How to rewire negative thinking

there is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about the things which are beyond the power of our will if you were distressed by anything external the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment the greatest obstacle to living is expectancy which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today you are arranging what lies in fortunes control and abandoning what lies in yours what are you looking at to what goal are you straining the whole future lies

in uncertainty live immediately men are disturbed not by things but by the views which they take of things thus death is nothing terrible else it would have appeared so to socrates but the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible when therefore we are hindered or disturbed or grieved let us never impute it to others but to ourselves that is to our own views it is the action of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own misfortunes of one entering upon instruction to reproach himself and of one perfectly instructed to approach

neither others or himself they lose the day in expectation of the night and the night in fear of the dawn he is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not but rejoices for those which he has live a good life if there are gods and they are just then they will not care how devout you have been but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by if there are gods but unjust then you should not want to worship them if there are no gods then you will

be gone but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones if you really want to escape the things that harass you what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person true happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have which is sufficient for he that is so wants nothing the greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach

a wise man is content with his lot whatever it may be without wishing for what he has not for what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free lofty fearless and steadfast a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear beyond the reach of desire that counts virtue the only good baseness the only evil and all else but a worthless mass of things which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good and neither subtracting any part from the happy life nor add any part to

it a man thus grounded must whether he wills or not necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep in issues from deep within since he finds delight in his own resources and desires no joys greater than his inner joys when someone wrongs you ask yourself what made him do it once you understand his concept of good and evil you feel sorry for him and cease to either be amazed or hungry if his concept is similar to yours then you will be bound to forgive him since you would have acted as he

did in similar circumstances but if you do not share his ideas of good and evil then you should find it easier to overlook the wrongs of someone who is confused and in a moral model wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants don't explain your philosophy embody it first say to yourself what you would be and then do what you have to do any person capable of angering you becomes your master he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him circumstances don't make the man they only

reveal him to himself don't seek to have events happen as you wish but wish them to happen as they do happen and all will be well with you god has entrusted me with myself no man is free who is not master of himself a man should live so that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake but for the sake of having done right if you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor if you live according to what

others think you will never be rich all cruelty springs from weakness nothing to my way of thinking is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company [Music] a gift consists not in what is done or given but in the intention of the giver or doer you act like mortals in all that you fear and like immortals in all that you desire if a man knows not to which port he sails no wind is favorable you live as if you

were destined to live forever no thought of your frailty ever enters your head of how much time has already gone by you take no heed you squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts how much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or but only at what he does himself to make it just and holy begin each

day by telling yourself i shall be met with interference ingratitude insolence disloyalty ill-will and selfishness all of them due to the offenders ignorance of what is good or evil but for my part i have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility the nature of evil and its meanness and also the nature of the culprit himself who is my brother not in the physical sense but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine therefore none of those things can injure me for nobody can implicate me in what is

degrading neither can i be angry with my brother or fall foul of him for he and i were born to work together like a man's two hands feet or eyelids or the upper and lower rows of his teeth to obstruct each other is against nature's law and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction if anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer he was ignorant of my other faults else he would not have mentioned these alone it seems

to often do more harm than good to live in resentment and disdain for the world around us the world we find ourselves in its past and present its people and the rise and fall of its cultures and practices are all the way they are they are not the way we personally want them to be [Music] when we resist the reality of the world around us and instead project onto it our expectation about how the world should be we are often met with a certain level of internal resistance resistance that can cause us to suffer and

the greater the distance between reality in our expectation the greater the resistance the world is what it is it is not what we expect it to be learn to accept life learn to love fate and all that it brings this is the stoic principle of amor fatty to love fate after all fate has given us the ability to live and to experience life unfortunately amor fati often gets confused with a passive defeatist acceptance of the world around us to accept the wrongs of the world and to lie down as we observe the passing of things

we don't agree with or the wrong doing we see being committed but i believe this is a misunderstanding of the stoic principle acceptance of reality does not mean to submit to it it is simply learning the ability to see it objectively and accepting that in this moment that is the state of the world it is the ability to look at the things around us clearly not through the lens of our own bias and expectations in doing so we are better able to understand the situations around us the reality of the situations we find ourselves in

unblinded by the lens of our own bias and expectations we then are able to more clearly understand what is within our control and what is not and then look to leverage that control to affect change first in ourselves and then if possible in the world around us for the better whenever you feel anger towards a person think of what led them to behave in such a way it is all too easy for us to pass judgment from our own perspective but it is a very different thing to try and put yourself in the shoes of

the wrongdoer and try to understand what hardship they have gone through what burden they might carry or how life has treated them leading up to the moment which you found so offensive most people are trying to do the best they can with what they have and while we all are responsible for our actions there is often a line to draw between a person's experience and their behavior to me one of the great ironies of life is a man's desire to find comfort to remove all sources of hardship and suffering in favor of comfort when applied

to our core needs like food shelter security and companionship comfort and stability to me do make sense but when it exceeds to every corner of our lives comfort and the removal of all hardship seems to me to bring with it its own brand of hardship instead of putting ourselves into the unknown expanding our comfort zone and learning to deal with the adversity that comes with it excessive comfort seems to risk the opposite it erodes our resilience to hardship can breed purposelessness apathy sloth and the host of limitations that come with a shrinking comfort circle it

seems to me that one of the lesser thought of challenges of modern life is to balance the comfort that comes when our base needs a met with the voluntary hardship that is needed to make sure that comfort doesn't soften our resolve the ancient stoix advocated voluntary hardship marcus aurelius chose to sleep on an uncomfortable bed seneca chose to swim in rivers in the dead of winter both men were all too aware of the risks of becoming too comfortable and the benefits of adding discomfort to one's life day to day we often distance ourselves from death

often thinking that it is something that happens to others or to us many many years from now but the truth is that death is at our shoulder every day an ever-present fact of life today may very well be your last living with this as a reminder brings with it a deep gratitude for many of the things we take for granted knowing that whatever it is may be one of the last few times we are able to experience it whether that be sound of leaves in the wind the company of those we love are simply the

taste of good food to the stoix this was the practice of memento mori the practice of remembering death the nature of life is change from the very first shifts of the universe the most simple of elements gathered together to produce clouds and then solid bodies bodies that began to form the very first ingredients for life those ingredients formed life the circle of birth and death until eventually they came together in the exact configuration needed to create you and me like the beginning the peak and the crashing end of a wave our lives are simply part

of a grander cycle we are formed we experience and we end and with our end comes the opportunity for the reconfiguration of our atoms to allow another to come and go and to enjoy the experience of life and so on forever the nature of the entire universe is change from the very big to the very small [Music] lives are often not made better in the accomplishments of lofty goals or the collection of expensive things so much as they are improved by the small day-to-day changes of one's habits the decisions to wake up a little earlier

get out of the house a little more often go for a run read that book that's been gathering dust or try to be more present in the company of the things and people we love while of course great achievements do contribute to it habits built over time not short bursts of joy are often the paving stones to a happier life there is a delicate balance to be had when looking to the future and the past the future is necessary for long-term planning and preparation for events that seem likely to happen however look too long towards

the horizon and it's easy to let life slip by and miss the very thing you spent all that time planning and preparing for similarly the past can be used as a tool to learn but looking back to what was may also mean that you missed the life into which you've taken all the lessons of the past the future can be used to plan and prepare the past can be used to learn but life only happens in the present when i meet death as we all must do the time and place will be largely outside of

my control if tomorrow then i will die tomorrow and if a year from now or 20 years from now then i will meet it then it is in the very nature of a living thing to die regardless of how much we resist it however for now i am alive so i will put to use what is within my control and decide what to do with the time that is given to me i am not soothing you or making light of your misfortune if fate can be overcome by tears let us bring tears to bear upon

it let every day be passed in mourning every night be spent in sorrow instead of sleep let your breast be toned by your own hands your very face attacked by them and every kind of cruelty be practiced by your grief if it will profit you but if the dead cannot be brought back to life however much we may beat our breasts if destiny remains fixed and immovable forever not to be changed by any sorrow however great and death does not lose his hold on anything that he has once taken away then let our futile grief

be brought to an end let us then steer our own course and no longer allow ourselves to be driven to leeward by the force of our misfortune he is a sorry pilot who lets the waves ring his rudder from his grasp who leaves the sails to fly loose and abandons the ship to the storm but he who boldly grasps the helm and clings to it until the sea closes over him deserves praise even though he be shipwrecked [Music] never let the future disturb you you will meet it if you have to with the same weapons

of reason which today arm you against the present [Music] there are misfortunes which strike the sage without incapacitating him of course such as physical pain infirmity the loss of friends or children or the catastrophes of his country when it is devastated by war i grant that he is sensitive to these things for we do not impute to him the hardness of rock or of iron there is no virtue in putting up with that which one does not feel and they say that there is this difference between the mind of a foolish man and that of

a wise man that the foolish man thinks that such visions are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear with the original impact of them on his mind and by his ascent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared and confirms them but the wise man after being affected for a short time and slightly in his color and expression does not ascend but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind namely that they are in no wise to be feared

but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms don't you know life is like a military campaign one must serve on watch another in reconnaissance another on the front line so it is for us each person's life is a kind of battle and a long and varied one too you must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded you have been stationed in a key post not some lowly place and not for a short time but for life seek not for events to happen as you wish but wish events to happen as they

do and your life will go smoothly the chief task in life is simply this to identify and separate matters so that i can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control and which have to do with the choices i actually control where then do i look for good and evil not to uncontrollable externals but within myself to the choices that are my own one ought to seek out virtue for its own sake without being influenced by fear or hope or by any external influence moreover that in that does happiness consist what is

your art to be good and how is this accomplished well except by general principles some about the nature of the universe and others about the proper constitution of man in our control is the most beautiful and important thing the thing because of which even the god himself is happy namely the proper use of our impressions we must concern ourselves absolutely with the things that are under our control and entrust the things not in our control to the universe men are disturbed not by things but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things it

is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed to lay the blame on himself and of one whose instruction is completed neither to blame another nor himself one who knows not who he is and to what end he was born what kind of world is this and with whom he is associated therein one who cannot distinguish good and evil beauty and founders truth and falsehood will never follow reason in shaping his desires and impulses and repulsions nor yet

in ascent denial or suspension of judgment but will in one word go about deaf and blind thinking himself to be somewhat when he is in truth of no account is there anything new in all this is not this ignorance the cause of all the mistakes and mischances of men since the human race began [Music] we are all chained to fortune the chain of one is made of gold and wide while that's of another is short and rusty but what difference does it make the same prison surrounds all of us and even those who have bound

others are bound themselves unless per chance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter honours bind one man wealth another nobility oppresses some humility others some are held in subjection by an external power while others obey the tyrant within banishments keep some in place the priesthood others all life is slavery therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible and lay hold to whatever good is to be found near him nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it small

tablets because of the writer's skill have often served for many purposes and a clever arrangement has often made a very narrow piece of land habitable apply reason to difficulties harsh circumstances can be softened narrow limits can be widened and burdensome things can be made to press less severely on those who bear them cleverly if you were distressed by anything external the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it and this you have the power to revoke at any moment these reasonings are unconnected i am richer than you therefore i

am better i am more eloquent than you therefore i am better the connection is rather this i am richer than you therefore my property is greater than yours i am more eloquent than you therefore my style is better than yours but you after all are neither property nor style [Music] if you have given way to anger be sure that over and above the evil involved therein you have strengthened the habit and added fuel to the fire if overcome by a temptation of the flesh do not reckon it a single defeat but that you have also

strengthened your dissolute habits habits and faculties are necessarily affected by the corresponding acts one who has had fever even when it has left him is not in the same condition of health as before unless indeed his cure is complete something of the same sort is true also of diseases of the mind behind there remains a legacy of traces and of blisters and unless these are effectually erased subsequent blows on the same spot will produce no longer mere blisters but sores if you do not wish to be prone to anger do not feed the habit give

it nothing which may tend to its increase at first keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry i used to be angry every day then every other day next every two next every three days and if you succeed in passing 30 days sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving adorn when you have trouble getting out of bed tell yourself i have to go to work as a human being what do i have to complain of if i'm going to do what i was born for the things i was brought into the world to

do or is this what i was created for to huddle under the blankets and stay warm until we have begun to go without them we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are we've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them if you seek tranquility do less or more accurately do what's essential what the logos of a social being requires and in the requisite way which brings a double satisfaction to do less better because most of what we say and do is not essential if you can eliminate it you'll have

more time and more tranquility ask yourself at every moment is this necessary riches are a cause of evil not because of themselves they do any evil but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil in general any method of discipline applied to the body which tends to modify its desires or potions are good for acetic ends but if done for display they betray at once a man who keeps an eye on outward show who has an ulterior purpose and is looking for spectators to shout oh what a great man this

is why apollonia's so well said if you are bent upon a little private discipline wait till you are choking with heat one day then take a mouthful of cold water and spit it out again and tell no man what is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees a commitment to justice in your own acts which means thought in action resulting in the common good what you were born to do [Music] men do not care how nobly they live but only how long although it is within the reach of every man to

live nobly but within no man's power to live long he who is running a race ought to endeavour and strive to the utmost of his ability to come off victor but it is utterly wrong for him to trip up his competitor or to push him aside so in life it is not unfair for one to seek for himself what may accrue to his benefit but it is not right to take it from another for mankind evil is injustice and cruelty and indifference to a neighbor's trouble while virtue is brotherly love and goodness and justice and

beneficence and concern for the welfare of your neighbor [Music] the courageous in exile or at home is fearless in the face of all such threats for that reason they've the courage to say what they think equally at home or in exile philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for a man otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject matter for as the material of the carpenter is wood and that of statuary bronze so the subject matter of the art of living is each person's own life my advice is really this

what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life we should hunt out their helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech and learn them so well that the words become works no one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceeds to live in a quite

different manner to the one they tell other people to live it does not matter what you bear but how you bear it you could leave life right now let that determine what you do and say and think the chief task in life is simply this to identify and separate matters so that i can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control and which have to do with the choices i actually control where then do i look for good and evil not to uncontrollable externals but within myself to the choices that are my

own true happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have which is sufficient for he that is so once nothing the greatest blessings of mankind within us and within our reach a wise man is content with his lot whatever it may be without wishing for what he has not don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will then your life will flow well if anyone

can refute me show me i'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective i'll gladly change it's the truth i'm after and the truth never harmed anyone if you accomplish something good with hard work the labor passes quickly but the good endures if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure the pleasure passes quickly but the shame endures a gem cannot be polished without friction nor a man perfected without trials be tolerant with others and strict with yourself no person has the power to have everything they want but it is in their

power not to want what they don't have and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have you will earn the respect of all if you begin by earning the respect of yourself don't expect to encourage good deeds in people conscious of your own misdeeds the greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude excellence is never an accident it is always the result of high intention sincere effort and intelligent execution it represents the wise choice of many alternatives choice not chance determines your destiny we are

more often frightened than heard and we suffer more in imagination than in reality man conquers the world by conquering himself how does it help to make troubles heavier by bemoaning them you have power over your mind not outside events realize this and you will find strength if it is not right do not do it if it is not true do not say it you should live in such a way that there is nothing which you could not as easily tell your enemy as keep to yourself [Music] waking up to who you are requires letting go

of who you imagine yourself to be the high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think we have two ears and one mouth so we should listen more than we say the impediment to action advances action what stands in the way becomes the way [Music] don't promise twice what you can do once a man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how remember two things one that everything has always been the same and keeps

recurring and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in 100 years or 200 or in an infinite period two that the longest lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing the present is all they can give up since that is all you have and what you do not have you cannot lose [Music] ultimately man should not ask what the meaning of his life is but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked in a word each man is questioned by life and he can only answer

to life by answering for his own life to life he can only respond by being responsible no amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts to my way of thinking is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another i begin to speak only when i'm certain what i'll say isn't

better left unsaid all hellenistic schools seem to define wisdom in approximately the same terms first and foremost as a state of perfect peace of mind from this viewpoint philosophy appears as a remedy for human worries anguish and misery brought about for the cynics by social constraints and conventions for the epicureans by the quest for false pleasures for the stoics by the pursuit of pleasure and egotistic self-interest and for the skeptics by false opinions whether or not they lay claim to the socratic heritage all hellenistic philosophers agreed with socrates that human beings are plunged into misery

anguish and evil because they exist in ignorance evil is to be found not within things but in the value judgments which people bring to bear upon things people can therefore be cured of their ills only if they are persuaded to change their value judgments and in this sense all these philosophies wanted to be therapeutic simplicity patience compassion these three are your greatest treasures simple in actions and thoughts you return to the source of being patient with both friends and enemies you accord with the way things are compassionate towards yourself you reconcile all beings in the

world taoism is the art of being in the world for it deals with the present ourselves it is in us that god meets with nature and yesterday parts from tomorrow the present is the moving infinity the legitimate sphere of the relative relativity seeks adjustment adjustment is art the art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings be content with what you have rejoice in the way things are when you realize there is nothing lacking the whole world belongs to you let your eyes see what they see not what others want you to see

let your ears hear what they naturally hear not what others want you to hear let your mouth speak your mind freely and not be constrained by other people's approval or disapproval let your mind think what it wants to think and not let other people's demands dictate your thoughts if your senses and your mind are not allowed to do what they want to do naturally you are denying them their rights when you cannot think sense feel or act freely then your body and mind are injured break these oppressions and you will cultivate life be careful what

you water your dreams with water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dreams water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream strength should always be complemented by softness if you resist too much you will break thus the strong person knows when to use strength and when to yield and good fortune and disaster depend on whether you know how

and when to yield those who do not know how to suffer are the worst off there are times when the only thing we can do is to bear our troubles until a better day to solve a problem you need to remove the cause not the symptom to know and to think we know not is the crown to not know and to think we know is the affliction knowing others is intelligence knowing yourself is true wisdom mastering others is strength mastering yourself is true power if a branch is too rigid it will break resist and you

will perish know how to yield and you will survive only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it at the center of your being you have the answer you know who you are and you know what you want life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes don't resist them that only creates sorrow let reality be reality let things flow naturally forward into whatever way they like kindness in words creates confidence kindness in thinking creates profoundness kindness and giving creates love a person with a mind is bound to

be filled with conceptions these conceptions prevent him from knowing things directly so a person with a mind shall never really know trying to explain zen is like trying to catch wind in a box the moment you close the lid it ceases to be wind and in time becomes stagnant air a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving when you are content to simply be yourself and don't compare or compete everyone will respect you the fact is that those who do not see themselves but who see others who fail to get

a grasp of themselves but who grasp others take possessions of what others have but fail to possess themselves they are attracted to what others enjoy but fail to find enjoyment in themselves if you play a game where scrap pieces of glass are at stake you will play skillfully if your expensive belt buckle is at stake you'll start to get clumsy if it's your money that's at stake you'll fumble it's not that you've lost your skill it's because you're so flustered by things happening outside that you've lost your calmness inside lose your stillness and you will

fail in everything you do [Music] a man with outward courage dares to die a man with inner courage dares to live a man like this will not go where he has no will to go will not do what he has no mind to do though the world might praise him and say he had really found something he would look unconcerned and never turn his head though the world might condemn him and say he has lost something he would look serene and pay no heed the praise and blame of the world are no loss or gain

to him [Music] things joined by profit when pressed by misfortune and danger will cast each other aside let your mind wander in simplicity blend your spirit with the vastness follow along with things the way they are and make no room for personal views then the world will be governed a beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall but it is no good for stopping up a little hole this refers to a difference in function thoroughbreds like kiji or huali could gallop a thousand li in one day but when it came to

catching rats they were no match for the wild cat or the weasel this refers to a difference in skill the horned owl catches fleas at night and can spot the tip of a hair but when daylight comes no matter how wide it opens its eyes it cannot see a mound or a hill this refers to a difference in nature now do you say that you're going to make right your master and do away with wrong or make order your master and do away with disorder if you do then you have not understood the principle of

heaven and earth or the nature of the ten thousand things this is like saying that you're going to make heaven your master and do away with earth or make yin your master and do away with yang obviously it is impossible we may be floating on towel but there is nothing wrong with steering if tower is like a river it is certainly good to know where the rocks are great power is worry and total power is boredom such that even god renounces it and pretends instead that he is people and fish and insects and plants the

myth of the king who goes wandering among his subjects in disguise travel is such a wonderful experience especially when you forget you are traveling then you will enjoy whatever you see and do those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see in fact there is no distinction between the viewer and the scene you experience everything with the totality of yourself so that every blade of grass every mountain every lake is alive and is a part of you when there is no division between you and what is other this is

the ultimate experience of travelling to attain knowledge add things every day to attain wisdom remove things every day those who know don't talk those who talk don't know close your mouth block off your senses blunt your sharpness untie your knots soften your glare settle your dust this is the primal identity be like the towel it can't be approached or withdrawn from benefited or harmed honored or brought into disgrace it gives itself up continually that is why it endures you have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves smash your form and body spit

out your hearing and eyesight forget you are a thing among other things and you might join in great unity with the deep and boundless the tau is clear yet this clarity requires you to sweep away all your clutter at all times watch out for your own stupidity be careful of how your mind jumps around when nothing occurs to involve your mind you return to true awareness when unified mindfulness is purely real you comprehend the great restoration the ridiculous ones are those who try to cultivate quietude as long as body and mind are unstable it is

madness to go into the mountains when two things occur successively we call them cause and effect if we believe one event made the other one happen if we think one event is the response to the other we call it a reaction if we feel that the two incidents are not related we call it a mere coincidence if we think someone deserved what happened we call it a retribution or reward depending on whether the event was negative or positive for the recipient if we cannot find a reason for the two events occurring simultaneously or in close

proximity we call it an accident therefore how we explain coincidences depends on how we see the world is everything connected so that events create resonances like ripples across a net order things merely co-occur and we give meaning to these co-occurrences based on our belief system late sue's answer it's all in how you think when meditation is mastered the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place in the still mind in the depths of meditation the self reveals itself beholding the self by means of the self an aspirin knows the joy

and peace of complete fulfillment having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses revealed in the stilled mind he never swerves from the eternal truth [Music] you have the right to work but for the work's sake only you have no rights to the fruits of work desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working never give way to laziness either perform every action with your heart fixed on the supreme lord renounce attachment to the fruits be even tempered in success and failure for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by

yoga work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to the work done without such anxiety in the calm of self-surrender seek refuge in the knowledge of brahma they who work selfishly for results are miserable [Music] in this world three gates lead to hell the gates of passion anger and greed released from these three qualities one can succeed in attaining salvation and reaching the highest goal you are what you believe in you become that which you believe you can become man is made by his belief as he believes so he is seek refuge in the

attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness the one who is motivated only by desire for the fruits of their action and anxious about the results is miserable indeed [Music] when a man dwells on the pleasure of sense attraction for them arises in him from attraction arises desire the lust of possession and this leads to passion to anger from passion comes confusion of the mind then loss of remembrance the forgetting of duty from this loss comes the ruin of reason and the ruin of reason leads man to destruction look to this

day for it is life the very life of life in its brief course lie all the truths and realities of your existence the bliss of growth the glory of action and the splendor of beauty for yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope look well therefore to this day such is the salvation of the dawn the soul who meditates on the self is content to serve the self and rest satisfied within the self there remains

nothing more for him to accomplish [Music] one who performs his duty without attachment surrendering the results unto the supreme lord is unaffected by sinful action as the lotus is untouched by water [Music] one who has control over the mind is tranquil in heat and cold in pain and pleasure and in honor and dishonor and is ever steadfast with the supreme self one should strive to employ oneself to uplift oneself one should never dishonor oneself the self is one's friend as well as one's enemy it is both near and far both within and without every creature

it moves and is unmoving in its subtlety it is beyond comprehension it is invisible yet appears divided in separate creatures know it to be the creator the preserver and the destroyer dwelling in every heart it is beyond darkness it is called the light of the lights the object and goal of knowledge and knowledge itself it is better to strive in one's own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another nothing is ever lost in following one's own dharma but competition in another's dharma breeds fear and insecurity for him who has no concentration there is

no tranquility [Music] death is a sure for that which is born as birth is for that which is dead therefore grieve not for what is inevitable [Music] delusion arises from anger the mind is bewildered by delusion reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered one falls down when reasoning is destroyed [Music] endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes let us rise up and be thankful for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learnt a little and if we didn't learn

a little at least we didn't get sick and if we got sick at least we didn't die so let us be thankful all that we are is the result of what we have thought it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts if a man speaks or acts with an evil thought suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon if a man speaks or acts with a good thought happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves [Music] holding on to anger is like grasping

a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else you are the one who gets burned one moment can change a day one day can change a life and one life can change the world [Music] be where you are otherwise you will miss your life kindness should be the natural way of life not the exception it is better to travel well than to arrive to live a pure unselfish life one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance [Music] whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering that becomes

the inclination of his awareness a man is not called wise because he talks and talks again but if he is peaceful loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise you will not be punished for your anger you will be punished by your anger just as the great ocean has one taste the taste of salt so also this teaching and discipline has one taste the taste of liberation the root of suffering is attachment [Music] [Music] your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it [Music] there is

no fire like passion there is no shark like hatred there is no snare like folly there is no torrent like greed do not dwell in the past do not dream of the future concentrate the mind on the present moment happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have [Music] what you are basically deep deep down far far in is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself i have realized that the past and the future are real illusions that they exist in the present which is what there is and all

there is you are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing [Music] tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present since it is in the present and only in the present that you live there is no other reality than present reality so that even if one were to live for endless ages to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly [Music]

the meaning of life is just to be alive it is so plain and so obvious and so simple and yet everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves when you get free from certain fixed conceptions of the way the world is you find it is far more subtle and far more miraculous than you thought it was you are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself [Music] the only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it move with it

and join the dance a scholar tries to learn something every day a student of buddhism tries to unlearn something every day i'll tell you what the hermits realize if you go off into a far far forest and get very quiet you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything if then my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present i must begin to wonder whether i am actually living in the real world [Music] meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment [Music]

the only zen you'll find on the mountaintop is the zen you bring up there with you muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way one is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious and the same may be said of guilt if you say

that getting the money is the most important thing you'll spend your life completely wasting your time you'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don't like doing which is stupid [Music] when we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us [Music] things are as they are looking out into the universe at night we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars nor between well and badly arranged constellations

philosophy is a man's expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect zen does not confuse spirituality while thinking about god while one is peeling potatoes zen's spirituality is just to peel the potatoes if we cling to belief in god we cannot likewise have faith since faith is not clinging but letting go [Music] what we have forgotten is the thoughts and words of conventions and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously a convention is a social convenience as for example money but it is absurd

to take money too seriously to confuse it with real wealth in somewhat the same way thoughts ideas and words are coins for real things other people teach us who we are their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves but the mirror is distorted we are perhaps rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social environment it's like you took a bottle of ink and threw it to the wall smash and all that ink spread and in the middle it is dense isn't it and as it gets out to

the edge the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns see so in the same way there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread and you and i sitting here in this room as complicated human beings are way way out on the fringe of that bang we are the complicated little patterns at the end of it very interesting but so we define ourselves as being only that if you think that you are only inside your skin you define yourself as one very complicated little curlicue way out on

the edge of that explosion way out in space and way out in time billions of years ago you were a big bang but now you're a complicated human being and then we cut ourselves off and don't feel that we're still the big bang but you are depending on how you define yourself you actually are if this is the way things started if there was a big bang in the beginning you're not something that's a result of the big bang you're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process you are

still the process you are the big bang the original force of the universe coming on as whoever you are when i meet you i see not just what you define yourself as mr so-and-so miss so-and-so misses so and so i see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way i know i'm that too but we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it just as a snake sheds its skin we must shed our past over and over again what you are is what you have

been what you will be is what you do now even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind so were the wise unshaken by praise or blame thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened happiness never decreases by being shared we are shaped by our thoughts we become what we think when the mind is pure joy follows like a shadow that never leaves every morning we are born again what we do today is what matters most [Music] do not look for sanctuary in

anyone except yourself if you propose to speak always ask yourself is it true is it necessary is it kind no one saves us but ourselves no one can and no one may we ourselves must walk the path the secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past nor worry about the future but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly drop by drop is the water pot filled likewise the wise man gathering it little by little fills himself with good [Music] there is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind

and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind if you find no one to support you on your spiritual path walk alone peace comes from within do not seek it without [Music] have compassion for all beings rich and poor alike each has their suffering some suffer too much others too little if your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete hatred does not cease by hatred but only by love this is the eternal rule nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded in the sky there is no distinction of east and

west people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true if we fail to look after others when they need help who will look after us a generous heart kind speech and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity an idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea you