World
Isabel Reveals The Secrets Of How Millions Of People Have Successfully Lost Weight And Kept It Off
Read the review of this complete weight loss system and see how you can be successful in your own permanent weight loss program
An insightful translation of one of the quintessential works on Buddhist philosophy by Ch'an Master Myo Bong. This is important reading for anyone interested in any form of religious enlightenment
Now In eBook Format
LAW OF ATTRACTION
COURSE
Get the entire Master Key System course free when you register with this site above
more info>>>