Reduce Stress and Anxiety: 5 Effective Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety at Work
Reduce Stress and Anxiety: 5 Effective Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety at Work |
- Reduce Stress and Anxiety: 5 Effective Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety at Work
- Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/2/2013
- Going beyond the ordinary view of reality
- Cultivating appreciative joy
- Happiness, Kant, and Buddhism
| Reduce Stress and Anxiety: 5 Effective Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety at Work Posted: 02 Jun 2013 09:00 AM PDT  Is fear leading you down a one-way street to joblessness? This question might sound extreme but I lost a number of jobs due to excessive anxiety which paralysed my productivity and creativity. Nearly everyone suffers from some form of stress at work but when it becomes so acute that your whole career belly flops into oblivion, then it's time to address some of the underlying causes. I want to share 5 little philosophies I adapted into my working life which allowed me to not only keep a job but to flourish in my new career, as well as reduce my overall anxiety levels.     Read More @ Source |
| Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 6/2/2013 Posted: 02 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT  "Freedom is the basic condition for you to touch life, to touch the blue sky, the trees, the birds, the tea, and the other person." ~Thich Nhat Hanh      Read More @ Source |
| Going beyond the ordinary view of reality Posted: 02 Jun 2013 07:00 AM PDT Mankind has a deep seated fear of having their common, ordinary view of reality overturned. This fear is not directly experienced but, instead, is turned into psychological resistance, from stubborn denial, to violence. Here is one example that seems non-inflammatory; that couldn't rile anyone, or so it seems. If I say, contrary to the assumptions of the general public, the sun doesn't work by fusion, I will get some resistance, despite the fact that there is no actual evidence that the sun works like an atomic bomb. To make matters worse, if I say that the sun is hollow and more like a transformer or converter that connects with some other dimension, resistance intensifies. Then if I say that no one can see the sun in free, immaterial space, I am no longer listened to. Buddhism is not far from this problem. When Buddhism starts to move beyond the common, ordinary view of reality held by Stress Reduction practitioners, they become troubled. The fear factor starts kicking in almost unconsciously; psychological resistance starts to grow. In this respect, Buddhism is not anything that is supposed to challenge a practitioner or serve to reorient their mental attitude and beliefs. It is just another interesting tool in the ordinary Stress Reduction practitioner's tool chest to help them cope with their worldly problems of which they won't let go. The ordinary Stress Reduction's way of studying Buddhism and handling its ideas, since they have had no direct experience of the Buddha's awakening, is pretty much based on their level of education and open mindedness; perhaps more importantly, their set of hardcore values. Some parts of Buddhism either chime with their values or they don't. And if they don't, they could not care less. For the most part, those who practice Buddhism practice it on their own terms. What they derive from Buddhism doesn't fundamentally change them, it just makes them more knowledgeable about a subject they didn't know previously. On this thought, we shouldn't assume that such people know very much about real Buddhism even though they know more about it than before they began to practice. It certainly doesn't prevent them from finding this passage from the Itivuttaka offensive.
One Stress Reduction practitioner said of me back in 2006 when I used this passage, "Light-bringer suggests an influence from Satanism." I used to enjoy getting Stress Reduction practitioners making pious pronouncements of what supposedly the Buddha taught then put a quote right in their face they couldn't refute. From these occurrences, I eventually came to the realization that today's Stress Reduction practitioners are not at all interested in the real Buddhism, for example, that the Buddha taught the âtman in the Mahayana Mahaparinrivana Sutra and in other Sutras. Even before they became Stress Reductions they believed there is no soul; when you are dead you're dead; there is no karma or karma transmigrant and rebirth is bunk. But the bottom-line to this: they greatly fear having their view of reality overturned and will defend it to the hilt.
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| Posted: 01 Jun 2013 10:00 PM PDT
Our old friend, the first century text, the Path to Freedom, describes it like this:
So again, this quality of appreciation, like lovingkindness and compassion, is something intrinsic to us that needs to be developed and extended, and not some amazing mystical experience that we're striving to attain some day. We already have experience of muditā! (Sādhu, by the way, means something like "yay" or "alright!" or "great!") But this description of seeing happiness and being glad sounds rather like metta, or lovingkindness. Compassion is the desire that beings be free from suffering — so that, at least, is quite clearly different from appreciative joy. Metta is the desire that beings be happy. But what's the difference between mettā and muditā? Upatissa, the author of the Path to Freedom, actually is a bit more specific when he explains how to cultivate appreciative joy:
So in both examples — "seeing the happiness of their dear and only child" and "seeing and hearing that some person's qualities are esteemed by others" — we have two things going on:
So there's more here than just recognizing happiness and being glad that people are happy. We're recognizing ethically skillful behaviors and character traits, and the peace and joy they bring. PS. You can see all of the 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here. Read More @ Source |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2013 08:00 PM PDT
It has been a running theme of this blog… Read the original article » Read More @ Source |
The third of the Brahmaviharas, or "immeasurables," after lovingkindness and compassion, is muditā. Muditā is sometimes translated as sympathetic joy, or empathetic joy, or as appreciative joy.
Justin Whitaker, Patheos Press: One conception was common to all the philosophical schools: people are unhappy because they are the slave of their passions. In other words, they are unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists in independence, freedom, and autonomy. In other words, happiness is the return to the essential: that which is truly "ourselves," and which depends on us.| You are subscribed to email updates from BuddhaRocks ☸ To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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