Our modern lives are filled with stress. Stress is always there and it is not going to go away. Stress can cause us to behave impulsively in ways that we do not desire. We need to find ways to deal with stress in ways that that we can be happy with. The following is from YMAA Newsletter #82. (www.ymaa.com)

Using Daoist Wisdom
An excerpt from the book Tai Chi for Depression.
by Aihan Kuhn

People live different life styles; have different cultures, different occupations, and different personalities. We are all different, but we can also be happy with who we are, what we have, and with whom we deal.

1. Avoid flying off the handle.
When a person is upset or angry, seeking temporary distance can give this person time to quiet their mind. Time is part of healing. If you try to argue or “clear” yourself, it might make things worse, especially when you argue over something that was your mistake. Even if you are right, arguing is still not the best way to solve the problem. If it’s about something you did not do, but you are getting blamed, you can always explain things later. If it can’t be explained, it’s not crucial. Not everything can be clear. People shout and yell to make statements clear. Just because you raise your voice louder doesn’t mean that you are right. Nor does it mean you can solve the problem. Learn to use a soft voice, speak slowly and clearly. Sometimes a soft voice is more powerful than a louder voice. As long as you are honest, things can be straightened out without arguing.

2. Take time to think over your situation.
We often tend to blame other people. Blaming other people is not the best way to solve the problem. In many cases it might make the situation worse. Before you speak out, or blame others, ask yourself “what can I do to change this situation?” Very often, you are the one who can change the situation. If you change yourself, you might be surprised to find that others change too.

3. The art of communication
There are many broken families, due to a lack of good communication skills. Language is an art. You need to speak in a peaceful way. Sometimes it makes miracles. Not everyone is trained at being able to understand the person rather than the language. People misunderstand quite often and the misunderstanding causes many problems. Speak in a way that is positive, peaceful, and harmonious. Learn to say, “I think…” “I feel…” I would like…” “I hope…” “I wish…” “I would prefer…” It is better to say something about yourself than to criticize or to blame. Avoid making vague requests. Say what you mean, and mean what you say, but in positive way. You should not expect others to read your mind. Sometimes, you think it is common sense, but it’s not common to other people. People, including your family members, are too busy to read your mind. Nowadays, a lot of common sense is not common anymore.

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I  have written before about abdominal breathing. It can result in improved wellbeing throughout the day. There is an additional tool, bellows breathing, that can be used for an occasional quick pick-up to get us going when we are fatigued. (Thanks to Kalyani for showing this to me). Bellows breathing consists of short fast breaths.

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To begin, sit in a comfortable position, either in a chair or in lotus on the floor. Keep your spine fairly straight and upright. Start with a long slow inhale to ensure that you have enough air in your lungs. Next, breathe in and out of your nose as fast as possible, at least one breath every second. Do this for up to 15 seconds.

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The challenge is to learn to have your diaphragm and abdominal muscles work together so that air moves in and out of your lungs. Focus on the movement of your abdominal muscles and diaphragm and try to have each breath be equal in force.

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There is a risk of hyperventilating if this is done too much. Beginners can try it for about 15 seconds. Experienced practitioners can do this for up to about a minute.

Here is another story about our old friend Nasrudin.

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Once again, the old stories have parallels in our modern times. Goodbye, good riddance.

from ............http://elastictime.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/the-revolt/

I generally prefer to give you my own work in this blog. There is not much value in just providing a quote to you. In this case though, I came across an article that I wanted to share. This exercise teaches you about building a mind-body connection.

By Master Wasentha Young
Create an atmosphere of silence, fresh air, turn off your phone, and give yourself about five to ten minutes for this meditation. You can do this meditation from a standing or seated position.

If you are sitting, comfortably separate and relax your feet on the floor and sit upright in your chair. If you are standing, separate your feet about shoulder or hip width apart; relax your feet on the ground, soften your knees and hips, and with your back straight (not stiff) gently lift your head top.

Overlap your hands just below your navel; about one inch. If you like you can close your eyes. Breathe. Like a thread, use your mind to guide your awareness down to the placement of where your hands are on your body. Breathe. Allow your awareness to remain connected to that area. If your mind drifts, or you begin to think, you will notice that your awareness has also shifted away from your hands-to-body. This is normal and will happen from time to time. Just take a breath and begin again.

When you are comfortable with this process, softly invite your breath to also touch this place of awareness. When you inhale it will be much like the torso is a vessel and the breath, water that fills the vessel from the bottom, up. As you exhale, just allow the breath to leave the body without changing the awareness of hands-to-body. Enjoy the moments when your mind/awareness, body, and breath come together.

This meditation style can help you to feel calm, relaxed, and a sense of inner awareness.


http://www.peacefuldragonschool.com/connectingmindbodyandbreath.cfm
reproduced with permission

“After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot. ‘There,’ he said to the old man, ‘see if you can match that!’

“Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit. ‘Now it is your turn,’ he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground.

Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target.

“ ‘You have much skill with your bow,’ the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, ‘but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot.’

There are many ways to look at this parable. This simplest way is to simply say that the Zen master removed the braggart from his comfort zone in order to defeat him.

There is saying that goes something like “The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance. —Saint Augustine (354-430) ” In addition, tai chi teaches us that “Yi leads Li”, or “intent leads external strength”. Both of these sayings talk about developing the mind and will.

A deeper look at this parable can also tell us that it is as important to have a strong mind as it is to have a strong body.

I found this parable on the Internet. Unfortunately, I failed to record the source. Can you help me identify it? Please comment.

Meditation is intended to make each of us a better person. To become a better person (to move forward), we must be brave, calm, and steady. In order to develop these qualities, we must learn how to harness our mind.

A common approach to harnessing our mind is by using our breath, or wind. Tibetan teaching talks of the windhorse, or lungta. Windhorse is the subtle energy, or air, within our body. It is the unlimited energy of goodness and awareness. When we have windhorse, our life moves forward. Regular meditation helps us to know our mind and learn how to harness it to accomplish our goals.

A focusing meditation is one type of meditation that we can use. We focus on our breath during meditation. When our mind wanders, we need to gather it up again and bring it back to the breath. With practice, our mind becomes stronger and our inner strength can come out as we begin to know our mind. As we start to learn our mind and its highs and lows, we begin to accept those highs and lows as part of ourselves. Our meditation becomes more peaceful as we worry less about things.

Part of meditating is learning to recognize wandering thoughts as they happen. With practice, we can quickly bring our focus back to the breath. There is no reason to feel bad about a wandering mind. Anyone that meditates knows that the mind will begin to wander again, no matter how much we practice. It just happens.

If we do not learn to manage our minds, self doubt starts to show up at some point in our lives. It starts to make sense to say and do negative things. This state of mind begins to accept violence and aggression as the way to get things done. We do not try patience or compassion because we have no practice using them. We have confidence in aggression.

We need windhorse to help us break out of this cycle. The enlightened qualities of the mind are available to those who look for them through meditation.

This article was based on an article in Shambhala Sun, September 2009.

I have written several times recently about Nasruden. Nasrudin is a character in many tales and parables. He lived in the Middle East many hundreds of years ago. Here is another story about Nasrudin.

Nasrudin wanted to add some beauty to his life, so he started a flower garden. He prepared an area in his yard and planted many kinds of beautiful flowers. In due time, the flower seeds sprouted and the garden was filled with the beautiful colors and aromas of the flowers.

There was only one problem. The flower garden was full of dandelions. He didn’t want dandelions. He wanted only the flowers that he had planted. He tried everything that he could think of to get rid of the dandelions. He asked advice of gardeners from all over and tried everything they suggested. Nothing worked.

Finally, he went to the capital to ask advice of the royal gardener at the palace. The royal gardener was a wise old man that had given advice to many gardeners. He suggested many things to Nasrudin, but alas, Nasrudin had already tried them all.

They sat together in silence for some time. The royal gardener finally looked as Nasrudin and said, “I suggest that you learn to love them.”

The second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by attachment. When I was first learning tai chi, we used the phrase, “Relinquish your attachment to perfection.”

We cannot expect things to be perfect. There are times when things just do not work out the way we want them to. There are some things in life that we cannot control, no matter how much we want to or how hard we try.

How we respond to events determines our stress level. We can worry and stress about how things didn’t work out the way we wanted or we can let go of our attachment. Peace and happiness comes when we accept what we have and do the best we can with it.

This practice is excerpted from shouyuliang.com.

According to the website, Fang Song Gong “is especially helpful for people with deficient-yin accompanied with excess-fire, and people with high blood pressure. It is also helpful for relaxing nervous tension from the pressure of work and to regain a vitality of spirit.”

Step 1: Sit with your eyes closed for a few moments. With every exhale, relax your muscles, one section at a time. Begin with your face, neck, and shoulders where you build up stress. Relax the front of your body beginning with your arms and hands, chest, abdomen, legs, and feet. Relax the back of your body beginning with your back, waist, hips, thighs, calves, and bottom of your feet. Repeat until you feel light and relaxed.

Step 2: Repeat a simple word or phrase softly to yourself. Feel your body and energy meridians channeling your energy with every exhale. Let your body melt into a tranquil state. Continue as long as you are comfortable, perhaps 5 or 10 minutes.

The word or phrase can be anything that has meaning to you. If you prefer, use the word song. Stretch out the s at the beginning into a “tsssong” that lasts for your entire exhale.

There are a few other things to keep in mind while practicing Fang Song Gong.

o If some parts of your body do not seem to want to relax, just let it go. With continued practice, you will learn to relax all your body.
o You may feel parts of your body becoming tingly, warm, or even itch. This is normal. It means you are becoming sensitive to your qi.
o If you feel any discomfort, check your posture and make adjustments until you feel comfortable.

I have written several times recently about Nasruden. Nasrudin is a character in many tales and parables. He lived in the Middle East many hundreds of years ago. Here is another story about Nasrudin.

Have you ever felt that your life was out of control? Has it seemed like things were flying past and you were being carried along with the current? Or in Nasrudin’s case, carried along with the donkey.

The first step in regaining control of your life is to step back and look at where your life has gotten out of balance. It all starts with taking time for reflection. Stop and think about what is really important. Make up a list of the top five or ten things that are important to you.

Take some time and talk about this list with the people who are important to you. Think about it for a few days. Make sure the list truly reflects your priorities. Then keep track of how you spend your time for a few weeks.

Compare your priority list with your log of how you spend your time. Do they match? If you are feeling that your life is spinning out of control, I would bet that your time is being spent on things that are not important to you. Now it’s time to take action.

What are you going to do about all the time wasters in your life? What are you going to do to learn how to spend your time on the important things in your life?

This is your chance to differentiate between what you want and what other people want of you. Time is your only asset in your quest for meaning in your life. If you allow it, the parasites in your life will use up all your time. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do a favor for a friend, but the choice must be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.

Anyone who has practiced meditation knows the effect of the “Monkey Mind” where one’s mind jumps around from one idea to another like a monkey jumping from one branch in a tree to another. This article from Wildmind gives some practical advice on how to train your mind to improve your practice. The third principle discussed in this article is to apply knowledge of which antidotes are effective in dealing with the hindrances.

http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/faith-and-discipline

Faith and Discipline (week 3 of 3)
By Vajradaka
“The next week you might take on building up and applying knowledge of which antidotes are effective in dealing with those hindrances you have recognized. For example, reflecting on the implications of sense desire can create a strong feeling of revulsion to that kind of distraction, (although it can also sometimes exacerbate restlessness and anxiety). I suggest that you take on the practice of noticing distractions quickly, recognizing hindrances accurately, and applying antidotes effectively, in three-week cycles over three months.”

“A good habit to establish if you meditate within a busy schedule is to give yourself at least five minutes at the end of the meditation, before plunging into something different. During meditation, if you get even slightly concentrated, there is not much sensory input. You enter into the mind’s own experience of itself. If after meditating you suddenly listen to the news on the radio or even start to plan your day in a determined way, that original subtle experience of concentration will be jarred. Over time an inner rebellion to being put through such jarring can develop. The result may be that you feel resistant to meditating, without knowing why.”

“Discipline arises from faith — the confidence that if you apply yourself to your meditation it will work. And discipline strengthens our faith. When we engage intelligently with our meditation practice we experience tangible results and gain greater confidence in our ability to work with the mind.”

Anyone who has practiced meditation knows the effect of the “Monkey Mind” where one’s mind jumps around from one idea to another like a monkey jumping from one branch in a tree to another. This article from Wildmind gives some practical advice on how to train your mind to improve your practice. The second principle in this article is to learn to accurately recognize the hindrances that cause your distractions.

http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/faith-and-discipline

Faith and Discipline (week 2 of 3)
By Vajradaka
“In the following week you could take on another task for each meditation practice. This time have the general intention to recognize accurately the hindrances underlying your distraction. To call this ‘wandering off’ is not really enough. At this point it is worth mentioning that there is an important relationship between knowledge and discipline. It is helpful, for example, to be familiar with the traditional list of five hindrances — the varieties of distraction — and their antidotes. This kind of knowledge comes partly from reading and being taught by others, and partly from learning through your own experience. For instance, on the basis of knowing the symptoms of ‘restlessness and anxiety’ you can differentiate them from ’sense desire’. Taking time outside formal meditation to consider whether you’re recognizing the hindrances accurately can be useful. Correct recognition of hindrances allows you to be more effective in countering them.”

This is the second of 3 parts. Next week, I will post the rest of the article. This will give suggestions for the third week of Meditation Practice and Improvement.

Anyone who has practiced meditation knows the effect of the “Monkey Mind” where one’s mind jumps around from one idea to another like a monkey jumping from one branch in a tree to another. This article from Wildmind gives some practical advice on how to train your mind to improve your practice. The first principle in this article is to learn how to recognize when your mind begins to wander.

http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/faith-and-discipline

Faith and Discipline (week 1 of 3)
By Vajradaka

“Most of those who have difficulties are not disciplined enough in the way they work in meditation, and a measured amount of discipline each day can make the process easier and more enjoyable. For example, you can set yourself the task of shortening the time it takes you to notice when your mind wanders off. At the start of each practice, form an intention to catch yourself as soon as possible each time your mind wanders. If you consciously decide to do this every day for a week, a positive inclination to acting in this way will develop. Your skill in noticing your attention wandering will increase and your concentration will benefit. Taking on a task like this is within your ability and if it succeeds it will increase your confidence, interest and engagement. It will make the practice feel more your own.”

This is the first of 3 parts. Next week, I will post more of the article. This will give suggestions for the second week of Meditation Practice and Improvement.

I generally prefer to give you my own work in this blog. In this case though, I came across a video on YouTube that I want you to see.

I came across this article recently in a British paper, the Independent.

Take a deep breath... How to relax deeply
So how can you access relaxation's healing powers? Harvard researchers found that yoga, meditation and even repetitive prayer and mantras all induced the relaxation effect. "The more regularly these techniques are practised, the more deeply-rooted the benefits will be," says Jake Toby. Have a go at one or more of the following for 15 minutes once or twice a day.

Body scan
Starting with your head and working down to your arms and feet, notice how you feel in your body. Taking in your head and neck, simply notice if you feel tense, relaxed, calm or anxious. See how much you can spread any sensations of softness and relaxation to areas of your body that feel tense. Once your reach your feet, work back up your body.

Breath focus
Sitting comfortably, become aware of your breath, following the sensation of inhaling from your nose down to your abdomen and out again. As you follow your breath, notice your whole body and let tension go with each exhalation. Whenever you notice your mind wandering, come back to your breath.

Mantra repetition
The relaxation response can be evoked by sitting quietly with eyes closed for 15 minutes twice a day, and mentally repeating a simple word or sound such as 'Om'.

Guided imagery
Imagine the most wonderfully relaxing light, or a soothing waterfall washing away any tension or worries from your body and mind. Make your image as vivid as possible, imagining the texture, colour and any fragrance as the image washes over or through you.

This is from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/relax-your-way-to-perfect-health-1763109.html