Read Online Buddhist Boot Camp by Timber Hawkeye - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Timber Hawkeye
Ads: Link
men), even though honesty and grace are significantly more courageous than a bad temper.
If we use anger to motivate change and fuel determination, it can actually drive our good intentions forward without causing any harm. But when anger isn’t handled with care, it can turn into hatred and rage, and that’s not only unproductive, it’s dangerous.
When you’re disappointed or irritated, take a moment to think about what you would like to accomplish, and you’ll find that screaming or acting out will rarely, if ever, get you the results you’re after. EXPLAIN your anger, don’t express it, and you will immediately open the door to solutions and understanding.
Many people say this is “easier said than done,” but when you contemplate the ease or difficulty of any practice, don’t forget to consider the challenges of the alternative. As difficult as it may be to express our insecurities in a healthy way, it is far more damaging to lose our temper or keep everything bottled up inside. Remember the Freudian advice, “Pain does not decompose when you bury it.”
Gratitude is the antidote to anger. We cannot be angry and grateful at the same time (one stomps the other). So choose gratitude every time, as it never fails to put the mind at ease.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. —Eleanor Roosevelt
The Two Wolves
It’s as if there are two versions of me: one is calm, truthful, giving, forgiving, harmonious and wise, and the other is sometimes greedy, selfish, dishonest and argumentative. So when I wake up every day, I say good morning to both of them, but then I vow to only listen to the wiser of the two for the rest of the day.
What’s funny is that the selfish part of me is loud and obnoxious, always yelling, “Listen to me, listen to me!” while the selfless side just quietly sits there like a Buddha, with a knowing smile on his face, thinking, “You know what to do . . .”
I believe that both of these parts are within each of us, and that we are capable of being either one. The choice is ours with every decision we make.
It’s like the Native American story of the old man who told his grandson, “There is a battle between two wolves inside all of us. One is Evil (it is anger, envy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego), and the other is Good (it is joy, peace, love, humility, kindness, empathy and truth).” When the boy asked, “Which wolf wins?” the old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”
It is better to have a mind opened by wonder than a mind closed by belief. —Gerry Spence
Note the Antidote
I approach fear the same way I approach almost everything else in life: with an antidote. Here’s what I mean: anger and gratitude, for example, cannot coexist in the same thought; it is cognitively impossible. The moment you are angry with your spouse, for example, is the moment you stop being grateful for having them in your life in the first place; yet the moment you go back to gratitude, the anger goes away. It’s like magic: gratitude is the antidote to anger.
Here’s the trick: instead of focusing all of your energy on “letting go of anger,” focus on increasing your gratitude . . . and the anger will naturally subside.
Fear also has an antidote, and I hope you can follow my train of thought here.
I spent years envious of people who had faith because I was too logical to understand it, which was frustrating because I’d heard it said that if you feed your faith, then all your fears will starve to death, and now I know it’s powerfully true.
“Faith” is trusting the process. You see, SOMETHING is making your heart beat right now, your lungs function, the grass grow and the planets spin. So whether we admit it or not, what we have is FAITH. We have faith that our heart will keep beating, and that we’ll wake up tomorrow morning. We don’t KNOW this; we TRUST it. So trust the process and honor it by not overlooking this tremendous faith that
If we use anger to motivate change and fuel determination, it can actually drive our good intentions forward without causing any harm. But when anger isn’t handled with care, it can turn into hatred and rage, and that’s not only unproductive, it’s dangerous.
When you’re disappointed or irritated, take a moment to think about what you would like to accomplish, and you’ll find that screaming or acting out will rarely, if ever, get you the results you’re after. EXPLAIN your anger, don’t express it, and you will immediately open the door to solutions and understanding.
Many people say this is “easier said than done,” but when you contemplate the ease or difficulty of any practice, don’t forget to consider the challenges of the alternative. As difficult as it may be to express our insecurities in a healthy way, it is far more damaging to lose our temper or keep everything bottled up inside. Remember the Freudian advice, “Pain does not decompose when you bury it.”
Gratitude is the antidote to anger. We cannot be angry and grateful at the same time (one stomps the other). So choose gratitude every time, as it never fails to put the mind at ease.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. —Eleanor Roosevelt
The Two Wolves
It’s as if there are two versions of me: one is calm, truthful, giving, forgiving, harmonious and wise, and the other is sometimes greedy, selfish, dishonest and argumentative. So when I wake up every day, I say good morning to both of them, but then I vow to only listen to the wiser of the two for the rest of the day.
What’s funny is that the selfish part of me is loud and obnoxious, always yelling, “Listen to me, listen to me!” while the selfless side just quietly sits there like a Buddha, with a knowing smile on his face, thinking, “You know what to do . . .”
I believe that both of these parts are within each of us, and that we are capable of being either one. The choice is ours with every decision we make.
It’s like the Native American story of the old man who told his grandson, “There is a battle between two wolves inside all of us. One is Evil (it is anger, envy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego), and the other is Good (it is joy, peace, love, humility, kindness, empathy and truth).” When the boy asked, “Which wolf wins?” the old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”
It is better to have a mind opened by wonder than a mind closed by belief. —Gerry Spence
Note the Antidote
I approach fear the same way I approach almost everything else in life: with an antidote. Here’s what I mean: anger and gratitude, for example, cannot coexist in the same thought; it is cognitively impossible. The moment you are angry with your spouse, for example, is the moment you stop being grateful for having them in your life in the first place; yet the moment you go back to gratitude, the anger goes away. It’s like magic: gratitude is the antidote to anger.
Here’s the trick: instead of focusing all of your energy on “letting go of anger,” focus on increasing your gratitude . . . and the anger will naturally subside.
Fear also has an antidote, and I hope you can follow my train of thought here.
I spent years envious of people who had faith because I was too logical to understand it, which was frustrating because I’d heard it said that if you feed your faith, then all your fears will starve to death, and now I know it’s powerfully true.
“Faith” is trusting the process. You see, SOMETHING is making your heart beat right now, your lungs function, the grass grow and the planets spin. So whether we admit it or not, what we have is FAITH. We have faith that our heart will keep beating, and that we’ll wake up tomorrow morning. We don’t KNOW this; we TRUST it. So trust the process and honor it by not overlooking this tremendous faith that
Similar Books
