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From US Marine to a Zen Monk

on June 25, 2018

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Lessons in Life : No one cares.. Neither should you!

Brent Beshore is the founder and CEO of adventur.es . Below is an extract from his article: "You’re not the center of the universe. In fact, no one really cares about you. It’s harsh, but true. Sure, you have family and a few great friends. They will take particular interest in various parts of your life, helping you when needed. But they don’t care about you nearly as much as you care about yourself. Ultimately, you’re not top of mind to anyone but yourself. When properly understood, this is incredibly freeing and valuable. Early in my career, the fear of failure drove most of my decisions . How would I look? What would people think? I lived in a constant state of anxiety about the judgments of others. Would I ever get a second chance if I failed? If I did fail, how could I pass the blame to someone else? If not, could I blame circumstance? I was so fearful that I couldn’t even be honest with myself. This thinking led me to make consistently poor decisions about ho...

Poverty during Youth - So awful - says Avvaiyar

Avvaiyar II lived during the period of Kambar and Ottakoothar during the reign of the Chola dynasty (in Southern India) in the 13th century. She is often imagined as an old and intelligent lady by Tamil (South Indian) people. She wrote many of the poems that remain very popular even now. These include a list of dos and don'ts, useful for daily life, arranged in simple and short sentences. One famous event is the "Sutta Pazham Venduma, Sudatha Pazham Venduma.." between Avvaiyar and Lord Murugan (Deity of Tamil people) and the subsequent dialogues and songs. Lord Murugan asked her, what was the most awful thing in the entire World. Avviyar replied as below: Kodiyadhu Kaetkin Nediyavev Veloi Kodithu Kodithu Varumai Kodithu Adhaninum Kodithae Ilamayil Varumai Adhaninum Kodithae Aatronaak Kodunoi Adhaninum Kodithae Anbila Pendir Adhaninum Kodithae Inbura Aval Kayil Unbadhu Thaanae Meaning: If You ask what is the most awful thing in the world, my Lord with the long...

Human Values - A little introduction

Human Values are those universal concepts, drivers of action which are found in all cultures, all societies, all times and in all places. The five human values, which can be found in all cultures, all societies and in all religions, are Truth, Right Conduct, Love, Peace and Non-Violence . These values are eternal; they are eternal essences, which elevate human life to its highest expression, its highest capacity. Values are our codes of internal conduct, the principles upon which we run our lives and make our decisions. Our brains are hard-wired to seek the Ultimate Truth . No matter what blueprints are laid down by our families, education and work, we are seekers of ultimate truth. What words we put on this varies in time and place, culture and society, but we are all seekers of peace and truth. When: Truth is what we speak, Right Conduct is what we practise, Love is what we live, Peace is what we give, Non-violence is the ...

Spreading Happiness - A short story

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.. Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fi...

Talent Vs Skill Vs Ability Vs Strength

"What are your Strengths?", is a most common question in job interviews. Here is a try to understand what the term 'Strength' means. Prior to that, we need to revisit few concepts like Talent, Skill, Ability and Aptitude. ‘Talent’ is something that one is born with; it is your natural ability to do something without really thinking about it. For example, you may have no experience in playing tennis, but if you have the talent, you may have no problem keeping the ball in play. You are a natural on the tennis court. Example: Sheba’s talent for painting showed at a very young age. ‘Skill’ , on the other hand, is something that you acquire after putting in a lot of hard work; unlike talent, it is not inborn, but learnt. Not everyone is talented, but if you make the effort, you can learn a new skill. Example: Hemant is a wonderful teacher. It’s a skill he’s honed over the years. Ability is a conceptually broad term referring to possession of 'talents...

Knowledge Vs Experience - 1

Knowledge is a tool and experience is a part of you. Experience is the basis of Behavior. Knowledge is a useful tool, but like all tools, being able to put the tool down is what makes it useful. sounds paradoxical? The Tao Te Ching (a Chinese classic text) says, “profit comes from what is there. Usefulness comes from what is not there.” and as an example it says “Cut doors and windows in a room. It is the holes that make the room useful. Shape clay into a vessel. It is the space inside that makes it useful. Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub, it is the center hole that makes it useful.” The point about knowledge and usefulness and tools is that knowledge is only useful if you can let it go and are not attached to it. We learn things and become attached to them. We think Knowledge has inherent value. IT DOES NOT. Knowledge HAS NO inherent value. It is a tool that only has the value we assign to it. If we have a hammer, we could build a home with it. That makes the hammer “goo...

What is Personality - 2

Personality can be defined as consistency in a person’s way of being — that is, l ong-term consistency in their particular ways of perceiving, thinking, acting and reacting as a person. Organized patterns of thought and feeling and behaviour. To some extent, people generally do tend to operate in a similar way day after day, year after year. We’re not talking about specific actions being repeated again and again, like compulsive hand-washing, but about overall patterns, tendencies, inclinations. Someone who has tended to be quiet and reserved up to now will probably still tend to be quiet and reserved tomorrow. It is this general predictability in individuals’ thought patterns, emotional patterns and behaviour patterns, which defines personality. Or to put it another way: “Your personality style is your organizing principle. It propels you on your life path. It represents the orderly arrangement of all your attributes, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and coping mecha...

Intuition Vs Instinct

These two words are used interchangeably in most contexts. For example, we can say, "My instinct is not to trust any advertisement". We can also say, "My intuition tells me not to trust any advertisement". Careful users of the language try and make a distinction between the two. They argue that an "instinct" is something that we are born with; it is something that we do naturally without thinking. An instinct is a reaction. An animal, as soon as it is born, instinctively gets up, walks to its mother, and drinks milk. There is no thinking involved here; it is something that the animal has been programmed to do. It seems as if it is automatic. When you don't really have much time to think and react to a particular situation you are responding "instinctively". When a bowler bowls a bouncer at you, you react "instinctively" rather than "intuitively". The word "intuition", like the word "instinct"...

Knowledge Vs Experience - 2

Experience is a part of “how” we are. Knowledge can be turned into experience over time. It travels from our heads into our hearts and then deeper. Think of a child. A toddler. This toddler has never experienced heat or fire or whatever. You tell the child “Don’t touch the burner on the stove because it's hot and you could get burned.” The child is learning to talk and when you ask him to repeat what you just said he says “I shouldn’t touch the burner because it's hot and I will get burned.” or may be more simply, “The burner is hot.” Now, what do you think will eventually happen if you go away? He will touch the burner. Or he will touch the fire or something else hot, you told him not to touch. But when he touches it once, he will never touch it again. The point is, experiencing the burning sensation is all he needs to never do something again whereas having the knowledge that something could burn him is not enough. By the way, after you told him not to touch the...

Stages of Death : An understanding - 1

Disclaimer and Warning: The below article is not recommended for the faint-hearted and children. Clinical death is defined as cessation or failure of all vital bodily functions. The heart stops beating, lungs cease to function, brain activity no longer exists, and the brain stem dies. Death comes in many forms, whether it’s expected due to a tragic medical diagnosis, an unexpected accident, or maybe planned – death happens. Approximately 150,000 people die each day around the world. Death is a fact of life that everyone will go through one day and the following are the 10 most fascinating stages one’s body experiences immediately following death if the body is exposed to a natural decay and not preserved by processes such as embalming. Most of these stages are known by studying university controlled “body farms” used by forensic anthropologists in an attempt to further knowledge in the forensic field. 1. Death Occurs: The heart stops, the body convulses, the person starts tak...

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