The Zen Diarist

Calm the mind in a crazy world

December 13, 2015 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

The need for calm

“It’s a mad world!” goes the song. Actually, the world isn’t crazy. We are. The human race, that is. All the problems in the world have been created by people or, rather, human minds. And all our creations – good, bad or indifferent – start in the mind. For the mind to be clear, it must be calm.

Especially at this time of year, it is easy for the mind to go into overdrive and, if we are not careful, we can end up exhausted. We might (frequently, perhaps!) experience the stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off type of feeling. That is a strong signal that the mind needs to pause.

Three easy steps

There are three simple steps that can help restore equilibrium:

Stop – just pause whatever you are doing for a few moments
Breathe in – feel the abdomen move as you inhale
Breathe out – and let your tension go

The breath is like a bridge between the body and the mind. If the mind is agitated, the breathing tends to be shallower and faster and the body is in a state of increased tension. Conversely, we know from experience that when the mind is calm, the breath tends to be slower and smoother. If we can train ourselves to be aware of this rhythm, we begin to have greater awareness of our body and our emotional and mental reactions. It is a common technique to be aware of the breath during meditation but the development of mindfulness extends this practice into activity, which of course is more difficult because we have to engage the mind in actions as well as the breath. The rewards, however, are truly life-changing.

An anchor

Awareness of breath acts like an anchor. An anchored boat stays where it is even if the wind is strong and the waves and currents of the sea are running wild. Without the anchor, the boat is tossed around and is prey to the whims of the sea. Our minds are very much like that. Without some form of stability, the mind is drawn into endless distractions and is subject to the surges of our emotions, which can often sow the seeds for unpleasant effects later on. They also waste precious energy. Being aware of the gentle movement of the abdomen as we breathe is easy and has the effect of slowing the mind down and of centring the body’s energy at the same time.

Adapted from The Art of Not Doing

Guilt – why it robs us of self-esteem

December 4, 2015 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

“Guilt is a wasted emotion,” it has often been said, yet most of us have seeds of guilt lurking somewhere in our psyche. Guilt can seriously harm our self-esteem and confidence. Our work and relationships can suffer because we hold back our energy and our presence. This source of self-flagellation needs rooting out and the process is called self-forgiveness.

To forgive ourselves doesn’t mean not to have a conscience; ethical speech and conduct (and, indeed, thinking) are vital aspects of the path of self-development. The survival of the human race depends on moral behaviour. Self-forgiveness means letting go of harmful feelings of guilt that prevent us from being happy and realising our full potential.

Moreover, if we cannot let go of guilt within ourselves, we cannot truly and completely forgive others. If we resent something within our own make-up, there are going to be things we will resent in others. So it is not self-indulgent to forgive ourselves – quite the opposite. To put it another way, are cultivating a sense of self-acceptance.

Our starting point is to build up our self esteem. We don’t need to analyse where we think we are failing because that’s focusing on the negative. We simply start by building up a positive picture.

Here is a powerful exercise for building up self-esteem. Don’t underestimate it – it works. Find a place to sit quietly on your own and allow yourself a comfortable five minutes or a little longer if you wish:

Releasing ourselves from guilt – a meditation for building self-esteem

Visualise yourself seated in a totally empty room. Say to yourself, “I am.” This is a positive statement. Repeat it a few times: “I am.”
Imagine someone coming into the room and placing a gift – some flowers, say – at your feet. Hear this person say, “This gift is for you because you are who you are.”
Embrace your visitor. It is yourself – your soul, your spirit, your higher, wise self.
See someone else come into the room. This second visitor places a golden bowl at your feet and says, “This chalice is for you. It holds all opportunities in life and is always full.”
Pick up the bowl and embrace it. It is the sum total of all past and future actions.
Feel yourself smiling inside and say to yourself, “I welcome all that comes because I am.” As you do this, see yourself fill with light and be at ease.

This technique could be done once a day for a week and then whenever there is a feeling of self-doubt. By embracing our whole self and our past and future actions, we forgive everything about ourselves. In other words we accept who we are. In energy terms, this can have a very profound effect.

Guilt – putting things right

Sometimes, though, there can be something that really bothers us. If we have harmed somebody, spoken out of turn, acted unjustly, omitted to do something or whatever it happens to be, we should use any opportunity we can to apologise or to put things right. If that is not possible or if no-one else is involved, we can use the following method:

Visualise the person (or group) you have harmed or wronged, or if no-one else is involved, you should visualise your guide, teacher or other higher being for whom you have respect and loyalty. Simply explain yourself truly and honestly and say, “I am truly sorry.”
Then see yourself attempting to put things right and making amends by bringing the action back to yourself or “undoing” the action.

This method is very simple but its effect can be very deep indeed. Sometimes it may need to be done more than once. It all depends to what extent the sense of guilt has been ingrained but it is better to do it once and see how our feelings are affected over a period of time than to keep repeating it. Many of these techniques are like taking a medicine – it is important to allow time for healing to take place before taking another dose.

More on this in The Great Little Book of Happiness. This article is an adaptation of an extract from Chapter 2.

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Resentment sucks – it’s really bad for you!

November 27, 2015 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Letting go of grievances and resentment is not only necessary for our own development – it is essential for good health. Let’s look at why.

There’s more to the eye…

Rather like an onion with its many layers, there is far more to a human being than the façade of the physical body. There are deeper layers. If we “peeled back” the physical layer, we would find something like a blueprint of what we see on the outside. This is sometimes called the etheric or vital body and the various meridians and other channels through which chi flows help to form this. If the etheric body goes out of balance, sickness arises in the physical body; if the etheric body is well-balanced, good physical health and well-being are the result.

A little deeper than this is the subtle body through which feelings are experienced, sometimes called the emotional body, and deeper still is the mental body in which thoughts and imagination have their place. Each of these bodies is inter-linked with the others. For example, a negative thought will cause a reaction in the emotional body, so a bad feeling will arise; this in turn affects the balance of energy in the etheric body so our vitality and sense of well-being take a knock. This, if prolonged, can result in sickness or some other manifestation of poor health.

Three healthy reasons why we need to let go of resentment

If we hang onto grievances, or thoughts of guilt in relation to ourselves, knots, stagnation and blocks in the flow of energy will arise in our mental body. These will have an effect on our emotions and these in turn will adversely affect the energy flow within the etheric body. Our vitality will go down and we just won’t feel good. If we could see the aura of someone holding resentment, we might see dark unpleasant patches in it, like black holes, with red flashes when the resentment is aroused. That doesn’t make for a pretty sight and even though the aura may not be seen by most people, it can still be sensed. Resentment and anger are very ugly things. A number of things can happen if we hold onto past wrongs, whether they are our own mistakes or someone else’s:

We will experience a lack of clarity and our thinking will be distorted. Uncomfortable feelings or emotions, upset energy, a weakening of the immune system and generally feeling out of balance are inevitable. If we hold onto this for a long time, illness is very possible.
The subtle energy centre of the heart, where warm feelings would normally arise, will be closed off – slightly when the memory of the resentment is dormant and greatly, or even completely, when the memory surfaces.
The body’s circulation will be affected by constrictions in the etheric body, the nervous system will be agitated and the endocrine system will be adversely affected.

Negative thinking eventually wears the body out as well as ruining our happiness. Resentment literally sucks. It drains the energy right out of us. Letting go of wrongs (or what are perceived as wrongs) is essential for our health and our happiness.

For the world, too

On a wider level, society, too, needs to let go of many wrongs. Holding onto the past is resulting all over the world in warfare, famine and racism, to name but three. But society cannot let go unless the individuals within it let go in their own lives.

So the responsibility for letting go goes beyond what is good for the individual. If we want a better world, we have to learn to forgive. No matter how justified resentment may seem, we have to let it go.

More on this in The Great Little Book of Happiness. This article is an adaptation of an extract from Chapter 2.

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Forgiveness is doing yourself a favour

November 21, 2015 by Andrew Marshall 2 Comments

Forgiveness is difficult – or it seems that way. Recent tragic events may even make it seems impossible. For the moment, though, let’s think about forgiveness in normal everyday life.

Forgiveness is about letting go. It may be excusing a wrong done to us or releasing a debt that someone has difficulty in paying. Both of these imply some sort of release. Of greatest significance in our quest for finding happiness is the letting go of any anger or resentment we have. Anger, resentment and other powerful negative emotions are harmful to ourselves as well as creating unpleasantness for those around us.

When we think of forgiveness, we might think that we are doing someone else a big favour. After all, why should we? Don’t they deserve a grudge, anger or irritation or even simply a sense of blame. But that’s just the ego making us feel a little bit grand. Let’s be perfectly clear about this: the person who is released most of all is the one who forgives.

Forgiveness gives you happiness and well-being

If the forgiver is the main beneficiary, then we can afford to be pretty generous with our forgiving! There are three main angles to think about:

forgiveness towards ourselves,
forgiving those who have harmed or offended us and
cultivating a general attitude of forgiveness towards the world at large.

That sounds a fairly tall order but it is possible in time. The important thing is to work towards it because the more we are able to forgive, the happier we will be. In the main, happier human beings are better human beings.

More on this in Chapter 2 of The Great Little Book of Happiness

Does how you think affect your health?

November 13, 2015 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

When I was small, my parents used to have many ways of trying to coax us children to behave and tell the truth. Perhaps you, too, believed that telling fibs could give you a severe case of spots on the tongue. I also have a vivid recollection of being told that we all have a soul that is normally white if we are good but has shadows and black spots on it from when we misbehave. If that were true, goodness knows what mine would look like now but at the time I had an image in my mind of an amorphous white blob floating somewhere above my head, peppered with many dark bits and looking like a misshapen steamed suet pudding full of over-sized raisins.

What they were saying in an oblique sort of way, though, was that all our actions and words have consequences and that those consequences impinge on our future happiness or spiritual well-being. That isn’t a thought just for children – it applies, perhaps even more strongly, throughout our adult life.

Cause and effect

According to the law of cause and effect, every action, on every level, has consequences. That means that everything we do, say, and indeed think, is a seed that will have a future effect. Some of those seeds are weak and the consequences will be insignificant but others will obviously have more impact. Words said in anger, for instance, come out in an instant yet the effects can be dire and long-lasting. But what about thoughts? Do unexpressed thoughts sow seeds?

There is an extremely close connection between the mind – our mental energy – and our physical and emotional energy. Whatever we think has some impact somewhere. Our body is a complex energy field and through it runs a network of subtle energy channels, like a vast web. This energy is sometimes called “chi”. When our thinking is positive, the chi in our bodies tends to be more vibrant and flows well. Good and plentiful chi results in increased vitality, a greater sense of well-being and a stronger immune system. We often say that someone “radiates good health” and most of us can sense the energy radiating from someone with a positive outlook.

Now what happens when we have a negative thought? We can feel on top of the world and someone will say something and we “sink to our boots”. The energy changes, doesn’t it? It withdraws. It isn’t the direct effect of what the other person says that causes the energy change but how we perceive it. Our mind goes into a negative state and we don’t feel good anymore.

A black hole

That’s an example of a clear immediate reaction but the effects of long-term negative thinking can be disastrous. Our energy field takes on a semi-permanent state of withdrawal – like a “mini black hole”. Instead of flowing well, our chi begins to stagnate, causing congestion in our energy field and our body.

The trouble is that once we start thinking in a certain way, it is difficult to stop. One thought creates (or causes) another thought and negative thinking in particular can quickly become habitual. It follows the path of least resistance, like a body slumping from the pull of gravity rather than sitting or standing straight. There is a downward spiral and it becomes difficult to sustain a positive train of thought for long, or at all. Our energy, our chi, is poor and later, if not earlier, in life our mental and physical health will suffer.

Butterfly mind syndrome

Rather than being particularly positive or negative, our thinking may just be chaotic. We think of one thing, then another; then we hear a sound or something said and we’re off again. Or we pick up a magazine, our smartphone or tablet and our mind is distracted here, there and everywhere. Then our energy is scattered, loose, and untidy. Our chi is incoherent and out of balance; our energy field becomes weak and leaky – we are like a pot with cracks or holes. This is what happens when we are unfocused. Scattered thinking doesn’t necessarily make us feel bad in the short-term – it’s just tiring – but over time it depletes our energy reserves. The only way to overcome this is to draw our thinking and our energy in. We’ll look at this at a later date.

Good, positive, selfless thinking will sow seeds for a happier and more positive outlook on life; that in turn will lead to positive speech and positive actions all of which will produce good or positive effects on our health. But positive thinking by itself isn’t enough. It won’t work unless we unload some of our baggage and clutter. And that’s what we’ll start to do next.

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Calm the mind in a crazy world

The need for calm

Three easy steps

An anchor

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Guilt – why it robs us of self-esteem

Releasing ourselves from guilt – a meditation for building self-esteem

Guilt – putting things right

Like this:

Resentment sucks – it’s really bad for you!

There’s more to the eye…

Three healthy reasons why we need to let go of resentment

For the world, too

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Forgiveness is doing yourself a favour

Forgiveness gives you happiness and well-being

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Does how you think affect your health?

Cause and effect

A black hole

Butterfly mind syndrome

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The need for calm

Three easy steps

An anchor

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Releasing ourselves from guilt – a meditation for building self-esteem

Guilt – putting things right

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There’s more to the eye…

Three healthy reasons why we need to let go of resentment

For the world, too

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Forgiveness gives you happiness and well-being

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Cause and effect

A black hole

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