Exercise 15: Using mental imagery

Posted on Happy Minds!

From: Happiness - Matthieu Ricard

When a powerful feeling of desire, envy, pride, aggression,
or greed plagues your mind, try to imagine
situations that are sources of peace. Transport yourself
mentally to the shores of a placid lake or to a high
mountaintop overlooking a broad vista. Imagine
yourself sitting serenely, your mind as vast and clear
as a cloudless sky, as calm as a windless ocean.
Experience this calmness. Watch your inner tempests
subside and let this feeling of peace grow anew in
your mind.



Understand that even if your wounds
are deep, they do not touch the essential nature of
your mind, the fundamental luminosity of pure consciousness.

Exercise 14: How to begin to meditate

Posted on Happy Minds!

From: Happiness - Matthieu Ricard

No matter what your outer circumstances might be,
there is always, deep within you, a potential for flourishing.
This is a potential for loving-kindness, compassion,
and inner peace. Try to get in touch with and
experience this potential that is always present, like a
nugget of gold, in your heart and mind.
This potential needs to be developed and matured
in order to achieve a more stable sense of well-being.
However, this will not happen by itself. You need to
develop it as a skill. For that, begin by becoming more
familiar with your own mind. This is the beginning of
meditation.
Sit quietly, in a comfortable but balanced posture.
Whether you sit cross-legged on a cushion or more
conventionally on a chair, try to keep your back
straight, yet without being tense. Rest your hands on
your knees or thighs or in your lap, keep your eyes
lightly gazing in the space in front of you, and breathe
naturally. Watch your mind, the coming and going of
thoughts. At first it might seem that instead of diminishing,
thoughts rush through your mind like a waterfall.
Just watch them arising and let them come and
go, without trying to stop them but without fueling
them either.
Take a moment at the end of the practice to savor
the warmth and joy that result from a calmer mind.



After a while your thoughts will become like a peaceful
river. If you practice regularly, eventually your
mind will easily become serene, like a calm ocean.
Whenever new thoughts arise, like waves raised by the
winds, do not be bothered by them. They will soon
dissolve back into the ocean.

Exercise 13: Distinguishing happiness from pleasure

Posted on Happy Minds!

From: Happiness - Matthieu Ricard

Bring to your mind a past experience of physical pleasure,
with all its intensity. Remember how you enjoyed
it at first and then how it gradually changed
into a neutral feeling and maybe even waned into lassitude
and lack of interest. Did it bring you a sense of
inner or lasting fulfillment?
Then remember an occasion of inner joy and happiness.
Recall how you felt, for example, when you
made someone else really happy, or when you peacefully
enjoyed the company of a loved one or the sight
of beautiful natural scenery. Consider the lasting effect
this experience had on your mind and how it still
nourishes a sense of fulfillment. Compare the quality
of such a state of being with that of a fleeting sensation
of pleasure.



Learn to value these moments of deep well-being and
aspire to find ways to develop them further.

Helpful information

Posted on Happy Minds!

We are living in times of unimaginable evil. Instead of helping each other out, an enormous obsession with fancy mobile phones, fast cars, villas, private swimming pools and overflowing bank accounts has arisen.



Stealthy forces try to “steal our minds”. By showing us tremendously infantile pictures of how things should be - so-called “commercials” - that actually are nothing more then greed transformed to a visible image.

This turmoil, is similar to a storm in a glass of water. There’s nothing to it. It’s just ignorance, wrong views, leading to a lack of compassion.

We are full of compassion. Humans are born with an innate talent for that skill. The only reason for our ignorance, is because we choose to be so. We choose to be so, because we are like little children, playing in the woods. We have lost our way, and we are trying to get back to the village. Instead of using logic, we try to use force, but that isn’t working too well, is it?

So, cool down, get your sanity and yourself back together. Stop wasting your live, and lets start creating a future that’s similar to a dream instead of a nightmare.

I’ve found some really helpful information that may provide you with some tools sufficient for achieving this task ahead, and you can find it here!