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Now, some of your thoughts are simply inferences or facts about the situation—the boss, indeed, is angry, and you might, indeed, be fired. You really do hate working for this guy. The rest are irrational beliefs—ideas with some level of what is termed “cognitive distortion”. For instance, the fact that you made an error and might be fired in no way affirms that you are no good. The fact that the boss is angry is a fact; why is it terrible? In fact, you can stand working here, as you seem to have been doing so for some period of time. The fact that you made an error demonstrates your fallibility but does not answer to the “should”—why should people not make errors?--indeed they do so with some regularity. Cognitive distortions come in many varieties: shoulds, ought-tos, musts; magnification, minimization; personalization, blaming; fortune-telling; all-or-nothing thinking (cite***) are examples as detailed in the process labeled cognitive therapy, while the rational-emotive behavior school of thought identifies four specific categories: Demandingness (that “should” or “ought”), blaming or labeling (“I am/He is stupid”), low frustration tolerance (“I can’t stand it”), and awfulizing (“How awful that I made that error”). Your distorted thoughts relate to your beliefs about yourself (“I should not have done that”), others (“He is a total jerk”) or the world (“It is awful that I can’t find a job”).

To feel anxious is to have a dreadful fear that something awful is going to happen. Start enjoying life ----https://www.achievesolutions.net/achievesolutions/en/vzlife/Content.do?contentId=9689

1. STOP ALL CRITICISMS Criticism never changes a thing. Refuse to criticize yourself. Accept yourself exactly as you are. Everybody changes. When you criticize yourself, your changes are negative. When you approve of yourself, your changes are positives.—By Louise L. Hay

Third confusion

“Sin must be punished”, rather than “Mistakes are for joyously learning from, for they are the stepping stones to Wisdom”.

In ancient times the word which became our word “sin”, simply meant “missing the mark” as an archer, and the implication was that the reason for being off target would be determined, a new aim was to be taken, and the process simply repeated, getting closer and closer to the desired goal each time.

In our Western culture’s view, “sin” has acquired different connotations, which have slipped into the mass consciousness and continue to dominate our thinking below the level of awareness. To “make a mistake”, to be “wrong”, to “fail”, to “sin”, etc., have all become occasions for recrimination or punishment, guilt or self-denigration.

The total collective harm caused by this is incalculable.....

People can end up thinking there is no good in them, and they feel ruined for this life, if not also for the next one.... The incidents are gone over in the mind and get out of proportion. The guilt demands punishment, - or so we reason.

The “punishment” may be in the following forms:-

1. Depriving ourselves of adventures and privileges we rightfully enjoy. Holding back our own growth

4. Telling ourselves we have no right to live and wishing to die. Feeling we don’t deserve.....health....life....happiness etc.

6. Taking back a forgiveness we have done and starting to hurt ourselves again about what happened.

Sometimes we repressed the memory of our experiences of “missing the mark” without healing them. It may not have been the way we would have chosen to handle the problem if we had known a better way, but we really had not yet been trained in the skills of forgiveness, so we knew no other way. Hiding the memory by “forgetting” it may have been the only way we knew how to survive (the pain, or literally, physically).

Repression of these memories without healing them can lead to their effects continuing on in our lower unconscious instead of in our conscious minds. The same punishment goes on, but in unconsciousness. What happens then is that we tend to project the “punisher” out onto our environment, and “see” it there. It is “them out there” who hold us back and prevent us getting what we need. It is their fault.

This situation can persist for a long time, insidiously altering our bodies, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, behavior, relationships, - in short, the whole texture of our lives.

One day, we may have an accident, or get symptoms, go to a doctor, have tests, and learn that we are suffering from a disease. This comes as a surprise! We have taken exercise, vitamins, healthy food, been “good”, and not hurt anyone (only ourselves). We can even take this as further “proof” that Life is unfair.
http://www.iloveulove.com/forgiveness/pfpself01.htm

“What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.” -Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

“He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence.” -Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

By patient self-investigation we discover who we are not, and that ends the anxiety of not knowing who we are. --- Vernon Howard

Conquer Anxiety and Frustration Take Charge of Life -
“When meeting any situation in life, one of two things happens: 1. The situation takes charge of you 2. You take charge of the situation It is one or the other. There is no third choice. So it is important to examine both of them. When a situation takes charge of you, it is always accompanied by a feeling of anxiety. Listen to this discomfort, for it is trying to teach you something valuable. It may be trying to reveal that you are imagining yourself to be in command of the situation, when in fact you are commanded by it. Exposing imaginary self-power is highly helpful.”—Vernon Howard

”The more I learned of the intentions, successes, and advances of analysis, the more I had to realize that it could not have but an undermining effect on the existence that owed its strongest impulse precisely to the fact that it did not know itself, that by its own heavy and blessed secret it was inexhaustibly part of all the secrets of the world and even of God, and was secretly and magnanimously sustained from there.”
-- Rilke and Benvenuta: an Intimate Correspondence

Sooner or later we reach the point where living the truth becomes more important than seeking it. Knowledge, techniques, and experiences pale in the face of the riches of the heart. ---Alan Cohen http://vernonhoward.wwwhubs.com/

There is only one success—to be able to spend your life in your own way.—Christopher Morley

Acceptance is not approval of what is happening but only the process of telling yourself the truth about your present reality. ----Leo A. Kominek, Ph.D
sustained from there.”

Stop Punishing Yourself By Hating Someone

Have you ever realized how much energy is wasted in the process of hating. I am calling ‘hatred’ a continuous process because it has a start point but no end at all. The reasons for getting hurt and the people for whom we develop enmity can change but not the process. Hating someone gradually becomes a habit. The feeling of hatred can keep coming and going. There is a trigger point and like an electric switch it gets turned on. What about unplugging all the switches of hatred, I am telling you it works. We are all aware of the repercussions of hatred. Why to get hurt so many times, first time by someone who hurts you and the rest of the times by thinking about the pains. Does anyone have that much of liberty to mess with your life, take away your peace and make your life miserable? It is you who give authority to people to let you hurt. ---Sanjeeb Sahoo

A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she should be able to tell it to go away, shouldn't she? But it really isn't hers to command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn't obey us, that means it's only a deception. Don't fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy or sad, don't fall for it. It's all a deception. –Ajahn Chah

Old Liar

Our habits try to deceive us over and over again, but if we remain aware of it, we will eventually be able to ignore them altogether. It's like having an old person come around and tell us the same old lies time after time. When we realize what he's up to, we won't believe him any longer. But it takes a long time before we realize it, because deception is always there. –Ajahn Chah

In the field of Psychology, biases and defense mechanisms have been named for the ways in which we lie to ourselves. Here are a few examples.

Self-serving bias: The tendency to take credit for success and blame external factors for failure.
Egocentricity bias: The tendency to exaggerate the importance of one’s role in past events.
False consensus bias: The tendency to believe that most people share one’s opinions and values.
Assumption of uniqueness: The tendency to overestimate one’s uniqueness.
Self-righteous bias: The tendency to regard oneself as having higher moral standards or greater moral consistency than others have.
In-group / out-group bias: The tendency to view members of groups to which one belongs in a more positive light than members of groups of which one does not belong. --- Kevin Ryan

Gilda Radner, a comedian that lived from 1946–1989 said, "I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next."

It’s not difficult to make decisions when you know what your values are.—Roy Disney

Your persistence is your measure of faith in yourself. Author Unknown

Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand—and melting like a snowflake.—Marie Beyon Ray

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.—Brendan Francis

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who make excuses and those who get results. An excuse person will find any excuse for why a job was not done, and a results person will find any reason why it can be done. Be a creator, not a reactor.—Alan Cohen, A Deep Breath Of Life

You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.—Charles F. Kettering

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple: Know what you’re doing. Love what you’re doing. And believe in what you’re doing.—Will Rogers

Any attempt to exalt one group as uniquely embodying some specific trait or set of traits requires a strong sense of the “Other,” some other group that embodies the opposing traits. Perhaps one of the most extreme examples of this in Western culture was seen in Nazi Germany, where Hitler’s idealization of the Aryan Germans required the invention of an opposite pole of demonized Jews.—Patrick Kearney

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
Ambrose Redmoon

As Dr. Chopra affirms: "...happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken away from us at any time. To be happy for no reason is the happiness we want to experience." - L. Ketchian

Dr. Chopra affirms: "When our life is an expression of the inner state of happiness, we discover an immense reservoir of power within us. This power gives us the freedom from fear and limitations, and allows us to realize all the abundance that we aspire to." I have continually said that happiness is an issue of power. We are not speaking of the power we seek to have over others or in the world, but the authentic power we experience within ourselves. After all, my definition of happiness is: happiness is an inner state of well being. Happiness serves us as well in addition to being favorable to others. Real power is the emotional control we develop as a result of being aware of lasting happiness. I have repeatedly said that the opposite of happiness is fear. It is by embracing the state of lasting happiness that we can move into and experience genuine freedom. - L. Ketchian

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

January 31, 2001
BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

The three most important things about real estate are LOCATION! LOCATION!
LOCATION! It's just as true when it applies to your HAPPINESS.

Like most people you are looking for happiness. Our country is founded on the
principle of the "pursuit of happiness." We have grown up being told, and
have believed, that happiness is out there -- somewhere. Happiness cannot be
found "out there;" it is within you. So happiness is a matter of LOCATION!
LOCATION! LOCATION! If you cannot find happiness where you are right now,
where are you going to find it?

You may be spending your life in the pursuit of happiness. That would be
wonderful if the pursuit lead you to finding happiness. It does not lead to
happiness, and you know that's true from your own experience. Often it leads
you to the very opposite, which is unhappiness. As long as you think someone else

will make you happy, you have taken the power away from yourself to make it happen.

   You are waiting for the right things to happen, so you can finally be happy.
But you are losing valuable days of your life. You are waiting to finish
school so you can get on with your life, and get a good job so you can pay
for your education and make a living. You're waiting to find someone nice so
you can have a loving partner and get married, and have kids. Now you wait
for the kids to grow up, catch up on the bills for the kids, and the house,
so you can be happy. You hope the kids finally leave the house so you can be
happy. You try to make enough money for retirement so you can finally be
happy. Yet happiness has somehow eluded you.

   It will not be your mate, your marriage, your kids, your house or your money
that makes you happy. Happiness is not found outside of yourself. Happiness
can only be done from the inside out. When you need reasons to be happy, you
end up with reasons to be unhappy. Why does that happen each and every time?
Because life will never be perfect enough for you to be happy. You must
first be happy for everything to finally be perfect enough.

   Once again, happiness is a matter of location. As long as you put your power
outside of yourself, you allow someone, or something else to have power over
you, and you will not be happy. The same is true of allowing yourself to be
happy when the situation gets better. Great! Now you're happy because things
are finally going the way you want. But, just as soon as the situation becomes

worse, you become unhappy again, that is if you were ever happy to begin with.

Many times you end up getting the situation you desire in life and you are still unhappy.
Worrying about losing something good, prevents you from being happy.
It's strange because you get what you want, than worry about losing it. This
is the way millions of people live their lives. They just don't know where
happiness is located.

    Why give people, events, situations and even serious illness power over you?
Change what you can, and don't give the things you can't change any power
over you. Happiness is an issue of power. When you give your power away to
any of life's situations, you lose your happiness. It is so important not to
give up your power, which is your happiness. Think about it, if something
makes you unhappy, it has power over you, right? If a person makes you
unhappy it is an issue of power. They seem to have the power to make you
unhappy. In truth, you have given them your power. Remember to take it back
and use your power. It belongs to you.

   We think we have to get loud and angry to change things. Get mad, get sad,
and get even. In other words, we think we have to become unhappy to get what
we want. It is a current belief that acting unhappy is a powerful way to
change things that you don't like. Actually the opposite is true. When you
stay happy, you are exercising your power. Staying happy allows you to access
your wisdom. Stay with your happiness; it's what you want. Think about a time
when you were unhappy. Take a good look at how you feel when you are unhappy.
Is it worth feeling like that for anything? No, and besides staying happy
will get you what you want quicker, and better than unhappiness will.

     In the book, As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen, he says, "Let a man radically
alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it
will effect in the material conditions of his life." Remember, what happened
is not as important as what you do about what happened.

Happiness Is A Chickadee!

April 4, 2007
BE HAPPY ZONE
By Lionel Ketchian

A few winters ago I was putting sunflower seeds in the bird feeder for a big snowstorm we were expecting. I decided to try to hand feed some birds in my backyard. I put some crushed walnuts in my right hand and extended it. I stood absolutely motionless, and completely quiet on that cold winter day.

Within a few minutes, for the first time in my life, a bird landed on my hand. It was a Black Capped Chickadee, a cute tiny bird. It flew onto the tip of my fingers, picked up a piece of walnut and flew off to enjoy it. Soon it returned to land on my hand again. This time it picked up a piece of walnut and dropped it on the ground. Then it picked up another and dropped that on the ground as well. Finally it selected a third piece, which must have been just the right one, and flew off with it. It trusted me enough to take its time and make sure it had a nice delicious piece.

It was not long after this event, that I realized I had read a quote about the butterfly and happiness. Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." Now I can say, "Happiness is a Black Capped Chickadee, a cute tiny bird, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

For me, an interchange with nature is an unforgettable occasion in my life. It is nothing less than a spiritual experience. The experience with the Chickadee made me realize that happiness requires us to quiet down and allow things to come to us, not frantically chase after them. The more we pursue things that are beyond our grasp, the more they move away. The faster we pursue them, the faster they move away. Happiness requires us to relax, become quiet, and act as if we will get what we expect, without being upset when we don't.

Happiness, like the greatest things in life, requires patience, gentleness, and knowledge of what is possible. I had received a book called Hand-feeding Backyard Birds from my kids. I read it and knew what kinds of birds are most likely to be hand fed. I also knew which foods were their favorites. But when I first read the book, I thought that I'd never be able to do it. I believed that the odds were against me.

Being happy is a similar thing. You may not think you can do it, but if you learn enough about happiness, you can do it and you will do it when you realize it has been done by others. People did not believe it was possible to run a mile in less than four minutes. As soon as one person did it, that record was then broken over and over again. What one person can do, anyone can do.

How can I be happy? You can be happy by making happiness a decision, and by choosing happiness all the time. You can be happy by not allowing a situation, or a person to make you unhappy. Don't give up your happiness, because happiness is what we all want more than anything else.

Why is happiness so important? Happiness is an issue of power! When things make you unhappy, you lose your power. You give your power away to the things that make you unhappy. When you allow someone to make you unhappy, you are giving your power away to that person. So take your power back!

What if something bad happens? This is the time that you need happiness most of all to deal with hard times and stress. Happiness should be your strategy for dealing with negative things. When bad things happen, you need all the balance, wisdom and endurance you can find. Happiness allows you to gain access to your emotional intelligence. Happiness is your connection to yourself. It is in times of difficulty that you need to control your thinking, so you do not allow negative thinking to control you. Your reaction to the event is caused by the way you think about the event, not the event itself. You become unhappy as a result of your thinking, not as a result of what has happened.

How can I make happiness work for me? The decision to be happy allows you to find out when you are off track. As soon as you realize that you are unhappy, you are in control of changing your thoughts to allow you to choose happiness and get yourself back on the right track again. You can practice being happy even when you feel unhappy. When you pretend to be happy, you start to make yourself feel happy. When you act as if you are happy, you become happy. Once you are operating with happiness, you access your best thoughts, change your negative ones, and your whole state of mind is more peaceful. Your mind becomes flooded with choices, alternatives, and options. You begin to have ideas that will enable you to find the best solutions to the problems you are facing.

What if there is no solution to my problem? If there is no solution, then, you have no problem. You have something that you do not like and cannot change. In this case you are the problem. You will remain unhappy unless, and until you change your attitude toward what you think will not change. Remember the Serenity Prayer and let happiness show you the wisdom to know the difference between what you can and cannot change.

Do I have to live with what I don't like? If you can change it -- change it! If you can't change it, then learn to love it, or it will make you unhappy. Once you change your attitude about the thing you can't change and don't like, it usually changes all by itself. When you stop fighting with what you can't do anything about, the problem usually vanishes. What you resist -- will persist.

Is happiness always just beyond my grasp? Sit down quietly and keep your mind open to give happiness a place to join you. Smile...it becomes you!!!

Man's Search For Meaning

Dr. Viktor E. Frankl wrote Man's Search For Meaning 45 years ago. I consider it to be among some of the most profound books ever written.

Many people know Dr. Frankl's famous quote which is as follows: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." This is not only a famous quote but is also a triumph of truth. What most people do not know is the rest of the quotation that follows along right after this one. Dr. Frankl goes on to write: "And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom."

One of the reasons I respect Dr. Frankl and his book is that he has personally experienced the very worst that mankind could bestow on their fellow man. Yet, he shows us triumph in our ability to choose the right thing to do in any time and place. He also knows the impact of the power of making a decision. I have said, "Happiness is a decision." Decisions are the most important factors in our existence. They affect our future and can even change our circumstances no matter what it is that we think we are facing.

You can see how important the decision making process is to the very survival of the individual. Dr. Frankl continues this intelligent logic by stating, "It becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

The decision to be happy led me to the understanding that "to be happy," is needing, and wanting to be happy at some future time. That is when I figured out that it is all about 'being happy,' because being happy is something you are doing right now, not later. Being happy has made me free, because it has not only given me freedom but also has shown me what freedom looks, feels, and tastes like. Being happy is a freeing experience, like being let out of prison. Part of that experience comes from not wanting or needing everything to go my way all the time. That freedom has allowed me to experience peace. For what is peace but freedom from wanting? Don't get me wrong, I still want things, but I don't get upset because things don't go my way. Instead I have learned to prefer things rather than demand them. I have preferences instead of demands. I am much better off, because that makes me proactive in achieving what I want.

The way to empower yourself is to decide to be happy no matter what. Choose happiness over everything else. This gives you the power to deal with life and deal with yourself. Happiness is a powerful strategy for those who practice it. When you're happy it gives you the awareness to realize the choices you have and what option is right for you. What is the real power that you have in doing this? You have power over yourself, and this is very important my friend, because being happy is authentic power.

Dr. Frankel's book starts off explaining his experiences in the concentration camp. The profoundness of his book is that he is actually telling us about happiness and freedom within each of us. Even when Dr. Frankel speaks about suffering, he enlightens us to understand that when we find meaning in our suffering, we find our power again.

We give our happiness to others for many reasons. Then we think that they make us unhappy. The truth is that we have given others the power over ourselves. We must take our power back in order to be happy again. Happiness is an issue of power. Learn to use the power of happiness to deal with difficult people and circumstances in your life and you will prevail.
–Lionel Ketchian

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” – Emily Dickinson

When we can settle back into the moment realizing that past and future are simply thoughts in the present then we are freeing ourselves from the bondage of “time”. -- Joseph Goldstein

Observe without judgement, without reaction to content, without taking it to be mine or I, without identifying with it. -- Joseph Goldstein

Try to be aware of the thought as soon as it arises, rather than some minutes afterward. When they are noticed with precision and balance they have no power to disturb the mind. -- Joseph Goldstein

And being very mindful of the flow we free ourselves from the concept of self.—Joseph Goldstein

If we’re going to cultivate love and compassion, it has to be in the present moment, because we don’t live in any other moment. So, even though the present is constantly changing, it’s all we have. Life happens now. Our past glories are simply that. Our past hurts are not happening now. Our future dreams are simply future dreams. The future tragedies we concoct do not exist at this time. -- Chodron

Recognizing past turmoils and future rhapsodies as projections of our mind prevents us from getting stuck in them. Just as the face in the mirror is not a real face, the objects of our memories and daydreams are likewise unreal. They are not happening now; they are simply mental images flickering in the mind.
http://www.thubtenchodron.org/DealingWithEmotions/ruminating.html

Consistent with Boorstein’s view that the responses of a balanced mind are friendliness, compassion, appreciation; she offers a simple test for this state of unbalance or confusion, “In this moment, am I able to care?” And, for her it is this ability to restore the mind to kindness that is happiness.

As do most meditative teachers, Boorstein advises that suffering results from struggling with what is beyond our control. What is past is past; let it go, “that’s life.” Relief comes when: The mind says, “I want something different, but this is what I have.” And, when: We restore our ability to rejoice with other people. If I understand her, this is a form of wisdom that we all possess - the steps she offers are a path to finding it after the moment of unbalance.

The first of these mind training’s three steps is Wise Effort, the moment-to-moment discrimination practice meant to direct the attention in its choice of focus - this is the awareness “wake-up call”. Step two, Wise Mindfulness is described as then taking the “I” out of the situation, or it is that moment of seeing the situation within a larger context - rather than seeing it within our emotional frame. The last, step three, is Wise Concentration - it is composure as an antidote to the energies of; desire, anger, fatigue, worry, and doubt - the ‘how to’ is a meditative act.
--- Review of Happiness Is an Inside Job, by Sylvia Boorstein

We are taught to be good consumers - not just of possessions, but of people, ideas, spirituality, and everything else as well - in our search for happiness. ---Venerable Thubten Chodron

If you are fear based, you might move from one obsession or worry to another as a way to cope with your general anxiety. When you go to a meditation retreat, you get to watch the mind become agitated and actually look for a problem to grab hold of, and you come to see that what the mind chooses to focus on is not reliable as a priority. One yogi I met on retreat learned to say “my old friend fear” whenever his mind contracted into fear. This enabled him to no longer give it credibility, and the world became a safer, more enjoyable place for him. But beware of identifying yourself as a “fearful person.” You may often see life through the lens of fear, but it is only a mental state that is coloring your perception; you are not that fear.
This is a critical understanding. If you jump into a cold lake and your body gets cold, you don’t suddenly think you are a cold lake; you are simply cold as a response to the environment. Fear is like that: Your nervous system may be flooded with the sensations of fear, but this is still only a response.
Phillip Moffitt
http://yogajournal.com/wisdom/890?print=1

   The problem is that all feelings are in the same box. Pain is in the same box as joy. We cannot be putting a lid on pain without putting a lid on joy as well.    -- www.innerbonding

What is the pain we are striving so hard to avoid feeling? Most people feel a lot of pain. We feel anxious, frightened, depressed, hurt. Since we are often in pain, it doesn’t seem to make sense that we are, at the same time as we are feeling all this pain, also avoiding pain. Yet that is exactly what we are doing.   -- www.innerbonding

    As unhappy as we may be feeling, we are avoiding pain that we believe is even greater than the pain we are feeling.   -- www.innerbonding

   I have discovered that there are three feelings which most people want to avoid at all cost: aloneness, loneliness and helplessness over others. -- innerbonding.com

Opponents of consumerism argue that many luxuries and unnecessary consumer products are social signals that allow people to identify like-minded individuals through consumption and display of similar products. Some believe that relationships with a product or brand name are substitutes for the healthy human relationships lacking in dysfunctional modern societies and along with consumerism itself are part of the general process of social control and cultural hegemony in modern society.
http://www.reference.com/search?q=consumerism

“It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; -- Thorstein Veblen.

Yoga says that any disturbance in the mind first travels into Pranayama sheath before it passes onto body. Our daily experiences proves this concept of yoga i.e. when we are angry, our breath rate become short and fast before any change of experiences are felt into the body. An agitated mind manifests first in the breath (fast, short and irregular) then it brings changes in the body i.e. rapid heart rate.
http://yogameditationonline.com/?p=45

Prana manifests through breathing but is different than breath and respiration as they both are related to physical body. Breath is the carrier of Prana. We are either conscious or unconscious or subconscious about our breathing. To become aware of breath is the beginning of Yoga. It is easy to become aware of breath than other subtle and higher practices. When we become aware of breath, we notice irregular, short breaths in between. Any short, irregular breath can not be normal breathing pattern. This is habitual breathing. Habitual breathing is acquired by habits of body, mind and emotions. When we remain in agitated states of mind for few days, breath becomes irregular and short. This short and irregular breath agitates the body. It is our normal experience that angry mind manifests in fast and irregular breathing pattern. This irregular breathing pattern excites the autonomic nervous system i.e. sympathetic predominant. This dominance keeps our heart rate, respiration rate, basic metabolic rate high, increases fatigue, lowers the immunity, and manifests irritability, anger and stress in many forms.

We can change this habitual breathing by understanding Yogic breathing. Yogic breathing brings harmony of body, breath and mind. Breathing consciously is the first step. Breathing deep, silent and slow is the second step. Acquiring the habit of deep, silent and slow breathing at all time during the day is the third step. Experiencing the changes within at physical, mental and emotional level is the fourth step. Pranayama (important practice of Hatha Yoga that regulates breath for awakening to higher consciousness), begins only when we become fully aware of breath, its rate and rhythm.
http://yogameditationonline.com/?p=45

…one can be caught out in a lie. A liar can be confronted with evidence. But bullshit, being empty and made-up, is elusive and always leaves the bullshitter a way out.
http://knowledgeandexperience.blogspot.com

“Try to resist the temptation to “judge” your life…. Judging produces a negative state in us, and does nothing to change the things we want to change. –Lionel Ketchian

Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.

It's a human relationship, not a relationship between an expert and a problem.” Rachel Naomi Remen

Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain and even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.” Rachel Naomi Remen

“To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value. Approval cannot be trusted. It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.” Rachel Naomi Remen

"After all, discontent arises not from lacking what we want but from the strong craving to have it. " --Ven. Thubten Chodron

"Enlightenment for a wave in the ocean is the moment the wave realizes that it is water." Thich Nhat Hanh

"Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute."
Samyutta Nikaya, from "Buddha Speaks"

The root cause of cyclic existence is ignorance: we do not understand who we are, how we exist or how other phenomena exist. Unaware of our own ignorance we project fantasized ways of existing onto ourselves and others, thinking that everyone and everything has some inherent nature and exists independently, in and of itself. This gives rise to attachment , an attitude that exaggerates the good qualities of people and things or superimposes good qualities that are not there and then clings to those people or things, thinking they will bring us real happiness. When things do not work out as we expected or wished they would, or when something interferes with our happiness, we become angry. These three basic disturbing attitudes—ignorance, attachment , and anger—give rise to a host of other ones, such as jealousy, pride , and resentment. These attitudes then motivate us to act, speak, or think. Such actions leave imprints on our mind-streams, and these imprints then influence what we will experience in the future.

We are liberated from the cycle of rebirth by generating the wisdom realizing emptiness or selflessness. This wisdom is a profound realization of the lack of a solid, independent essence in ourselves, others, and everything that exists. It eliminates all ignorance, wrong conception, disturbing attitudes, and negative emotions, thus putting a stop to all misinformed or contaminated actions. The state of being liberated is called nirvana or liberation. All beings have the potential to attain liberation, a state of lasting happiness. –Thubten Chodron

A yogi, on the other hand, knows how to untie the knots that make him identify with his suffering self. (The Bhagavad Gita explicitly states that yoga is the "dissolution of union with pain.") In fact, yoga practice is meant to teach us how to untangle these inner knots. Often, you don't realize how much difference your practice has made until the day that you find yourself dealing with a crisis without going into an absolute meltdown. The kids are screaming or your officemates are panicking, and yes, there's a little bit of fear and irritation in your mind too, but there's also a witnessing awareness, an inner compassionate presence that lets you stay present with what's happening without getting sucked into the fear or the anger.

The great spiritual practitioners all offer the same basic prescriptions for undoing inner knots: Find out who you really are, do the practices that purify your murky mind, and discover how to work with everything that happens to you. Then difficulties become your teachers, and pain and loss become occasions for profound and positive transformation. As my teacher Swami Muktananda once said, a yogi is someone who can turn every circumstance to his advantage. That, it seems to me, is what it means to be resilient. – Sally Kempton

LET IT GO

There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk away from you: let them walk,. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone. When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can't make them stay. Let them go. And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when people's part in your story is over so that you don't keep trying to raise the dead. You've got to know when it's dead. You've got to know when it's over. Let me tell you something. I've got the gift of good-bye. It's the tenth spiritual gift, I believe in good-bye. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I'm faithful, and I know whatever the HP means for me to have He'll/She'll give it to me. And if it takes too much sweat I don't need it. Stop begging people to stay. Let them go! If you are holding on to something that doesn't belong to you and was never intended for your life, then you need to LET IT GO!! If you are holding on to past hurts and pains............LET IT GO! If someone can't treat you right, love you back, and see your worth.........LET him/her GO!!!!!!!! (AMEN to that) If someone has angered you........LET IT GO!!!!!!!!! If you are holding on to some thoughts of evil and revenge..........LET IT GO!!! If you are holding on to a job that no longer meets your needs or talents.......LET IT GO!!!!!!!! If you have a bad attitude.........LET IT GO!!!!!!!! If you keep judging others to make yourself feel better.....LET IT GO!! If you're stuck in the past and the HP is trying to take you to a new level in Him/Her.......LET IT GO!! If you are struggling with the healing of a broken relationship.......LET IT GO!! If you keep trying to help someone who won't even try to help themselves...LET IT GO! If you're feeling depressed and stressed.........LET IT GO!! If there is a particular situation that you are so used to handling yourself and the HP is saying "take your hands off of it," then you need to....LET IT GO! Let the past be the past. Forget the former things. The HP is doing a new thing for 2005!!! LET IT GO!! ~ Thank you T.D.Jakes

Try it. It is incredibly boring sometimes, but ironically, that might be what is so wonderful about it. Just like excitement and fear are almost the same thing, depending on your acceptance or rejection of what's happening, boredom and peace are almost the same thing, depending on your acceptance or rejection of what's happening. --MoodRaiser.com

But thoughts are not the enemy. Your own attachment to the thoughts is what prevents peace. –youmeworks.com

The most important part of the process is Step 3. Biofeedback research has confirmed peoples’ personal experience: Trying does't help. People in biofeedback training who try to lower their blood pressure are the only ones who can’t do it. When you try to concentrate or try to relax, you won’t be able to. You need a passive, let-it-happen kind of attitude.

Your mind will often wander from your repeated word or phrase. No need to be bothered by that. Just bring your mind back to your repeated word or phrase. Over and over again.

It’s the process of doing this that’s good for you — not some end state or goal you reach.

Drifting off and noticing it and bringing your mind back to your repeated phrase is the process. And it’s this process that gives you all the benefits.

The attitude to have is a combination of persistence and acceptance. You persist in repeating your word and you accept it when your mind wanders, but you still persist in repeating your word again, while accepting that you wander off.
pantkicker.com

Human beings get attached to ideas — ideas about who they are, what's the best way to live, ideas about what other people should be like, and so on — and our attachment to those ideas causes most of our day-to-day suffering. It really does. I know it seems like the circumstances and reality, and the fact that other people really should be different is what makes us unhappy. But it is our ideas about reality that causes the suffering, not the reality itself.

When you change your ideas about something, it changes the way you feel about it.

Of course, this doesn't refer to physical pain. If someone hits you, it is the punch that causes the pain. But suffering or unhappiness can be caused by your own thoughts about the person who hit you long after the pain from the punch has gone away. So this method may not be very effective for handling physical pain. But it does work with unhappiness and anxiety. And it works very, very well.
http://www.youmeworks.com/clingfree.html

To antidote and overcome delusion, we cultivate wisdom, insight, and right understanding. Learning to experience reality exactly as it is, without the distortions of our self-centered desires, fears, and expectations, we free ourselves from delusion. Deeply sensing and acting in harmony with the interdependent, impermanent, and ever-changing nature of this world—realizing that all living beings are inseparably related and that lasting happiness does not come from anything external—we free ourselves from delusion. As we develop a clear understanding of karma, knowing the positive, wholesome actions that bring happiness and the negative, unwholesome actions that bring suffering, we cultivate the wisdom, insight, and right understanding that free us from delusion.
http://www.naljorprisondharmaservice.org/pdf/ThreePoisons.htm

Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
George Carlen

"This is the radical discovery of Buddhist psychology. You don't have to resign yourself to ordinary suffering, to being always unconscious of what is really going on, helpless before not only society and space and time and others, but more importantly before your own inner drives, impulses and demands. You need not give up and allow yourself to be buffetted here and there by passions and angers. You can become conscious of what you were formerly unconscious. You can understand your drives, see where they come from, block the source, and divert the energy for your own use. You can resist all imperatives and learn to wield the underlying energies. You can reclaim those energies for your life, for your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones."
Robert Thurman from "Anger"

The root cause of cyclic existence is ignorance: we do not understand who we are, how we exist or how other phenomena exist. Unaware of our own ignorance we project fantasized ways of existing onto ourselves and others, thinking that everyone and everything has some inherent nature and exists independently, in and of itself. This gives rise to attachment, an attitude that exaggerates the good qualities of people and things or superimposes good qualities that are not there and then clings to those people or things, thinking they will bring us real happiness. When things do not work out as we expected or wished they would, or when something interferes with our happiness, we become angry. These three basic disturbing attitudes—ignorance, attachment , and anger—give rise to a host of other ones, such as jealousy, pride , and resentment. These attitudes then motivate us to act, speak, or think. Such actions leave imprints on our mind-streams, and these imprints then influence what we will experience in the future.

You Can’t Be Deceived

By Brad Warner

The main reason I write books and give talks isn’t because I think I have anything really wonderful to say. It’s more because I’ve looked at the so-called spiritual scene and think it’s incredibly awful. Hardly any Buddhism books out today are even worth the paper they’re printed on. But I know that Buddhism really is a good thing.

It’s the same thing that drove me to be a part of Zero Defects and make my own records. I knew that rock music could be amazing stuff. Yet the people out there who were supposed to be doing rock and roll in those days were, for the most part, putting out pure garbage. There were a few people doing good things, just like there are some really genuine people on the so-called spiritual scene. But there were not enough, and their voices were virtually drowned out by all the schlock.

The worst thing about all those crap spiritual masters out there is the way they deliberately mislead people. I know I sound like a crank. But I won’t cut any of these people the least bit of slack. They cheat and lie, and they are well aware of it. But when you get right down to it, if you’re misled by a bad spiritual master, you have only yourself to blame. That sounds pretty harsh, I know. But it’s true. Dogen has a little story that helps explain why that is.

A few hundred years ago a dude named Gensa, who later went on to be one of the great Buddhist teachers, was still a young monk. One day he gets fed up with the temple where he’s studying. He ﬁgures he’d be better off getting out and seeing what the rest of the world has to offer. Maybe another temple will have whatever it is he’s been looking for. Or maybe he’ll just give up on temples altogether. As he’s heading out the gate, he stubs his toe on a big ol’ rock. He’s hopping around in terrible pain, bleeding from under his toenail, going, “Ow! Ow! Shit! Piss! Damn!” And he thinks, “I’ve heard that the body is an illusion. So where the hell did all this pain come from?”

All at once he gets it.

Later on, his teacher, a guy named Seppo Gisan, asks him what’s up, and he says, “I just can’t be deceived by others.”

Seppo really gets off on this statement. “Is there anyone who doesn’t have these words?” he says. “But who else can speak them?”

There you have the key to understanding Buddhism. That one sentence, “I can’t be deceived,” says all you need to know.

When people say stuff like “I can’t be deceived,” the emphasis is usually on “I.” They’re usually saying something like, “Maybe all those other people out there can be deceived, but nobody can make a fool out of me!” But that’s not what Gensa means here. “I” here is absolutely universal. It refers just as much to you and me as it does to Gensa himself. He’s not bragging. He might even be a little bit sad when he says, “I can’t be deceived.”

You’re probably thinking, Why would he be sad about that? I mean, he’s enlightened, right? And enlightenment is supposed to be the happiest thing that can ever happen to a person — just like Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth — right? Otherwise why strive for it? But think about it for a sec. Imagine a situation in which you suddenly realize with absolute certainty that you can never blame anyone else for anything that happens to you. You can’t even blame your circumstances since you know those, too, are of your own making. You can no longer tell yourself that if only this or that happened, then you’d ﬁnd perfect happiness. Your future has entirely vanished, along with your past. It must be just a little sad. But it’s sad in a different way from usual sadness. It’s a sadness that knows what sadness really is. It knows that there is no merit in taking hold of sadness, so it lets the sadness drift by. Still, it’s not as if sadness isn’t part of the equation.

The idea that we can be deceived is an illusion created by our amazing ability to think. Real deception never happens. We pretend to be deceived. We even fool ourselves into actually thinking we believe we’ve been had. But it just doesn’t happen. When Gensa stubbed his toe on that rock — in other words, when he suddenly came face-to-face with the undeniable fact that he was living in this world and not in the world he created in his mind, in which the body is an illusion* — he understood that he could not be deceived.

This was not some unique, miraculous event, something that could only happen to an advanced student like Gensa, either. As his teacher says, “Is there anyone who does not have these words?” Is there anyone, anywhere in the world who does not come face-to-face with the real facts of the real world every moment of every day? But, says Gensa’s teacher, who else but Gensa can speak them? In other words, why, oh why, do we keep insisting that we live in some other reality far removed from the one we encounter all the time? Why is it that any time someone says something true, we act like he or she has some magical supernatural power far beyond that of ordinary human beings?

There’s a very good, very practical reason people want to believe that they can be deceived by others. See, when you’ve been deceived, nothing you do is really your fault. Just like the Nazis, you can plead, “I was only following orders.” Maybe folks will even believe you. I won’t. But that’s just me. As far as I’m concerned, pretending you’ve been deceived — making believe that reality hit you smack in the face and you still didn’t notice it — is nothing more than a way of abdicating all responsibility. You might get away with it because this world is run by people who also want to be able to use that excuse themselves if it ever comes down to it. People like you. People like me.

But it’s a lame excuse. No decent Zen teacher would ever accept it. I used to come to my teachers with variations of that one all the time. “I was deceived! I’m in delusion! Please help me. Please tell me what’s really true!” It was just another way of saying, “Please take responsibility for me.”

“Nobody’s tricked you, you moron,” they’d say. “You know what the truth is. Stop being such a bonehead, and take an honest look at yourself.” Gensa didn’t need a Learned Zen Master to tell him he was in pain when he stubbed his toe that day. And you don’t need anyone to tell you what your life really is either. You sure as heck don’t need me. I cannot possibly tell you anything you don’t already know. You probably agree, since, if you’re like most people, you think I’m an idiot. But you probably also think that somewhere out there in the land where books are written is someone way cooler and tons more spiritually advanced than me who can tell you something you don’t already know. Keep right on looking. The publishing industry loves you.
Excerpted from Sit Down and Shut Up. Copyright ©2007 by Brad Warner.

The Allegory of the Cave is one of Greek philosopher Plato’s most well known works. It is an extended allegory, where humans are depicted as being imprisoned by their bodies and what they perceive by sight only. In the Allegory of the Cave Plato plays with the notion of what would occur if people suddenly encountered the divine light of the sun, and perceived “true” reality. In other words, what would happen if people actually embraced philosophy and become enlightened by it?

In the beginning of the Allegory of the Cave Plato represents man’s condition as being “chained in a cave,” with only a fire behind him. He perceives the world by watching the shadows on the wall. He sits in darkness with the false light of the fire and does not realize that this existence is wrong or lacking. It merely is his existence — he knows no other nor offers any complaint.

Plato next imagines in the Allegory of the Cave what would occur if the chained man were suddenly released from his bondage and let out into the world. Plato describes how some people would immediately be frightened and want to return to the cave and the familiar dark existence. Others would look at the sun and finally see the world as it truly is.

They would know their previous existence was farce, a shadow of truth, and they would come to understand that their lives had been one of deception. A few would embrace the sun, and the true life and have a far better understanding of “truth.” They would also want to return to the cave to free the others in bondage, and would be puzzled by people still in the cave who would not believe the now “enlightened” truth bearer. Many would refuse to acknowledge any truth beyond their current existence in the cave.

Allegories are subject to numerous interpretations and the Allegory of the Cave is no exception. Some interpret Plato’s work as related to Socrates’ life. Socrates as interpreted by Plato spent his life trying to unchain others by helping them arrive at “truth.” That he was dismissed and ultimately sentenced to death suggests that “telling” someone the truth is inadequate.

Truth must be experienced rather than told because language fails to convey belief. This theme is a constant in Plato’s work. Language is the barest shadow of reality. People who are firmly committed to a religious view often echo this statement. Faith can’t be given to other people, but must be experienced.

The Allegory of the Cave also represents an extended metaphor for the state of human existence, and for the transformation that occurs during philosophical enlightenment. When the light of the sun shines on the freed man, this is allegory for enlightenment and perception of the truth. The minor concerns of the world as he has viewed it previously are now seen as falsely held perception and he is eager to share enlightenment with others.
-- http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-allegory-of-the-cave.htm

Awareness practice is learning to open up to some such powerful emotion without either letting it discharge itself (as anger or self-pity, for example), or suppressing it. This, incidentally, is not to deny that anger may be a healthy response to some injustice out there – but when angry we can often sense how much is in fact coming from some gutsy ego frustration. This middle way of creative containment is not easy to describe, and harder still to do. It requires a lot of personal experimentation.
John Welwood, a transpersonal psychologist, writes of “befriending emotion” which, “by neither suppressing emotions nor exploring the meaning in them, teaches us a way to feel their naked aliveness and contain their energy.
“ the two arrows” http://www.wisdom-books.com/FocusDetail.asp?FocusRef=24

Most people's consciousness, however, remains restricted to a single plane of reality: dualistic perception, as fabricated by the conditioned egoic mind, which sets up a solid division between the separate self over here and everything else over there. All our main patterns of self-defense — repression, resistance, denial, avoidance, withdrawal, projection, judgment, rejection, dissociation, aggression— are ways of separating ourselves from reality, standing apart from it, and substituting a mind-created virtual reality in its place. This tendency to fabricate our own separate reality is a way of trying to protect ourselves against "other"— those elements of reality that appear alien or threatening.

The dualistic ego-mind is essentially a survival mechanism, on a par with the fangs, claws, stingers, scales, shells, and quills that other animals use to protect themselves. By maintaining a separate self-sense, it attempts to provide a haven of security in an impermanent world marked by continual change, unpredictability, and loss. Yet the defensive boundaries that create a sense of safety also leave us feeling isolated and disconnected. So unless we develop beyond the defensive ego-mind, we remain subject to endless inner conflict, alienation, and suffering — the hallmark of what the Eastern spiritual traditions call samsara.

Fortunately, as human beings we also have access to a larger dimension of consciousness that is intrinsically free of dualistic fixation. The Eastern spiritual traditions

regard this egoless awareness as our true, essential nature, the very ground of our being. Tapping into this pure nondual presence, as in certain types of contemplative knowing, reveals a wide open field of awareness in which the separation between self and other, or perceiver and perceived, falls away.

By dissolving the cognitive filters that maintain the division between self and other, nondual awareness is the doorway to liberation from the conditioned mind and the narrow, conflictual world of samsara. It reveals absolute truth, the way things ultimately are: inseparable, undivided, interconnected. The Indian axiom,"Thou art That," expresses this discovery: our very being is not separate from the isness of all things. What I am is inseparable from the whole of reality as it appears and flows through me at every moment, in the flux of my ongoing experience.

If the dualistic egoic mind is pre-human, or subhuman, in that it is survival-oriented, nondual egoless awareness is trans-human, or suprapersonal, because it opens up a larger expanse of being or presence that is free from our usual preoccupation with how our life is going. These two planes of existence— subhuman and trans-human, samsara and nirvana— are the main focus of many Eastern traditions, which lay out a path leading from the bondage of conditioned mind to the liberation of unconditioned awareness¹.
http://www.johnwelwood.com/articles/DoubleVision.pdf

"Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold;
the holding of plans or dreams or expectations - Let it all go.
Save your strength to swim with the tide.
The choice to fight what is here before you now
will only result in struggle, fear, and desperate attempts to flee
from the very energy you long for. Let it go.

Let it all go and flow with the grace
that washes through your days
whether you receive it gently
or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders.
Take this on faith: The mind may never find
the explanations that it seeks,
but you will move forward nonetheless.

Let go, and the wave's crest
will carry you to unknown shores,
beyond your wildest dreams or destinations.
Let it all go and find the place of rest and peace,
and certain transformation."