Tag: yoga

Gratitude

Every week we practice our gratitude attitude at the beginning of the meditation session. So today, I thought we would actually discuss the benefits of gratitude. Believe it or not, the guy who started the gratitude rock movement was my coach and is a personal friend. Lee Brower based in Utah and all around an amazing guy. Lee Brower tells about gratitude rock in the movie ‘The Secret’. He took a little rock and decided that every time he touched it he would think of something he was grateful for. So when he puts the gratitude stone in his pocket in the morning he goes through what he is thankful for, and when he empties his pocket in the night and finds the rock he goes again through what he’s thankful for.

Lee started every meeting we had with a gratitude attitude and he kind of rubbed off on me so about 15 years ago, I started conducting every meeting with a gratitude attitude.

Let’s look at why creating a gratitude mindset is important. Gratitude creates a mindset of abundance. If you look at life from a scarcity point of view, life will eventually become measurable. An abundance mindset allows you to not chase things for the sake of chasing them. Oprah Winfrey once said: “If you look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you will never have enough.”

Do you notice some people have this victim mindset? If something bad happens, they always ask why me? They blame everyone and their siblings for their problems including their co-workers, the government, family members, and so forth. People with a victim mindset are never happy no matter how much material wealth they accumulate.

On the flip side, people with a gratitude mindset focus on abundant opportunities available to them. It’s like a classic saying “why didn’t I think of that?” When we are grateful, we tend to focus on the positivity around us. That in turn brings abundance. People who are successful know there are enough resources in the world and stay away from competing for the same resources. A gratitude mindset allows us to leverage the resources we have as opposed to competing for them. It also creates awareness for the resources around us – develop an eye out if you will.

We have talked about this in the previous sessions I believe. But if we think about where we are in life, we are extremely lucky. If you have food, shelter, and clothing (roti, kapada or makan) and you are in good health, you are luckier than most people on this planet. Once you realize how lucky you are and begin to appreciate that, you will start noticing the opportunities around you. Because as they say; when a perspective changes, everything changes.  

So how do we develop a gratitude mindset? The first thing to do is to develop a daily practice. Every morning when you wake up or before you go to bed or at a dinner table, spend five minutes thinking about what you are grateful for and why. Why is as important as what here. Why allows us to dig deep and create a meaningful experience.

Another way to develop gratitude is to major our success. No matter how small, be thankful for it. Some people live in what I call a “gap” – the distance between where they are and where they want to be. I used to be one of those people. Once I started developing gratitude practice, I began to appreciate the abundance that I already had. So it is very important to not live in the gap.

And the most important way to develop a gratitude mindset is with intention. Be sure to make it a habit to appreciate everyone who you come across from your family members, coworkers, essential workers you come across in your daily routine, and so forth.

They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. So for the next 21 days, give your best to develop a gratitude mindset. You will see changes in your life for the better.

Inherent Existence Continued

We have been discussing inherent existence for the past two weeks. Let’s continue on that topic one more session to make sure we have a good understanding of this topic before we move on to the next subject. Inherent existence means existence as the object’s basis of imputation. Inherent existence refers to the false idea that any entity can exist independently. Every characteristic defining an entity arises dependently from things that are not the thing being identified. You cannot have an object that is independent of its parts, causes, and conditions or mind that perceives it.

Things do exist just not in the way they appear to be existing. Things lack inherent existence means that things are existing by themselves. They are existing dependent on other factors. Let’s look at an example of a tree. All of us love to go watch fall foliage. A tree changes during the different seasons. Why does it change? It changes due to being set up dependent on other factors such as weather. That means that objects are constantly changing. If a tree were inherently existent it would never change. It would stay the same color with fruits and flowers all the time. It would stay the same not affected by weather all any other phenomena. But we know that is not the case.

Let’s look at a couple of more examples. A friend of mine used to have anxiety issues. He would be in the car in a rush hour and would get upset about the traffic. We had an interesting discussion maybe 10 years ago. I asked him if he would consider just ignoring the traffic around him and focus on music or something during his drive. He said, well, that’s not me. That is not personality. I said maybe you should consider changing. He took a big offense he said that is my identity how can I change who I am. I let the subject go. Fast forward 10 years and he has calmed down considerably. Things don’t bother him as much in traffic. He adopted. What he thought was his identity changed. 10 years ago, he thought that was inherent existence. Today it is clear that it was not since he has changed.

Let’s look at another example. Have you ever been absorbed in a movie? I know I certainly have. If it is a well made gripping movies and you are fully captivated by the plot; you can feel everything being real. You even get a physical reaction if there is an unexpected gunshot or something as if it just happened in front of our eyes. Even though we know we are watching a movie, at that moment we think it is inherently existent. We feel everything that is happening is real. We know it is just fiction.

We will do a longer Q&A session today than usual so we can clear up any questions on the subject. This is a profound subject, and I would like all of you to contemplate the subject and try to come up with your own examples to make sense for you in your experience. Once this clicks, the rest of the wisdom teachings become a lot easier to grasp.

Inherent Existence Part 2

We discussed inherent existence last week. Let’s continue on that topic to make sure we have a good understanding of this topic before we move on to the next subject. Most people take all phenomena as inherently existent. As we discussed last time, there is no inherent existence. All phenomena are imputed existence. During our discussions, we talked about examples of a flower and a car. We tried to find both of those objects within their parts or a combination of parts. To our amazement, we could not find either object. So today, we will try to find something different from scratch to bring this point home.

We all have a good understanding of what a forest is. I think we can say, we will know when we see one. Say one of our friends bought a house on a large tract of land – say 35 acres. They start planting some trees say 5 trees on their property. They call and ask us to come over to see their forest. We go there and see 5 trees and say well, this is not a forest. I have five trees in my backyard. It does not make a forest. So he gets disappointed. He starts planting more trees. Now he has maybe 40 trees. He calls us and says now I really have a forest, check it out. We go take a look and say still not a forest may be a grove but definitely not a forest. So he goes back to work and keeps calling us every few weeks to see. Every time, we see more trees but disappoint him when we tell him it is not a forest. A year or so goes by. He calls us and we go this time. We can’t count the number of trees on these 35 acres of land. We can’t figure out where the trees begin and where they end. We say this is a forest, my friend. You did it! When did this group of trees become a forest? Can we point to one tree that made this a forest? No, of course not. So forest we all agree that it is an imputed existence. It is a forest because we all agreed to call it a forest.

In some schools of thought, they call this a dependent existence because it depends upon the sense perception of the person who experiences the phenomena. Let’s look at things we see for example The images we see are made up of light reflected from the objects we look at. This light enters the eye through the cornea, which acts as a window at the front of the eye. Because the front part of the eye is curved, it bends the light, creating an upside-down image on the retina. The brain eventually turns the image the right way up. In other words, what we see is on our mind and not out there. Without the interpretation, there is no object. Similarly, when hearing music, we are hearing music in our mind and not out there. This is called dependent existence. So there is no inherent existence.

I know it is a profound subject and will take some time to get clarity on the subject but once that clarity comes, life becomes simple. We no longer grasp on anything and take things as they come without any attachment towards these objects. If we look at things that we grasp on a daily basis, it is insane. For example, some of us are attached to our cars, our homes, our computers, our 50 pairs of shoes, our money, and whatnot. But if we start looking at this and realize that there is no inherent existence our attachment towards these objects will gradually reduce. And at some level, we know the fragility of all this but we just are not ready to accept it or do not have the awareness to see it at the moment. Something to think about.

Inherent Existence

We talked about how Buddha gave two types of teachings. Compassion and Wisdom. For the past 22 episodes, we have been discussing compassion teachings or some version of it. Although we still have 5 or 6 sessions to go for compassion teachings, I thought I would introduce part of wisdom teachings today. We will talk about what is known as inherent existence. It is a deep topic so we may take a couple of sessions discussing this. So what is inherent existence? If you think about most of us take the existence of all phenomena as inherent. What does that mean? Well, let’s talk about any object. A car, or a house, or clothes, or a computer, and so on. We think it exists and does not think twice about it. As a matter of fact, we think exists inherently and cling to it. This grasping or clinging is what brings the most suffering in our lives.

I know this sounds crazy. So let’s break it down. Any existence is either inherent or it is not. What is inherent existence? A phenomenon that exits from its own side is considered an inherent existence. In reality, there is no such thing. No phenomena exist from its own side. For anything to exist from its own side, either it is the same as its part or collection of its part. There is no other possibility. Let’s take an example. Here is a flower. I think we all agree that it is a flower. If you don’t agree, please raise your hand in your participants’ window – I want to make sure this is an interactive experiment. As long as we all agree it is a flower, we will continue. Now, Is this a flower (removed one petal and only showed one petal)? How about this (showed another petal)? How about now (one more petal)? How about this (showing stem)? So we all agree that none of the parts of the flower are flowers themselves. Let’s look at the collection of the parts. All of these parts if I gave you, you would not call it a flower. So there is no inherently existing flower. Well, then what is this thing we called flower. It is nothing but imputation. It is a flower because we called it a flower. It has no inherent existence. Another way to look at this is that it is a dependent existence. Let’s say a blind person walks in the room – don’t worry this is not a joke! There is a flower on the table. For the blind person, the flower does not exist because it is not in their experience.

Let’s look at this pen. Can you point to the pen? Where is the pen? Is it on your screen? Is it in my hand? You see this pen because your eye senses look at a picture of the pen, your brain interprets that as a pen. In other words, the pen is in your mind. Without your brain interpreting this object like a pen, the pen does not exist for you. In other words, it is a dependent existence.

So there are people who believe everything exists inherently meaning from their own side. As we just discussed that is just not the case. There are people who believe nothing exists at all. That is surely not the case since we are experiencing these phenomena. There is a middle way. That says that all phenomena are imputed or dependent on existence. Nothing exists inherently and all existence is imputed.

Let’s look at another example, we all have a car parked in the garage. Let’s find if the car exists inherently. For a car to exist inherently, it can either be found in its parts or it is a collection of its part. So let’s begin with its tires. If someone gave us four tires, we will certainly not call it a car. How about if someone gave us a bunch of bucket seats? Well, that is not a car. How about a door, or an engine, or brake pads? None of these parts is a car. If you take all the parts of the car put them on the ground, we won’t call it a car. So there is no inherently existing car. It is a car because we all decided to call it a car. In other words, it is an imputed existence.

Again, this is a deep subject. I would like to pick this up next week on the same topic. So we can investigate a little more to make sure that we are all on the same page as to inherent existence.

Temptation – Sensual Desire

I want to talk about temptations today. I am sure you all heard the story about Buddha was visited by Mara just before he was enlightened. Mara is not some evil creature. Mara is the temptation in our hearts. Buddha knew it was temptation and ignored it so he was enlightened. We, on the other hand, do not recognize temptation.

We always say we are supposed to enjoy so if it feels good, it must be good for us. Not true. A lot of things feel good at the moment. For example, we all want to meditate on a daily basis. How many of us actually take the time to do it? We don’t because we prefer that last piece of news or show or sleep or game or what have you. One of the biggest obstacles for us is sensual desire. We have five senses and they are physical in nature. There is nothing wrong with enjoying what you see, what you taste, etc. The problem comes when we try to want what we are sensing. For example, if there is a beautiful flower, by all means, we should enjoy it. But if we want to take the flower from the plant, that is when we must stop.

Sensual desire actually also affects your meditation sessions. It is a sensual desire that wants to move this way or that way to be just a little bit more comfortable. Nothing wrong with being comfortable but if you are not, please don’t keep adjusting. When you start adjusting you lose concentration. If you actually do let go of that sensual desire to adjust, you will have a peaceful meditation session. The joy that comes from that meditation session far outlasts the sensual gratification from the physical world.

Let’s take the example of food. Say you love pizza. You begin to eat pizza from your favorite pizzeria. You are taking down a few slices. Now you are full. Can you continue? No. If you did, you will eventually throw up. You lose the pleasure of anything that lasts too long. So sensual gratification wants something else as soon as it is satisfied. It is a momentary enjoyment that does not last beyond that moment.

Buddha gave a few solutions to overcome this. The first solution is to let go of the want. If we recognize the sensual desire and decide to ignore it, we will have a lot more joyful time. For example, sitting in a position that may not be comfortable, will allow us the opportunity to learn about sensual desires. Because moving around to find a comfortable position is no different from people working 80 hour days or getting bored when there are no live sports on TV or looking for constant excitement. Once you get out of one situation the next one will start bothering you. Just like during meditation if we move our right leg when it bothers us, a few minutes later left leg will begin to bother us.

Another solution Buddha gave to keep sensual desires in check was moderation in eating. Stop eating after a certain time. In those days they used to start their day around 4 in the morning so he suggested stop eating afternoon. In our times, we should try and stop eating say latest by 6 pm. It allows us to control ourselves and also gives us intermittent fasting that is supposed to be good for our body.

Another solution was to not seeing the whole and seeing just the parts. What does that mean? Say you like someone and have a lust for that person. Instead of seeing the whole person, if you only see their hair or their teeth, the lust actually goes away. Similarly, if there is a luxury car you are drooling for, instead of seeing the car, if you only see the tires your desire will actually reduce.