Here is a video of Aung San Suu Kyi being interviewed on TV. Towards the end of the interview, having been pressed for an answer to how she dealt with leaving her children, she explains that she is Buddhist and makes the point several times about being responsible for ones actions and not to wallow in regrets which get one nowhere. Quite so.
Thanks to Angie for the link to this interview. Much appreciated.
Behind all of the most popular modern approaches to happiness and success is the simple philosophy of focusing on things going right. But ever since the first philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, a dissenting perspective has proposed the opposite: that it’s our relentless effort to feel happy, or to achieve certain goals, that is precisely what makes us miserable and sabotages our plans. And that it is our constant quest to eliminate or to ignore the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, sadness – that causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain or unhappy in the first place.
Extracted from The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman. See The Guardian article Happiness is a glass half empty.
The above article was linked in a comment recently. I’ve found the message so compelling and true I’ve thus elevated it to the front page.
And if that wasn’t enough about questioning happiness I came across this video animation titled Smile or Die which takes a critical look at positive thinking! The method of conveying the argument using words and images on a white board suits me down to the ground.
As I see it the underlying issue in both the article and the video is a common mistaken view about the use of the mind. But this is a tricky subject when you get right down to it. Magical thinking and the like is one thing however there is the power of the good which benefits beings. We would call that spiritual merit.
I’m deeply sorry if questioning positive thinking has left you disturbed. My way of seeing through this positive/negative is to re-affirm the wisdom of looking up which is too often confused with thinking positively. Looking up is a direction which has no goal.
But did you ever think about
how
the foot that steps out
quickly becomes
the foot that is behind
in the past?
Forgetting is
walking on.
With a bow of gratitude to the woman who inhabits her feet shown in the photograph.
Gao has been working on his pear-growing technique for six years and this season he managed to grow 10,000 Buddha-shaped baby pears. Each fruit is grown in an intricate Buddha mold and ends up looking like a juicy figurine. The ingenious farmer says the locals in his home village of Hexia, norther China, have been buying his Buddha pears as soon as he picks them from the trees. Most of them think they are cute and that they bring good luck. Chinese Farmer Grows Buddha-Shaped Pears
It did take a bit of time for the truth of this interesting endeavour to sink in. Buddha shaped pears. Amazing!
Thank goodness we who aspire to sit still (meditate) don’t grow in molds. Although that’s a common mistake in the early days. Well intentioned newbies quite often attempt to fit into an imagined ideal posture for meditation. And once there attempt to internally mould themselves into meditation mind.
That by opening
your hand
your mind might
do the same?
And
That placing both
opening hands
together might
express the Truth?
Yes, there is something to it. Our hands are designed for doing. They grasp, they manipulate and they generally do our bidding all the day long. We would be lost without our wonderful hands. Look at the hands of a baby or young child. They are open, rarely curled up like the ones of most of us adults. Their hands are learning, ours have learned and are half way there to grasping already.
Young in training we advise people to offer up what ever it is that is troubling, painful or plain stuck. This offering up might include an actual physical act. That would be to open up both hands, palms up, in a gesture of offering. I believe the link between body and mind is ignited/enlivened in this act. Opening hand(s) opening mind. A mind that is open allows space for movement. Brain boxes are more like baskets, both ways permeable. Thus allowing our thoughts to escape quickly. And allowing thoughts to arrise, with less pre judgment.
And
Palms together? We instruct new people about making the gassho (palms together). What is happening with mind and body when opening palms are placed together in the traditional gesture of prayer? Experiment and listen carefully. There are of course busy hands, and goodness we need them, and then brought together in the gassho this gathers together and settles the mind.
Can busy hands be opening, at the same time?