What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow; our life is therefore the creation of our mind.
(The Dhammapada 1.1)
Some say you are what you eat, but this says you are what you think. Is this true for you? Have you changed your life by changing the way you think about things? Do share your experiences with us.
Would you like to change your thoughts to change your life? How do you think this can be done? What do you think?
4 comments:
I always think that whatever happens in life it will all sort itself out in the end. And it usually does, i.e. if I have a problem, as small or large as it might be, I do always think well as horrible as this is, I'll co;me out of it the other end and things will sort themselves out. But, as one of Ciariad's posts said recently, these problems do repeat themselves sometimes and perhaps they need sorting out - what are your thoughts on this?
The other thing is I am very open to what life has to offer and it does throw me in all sorts of directions> I sometimes think I should be more focused on goals and what I would like to achieve - but then, would I have such an interesting life? Any thoughts?
Swan x
In response to Swan, I too believe things work themselves out and often our actions can just interfere with or distort this process. I am a great believer in the Daoist saying 'Deal with all vital matters by letting events take their course.'
As a corollary to this I am always amazed that all the things we worry about very rarely happen but what does happen to us is usually something we hadnt even thought of! Like your foot and my foot! Who could have foreseen them?
While I was convalescing a friend at work saw a book of buddhist sayings and thought of me. One of them read 'karma can change your life like the swish of a horse's tail.' that has always stuck with me.
On your second point, being open to everything that comes along is a wonderful quality and enables you to expereince things which you may not have chosen. Also it implies a degree of non-judgmentalism which I think is a good thing (if that's not being judgmental!).
I believe that our experience of what we see as day to day reality is created by our perception of what those events mean to us individually. Such as a stubbed toe may be experienced as a tragedy by one person and a cause for a laugh by another.
Their individual perception of that event is created by their point of view.
The first person is rushing to catch a bus and can no longer run due to the pain and will now have to wait for another, later bus.
The 2nd, may see the same event in an entirely different light and therefore through circumstance find it amusing.
It's the same event, experienced differently.
The point of perception is created by your point of view, or the place from which you observe your personal reality.
Change your point of view and you can change your entire experience of life.
And the wonder of it all is that we have total free will to CHOOSE our point of view.
But then here comes the catch.
Our thought patterns define how we choose to perceive events from a specific perspective.
But these thought patterns are base on our experience of life (half empty / half full), so we come full circle, each is dependent on the other -with one exception. We can change our minds and choose something different.
In this way we create our tomorrows in a very clear and practical way.
I’m not sure I explained my thought s there in a very clear way, but hopefully you’ll get the gist of it.
I also have an idea that we do in fact “create” our tomorrows through our thoughts of today in a very much more real way. But that’s another topic altogether and for another time perhaps.
Blessing to all
Jon
Jon,
Yes, there is a more real way in which our minds create tomorrow's reality but it is virtually impossible to predict!
A good exercise to prove this is when you next drive on a motorway and pass a junction, try and predict what you will be thinking about when you pass the next junction. The difference between what you predict and what you actually will be thinking about will make you laugh out loud. You will realise you have no control at all over what you think and hence over reality.
From a Buddhist/Daoist perspective, there is only one mind, this one (and it is BIG), and only one time, now. So, to use a Zen metaphor, when I eat lunch at one o'clock today there is nothing else I can do, because for me reality is lunch at one o'clock. Any variations do not exist, as no time exists other than the present moment and whatever you are doing in the present moment is the only reality. I find this is a tough one to put into words. Another way of putting it is that you can think of a myriad things you could be doing at one o'clock but only one will be reality, so why do we fret over what we might be doing. As Shonru Suzuki says,
Just do something, anything!
Love Bruv
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