pause button

Last night at the Zen center, the monk gave a talk about not getting what you want.

She spoke about how small dissapointments lead us to suffer.  We expect things to be a certain way or we create dependencies on things continuing or not happening to make us happy. 

She talked about taking a pause before reacting with anger.

Anger is the personalization, the taking on of someone or something.   If you live a life of honesty, peacefulness, generorsity and openess then rarely should situations require you having to deal with difficult interpersonal situations. 

But, if you do find yourself in a challanging interpersonal situation, try to distance yourself for a moment. Realize that when someone does something unkind or destructive you must know,  that they have the problem, it is their cause and condition to deal with, it is theirs to own and deal with.

Take yourself out of the equation and try not to let it effect you personally.  Responding to the situation with grace and walk away calmly. 

This is something I know I have been learning to do for many years and it is not an easy practice. When people do things that do not compute, I feel angry.  I feel slighted, I feel dissapointed and sad. But, I must not respond with that energy. Instead, I hit the pause button and think about something else instead. 

And the amazing part is, when you simply don’t allow it to bother  you, anger and hurt simply goes away.    If you don’t feed it,don’t react to it, it dies. That which you don’t think about, don’t give any energy to and do not care about leaves your mind.

I don’t always suceed in my mission, but it gets easier with mindful practice.

One thing that helps is to everyday find moments, things, people that make us happy. 
They should be varied and small things.  Such as enjoying our morning coffee, witnessing someone politely give up their seat to somone who needed it, being told you are doing a good job,  having a old friend call.  These are the small pleasant blessings that happen all day all around us.

It makes for a much happier life to contemplate these things.