Positive Psychology - 24 Strengths of being human

1. Personal Strenghts of Wisdom and Knowledge
     1. Creativity
     2. Curiosity
     3. Open Mindedness
     4. Love of Learning
     5. Perspective
2. Personal Strenghts of Courage
     6. Bravery
     7. Persistence
     8. Integrity
     9. Vitality
3. Personal Strengths of Humanity
    10. Love
    11. Kindness
    12. Social Intelligence
4. Personal Strengths of Justice
    13. Citizenship
    14. Fairness
    15. Leadership
5. Personal Strengths of Temperance
    16. Forgiveness
    17. Humility
    18. Prudence
    19. Self-Control
6. Personal Strengths of Transendance
    20. Appreciation of Beauty
    21. Gratitude
    22. Hope
    23. Humour
    24. Spirituality

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Four Debts Of Gratitude

1. To all living beings
2. To parents
3. To one's country
4. To three treasures

Eightfold Path

1. Right View
2. Right Thinking
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Way of Life
6. Right Endeavour
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Meditation

Four Noble Truths

1. Truth of suffering
2. Truth of the origin of suffering
3. Truth of cessation of suffering
4. Truth of the path to the cessation of suffering

Four Sufferings

1. Birth
2. Ageing
3. Sickness
4. Death

Nine Conciousnesses

1-6: Sensory Perception and their integration
7: Lessor Self or Ego
8: Karmic Storehouse or Alaya-Conciousness
9: Greater Self or Buddha Nature or Amala-Conciousness

Three Paths and Three Virtues

Three Paths:
1. Earthly Desires
2. Karma
3. Suffering

Three Paths - One leads to another in an endless cycle. For example, earthly desires lead to evil karma that further leads to suffering. Suffering leads to more earthly desires in an endless cycle.

Three Virtues:
1. Truth
2. Wisdom
3. Emancipation

Nichiren teaches that correct pratice would make the three paths transform into three virtues.

The Five Components

When the following five components temporarily come together, they form a living being:

1. Form - Body and senses that give the life a form
2. Perception - Function of receiving the information through senses
3. Conception - What has been percieved, creating mental images out of it
4. Volition (Willing, Choosing)  - Will that motivates one for action
5. Consciousness - It is a function of discrimination.

The Three Poisons

1. Greed
2. Anger
3. Foolishness

Three Powerful Enemies

1. Lay people arrogant of buddhism who attack the votaries of Lotus Sutra
2. Arrogant and cunning priests
3. Priests revered as saints who induce the secular authorities to persecute the votaries of Lotus Sutra

Sansho Shima - Three Obstacles and Four Devils

San - Three
Sho - Obstacles
Shi - Four
Ma - Devils

Sansho - Three Obstacles

1. The obstacle of earthly desires or obstacles arising from the three poisons of greed, anger and stupidity
2. The obstacle of karma or obstacles due to bad karma or opposition from within family
3. The obstacle of retribution or obstacles due to painful retribution for actions in the three evil paths
(it includes when one is born in a country where one can not practice the religion)

Shima - Four Devils

1. The hinderance of the five components ( obstructions caused by one's physical and mental functions)
2. The hinderance of earthly desires or obstructions arising from the three poisons
3. The hinderance of death, because the fear and suffering that death entails obstructs one's practice of Buddhism
4. The hinderance of the devil of sixth heaven (oppression by men of power)


Tien-t'ai says - "As practice progresse and understanding grows, the three obstacles and four devils emerge, vying(competing) with one another to interfere"

Source - Soka Gakkai Study Material

Ten factors of life and three realms of existance

In Nichiren Buddhism, 10 factors of life defined are :

1. Appearance
2. Nature
3. Entity
4. Power
5. Influence
6. Inherent Cause
7. External Cause
8. Latent Effect
9. Manifest Effect
10. Consistency from beginning to end


3 Realms of existance are:

1. Self or Individual or the realm of the five components
2. Society or the realm of sentient beings
3. Land or the realm of the environment

Concious journey into the childhood...

There are times when I sit back, close my eyes and make a concious journey into my childhood. I am able to recreate an experience that may be a fraction of what I was able to create when I was around 8-10 years old or even younger.

The data collected through senses at that point in time got stored somewhere in my memory cells. I access that data while revisiting my childhood conciously.

Reliving those moments, little vauge yet my best creation from those days which I created while being focused on the outside world. Those days when I used to get up every morning to vitness a new world that was full of surprises. And here I am, who got this access when he stopped getting surprised by the things around.

Nothing outside of me surprises me and even if it does, it reminds me of this cognitive machine at work.

Highly Recommend "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This is for sure that experience is the telescope or periscope or microscope or biscope or whatever-scope through which we all see everything, make meaning and react to, while living. The conciousness has the senses as a sort of thermometer to bring in all the data they could get, mixes it with the past experiences of the similar nature and gives enough data to react.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "FLOW - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE"  is indeed a great read. So far I have just read a few chapters yet the place or the stand the author has taken while taking the reader through the conciousness as well the relationship of it with the nature is worth pondering.

Indian print of  this book sells for almost 400 INR and it available at http://www.flipkart.com/.

Decision making and the state of mind

Whenever I feel the need to make decisions, I found that instead of relying on the thinking for a best fit decision results in a not so optimized decision. Afterall thinking happens in the crucible of the underlying life state. A better way approach s rather questioning and experiencing the life state first and then employing techniques to stabilize self in the best possible life state for the moment. I find the strategies to be one or a combination of the following - prayers, chanting, meditation, a good bath, deep relaxation, physical exercise ....

When the crucible is right, thinking would itself be optimized and in tune to it. Nothing further would help better than less of attachment to the problem and more of being a cause to bring in a difference.

Self is beyond all the hardships and any other perishable things in life, according to the Vedanta/Sage Ashtavakra. Even if the desired results are not possible, fear of failure should not derive our actions and not be allowed to affect our commitment towards our chosen endeavors.

Nirpeksho nirvikaro nirbharah sheetlasayah 
Agadha-budhir-akshubdho bhava chinmatra-vasanah


"You are desire less and changeless, formless and, unfathomable awareness, limitless intellect, unperturbed: so desire nothing but consciousness."

Experiencing the experience

No matter how this could be paraphrased, letting someone else experience one's experiences could be quite difficult. During the childhood, one remains in the experience of life...the weathers, the nature, the relationships...so clear, so vivid, so alive, so palpable. Everything has only one category that it exists ( ironically the distinction "category" comes a lot later). We do not talk about an experience, we are the experience! How gradually we mature in losing track of it...sutly we go out of it through our lives. We want to be there again. Life which is being lived with the concepts of hapiness, sadness, circumstances, stories etc where we talk about them ( We talk about hapiness most of the times instead of being there in it) and the experience we are into while living this life - we are oblivious to it completely. We are just adding another layer of knowing about the concept by reading another book ro article in the news paper about "hapiness". No human being can escape this dilemma.

The Buddha and many other "Alchemists" have discovered this concept and attemped to convey it to the society for the common good. As it is difficult to gadge one's own experiential state, it is very difficult to alter it or create it, these "Alcehmists" have suggsted some rituals to reach there in a different experiential state - prayers, practices, rules.

In Hindi, the sum of all the components is called "Yog" or "Yoga" and the same name is given to the methodology devised by Patanjali to reach the experiential state of nothingness or "brahm". 

To be continued...

Nagasena on qualities a monk should be endowed with .......

Amongst many other qualities, some are listed here from the ancient book "Milinda Panha".

The Donkey:
Wherever he may lie, does not rest long; so should the monk who is intent on arhantship not rest long.

The Bamboo:
As the bamboo bends whichever way the wind blows; so should the monk be flexible ans conform to the teaching.

The Lotus:
As the lotus remains undefiled by the water in which it is born and grows; so should the monk be undefiled by support, offerings and veneration.

As the lotus remains lifted far above the water; so should the monk remain far above the wordly things.

As the lotus trembles in the slightest breeze; so should the monk tremble at the mere thought of doing any evil, seeing danger in the slightest fault.

Thoughts on Team Work

I have always wondered about the need of festivals celebrated by human beings; very interestingly, people all over the world have invented means to be together and celebrate one thing or the other. Such joy, that is generated by participating in such activities, can not be created alone by any one individual on one’s own. Religions have also worked towards the same goal of bringing in this team spirit in human beings by inducing certain things to celebrate each year.
Religions create opportunities where people can come out of their cocoons, leaving their identities behind, to be one with each other in striving for a common, higher goal – recent Kubh Mela, the largest human gathering on the planet, is one such example.
Another example that comes to my mind about team work is - English Alphabets. If we just see each English alphabet separately, they do not mean anything except being a collection of few lines or a certain pronunciation added to them by our forefathers and therefore any alphabet out of the set of 26 is equally capable or incapable at the same time. If some of these alphabets are just taken at random then this combination of alphabets might not mean something (for cryptographers they still mean something) as there is no higher goal in the background of that selection. On the other hand see a combination of alphabets that communicates something – like “paper”, “tree” etc… this combination carries a meaning that is far beyond the capability of any single alphabet.

All the knowledge in the world, all human communication can be written down using just 26 alphabets. The team work can produce unimaginable results!

To summarize, like individual alphabets, even human beings individually can not create the level of value for the society as they can do it together while keeping a higher purpose as the context of their actions. Team work enables each individual to break the personal barrier to achieve some higher purpose.
This higher purpose makes them play at a level that is far beyond what an individual’s capacity otherwise.
Examples? Everywhere in the society, for example the governments’ structures, businesses, corporate houses, schools, hospitals...anything we see around us in an example of collective efforts for generating value for ourselves. This team spirit is driving the human beings to achieve what in not possible as an individual or as a rogue element in the system.

ASHISH KAUL'S SMS_CLUSTER BOMBS

Ashish Kaul is one of those who roam freely in the inner circle of my being and also let me roam around in their inner citadel of thoughts too.


He bombs through SMS'es - really hard hitting and they arrive without any notice or schedule!!


Today's bomb  : "Who you are" - it plays so loudly before me that I rarely manage to listen to what you actually say !!

Real Carpet bombing Ashish!

Stumbled upon the idea of Werner Erhard

Experience is simply an evidence that I am here. It is not who I am, I am I am!
It is as if the self is the projector and everything else (including experience) is a movie. Before the transformation, I could only recognize myself by seeing the movie. Now I see that I am prior to or transcendent to all!

Our BEING & Winning Scripts

With reference to the idea - "You Win All The Games You Play In Your Life" from LM/Transactional Analysis/Script Analysis, writing down my own meditations here.
===========================================
One's being, whether one is aware of it or not, is instrumental in this predecided win.For example, a loser a programmed to lose - a "win" invented by him in the game of losing.A random thought reminds me of Devdas here :-)
A loser's way of being it to lose and he plays to lose subconciously. We may also call this losing as - winning the "game of losing".
So this person, being a loser, would construct stories, complaints, not running for doing his duties our day to day activities or staying in integrity at all and ends up losing.
A winner, on the other hand, has a way of being as to win the "game of winning". His being would propel him to achieve the desired results and be happy and fulfilled.
So one's way of being is actually a decider for the game we surely win. It always predecides the outcome of the game.
So "INVENT, PRACTISE AND STICK TO A POWERFUL WAY OF BEING".

Meditation can change the way the brain is conditioned to operate

In the model of Be, Do and Have - if one sees things the way they are or the most agreesome reality one can be at peace with self and gets the evidences of this peace within.Buddhism calls such a reality as "tattva" or we may also call it "what is" or "thatness" - it is what is left out there in the world when we do not see it through a given meaning or pre conditioned filters. It is real in the world - things just before the arrival of the meanings and interpretations.So, if in any situation, if we could zoom away to "thatness" and standing there we start seeing things as they are and what are we in realtion to "that".We can all it our "Being".This being a certain definable way makes us do many a things that includes all our actions,behaviour etc. Basing these actions on the cause and effect model of life, we could safely say that these actions areprimarily responsible for what do we have in life starting from material possessions to our moods and feelings and ourrelationships as well. I am talking about the consequences of the actions produced from a certain way of being.Now if we can clearly see the "tattva" or thatness of some aspect of our lives, and also as who I am,as a way of being, still, making a shift in the being to produce certain results becomes possible. It requires a shift in the understanding and thus becomes very easy to choose as a experience to be comething else. I give an example of an actor here who sees thins as "that is" for a given scene and does not go into a required way of being until directed for that. Once he/she choose to be that what the character in the movie is playing, they being to experience the effects of that being including pain, anger or joy, if its a part of the charater. So taking the situaltion as "that" we can shift our way of being as an accomplished actor and thus can produce results that were earlier not possible as the person was overwhelmed by the personal reality created out of "tattva".Even nureoscience has suggested that going beyond the normally possible way of being, that is what yoga or meditation help someone achieve, can make changes to the chemistry in the brain and the brain evolves to this newly formed pattern.Self awareness and meditation practices can help any one change the pattrens in the brain for better.Refer to this pdf file for more information on neuroscience and beingOrDownload it form the following link:www.strategy-business.com/media/file/leading_ideas-20070410.pdfAlso visit: http://www.davidrock.net/

- Rahul

Learned Helplessness & Cancer

Madelon Visintainer, a graudate student of Martin Seligman, conducted an experiment in the year 1977 on rats and established a link between the psychological state of a living being and its effect on causing cancer. The psychological state mentioned here is nothing but "Learned Helplessness".

Also visit:
Link1
Link2

Martin Seligman and Positive Psychology

Martin Seligman is considered as the father of this new branch of psychology known as "Positive Psychology". Martin Seligman points out that this branch of psychology could easily be related to religious teachings. Amongst many distinctions that Martin underlines, there are two distinctions - Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism, that form the core of his work.

In his book "Learned Optimism", at one point he stresses that the children should be made metacognitive ( ability to think about thinking itself) before puberty so that they can take responsibility of their emotional health throughout their life.

He says that to have a:

1. Pleasant Life : Aim to have as much of positive emotion as possible. Also learn skills to amplify this positive emotion.

2. Engaged Life: Identify your highest strengths & talents and use them as much as possible in all the areas of your life e.g. work, relationship, love, leisure.

3. Meaningful Life: Use your highest stengths and talents to belong to and serve something that is larger than the self.

He further informs that through "Learned Optimism" one can choose to have any or all of the above mentioned forms of happiness (contents of life).

For more information on Martin Seligman and his work on Positive Psychology refer to the following links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx
http://www.shearonforschools.com/learned_optimism.htm

Winning over all odds...

Nichiren Buddhism teaches that to overcome one's own suffreing,one must work towards the happiness of others. Whatever way one tries to see it,it is for sure that when one starts looking beyond own circumstances and starts working for the happiness of others, one gets hold of the vital life force to counter own suffering.

ज़ेन बुद्धिस्म में कही गई एक कविता - एक व्यक्ति किंतु उसके बारे में विभिन्न द्रष्टिकोण

एक प्रेमी के लिए उसकी सुंदर प्रेमिका उसकी उमंग है
एक साधू के लिए ध्यान बंटाने कि वस्तु मात्र
तथा एक वोल्फ यानि भेड़िये के लिए एक अच्छा भोजन ।

How About Filling Up A Happiness Questionnaire?

click here

An Article On The Flow

Modern psychologists believe that there is a state of mind called as "The Zone" or "The Flux" where creativity comes out naturally. Its a state of mind that is discovered in Buddhism long back. I opine that Boddhisattavas operate from this state only.

In this state a person comes out of the box or limits that are generally imposed by TIME when this person is at work. The person becomes one with the task - see any musician playing the instrument and enjoying it at the same time or similarly any in-form player at play...

Daniel Goleman refers to this state "The Flow" in his bestseller "The Emotional Intelligence".
Some great research has been done by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in this area.

Refer this link to read about this state : Click Here

An Article That Talks About Multiple Levels Of Conciousness

In the world, where all of us have grown up seeing, listening, sensing, talking ....to the things outside of us, we learn to react. By conditioning, we learn to react to the stimuli that is out there, separate from us or self. Even the idea of self that we carry, is given by that very outside world and that is not the self that is absolute. This self is also an outcome of or a product of a reaction to the world around us.

Buddhism and other eastern religions talk about going beyond this reactive model and find a truer self that is not the conditioned self created by the reactions over a period of time to the events around one.

An article on the magazine Life Positive discusses such conciousness levels and throws light on the lesser known aspects of self:

http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/philosophy/life/meaningless-life.asp

LINKS TO SHORT BUDDHIST TALES

Read many , very interesting Buddhist tales at the site that can be found on the following link.

Do not miss the "The Irony Of Samsara".

http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/resources/buddhist_stories.html

http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/clubs/buddhism/story/index.html

Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

Read the priceless treasures at :

http://www.sgilibrary.org/writings.php

Bharat Soka Gakkai - News Paper Articles

Few months ago, I had come across the first article published in the India Express on Bharat Soka Gakkai. A quite researched one indeed.

Lest I miss it, I record the link here.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/enchanted/360202/
http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/world-religions/buddhism/soka-gakkai.asp

Having Gratitude

In the articles published in the Value Creation megazine, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda restresses on having gratitude in life. He also quotes Nichiren Daishonin's writings, called "Goshos", on gratitude.

Even modern positive psychology have started recognizing the gratitude and an aritcle on the following site details that research:

http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/gratitude-psychological-physical-well-being/41/

Many in body, one in mind

I have heard this gosho line many a times followed by a very meaningful explanation by the leader of the meeting.

A few days ago, while going office in the morning, this came to my mind - if we see each English alphabet they do not mean anything and therefore any alphabet out of the set of the 26 of them is equally capable. If bundled together but no intention behind them for putting them together, they do not make sense (for cryptographers, they still mean something). But with the intention of putting them together for communicating something that is higher in meaning and far beyond the capability of each alphabet, they make value. All the knowledge in the world. All human communication can be written down using just 26 of them. Wow!!

To summarize, like individual alphabets, even human beings individually can not create the level of value for the society as they can do it together keeping a higher purpose as the context of their actions. This higher purpose makes them achieve something far beyond what an individual can ever think of doing.

Examples? Everywhere in the society, starting from the government, business, corporate houses, schools, hospitals...anything we pick, the same intention is driving the human beings achieve what in not possible as an individual or as a rogue element in the system.

- Rahul