Rebel Buddha

“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

The true nature of the mind is enlightened wisdom and compassion. Our mind is always brilliantly awake and aware. Nevertheless, we’re often plagued by painful thoughts and the emotional unrest that goes with them. We live in states of confusion and fear from which we see no escape. Our problem is that we don’t see who we truly are at the deepest level. We don’t recognize the power of our enlightened nature. We trust the reality we see before our eyes and accept its validity until something comes along—an illness, accident, or disappointment—to disillusion us. Then we might be ready to question our beliefs and start searching for a more meaningful and lasting truth. Once we take that step, we’re starting off on the road to freedom.

excerpted from the Shambhala Sun, http://shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3623&Itemid=0

That enlightened feeling

One day it was announced by Master Joshu that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him.

“We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?” his fellow students inquired.

“It is,” Kyogen answered.

“Tell us,” said a friend, “how do you feel?”

“As miserable as ever,” replied the enlightened Kyogen.

–Source unknown

I have nothing to report, my friends.

If you want to find the meaning,

Stop chasing after so many things.

– Ryokan

The False Demands of Ego: Discovering your true self

In modern society there is almost no choice but to follow the demands of your ego. Self-interest is a driving force. What do I need? What do I want? How can I get more of the good things in life? But a lifelong campaign to become successful, prosperous, and happy doesn’t have to be based on ego. The dogma of  “I, me, and mine” has built-in flaws. The world’s wisdom traditions teach that the ego is insecure, isolated. As a lifelong guide, it proves extremely unreliable.

The essence of the problem is this: the ego seeks to increase pleasure and decrease pain, without realizing that the source of pain is itself. As long as you see yourself as a limited “I,” fighting to gain a share of life’s rewards while every other “I” is attempting to do the same thing, you will think, speak, and act from a constricted state of awareness.

There would be no alternative way to live if awareness couldn’t expand, but it can. Wisdom traditions both East and West speak of a deeper level of the mind. This is your true self, and when you access it, your thoughts change. Once thoughts change, then speech changes, and finally action. Life consists of thinking, speaking, and acting; therefore, finding your true self creates a total transformation.

To find out that this is true, you need a breakthrough, a decisive event that will motivate you to stop choosing the way of the ego. Every spiritual guide in history has attempted to create such a breakthrough for their followers, using sermons, parables, logic, emotional appeals, and the whole panoply of spiritual experiences. There’s no lack of maps and guidance in this area. Breakthroughs occur through insight, when you suddenly “get” why Jesus and the Buddha were dissatisfied with everyday existence and pointed to a higher reality.

People “get” spirituality in very personal ways, but one can say that the following experiences are typical of real breakthroughs, even though each one is different from the others:

• You come to a desperate point when your old way of living no longer works, and its pain and distress aren’t tolerable.
• You experience a burst of bliss that comes from an unknown source, and it leaves a deep impression in your mind.
• You have a transcendent moment when the solid, convincing physical world no longer seems solid and convincing at all.
• You are burdened with worries, searching for a way out, and suddenly an opening appears.

If anyone has a powerful enough experience along these lines, life changes at its very core. No one can engineer these breakthrough experiences, and they take hundreds of individual forms, from visitations by angels to speaking in tongues, from near-death experiences to receiving messages from the dead. Because these things lie outside everyday experience, they are naturally controversial and rife with doubt and skepticism. That shouldn’t mask the underlying template: You have a breakthrough when higher awareness appears, as if out of the blue, and you come to understand that the ego-personality doesn’t have to be the foundation of your life.

There are traditional words for a breakthrough in consciousness, such as awakening, second birth, salvation, and going into the light. We don’t need the baggage of terms that are associated so closely with religion, however. Breakthroughs happen in the mind, and the mind can be approached on its own. Since thinking precedes speaking and doing, the expansion of awareness is recognized best by noticing that your thoughts have changed (carrying emotions, dreams, wishes, hopes, intuition, etc. along with them.

Even though a breakthrough cannot be engineered, you can lay the groundwork for one, and when you do, your ego will lose its grip and the door to the true self will be opened, step-by-step.

-from http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130622005923-75054000-choosing-your-true-self-the-breakthrough?trk=mta-lnk

Reverse To-Do List

While the chore lists is useful, you’ll get huge returns–in productivity, in improved relationships, and in your personal well-being–from adding these items to your not to-do list:

Every day, make the commitment not to:

1. Check my phone while I’m talking to someone.

You’ve done it. You’ve played the, “Is that your phone? Oh, it must be mine,” game. You’ve tried the you-think-sly-but-actually-really-obvious downwards glance. You’ve done the, “Wait, let me answer this text…” thing.

Maybe you didn’t even say, “Wait.” You just stopped talking, stopped paying attention, and did it.

Want to stand out? Want to be that person everyone loves because they make you feel, when they’re talking to you, like you’re the most important person in the world?

Stop checking your phone. It doesn’t notice when you aren’t paying attention.

Other people? They notice.

And they care.

2. Multitask during a meeting.

The easiest way to be the smartest person in the room is to be the person who pays the most attention to the room.

You’ll be amazed by what you can learn, both about the topic of the meeting and about the people in the meeting if you stop multitasking and start paying close attention. You’ll flush out and understand hidden agendas, you’ll spot opportunities to build bridges, and you’ll find ways to make yourself indispensable to the people who matter.

It’s easy, because you’ll be the only one trying.

And you’ll be the only one succeeding on multiple levels.

3. Think about people who don’t make any difference in my life.

Trust me: The inhabitants of planet Kardashian are okay without you.

But your family, your friends, your employees–all the people that really matter to you–are not. Give them your time and attention.

They’re the ones who deserve it.

4. Use multiple notifications.

You don’t need to know the instant you get an email. Or a text. Or a tweet. Or anything else that pops up on your phone or computer.

If something is important enough for you to do, it’s important enough for you to do without interruptions. Focus totally on what you’re doing. Then, on a schedule you set–instead of a schedule you let everyone else set–play prairie dog and pop your head up to see what’s happening.

And then get right back to work. Focusing on what you are doing is a lot more important than focusing on other people might be doing.

5. Let the past dictate the future.

Mistakes are valuable. Learn from them.

Then let them go.

Easier said than done? It all depends on your perspective. When something goes wrong, turn it into an opportunity to learn something you didn’t know–especially about yourself.

When something goes wrong for someone else, turn it into an opportunity to be gracious, forgiving, and understanding.

The past is just training. The past should definitely inform but in no way define you–unless you let it.

6. Wait until I’m sure I will succeed.

You can never feel sure you will succeed at something new, but you can always feel sure you are committed to giving something your best.

And you can always feel sure you will try again if you fail.

Stop waiting. You have a lot less to lose than you think, and everything to gain.

7. Talk behind someone’s back.

If only because being the focus of gossip sucks. (And so do the people who gossip.)

If you’ve talked to more than one person about something Joe is doing, wouldn’t everyone be better off if you stepped up and actually talked to Joe about it? And if it’s “not your place” to talk to Joe, it’s probably not your place to talk about Joe.

Spend your time on productive conversations. You’ll get a lot more done–and you’ll gain a lot more respect.

8. Say “yes” when I really mean “no.”

Refusing a request from colleagues, customers, or even friends is really hard. But rarely does saying no go as badly as you expect. Most people will understand, and if they don’t, if the decision was right you’ll learn to live with it.

When you say no, at least you’ll only feel bad for a few moments. When you say yes to something you really don’t want to do you might feel bad for a long time–or at least as long as it takes you to do what you didn’t want to do in the first place. Or worse, you’ll be one of those people who says yes but just doesn’t show up to do what you promised. We’ve all been burnt by those people, and we all wish they’d just said no, don’t we?

adapted from 8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day by Jeff Haden.

Suggestions

How to make friends in a new city

I have moved cities many times now. Sometimes for work or university; sometimes for hubby’s work. I can tell you as you get older it gets harder to find your new groove. I look around at the people who have lived here all their lives, and their large circle of friends, and I know that while I gained many things with my moves, I lost dearly on the friendship front. In University it used to be easy as saying hello. Now, it requires real effort.

Here’s a nice synopsis of what you have to do to make friends in a new city, by Jeremy Anderberg.

The Three Keys to Fostering Friendship

Beginning in the 1950s, sociologists began to delve into friendship theory. They came to the idea that true friendship relies heavily on three main conditions. Some people nowadays are beginning to refute this theory as our world grows evermore digital, but I don’t buy that necessarily. Having plenty of friends on Facebook is not the same as having friends.

Proximity: Being physically close to people for extended periods of time naturally lends itself to friendship. Again, some people try to refute this as not as necessary in today’s world. However, think about your high school or college friends once you moved away. It got much harder to truly stay in touch, and you likely drifted from most of them. Yes, you can see what they’re up to on Facebook, but if you don’t correspond regularly are you really friends?

Repeated & Unplanned Interactions: This means bumping into Jake at the local coffee shop in the morning, or catching up with Will and his wife at church on a Sunday morning. These aren’t planned get-togethers; these are times when your paths cross randomly throughout town. Obviously, this is much trickier post-college. You can help this, though, by choosing to do your shopping, dining, exercise, etc. within your neighborhood. This increases the chances of running into people over and over again, and perhaps making new friends.

A Setting That Encourages Vulnerability: Vulnerability here means people being able to let their guard down and truly be who they are. When you first meet people, no matter the environment, they tend to be cautious. They won’t let their sense of humor show, they won’t talk too much about their personal lives, etc. People are more likely to open up when you have a small backyard BBQ versus just meeting up at your local trivia night every week. It’s in smaller and more personal settings that friendship grows.

Why Making Friends After College Is Harder

We don’t know how to do it. In school, no matter the level, the three keys listed above come naturally to the environment. You’re around roughly the same people, nearly 24/7, for 4+ years. Once we’re out and we’ve moved away, we realize we don’t really know how to be intentional about creating those environments that lend themselves to friendship. We have to learn that it takes action to get out of the house and meet people. We also have to learn how to make plans and follow through, as those unplanned interactions from college will occur less and less. Those are things that won’t necessarily come naturally, because they haven’t had to.

Priorities change. Humans use friendship to fill certain emotional needs. A great New York Times article puts it like this:

“People have an internal alarm clock that goes off at big life events, like turning 30. It reminds them that time horizons are shrinking, so it is a point to pull back on exploration and concentrate on the here and now. ‘You tend to focus on what is most emotionally important to you,’ she [Laura Carstensen, Stanford Center on Longevity] said, ‘so you’re not interested in going to that cocktail party, you’re interested in spending time with your kids.’”

If you can get emotional fulfillment from your family, you won’t look for it as much elsewhere. So there comes a point where we stop even trying to make friends and end up thinking we can be content interacting only with the people in our household.  There comes a time when you’ll crave some sort of social interaction beyond your spouse and kids.

Being a couple makes it more complex. As people “couple up,” the challenge of making real friends increases. Not only do you have to like someone, but, ideally, so does your spouse. If you’re making friends with another couple, the difficulty is magnified even more. Does each person like each member of the other couple? At times, you’ll likely have to compromise a little bit.

Having children makes it more complex. Children not only take away some of that previous social time you once had, it can create uncomfortable and forced friendships. If the kids get along, the parents can feel like they have to get along too. As comedian Louis C.K. riffed: “I spend whole days with people, I’m like, I never would have hung out with you, I didn’t choose you. Our children chose each other. Based on no criteria, by the way. They’re the same size.”

We become pickier. With less time and emotional need for friends, we may start to set the bar incredibly high as to whether someone is worth trying to get to know better or not. We expect to share a whole lot in common with them, and want the kind of deep connection we had with friends in our younger years. But what’s interesting is that if you look back on many of the buddies you had in high school and college, what you realize is that if you hadn’t met during that time, and had that much automatic proximity contact, you probably wouldn’t have become friends otherwise; they weren’t the kind of person you would have picked out in a different situation to befriend. Because you got thrown together, you became pals. So even if you don’t feel like someone has the potential to be your bosom buddy right off the bat, give them a chance.

We simply give up. Maybe you’ve gone above and beyond and really put yourself out there and had no return whatsoever on your friend-investment. Just as with dating, not every relationship is going to take off. You can expect some friendships to just sort of wither away over time, or even in some cases be outright “dumped.” It doesn’t mean you have to give up, though, and accept, as the NYT put it, that “the period for making B.F.F.’s, the way you did in your teens or early 20s, is pretty much over. It’s time to resign yourself to situational friends: K.O.F.’s (kind of friends) — for now.” Friendships are too important an ingredient in our well-being; you just have to keep trying.

Steps You Can Take to Make Friends in Your New City

With the above in mind, here are some ideas to get you started making new friends in your new city. These ideas are a combination of a case study of our own experience here in Denver as well as plenty of research from books and articles on the subject.

Introduce yourself to your neighbors. We can have hundreds of Facebook friends and yet not know the names of the people who physically live right next to us. That has to change. Your first foray into making friends should be introducing yourself to your neighbors. Bring over a cake, a six-pack, anything to literally get your foot in the door. You’ll want to meet them anyway, as you’ll likely need to borrow something or get some basic information about the neighborhood. If you don’t hit it off and become great friends, that’s fine, but at least you made the effort and now have someone you know next door.

Stick to your neighborhood as best as you can.  It all lends itself to friendship, especially over the long haul, much more than spreading out all your activities. You’ll have to adjust based on your own surroundings. It’s something to consider, however, when you do move to a new place.

Re-connect with old friends and acquaintances. This is a good one. Whether high school or college, connect with your alumni network and you’re bound to find someone in your new town that went to the same school as you, and if you’re lucky, even at the same time as you. Even if you weren’t really friends in school, you never know what can happen a few years down the road.

Make detailed plans. 84-year-old entrepreneur and producer Roger Horchow says, “You can’t just say, ‘Let’s get together sometime.’ You could be dead by then.” This is all too true.

Have a hobby and be open to meeting people while doing it. You’ll see this tip everywhere. “Join a club or a hobby group and you’ll make friends instantly!” That’s only partially true. In my case, I practice my hobbies alone, but I’m open to meeting people along the way.

Take advantage of the internet. Sites like meetup.com make it very easy to find groups around you that have similar interests. It’s also no pressure. You can scan events happening in your area, and decide whether or not to go – no one is keeping an attendance sheet. If you’re on LinkedIn, you can find all kinds of networking events in your new city, and even connect one-on-one with folks by saying something like, “Hi, I’m new to the city. Would you mind sitting down with me over a cup of coffee and talking about networking and business opportunities?” In my experience, people are incredibly friendly to these types of invitations.

Connect with your coworkers. This one can be tricky. Coworker relationships are often complex – you never really know where work/career aspirations end and true friendship begins. You have to test the waters and perhaps attend a few networking events together or a happy hour after work. Be open to this, but also don’t feel bad about maintaining barriers between work and play if you have to.

Open your house for meals and get-togethers. This is admittedly difficult. It’s is one of those things that can really only happen as you start to make some acquaintances. Invite coworkers, friends from a small group, the guys on your YMCA basketball team…even just one or two contacts with someone is enough to invite them over if you’re brave.

This is a great way to foster the type of environment that gets people to open up more. Plan a holiday meal for folks that don’t have other plans (we did that for Easter, and it was great). Offer to host a make-your-own pizza night or a college football afternoon. It doesn’t have to be anything special, it just shows that you’re willing to put yourself out there and get to know some new people. It also tends to happen that if you offer to host, it will be reciprocated in the near future.

In general, the biggest things that will help you in a new city are being open to friendships and opportunities wherever you go, and then following up and making concrete plans. I’m an introvert by nature, so when I’m invited to events or get-togethers, my gut instinct is usually to say no. I’ve had to pull myself out of that shell and change my default answer to yes. I very rarely regret it. Put yourself out there by getting out and about around town on a regular basis, be patient, say yes, and over time, you’ll have a great new group of friends.

-shamelessly adapted from  http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/04/17/how-to-make-friends-in-a-new-city/. Check this blog out. It’s about reviving the lost art of manliness.

The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People**
25 of these secrets are summarized below.

1. Your life has purpose and meaning. Without a clearly defined purpose, seven in ten individuals feel unsettled about their lives; with a purpose seven in ten feel satisfied.

2. Use a strategy for happiness. The average unhappy person spends more than twice as much time thinking about unpleasant events in their lives, while happy people tend to seek and rely upon information that brightens their personal outlook.

3. You don’t have to win every time. Competitiveness can preclude life satisfaction; ultra-competitive people rate their successes with lower marks than some people rate their failures.

4. Your goals should be aligned with one another. Life satisfaction is associated with consistency of life goals, if your goals conflict with one another your life may not work. Goals related to career, education, family and geography add up together to be about 80% of satisfaction.

5. Choose your comparisons wisely. Many of our feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction have their roots in how we compare ourselves to others. Compare yourself with those examples that are meaningful but that make you feel comfortable with who you are and what you have.

6. Cultivate relationships. Close relationships are the most meaningful factors in happiness. You are four times more likely to feel good about yourself if you are close to other people than if you do not feel close to anyone.

7. Turn off the TV. Television is the creamy filling that distracts us from the substance of our lives. Watching too much TV can triple our hunger for more possessions while reducing personal contentment by about 5% for each hour we watch.

8. Accept yourself unconditionally. People who are happy with themselves take defeat and explain it away by treating it as an isolated incident. People who are unhappy take defeat and enlarge it, making it stand for who they are.

9. Remember where you came from. Celebrating your ethnicity gives you a sense of place, a sense of history. Greater ethnic identity is associated with 10% greater life satisfaction.

10. The quality of your sleep may be related to your level of happiness. Better sleepers are 6% more satisfied with their lives than average sleepers, and 25% more satisfied than poor sleepers.

11. Friendship beats money. The primary components of happiness are not related to money, rather to the number of friends, closeness of friends, closeness of family, and relationships with co-workers and neighbors.

12. Have realistic expectations. The congruence of a person’s goals with their resources strongly correlates with happiness. The more realistic and attainable a person’s goals are, the more likely they are to feel good about themselves.

13. Be open to new ideas. Never stop learning and adapting. The world is always changing. Those who are resistant to change, on the other hand, are less than one third as likely to feel happy.

14. Share with others how important they are to you. Relationships are built on mutual appreciation. There is no better way to show that appreciation than to tell someone.

15. If you are not sure, guess positively. Unhappy people take a situation in which they are not sure and come to a negative conclusion. Happy people and unhappy people explain the world differently. When an unhappy person must interpret the world, eight in ten times he or she will see the negative in an event. Conversely a happy person will see the positive eight out of ten times.

16. Believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, you will not be able to function. A solid belief in one’s abilities increases life satisfaction by about 30%.

17. Don’t believe in yourself too much. Believing in yourself means thinking you are a capable person, not that you never make a mistake. We can also always learn something from others.

18. Don’t face your problems alone. Problems can appear to be unsolvable. When we feel alone, problems fester. By sharing we can get perspective and find solutions.

19. Age is not to be feared. Older people are as happy as younger people. Age is unrelated to happiness.

20. Develop a household routine. Feeling overwhelmed with chores and responsibilities can reduce personal satisfaction. Studies show an increase of satisfaction by about 5% if a personal routine is established.

21. Don’t be overprotective. Spending time worrying and trying to prevent risk will keep us worrying all the time. Being over protective creates high levels of stress and less life satisfaction.

22. Pay attention, you may already have what you want. We often forget to sit down and think about where we started and where we are now. The human tendency is to want more. A better approach is to remember where you started and appreciate how much you have accomplished.

23. Don’t let your spiritual beliefs fade. Regardless of the spiritual beliefs people affiliate themselves with, it is correlated to a deeper level of satisfaction in life than those who have no affiliation.

24. Do what you say you are going to do. Stay committed. It is a greater commitment to following through on agreed upon changes that contributes to the success of relationships and the 23% greater happiness of the individuals involved.

25. Don’t be aggressive with your friends and family. Even if you are right, there is nothing to be gained from letting yourself become adversarial with loved ones. Prevalent criticism within relationships reduces happiness up to one-third.

** Source: The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It, by David Niven

10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy

In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.
		Savor Everyday MomentsPause now and then to smell a rose or watch children at play. Study participants who took time to “savor” ordinary events that they normally hurried through, or to think back on pleasant moments from their day, “showed significant increases in happiness and reductions in depression,” says psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky.
		Avoid ComparisonsWhile keeping up with the Joneses is part of American culture, comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to happiness and self-esteem. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, focusing on our own personal achievement leads to greater satisfaction, according to Lyubomirsky.
		Put Money Low on the ListPeople who put money high on their priority list are more at risk for depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, according to researchers Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan. Their findings hold true across nations and cultures. “The more we seek satisfactions in material goods, the less we find them there,” Ryan says. “The satisfaction has a short half-life—it’s very fleeting.” Money-seekers also score lower on tests of vitality and self-actualization.
		Have Meaningful Goals“People who strive for something significant, whether it’s learning a new craft or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don’t have strong dreams or aspirations,” say Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener. “As humans, we actually require a sense of meaning to thrive.” Harvard’s resident happiness professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, agrees, “Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable.”
		Take Initiative at WorkHow happy you are at work depends in part on how much initiative you take. Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski says that when we express creativity, help others, suggest improvements, or do additional tasks on the job, we make our work more rewarding and feel more in control.
		Make Friends, Treasure FamilyHappier people tend to have good families, friends, and supportive relationships, say Diener and Biswas-Diener. But it’s not enough to be the life of the party if you’re surrounded by shallow acquaintances. “We don’t just need relationships, we need close ones” that involve understanding and caring.
		Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like ItIt sounds simple, but it works. “Happy people…see possibilities, opportunities, and success. When they think of the future, they are optimistic, and when they review the past, they tend to savor the high points,” say Diener and Biswas-Diener. Even if you weren’t born looking at the glass as half-full, with practice, a positive outlook can become a habit.
		Say Thank You Like You Mean ItPeople who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis are healthier, more optimistic, and more likely to make progress toward achieving personal goals, according to author Robert Emmons. Research by Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, revealed that people who write “gratitude letters” to someone who made a difference in their lives score higher on happiness, and lower on depression—and the effect lasts for weeks.
		Get Out and ExerciseA Duke University study shows that exercise may be just as effective as drugs in treating depression, without all the side effects and expense. Other research shows that in addition to health benefits, regular exercise offers a sense of accomplishment and opportunity for social interaction, releases feel-good endorphins, and boosts self-esteem.
		Give It Away, Give It Away Now!Make altruism and giving part of your life, and be purposeful about it. Researcher Stephen Post says helping a neighbor, volunteering, or donating goods and services results in a “helper’s high,” and you get more health benefits than you would from exercise or quitting smoking. Listening to a friend, passing on your skills, celebrating others’ successes, and forgiveness also contribute to happiness, he says. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn found that those who spend money on others reported much greater happiness than those who spend it on themselves.

from: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sustainable-happiness/10-things-science-says-will-make-you

Pema, again

Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.

— Pema Chödrön (When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times)

Buddhism tells us never to shrink from the negative or ugly. But what are we looking for, when we take that good look?

In daily life, be a child of illusion.

Being a child is seeing and hearing and touching the world with fresh eyes, ears, fingers and the rest of the five senses…plus mind. It’s pre-concept. This is a way to keep the mind and heart open.

There’s a story of two venerable Buddhist monks sitting and enjoying a garden together one day, not talking, just sitting. After a long time, one points at a tree and says, “They call THAT a tree!” And they laughed together.

Such is the sort of story Buddhists enjoy. And apparently actually understand.

Pema talks about this concept of being a child of illusion. Not sure I quite understand it, but it’s something to think about.