Word-Of-the-Week #916: Mindfulness
February 24, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #916: Mindfulness
Mindfulness – the ability to be fully present, aware of where you are and what you’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around you.
How often do you feel fully present in your surroundings? Does what’s going on around you ever make you feel reactive or overwhelmed?
This week features excerpts from NY Times writer Seth Mydans, “Thich Nhat Hanh, Monk, Zen Master and Activist, Dies at 95.”
“A monk with global influence and an ally of Martin Luther King, he championed what he called “engaged Buddhism,” applying its principles in pressing for peace.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was one of the world’s most influential Zen masters, spreading messages of mindfulness, compassion and nonviolence, died on Saturday, January 22nd at his home in the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam. He was 95.
A prolific author, poet, teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam after opposing the war in the 1960s and became a leading voice in a movement he called “engaged Buddhism,” the application of Buddhist principles to political and social reform.
Traveling widely on speaking tours in the United States and Europe he was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism, urging the embrace of mindfulness, which his website describes as “the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment.”
In his book “Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life,” he wrote, “If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.”
His following grew as he established dozens of monasteries and practice centers around the world. In 2018, he returned home to Hue, in central Vietnam, to live out his last days at the Tu Hieu Temple, where he had become a novice as a teenager.
Thich Nhat Hanh dismissed the idea of death. “Birth and death are only notions,” he wrote in his book “No Death, No Fear.” “They are not real.”
He added: “The Buddha taught that there is no birth; there is no death; there is no coming; there is no going; there is no same; there is no different; there is no permanent self; there is no annihilation. We only think there is.”
That understanding, he wrote, can liberate people from fear and allow them to “enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way.”
Dr. King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, but the prize was not awarded to anyone that year.
In the early 1960s, he founded Youth for Social Services, a grass-roots relief organization in what was then South Vietnam. It rebuilt bombed villages, set up schools, established medical centers and reunited families left homeless by the war.
Thich Nhat Hanh began writing and speaking out against the war and in 1964 published a poem called “Condemnation” in a Buddhist weekly. It reads in part:
Whoever is listening, be my witness:
I cannot accept this war.
I never could I never will.
I must say this a thousand times before I am killed.
I am like the bird who dies for the sake of its mate,
dripping blood from its broken beak and crying out:
“Beware! Turn around and face your real enemies
— ambition, violence hatred and greed.”
The poem earned him the label “antiwar poet,” and he was denounced as a pro-Communist propagandist. His antiwar activism continued, and in a talk in Hanoi in 2008 he said the Iraq war had resulted from fear and misunderstanding in which violence fed on itself.
“We know very well that airplanes, guns and bombs cannot remove wrong perceptions,” he said. “Only loving speech and compassionate listening can help people correct wrong perceptions. But our leaders are not trained in that discipline, and they rely only on the armed forces to remove terrorism.”
In 2013, on one of his many visits to centers of influence in the West, he spoke at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, bringing his message of quiet contemplation to the forefront of the high-energy digital age.
“We have the feeling that we are overwhelmed by information,” he told the assembled workers. “We don’t need that much information.”
And he said: “Do not try to find the solution with your thinking mind. Nonthinking is the secret of success. And that is why the time when we are not working, that time can be very productive, if we know how to focus on the moment.”
This week’s focus is on mindfulness. Are you enjoying life to the fullest? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the information you get? Have you ever missed out on something because you were not fully present in the moment?
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Word-Of-the-Week #915: Nothingness
February 17, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #915: Nothingness
Nothingness – that pleasant experience of enjoying time going by, letting your thoughts take over.
How comfortable are you spending time doing nothing? How often have you just sat in silence watching and listening to what was going on around you?
This week longtime friend and comrade Bill Marvin, The Restaurant Doctor, shares his perspective on spending time in Italy. And I adoro l’italia!
“The Italians have a philosophy of “dolce far niente” (dolce = sweet || far(e) = do || niente = nothing), literally: the sweet essence of doing nothing and enjoying it.
Nothingness is that pleasant experience of enjoying time going by, letting your thoughts take over. It’s very much in the mentality of Italians. They are lucky enough to have the natural beauty of amazing landscapes, from the coasts and sea sides to the highest mountains along with a profound sense of history.
Dolce far niente is at its best where all that matters is living the moment. No stress, no pressure, nothing matters; just live in the moment, a ‘doing nothing’ moment.
Mi amici Italiani dolce far niente!
Italians work hard, but they live to celebrate with good wine and a plate of pasta, no matter whether it is a normal everyday lunch or the most important holiday in the country. Dolce far niente is a way of thinking always fixed to the moment, in which you can finally ‘do nothing’ and enjoy it.
It’s the sensation when you sit at a bar in an Italian village while you drink coffee and watch the passersby. Time slows and for half a second you admire life in its simplicity, and you only want to smile.
Spending time in Italy always reminds me of the importance of slowing down to the speed of life and just enjoying the moment. I recommend it highly.
Have the courage to Do the Work! … even when that work is the bliss of doing nothing at all!”
This week’s focus is on nothingness. When was the last time you did absolutely nothing? Did it make you smile? How often do you allow yourself to just “be in the moment?”
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Word-Of-the-Week #914: Relax
February 10, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #914: Relax
Relax – what you need to do to reduce stress.
Does having your “plate too full” make you feel stressed? How much time do you take each week to just relax? When you go on vacation how long does it take you to fully unwind? You did take a vacation from work last year, right?
This week’s WOW is from the Time Magazine article titled, “Six Ways to Handle Stress.” First, “There’s more than one way to relieve stress.”
- Breathe Deeply. Regular, slow breathing – a common characteristic of meditation and prayer – alerts your brain that you are in a safe place far away from predators. It also relaxes your heart, decreases blood pressure, and removes waste from the bloodstream.
- Take a Vacation. A change of scenery clears the head, recharges the batteries and, according to a recent study sponsored by Air New Zealand, improves reaction time 82% – provided that you ignore your e-mail and allow a couple of weeks to disengage and unwind. My response to that is, “Checking my email and updating my blog is actually more relaxing to me than putting it off. But I designate only one time a day for that.” How about you?
- Make Friends. Social isolation increases the physiological damage caused by stress. A 2006 survey found that Americans have only two close friends with whom they can confide their deepest concerns – down from three friends 20 years ago.
- Exercise Regularly. It protects the heart, which is often the first to feel the effects of stress. Studies show exercise also helps maintain the brain’s ability to change focus quickly from one situation to another.
- Eat Plenty of Fruits & Vegetables. The antioxidants and other ingredients they contain counter-balance the inflammatory proteins the body produces under stress.
- Don’t Stay Up Late. Irregular sleep increases the effects of stress on your body, setting you up for metabolic imbalances that increase your risk of heart disease.
- Do What You Love. Having a sense of mission about your job makes it easier to deal with inevitable setbacks. (You will still need to take those regular breaks from work.) And if you can’t find meaning in your job, look for it in a hobby or through participation in religious or community organizations.
The good news is, I am in Hawaii to Relax and experience some Nature. And as Sandra, my long-time dear friend said after reading my WOW on Nature, “I was planning to run to the gym but, maybe I will hike outside today!”
This week’s focus is on making time to relax. Are you able to do that or do you feel guilty? Do you take time to breathe deeply? Do you have friends with whom you can confide in? Are you doing what you LOVE? Are you exercising regularly? If not, “Go take a hike!”
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Word-Of-the-Week #913: Adventurous
February 3, 2022 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #913: Adventurous
Adventurous – willing to undertake new and daring enterprises.
At this stage of your life how willing are you to undertake new and daring enterprises? Does that feel scary or intimidating? Or do you get a feeling of excitement?
I’m on vacation for the next 3 weeks and definitely plan on being adventurous! So, I will be re-running some of my favorite travel WOW’s.
New York times writer Carl Richards aka SKETCH GUY is this week’s contribution. His latest article “Adventurous Quests Sharpen Everyday Skills” states, “I was telling a friend about some projects that really excited me – a new book I’m working on, an article I’m writing and a new hobby, motorcycling in the desert.
He asked, “How do you stay so motivated and so excited about things?”
It caught me off guard. I hadn’t really considered the “why” behind my activities. But I realized that the common thread was the feeling of being in over my head, just a little. In other words, doing things despite the fact that that, as the marketing guru Seth Godin likes to say, “this might not work.”
Now, that may sound counterintuitive. It’s easy to wonder how doing stuff that makes you uncomfortable, and might not even work, is a source of motivation. I’ve been thinking a lot about this paradox. I wondered whether I’m wired differently. But there’s something about a sink-or-swim environment that excites me.
My friend Dallas Hartwig told me about this concept call hormesis, a phenomenon by which something that could impair or even kill you in high doses can make you stronger in low doses.
Of course, I thought. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s well documented that the way to grow muscle is to rip the muscle tissue, and then give it time to regrow. It comes back stronger than before. It makes sense that the business equivalent of building muscle is trying new things. When you throw yourself into the deep end of something new, you face a steep learning curve. That forces you to grow, adapt and develop your skill set. It’s almost irrelevant if the project succeeds. The very act of taking on something new helps you become better at your work over all.
You cannot spend your whole life in the deep end. Muscles get tired. Just like physical exercise, you have to calibrate the stress and rest cycle of any sort of entrepreneurial or creative work. The more I thought about it, the more I began to see these experiences for what they really were –adventures. After all, isn’t the definition of adventure to set off into the unknown, endure hardships, come back and then rest?
I know that adventures can feel scary and intimidating. But making a habit of seeking adventure may be the secret to staying motivated about the things you do.
And that confers a key economic benefit to anyone who experiences it. Even if we set aside all the tangible benefits that come from stepping outside our comfort zone, it is obvious that being more excited about your work is a surefire way to improve your performance, and turn your various ventures into adventures.
This week’s focus is on being more adventurous. How motivated are you at this point of your life? How would it feel to step outside your comfort zone? Is there anything you have been putting off that would bring you excitement?
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