Hello Marcelo,
It is so good to hear from you. I have been quiet because I have been very busy with work, traveling and moving.
Currently I am running on the last set of batteries, e.g. I need some sleep, some comforting food/wine and a good thought of Buddhism, e.g. some meditation. I sometimes feel that life takes over and gives us this feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed which then results in us feeling drained and running low on energy.
Can we stop that? Can we keep life at bay?
With love from London,
Volker
circle of life, energy
hi Volker, good morning! Hope your weekend was great and full of meaningful pleasures. I also hope your resting time served to refil your energies and determination to reach the top of the hill.
Sometimes we use our problems as steps to achieve our goals in life, but another times those same steps are used as obstacles and difficulties to reach there.
Shantideva says:
And being overjoyed by meaningless pleasure.
Not finding happiness, they suffer; and in striving to fulfil their wishes
They quarrel, fight, and hurt each other with weapons.
Thus, they consume their lives in the commission of non-virtue.
What do you think?
L&K
Marcelo
Buddhism
Hi Volker, I hope you are very well and enjoying your new house.
I can imagine you and your lovely wife enjoying the garden, the new space, your new plot…specially at this time of the year (SPRING), flower growing up and blooming in your garden and life, friendships flourishing and love, compassion and kindness spreading throughout all you life.
And from those feelings I am sure in your heart there are so many good wishes to other and I can say to you, because I believe you are like that:
“…Therefore, just as I protect myself
From anything unpleasant, however small,
So should I become familiar with
A compassionate and caring mind towards others.” (Shantideva)
Enjoy your first spring sunday with your wife and flowers.
Ah! I have forgotten…holding a cup of tea or wine…
L&K
Marcelo
Buddhism
Marcelo,
Writing from my “home office”, I am not surprised what you write there.
Have you ever watched that movie about the wall street banker who works until he drops dead (literally). What I am trying to say, we are in this spiral and we go on and on and on to succeed, earn more money but what we forget is happiness.
We do not stop and think. But we should stop and pause – patience. Do not do more than you can. Do not do more than your body can cope with.
Often people refer to their body as “this body” – it is not “a” body, it is OUR body. That is us. Our body is not exhausted, it is us who is exhausted.
We need to find a good balance, a good break, a pause to stand still and re-cap on things. Otherwise we drop dead ….
Hope you are well.
Love
Volker
Buddhism
Volker, thanks for your nice and kind words. I am feeling better and already accepted my illness, something that I should treat and look after many years ago, at least 15 years ago, but I didn’t.
Almost the time of our life we are looking outside of us, small pains do not receive any care from us and afterwards they become part of your body and life…until the day…they got worse and stop us, making us slow down our way, life, work, career, dreams and wishes…forcing us to take time and get a new goals in life. I think that is balance, when our mind our our actions are not observing the big picture of our life, small things but not less important, make us to change our directions and determinations.
Yes I have taken sometime to see properly what’s going on with my leg and health…and afterwads I have got a better understand of it and much more tranquil mind, being able to breath and enjoy my life again as I know my problem, its consequences if do not look after it and what i have to do to keep my pace in life, work and pleasures, besides the big sock put on my left leg and taking medicines for the next 6 months at least.
As my mom always said to me: if we do not find our balance…the life itself will provide it to us, but in this case it wont happen in the way we want it.
Now my great chalenge is to improve even more my patience.
L&K
Marcelo
Buddhism
Marcelo,
That sounds like a well deserved break. And, it reads like a new healing process for you. I wish you all the best for that.
My thoughts are with you. Once you have some spare time for some spare thoughts, be in touch.
Love
Volker
happiness
Hi Volker, I am very happy of your achievements! New house, our own house is a very special ocassion. Congratulations and please celebrate that very well…
I am in south of Brazil right now visiting my family and friends, also i am seeing some doctors to get a good and reliable diagnostic about my leg.
Despite my leg actual health and condition are not ok, I am fine…I am taking medicines and the doctors was great, gaven me a good view of my leg´s problem (thrombosis) so now I will take the medicines regurlarly/daily to keep normal my blood circulation.
Here in south of Brazil is cold like in UK completely different from Mato Grosso state, where i have been living since i ve got back from UK. But I love this city it is very special for as I grew up and took my forestry degree overhere.
So talk to you sooner
L&K
Marcelo
Buddhism
Marcelo,
How are you? You have been quiet, and I hope you are ok.
This weekend I moved house.
Finally I have my own place – with my wife of course. A garden, nature, beautiful weather – it is almost like heaven/Paradise compared to having a flat.
Isn’t that great? I am very happy.
I now have to make it our home with a little Buddha and a little shrine to celebrate peace and happiness in our walls.
I send you love.
Buddhism helped me being patient, staying focused and help me managed getting through 2 days of hard moving….
Volker
Buddhism, paradise, patience
Marcelo,
Apologies for taking that long to get back to you.
Is balance resulting in determination, e.g. do we need to practise patience and balance to keep up with UPs and DOWNs?
I think so. Yes.
As an example, I went to an event this weekend and if one has a great time, you do not find the determination to go to leaved, e.g. you carry on and on and on. And that is not a problem then. However, you do not think about being tired the next day and the day after. Things carry on.
What I mean, if we have an UP and really power ourselves out (a party, in the gym, at work) then sooner or later we feel exhausted, DOWN (hangover, exhausted, not concentrating enough).
So if we use determination and willpower to bring balance in our lives, then all we do is practising patience and being sensible. The “golden path” is in the middle. Being sensible not to drink to much at a party, not to overdo it in the gym and not to work at work until you collapse. The middle ground with the power to realise the UPs and DOWNs would be the way…
Would that answer what you mean?
Volker
Buddhism, circle of life, work-life
Dear Volker, despite i liked very much your answer my question was more about why we get sad when we are down in life and why we become happy when things are going very very well for us?
First of all, we understand that the circle of life is made by ups and downs, right? If that is the nature of out life, why we can understand that and exchange and moving our mind and feelings towards the sadness and happiness when things happened to us in that way and wee know that way is the only reasable way. There is no other way. Or we are UP or we are DOWN, when we are in the middle of those stages…we are in balance! But balance or peace are normally afterwards percived by us as a borrings stage, we want to go UP again and from there we know we are going down to the bottom of the circle of our life.
From my point of view, when we are down, as you said we are more capable to be patience and when we are UP we feel as an invencible, a Super Man, able to win and attain everything. That’s ok! I can see and understand it.
Let we think about attachment using that previous sentence:…we are down when the product is bad, i am not selling right and finally I have to change but in which way may I promote this change?and when we are UP we feel as an invencible, i can sell everything and even more, so, my questions are why i am developing those feeling?
In Buddhism we say that happen because we are attached to our I, our Image of ourselves, our reputation, we have to be productive, to be the best…and after all, whilst we are in the top we start again to become unconfortable and because things are going smoothly we think we haven’t been productive, we need to change, we have to change it!
Why can we not enjoy it as long as we can? Why we can harvest the fruits of our plantations and share it with everyone? Why can we not remember that and accepting the circle of life is composed by UP and DOWNS, then we will not get upset with it, we will just look forward to move and change our conditions (internal manly and external).
You said, we should try to not be bothered by it…be patient, so my question is: Why or How can we not be bothered by it? How can we be patient? Is it a meditation factor or anyelse? Definetly Meditationcan help us, but I believe we need determination as everything in life.
Ummm, Is balance a result of our determination then?
What do you think of it?
L&K
Buddhism
