2012

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 9/29/2012
Tibetan sky burial photographs
Six Clever Tricks for a Better To-Do List
Speak wisely
Early Morning Meditation Inspiration - 9/28/2012

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting."

~The Buddha

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Tibetan sky burial photographs

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT

An astonishing series of photographs of a Tibetan "sky burial," where a corpse is cut up and fed to vultures, with the remains being pounded into dust, has been viewed almost three quarters of a million times in 24 hours.

The images (view here) are very graphic, but as Justin Whitaker says, "As a poignant reminder of the impermanence of this body, they're worth viewing."

According to Wikipedia, in Tibet the practice is known as jhator, which means "giving alms to the birds."

Sky burial is traditional in Tibet, where the ground is too rock for interment to be practical, and where a lack of wood similarly makes cremation unfeasible for people.

This kind of burial is a kind of meditation in itself. There's long been a tradition in Buddhism of using corpses in order to reflect on impermanence and to reduce attachment to the human form. For example, in order to develop mindfulness the monk is encouraged to see his own body in the following way…

..as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures, & hawks, by dogs, hyenas, & various other creatures… a skeleton smeared with flesh & blood, connected with tendons… a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons… a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons… bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions — here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a breast bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull… the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells… piled up, more than a year old… decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.'

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Six Clever Tricks for a Better To-Do List

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Have you ever written a to-do list, only to find that, at the end of the day, you hadn't even managed one item on it?

When you fail to make headway with your to-do list, you might end up blaming yourself – but it's probably not your fault.

To-do lists are great tools, but to be truly effective, you need to know a few tricks for making them work well.

#1: Write Action Items

Does your to-do list look like this?

Taxes
New desk?
Bob and Jane

While you might know exactly what these mean in the context of your day, there's also a good chance you've not really pinned down each task.

After all, you're unlikely to sit down and get all your taxes completely done in one session – and when you see "taxes" on the list, your first response is probably to jump straight to the next item.

A really effective to-do list uses action items. That means starting each task with a verb, and being specific about what you're going to do:

Check tax deadline, and sort all receipts into date order.
Look into the top three options for a new desk.
Call Bob and Jane to confirm dinner this weekend.

#2: Break Big Projects into Smaller Tasks

Sometimes, a vague item is a big project that needs breaking into smaller tasks. "Write report" often isn't something you can easily get your head around – but "get data for section 1 of report" is.

By breaking up any big projects into smaller tasks, you make your to-do list much more valuable. Once you actually get going on those tasks, you'll already have done some of the high-level thinking – and you can check them off your list one by one, creating a (well-earned) sense of steady progress.

#3: Put Timings Against Each Task

Perhaps you write a to-do list every day, but you rarely get through more than a few items on it. Unless you have at least a rough idea of how long your different tasks will take, you won't know how many you can accomplish in a day.

When you add an estimated time against each task, you get several great benefits:
You can easily see if you've got a to-do list that's going to take 16 hours instead of 8
You can race against the clock, trying to beat your time estimate – making you more efficient
As time goes by, you'll get a clearer sense of how long different tasks take (and you might be surprised by what you find)

#4: Split Your List into Different Categories

It's hard to work from a single, big, disorganized list. If "buy milk" is next to "phone client" and jumbled up with "go to the gym", you may find yourself accidentally missing out some of your tasks.

If your list is a mess, it's also far too easy to end up prioritizing the little tasks over big ones: you want to clear out as many to-dos as possible, regardless of how big or small they might be.

By splitting your list into different categories, it's easy to group different tasks for different areas of your work or life. For instance, your categories could be:
Major ongoing projects
Small work-related tasks
Personal development / education
Personal chores
It's up to you what categories you create, and you may want t! o experim! ent with using different ones, and with using more or fewer categories, over several weeks or months.

#5: Batch Together Similar Tasks

If you've got a bunch of similar tasks, try to do them in batches, rather than one at a time. For instance, if you need to make ten phone calls this week, it'll be most efficient to do them all at once – say, on Tuesday morning – rather than doing two each day.

The same goes for lots of common tasks like:
Reading and answering your emails
Looking up specific facts / information for your report
Finding great images to use for your presentation
Sometimes, this might mean reorganizing the way you complete a particular project. If you normally create each slide for your presentation separately, finishing Slide 1 before starting Slide 2, you might find that it's more efficient to create draft text for all the slides, then find and add images.

#6: Prioritize Your To-Do List

Finally, a great way to get more from your to-do list – especially if you're in a tight spot – is by prioritizing.

One powerful way to prioritize is by using your best time of the day for your highest-energy tasks. That way, you'll get the important things done while your brain is in gear, and you can deal with chores or admin when you're not feeling quite so energized. Your peak time might be morning, afternoon, or night.

Prioritizing is also really useful when emergencies crop up. If something derails your day, don't panic – instead, grab your to-do list, and highlight the items that really, truly have to get done today. Next, use a different color to highlight those which it would be useful to get done today. Now you can work through the high-priority items first, kn! owing tha! t the others can wait till tomorrow if necessary.

Do you have any great tips about to-do lists? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!
Written on 9/29/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here. Photo Credit:
Amelia

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Speak wisely

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 06:00 AM PDT

"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Ah, not really.

Often it's words – and the tone that comes with them – that actually do the most damage. Just think back on some of the things that have been said to you over the years – especially those said with criticism, derision, shaming, anger, rejection, or scorn – and the impacts they've had on your feelings, hopes and ambitions, and sense of yourself.

Words can hurt since the emotional pain networks in your brain overlap with physical pain networks. (The effects of this intertwining go both ways. For example, studies have shown that receiving social support reduces the perceived intensity of physical pain, and – remarkably – that giving people Tylenol reduced the unpleasantness of social rejection.)

Besides their momentary effects, these hurts can linger – even for a lifetime. The residues of hurtful words sift down into emotional memory to cast long shadows over the inner landscape of your mind.

Plus they can alter a relationship forever. Just think about the ripple effects of things said between parents and children, from one sibling to another, or among in-laws. Or between friends. For example, a good buddy once castigated me morally when we disagreed politically. We tried to talk it through, but the fact that he showed he could indeed go to that place led me to take a step a back; we're still friends, but our relationship is smaller now since I steer clear of some major subjects.

So do what you can to protect yourself from hurtful words from others. Prevent them in the first place, if possible, by "talking about talking" with others (perhaps share the guidelines below). If that doesn't work, try to see the underlying pain and needs that could have triggered them to "let 'er rip," put their words in perspective, turn toward resources in yourself and in your true friends, and shift the size or nature of the relationship if that's appropriate (and possible).

And on your own side of the street – my subject in this JOT, because you have much more influence over yourself than you have over others – speak wisely.

How?

I've gotten a great deal of personal value from six guidelines offered 2500 years ago by the Buddha; you'll recognize their essence – sometimes expressed in the same words – in other traditions or philosophies.

From this perspective, wise speech always has five characteristics. It is:

Well-intended – Comes from goodwill, not ill will; constructive; aimed to build up, not tear down
True – Not overstated, taken out of context, or blown-up out of proportion
Beneficial – Helps things get better, not worse (even if it takes a while)
Timely – Not driven by impulsivity; rests on a foundation that creates a good chance of it being truly heard
Not harsh – It could be firm, pointed, or intense; it could confront mistreatment or injustice; anger could be acknowledged; but it is not prosecutorial, nasty, inflammatory, dismissive, disdainful, or snarky.

And if possible, it is:

Wanted by the other person – If they don't want to hear it, you may just not need to say it; but there will be other cases when you need to speak for yourself whether the other person likes it or not – and then it's more likely to go well if you follow the first five guidelines.

Of course, there is a place for talking loosely with others when it's comfortable to do so. And realistically, in the first moments of an argument, sometimes people stray out of bounds.

But in important, tricky, or delicate interactions – or as soon as realize you've gone over the line – then it's time to communicate with care, and with wisdom. The six guidelines do not guarantee that the other person will respond the way you want. But they will raise the odds of a good outcome, plus you will know in your heart that you stayed in control of yourself, had good intentions, and have nothing to feel guilty about later.

Reflect on the six guidelines as you consider how to approach an important conversation. Then, be natural: if you simply speak from your heart, have good intentions, and keep returning to the truth as you know it, it is hard not to speak wisely! If things get heated, stay grounded in wise speech; be clear that how you speak your own responsibility, no matter what the other person does. If you stray from the guidelines, acknowledge that to yourself, and perhaps to the other person.

With time and a little practice, you will find yourself "speaking wisely" without consciously thinking about it. You might be amazed at the powerful, assertive ways you can communicate within the frame of the six guidelines; consider the well-known examples of Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And – for a little bonus here – how about practicing wise speech in the way you talk to yourself?!

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