Donkey's wisdom

Once there was a donkey.

It served its master with  loyalty and dedication. Like many masters, he did not appreciate the services of his donkey.

Donkey grew old and its master got more and more contemptuous of his donkey.

One day the donkey fell into an empty well.

Luckily it was not hurt but it could not come out. There was no way at all.

So, it started howling  the way donkeys do - very distinct.

That bothered its master who was enjoying his siesta.

He came to the well and took a look.

It was a useless well. No water there. He was planning on filling it up and use the created space to grow something. He had not had time to do it.

Now he became motivated. He could get rid of the wailing useless old donkey and also fill up the well. At least he thought he could.

So, he rounded up his family, friends and started to dump  dirt, mud, gravel into the well.

Donkey got scared. It became obvious that its master was not interested in rescuing it but he was going to bury it alive.

As the mud and dirt poured down and fell over the donkey, it shook up its body, got the dirt off its back, stomped on it.

It continued the process with every load of dirt that was dumped on it. Shake, shake, thump, thump, thump and repeat.

What was the outcome?

With every load of dirt, the donkey moved up - may be a couple of inches at a time. Slowly but steadily.

It's stupid master and his clan was so busy in getting the dirt and filling up the well that they failed to notice the smartness and initiative of the donkey.

After doing this smart thing over a long time, the donkey was just a couple of feet from the top. It was very tired but it pumped up its any remaining energy into its legs and gave one strong leap and with that it was out of the well.

Before leaving its cruel master for good, it dashed to him, bit him the ass and ran away. Hopefully to a better place.

Moral of the story. There are two morals actually.

Life will dump dirt on you without fail. That's the nature of life. With every boatload of dirt that is dumped on us, we all can shake it, stomp on it and raise ourselves up. This kind of raising ourselves up makes us feel good about ourselves.

Practical example  - somebody is rude to you? Go extra mile and be specifically nice to him or her. Somebody slandered you? Do not dignify such thing with your rebuttal. If it is not true, it is not going to become any more truer with your explanation. Just shake it up, use that dirt to move up.

Other moral - if you try to cover your ass, it comes back to bite you later. :)

Cheers!

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Effective Cleaning

So, suppose that you got to clean a room. Vacuum it, dust it, mop it and what not.

You also have all the needed equipments - vacuum cleaners  (best quality), mops etc.

What do you think is the most effective way to complete the task?

How about if you empty the room first? Say, remove furniture, pictures etc.

Does it not become easier once you have enough working space? You can move the vacuum cleaner with ease, reach all corners, dust off easily. Overall, it seem to become easier.

I think most of us clean our places like this. We move the  stuff temporarily to other rooms, clean one room and then bring it all back.

Makes sense?

How about cleaning the mind?

Like the powerful vacuum cleaner, we have the most powerful tool - that is MEDITATION.

But, our mind is cluttered. So much junk is accumulated that there is hardly any working space at all. To make things worse, we can not easily chuck out the junk from our minds the way we can possibly move stuff out of our rooms when we need to clean.

So, we have a challenge.

We have a heavily cluttered mind full of junk - thoughts, feelings, opinions, prejudices etc. We have the equipment to clean but need to make some space.

Fortunately, meditation is more versatile than any vacuum cleaner. It really does not demand much space at all. Just a little space to enter into our mind and start cleaning. All meditation asks is to give our best for at least a few minutes a day. Say 30 minutes of dedication.

But, there is one thing to keep in mind. As said before, we can not easily chuck out junk from our minds. Our tool - meditation- is versatile that it not only cleans up the mind but also destroys all that junk slowly but surely. So, we do not have to worry about it any more. Takes several years to clean up the junk accumulated over our lifetime. Slowly but surely.

In the mean time, can we do ourselves a favor? That is to limit the new junk that we bring in. If the rate at which  junk enters exceeds the rate at which our trusted tool - meditation - is working, it is not going to make much difference.

When we are practicing spiritual disciplines with all the sincerity, we need to do everything to limit external inputs especially tantalizing, sensationalizing inputs. We all take in a lot of external stimuli - news, movies, radio etc. Start reducing the amount of sensory inputs you take and see how better you start feeling.

Even if you want to take  in sensory inputs, do it with discrimination and purpose. Let the radio not blare music or news unless you are able to pay full attention to listen to it. Same thing with news, movies etc.

As you reduce new mental clutter, meditation continues to slog relentlessly at cleaning up your old clutter. Accumulated over not just few years but few life times. So, its a process of slow but steady transformation.

It does not take years, even months to start seeing the differences. After limiting the amount of TV you watch, amount of time you spend on the Internet or talking to friends and family or doing other mental-clutter-generating activities and steadily practicing meditation and allied disciplines, you will start seeing the calmness and purpose in everything you do very soon.

Cheers!

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Blind spots

Know about blind spots?

Yes, same blind spots that we encounter while driving.

If we don't look over our shoulders while changing lanes, it's possible that we will miss a car or bike which is in our blind spot.

Have you been impacted by one?

Simple technique is to look over in addition to relying on mirrors before changing lanes.

You can also get those tiny mirrors which you glue to one corner of your side mirrors to get better view of the blind spots.

But, nothing is safer than really turning your head to make absolutely sure.

Sometimes motorbikes miss all that and accidents can be fatal.

Anyway, why all this? Coming to the point now.

Do you think we have blind spots in our personalities as well?

Do you think you know everything about yourself?

I doubt. I believe we all know about ourselves the way we would like to know about ourselves.

Some people know themselves much more accurately than others.

Like everything else we see the life (which includes us) the way we would like to see and NOT really the way it is.

So, we have blind spots in our personalities too.

God took care of that.

He continues to give us equivalent of those tiny mirrors that help us see blind spots clearly.

What are they?

So called DIFFICULT people in our lives.

They are there to help us see our own blind spots.

I recently finished reading an excellent book - Path to the soul by Dr. Ashok Bedi.

Got this insight from that book.

When I thought about this and looked back, it made perfect sense.

Difficult people come into our lives to show us what we need to change. Sometimes they create such situations that things become so painful that we have no other way than changing ourselves or situations. That's exactly God's plan.

Since we do not seem to understand God's plan in any easy way, He has to make it little hard for in our lives and make us suffer a bit. He uses so-called-difficult people to help us uncover our own blind spots.

So, let's look at so-called-difficult-people as helpers rather than people to avoid. Of course we can avoid them. But, if we do not see what's in the blind spot, it will only get worse.

Many times I have seen those so-called-difficult-people vanish as soon as we recognize our blind spots and take care of the situation. That's what they were meant to accomplish. Their job is over.

Either you stop seeing them as difficult people or you change the situation such a way that point of they being there does not arise at all. Example - If you change jobs to avoid toxic work place, then you changed the situation.

In any case, it made absolute sense to me.

Dr. Bedi advises us look at such people as our own reflection with some things that we are not able to see ourselves. Like our back which we can not see ourselves.

Learn what those people are trying to teach. Make necessary changes and move on. After that they won't be there or they won't bother you.

Can you put up with difficult people and endure the pain?

I think it depends how smart you are and how much is your pain tolerance.

I see that sometimes it has to become so much painful for people to change. That's how we humans are. We do not look at pain and pleasure the same way. People won Nobel prize applying this principle and started a new field called behavioral finance. People rather do everything to avoid pain but are not willing exert even 10% of that effort to go after what is good for them.

As GK Chesterton said - God's divine hammer has to fall on us and cause some discomfort before we change.

Excellent book by Dr. Bedi. Rare book that combines wisdom of eastern spirituality with modern psychiatry.

Cheers!

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Ajahn Brahm

Recently read a refreshing book by a buddhist monk - Ajahn Brahm.

He is originally from Britain. He trained as a theoretical physicist. Then the calling came and he went to become a buddhist monk.

He is a full-time monk who belongs to very demanding Teravada tradition of Buddhism.

He trained in the forest monasteries of Thailand under Ajahn Chan - revered master.

His book is titled - Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties.

This is a fantastic book.

Full of witty small stories and essays.

You will be laughing or smiling all the time while you are reading this book.

That's when the master Ajahn Brahm keeps throwing in the pills of wisdom into you.

Very refreshing.

Many of his discourses are available on youtube.

They are really very interesting. Watch them when you get time.

I am looking forward to read his other books and watch other videos.

Cheers!

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Disappointed?

Disappointed with somebody?

Read on.

A young man had just married a beautiful girl.

His father-in-law asked him why he married his daughter.

As usual, the young man went on and on......she is so cool. She is so beautiful. I can never find anyone better than her. Usual hype of heady first days of romance.

Experienced and wise father-in-law said - you know young man, after a couple of years, you will start finding flaws in her. Just remember that those flaws are there today too. You are not just able to see them. Always keep in mind that if not for those flaws she would have married someone so much better than you.

That's it.

This is not only true in marital but all sort of relationships.

Your family disappointed you? Yes. Sure, they have flaws. If they did not, they would have had better kids than you.

Your boss pissed you off. Sure. If not, he would have hired a better candidate than you.

Your subordinate under performed. Sure. If not for his flaws, he would have joined a better place at better salary.

It's all in the expectations.

Have no expectations and everything will be just fine.

Easy to preach. Hard to practice. Yes, you bet!

Cheers!

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