Easwaran
• Meditation, however, requires systematic daily practice
• Fortunately, we already possess these capacities. But we need a calm mind to draw on them
• We can’t control what life sends us but we can have a say in how we respond
• How do we calm the mind? Repetition of a Mantram, or prayer word
• The term Mantram (or mantra) stands for a word or short phrase that you repeat silently to your self to help you cope with stress
• You don’t have to think of yourself as religious to use a Mantram. It works for everyone, because it works directly on the mind
• Practice, practice, practice in when it’s calm. Repeat your Mantram to yourself silently in the mind
• The real lesson to learn from crisis: not to rely on any external support, but to find your center of strength within
• We already have the capacity to deal with challenges but we need a calm mind to draw on the resources locked up within
• You don’t have to analyze each crisis separately, just use the Mantram to calm your mind
• Don’t make up your own Mantram
• When you fall asleep in it, the Mantram will go on working for you throughout the night as well
• Hurry blocks our access to our deeper resources. One of life’s precious skills is learning to slow down and live completely in the present moment
• The Buddha would say be completely absorbed in the “present”. Live life completely in the present.
• If we could watch our thoughts we would be surprised how much time we spend in the past and future and not in the present
• Now is the only time there is. Don’t waste the time we have.
• When we nurse a resentment or dwell on an anxiety we are stepping into a private time machine and whisking ourselves away from the here and now and going back to the past.
• Whenever we train the mind to dwell on pleasant memories of the past we are training it to get caught in unpleasant ones too.
• One third of our attention is in the past, one third in the future and only one third in the present.
• Meditation is a glass bottomed boat for observing our mind
• Mantram helps us come back to the present moment and focus fully on what we are doing.
• Most wandering thoughts can be traced to the past or future
• Instead of letting your mind wander to the coming evening bring it back to what you are doing “now”
• Repeat the Mantram silently and use it as a focus tool to bring the mind back to the present
• Hurry makes us tense and causes us to make mistakes
• Slow down physically and mentally
• Buddha might say when you are with a date, be with the date and when you are at work, be at work but don’t wobble
• We can train the mind to rest in the present by listening really attentively to others for instance. Give all of your attention to what the person is saying even if you don’t like or agree with it. Listen carefully to every word and don’t interrupt with your own views
• A job seems dull when we allow our attention to wander
• Buddha would say there is no such thing as the past. It has been rolled up, it doesn’t exist. Nothing remains of it but what we hold in our minds. And there is no such thing as the future it has not yet been rolled out. That is why attention flowing to the past is energy wasted. We are dumping our vitality into a black hole.
• Fantasizing about dreams coming true is simply energy drained away
• The very pressure of time is an illusion the Buddha would say created by the rushing moment of the mind. There is never any moment but the present, never an time but now.
• You give the very best to each moment without any loss of vitality to past or future
• You don’t react to people. You are free to choose your own response free to be loving always
• Most of us think too much about what we should “do” and not enough about what we should “be”
• Living completely in the present is also the most joyful way to be free from worry and anxiety. And one of the simplest ways to do this is to do only one thing at a time.
• We still respond anxiously to perceived threats with the old conditioned response of fight or flight. In such situations the Mantram is enormously effective as first aid because it reverses this conditioning
• I can see only the present, I forget the past and take good care not to worry about the future.
• Switching rapidly among unrelated tasks researchers are finding is a very inefficient way to use your brain
• When attention stays in the present worry actually evaporates
• Buddha would call all of us sleepwalkers. We go through the motions of living with little more awareness than someone who is dreaming. Living in the present is simply a matter of “being fully awake” which is what the word Buddha literally means.
• We live where our attention is
• We should practice voluntarily bringing back a wandering mind over and over again
• Fears anxieties and insecurities refer to the future
• Teaching the mind to do one thing at a time with complete attention can lift the burden of past and future regret resentment guild worry and anxiety
• Take a really long brisk Mantram walk repeating your Mantram silently as you go keeping the Mantram going in rhythm with your step
• We avoid junk food so we should also avoid junk experiences such as those contained in the media
• We need to nourish our minds the same way we nourish our body with healthy things
• In order to find joy in life the mind must be calm
• Spend time with people who embody qualities you are trying to strengthen in your self because we become like those we associate with
• Meditating on inspirational passages is an extremely effective way to nourish the mind at a very deep level
• The media mirage is like junk food for the mind
• You are what you think
• What goes into the mind settles and stays there. The mind consumes all day long
• The unconscious mind does not distinguish from real and unreal. Everything is experience and it all sinks in. The mind absorbs everything it takes in.
• Ask yourself if this experience is going to become part of me and will it leave me calmer or will it agitate me. Will it make me more compassionate or will it stir up anger or leave me depressed
• We automatically absorb the influence of those around us for better or worse. We participate in other peoples state of mind
• When we associate with calm people we become calmer. When we associate with wise people we become wiser
• We can not fix other people only ourselves
• We need to be vigilant about the kind of conversations we participate in
• When ever you find yourself caught in negative thinking, start repeating the Mantram. When the mind is absorbed in the Mantram it has no room for other thoughts
• If you want to be secure and generous associate with people who are secure and generous
• Choose your words carefully
• When we get upset it’s not because life upsets us. We get upset because we are up settable which is a mechanical problem. The mind can learn to un-up-settable. Give complete attention to those around us particularly when we differ.
• Speak and act with kindness and others unkindness will not upset us
• You will find that the effort to choose a kind response I the face of provocation reaches into the deepest recess of consciousness
• Most people lack courtesy. You can expect to be hurt but you have a say in how much you are hurt and how you are going to respond. Be like an elephant the mightiest of creatures and shrug off harsh word and move on.
• Dr. Wilder Penfield discovered that through electric simulation of the brain we can revive experience we thought were long forgotten
• We just don’t seem to know how to disagree without being disagreeable
• The best way to handle a quarrel is to avoid it in the first place
• You can take a stand but carefully prepare first, be friendly and firm, speak clearly and show respect
• Never confront anyone when you’re angry or afraid. Use the Mantram and take time to calm down first
• Allow plenty of time when you are talking to the other person. Your mind needs to slow down if you are going to stay calm and kind.
• Staying kind makes you strong. The Mantram doesn’t just give you patience it give you courage too.
• The Mantram brings the angry mind back under control so that we can be more patient and more constructive
• We should be prepared for a certain amount of impoliteness and discourtesy because most people can’t control their mind the way we can
• If you get displeased when others are unkind to you why don’t you get displeased when you are not kind to others
• You don’t have to be upset in an upsetting situation
• Criticism can be useful only when it is constructive. Comments can be useful only when they are friendly.
• Use the Mantram to first get some detachment from the situation
• Train the muscles of your patience by repeating the Mantram
• Being patient under attach and kind when opposed is not a sign of weakness but a sign of immense strength.
• Everywhere you go, do something nice for someone. Spread kind words and smiles
• A calm mind has great power. It generates calm around it – a field of peace in which anger, fear and violence can subside. By learning to calm the mind, each of us can become an instrument of peace.
• We broadcast our emotional states – positive or negative – to others. And the signals go on spreading. When we are kind to somebody a little force of kindness is released in the field of consciousness around us.
• The ancestor of every actions is a thought How we think shapes how we act.
• Just as people become addicted to drugs, the mind can become addicted to certain kinds of thinking.
• Anger is one of the most powerful of drugs far more addictive than cocaine
• Negative states fade if they are not reinforced. Remove negativity and what remains is our “original” goodness.
• When we cease to feed negativity with our attention what remains is positive
• We broadcast what we are and others pick it up
• Anger the most destructive of emotions destructive of health of peace of mind of relationships of life itself can when transformed become a loving force that can change the world
• Train the mind to be at peace and then radiate that peace to those around us
• Through selfless service and the Mantram Gandhi changed his fear into fearlessness anger into compassion hatred into love by spending less time indulging himself.
• Flickering attention is a sure sign of a divided mind. Division is tension. Division is friction. Division is ineffectiveness.
• Having a calm steady mind is like driving a long distance in a powerful car on cruise control
• Whenever a negative emotion starts to rise - a wisp of anxiety or fear a rush of anger if you can immediately start repeating your Mantram in your mind that give the mind something to hold on to.
• A calm mind releases the most precious capacity a human being can have. The capacity to turn anger into compassion fear into fearlessness and hatred into love
• Great teachers of every religion have told us that goodness is as much a part of life as the force of gravity.
• The first step is to bring calm to your own mind so you don’t add fuel to the flames of fear and anger around you
• Step away from the whirlpools of negativity that swirl around us
• Practice the Mantram 30 minutes each morning
• When we meditate on inspired words with profound concentration they have the capacity to sink into our consciousness alive with a charge of spiritual awareness.
• While meditating do not follow any association of ideas or try to think about the passage. If you are giving your attention to “each word”, the meaning can not help sinking in.
• It is helpful to have a wide variety of passages for meditation drawn from the worlds major spiritual traditions.
• Resolve to have your meditation every day – however full your schedule, whatever interruptions threaten, whether you are sick or well.
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