The quality of our life depends on what seeds we water in our consciousness. —Thich Nhat Hanh

5 real life meditation techniques

Sitting and meditating in a cozy and quiet room by yourself is actually a wonderful experience. But sometimes it doesn't prepare you for real life turmoil because you aren't able to instantly get out of a situation and get into the lotus position and meditate.

But you can do some mini meditations while being engaged with other people and practice them all the time during your life so they become easy. Some of these 5 tips might seem real hard and they probably will be, but so was riding a bike before it became something that you could never forget.

So here are 5 things you can do when anger flares up, doubt arises, fear overwhelms you, and you are teetering on the edge of snapping.

1. Breathe deeply

This seems very hacky and an overused suggestion, but it's useful because you can do this silently and easily and without making a big display for people. If you do this through your nose, people will not notice and you can instantly gain a bit of relaxation, oxygen, and bring yourself to the present moment so you can think more clearly.

2. Stand straight and relax your tension

Just slowly straighten your posture and stand tall to gain more confidence that you can handle anything that comes your way. And make an effort to relax the clenched jaw, may clenched fist, and the other tension in your body when rage arises. I sometimes feel a tightening in my stomach, back, and shoulders when anger hits me hard. But when you just notice this constriction and pay attention to it for a second, it does loosen up just a little bit.

3. Empty your mind

There are a myriad of negative thoughts which can flood your mind when things don't go your way and anger ensues. Let these thoughts come but make a conscious effort not to run with them. Just let them be and fade away. Empty your mind so you don't instantly act, as anger is just a letter away from danger.

4. Smile

Smiling when you're angry can be akin to lifting a thousand pounds over your head. But you don't need to put on a fake toothy grin; just even a millimeter of a lip curl at the ends will make a difference in changing your focus from rage to more positive solutions.

5. Have compassion

This is real hard in the moment and very counter-intuitive to what we typically feel is the normal reaction. But you can start this by having compassion for yourself having to endure a situation and then having compassion for the other person in realizing that they are more than likely acting out of pain or delusion and going to create more suffering for themselves; this is something that will bring you long term happiness. The reason we typically lash out at people in anger is that it feels good, we feel as though it is going to make us happy. It's a release. But as soon as we do that, then more pain keeps coming in terms of greater conflict and fighting and a negative energy around us and oftentimes feelings of regret and guilt; remorse over actions done in haste under the possession of anger. We anticipated happiness from the reactive rage but it turned out to be the opposite. Compassion and understanding curtails that insta-anger reactive that is built into many of our psyches, and allows and opportunity to avoid that pitfall of creating more suffering, and actually helps in finding a way to generate solutions and some healing in the situation.

I used to have regret about my mistakes, but now I have gratitude for them.

I used to have regret about my mistakes, but now I have gratitude for them.

Because of my errors I am able to forgive and have compassion for others as I can understand how one can make poor judgments based on being possessed by the ego, or overtaken by pain. If I was a perfect person I wouldn't be able to harness that same deep level of compassion and understand because I wouldn't know what it's like to err, to misstep, to stumble and bear the pain of negative action.

Regrets still flare up but they are now transformed into compassion.

“Just like our organs, our anger is part of us. When we are angry, we have to go back to ourselves and take good care of our anger. We cannot say, ‘Go away, anger, I don’t want you.’ When you have a stomachache, you don’t say, ‘I don’t want you stomach, go away.’ No, you take care of it. In the same way, we have to embrace and take good care of our anger.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you say something unkind, when you do something in retaliation, your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and they try hard to say or do something back to make you suffer, and get relief from their suffering. That is how conflict escalates.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

Don't count on receiving credit for your good deeds. Just do them anyway! —Pema Chodron

We practice mindfulness in order to get in touch with appropriate attention, stop our thinking, and enjoy the pleasant feeling that is possible in the here and the now. We recognize the many conditions of happiness that are here, more than we could possibly imagine. This is possible. While we are doing so, healing takes place. We don’t have to make any effort, because we have the habit of happiness. —Thich Nhat Hanh

A state of unhappiness is fertile ground for compassion for yourself and others. A state of compassion is a fertile ground for happiness for yourself and others.

"Speak well of others, not of their faults." —Buddha

“To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life.” — Chogyam Trungpa

 

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”— Jack Kornfield

Buddhism advocates meditation as a key element of the spiritual path, but the fact remains that the true trust of patience comes only in the context of interaction with others. -Dalai Lama in Healing Anger

"Everything exists in a state of equality because everything is imbued with the same reality of emptiness." ―Traleg Rinpoche

We laugh at the dog barking at itself in a mirror, but can we laugh at our own illusions?

I remember sort of snickering at a video of a dog seeing himself in the mirror and barking it at. It got me thinking about how the anger which I can feel toward someone is sort of like a bark in a sense; but I realize that in a way I am actually barking at myself as well, or nothing at all.

One example is, someone made a joke about me which was an insult (as it usually is in the comedic world; every joke tends to have a victim). But nonetheless, in the moment, there was anger and rage which bubbled into the mind and negative thoughts towards this person arose. I almost had no control of those thoughts and not much power to stop them from emerging. However, only afterwards when things settled down in my frantic mind was I able to examine and inspect how illusory this negativity can be. Basically, in this situation, sound is being emitted from a voicebox of an individual who is speaking from the viewpoint of his ego, which is an illusionary identity he has created for himself. That illusionary identify emits that sound, I pick it up though my brain and senses, then my ego, another fictitious self, perceives his to be an insult and is injured and threatened by it. So this illusionary construct of my ego emits the negative thoughts surrounding this matter.

Now, this is not to say that it is not right to be offended when someone says something bad about you, or you should just sit there and let people abuse you verbally. But the point is to basically deconstruct the process and see the illusory element of the whole situation so you can see how it is something that you can transcend.  So you don't have to be upset about the anger which arises in you, and you don't need to hang out with people who you don't get along with and don't seem to mesh with personality wise. But one way to let the lingering animosity from eating you up inside is to try and look at the chain of events which lead up to the anger, and see how it's really a process of a bunch of things which are very unreal. And at the end of the day, we don't have to "bark" at these mirages. We can accept the anger, and we can take the actions necessary to deal with the person, but we can also deconstruct the apparitional nature of the situation afterwards in order to let go of the resentment, and by doing so, tap into our inner peace.

Fear, Anger, Pain, Depression, Humiliation, Shame, Guilt, are like fireworks. You are the sky, the backdrop watching it all go down.

Fear, Anger, Pain, Depression, Humiliation, Shame, Guilt, are like fireworks. You are the sky, the backdrop watching it all go down. These emotions blast into existence and are loud and piercing and captivate your body intensely. It's sort of like how fireworks erupt and make a big splash and light up the senses, but then they fall. They drop. The fade. They cease. So-called negative emotions are the same way. They can burst out like a firework and take you over, but in the end they just fade away. They cease. They leave. Sure they may come again and again and again and again and again, but every time they splash into a mighty display of grandiosity, they fade away.

And just as the clear sky just allows the fireworks to do what they do, so you can you with emotions. You can, through practice, be like the sky and not attach yourself to the fireworks, but just watch the showcase of glitz and sensationalism go down with total acceptance.

Watch it arise, remain, and fade away.

Anger narrows the mind. Compassion widens it infinitely.

Anger narrows the mind.
Compassion widens it infinitely.

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. ―Pema Chodron

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. ―Pema Chodron

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me meaning

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

My interpretation to the meaning of this quote is that which gets hurt and offended by words is not a real entity to begin with. The ego gets bruised and injured if someone says something negative towards it, but the ego is a mind made fiction. The ego is a mental construct of who you are and that is not a real entity. That isn't to say that you want to get disrespected or want to choose to be insulted, but it's an insight into the fact that, that which is being hurt and bruised by these comments is not a real thing. You are not hurt, the ego is hurt, but you are not the ego.

Secondly, the anger which arises from the bruising of an ego is something that feels ultimately so real and powerful. However, if you examine it, it is the creation of an element which have already noted is a fiction: the ego. The ego gets bruised and injured from negative words directed at it, and from that stems anger. So a unreal element, the ego, is creating something from being injured. In that sense anger is just a byproduct of something that isn't real in the first place.

To take it a step further, you really cannot even pinpoint the person who is making the comment. Where does that person really reside? Is he or she located in the head? The face? The eyes? The brain? There is no person you can actually point to and pinpoint your anger towards. Is it different neurons firing inside the cranium where the person is? You have no real target to direct your anger towards. There is a good chance the ego of the other person, which a false identity, is lashing out at your ego, another false identity, and anger is stemming from that. So a non-real entity apparently inside another person is attacking another fake identity, and that second fake identity is having anger steam off it. You are watching this all take place, but often are getting involved because have trained ourselves to be strongly identified with the ego.

Looking at it from this perspective, you are able to step back from the dramatic turmoil which stews inside you if someone says something bad about you. After a careful examination, it's like a bunch of apparitions and shadows and dream-like elements floating around which are not real. That is when you become more of an observer of the dramatic chaos, and not a participator in it. You are the watcher of the art, and not the frenzied piece of work itself.

Emotions are like rides in an amusement park

 

 

If you walk through an amusement park there are a variety of tantalizing and interesting rides you pass by. But you choose which ones you want to go on. Emotions are in a sense a similar object. If you do not associate and identify with the emotions which arise inside your consciousness, then they are just things passing by. You may feel a sensation and thoughts may arise surrounding these emotions, however, you can consciously choose to just watch them if you like. You do not need to react to them. Reacting to them is like passing by the ride in the park and then going on it. Which is fine, but if it's a ride where you know you are going to feel sick and puke after going on, then it's something over time you realize you do not want to participate in.

Like the emotion of anger for instance. Anger is appealing, the thought of revenge is romantically alluring, and the expression of rage is all too enticing. But after an expression of a fit of madness, there may be some feeling of relief, but generally you don't feel too great after doing this and reacting out of anger is typically harmful to others and yourself. That's not to say you deny it, you allow it to be, and you can admit it yourself and others, but you choose consciously not to act out of it because of the harm you have learned that it does. You can choose to wait to allow it to slowly fade or pass through you, and then take action from a more lucid state. It's like passing by that rollercoaster that you know will make you hurl and feel sick afterwards, and decide to just keep walking by.

Georges Laraque on meeting the Dalai Lama

Georges Laraque from his book: The Story of the NHL's Unlikeliest Tough Guy.