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Peace And Despair II
What causes your “delta” to increase? Decrease? How does your delta vary with time? Are your delta’s mean and variance both close to zero? What do you think the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Jesus’s deltas were?
Peace And Despair
Existential despair is the painful discrepancy between what is and what should be – Paul Watzlawick
Your despair can be my peace and vice versa. On the other hand, my despair can be your despair and my peace can be your peace.
Spiritual Google
Wow! I can’t believe I stumbled upon this. What’s “this“, you ask? It’s a video of a talk given by Eckhart Tolle at Google. Yes, Google.
I know that religion is a deeply personal issue, but if you’ve never seen Eckhart Tolle in action, please indulge BD00 by at least watching a few minutes of the video with an open mind. Lemme know if it tickles something inside of you. If you get a “meh” feeling, then that’s OK too. Do you think he’s the real deal or just another Swaggart/Bakker clone?
Glide On The Peace Train
The other day at work, while diligently plying away on an interface design, I just happened to notice that I was singing the (artist formerly known as) Cat Stevens’ tune “Peace Train“ to myself. Not out loud (thankfully), but to myself – in my head. This is just another example that reinforces the fact that “we don’t think; thinking happens to us“. No?
It may be scary to some to discover that thinking unconsciously and automatically happens to us, but the saving grace is that at least we can consciously choose how to react to those thoughts. Well, most of the time. Well, some of the time?
What was the last song you sang to yourself?
Change In Behavior
“Change your thinking, and your behavior will change.” How many times have you heard or seen that sentence? Of course, it’s true, but as ever, the devil’s in the details. In my case, I’ve often fooled myself into thinking that my thinking has changed when it really hasn’t. So, the question is, who are “I” and “myself” in the previous sentence?
Thinking Styles
I used to think: “DAMN IT! IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS WAY!” for just about every observation that I judged to be a “problem“. Now I think, “It shouldn’t be this way – but it is – lol“ for most observations that I judge to be problems. Of course, there are still far too many things that cause me to red-line, but it’s an incremental, iterative, and continuous learning experience.
If I’m lucky enough, I might even gravitate up to this fully, non-judgmental, thought-style: “It is this way, because it got this way“. However, I don’t think I’ll ever make it into the effortless thinking realm of Buddha/Lao Tzu/Eckhart Tolle/Byron Katy: “It is this way because it’s exactly the way it should be“.
How about you, dear reader? What’s your predominant thinking style? Has it been changing with age? Are you happy with it?
Loving All That Is
Because it’s very different from any other “religious” book that I’ve ever read, I really like “The Most Rapid and Direct Means to Eternal Bliss” (free pdf download here). In the book, mysterious Michael Langford lays down step by step instructions for five spiritual practices:
- THE AWARENESS WATCHING AWARENESS METHOD
- THE ABANDON RELEASE METHOD
- THE ETERNAL METHOD
- THE INFINITE SPACE METHOD
- THE LOVING-ALL METHOD
To give you a taste of the book’s style and content, here is the procedure for THE LOVING-ALL METHOD:
Love your thoughts, your feelings, your body, your actions, the objects you see, the people you see, every input from each of your senses, every word you utter, every word spoken to you. Piece of cake, no?
The other night, I went to bed with a strong resolve to start practicing THE LOVING-ALL METHOD “tomorrow“. When I woke up the next morning, within seconds I deviated from the plan. My shoulder ached from a touch of arthritis and I automatically thought and said “Ow – damn shoulder!“. Upon discovering my transgression a few milliseconds later, I thought “D’oh!” and gave up. Maybe I’ll give it another spirited try in the future.
It’s weird. When I read a spiritual book that “clicks” (and not many of them do), I experience a sense of peace and serenity during the read. But as soon as I close the cover, the feeling dissolves and IT takes over once again – and it’s hard to love IT; very hard.
Picture this
Picture your thoughts as leaves floating down a river. A thought appears in your head, you think it, and then you let it go. Aaaah, what bliss. But wait! One of those leaves just got stuck on a tree root extending out into the water. There it stays, spinning around at a maddening frequency. D’oh! I hate when that happens.
Picture your thoughts as puffy white clouds drifting across the sky. A thought appears in your head, you think it, and then you let it go. Aaaah, what bliss. But wait! One of those clouds just turned dark and started spewing thunder, lightning, and rain. D’oh! I hate when that happens.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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