Here and now

This simple equation that was alluded to in an earlier post points to the importance of discipline in achieving happiness. Very simply, the amount of happiness and fulfilment we experience is directly proportional to the amount of discipline we expend and the period over which we expend that discipline. As Buddha said, “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind.”

Unfortunately, we usually have negative associations with discipline. Obedience and punishment are usually associated with discipline in early life. However self-discipline which is really what we are talking about here is self-enforced and allows one to move towards ones goals and be happier. Mystics and spiritual adepts have demonstrated incredible levels of discipline which automatically emerges from a strong commitment to be aligned with the highest goals.

Discipline could manifest in several ways - practicing a musical instrument, refining a technique for drawing, exercising, relaxing, writing, reading, taking a course, doing homework, etc. In the context of spirituality, discipline may manifest as meditation, attending uplifting talks, cultivating awareness, yoga, or service.

During a typical day, one is constantly drawn in many directions. Oftentimes, we are distracted, and stressed. A quick outlet in the form of indulgence in a magazine, coffee, chocolate or excessive talk or even listening to music or watching television results. The day becomes a few bursts of activity interspersed with the indulgent actions. No time or inclination to do anything that even sounds like it would require discipline. However, we also find that we are oddly unfulfilled and feeling somewhat empty and even unhappy with such a day.

Instead if we inject discipline a few times a day (even a few minutes at a time), this can change the quality of the day considerably. A 20 minute meditation in the morning, perhaps listening to some motivational or inspirational audio while driving to work, watching the breath during gaps in work, some exercise in the evening and ending the day with listening to a talk or fine music can dramatically change the level of happiness, contentment and fulfilment that one feels. This feeling is apparent right away, but even more importantly, it builds up over time. If you meditate on a given day, the next day is clearer and more relaxed and crisp. The same can be said of other spiritual disciplines.

Over time, we experience happiness in various ways. It starts with a feeling of relaxed alertness and calmness, then leads to satisfaction and fulfilment which leads to a feeling of joy and lightness and love.

I first heard these from Shinzen Young, a Buddhist meditation teacher. Shinzen tends to be very precise in his language and these equations are worth pondering about since they condense a lot of information.

For a lot of people, the noble truths make more sense in the light of these two statements.

Suffering = Pain x Resistance
Frustration = Pleasure x Grasping

In other words, pain does not necessarily imply suffering. It is the resistance that gives rise to suffering. Similarly, pleasure causes frustration when one tries to grasp it.

On the other side of things, we have the keys to satisfaction and empowerment.

Empowerment = Pain x Equanimity
Satisfaction = Pleasure x Equanimity

If we stay equanimous through painful experiences, we are empowered. Staying equanimous through pleasurable experiences results in a feeling of satisfaction.

Conclusion: Resistance or grasping is to be avoided, equanimity to be cultivated.

While we are at it, I would like to add two more:

Happiness = Time x Discipline
Space = Happiness

I will elaborate on both these in a future post. These may not be immediately obvious, especially the second one. Stay tuned…

You can access Shinzen’s full article in PDF format here. He calls these statements the Fundamental Theorem of Human Happiness.

The recent movie titled The Secret has become enormously popular and does a great job of driving home two points:

1. You are fully responsible for your current situation (don’t pretend to be a victim)
2. You have the ability to impact your future and attract anything you like

Just by itself, this is hugely empowering. It asks us to take responsibility. And holds out hope for everyone that they can draw whatever they fancy regardless of current circumstances. No wonder it has found tremendous success in a short amount of time.

The ability to impact the future is very attractive. This message is a little watered down in The Secret because of excessive emphasis on attracting comforts (car, house, vacation), health, and relationships.

There are several important elements that are not emphasized adequately:

• Understanding that a LOT of energy and force is emanating at an unconscious level. Without understanding what lurks underneath, you can easily be superficially wishing for stuff but this will have no material impact on the future.

• Taking action is important, just thinking and visualizing won’t get you there. Thinking certain thoughts by itself is not enough to shape the future (but is a start).
• Tuning in is as important as broadcasting your vibrations.
• Full acceptance of everything as it is is required before you can truly vibrate at a higher frequency. Merely tolerance of the current (undesirable) situation is not good enough. Complete non-resistance and acceptance of current situation is required and this suggests detachment and purity. Purity amplifies your request. Oddly if you can do this, you probably don’t have strong desires for grosser/material things that you wish to draw to yourself. Or at least every iteration of desiring+fulfilment will result in a more refined desires and more complete acceptance of undesirable elements that have been drawn from past vibrations.

The path to liberation is like a journey to the sun. How? Read on…

The gravitational pull of earth keeps us bound close to the surface of earth. This is like believing the physical state as the only reality. Freeing ourselves from this powerful force is non-trivial. Most of us don’t even think about it.

However, we do know of a few people of have escaped from the gravitational force and ventured into space. This is like lifting the state of consciousness high enough that one of free from a limited view of reality and can view the physical reality much as an astronaut might view earth from a distance.

A satellite escapes from earth’s gravitational pull when its velocity exceeds what’s called escape velocity. This is a critical velocity that is required to achieve a transcendent state. From a spiritual practice perspective, enough momentum needs to be gathered in the form of depth and clarity of meditative stillness that one achieves this escape velocity.

As one moves farther and farther, the gravitational pull of earth is less and less prevalent. It is easier to move away from it. A spaceship needs less fuel to traverse each mile as it moves farther from earth.

The closer one gets to the Sun, the more dominant its gravity is. As the yogi advances, the force of enlightenment actually is able to assist more and growth can be rapid, several orders of magnitude compared to what one might experience on the earthly plane. At a specific point, the gravity of earth and sun cancel each other exactly and after that point, the force of the sun totally dominates the trajectory of the spaceship. After this point, the aspirant reached a point where libearation is imminent. One is in ones last few lifetimes.

The temperature also gets very high quickly as one gets closer to the Sun. This rapidly burns off any physical and gross clingings that are still around. The closer one gets, the less there is left of the original entity that started the journey. In fact towards the end, there is almost nothing left. The individual ego self and its associated karma are completely burned in the fiery journey.

The brightness of the sun is comparable to the pure energy that constitutes the essence of that consciousness that we merge into.

Phew!

Television as a technology has become truly ubiquitous. I recently stayed at a hotel in San Francisco and noticed there was a small screen television mounted next to the mirror over the washbasin so I could watch television even while I was brushing teeth or shaving! Kicking back and watching television at the end of the day sounds relaxing, and most of us don’t even question it.But watching television has tremendous negative effects that become apparent on inspection.
The effect of television on the quality of life is unbelievable. It is an insidious monster lurking and sapping inner vitality. It is not so much simply the time spent watching television but the effect of that on ones consciousness.

Here is what I have observed as negative side-effects and after-effects of watching television:

• Eye strain
• Buildup of body tension (neck and eye muscles in particular)
• Depression and feeling of lack of energy
• Disinterest in doing anything creative
• Lack of enthusiasm for life
• Feeling of being defeated
• Feeling of emptiness and wanting to eat/drink/smoke
• Lack of interest in doing any exercise
• Irritability
• Impatience
• Quick temper on small things
• Feeling of contraction and tendency to judge and condemn quickly
• Apathy towards world events and feeling of isolation
• Worldview that there is a lot of evil out there
• Reduced empathy towards other people

Here is what Eckhart Tolle says about television in his book New Earth:

“The average American, by the time he is sixty years old, will have spent fifteen years staring at the TV screen. … While it provides some relief from your mind, you again pay a high price: loss of consciousness.”

Steve Pavlina talks about giving up TV. Instead of giving up television altogether, he has a clever suggestion. Give up TV for 30 days, and see how it feels.

Personally, I have found the effects of not watching television to be positive in every area of life. Are you ready to let go of this addiction?

For most people, life is a mixed bag. The longer one lives, the clearer it gets that there are inevitably events and conditions that conspire in a unique way for each one of us to result in an overall condition that seems unsatisfactory. The Buddha noted this in the first noble truth.

However the amount of suffering that is generated is dependent on how identified one is with oneself as a separate body/mind entity. This suffering manifests as resistance to a condition. A shift in perspective can loosen this identification and the suffering correspondingly drops. The shift in perspective happens when one reaches the realization that “life is a dream”. External conditions are an illusion that appear to be real, when in fact they are only relatively real.

To quote the Diamond Sutra,

So I tell you - Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

One wakes up to the fact that life is a dream at the end of life as one transitions to post-death states. However waking up when one is alive is really the purpose of life. In a sense, if you can experience life as a “lucid dream” wherein you wake up during the dream process, then you no longer are trapped by the dream. In fact, a natural playfuless emerges and you find you can do anything and are not a victim to arbitrary circumstances that are unchangeable.

The Hundredth Monkey effect refers to the observation that when a critical mass of people subscribe to a certain behavior, that particular behavior or belief is instantaneously transferred from one group to another. In other words, there seems to be an automatic acceptance and adoption of the new behavior by new sets of people. Recent books like The Tipping Point examine similar types of phenomena in our modern world. There are examples of how change happens in areas from healthcare to economics to marketing.

Examining the potential application of this effect to human consciousness is fascinating. Tolle in his recent book The New Earth talks about human evolution reaching a point where we seem to be at the crossroads of choosing higher levels of consciousness versus staying stuck in identification with ourselves as separate selves. Many thought leaders have observed that there seem to be unprecedented and rising interest in expanded states of consciousness. It is no longer a small new-age group of people into this stuff. It is becoming more mainstream with every passing day. Books, movies, TV shows increasingly touch on altered states of consciousness.

What is the critical mass of people needed to significantly alter the level of consciousness of the entire planet? David Hawkins (author of Power vs Force) states in an interview “We clearly see that the evolution of consciousness on the planet is now speeding up. It was flat for practically billions of years then suddenly began to rise. Now it’s rising at a very rapid rate. Because? The collective intention of mankind. We’ve crossed over 200 collectively and now we’re really moving from force into power.” The 200 he refers to is his calibration of levels of consciousness where 200 is a critical number above which positive energies dominate.

Some surmise that if 1% of the human population raises its level of consciousness, even temporarily, through meditation or chanting or simply intending while in a relaxed state, it will impact the entire population in a measurable way.

The idea that we are all interconnected is of course core to Buddhism. The model of Indra’s Net depicts how every element of creation is inextricably linked and reflects every other element. It is hardly a surprise that we as individuals can have a huge impact on the overall level of consciousness. In fact, the higher and purer our level, the bigger the impact. It is said that yogis in remote regions of the Himalayas have positively affected humanity for several centuries. Intriguing!

This is a blog dedicated to providing you perspectives on personal growth, evolution of consciousness,  and Buddhism with a goal of broadening your horizons from a practical perspective. We don’t expect to delve into arcane theoretical aspects, but instead provide pointers that will help in real life. Stay tuned!