"How easy it is to see your brother's faults, how hard to face your own."
The Impurity passage within the Dhammapada is about the importance of essentially getting your shit together and not getting caught up in the faults of others.
In a previous post I wrote about how I acquired a t-shirt that said "Hey, you try running my dog." The front of the shirt had a number of quotes from the peanut gallery that you tend to hear whilst competing in the agility ring or on the video after you watch your run. Now, there are a lot of crap handlers agility enthusiasts who could benefit from both classes and practice with their dogs out there. There are an equal number of peanut gallery commentators. Not surprisingly, this population is often one and the same. I used to be a card carrying member of that group. As you can imagine, critiquing the performances of others didn't help me one bit. It was only when I stopped caring about how others performed and started focusing on what I could improve, that things changed for me in this sport. I've applied this to other areas of my life as well, and it's been quite rewarding. Maybe you will experience that too.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Anger
"With gentleness, overcome anger. With Generosity, overcome meanness. With truth, overcome deceit." - the Buddha
"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." - Jerry Seinfeld
In the opposite episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza has an epiphany as he contemplate his dissatisfaction of where he is in his life: he always does the opposite of what he should do, and only recognizes it after the fact. His friend Jerry encourages him to live his life doing the opposite of what he thinks he should do, and the end result is that for a brief moment, George's life greatly improves. Years later, the actor who played George is regularly approached by people who have applied this to their own lives with actual success (at least according to the bonus features in the deluxe DVD collection).
When we act in anger, are mean spirited, or dishonest, it is generally without thought. It's often a gut reaction to a difficult, uncomfortable, or frustrating situation. We all do it. If our dog/wife/child/boss/the driver in the other lane bark/nag/have a tantrum/make unrealistic demands/cut us off, it's hard to not go right to our angry place. It's almost automatic. Most of us then take a next step and with varying degrees of success, get ourselves out of that place. We cool down. We give ourselves a time-out. Once we are calm again, we tend to act in a way that is the "opposite" of what our initial impulse was. Indeed, if we don't go through that process of resetting and cooling down, we get stuck in an angry loop that is hard to get out of. It's why we bear grudges and have feuds. How much better would it be if every time we were triggered by something that is upsetting, that gets us angry, if we immediately did the opposite of how we want to react in the heat of the moment? That, I believe, is the whole point of this particular Dhammapada passage. So, the next time you feel yourself getting pulled into that dark place, remember to do the opposite.
"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." - Jerry Seinfeld
In the opposite episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza has an epiphany as he contemplate his dissatisfaction of where he is in his life: he always does the opposite of what he should do, and only recognizes it after the fact. His friend Jerry encourages him to live his life doing the opposite of what he thinks he should do, and the end result is that for a brief moment, George's life greatly improves. Years later, the actor who played George is regularly approached by people who have applied this to their own lives with actual success (at least according to the bonus features in the deluxe DVD collection).
When we act in anger, are mean spirited, or dishonest, it is generally without thought. It's often a gut reaction to a difficult, uncomfortable, or frustrating situation. We all do it. If our dog/wife/child/boss/the driver in the other lane bark/nag/have a tantrum/make unrealistic demands/cut us off, it's hard to not go right to our angry place. It's almost automatic. Most of us then take a next step and with varying degrees of success, get ourselves out of that place. We cool down. We give ourselves a time-out. Once we are calm again, we tend to act in a way that is the "opposite" of what our initial impulse was. Indeed, if we don't go through that process of resetting and cooling down, we get stuck in an angry loop that is hard to get out of. It's why we bear grudges and have feuds. How much better would it be if every time we were triggered by something that is upsetting, that gets us angry, if we immediately did the opposite of how we want to react in the heat of the moment? That, I believe, is the whole point of this particular Dhammapada passage. So, the next time you feel yourself getting pulled into that dark place, remember to do the opposite.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Pleasure
"Like nothing lest you lose it, lest it bring you grief and fear. Go beyond likes and dislikes."
When my dog and I earn a placement in Agility, we never take our ribbon. She doesn't because, what's a dog going to do with a ribbon? The reason I don't started out as a practical matter: I am blessed to have a dog that when I do my job, she does her's and we often place. This leads to lots of ribbons, which take up space which we don't have because we'd rather use our space to house our dogs than their ribbons. Today I generally don't take a ribbon because for me, it is a symbol of attachment to winning, which also involves the fear of losing and has wrecked many a perfectly fine day of trialling. I appreciate competition and appreciate and feel good when we place, but that is not the goal. The goal is to enjoy the moment with my dog. Everything else is bonus.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Joy
"Let go of winning and losing and find joy."
Over the weekend, my wife and I and two of our dogs competed in an agility trial. This involves full grown adults (and some children) paying good money to run around a room with doggie playground equipment for seconds at a time, with the goal of not knocking anything over, or jumping off of anything tall, and doing things in a certain order in the shortest amount of time possible.
The reason I and a lot of people do this is to have a fun activity to do with your dog. It gives you a chance to learn how to communicate with your canine partner (as in letting them know which obstacle to take or avoid, as opposed to having a conversation with them about the merits of eating cat poop and chasing squirrels.)
That being said, it wasn't always like this for me and it is not like this for many competitors. What happens is the obsession with winning and the anxiety of performing in front of a group and being judged (by an actual judge) as well as by the peanut gallery. It didn't matter how well we did, I was never happy. If a run was less than perfect, I'd obsess over what went wrong. If the run was clean but we didn't place, I'd be upset. If we'd place, but it wasn't first, I'd be upset. If we got first, but someone at another jump height did it in a shorter time, I'd be upset. On top of that, I'd worry about how people were perceiving my handling. I was so self-conscious of being judged that I actually bought a shirt that said "Hey, you try running my dog."
I finally got a self-help book about these issues. Yes. Enough people get themselves upset about running around in circles with their dog that there need to be self-help books to address this. What I learned about was dealing with anxiety and recognizing and rejecting perfectionism, as I was allowing those two things to rob me of the joy of running my dog.
I'm paraphrasing Tony Robbins here, but he says that the worst type of standard is that of perfection, because it's unattainable and as such, it's worse than having no standard at all.
So I learned how to take deep breaths before going out there. I reminded myself of what is important, the dog/handler bond. I rearranged my thinking to see each run as both a lesson about what is working well and areas we can still train. I saw success as more of what percent of that run went well. Qualification (running cleanly enough to get credit for the attempt) and placement became things that I could appreciate and be proud of, but not the end goal. I now focus on on my time with my dog, on improving my technique, and in having patience (most of the time), and you know what, the joy of this activity has returned.
Think about one thing in your life that used to be fun and now is not and see if anxiety and perfectionism have crept in and think about how useful those things are do you. If they are not and if you drop them, I expect you'll find the joy that you once had.
A Joyful Agility Run
Over the weekend, my wife and I and two of our dogs competed in an agility trial. This involves full grown adults (and some children) paying good money to run around a room with doggie playground equipment for seconds at a time, with the goal of not knocking anything over, or jumping off of anything tall, and doing things in a certain order in the shortest amount of time possible.
The reason I and a lot of people do this is to have a fun activity to do with your dog. It gives you a chance to learn how to communicate with your canine partner (as in letting them know which obstacle to take or avoid, as opposed to having a conversation with them about the merits of eating cat poop and chasing squirrels.)
That being said, it wasn't always like this for me and it is not like this for many competitors. What happens is the obsession with winning and the anxiety of performing in front of a group and being judged (by an actual judge) as well as by the peanut gallery. It didn't matter how well we did, I was never happy. If a run was less than perfect, I'd obsess over what went wrong. If the run was clean but we didn't place, I'd be upset. If we'd place, but it wasn't first, I'd be upset. If we got first, but someone at another jump height did it in a shorter time, I'd be upset. On top of that, I'd worry about how people were perceiving my handling. I was so self-conscious of being judged that I actually bought a shirt that said "Hey, you try running my dog."
I finally got a self-help book about these issues. Yes. Enough people get themselves upset about running around in circles with their dog that there need to be self-help books to address this. What I learned about was dealing with anxiety and recognizing and rejecting perfectionism, as I was allowing those two things to rob me of the joy of running my dog.
I'm paraphrasing Tony Robbins here, but he says that the worst type of standard is that of perfection, because it's unattainable and as such, it's worse than having no standard at all.
So I learned how to take deep breaths before going out there. I reminded myself of what is important, the dog/handler bond. I rearranged my thinking to see each run as both a lesson about what is working well and areas we can still train. I saw success as more of what percent of that run went well. Qualification (running cleanly enough to get credit for the attempt) and placement became things that I could appreciate and be proud of, but not the end goal. I now focus on on my time with my dog, on improving my technique, and in having patience (most of the time), and you know what, the joy of this activity has returned.
Think about one thing in your life that used to be fun and now is not and see if anxiety and perfectionism have crept in and think about how useful those things are do you. If they are not and if you drop them, I expect you'll find the joy that you once had.
A Joyful Agility Run
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Man Who Is Awake
"Do what is right. Be pure. At the end of the way is freedom. Until then, patience."
Sounds simple, right? Just do what is right and wait. Well, sometimes doing what is right is hard. You might even say that often it is hard. Like you know that yelling at your dog/child/spouse isn't actually going to help, but you're so frustrated that you do it anyway. Sometimes we confuse what is easy for what is right. Sometimes we just do what is easy and don't even think about whether it is the right action. The dharmaspoon guy, for example, normally is very good about recycling. After the holidays, it's a different story and sometimes in the overload of packaging, it all goes in the trash. Sometimes we try to do right and things don't work out the way we'd like them to. Think about the times you tried to give someone what you thought was useful feedback, only to have it taken as an insult. Other times, we do right and do not notice it. Maybe we bought the first bag of coffee we ran across and it happens to be fairly traded, but you could care less. So there's intention to do right and then right action. Take the situation in Haiti. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the suffering there and to know what the right thing to do us. You can react in at least five ways:
1. You can try to ignore it.
2. You can want to do something to help but feel helpless to do anything.
3. You can want to do something, say text money to the Red Cross (see my last post), and not act.
4. You can want to do something, say text money to the Red Cross (see my last post), and do so. It's only $10. Seriously. Do it now.
5. You can try to ignore it, drop $10 on the ground, and someone else gives the money to the Red cross.
Doing good involves the intersection of intention and action.
Doing good also involves a certain level of mindfulness, less we undo one good task with subsequent not-so-good task. It's called not being a self-righteous ass about it and posting about it on your blog ;-) . It's also called not acting as if what you did is so good that you think you have self-righteousness credits that allow you to be thoughtless somewhere else. You know, like the Prius owner who flicks their cigarette butt out the window while cursing at the ambulance driver because those ambulances get like 2 MPG.
Finally, doing good now might not bring about any immediate effects for you. That's where the patience comes in. Now, go do good and don't be a prick about it!
Sounds simple, right? Just do what is right and wait. Well, sometimes doing what is right is hard. You might even say that often it is hard. Like you know that yelling at your dog/child/spouse isn't actually going to help, but you're so frustrated that you do it anyway. Sometimes we confuse what is easy for what is right. Sometimes we just do what is easy and don't even think about whether it is the right action. The dharmaspoon guy, for example, normally is very good about recycling. After the holidays, it's a different story and sometimes in the overload of packaging, it all goes in the trash. Sometimes we try to do right and things don't work out the way we'd like them to. Think about the times you tried to give someone what you thought was useful feedback, only to have it taken as an insult. Other times, we do right and do not notice it. Maybe we bought the first bag of coffee we ran across and it happens to be fairly traded, but you could care less. So there's intention to do right and then right action. Take the situation in Haiti. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the suffering there and to know what the right thing to do us. You can react in at least five ways:
1. You can try to ignore it.
2. You can want to do something to help but feel helpless to do anything.
3. You can want to do something, say text money to the Red Cross (see my last post), and not act.
4. You can want to do something, say text money to the Red Cross (see my last post), and do so. It's only $10. Seriously. Do it now.
5. You can try to ignore it, drop $10 on the ground, and someone else gives the money to the Red cross.
Doing good involves the intersection of intention and action.
Doing good also involves a certain level of mindfulness, less we undo one good task with subsequent not-so-good task. It's called not being a self-righteous ass about it and posting about it on your blog ;-) . It's also called not acting as if what you did is so good that you think you have self-righteousness credits that allow you to be thoughtless somewhere else. You know, like the Prius owner who flicks their cigarette butt out the window while cursing at the ambulance driver because those ambulances get like 2 MPG.
Finally, doing good now might not bring about any immediate effects for you. That's where the patience comes in. Now, go do good and don't be a prick about it!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A chance to do good in the midst of suffering
As you may already know, a massive earthquake hit the capitol of Haiti and untold thousands are either dead or buried under rubble. Situations like this remind us of our basic humanity and for many of us, there is a natural desire to help out in some way, but often we feel like there is nothing we can do. To that extent, I'm sharing a link to a New York Times blog post that can help you to do something:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/haiti-disaster-relief-how-to-contribute/
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/haiti-disaster-relief-how-to-contribute/
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The World
"Come consider the world, a painted chariot for kings, a trap for fools, but he who sees goes free..." - Dhammapada
"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." - Morpheous
Now I'm not saying that we're all really plugged into some pod somewhere acting like human batteries for our mechanical overlords. What I am saying is that the we experience the "world" with our senses and our thoughts and our feelings and all of these things are dynamic and created by us and so the truth is that we create our own world. For example, the chair I am sitting on is not inherently a chair. It is a collection of hundreds of pieces of plastic and metal and fabric in positioned in such a way as tocomfortably adequately support my body when in a seated position. If I took my chair apart into its component pieces, you would no longer call it a chair. It no longer has the quality of a chair.
I think that it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that so much of how we experience the world around us is made up by how we are disposed to see things, how things are presented through the media, how our friends and family share their experience of the world and so-on. We react to opinions as fact and can see separation where there is none and cause ourselves and others much suffering.
If you have read this far, hopefully your brain doesn't hurt too much. Mine did at first until I realized, there is no such thing.
"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." - Morpheous
Now I'm not saying that we're all really plugged into some pod somewhere acting like human batteries for our mechanical overlords. What I am saying is that the we experience the "world" with our senses and our thoughts and our feelings and all of these things are dynamic and created by us and so the truth is that we create our own world. For example, the chair I am sitting on is not inherently a chair. It is a collection of hundreds of pieces of plastic and metal and fabric in positioned in such a way as to
I think that it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that so much of how we experience the world around us is made up by how we are disposed to see things, how things are presented through the media, how our friends and family share their experience of the world and so-on. We react to opinions as fact and can see separation where there is none and cause ourselves and others much suffering.
If you have read this far, hopefully your brain doesn't hurt too much. Mine did at first until I realized, there is no such thing.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Yourself
"Your work is to discover your work and to give yourself to it."
I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately. Like many people, I'm a cubicle farmer. My daily work is rather dull and uninteresting. I'm great at what I do. It's just dull and uninteresting. And it takes very little of my time, hence the time to spend in self discovery and to write this blog.
Most children do not grow up thinking: "I want to be a middle manager for a faceless corporation when I grow up." When I was growing up, we wanted to be astronauts and baseball players and firemen. The fact is, most of us cannot be those things, and many of us wouldn't want to if we understood what those jobs really involved.
Lately I have been trying to figure out what my "work" really is. My job enables me to have a comfortable income and spend time doing things I enjoy, but it is by no means my passion. Is this enough? Is it better to have a job you love, but that distracts you from paying attention to other aspects of your life? I think not.
I think my "work" is about being a mindful, compassionate person whose actions improve the lives of those around me. This is separate from my job, which is to sit a cubicle and deal with the corporate mindfuck that tells me I'm invaluable and expendable at the same time.
Each of us has to figure out what their "work" is and to not confuse it with their job. It's not to say that they cannot be the same thing and one day, maybe it will work out that way, but our "work" is something bigger than our source of income.
I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately. Like many people, I'm a cubicle farmer. My daily work is rather dull and uninteresting. I'm great at what I do. It's just dull and uninteresting. And it takes very little of my time, hence the time to spend in self discovery and to write this blog.
Most children do not grow up thinking: "I want to be a middle manager for a faceless corporation when I grow up." When I was growing up, we wanted to be astronauts and baseball players and firemen. The fact is, most of us cannot be those things, and many of us wouldn't want to if we understood what those jobs really involved.
Lately I have been trying to figure out what my "work" really is. My job enables me to have a comfortable income and spend time doing things I enjoy, but it is by no means my passion. Is this enough? Is it better to have a job you love, but that distracts you from paying attention to other aspects of your life? I think not.
I think my "work" is about being a mindful, compassionate person whose actions improve the lives of those around me. This is separate from my job, which is to sit a cubicle and deal with the corporate mindfuck that tells me I'm invaluable and expendable at the same time.
Each of us has to figure out what their "work" is and to not confuse it with their job. It's not to say that they cannot be the same thing and one day, maybe it will work out that way, but our "work" is something bigger than our source of income.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Old Age
"Sad is the man who in his youth lived loosely and squandered his fortune."
So I'm a relatively young dharmaspoon guy. Being as such, it is easy to forget that one day (if I am lucky), I will get old and die. If I am unlucky, I won't get to get old first. Either way, I am reminded that while our physical bodies are impermanent, our actions accumulate and carry on after we pass. Now I don't have a fortune to squander. My dogs and my house and my wife make sure of that (and I mean that in a good way, because what I get in return from each of them is priceless). What I do have is opportunities to do good in the world, to live with integrity, and to appreciate my good fortune. It's the start of a new year and my resolution is to live mindfully and with gratitude for all that I have.
So I'm a relatively young dharmaspoon guy. Being as such, it is easy to forget that one day (if I am lucky), I will get old and die. If I am unlucky, I won't get to get old first. Either way, I am reminded that while our physical bodies are impermanent, our actions accumulate and carry on after we pass. Now I don't have a fortune to squander. My dogs and my house and my wife make sure of that (and I mean that in a good way, because what I get in return from each of them is priceless). What I do have is opportunities to do good in the world, to live with integrity, and to appreciate my good fortune. It's the start of a new year and my resolution is to live mindfully and with gratitude for all that I have.
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