“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.” Continue reading
The world is won by those who let it go…
Spirituality
Pointlessness of Regret
Once, on a mindfulness retreat, I remember our instructor asked us to do one of those odd exercises that are a specialty of meditation teachers. He got us to stand in a circle, then he asked us all to take a step forward. After a few seconds of silence he said, “Now try not to have taken that step.” I had never heard—or more importantly experienced—anything that struck me more powerfully with the pointlessness of certain regrets. Continue reading
“To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday
Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals. Continue reading
We can be masters only of those things that we can give
Have you ever thought that we are only the master of what we can give ? This seems paradoxical. Continue reading
Maintaining a Sense of Dignity
Value of Individuals
“But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. Continue reading three fairy tales that become core scripts …
If we examine the stories we tell as adults, we almost always find that they’re variations on ancient themes that have been represented throughout the ages in fables and fairy tales.
How to Still The Mind
“If you try and still the mind,
it will be the mind
trying to still the mind.
Rather become aware
of the mind.
Become aware
of the flow of thoughts. Continue reading
Surrender – Stop Wanting It
That’s it. Want nothing. Choose what shows up instead.
This is the very essence of zen. It is what is meant by the “surrendered state“. Do this, and persist in it long enough, and you will find some incredible things unfolding in your reality, very likely including those that you formerly really, really wanted. The irony? It won’t matter, because you don’t want them anymore! You’ll surely enjoy them while they last, but the terrible need you had for them to give you fulfilment is gone, and you could honestly care less if they showed up or not.
Can you think of a more pure definition of freedom?
Quote by Sonia Ricotti via Google Images.
Continue reading
Sharpening the Saw
The lumberjack story has been made popular by a reference to it in Stephen Covey’s best Selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People due to all of the metaphorical messages about life contained within it.
The Lumberjack story.
It was the final of the annual lumberjack competition, only 2 competitors remained, an older experienced lumberjack and a younger, stronger lumberjack.
The rules of the competition were quite simply he who could fell the most trees in 24 hours was the overall winner.
The younger lumberjack was full of enthusiasm and went off into the wood and set to work straight away, he worked all through the day and all through the night, he felt more and more confident with every tree he felled that he would win, because he knew that he had superior youth and stamina than the older lumberjack that he could also hear working away in another part of the forest.
At regular intervals throughout the day the noise of trees being felled coming from the other part of the forest would stop, the younger lumberjack took heart from this thinking that this meant that the older lumberjack was taking a rest, whereas he could use his superior youth and strength and stamina to just keep going.
At the end of the competition the younger lumberjack felt confident he had won, he looked in front of him at the piles of felled trees that were the result of his superhuman effort.
At the medal ceremony the younger lumberjack stood on the podium still confident and expecting to be awarded the prize of champion lumberjack, next to him stood the older lumberjack who he was surprised to see also looked a lot less exhausted than he did.
When the results were read out the younger lumberjack was devastated to hear that the older lumberjack had chopped down significantly more trees than he had, he turned to the older lumber jack and said,
“How can this be”?
“I heard you take a rest every hour whilst I worked continuously through the night”,
“and I am younger, stronger and fitter than you old man”!
The older lumberjack turned to him and said;
“Every hour I took a break to rest and sharpen my saw”
– Stephen R. Covey
ONE TUSK 