Whatever The Challenge, Start It Now !!!

21 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , ,

Defeat Your Dark PassengerChallenges we set ourselves can be easy, or they can be hard. Generally speaking, the challenges that are worth setting, take us well out of our comfort zone. So what is the secret of success in such a situation?

Whatever the challenge, it’s easy to put off till tomorrow, that which you should start today, and to give in today, promising that you will put things right tomorrow. Feelings like that are normal. It is our Fundamental Darkness talking us into wrong thoughts and deeds. The only weapon we have against it, and we all have those thoughts, is our determination to succeed. By imagining that our Dark Passenger,  as I prefer to call it, is actually something outside ourselves, we can mentally argue our case and, through determination, change our actions.

Success is sweet, failure is bitter and the only difference between the two is determination. Any goal, no matter how large or how small, is only unattainable if you lack the determination to go on. No cause is lost until you decide that it is lost. So ignore, or better still defeat your Fundamental Darkness, have confidence in yourself, be determined, and never, ever give up. In that way, you will always be a winner, will achieve your goals, and be forever tasting that sweet taste of success.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off …

13 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , ,

Clipless PedalsAs one who is yet to completely master the pitfalls of clip-less pedals, this wisdom from Sensei struck a resonant chord …

Anyone who has ever made a resolution discovers that the strength of that determination fades in time.

The moment you feel that is when you should make a fresh determination. Tell yourself, “OK! I will start again from now!”

If you fall down seven times, get up an eighth.

Don’t give up when you feel discouraged—just pick yourself up and renew your determination each time.

Listen To The Doctors

11 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

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

Listen To The DoctorsAnother call by leading doctors and academics, to scrap the proposed increase in the use of statins, has been heard today.

With NICE, the National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence, proposing to put millions more people on statins to lower their cholesterol levels, are we seeing yet another pharmaceutical led scam of the general population?

This advice comes despite figures for deaths from heart attacks and strokes showing a decrease over the past few years. In fact, dissent from certain quarters is already pointing out that the side-effects from taking statins can often outweigh the benefits. But surely they are completely missing the point here.

The ‘Western Diseases’, heart attack, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and increasing obesity cannot be prevented or treated by statins. The cause of all these illnesses is entirely down to the western diet, and predominantly the massive consumption of meat and dairy products.

People will say, in defence of their lifestyle, that man has eaten meat and dairy for centuries, which of course is true. However, the rapid rise in the level of consumption, allied to the increase in average life-span caused by advances in medicine means that heart disease is fast becoming the number one cause of death in the west.

So rather than prescribing statins, and then other drugs to deal with the side-effects that they cause, we should all be concentrating on our diet and taking more exercise, prevention rather than cure. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies don’t want us to do that, they can’t make billions from healthy people.

As always, in our Utopian capitalist society, ‘they’ are trying to make money by keeping the general public unhealthy and ill-informed. If your doctor suggests that you start taking statins, politely decline and instead take a good look at your lifestyle to see how you can change it to prevent these problems long before you need a cure.

For more incentive to make that change, you might want to watch this informative video.

All Along The Prom, Tiddly Om Pom Pom

06 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

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

All Along The Prom, Tiddly Om Pom PomI love my new teaching role. I look forward to teaching my Saudi students and we get on famously.

But every silver lining has a cloud, and the cloud in this case is the fact that I can’t cycle to work and teach on the same day.

However, because Friday is the Muslim holy day, I don’t teach my boys on Fridays, and that leaves me free to ride to work … hoorah !!!

So just before 7:00, I was up and out on t’ bike and heading off towards Sandbanks and the promenade ride to Christchurch and thence to Ringwood. It’s a lovely ride, with lots of changes in environment en-route.

The ride through Poole Quay is always interesting. Fishing boats, RNLI lifeboats, any number of plastic gin palaces line the route, and there is always a distinct smell of the sea present too, though I have no idea why that should be more so at that point.

The cycle path around Whitecliff Park is often a challenge. Not because it is hilly, but because it it usually packed with joggers, walkers and dogs both on and off the lead. That isn’t the case at 7:00am however and I was soon nipping out of Turks Lane and onto Sandbanks Road through Lilliput.

Unless the weather is particularly wild, you never notice the wind direction when you drive. On a bike you are affected far more by the meteorological conditions, so by the time I came down the far side of Evening Hill, I was aware that my journey time was not going to be wind assisted.

You could count the number of people on the prom on the fingers of one hand, so progress was not going to be impaired dodging the pedestrians, but the flags were confirming my initial thoughts. It was going to be a long ride to Christchurch, 11.2km to be precise, into the teeth of a 30khp head wind, with no hope of respite at any point along the shore line.

Of course I am over-dramatising the situation, I had an hour and a half to complete the journey, and a little breeze wasn’t going to stop me getting to work. And it didn’t, but it did make the challenge that little bit more difficult.

Between Alum Chine and Bournemouth Pier, I rode with a chap on a vintage Bianchi road bike. As you might expect, we talked about our bikes, as all cyclists do, and discussed the conditions. We agreed that, as Sod’s law comes into play at times like this, the breeze would be coming from the West for the evening ride home. At the Pier, we bade each other farewell and he headed off towards Lansdowne, I continued on along the seafront.

The prom gets narrower as you approach Southbourne, and the wind seemed to be funnelled along the cliff face, making progress yet more challenging. So by the time I reached the up-ramp, just after a deserted Bistro On The Beach, I had had my fill of having my legs whipped by the wind blown sand.

In comparison, the journey through Christchurch, up Stony Lane, through Burton and Sopley, following the Hampshire Avon through Avon, and on to Ringwood was a breeze (no pun intended).

I arrived at work in plenty of time, though the journey had taken rather longer than usual. And you can bet your shirt on the fact that the wind direction will have changed by the time I set off for home.

Steering The Right Course

04 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , ,

Steering The Right CourseWith a friend about to start his holiday working as a member of a racing yacht crew I thought this was rather apt …

There are external influences that push and pull on the direction of our lives.

Our role as skipper is to deal with the challenges that those influences bring, whilst trying to maintain the direction in which we want our lives to go.

The similarity to sailing is most evident when you compare the way a yacht has to sail across the wind, in a direction as close to, but rarely directly towards, the desired goal. So there has to be a degree of compromise in order to make progress towards that goal.

Life is exactly the same. It is pretty rare to find, that the influences on our lives, push or pull us directly towards our goals. The old adage of ‘two steps forward and one step back’ is often very accurate. A little progress in the right direction is often followed by a period of consolidation, during which we may even find that we have slipped back a little.

It is good to remember that, as illustrated in The Buddha, Geoff and Me, resistance is not only inevitable, and a measure of our progress, but is essential for some processes to work at all.

It’ll Be All Wight On The Night

02 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

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

IOW Day Trip - Click for detailsFollowing further success and another personal best distance on Saturday, my cycling ambitions are ramping up in line with the increased confidence. So I started to plan a 200km day trip to The Isle of Wight.

Starting off in sunny Poole, the first leg of this odyssey will take me (or us, if I can find another victim) east along the coast to Lymington in order to take the ferry over to Yarmouth.

Although I have lived within spitting distance of the Isle, metaphorically, for well over four years, I have never set foot upon it, so I am looking forward to the experience. Although it is part of the UK, I hear that there is a time difference between the island and the mainland, some say as much as 50 years !!!

The cycling tour of the island is quite well documented, being an annual event around September, October time. Rather than bore you all witless with the itinery, here is a link to the map given out during the official event.

Now although I have been joshing with some of my cycling buddies on Facebook, this really is a personal quest. Whether I finish the challenge alone, or in a peloton of 100s, the satisfaction will be the same. As with all the challenges we face in life, whether self imposed or just part of living, conquering them brings about its own reward.

Now all I need is to recruit a willing volunteer to drive the support vehicle, whose sole task is follow at a respectful distance, picking up the bits of broken ego as the miles take their toll on my poor old body. A full report will follow.

One Step Closer

27 May 2014 Leave a comment

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

Stepping StonesLooking forward, not back, is a good way to get to where you are going.

Making progress, seeing that progress, and building upon it will take you from where you are today, to where you want to be tomorrow.

As Sensei says:

“It is not how you compare to others that is important, but rather how you compare to who you were yesterday. If you’ve advanced even one step, then you’ve achieved something great.”

How ever you measure that progress, and whether anyone else notices, or not, you are one step closer to where, or who, you want to be in the future.

Improved Visibility

21 May 2014 2 Comments

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

Improved VisibilityLiving on the coast, it can get very foggy at times, to the point where you can’t see your hand in front of your face.

The fog horn blares out all night, you can’t sleep, and your surroundings take on a surreal air.

That’s what life can be like at times. All the landmarks, the points of reference seem have gone and we can feel lost. The very things we took for granted have disappeared, maybe because we took them for granted.

So we try to get life back into perspective but have nothing to guide us, unless we are fortunate enough to have our Honzon, our anchor, our Practice. Using chanting to clear the mind, to allow us to see things the way they really are, instead of how we remembered or wished they were. Chanting, long and hard, will shine a new clarity on the situation.

Like a driver who has invested in a powerful set of fog lamps, we start to see things more clearly, we become better able to manage our life-state, and more able to navigate through the challenges that life continuously throws at us.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

Growing Your Determination

17 May 2014 Leave a comment

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

DeterminedDetermination grows out of adversity. To accomplish an easy or pleasant task does not require determination, it is the difficult or unpleasant task that most definitely does.

Dreams don’t come true on their own. Determination is required to achieve the things we set out to accomplish and to keep things going in the face of discouragement.

The essential purpose of Buddhism is to make people happy. True happiness is the result of consistent effort and constant growth as a human being.

Remind yourself every day, why you are pursuing your goal. Self doubt and negative thoughts are the making of your fundamental darkness. Confront your inner demons and tell them that you are going to overcome them. Take heart and strength from your Practice, chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo will raise your life-energy and help you focus on the task in hand. Remember, nobody ever felt satisfaction from giving up on their dreams.

And keep this in mind when times get tough …

When your determination increases, everything else begins to move in the direction you desire. The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fibre in your being immediately orient themselves toward your success.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

What Is It About Those Gherkins?

16 May 2014 Leave a comment

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

gherkinsWhen life is beginning to feel a bit like swimming in treacle, the only key to success is to draw on your own determination.

Sometimes things don’t go the way you wish and that can be for a number of reasons. But if you can remain calm, suppress your frustrations and stay focused, things will change.

Like taking the lid off a particularly tenacious jar of gherkins, it’s all about getting a proper grip on the problem, and once battle is joined, keeping the pressure on in a dogged manner.

Of course the struggle may go on for some time, but there can only be one outcome if you refuse to quit, and that is victory.

And don’t forget that wonderful feeling of success when the lid finally turns. That comes with all manner of problems, and is the reward for all your effort and determination.

But what is it with those gherkins? They always seem to present a challenge, don’t they?

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