You Are What You Think

“Do not think that what your thoughts dwell upon is of no matter.  Your thoughts are making you.”

-Bishop Steere

 

You are what you think.  What do you think about all day?  It really depends on where I am.  Walking through the woods I am likely to have different thoughts than what I typically have in the workplace.  On a good day I most likely have good and positive thoughts.  On a difficult day my thoughts may be hostile and obsessive.  When I am daydreaming I may be thinking of a beautiful place, some great music or a good book I am enjoying.  When I am with my granddaughter I am thinking about how much she is growing up and what a unique person she is becoming.  When I am meditating I am trying to not think at all.  In a typical day we all think about many things.  Some thoughts are positive or creative and they expand our minds.  Some thoughts are negative, depressing, or hurtful and they shrink our minds.  All of our minds go in many directions and each of us have wonderful and not so wonderful thoughts.  Take some time and think about what kind of thoughts take up most of your day.  What do your thoughts say about who you are? 

Sometimes You Have To Simply Trust

“Simply trust.  Do not the petals flutter down, just like that?”

-Issa

 

I love the study of psychology, especially the different personality types.  I have taught Myers-Briggs to many groups of people and I am a serious study of the Enneagram which is a much deeper approach to what makes all of us who we are.  The Enneagram identifies nine types of people.  They are sub-divided into three groups.  They are called the “Gut Types”, the “Heart Types”, and the “Head Types.  I am a gut type.  Gut types are reactive and often have anger issues.  Until I really started thinking about it I never realized how much repressed anger I carry around with me.  Heart types are relational and are always wondering how they are perceived by others.  Image is important to Heart types.  Head types live in their heads and are fear driven.  The largest percentage of our population fall into this category.  Fear types hate ambiguity.  They want absolute certitude about everything.  They often find it very difficult to make a decision because they are afraid it will be the wrong one.  The reality is that sooner or later you must learn to simply trust and go for it.  The truth is that most fear originates in our heads and is not based on any true reality.  Most of the things we fear never happen to us.       

Meditation Speaks

“Meditation speaks.  It speaks in silence.  It reveals.  It reveals to the aspirant that matter and spirit are one, quantity and quality are one, the immanent and the transcendent are one.  It reveals that life can never be the mere existence of seventy or eighty years between birth and death, but is, rather, Eternity itself.”

-Sri Chinmoy   

 

Let me start with some obscure musical information.  Back in the early 1970’s rock music and jazz music created a hybrid called jazz fusion.  The band Santana combined Latin rhythms and percussion with jazz influences.  A band called the Mahavishnu Orchestra created sounds like no one had heard before.  The leaders of these bands, Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, besides being extremely talented guitar players, were both followers of the guru, Sri Chinmoy. Together they recorded an album called “Love, Devotion, Surrender”.  It is probably no surprise to anyone that knows me well that I own all of this music on CD’s and I jam to it on a regular basis.  All music considered jazz fusion generally has a spiritual overtone. 

 

The quote by Sri Chinmoy basically tells us that all of life is sacred.  Doing the laundry or washing the dishes can be as spiritual as going to church or reading your prayer book.  There is no separation between the secular and the sacred.  I have shared before that I once lived in a Trappist monastery.  We did spend more time in church than the average person but I also spend a great deal of time wandering in the woods and fields, working on the farm, cooking in the kitchen, and making fruitcakes in the bakery.  I also fed the cows and worked on lots of construction projects.  Sometimes the experience of God was more likely in the woods than in the church.  Most of the time they complimented one another.  The point is that whether you are a monk, or just a mother or father living in the world, all of life is sacred and spiritual at its core.  

Non Value Added Activity

“Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, (it means) getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness, the one that makes us take on thousands of less important activities.”

-Matthieu Ricard

 

There is lots of corporate jargon and most of it makes me crazy.  Why do we come up with all this superfluous language when speaking plainly would be more to the point and much easier to understand?  There has been one corporate bit of lingo that I did like and it was the term “Non Value Added Activity”.  Abraham Maslow, the noted psychologist credited with the creator of the “Hierarchy of Needs”, once said that 80% of all work is BS.  This 80% is basically non value added activity.  How many of you perform meaningless or redundant tasks in your daily work?  I am sure it is more than a few.  We should always be looking for ways to eliminate such wastes of time so that we can be truly productive by performing value added activities.  Of course, this doesn’t apply just to the work place.  We should be doing this in all parts of our lives.  My wife and I have argued our entire marriage about the proper way to load a dishwasher.  She just throws stuff in there with no sense of order.  I think there is an order to the universe and a proper way to load a dishwasher.  Many times I have completely re-loaded the dishwasher after my wife has done it her way.  It really makes little difference.  The dishes will get clean either way.  My perfectionistic personality, mixed with a little anal retention, creates the non-value added activity of sometimes loading the dishwasher twice when once will do fine.  In the workplace we will take information from one report and move it to another report.  Why?  What’s wrong with the original report?  Our lives can get frittered away by doing all kinds of “Non Value Added Activity”.  Every time we do something we should ask, “Is this really necessary?  Does it really matter or have a purpose?  If I died, would someone else keep it going or even notice that it stopped?”      

Be A Light To Others

“Look at this window.  It is nothing but a hole in the wall but because of it the whole room is full of light.  So when the faculties are empty, the heart is full of light.”

-Chuang Tzu

 

On weekends, and any other day we do not have to work, my wife shuts all the doors to all the rooms in the upstairs of my home and if she could she would duct tape all the blinds against the windows.  Why does she do this?  Her goal is to minimize any morning sunlight that might enter our bedroom.  Why do I put up with this insanity?  I do it because I have been married to this woman for almost 42 years and it is easier and safer to just let her be.  When I finally get out of the bed I open all the doors and blinds so light fills the house.  Another reason I open all the blinds is that I like to see the outdoors and feel some sense of connection to it.  I hate when I am in a work related meeting in a room that has no windows.  In a metaphorical sense we are all windows to one another.  The only part of the work day I truly enjoy is my interactions with those people who bring light into my life.  They may do it through their pleasant personalities, their laughter, their smiles, their morning greetings when I arrive at work, or their willingness to listen to me when I am throwing a hissy fit about something.  Be a light to those around you.  There is plenty of darkness in the world and there are plenty of people who drive other people crazy.  Don’t be someone who brings darkness to another person’s life or who drives other people crazy.  One way or another all of us will be gone from here sooner or later.  I hope when I retire next year I am remembered as a person of light and for all my best human qualities and not just because I was great with numbers.  

Pay Attention To Your Life

“Mindfulness is hearing the music in the sound of heavy traffic.”

 

Life is noisy and much of life has the feel of being stuck in traffic.  Most of us have ordinary lives and our days are full of daily, often mundane tasks and, if we are lucky, simple joys.  One of the many challenges of life is to notice the extraordinary within the ordinary.  Mindfulness can help us do this because mindfulness is a way of paying attention.  When we are not paying attention we miss a lot.  A day turns into a week, a week turns into a month, a month turns into a year, and suddenly we find ourselves ten years down the road of our life’s journey.  If we have not paid attention along the way, we can find that we have missed our own life.  Pay attention to your own life and do this in the moment because your moments turn into days, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into years, and the years soon become a lifetime.  Don’t miss the hidden and often extraordinary moments within the seemingly ordinary and mundane ones.    

What Has Formed Me? Part Two

Ironically, it was while living in a Trappist monastery that I first became aware of Zen, Mindfulness, Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama.  These things and these teachers continue to be influences and have had a great impact on the kind of person that I am today.  Another influence from that time of my life is Henry David Thoreau and especially his book "Walden Pond".  Christian monasticism, especially the Benedictine and Cistercian expression, Zen Buddhism, and the writings of Thoreau planted within me a desire for a simple life.  Although I am no longer living in a monastery, and I cannot totally live like a monk, I have tried to be as simple of a person as I can while living life as a married, family man.  This bring me to the next major influences in my life.  For the last 40+ years I have lived as a married man, father, and grandfather, while working for the last 30+ years in corporate America.  None of this has been easy for me.  In many ways it has gone against the grain of who I am at my deepest level.  On the one hand marriage and family life has provided a stability in my life that I might not have otherwise had.  It has also demanded a selflessness that I did not always want to have but which I also believe help form me into the person I am today.  My children are now adults, my granddaughter is nearly a teenager, and my working career is coming to an end.  Most of my working life I have been in leadership positions.  I believe I am a natural leader but I am a reluctant one.  Being a leader has also demanded a certain selflessness as well as a demand to put myself "out there" when I would rather stay in my cave.  Optimistically, I may have twenty years of life left to me.  I am not in denial concerning my mortality.  I do not know what the remaining years of my life hold for me or how they will continue to form me.  I am eager to begin the next phase of my journey and to see what life holds for me.  I believe the people and influences that have formed me up till now have done a good job.  I am happy with who I am and I am optimistic about who I will still be as I continue to age and reach my ultimate conclusion.