Author: meditation

Why Meditate?

I was at a party over the weekend. During our idle chatter, someone asked me why I meditate and what is the purpose. They continued if that brings 10 minutes of peace in one’s day. I thought it’s been a while since we looked at why we are getting together every Tuesday so it would be nice to look at that again. Surely, we want to find that peace within us on a daily basis for however long that we can find it. But the purpose of practice is never the practice.

What do I mean by that? Let’s say you decide to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Now unless you are used to climbing fourteeners, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is no small feat. Especially, on the last day. The first few days it is relatively easy but on the last day, you are supposed to start climbing around 9 or 10 pm. You will reach the peak just around dawn. You take a few pictures and then continue with the descent for about four hours or so before getting to a camp. This is not an easy day for anybody. You will be essentially on your feet for 10 hours or so. In this case, you will start conditioning your body before you head out to Tanzania. You begin a daily exercise routine and probably weekly climbing practice. The purpose of this conditioning is not to get good at conditioning but to prepare yourself for the climb on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Our daily meditation practice is supposed to condition us for our daily worldly activities. For example, let’s say you buy a 10,000-piece Lego puzzle. That’s a lot of pieces and would take you a few days to complete for sure. Now you begin to organize your pieces in different piles first. Then you begin to build the puzzle. You spend say 30 minutes doing this. If you spend the next 23 ½ hours breaking what you have already built and mixing all the pieces you had separated what is the result? The next day, you will have a bigger challenge on your hand.

So when we meditate, we are trying to find that peace within us for sure. The bigger purpose however is to make sure that we carry that with us throughout the rest of our day. We want to be centered no matter what life throws at us. That is the real purpose of our meditation. Getting grounded within ourselves. If during our meditation practice say you had a rough time concentrating on a particular day. But after meditation is complete, you can be kind and loving towards everyone you come across. That is a successful mediation session. On the other hand, if you had a peaceful meditation where you came close to enlightenment but after the meditation session you have difficulty showing compassion towards anyone, that was an unsuccessful meditation session.

And of course, there are actual health benefits of meditation that we have discussed before. They include reduced stress, lower anxiety, improved self-awareness, and so on. In a nutshell, meditation leads to a peaceful mind. It puts us in a relaxed state of being both physically and mentally.

Before we begin our meditation I just want to remind everyone about the 10 x 10 practice we have discussed in the past. Try to take 10 deep breaths approx. 10 times every day. Each breath comes from your diaphragm. Put your hand on your stomach. As you breathe, your stomach should expand. So take a deep inhalation. You will feel your stomach expand. When you exhale, you deflate your stomach – they say to try to reach your spinal cord with your stomach.

Even if you are in the middle of a project, just stop and take 10 deep breaths. You can do this every hour – the easiest way to do this is to put an alarm on your phone so you have a reminder. When you take these breaths, be sure to focus on the sensation of your breath in your nostrils. I believe this will help you calm down in the middle of the day and will bring you can to your center if you are having a difficult day.

Being Mindful

It’s been a while since we talked about mindfulness. I thought we will revisit this topic a little more in-depth today. It seems to me that so much of our life happens in autopilot mode. We seem to be reacting more than making conscious choices more often than not. Let’s first look at what is mindfulness. In the simplest terms, mindfulness is being aware of our mind from moment to moment. It means being fully present in the moment – whatever that moment happens to be.

What does it mean to be mindful you may ask? Being mindful means being aware of our experiences, our thoughts, our senses, our emotions, and so forth. You know the age-old saying stop and smell the roses? The Smelling of roses is being mindful. If you are aware of your mind, your thoughts will not control you.

And here is an interesting point. If we are mindful, we are more relaxed. I know it sounds counterintuitive but when we pay attention to our inner workings, our body tends to get into a relaxed state of being. Our mind is relaxed and overall we feel lighter.

When we are being mindful, we are in present as opposed to dwelling on the past or thinking about the future. If we think about it, all of our delusions come from either dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. When we are doing that, we are paying inappropriate attention to our uncontrolled thoughts. Mindfulness is about here and now.

Mindfulness encompasses two key ingredients: awareness and acceptance. Awareness is the knowledge and ability to focus attention on one’s inner processes and experiences, such as the experience of the present moment. Acceptance is the ability to observe and accept—rather than judge or avoid—those streams of thought.

How do we practice mindfulness? The simplest thing to do is to pay attention. I know, sounds easy right? But for sure not easy to practice. Try to get all your senses involved. Oftentimes, when we eat, for example, we hardly take the time to smell the aroma, before we being to eat. Another way to practice mindfulness is to live in the moment. Enjoy the simple pleasures life has to offer. So often, we are bogged down in chasing one thing or another that we hardly enjoy what is already here. As they say, enjoy the journey, not the destination.

Yet another way to practice mindfulness is to appreciate yourself. I know sounds weird but we must treat ourselves at least as well as treat our best friend. Being non-judgmental is a wonderful way to practice mindfulness. When we are not judging, we are paying attention and when we are paying attention, we are being mindful. Patience is yet another way of practicing mindfulness. Sometimes, things just take more time than we would like. It’s OK. Being curious also helps us be mindful. When we are being curious, we have this fresh energy and we are paying acute attention. We are in the present moment not thinking about the past or the future because we want to learn.

Not striving for more also helps be mindful. You are probably wondering what has that to do with mindfulness. But when we are not striving, we are not in the anticipation of future. That in turn, keeps us in the present. Letting go of the past also helps us be mindful as it prevents us from dwelling on the past. Two other ways to be mindful are my favorites. Gratitude and generosity. When we practice gratitude, we are being mindful. When we practice generosity, we are being mindful as well.

We have discussed a lot of structured ways of practicing mindfulness over the past year including focusing on our breath, M A C meditation, empty sly meditation, savasana meditation, and others.

I think most of you know that mindfulness has several benefits including, lowering stress levels, reducing harmful ruminating, and protecting against depression and anxiety. A Harvard study suggests that mindfulness can help people better cope with rejection and social isolation (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/less-stress-clearer-thoughts-with-mindfulness-meditation/).

I read somewhere that I thought put it beautifully. Mindfulness is the energy that helps us recognize the conditions of happiness that are already present in our lives. You don’t have to wait ten years to experience this happiness. It is present in every moment of your daily life. There are those of us who are alive but don’t know it. What a wonderful way to express it!

I hear a lot about I am not able to concentrate or I am not able to meditate and thoughts keep coming. I want to assure you that you are making a progress. Every time you notice that your mind wanders off and you try to bring it back, you are getting better at meditation. No matter how many times you have to bring your mind back (initially, it feels like that’s all we are doing), you are making progress. I can assure you it gets easier with practice. If you develop a regular practice say 10 minutes per day, before you know it, you will be able to focus on peace within you.

Life vs Lifestyle

I recently read a statement from Sadhguru that goes something like try to create a happy life and not the lifestyle. I thought that was such an interesting point that we decided to dedicate our entire episode today to Life vs Lifestyle.
Before we continue though let’s look into what I mean by that and what is the distinction between the two. Life as we all know is our day-to-day living. Things we do every day from the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep. Lifestyle on the other hand is mostly material things that we tend to gather or are looking to gather. Now, this also includes services and experiences so material things is a loose term here.

Most people today are trying to improve their lifestyle. And there is nothing wrong with that. There are billions of people on this planet for whom food on the table is a question mark. For them, lifestyle is extremely important. For some of them, there is no distinction quite frankly. But the rest of us for whom the food on the table is taken care of, we need to start focusing more on the life we are living today as opposed to the lifestyle that we are after. So many people are trying to get just a little bigger house, or a nicer car, or a better job, and on and on. But in going after that lifestyle, if you forget to live, that is where the disconnect happens.

We think about some future version of ourselves so many times a day but how many times a day do we check inside of ourselves to see if we are happy at that moment? When we are chasing a lifestyle, we are essentially predefining what “success” may look like. But instead, if we enjoy everything that life throws at us, we will make the most out of here and now. When we focus on the here and now, life becomes wonderful. You see, it is our focus on the past and the future that makes us miserable. I think I read somewhere that our mind always wants to dwell on the past or dream about the future. Lifestyle is mostly about dreaming about the future. Instead, let’s just enjoy what we have right in front of us. Enjoy being with your kids. Spend time helping them with homework. Go on a date night with your significant other. Fall in love all over again. There is so much joy in just being with people you love.

One thing I have learned over the years is that whenever I tried to chase something, it always kept running from it. It was when I never expected something, that things showed up in my life. Call it the right place at right time or call it Karma, but I have come to believe that chasing never worked for me. It is like the saying goes, stop trying so hard. If it is meant to be, it will happen.

Now that does not mean that you just give up on life. The exact opposite of that. Give 100% to whatever you do. But more importantly, enjoy every activity. If the activity does not bring you joy, time to find something else to do. Also though don’t expect any pre-determined outcomes. When we have a preconception of what the results should look like, that’s when things disappoint us.

How many people do you know that are chasing someone else’s dream? Everyone it appears is running after the same thing without knowing why and what they are chasing. It feels like a herd sometimes. I see this in Indian parents a lot. They all are working so hard to make sure that their kids will inherit a million dollars each. What is that about? I keep telling them, to do what’s right for them. Of course, give your kids the best education but beyond that, they have their Karma. Even if you give them a million dollars, if it is not in their Karma, they will lose it in a heart bit. So don’t chase for the sake of your kids. They would rather you go to every one of their games or the recitals.

I have heard this a lot, I am working towards security. No such thing my friends. Security is an illusion. You are secure if you think you are secure. It’s as simple as that. I know people who don’t feel financially secure with millions of dollars in their bank accounts.

I read something interesting while researching for this episode. The lottery industry makes $73 billion a year not because people love their life! Think about it. The richest country in human civilization and we spend that much money on lottery tickets! All because we want to chase that lifestyle.

Friends, do me a favor and make a habit of looking inside a few times a day. The best way to do this is to take some deep breaths. When we take a deep breath, we are able to check what is going on within ourselves. Put a smile on your face while you are at it. It does wonder for your health and your well-being.

Keeping Ego In Check

Over the past couple of years, we have talked about the need to diminish our ego on and off. I thought today, we dedicate an entire episode to the ego. Before we talk about keeping our ego in check, we need to figure out how to know we have an ego problem. Now some people confuse ego with self-confidence. And there is a fine line between the two. So let’s start there.

What are the telltale signs of ego being mistaken as self-confidence? There are people who will listen to your point of view but will not put that into action. When we listen to a different point of view and seriously evaluate our position to see if our position needs to be modified, that is a sign of maturity. Changing our minds does not mean we lack self-confidence. Another sign is the lack of a feedback mechanism. If we are not prepared to get feedback upon completion means that we are not prepared to improve our processes. And this means self-criticism as well. It is important to review once a task is complete and to learn from it. I truly believe that everything can be improved and if we don’t have that attitude we will keep producing mediocre results. Another sign is that people say no to any new idea as soon as they hear it before they evaluate it. Their default answer seems to be NO. When a default answer is NO, you know that ego is taking over the person.

Now, look at some other signs that tell that you have an ego problem. One sign is that you compare yourself with everyone. If you cannot enjoy someone else’s success, you have an ego problem. Another sign is that you lack gratitude. We have talked about this before that gratitude helps diminishes our ego. Another sign of people with ego problems is that they take credit for other people’s work. They will somehow insert themselves into someone else’s success and make it all about how they made this happen!  Another sign is that you are always blaming someone else when things go wrong.

Now that we have identified some of the signs of ego problems, hopefully, we will keep an eye out for some of these things flaring up in our day-to-day life. But it is not enough to identify our ego problem, we need to do something about it.

There are a number of things we can do to keep our ego in check. One way to do this is not to take anything personally. If you let whatever is said or done to you at face value without taking it personally, it helps keep your ego in control. For example, if someone says something about our work that is negative, instead of taking it personally, if you realize that they are just being negative about the process or the product and no matter who was at this end you or someone else, they would be equally negative, you help keep the ego in check. I know it takes conscious effort because the response from the ego tends to be instant and automatic. This is where our mindfulness comes in handy.

Creating gratitude practice also is very important. It helps us thank people who do the smallest of things for us. It also helps us be thankful for things in our lives. Another way to help keep the ego in check is to know that you are not the best at everything. For most things you do, there is always someone who can do it just a little bit better. If we keep that in mind, it will help us keep our egos in check.

Eckhart Tolle said something interesting. He says the way to control ego is to go to that place within you that is still. Meaning no thoughts just consciousness. In other words, meditation! He recommends this practice when someone says something that is offensive or hurts your ego, just do nothing. If you do nothing and provide no response, your ego diminishes.

One thing I think helps above all others is to be mindful. If we are mindful of what we say, what we think, we can easily identify our ego problems and keep that in check. I was one of those people who had an ego the size of Texas. Although I have made some progress, it is a constant battle. One thing we must realize is that ego is a never-ending problem. We must keep looking out for our ego to flare up constantly because it will show up just when we let our guard down! It does become easier over time for sure to identify ego flaring up on the fly. But that takes a lot of practice.

I hope this helps with your day-to-day life in keeps your ego in check.

Purifying Negative Karma

Over the past seven weeks, we discussed Karma and how it affects us all. During that discussion, a number of you asked that even if we stop creating negative Karma moving forward, how do we deal with the negative Karma we have already created in the past. I thought this was such an important point that today we want to discuss how to purify our past negative Karma.

Now, when we talk about past negative Karma, we are not only talking about this lifetime but all previous lives. By that standard, we have created enormous negative Karma. The first step in the preparation of purification is that when we are experiencing consequences of our negative Karma, in whatever form that may be in, we should realize that these consequences are due to our past negative Karma and we need to do whatever it takes to purify past negative Karma so we do not end up in this situations again and again.

Here is from the book Universal Compassion by Geshe Kelsang: Strong purification made every day over a long period of time will completely purify even the heaviest negative Karma; less powerful purification will slightly reduce our negativities, and a small amount of purification will prevent the power of the negative Karma from increasing. So any amount of effort we make is helpful.

There are four so-called opponent powers that help us purify negative Karma. They are: 1) the power of regret; 2) the power of reliance; 3) the power of the opponent force, and 4) the power of promise.

Let’s look at each one. First is the power of regret. If we understand the dangers of suffering created by negative actions, we will develop sincere regret for having committed these actions. If we contemplate that we have created enormous amounts of negative Karma over our lifetimes and we will eventually have to suffer the consequences of that. By contemplating this way, we will develop remorse for our past negative Karma. If our remorse is sincere, we will be determined to prevent future negative Karma. This remorse is what is known as the power of regret. The more regret we generate, the more powerful our purification will be.

Next is the power of reliance. Most of the objects of our negative actions are other living beings. But at the same time, we have created negative actions against objects of refuge. The objects of our refuge whatever higher authority that we may believe in. Sometimes, we talk down the object of refuge or ridicule these objects. To remove these negative actions or purify these previous negative Karma, we need to develop a reliance on objects of refuge—whatever that may mean to us. This will allow us to generate compassion towards all living beings and that in turn will purify our negative Karma.

The next is the power of the opponent force. When we have remorse for a specific negative Karma, and if we apply the opponent to that negative action (antidote of sorts); it helps us purify our negative Karma. What is the opponent force you may ask? It is actually any virtuous action performed to purify a specific negative Karma. Similar to paying a fine for a traffic violation if you will!

The next and final power is the power of promise. This is very important. In this phase, we are promising not to repeat past negative Karma. Without this promise, none of the other powers really work as well. This one power if applied effectively and regularly helps purify our negative Karma. There are types of negative Karma we can give up and promise never to commit again. There may be some negative Karma that we are not ready to give up and we can promise not to commit for a short period of time say a week or a month. We have talked about this before. If you are a fisherman, it is understandable not to promise to kill all living beings. But you can start with every living being except fish. Then later expand to no-killing fish for one day a week and so forth.

After learning all the consequences of our negative Karma, I think it is only appropriate for us to begin to apply these opponent powers to begin purifying our negative Karma. Hope this helps and you can begin your purification practice in some small way.