Lumps And Bumps

15 May 2012 1 Comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , ,

Lumps and BumpsIf you ride a bicycle on UK roads, you’ll know how lovely it can be to find yourself on a stretch of nice smooth new tarmac. The lumps and bumps of our older repaired roads really can rattle your bones, so the new surface is a real treat.

Life is like that too. It’s the lumps and bumps of everyday life that make you realise just how comfortable the smooth untroubled times are. But without the rough times, we would never recognise the comparison and enjoy the easier times all the more.

We all know that as we move through life, it is impossible to stay on the smooth untroubled path. The bumpy times are a simple fact, just as they are out on the road. So when they come along, just be determined, hold on tight, keep pedalling and look forward to the smoother times ahead.

Flippin’ Friday

11 May 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , ,

computer_codeHaving been in IT for all my working life, I should know better, but it still annoys the hell out of me when computers mess with my life. I’ve been working on a redesign project for one of our websites and my desktop decided it knew better than I did when it came to the general look and feel of the site.

Basically, it minimalized the content by losing all the references to the images and text across the whole site. Naturally, this made the pages much quicker to load, but also made the site a little too simplistic. Finally, I have been able to fix the underlying problem, but that leaves the onerous task of adding all the content back into the site.

Other aspects of life can be like that. If I ever lost my mobile, or my iPad went AWOL, half my life would go with them. We all record names, addresses and other details such as birthdays on these nice shiny bits of hardware, in the vain belief that their memories are better than ours, but on some occasions they aren’t.

Somewhere, filed neatly in one of the drawers at home, I have a piece of A4 paper with my entire families names, addresses, birthdays and anniversaries. My Mom painstakingly wrote them down for me years ago, and although I have no real idea where the paper is, I know for sure, that if I find it, it will still have the details recorded.

So even though it’s Friday, and the weekend is just round the corner, it’s not been the best day of the week so far. As with most days, there are lessons to be learned, and mine for today is to make sure everything is backed up in such a way that I can recreate a site from scratch, even when everything looks secure. You just never know do you?

Tranquillity

08 May 2012 2 Comments

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , ,

TranquillityOfficially, today was Tuesday, but in computer speak it was actually Monday++. With the extra day off, the weekend just meant that the pile of work waiting for me when I got into the office this morning was 50% bigger than a normal Monday, and you know how I feel about them. So it was all hands on deck and the day passed without a break, ironically at break-neck speed.

So by the time 5:00 o’clock arrived I was in need of some peace and quiet. Fortunately, the stream behind the office is exactly the right place to find such an environment, so before diving into the car and setting off for MQ, I took several long minutes to just stand and chant in the evening sunshine, watch the quiet waters flow past, and let my mind find its equilibrium as the trials and tribulations of the day drifted away with the shining lazy current.

If we are to deal with the challenges of every day life, it is important to take a deep breath, inhale the quieter side of life, and release the stress that builds up inside. Next time you find yourself feeling agitated, stressed out, or getting submerged beneath the everyday strains that life puts upon us, find a quite spot, take time to stand still and just let those anxieties drift away.

Far from being a waste of time, they may be the most important minutes of your day.

Relationships And Renovations

16 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , ,

Relationships And RenovationsThe title sums up my life right now, well not quite, but there’s a lot of both going on at the moment. Strangely, there’s a deal of similarity between the two in some ways.  So you think I’ve been breathing in too many undercoat fumes lately? Ok, let me explain.

A new relationship is brilliant, it’s exciting, challenging and can occupy all your spare time. Renovation is rewarding, it’s exciting, challenging and can also occupy all your spare time. But let’s look at it a different way.

When you decide to renovate a property, you prioritise the projects and work through the rooms, one by one. There’s no point starting with the decor if the roof needs fixing, pretty dumb to install a new bathroom suite if the drains need sorting.

There are important milestones in the project. Roof sorted, electrics and plumbing finished, floors fixed, walls plastered. Then you decide on a certain room you want to concentrate on, and you live with the others until the important one is done, then you move to the next and the next and so on.

Say you sort out the kitchen, get it really nice, smart, efficient and install the appliances. You enjoy the fruits of your labour, but you wouldn’t give up on the renovation just because you got a glimpse of the lounge, or the bathroom. You go onto the next stage, deal with the problems and enjoy the progress as it comes along.

As relationships grow, mature, there are times when you discover aspects, core beliefs or character traits that test the strength of the bond at that point in time. That’s how relationships develop. You learn about each other, you agree about some things, you may have to compromise about others, it’s a learning process.

You learn about new aspects all the time. Together, you agree, you compromise or agree to disagree about them and so the relationship grows. But just like the renovation, you don’t give up on the whole project just because there is a little more work to be done in the next room. And just like renovations, the more effort you put in, the more satisfaction you get out of them.

Energy To Burn

15 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , ,

Nam-Myoho-Renge-KyoLife is punctuated by a series of  problems and challenges, but what is the real difference between them? Generally speaking we call situations we can deal with, challenges, and those we fear we cannot deal with, problems. But actually, the difference is in our own heads and depends more on our life-state at the time the situation arises.

If we are in a higher life-state, we look upon the situation as a challenge. We concentrate our energies to resolving the situation and pride ourselves that we rose to the challenge. If, on the other hand, we are depressed and in a lower life-state, we tend to get further depressed by the situation, our life-energies are reduced and the problem, as we now call it, becomes insurmountable.

So the question is, how do we keep our life-energy, and hence our life-state, as high as possible in order to enable us to confront situations with confidence. That’s where chanting comes in. When I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, I can feel my life-energy increasing.

The more I chant, the louder I chant, the higher my life-state rises, so when situations arise, as they always will, I am in a better position to deal with them. It works for me, and it works for millions of people across the world, so why not give it a go and see whether it will work for you, I’m sure it will.

Walking The Walk

12 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , ,

Walking The WalkWhether it was the early night and the extra couple of hours sleep that made me a bit dopey, or whether it was the difficult topic of conversation I was having on my Bluetooth headset I don’t really know. But I wasn’t very proud of the way I dealt with the situation when a chap didn’t stop at the road traffic calming ‘chicane’, forcing me to mount the kerb to avoid hitting him in his bright green Honda Civic.

It’s easy to sit here, in the quiet of my living room, and pontificate about staying calm and dealing with challenges in a nice controlled manner. Being able to deal with real life situations is so different from the theory, but it does give you a really good measure of how well you are doing on your journey to enlightenment.

I did manage to stay fairly calm, helped possibly by the fact that I didn’t find any damage to the car when I stopped to take a quick look. The traffic down to Canford Bottom roundabout was slow and that gave me a few moments to compose myself further. I then chanted my head off all the way to Ringwood, so by the time I got into the office I was chilled and in the right life-state to tackle the usual pile of emails waiting in my inbox.

So when you read some of the topics on my blog, and think ‘I could never be like that’ or ‘I would like to give that a try, but I just can’t see it working for me’ remember that I’m only human and that even though I do practice what I preach, it doesn’t always work all the time. Still I was quite proud that I managed to ‘get it together’ though chanting and mindfulness. Learning, through a little slip, is valuable and just goes to prove that we do need challenges to make us stronger.

Accept Challenges, Stay Calm And Overcome

10 Apr 2012 1 Comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Quiet CalmThe challenges we meet in life are often seen as the negative side of our existence. We alone can decide how we deal with them, either we can accept them, tackle them head on, or we can shy away from them and hope they go away. Anyone who has tried the second path will know that it virtually never works, so accepting challenges has to be the right way to go.

Accepting our challenges is not, initially, the most natural thing to do. It might seem easier to run away, to bury our heads, or just ignore the issues, but no good will ever come of taking that path. Taking responsibility and meeting challenges head on can be really hard. That doesn’t mean it has to be difficult, but it does mean we have to dig deep, stay strong and never ever give in.

So how should we approach the process? For me, it means looking at the challenge from all sides, and that involves keeping a calm mind and thinking clearly about all the aspects involved. Chanting allows me to calm my mind, to focus and to concentrate. This is the state of mindfulness and gives me control over my thoughts, words and deeds. For others it may be beneficial to meditate or to write down a list of all the facets of the challenge.

The whole process can be thrown into turmoil by our fundamental darkness, that little voice in our heads, that tells us the challenge is too hard, that we cannot overcome it and that giving up is the easy path. We must listen to that voice because it is part of us, but we must then rationalise the alternatives and be determined to take the right path, not the easiest path.

When you overcome a challenge, the feelings of elation are immense. When we give into a challenge, the feelings of defeat are equally immense, but terribly damaging. Gaining your first win will be the hardest. Once you know the winning feeling, you will never again want to feel defeat again.

So try different coping strategies, be that chanting, meditation, list building or whatever works for you. Be sure that overcoming challenges will make you a stronger and more confident person and that each win will make the next challenge easier to overcome. In time, you will lose the fear of challenges, and although you may not actually look forward to the next one, you will be more prepared to meet it and overcome it when it arrives.

A Proper Curate’s Egg

25 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , ,

Kingfisher On The River FromeToday has been proper strange. It started fairly early with breakfast whilst watching the the start of the Grand Prix, Then off to the Co-op to pick up pastries for a second breakfast round at Hannah’s new house.

It’s a lovely property, big rooms, lots of space for the family to spread out. Nice and modern but in a traditional style, if you get my drift. Charlotte and Oliver came over too, so it was a nice family morning.

Back at the cottage, it was beautiful sunshine and a soft warm breeze. B hung the washing out while I set the ladders up against the end wall to investigate some loft insulation that was protruding from the barge boards. It seems that birds have been collecting it through a hole under the boards, so we placed a piece of wood over the hole, to try to deter them.

Having secure the ladders, and with half an hour until the roast lamb was due to come out of the oven, we went for a stroll down to the site of one of the old snuff mills, on the banks of the river Frome. The sunlight formed dappled pools of light through the spring foliage and the babbling river made a perfect soundtrack as we made our way along the riverbank.

We were busy watching a pair of yellow wagtails hunting amongst the rocks and boulders below the weir, when my eye was caught by an electric blue flash. It was a Kingfisher, elegant, sleek and arguably Britain’s most beautiful bird. We watched as it sped up and down it’s territorial stretch of the river, coming to rest on what appeared to be it’s regular perching points. It was so beautiful, in the setting of a perfect Spring day, that we lost track of time and had to hurry back to rescue the lamb from the oven.

Whether it was the walk, the fresh air, the excitement of seeing the Kingfisher or just possibly the glass of red wine that helped wash the Sunday roast down, I could not say. Suffice to say that another ‘recharging’ snooze ensued, so soon even the extra hour of daylight was also gone.

Just to complete the gamut of emotions, I found out tonight, that my mum has picked up this accursed norovirus and was feeling proper poorly. It’s really doing the rounds at the moment, but being in her early eighties, we are concerned that she is safe, doesn’t get dehydrated and can get help if she needs it. She will call tomorrow to let us have an update, and has an emergency pendant if she needs assistance in the night.

So as I said, a proper curate’s egg of a day, good in some parts, not so good in others.

The Winning Formula

26 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , ,

WinningWhen experiencing failure or disappointment, frustration or illness, we tend to lose confidence and let fear overtake us.

At such times, we need to make a conscious effort to move forward with strength and courage.

When we say to ourselves, “Next time I’ll succeed” or “I’m going to get better and make it through this”, we have already won.

Take The Plunge

20 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , ,

Take The PlungeHave you ever had a problem or situation that has been there for a while, but you can’t drum up the enthusiasm to fix? I know you have, we all have.

Maybe enthusiasm is not the right word, maybe confidence is a better one. Maybe you should have made a phone call or gone to meet someone, but you know they aren’t going to be too pleased to hear from you when you do.

When I say you know, it’s probably more accurate to say you imagine, you suppose, see what I mean? We all build up little scenarios in our heads, and the more often we think about the problem, the more convinced we become, that our imagined outcome is what will actually happen.

This is where we need a bit of Wisdom, Courage and Compassion.

We need the Wisdom to see that what we imagine is the version of events from our point of view, and may be way off. We also need to accept that any problem that is left to fester, will only get worse and never go away by itself.

We need a deal of Courage to put ourselves into a situation that may be awkward, embarrassing or painful (hopefully not physically). Picking up that phone, or ringing that door bell, when we are unsure of the reception, takes guts. But remember that the alternative may be even worse.

Now we need a huge dollop of Compassion. The fact that we have put off doing something about this issue probably means that we feel that we are in the wrong, in some way. So we need to steel ourselves for a potential tirade, whilst remaining calm and sympathetic. We need to understand the problem from the other persons point of view. That will take a dialogue of some nature, and maintaining a compassionate nature may help defuse the situation. We need to bite our tongue when we may feel like giving a little back. I don’t mean a complete capitulation, more a flexible approach to understanding their side of things.

I imagine that each and every person who reads this has an issue, be it large or small, that falls into this category. Only you know what it is, so gird your loins, take a deep breath, and get it sorted today. You’ll feel a lot better when you do, believe me, I know from experience.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

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