#728 Who's the busiest, most stressed-out, most exhausted?

     Don't we want to be talked about with admiration: "Oh, she's SO busy!" How many of us are workaholics, with tremendous drive & stamina, mostly wasted on busy-ness, spinning our wheels, trying to prove to ourselves & others how hard we work, how important & indispensable we are?

          “Do not confuse motion and progress.
          A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress."            Alfred A. Montapert 

 
     Then there's "non-doing" - the sense of rightness & effortlessness, arising from authenticity & congruence. It happens when behavior is skillful, decreasing suffering & increasing happiness long-term for oneself & others. There's no inner conflict, friction or noise, only silence, stillness, peace. The ego is quiet, allo- & ecocentric (rather than egocentric). Centeredness.

 

Fall in Halifax

#666 Practice - Perseverance - Embodiment

     "It is a natural law that actions have effects; even if your development is not as rapid as you would like, progress occurs through meditation."

       Shaila Catherine "Wisdom Wide and Deep. A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana." Wisdom, Boston, 2011.

#618 Education Without Wisdom is Hollow, Irrelevant

     Quietly, diligently, skillfully working over a lifetime, for the love of one's profession, craft or trade and the overall benefit of humanity, without interest in glory, riches or other material payoff, is prosocial, civilized, and a sign of wisdom. It nurtures a life of deep meaning and value - it is how one cultivates one's own character, as a sculptor creates a sculpture. Such a refined quality of life could, and should be accessible to all human beings.
     However, too often, too many of us are in such a frenzied, egocentric hurry to achieve goals, that we fail to consider the actual value of the goals, or the consequences. Quick results are hyped in our shallow, materialist culture as sexy, and are richly rewarded with cash and glory. Far too many of us live naively spellbound by "lifestyles of the rich & famous". Shortcuts trample other people and the environment, and sooner than later, even the "perps" suffer. We ignorantly keep adding to humanity's heavy burden of needless suffering.

                Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
                Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
                The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
                The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
                The best lack all conviction, while the worst
                Are full of passionate intensity.
                                                                                                                   William Butler Yeats

     All intelligent, decent human beings are surely fed up with the escalating global deluge of uncivilized, antisocial, foolish, unwise behavior. 
     Human foolishness is literally tearing our world apart. Philosophers and psychologists have long advocated the urgent necessity of teaching wisdom (not only knowledge) in our universities: 
               http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/01/teaching-for-wisdom-urgently-needed-now.html
and 
               http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/16142/#sthash.hYxQPbDk.dpuf

     Why is wisdom completely absent from our educational system when humanity so desperately needs it? Progressive, relevant universities will surely offer not just courses, but undergraduate and graduate degrees in wisdom studies.  

     Universities, what are you waiting for?

#479 "And How's That Working for You?"

     Think what you may of "Dr. Phil", his famous saying does cut to the heart of the matter. If one's life feels chronically suboptimal, then change is required. And don't expect change to come from anywhere other than YOU yourself. There may not be much that you can do about your material or physical circumstances, but your ATTITUDE - WHO you are, moment-by-moment, is ENTIRELY up to you and you alone.
     Such a fundamental shift in attitude - in one's state of being - is neither instant, nor is there linear progress, but as in any intelligent training program or practice, progress is progressive & inevitable. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/435-right-effort-does-not-take-but.html

Tamas Dezso photography   www.tamas-dezso.com