Thich Nhat Hanh is a wisdom practitioner. Take his advice for better health. Mindfulness. Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. If you’re walking, say to yourself, I am walking. If you're sitting, say to yourself, I am sitting. He provides it as the best workable cure for all the world's ills.
Sure, suffering will always be here, but we must learn how to deal with it.
In this book, he provides a summary rundown of all his usual favorite points.
Mindfully strengthen goodness, weaken negativity.
We all need a sangha.
A peace treaty: how to resolve conflict within the sangha.
If you transform yourself, you do so for the benefit of all of us.
Tradition is irrelevant. These are very simple practices that can be used by anyone at any time. He aims at tying cultures together. ‘Think globally.’ Think in terms of the water, not the waves, the ‘ultimate,’ not the limited historical perspective, nirvana, not samsara.
Includes the 5 precepts: Don’t kill, Don’t steal, Don’t participate in sexual misconduct, Use your tongue mindfully, Watch your consumption.
Don't abuse.
Know that your parents were once children themselves: vulnerable. You yourself are the crucible that carries the habits of your ancestors and your parents, and will transfer those to your children and future generations. Watch yourself. Your body does not belong exclusively to you. It is actually the belonging of everyone.
Go beyond thyself. Do not think in terms of yourSELF. Think in terms of the society, the community, the sangha.
Life is really a process of transformation. There is no final stage.
Write a list of what you have consumed that you shouldn't have. Vow not to repeat it.
You cannot have someone else suffer and be totally happy yourself. This should be fairly obvious. We inter-are; we are co existent,
interdependent, and mutually reliant. If you or I do something right, you or I will be responsible to the herd. If you or I do something wrong, you or I will be culpable to the herd.
Slow down, calm down, and practice wholesome living.
Everyone can benefit from a sangha. It's a place where as a literal or figurative family, we can resist, using each other as a support, the toxic elements of the world.
His dream at the end is very telling. In it he dreams that he and his brother An are at the marketplace, and for sale on one of the tables is every terrible, awful, and horrible experience he has ever had: warfare, disease, fire, famine, racial oppression, hatred, injustice, ignorance, misery and death. The man selling the ‘goods’ asserts that Thich Nhat Hanh and A will have to undergo these things forevermore, without cessation, on endless repeat. At first, he's down-hearted, but then he gains strength & courage, and shouts in the man's face, ‘If that's the way it is, so be it! If that's the way it must be, then we'll face it!’
This goes in the face of anyone and everyone who is always like, ‘Let’s put off true living for the afterlife,’ ‘This life is insignificant
compared with the afterlife,’ ‘I'm just waiting for heaven.’ Thich Nhat Hanh is wise enough to
realize that THIS life IS the afterlife, THIS IS the meaningful one, THIS life IS what matters. Reality must be lived fully. We must emBrace THIS life, despite all its imperfections & flaws, nay, misery, depression, & suffering. Because there IS no other life! This defies the nihilism many profess. It turns it on its head, and asserts rather that we are here in this life for the sake of FIXING IT. We can't give up. We can't throw up our hands and say that this life wouldn’t compare with the afterlife, just to wait for some eternal redemption. On whose terms? Our own? Individually? Personally? Selfishly? Or do we expect our family to be there, and do we get the chance to spread out? Nah. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that as hellacious as life can get, he and his family will face it. If he has that kind of courage in the face of never-ending life, why can't we?
I have been seeing a lot of ads for clearing clogged intestines, so some of you probably need to hear this: If you squat like this when clearing your bowels:
Someone gave me a stationary bike the other day for free which Goodwill wouldn’t accept. I find it a really good way to relax.
Navel
Check in to your breathing
Copilot: ...These ideas make The Perennial Philosophy a fascinating read for anyone interested in comparative religion and spirituality. If you ever come across a copy, it might be worth flipping through! Does any of this resonate with your own thoughts on religion and philosophy?
When you read you are in great company.
Combining convenience and pay off, nothing beats reading.
i am asking, if you can help me, for a specific title of a book that i read when i was about 24. the book was about the act of creation of specifically artwork or art. it described the creative process. the author was a violinist. it unlocked or attempted to unlock the secret to successful creation of artwork. it described the creation of drawings, visual artwork, paintings, etc. i think however the primary focus was on music. it described spontaneous improvisation and the magic of that. one point that i in particular remember he made was how the true interpretation of the english word amateur is to interpret the meaning of Loving what you Do. he stressed that this was the proper interpretation of the word and that one should be proud to be called an amateur and even to be one. there is no shame in the game. it had several pictures inside, or a few. they illustrated the magic of making music and following one's intuition when creating art. to follow one's whim. music is obeying one's 'muse'. again, i think the main focus of the book was music, and especially spontaneous improvisation, which is very beautiful, and can be very liberating unto the artist him or herself. how the creation of artwork is therapeutic and health giving. it explored the sublimity of the creative process. it defended the artist's job. it advocated for spontaneity and a certain looseness in the execution of the creation of new artwork. following one's whim and one's muse as I said. he was a professional violinist. he described practicing and performing with others, and the magic that is inherent in that, the activity of collaborative improvisation. kind of like just letting your spirit guide you. it may or may not be of help, but the particular edition (which i borrowed from the live oak public library, in savannah, georgia in probably i think the year 2007) that i read had a red cover with a painting or drawing of a flower pot or else a violin emitting music notes on the cover or something like that, i can't remember but i theorize that it was a colored pencil or else pastel paint picture or drawing. i can't be sure of that latter (just what kind of image was on the cover), but i can be sure that it was colorful. i do think that the word or some form of the word 'creativity' or 'creation' was in the title, and if not, it was certainly part of the theme of the book. 'creativity' and 'creation' (of artwork, namely) was certainly main and central to the whole theme of the book. i think that perhaps, and i can't be at all sure of this point, that the book was published in the 1990s. that seems the most true, but it couldn't have been any earlier than the 1960s, and i really don't think it was That early. that's about as much detail as i can think of for now. do you think you can pretty pretty pretty please do your best to search out the title? i would really like to add it to my goodread read books
by the way, the title is Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch.
