Relax!

Mixed up my days

I forgot to go to the meditation class I lead last night. I thought it was Wednesday instead of Thursday. This is because I started working full time. This is a challenge for me. One has to keep time strictly. I'm not used to that. If anybody was there (which I doubt because 2 of you are on holidays and the rest of you stopped attending) I apologize. I will be back there at the YogaWay studio on Monday for some good old vippassana..
Cheers
Suzanne

The irrationally positive brain

Many of us are not aware of our optimistic tendencies. Data clearly show us that most people overestimate their prospects for proffessional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinairy gifted; miscalculate their likely life span; expect to be healthier then their peers; hughely underestimate their likelihood of divorce, cance, and unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will be better then those of their parents put up with. This is known as the optimism bias-the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events.

See for more on this subject:
The Optimism Bias: A tour of the Irrationally Posive Brain, by Tali Sharot.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias

The power of negative thinking

It is oftent hought that meditators do positive thinking.
This is not true.
The link meditation-positive thinking was made by the New Age movement, a movement that I stay well away from.
In Buddhist monasteries nuns and monks contemplate on the foulness of the body (and do not see the body as a temple), on all phases of being dead (the dead body) and more morose stuff. The result is refreshing: Buddhist nuns and monks are very realistic people.
I have already written about Oliver Burkman's book on negative thinking.
The Power of negative Thinking by Bob Knight is interesting too. Check it out.

 



Also reading: No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva

Sometimes one needs to read about what one is reading. 
I am reading No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva. Shambhala Publications, 2007. ISBN 1-59030-424-1 by Ani Pema Chodron.

Pema Chodron

From her website:

Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren.

While in her mid-thirties, Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to England at that time, and Pema received her ordination from him.

Pema first met her root teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full monastic ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong, in Boulder, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche asked her to work towards the establishment of a monastery for western monks and nuns.

Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

Pema is interested in helping establish the monastic tradition in the West, as well in continuing her work with Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. She has written several books: “The Wisdom of No Escape”, “Start Where You Are”, “When Things Fall Apart”, “The Places that Scare You”, “No Time to Lose” and “Practicing Peace in Times of War”, and most recently, “Smile at Fear”.

http://pemachodron.org/

This is what I'm reading: The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara) by Shantideva

Treasured by Buddhists of all traditions, The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara) is a guide to cultivating the mind of enlightenment, and to generating the qualities of love, compassion, generosity, and patience. This text has been studied, practiced, and expounded upon in an unbroken tradition for centuries, first in India, and later in Tibet. Presented in the form of a personal meditation in verse, it outlines the path of the Bodhisattvas—those who renounce the peace of individual enlightenment and vow to work for the liberation of all beings and to attain buddhahood for their sake.

 

 

Wiki:

The Bodhisattvacharyāvatāra or Bodhicaryāvatāra, sometimes translated into English as A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, is a famous Mahāyāna Buddhist text written c. 700 AD in Sanskrit verse by Shantideva (Śāntideva), a Buddhist monk at Nālandā Monastic University in India.

 

It has ten chapters dedicated to the development of bodhicitta (the mind of enlightenment) through the practice of the six perfections (Skt. Pāramitās). The text begins with a chapter describing the benefits of the wish to reach enlightenment. The sixth chapter on the Pāramitā of patience (Skt. Kṣānti, kshanti) is considered by many Buddhists to be the pinnacle of writing on this subject and is the source of numerous quotations attributed to Śāntideva. Tibetan scholars consider the ninth "Wisdom" chapter to be one of the most succinct expositions of the Madhyamaka view. The tenth chapter is used as one of the most popular Mahāyāna prayers.

 

The benefits of bodhicitta (the wish to reach full enlightenment for others)
Purifying bad deeds
Adopting the spirit of enlightenment
Using conscientiousness
Guarding awareness
The practice of patience
The practice of joyous effort
The practice of meditative concentration
The perfection of wisdom
Dedication

 

The Long Now

How long is the Now?

"Now" is never just a moment. The Long Now is the recognition that the precise moment you’re in grows out of the past and is a seed for the future. The longer your sense of Now, the more past and future it includes. It’s ironic that, at a time when humankind is at a peak of its technical powers, able to create huge global changes that will echo down the centuries, most of our social systems seem geared to increasingly short nows. Huge industries feel pressure to plan for the bottom line and the next shareholders meeting. Politicians feel forced to perform for the next election or opinion poll. The media attract bigger audiences by spurring instant and heated reactions to human interest stories while overlooking longer-term issues - the real human interest.