Tag: presentmoment

Meditation – Expectations

I have written a number of posts on meditation including Meditation Experiences Uno, Meditation Experiences Dos, Meditation Experiences Tres, and Meditation Experiences Cuatro. All of these were my personal experiences of meditation and to some degree outlining the benefits that you might be able to experience yourself. Of course your experience during meditation and afterwards may vary. One of the things that happens when you start meditating on a regular basis is that you may begin to develop expectations. These expectations of a special experience or some sudden break through, maybe even enlightenment may cause you to view your practice as a tool or some means to and end.

In the tradition of Zen Buddhism having some grand expectation for each meditation session is frowned upon. You should just sit in Zazen, expecting nothing, with your focus on being present. In a world that is dominated by activity, doing things, getting shit done; this might be very difficult for us. We typically spend most of our time thinking about what we are going to do in the future, that we often cannot make ourselves present in the now. If everything you do in your life must be in support of some goal or to satisfy some desire, meditating will seem foreign and you will struggle to be present even for a few moments, though you sat for 20 minutes. You may even feel that why should I devote 10 or 20 minutes just sitting, when I could be doing something productive. What the hell have we become?

There is a quote from Gary John Bishop that anyone that meditates should take to heart. While the book Mr. Bishop wrote Unfu*k Yourself isn’t about meditation, it will make you think about how you are fucking up your life with thoughts of the past and future.

Let me wrap this up. If you really want to change the way you think about this world, you will need to drop all these expectations and stop living in the future or even worse in the past. A consistent meditation practice will help you live in the present and change some these preconceived notions you have established over your lifetime. In a sense there is a war to be waged. There is the real you, a person with inherent Buddha nature and there is you that has been constructed over a lifetime. Choose the present moment without expectations or continue living imprisoned in the future, it’s all your choice.

Namaste

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You live in the future

I think this quote is self-evident and I don’t want to elaborate endlessly on its meaning. You and I and every other homo sapien spend their time thinking about what I need to do next. It wouldn’t take too much convincing to say we all live in the future.

Here is the thing, living in the future burdened by a to-do list a mile long and an endless striving for one or more goals, leaves us forever unsatisfied. We have checked out of the present moment, trading it for the next achievement. We all live in this materialistic, goal-oriented, society that says you are never enough, and you need to work on yourself. Being unsatisfied with who we are has spawned the self-improvement industry where millions of dollars are spent by us in the hope that we can change ourselves to become a better version of ourselves.

My response to all this self-improvement bullshit is as follows:

  • You are not broken – You are a human being with unique talents and skills. Don’t let other people tell you that there is something wrong with you.
  • You don’t need to work on your weaknesses – I really hate that shit when people spend so much of their time focusing on their weaknesses. It’s such a fucked up approach to your life. I mean you will never overcome all your weaknesses, instead, we should focus on our strengths. Do you know why they want you to focus on your weaknesses? To sell you more shit and this focus on what I’m not good at leaves you feeling inadequate.
  • There is no future – I’m not saying don’t have any plans but stop sacrificing today for tomorrow. I know this goes against all the goal-setting maniacs that are always advocating that you achieve more, acquire more, be more. Do you really want to miss out on time with your friends or family so you can drive a BMW or live in a million-dollar home?

Enjoy what you are doing right now, focus on what you want to do, and stop looking to someone else to give you the answer to living a life of your dreams. If you can begin to love yourself just the way you are, things start looking better, and you begin to actually make more progress in your life because you are not thinking about how fucked up you are. You must begin to start shifting from thinking about the future to being totally engrossed in the present.

Say this to yourself every day:

I’m not broken

I love myself

I have something to give to this world

I am focused on the now

 

Namaste


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Grateful for the life you have

So you think your life is so miserable and unexciting. You are constantly bombarded by information that emplores you to want more, so you seek satisfaction in acquiring more things, more money, more appreciation, something that you don’t have. All the while you compare yourself to others that you view as more successful, better looking, happier, wealthier, or whatever. Stop doing that shit!

If your mindset is all about striving for more or comparing yourself to others you will never be happy. If it is comparisons you want then think about the millions, well billions of people that would trade places with you if they could. Then what the hell is wrong with me? Well, let me tell you. You are fricking ungrateful for what you have and are seeking fulfillment in the future, usually by seeking more of something. You are being duped by this ungrateful, never satisfied, paradigm. If you continue down this path there will only be more of the same, achieve this, acquire that, and a continuous saga of pursuit.

Pop your head outside of your ego for a few minutes, look around you. Do you see the beauty in this world? All this shit you have didn’t exist 50 years ago, that cell phone that you stare at, or that flat-screen TV, the internet, shit even air conditioning. We are so unappreciative of all this stuff, we just take it for granted. Instead of appreciating what you have, you spend your time wanting more. Do you really need a BMW or Mercedes? Will it get you to point “A” better than your Honda?

You have become a materialistic junky, addicted to shit you don’t have, spending all your energy working for more stuff. It should come as no surprise by now that you live your life looking towards the future, missing out on the present moment and you lack even a small amount of gratitude for what you have. If what I have written here so far even marginally rings true for you, then you are in a pretty serious need of a reset in the way you think.

Let’s turn this shit around and instead of making what you want paramount in your mind and behavior, start with gratitude. There are many ways to shift from I want more stuff, to I appreciate all that I have. The two most effective ways that I have found to be more grateful include:

  • Be Present – When you shift your thinking from looking to the future for happiness, you start appreciating each moment. Sounds pretty simple, but it’s not that easy to do when you have spent the majority of your life looking ahead for satisfaction. The present moment is the foundation for being grateful. For me and my monkey mind, I need to practice yoga, meditation and take long walks to help me quiet the mind and live in the present.
  • Grateful Practice – Being the stupid egotistical morons that we are, we need to frequently remind ourselves to be grateful. I have a journal that I write down 3 to 5 things I am grateful for. I do this in the morning shortly after getting up so that I start my day with a feeling of being grateful. I find that actually writing it versus putting in an app on my phone, seems to make it more effective. This daily repetition is the beginning of a habit where you remind yourself of all the things you are grateful for which then chips away at the ego.

If you still need to compare yourself to others, then think about the billions of people that would trade places with you, and happily assume the life you have.

Namaste


This post was proofread by Grammarly.

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Always Seeking

Random Thoughts / Poetry

Always Seeking

We are always seeking to improve ourselves

We think if I master this or that I will be content

We pursue a litany of goals only to achieve them and still feel unsatisfied

We think once I have this or that I will be happy

We wish our life away

We are never happy as our goals and desires are a moving target

We never live in the present moment

Namaste

 

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Back to the present

Random Thoughts / Poetry

Back to the present

No matter how far I stray I always come back

Back to centered, back to the present

Back to peace, back to gratitude

What makes me leave this place of serenity?

Ego, greed, and non-acceptance

Namaste

 

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An opportunity to grow

After working much of the weekend, which is a bit abnormal for me it occurred to me that I was not resentful over spending so much of my time on the job that currently pays the bills. I won’t bore you with the details, but some of the work was not even remotely interesting, but it got done anyway. I was thinking about it this morning and such a simple concept came into my mind. Is it possible that you either view all the things you need do as an obligation (negative), or as an opportunity (positive) to grow and improve?

Most of us view the things we need to do as obligations, which means there is a somewhat negative connotation in play here. Obligations weigh on our mind, cause stress, and a feeling of dread. Looking at the things you need to do in this world as obligations provide no joy, no focus, and little sense of accomplishment. You just feel like a hamster on a wheel, living a life where you dread each day as the process repeats itself again and again.

What if instead, I looked at those things I need to do as an opportunity to grow. What would my day look like then, maybe the consequences of this viewpoint would provide:

  • Growth in terms of knowledge acquired, working towards mastery.
  • If I view what I am doing as an opportunity I am more likely to stay focused in the present moment and to experience flow.
  • I am sure to be more productive since I am getting things done because I want to do them, instead of feeling obligated.
  • I will have jumped off the fucking hamster wheel, left the stupid matrix, and I will begin to find meaning and satisfaction in what I do.

Oh, I forgot to mention you might even feel a strange feeling that was buried long ago, something called happiness!

Maybe I had a flash of Satori or it could have just been the three cups of coffee. Satori is a Japanese Zen Buddhist word used to describe a temporary experience of awakening or oneness that seems to come spontaneously from within.

Seriously, if you start viewing your work as a series of opportunities for growth, you begin to live in the present and that is where the magic begins to happen.

Namaste

 

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Embrace acceptance

We wake up every day, and most of us start out the day with some expectations. We might think this will be an easy day, I have time for some of my hobbies, and 10 minutes later you log in at work and fuck the world is coming to an end and you are asked to address a whole bunch of shit that you had not expected. You become upset, not so much that all this shit was thrust upon your plate, but because you expected a different kind of day. You had a plan or expectation for your day, and it got thrown out the window.

Welcome to reality! Not the stupid planned reality created by your expectations, but the kick you in the ass reality called life. Ouch! As I have observed the most painful periods in my life, they are painful because I expected one thing and life said so what and providing something else. Of course, now I’m pissed off because things didn’t go the way I expected, and not only am I angry, I become negative as hell and start acting like an asshole.

Consider that expectations are either in the present or in the future. I think planning is a good thing, but having an expectation that I will execute all the tasks or adhere to a timeline called out in the plan is where the problems begin. The world and other people don’t care about your plan, so accept you have much less control over what will transpire each day than you might think. Go in with a plan and adapt as needed without all your expectations weighing you down. Well, you might say well shouldn’t I expect good things to happen for me today? My advice is that it would be nice, but if you do and things turn out differently you end up crushed because life didn’t meet your expectations.

All you can do is stay present, drop the stupid expectations, and start accepting what life throws at you. I’m not going to take on the Law of Attraction movement, which I have written about before and have some belief in, but much of it is predicated on you believing (expecting) something to come into being in your life and that will cause the Universe to make it happen. Life, on the other hand, will provide plenty of chaos and contrary results that provide disappointment after disappointment if you keep expecting a certain outcome. Choose to dream, have a vision, and be positive, but stay away from expecting too much on a daily basis.

I am going to try and accept what happens to me today, without expectations.

Namaste

 

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Taking life to seriously

I sat around this morning drinking coffee, and playing my To-Do list in my head over and over like I typically do wondering if I would ever get it all done on time and how all these future events would transpire. Does any of this sound familiar? Anyone with a modicum of drive and determination falls victim to this kind of routine, and quite frankly it sucks. Here’s the thing we all take life too seriously and we suffer because of that. Sometimes I have to remind myself that a year from now I probably won’t remember all the shit I worried about today, and ironically no one else will either.

The Stoics especially Marcus Aurelius often thought about just how insignificant we are in the scheme of things. I can assure you that no matter how successful you are at work, once you move on and within a couple years or less you will be just a distant memory to those who remain. The company or organization you work for will march on without you because that’s what they do. So lesson one is stop taking your work or yourself so seriously, really in the scheme of things, it’s not that important. I know this is hard to hear because you put so much of yourself into your work, you have tied your identity to what you do, not who you are.

I can hear you now and I can hear myself saying, well that’s great, but I have a lot of shit to do, and if I want to keep earning a living I need to get it done. Most of us can’t just jump off the hamster wheel and join a Buddhist monastery, we need to provide for our families and all that other stuff. When I talk to myself and yes I talk to myself, I try to simplify and tell myself it will all get done, but only if you focus on one thing at a time and stay present. Being present not only makes you more productive so you can eradicate that to-do list, but it also reduces your anxiety as you are not focusing on the future.

Another benefit of focusing on the present moment is that you begin to find joy in what you are doing. Here’s my advice, fuck the productivity benefits, screw the fact that you are getting more done for others; focus on the present for yourself so you can gain some enjoyment from what you are doing.

Namaste

 

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Now is the time

Maybe you have heard about the Power of Now, a book written by Eckhart Tolle. It is a good book to read if you are trying to figure out what is really most important in your life. If you would like to know more about this book The Power of Now check out my book review: https://inspirationalbookreviews.com/2018/11/22/the-power-of-now

We live in a world of illusions created by the stories we are told, starting as little children and then throughout our life. It is up to you to determine what is real and what is just a story you are being told to advance society’s agenda. There is no simple answer to seeking the truth other than your rational mind and focusing on the present moment. We use our rational mind to question a story and then analyze what is true and what is false. We use the present moment to clear away the unconscious bias and allow us to focus so as to not let thoughts of the past or future distort our thinking.

You cannot keep repeating the same stupid behavior that has got you where you are today and expect your life to change for the better. We all fall into patterns where we repeat the same mistakes over and over, which ends up leading us no closer today to our goals than we were yesterday. The second illusion that we tell ourselves is that we have time to pursue our goals or dreams in the future. Honestly, we know better, but we put off taking action so as not to upset other people or sometimes just out of laziness.

When I say wake up! I mean do it now, while you still can. None of us are guaranteed that there will be a tomorrow, and wishing doesn’t make it so. You need to make a choice today. Am I going to take steps towards following my dreams, or am I going to keep doing the stupid shit I always do?

Your choice my friend!

Namaste

 

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The passage of time

You can’t make more time, and in fact you don’t even know how much time you have other than the present moment. All you can do or any of can do is make the most of the time we have right now. We are forever putting shit off for tomorrow, with a myriad of excuses. I’m too tired or I need to finish that stupid Tiger King series on Netflix. While the concept of time is finite for all of us, we still can’t seem to grasp the value, or we grasp the value so much that we think we must accomplish a massive to do list everyday of our life, leaving us just exhausted by the end of the day. When we invest our precious time in trivial pursuits that exist on our to do list we are in effect wasting time.

You say sure Mr. Joseph, but I have bills to pay, children to feed, and a fucking to do list that just scares the shit out of me, as I then spend my precious time wondering how I will get all this shit done. Well you won’t and you shouldn’t. As I’m writing this I have noticed for weeks that my side and back yard looks like a jungle, weeds everywhere, but that tropical jungle is way down the list of things that are important or that I like to do. You must abandon the idea that you can get all this shit done by yourself. If you are like me this is a very difficult proposition, as I am very independent and normally don’t want help from anyone, and on top of that I am cheap as hell.

Yes, I am an idiot!

You probably have three or four things you must do today, but make sure a couple of those things are also things you like to do. Prioritize those 3 or 4 things, which may allow some time for emergencies, and when you finish those things look at what is left on that pile of to do’s and pick away at it. Remember those three or four things are the things that both give you enjoyment and also move your life forward. Stop obsessing about the whole list, and if you have something like a jungle to contend with in your yard, consider letting it grow, or find someone else to deal with it.

Namaste

 

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