Author: markbartels

Chasing the moon đźŚ™

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Leave your front and back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don’t serve them tea – Shunryu Suzuki

This is a useful way to describe meditation. Don’t attach to ideas as they enter your head. Don’t ignore them, acknowledge them, but then let them go. The more you let go, the less anxious you become about emptying your head. When your thoughts linger you mind acts like a porch light at night that attracts insects. Ideas like moths and bugs will be drawn to you and buzz around your head. Turn off the light and be still. Let the moths chase the real moon instead.

The paths to the well

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“The knowledge I have is not my own. I just know the way to the well.” –@KapilGuptaMD

All our stories and ideas are connected. Nothing is original.

There are different paths to the well. Some trails are well trodden and wide open, some are narrow, hidden and hardly used. The source of the knowledge is the same, we all just get there on a different track.

We end up saying the same thing in a different way.

Believe in someone

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Imagine this clip wasn’t about sport. Imagine it was about academics and encouraging a young kid at school. It’s a little hazy now but I can’t recall ever hearing a teacher talking like this to me or anyone else when I was at school.

Marry someone who believes in you, work for people who believe in you. Then pay it forward and make sure your kids or young people in particular hear that you believe in their potential.

Talk to the pioneers

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The elders of the 21st century are pioneers. This generation is going where no man or women has gone before. They are living longer than any other age before them. It’s like they’ve visited a new planet in the solar system and are right here to tell us about it. They have a perspective that nobody else has in life. Living into their nineties or even over one hundred years old is not something the previous generation was able to do.

Treat the knowledge and wisdom they hold as sacred and learn what you can. There’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Google contains a lot of knowledge, but wisdom is something is a combination understanding, data, experience, education, and judgment. These explorers are have visited lands that most of us don’t know about yet, and have not recorded.

Core principles, morality, and character don’t age. Start listening to your tribal elders.

Sharing is beautiful

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I love the feeling I get when I recommend a book or film to someone, and they end up liking it. The best part is comparing notes afterward and parsing the character arcs and storylines.

It’s so simple, but a reminder that giving and sharing is more fulfilling than getting. It doesn’t have to be about sharing something that I possess, it’s more about sharing the joy of discovering a beautiful creation.

When you should leave the room

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If you start to think that you are the smartest person in the room, then it’s time to move on and try new things. You are either surrounded by sycophants, or you’ve stopped learning altogether.

You are only as smart as the people you talk to. Work with people where you sometimes have to resist the urge to pick up a pen and start transcribing what they are saying because it’s so thought-provoking. Work with people who question you and push you to go beyond a simple yes or a no. Work with people who challenge your assumptions and sometimes make your brain ache. That’s learning.

Getting rid of the sycophants is a little harder because you’ll first have to deflate your ego and face up to who you are.

The Place Where We Are Right

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We grow when we are vulnerable and doubt ourselves. Doubting yourself is what brave people do, never questioning yourself is what weak people do.  It’s okay to change your mind,  it’s okay to say you were wrong. This humble, learning mindset is the way to growth.

The Place Where We Are Right

by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Compassion in action

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Attaining enlightenment should not end your spiritual quest. The Buddhist saying goes that when you reach enlightenment then go to the marketplace and serve the people. What you shouldn’t do is preach to people how enlightened you are or sit on a hilltop and meditate. How is isolating yourself going to spread the light?

Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco embodies compassion in action. In their own words, it’s “a radically inclusive, just and loving community mobilized to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization.” Everyone is welcome, and they don’t judge anybody. They feed the homeless, rehabilitate people who have been discarded by society and create a loving and welcoming refuge. They preach through their actions and lead by example. That is compassion in action.

The whole point of enlightenment is to spread the light to others. The joy of service is in the dirt of everyday living. It’ll test you and push you even further, but isn’t that the point?

James 2:14-26

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Don’t run from now

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Thinking about future problems and events that you have concocted in your mind is the same as having a conversation while looking at your phone. It is the same as texting and driving. Your body becomes a meat suit, and your mind is wandering around in another dimension.

Mute the inner dialogue of worry and get back into your body.

Cultivate the urge to be at the moment and be comfortable in the space of the now. Obsessing over the future or the past are just escape routes for your ego because you don’t want to be where you are right now. It’s like any other drug.

What’s wrong with the now? Next time you find yourself riled up over things you can’t control, ask yourself why. The answer to why is the first step to slaying the beast.

Choices and Luck

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Success is a combination of luck and good choices.

Hard work and long hours don’t automatically result in success. A lot of people work hard. I’ve gotten off a train in Delhi, and seen taxi drivers sleeping in their cars at 5 am waiting for a fare. After I have knocked on their car window and woken them up, they wiped their face with a damp cloth and started the car. The back seat was still warm from where they were sleeping. People around the world work freaking hard. The Americans and the Chinese think they have a monopoly on long hours, my advice to them would be to travel a little and see the world. Travel will humble anyone.

I’ve seen people born on third base blow everything away including money, friends, and reputation because of poor choices. They had the luck of being born to the right parents but screwed up anyway. Being born lucky with a security blanket makes it way less likely thst someone will blow up their life, but a few bad choices will get the ball rolling. That’s why the mega-wealthy people set up trust funds with rules and conditions. The wealthy have learned to build safety valves that protect their offspring from dumb and ego driven decisions.

But it’s not just about luck. Opportunity favors the prepared mind. We are faced with choices every day. Where do you spend your time? Who do you associate with? When someone takes a chance on you, do you accept or do you demure? Who do you marry? Do you marry?

Saying it’s all about luck is a story we tell ourselves to justify our own situation. It’s hard to admit that the right decisions at the right time were involved as well. The trick is to acknowledge the luck, stay humble and choose wisely when they the big decisions are on deck.