Zen No More

Are You Happy?

Are you?

Think about it for a minute.

How much would you give to learn the secret of happiness?

　The key to happiness is freedom.

Learning to put aside your worries until they are directly in front of you, and seeing life from the perspective of the “big picture,” creates this freedom.

Learning the process of freedom, is in practicing the technique of present moment awareness.

*Be Here Now*

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OK great, now where do I start?

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How many things do you carry around with you?

If someone has made you mad, how long does it take to let that problem go? If someone has cut you off in traffic and makes you angry, how many other people have to suffer because of it?

If you let people drive you into anxiety when they are not in front of you, you are fighting a ghost. If the person isn’t right there, you can’t resolve the problem, so you’re carrying this person with you everywhere you go. You’re living this over and over in your mind, and it does nothing to resolve the problem.

These problems are living rent free right in your head! 

People who you don’t like, people who have made you mad in the past, and you still hold a grudge, they still own you, if you let them live in your head. If a problem, or a person isn’t right there in front of you, and you still think about them, you are preoccupied with them.

You can’t fix what’s not in front of you.

It becomes a mental loop that continues to run over and over again without conclusion, you’re lost in a perpetual insanity made up in your own mind. Is it any wonder why you cant resolve these problems?

How many things can you do well at the same time?

How about texting and driving? It’s not looking good for some drivers. The more things you are preoccupied with in your mind, the less attention you can give to each problem.

So, the trick is to live in the "space" of the present moment, and deal only with the issue right in front of you, letting the other’s go until necessity makes them a priority.

Holding on to guilt, a grudge, or a bad relationship is like holding on to poison for the next person. Present moment is now, and the idea is to improve. Holding on to the past, and expecting the same thing to happen again in the same way is insane. That is believing that everyone is the same, and the next person must be just like everyone else.

If you believe you are a unique individual, then where is the individualism in painting everyone with the same brush?

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 You may think you may have done something bad to someone, but in reality it may have been a turning point in the other persons life. It may have made them realize what they have done to another. So, you may be carrying around this guilt for no reason, when in reality it may have been a good thing. Here is learning to see the big picture, through a broader perspective.

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