16/06/2009

cognitive alchemy

A new perspective has arrived and made a nest for itself in my mind, this is not about right or wrong, good or bad, black or white or dark and light. This perspective has slowly been taking root and is objective in its release of realizations and nurtures self acceptance and self respect; this is a key lesson for me right now. It is all about me seeing the bigger picture and perceiving every minute detail as a unique experience from which I can learn. Experience is everything and it is a gift.
The salvation aspect here is that when life is encountered through this new perspective than emotional attachments and distress as responses to an experience or feelings of not being in control become none-existent or at any rate less. For example when being confronted with some so called “negative aspect”, instead of the usual (negative) emotional response, the emphasis in my mind is on the experience and the lesson involved.
What this perspective is ultimately teaching me is self-acceptance and self-love and those qualities and affirmations have a tremendous grounding effect. Trust also plays a role in this process, if you can truly accept and believe that everything that is happening to you is exactly what you need than you can breathe a deep sigh of relief and away fall the negative responses and emotions.
Relief causes us to turn back into the downstream flow of life and abundance; it is the so called breakeven point on the emotional scale. Through this ability to witness every situation as a valuable experience I can gain wisdom and get to know myself better which in turn allows me to grow, change and learn but also to enjoy life as it comes with it’s duality and confrontations and transmute the negative into something positive.
Read what Gandhi says about experience here.

2 comments:

  1. "For Buddhists, the basic attitude is that you should remain skeptical at the beginning. This skeptical attitude automatically brings up questions. Questions bring clearer answers, or investigation. Therefore, Buddhist thinking relies more on investigation rather than on faith. I feel that that attitude is very, very helpful in communicating with scientists. Buddhist ethical discourse often speaks about wrong views as constituting a negative state of mind. There are two kinds of wrong views: One exaggerates what is actually there.The other denies what is actually there. So both absolutism and nihilism are seen as wrong views."

    As much as the Dalai Lama enjoys dabbling in science, he has a greater purpose: to alleviate suffering. Buddhism has an extensive toolkit of techniques intended to reduce misery and perfect humanity through quieting the mind and cultivating compassion. The Dalai Lama wants to extract these methods from their religious context and ground them in the science of the brain in the hope that they will be widely adopted.

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  2. The Dalai Lama was in Amsterdam recently and when I went to see him, it was the persona Dalai Lama that really spoke to me, much more than his words, it was heartwarming to see how genuine a person he is; spontanious and alive despite the pressure he is under from all sides and his age.

    Quieting the mind is key, buddhism def does have a good toolkit.

    Your blog is quite great btw, I like the topics there and the scientific vibe.

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