No more Manic Mondays: Make them Magical!

Try just being and slow travel on your commute today

Sometimes, doing nothing, just being, is very calming, very therapeutic.

The first day of work in the New Year is upon us. And interestingly, it is a Monday morning!!!

Instead of rushing off to work, honking and struggling through traffic, try slow travel if you can. Slow travel need not be a vacation idea alone. You can slow travel daily. Start early, don’t drive if you can avoid it – take a cab or take public transport. And when you commute to work, don’t get immersed in your mobile device. Instead observe Life as it happens around you. Allow your mind to soak in each detail – the way people behave, the way vehicles snarl at each other, the way the city moves, the way the method to all the madness unfolds. In all this chaos, you remain silent – and calm. Don’t let your mind complain. Just be an observer. Don’t opinionate, even to yourself, or to a fellow commuter, on what you feel. Don’t label what you see as good or bad. Just take it all in. Breathe well – observe your breathing – slowly: in, out, in, out…

To be sure, what I suggest you must try is not a bizarre idea. This is just bringing in the ancient Zen practice of Mindfulness into everyday urban, city Life. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 ~ 1986), the thinker-philosopher, has said this: “You see, you are not educated to be alone. Do you ever go out for a walk by yourself? It is very important to go out alone, to sit under a tree—not with a book, not with a companion, but by yourself—and observe the falling of a leaf, hear the lapping of the water, the fishermen’s song, watch the flight of a bird, and of your own thoughts as they chase each other across the space of your mind. If you are able to be alone and watch these things, then you will discover extraordinary riches which no government can tax, no human agency can corrupt, and which can never be destroyed.” I believe – I have practiced this and found it to be true – that this same principle can be applied to rush hour traffic, while waiting at airports, on crowded metros, on a plane ride…wherever, in any context, in fact, as long as you remain silent and are willing to be just an observer, a witness.

Obviously, the nicest thing to do would be to go sit under a tree or by the beach. But in today’s world and time, when each of us is berating ourselves for being slave-runners on the rat race, any suggestion to “take time off from everyday routine” will be considered preposterous, inhuman and insane! So, why not tweak the routine, without disrupting it, why not employ silence periods (when you remain silent and detached from your mobile device), alone-ness (certainly not loneliness), witness-hood, slow travel and conscious breathing in your daily commute?

Another great thinker-philosopher of our times, Thich Nhat Hahn, now 89, and recovering from brain haemorrhage-led coma, has said: “In our busy society, it is a great fortune to breathe consciously from time to time. We can practice conscious breathing not only while sitting in a meditation room, but also while working at the office or at home, while driving our car, or sitting on a bus, wherever we are, at any time throughout the day…While I sit here, I don’t think of anything else. I sit here, and I know exactly where I am.”

So, try just being – no doing, no analyzing, no messaging, no complaining – for the duration of your home-work-home commutes today. Try it – it sure works! 

PS: All illustrations are property of the creator. They have been sourced from the Internet. No effort is made to infringe on the original copyright or to commercial gain from using them here.

Don’t churn the past or the future – just let it all be

The human mind is powerless in the present moment. That’s why it insists on dragging you back to the past or into the future.

An important and fundamental clarity we must all have is over the functioning of the human mind. It thrives in the dead past – spewing thoughts of anger, grief, guilt over what has happened. And it thrives in the still unborn, unknown future – throwing anxiety, worry and fear over what may (or may not) happen. So, as long as the mind is controlling you, you are oscillating between the past and the future. The mind never allows you to settle. Such is its nature. 60,000 thoughts arise daily and all of them invariably dwell in the past or concern the future. This is why we often feel chewed up and are desperate for clarity. And this is where mindfulness comes in. When you are mindful of the present moment, immersing yourself in your current reality, your mind is powerless. When your mind is not controlling you, and when you are directing it instead to be in the present, there can neither be grief or guilt nor can there be worry or fear.

Once you understand this basic concept about intelligent living, you can begin the practise of mindfulness. It requires that you train your mind. And the principle to remember is that just like the human body can be trained, the human mind can be trained too. Mindfulness begins when you stop churning the past or the future in your mind. Just let it all be. You focus only on what is, on what is available, in the present moment. It may be difficult – as is the case with any new practice – but if you keep at it, you will make progress. Surely, over 21 days of daily practise, you can learn to be mindful.

I love what the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has to say about mindfulness. He says it so simply, so beautifully: “To be mindful is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.”

Slow down when Life slows you down

There are times in Life when the journey may become awfully slow. That's really the time that Life is offering us to enjoy the scenery. But we don't have the attitude to see it that way. Instead we are obsessed with the painful pace and miss the magic and beauty in our lives.

The problem lies with the way we have led our lives so far. Running from event to event, crisis to crisis, trying to make ends meet, earning a living, busy working harder than ever before, meeting targets, paying bills, raising children and doing everything else except living__mindfully. And then as often happens with Life, the game changes. We are put in a spot where we cannot move; we are check-mated, if you like. It could be a health issue, it could be a career stalemate, it could be a bankruptcy, it could be a relationship tangle or it could be a legal quagmire. In such times, there may be a tendency to worry and to wish__pray, plead, hope__that why can't Life fast-forward, why can't we get back to 'normalcy'? So, if you are bogged down in an ICU, you wish you could be back in the hustle-bustle of everyday Life. Or if you are caught in the midst of legalese, you just are hoping why don't you win all your claims and are free to be away from all this disputing and arguing. Interestingly, Life's not a handmaiden that will do what you please. It just may not move.

Know also that there is no fast-forward button on Life's remote. So, when you are pushed to a corner by the cosmic design, the best thing to do is to not worry about not moving or crib about being between a rock and a hard place. Be happy you can breathe. Because being able to sense your breathing is normal. Running so hard that you don't even have the time to notice you are breathing, is not normal. Imagine you are climbing a steep mountain in a vehicle. As it negotiates the sharp hair-pin bends, the engine is finding the going tough. So, the vehicle is down to an agonizing crawl. Now, you can worry about that pace and concentrate on the dreary drone of the engine, or you can look out the window and see what the scenery looks like. This is what enjoying the scenery is all about.

"Smile, breathe and go slowly," advises Thich Nhat Hanh (called 'Thay'), a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. "Sometimes your joy can be the cause for your smile, and sometimes, your smile can be the cause for your joy," he adds. Just being mindful of your being alive__to experiencing whatever you are going through, be it pain, be it joy__is what can make the slowdowns in Life more meaningful. Do all the things that you can joyfully in whatever state you find yourself. And don't worry about what you can't. If you are immobilized by a health issue enjoy the ‘grounding’ with a family member who is nursing you; pining to be able to run around will only cause agony. If you are cashless enjoy being able to live without money; hoping you had money will only aggravate your suffering. If you are caught in a relationship problem where there is much misunderstanding, enjoy practicing patience and forgiveness; craving for understanding from the other person may only accentuate your pain. Thay champions mindful living as a cure to all our ailments coming from merely existing. “Life is available only in the present moment. Even drink your tea, slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world, the earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future,” he says.

Slow down when Life slows you down. It is perhaps with ample reason that this message arrives on a Monday morning. To make a Manic Monday a Mindful Monday is your personal choice. It is only when you go with Life’s pace and flow, do you truly experience the magic in and live each moment!

Be mindful: have a ‘serene encounter with reality’!

Whatever you do, do it with total immersion. Enjoy the process of doing what you are doing. That’s called mindfulness. And that’s the key to inner peace.

Doing the dishes, to me, is a meditative practice

Yesterday my daughter, a psychology graduate, caught me dusting a thin layer of dust on top of a cupboard in our kitchen. She quipped, “Dad, cleaning around the house makes you happy, doesn’t it?” I smiled at her. And confessed that indeed it does make me happy. In fact, to me, house-keeping, is a meditative practice. It is not a chore. Yes, it does become a challenge when you have to juggle with your other schedules and have to try and fit in quality time for house-keeping. But I have realized that I am very mindful when I am cleaning up around the house. I go about it calmly, methodically and, however physically strenuous it may get at times, I enjoy the process. I love doing the dishes or cleaning surfaces, I invest time to get the toilets to be squeaky clean and generally love the idea of having a dust-free home environment – something that’s so difficult in Indian conditions and so requires being at it continuously, consistently!

I have discovered that when you are mindful of whatever it is that you are doing there’s great inner peace and joy. And no work or task is menial or burdensome as long as you don’t treat it as a chore. In fact, immersion really means being completely involved in, engaged in, and mindful of whatever it is that you are doing. Of course, it is possible that you may not always like to do some things. But when you don’t have a choice – and you have to also do what you dislike doing – if you choose to be mindful, you will get through that task or activity even more efficiently than when you are resisting it.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, a.k.a Thay, says it so beautifully: “In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.” The essence of what he has to say is contained in the last phrase – ‘it is a serene encounter with reality’. Most of the time, almost all of us, resist our reality. We don’t like what we are going through. Or we dislike what we have to do. Or we are so engrossed in dealing with our ‘extended’ realities that we miss the magic and beauty of everyday living. Thay recommends that we must awaken to the reality in each moment. And not just to be stuck with our ‘extended’ reality. For instance, if you keep worrying about your fourth stage cancer and the fact that you will soon die, how will you enjoy a sunrise? So, in this context, your cancer is your ‘extended’ reality. But the more immediate one is the sunrise. Enjoy it, says Thay, because soon it – the moment bearing the sunrise – will be gone. Meditation is really what the art of living is all about – the ability to value each moment, cherish it, be joyful in it and move on to the next moment with undiluted enthusiasm. How can you enjoy a moment when it is painful, you may wonder? What if someone is dead? What if someone’s betrayed you? How will you cope with a moment when you are wishing it away? That’s why Thay prescribes a ‘serene encounter with reality’ – he says, don’t resist, don’t fight, instead accept, what is. Accepting what is, is the best way to gain inner peace. When you accept your reality, you begin to experience joy in the moment.

The human mind is like the human body. It can be trained. I have trained my mind by practicing both silence periods (mouna) and mindfulness – immersing myself in what I do. Over time, I have learnt to banish worry (despite the daunting circumstances my family and I are faced with owing to our grave financial state) and just be in the moment. Often time, cleaning around my house gives me that sense of equanimity. Through my own experience I know that if you immerse yourself in whatever you do, enjoying the process of doing it, being always mindful, you too can be happy, despite the circumstances!

Making progress, while just being…

‘Just Being’ does not retard or impair progress. ‘Just Being’ IS progress.

Many of us see ‘just being’ as inaction. And so imagine that it will breed inertia and make us vegetables. We find logic in this argument and so we feel that staying busy is important. You can be running on a treadmill and you could still be in the same place. Staying busy is just that. It doesn’t get you anywhere. ‘Just Being’, on the other hand, does not mean inaction. It means:

1.     Being in the moment, engaged, mindful. Thoroughly involved. Which is a LOT of action.

2.   Being involved with also DOING what is possible, what is right and doing it well, in that moment, and yet BEING DETACHED from the outcome.

When 1 and 2 are happening simultaneously, where’s the question of passivity or inertia or remaining grounded? You are in flight! You are soaring. Despite the storm, despite the chaos, your sails are filled with grace, energy and momentum!

Vietnamese Buddhist guru Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this so well. He calls ‘Just Being’ non-action, not inaction. “Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we can help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, just to be himself, and the situation can change,” he says. His prescription for ‘just being’ is mindfulness. He describes it thus: “Mindfulness is our ability to be aware of what is going on both inside us and around us. It is the continuous awareness of our bodies, emotions, and thoughts. Through mindfulness, we avoid harming ourselves and others, and we can work wonders. If we live mindfully in everyday life, walk mindfully, are full of love and caring, then we create a miracle and transform the world into a wonderful place. The object of your mindfulness can be anything. You can look at the sky and breathe in and say, 'Breathing in, I'm aware of the blue sky.' So you are mindful of the blue sky. The blue sky becomes the object of your mindfulness. 'Breathing out, I smile to the blue sky.' Smiling is another kind of practice. First of all, you recognize the blue sky as existing. And if you continue the practice, you will see that the blue sky is wonderful. It may be that you've lived thirty or forty years but you have never seen and touched the blue sky that deeply.”

The Chinese character for mindfulness, nian, (pictured here), reveals its meaning. The upper part of the character means ‘now’ and the lower part means ‘heart’. Literally, the combined character means the act of experiencing the present moment with your heart or ‘Just Being’. ‘Just Being’ connects you to the source of your creation, helps you drop anchor and find bliss in whatever you do, wherever you are!

To find inner peace, peace is “the” way

Peace arrives when you stop resisting, stop fighting and stop struggling with Life.

Each of us is fighting something or the other. All the time. Someone fights for health. Someone else for wealth. There’s someone fighting for dignity. And someone for identity. Someone out there fights for companionship. Another soldiers on for acceptance. Yet a factor that’s common to all constituencies is that everyone, despite their individual fights, wants peace. You look around. Ask around. And you will find that almost everyone wants just peace. And they will all talk about inner peace __  bliss, joy, plain, good ol’ happiness.

But you can’t pursue peace when you are struggling with Life, fighting its every dimension. You cannot be angry with your situation in Life and expect to find peace in it at the same time. Peace will come, when you suspend all hostility in your mind, and through that act, make your immediate circle of influence peaceful. Peace has a price to be paid for, and that is to be accepting of a situation or a person or an outcome. Many people wonder what is the way to peace. And the simplest answer to their query is what Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh champions: “Peace is the way!”

But by ceasing to fight, are you embracing inaction? And isn’t inaction equal to committing hara-kiri? Let me clarify: ceasing to fight is not inaction. It means acceptance. You can be accepting of a situation, be peaceful, and yet work towards changing it. They are not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, they are complementary. The other day, at a coffee shop, I noticed a young couple argue with each other at another table. The lady was agitated. Often gesticulating wildly, raising her voice just so much that others around could hear and perceive that she was upset with the gentleman. The man, on the other hand, was stoic. He was calm and in control of himself, even if he was not in control of the situation. At the end of their discussions and arguments, I felt nothing had been resolved. Things were where they were when they came in. But the lady stomped out in a huff, and I believe she must have been continuing to fight the situation, or the man, in her mind. The man was calm, perhaps not happy either with the way the meeting ended, and made a slow, peaceful exit. He may also have felt that things could have been better, but for sure, he wasn’t feeling worse. He was peaceful. He wasn’t fighting. Yet he was not abstaining from action. Coming to the meeting, making an attempt, while staying calm, was indeed action.

We too can embrace this way of living. Simply, don’t start with asking ‘WHY?’ of Life at each of its twists and turns. Exclaim instead, ‘Interesting, so, we have a situation…!’, and mobilize your action to resolving it. Even a fight for a nation’s independence can be a peaceful__and successful__one. Gandhi proved it and so did 300 million of his followers, fellow Indians, back then. The same principle applies here. End all violent thinking __ about anyone or anything __ and approach each problem or situation with complete focus and total equanimity. Remember: to find peace, inner peace, peace is the way! 

If you are mindful, you can see beauty in everything you do

Life's beauty is not in the big events alone. Life unfolds beautifully in the normal, mundane, humdrum of everyday living.

Indeed a wedding, the birth of your child, the success at a job, a windfall – all of these call for celebrations. But even an everyday chore like putting washed clothes away or doing the dishes is beautiful. For the last several days, we have had to cope without the support of a maid. My wife and I have divided the chores between us, with our daughter chipping in here and there. Though initially it seemed strange doing stuff that we normally get done, I soon realized that here was a beautiful opportunity to practice mindfulness. The key about practising mindfulness is to be aware of what you are doing. When you fold clothes to put them away, watch your fingers do such precise work. See the beauty of technology that has allowed you to have your clothes washed reasonably painlessly. Or count your blessings, if you have a maid, who has washed them for you and even folded them__and that all you need to do is to put them away. Every time I have had to step in and help with household chores, I have felt compassionate for the people who collaborate, with reasonable precision, to make our everyday lives painless and seamless – the newspaper delivery person, the milkman, the flower seller lady who drops off the flowers for my wife for the daily pooja, the mineral water supplier, the launderer, the maid, the neighborhood grocer and the person who delivers our cooking gas each month…the list could still go on. I often think how crazy our Life would be without the contributions of these nameless, often faceless, foot soldiers. Whenever I think of them, I pause to send them my positive energy.

There's beauty in every moment if we are aware. Thich Nhat Hanh (a.k.a Thay), the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk says, there is beauty even in the way we open or close a door. To whatever action, says Thay, if we apply the desire to be aware and mindful, it becomes a way of making peace. In the 2010 Hollywood movie 'Barney's Version' (Richard J Lewis, Paul Giannati, Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman), the main protagonist Mariam, tells the lead character Barney, "Life's real. It's made of little things. Minutes, hours, naps, errands, routine__and it has to be enough!"

So, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, do it mindfully. Then, and only then, will you see the beauty in everything__whether you are doing some spring cleaning at home or dropping your kids off at their play dates. If you can make each day mindful and meaningful, you will be soaked in peace and you Life will be ever so beautiful!

Celebrate the divinity in and around you

There's divinity in every aspect of creation. There’s divinity in you and in me too! We don't see it in us because of the way we have been conditioned to think of divinity.

We have been conditioned to think of divinity in the context of an external God. As someone who’s controlling and operating the Universe. As someone who cannot be seen and who’s more powerful than us. And as someone who must be feared.

Let’s try to understand divinity by re-examining our conditioning. For instance, the way we think of garbage, sewage, filth is with a sense of distaste. Yet, there's divinity there too. When you see fresh vegetables, you see it as beautiful, sublime, pristine. The same vegetables when they turn stale or are part of wasted food and end up in a garbage dump, you find them detestable. Similarly, when you see a sewer, you hate its sight. But there's a sewage system in your body: your intestines and kidneys are doing just the same job__precisely. The hallmark of an evolved person is the ability to see everything and everyone as equally divine.

A hunter once got lost in an African jungle. He thought he was going to die because he could not find his way out. But he was adamant that he would not pray to God. But he did something which was half-praying and half-joking. He said to himself: “God, if you exist, come and save me!” A few minutes later, an African appeared and saved the hunter. The hunter was delighted. But that night, he wrote in his diary, “I prayed to God, but a Negro came.”!!! Neither did he know nor did he believe that the Negro was perhaps the divine intervention he had half-heartedly sought. It can be argued as a coincidence too – but coincidences too have a cosmic dimension to them!

Thay, the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, teaches us to appreciate divinity in all of creation. A pebble, a flower, a butterfly, a detractor, a critic, a thunderclap, a garbage heap__all are manifestations of divinity that are there to help us, to awaken us, giving us a message that there's more to this Life and the cosmic design than what we can even fathom! When you see, recognize and celebrate the divinity within and around you, you will find the God you are so relentlessly in pursuit of!

Slow down when Life slows you down

When you are pushed to a corner in Life by the cosmic design, the best thing to do is to not worry about it. Don’t even complain about being between a rock and a hard place. Just be happy you can breathe.

There are times in Life when the journey may become awfully slow. That's really the time that Life is offering us to enjoy the scenery. But we don't have the attitude to see it that way. Instead we are obsessed with the painful pace and miss the magic and beauty in our lives. The problem lies with the way we have led our lives so far. Running from event to event, crisis to crisis, trying to make ends meet, earning a living, busy working harder than ever before, meeting targets, paying bills, raising children and doing everything else except living__mindfully.

And then as often happens with Life, the game changes. We are put in a spot where we cannot move, check-mated, if you like. Could be a health issue, could be a career stalemate, could be a relationship tangle or could be a legal quagmire. In such times, there may be a tendency to worry and to wish__pray, plead, hope__that why can't Life fast-forward, why can't we get back to 'normalcy'? So, if you are bogged down in an ICU, you wish you could be back in the hustle-bustle of everyday Life. Or if you are caught in the midst of legalese, you just are hoping, why don't you win all your claims and are free to be away from all this disputing and arguing? Interestingly, Life's not a handmaiden that will do what you please. It just may not move and you can do nothing about it. There is no fast-forward button in Life. In such a time, be happy you can breathe. Because being able to sense your breathing is normal. Running so hard that you don't even have the time to notice you are breathing, is NOT normal. Imagine you are climbing a steep mountain in a vehicle. As it negotiates the sharp hair-pin bends, the engine is finding the going tough. So, the vehicle is down to an agonizing crawl. Now, you can worry about that pace and concentrate on the dreary drone of the engine, or you can look out the window and see what the scenery looks like. This is what enjoying the scenery is all about. "Smile, breathe and go slowly,"advises Thich Nhat Hanh (also called 'Thay'), a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. "Sometimes your joy can be the cause for your smile, and sometimes, your smile can be the cause for your joy,"he adds. Just being mindful of your being alive__to experiencing whatever you are going through, be it pain, be it joy__is what can make the slowdowns in Life more meaningful. Do all the things that you can joyfully in whatever state you find yourself. And don't worry about what you can't. If you are immobilized by a health issue enjoy the ‘grounding’ with a family member who is nursing you; pining to be able to run around will only cause agony. If you are cashless enjoy being able to live without money; hoping you had money will only aggravate your suffering. If you are caught in a relationship problem where there is much misunderstanding, enjoy practicing patience and forgiveness; craving for understanding from the other person may only accentuate your pain. Thay champions mindful living as a cure to all our ailments coming from merely existing. “Life is available only in the present moment. Even drink your tea, slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world, the earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future,”he says.

Slow down when Life slows you down. It is only when you go with Life’s pace and flow, that you truly experience the magic in, and live, each moment!

Know where your horse is taking you

Whatever you do, do it with total awareness. When you are aware, when you are mindful of what’s going on, you live more intelligently – and peacefully!

I read a Zen story that the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn (a.k.a Thay) shares in a discourse. A man is riding a horse that is galloping very quickly. Another man, his friend, standing by the roadside, yells at him: “Hey you, where are you going in such a hurry?” The man shouts in reply, without looking back, “I don’t know. Ask the horse.” Thay says this is the situation most of us are in – especially those who are running crazy, from one meeting to another, chasing their tails and deadlines, in today’s rushed world. Some of us are even riding more than one horse at the same time. Our lives have become so busy, we don’t know where the horses we ride are going. Worse, we don’t even have time to think, to understand, why we are on those horses or where we may end up going.  

I can relate to Thay’s metaphor of the horse and rushing away not knowing where it is taking you. There was a time, when I ran a reasonably spread out organization. We had operations in six cities in India. And I had 40 people reporting to me. We had institutionalized, what we believed was a best practice, a process of my direct reports writing to me each weekend sharing their experiences, learnings and concerns from the past week. I spent Sundays poring over these reports at length. Even when my children, who were at that time young and needed my time the most, asked for me to take them out to a restaurant or to the beach, I carried these CEO reports with me. Some of these reports had bad news in them – a client was unhappy or a team member accused another of politicking or someone wanted to put in her papers. I was always a man in a hurry. So, when I finished reading these reports, I would be impatient for the weekend to get over. Come Monday and I was keen to address and resolve each of those issues that were escalated to me over the weekend. I don’t think having team members share with you weekly is a bad idea. But the way I followed that process was naïve. I ruined each of my weekends – resultantly, I was always on the edge, irritable and unhappy with things in my Firm and my Life! I simply did not have any time for the family – I don’t remember any meals I had with them or goofing off with my kids. I made no effort myself and whatever time I spent with them was only when my wife insisted or pleaded with me. So, for almost a decade of my Life, the only memory I have of weekends is of dealing with those CEO reports and fighting crisis after crisis during the week. I was just on this horse called work and I did not even know where it was taking me then.

My wake-up call came when my son, then 18, took off to study at the University of Chicago in Fall 2008. When we saw him off at the Chennai airport at midnight, I remember coming home and being unable to catch sleep. My wife and daughter were exhausted but I decided to wait for a text message from my son confirming that he had boarded. I fixed myself a drink and was walking aimlessly around the house. I stopped by a picture of his on one of the shelves and broke into tears. I recall asking his picture: “When did you grow up son? And so fast? I wish I had spent more time with you!”

Thay says each day, each moment gives us the opportunity to live intelligently. That opportunity can be seized only by being totally aware of what we are doing. If we look at our lives, a lot of it, our lifestyles, our way of consuming things, everything is steeped in mindlessness. We are just being driven crazy by the horses we have chosen to ride.

Only with total awareness can you understand the consequences of each of your choices and actions! Monday is a good day, as any, to take a deep breath and, even if you can’t get off a horse immediately, at least know where it’s taking you – and, if required and if you can, rein it in!

Carry your Zen every minute

Whenever you are completely aware of whatever is happening to you, you are on the road to self-realization, to inner peace. Your awareness need not be only about what you are doing – cooking, walking, breathing, washing, whatever – it is also about how you are feeling – be it pain, sorrow, anger, jealousy or anxiety. Just be fully aware. When you are aware, and immerse yourself in that awareness, you will feel peaceful.

This may sound paradoxical. How can anyone be peaceful while in pain for instance? Or when in grief? Or when angry? Indeed, as long are you have not realized your true self, chances are you will associate your present human form with your circumstances. So, when your body  has a back pain, you think that you are in pain. When the human form of someone whom you loved is dead, you think you have lost that someone. So you grieve. When you are angry, you see the person at whom the anger is directed as different, as separate from you, hence the anger. But awareness changes everything. You understand the true nature of creation. You realize that you are not what you think you are. You are not this human body. You are not your car, your job, your designation, your bank balance, your relationship, your social position. The real you is detached. Is indestructible. The real you cannot be touched by any worldly event or sentiment. When this awareness dawns upon you, it leads you to peace.

Awareness is not an abstract concept. It simply requires diligent practice and training of the mind. What is otherwise called spirituality – the flowering of inner awareness!  The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn (lovingly called Thay by his followers) recommends developing awareness even in our busy lives. He does not advocate any special hour for this practice or training. He simply says – Focus wholesomely on your everyday tasks without getting distracted. Be mindful.

Thay says mindfulness is the way to peace. He often shares a Zen story to illustrate this point. Zen students are with their Masters for at least ten years before they are certified to teach others. Nan-in, a great Zen Master, was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship in record time, had just become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him, Nan-in remarked: “I suppose you left your wooden clogs by the door, outside. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs.” Tenno, caught unawares and confused, had no instant answer. He realized he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in’s pupil, and studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.

So, be mindful when having your morning cup of tea – take in its aroma and let the flavor impregnate every pore of your body. Be mindful when walking – take each step with awareness and love. Be mindful while in the shower – feel the water soothe your body and lift your spirits. Be mindful while crossing the road or while being in business meetings. The key is to not let your mind wander. To be sure, the mind will resist. It will want to slip back into a painful past event or rush into the future with worry. Every time you sense that the mind is not mindful in the moment, call it back to focus on whatever you are doing. Over time, the mind will be trained not to go astray.

Each step, each moment lived mindfully is one lived in peace and joy! Through consistently living this way, through carrying your Zen every minute, become the bliss that you seek!

Halt the cycle of hatred

When someone hates you and so hurts you remember that person needs your understanding and help, not hatred in return.

It is normal, when someone offends you or hurts you, to try and get even with that person. After all a hurt is always difficult to deal with, forget getting over! But there’s another way to look at the situation and the person. Hating and hurting require a lot of negative energy. So, if someone is causing all that hurt that you are experiencing know that the person is full of negative energy. Thich Naht Hahn, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, says this very beautifully: “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”

I have learned from experience that hating or hurting in return never helps. It only keeps the cycle of negativity alive. To expunge the negativity someone has to break that cycle. And that person can well be you! Whenever I feel hurt or offended, I send a silent prayer to the person who has caused it. I also try and reach out to the person and see if we can talk things over. But sometimes the differences are so deep and immediately irreconcilable that a conversation may not be possible or help. In such situations, you can let go of the hatred brewing inside you by sending the person positive energy and prayer. Whenever I have done this, I have found my anger and my hurt dissipating. I feel peaceful. Simply, it is not relevant who started it or who is to blame. What is important is to recognize that clinging on to suffering is futile. It helps no one. While it may be ideal for both parties to cleanse themselves, if this not possible for whatever reason, at least one person – you – breaking free from the negativity is indeed a good step forward!

The essence of intelligent living is to be able to rise above hurt, hatred and suffering. And to live free, to live fully – a meaningful and blissful Life!

Why ‘Just Being’ rocks!

Often people think ‘Just Being’ means inaction. Just the opposite is true – ‘Just Being’ is a lot of action, for there is a lot to do, simply being present in the moment!

Yesterday, a friend of mine implored me to do ‘more’ than I was doing currently to deal with a Life situation. He said, “I don’t think you are doing enough. I think you have resigned to your fate. Everyman makes his own destiny and that you make by putting your 150 % into a situation every single day!”

I didn’t want to discuss fate and destiny with him. Because both our belief systems are polar opposites. However, while agreeing with him over making each day count, I made my point that being in the now, in the present, being mindful does not mean inaction at all. I told him that it means two things:

1.     Being in the moment, engaged, mindful. Thoroughly involved. Which is a LOT of action.
2.     Being involved with also DOING what is possible, what is right and doing it well, in that       moment, and yet BEING DETACHED from the outcome.

When 1 and 2 are happening simultaneously, where’s the question of passivity or inertia or remaining grounded? You are in flight! You are soaring. Despite the storm, despite the chaos, your sails are filled with grace, energy and momentum! Progress, ahoy!

The reason though why many people see ‘Just Being’ as inaction is because they have this view that they are in control of their lives. So, they believe, that ‘Just Being’ will breed inertia and they will vegetate. So, they feel the need to stay busy and feel important that they are doing many things! This state is where almost everyone finds themselves at some point or the other in Life – running on a treadmill, where you are doing a lot of running, but are still in the same place! ‘Staying busy’ is just that – it doesn’t get you anywhere and leaves you drained, frustrated and beaten! Whereas, ‘Just Being’, gets you to enjoy the magic and beauty of Life, while keeping your energy reservoir within you brimming over!

Vietnamese Buddhist guru Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this so well. He calls ‘Just Being’ non-action, not inaction. “Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we can help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, than just to be himself, and the situation can change,” he says.

Know that whatever’s happening to you now is part of a larger design that is creating your future. The funny thing about our present, our now, is that it is already happening. Which means we can’t wish it away. The only way to deal with it is to accept it, live it, to stay engaged with it. Just as we enjoy when what’s happening is what we like, we must learn to appreciate whatever’s happening even if that’s not what we wanted or expected or like! This is mindfulness. This is ‘Just Being’. It helps you connect with the source of your creation, helps you drop anchor and find bliss no matter what you are doing, or where you are, or what circumstances you are dealing with!

What time’s your appointment with Life?

The unforgettable 'appointment with death' scene from Agneepath

In the iconic, original, Hindi movie ‘Agneepath’ (Path of Fire, 1990, Mukul Anand), Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, played admirably, memorably by Amitabh Bachchan, tells the Police Commissioner, M.S.Gaitonde (Vikram Gokhale) that he (Vijay) has ‘an appointment with death’ at 6.30 PM that evening. The unforgettable dialogue is, ‘Apun ka maut ke saath appentment hai, kya?’.

I was reminded of that movie and that dialogue when I came across the concept of our appointment with Life. With some time to kill, I ended up browsing through the famous Nalanda bookstore at the Taj Mahal Hotel, by the Gateway of India, yesterday. There, Vitenamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn’s (Thay) book “Our Appointment With Life” stared back at me.

It is such a simple and beautiful concept. In our everyday Life, all through each week, our calendars are full of appointments. Technology has made the calendar universally compatible across multiple platforms – MS Outlook, Apple, Google, smart phones and so on. Reminders and alerts are possible too. Overlapping events are pointed out. And at a glance a whole month or quarter or year can be looked up. Many people I know have often displayed enormous pride in declaring that their calendars are full for many, many weeks and months.

But what about our appointment with Life?

Thay writes in his usual, inimitable, simple, soul invoking style: “Our appointment with Life is in the present moment. The place of our appointment is right here, in this place.” So beautiful.

Thay quotes The Buddha from the Dhammapada as saying, “Let go of what is the past. Let go of what is not yet. Observe deeply what is happening in the present moment, but do not be attached to it.” This, says Thay, is the way to keep our appointment with Life! To live perpetually in the present moment.

 ‘Agneepath’s’ Vijay Dinanath Chauhan famously demonstrated fearlessness by agreeing to keep his appointment with death, by venturing out to meet his detractors who were waiting to assassinate him. What about you and me? Of course, we all have an appointment with death – except we don’t know when it actually is! But we can choose to keep our appointment with Life by learning to live, with detachment, in the present moment – unburdened by the past and unmindful of the future. Simply, by being – engaged with present!