Taming The Mind

Mary was up late, waiting for Matt the next evening, despite his being late from work.

She served him dinner and as he settled down to eat, asked him, "Tell me more about Gabriel Ben's novel ways of taming the mind."

Matt understood. He smiled and spoke between mouthfuls of food, "One day Gabriel Ben was expecting a visit from a large number of his sponsors."

"Wanting to impress them, he fretted and fussed. He arranged and rearranged that day's offerings on his shrine in front of the image of Buddh."

"Examining his handiwork when he was finally satisfied, he suddenly realized that his intentions were not pure. He had done what he had done today merely to try and impress his patrons."

"Disgusted with himself, he picked up a handful of dirt and threw it over the offerings saying, "Monk, just stay where you are and don't put on airs!"

"It is said that when Stanly  or 'Father Smith' heard this story, he said, "That handful of dirt that Ben Mark
threw was the best offering in all Tibet!"

"Why?” asked Mary

“We have no control over what thoughts will arrive in our minds,” answered Matt, “But if we can remain constantly vigilant, recognize the wrong immediately, confess it and try not to do it again, we do less and less wrong. Which also simply means that we will begin to do more and more right."

"Have more food", Mary insisted when she saw that Matt was almost done, eating as well as speaking.

'One way to this man's heart', she thought lovingly, 'is through his tummy'. And, it was beginning to show.

"Tell me more", she asked once she had filled his plate with another generous helping of rice and curd.

Matt put his spoon aside, poured curd on his rice, and sprinkled some salt over it. He started eating again, creating little balls of curd-rice before popping them into his mouth with his fingers.

"One day Gabriel Ben was at a large gathering of geshes at Penyulgyal. Gabriel, as you probably already know, is a Tibetan Buddhist academic degree for monks and nuns. As part of the meal, some curd was offered to the guests."

"Gabriel Ben, it is said, was seated in one of the middle rows, and noticed that the monks in the first row were receiving large portions."

'The way they are lavishly serving that delicious yogurt...' he thought, 'they will run out of it before they reach me. I don't think I’ll get my fair share.'

"Suddenly realizing what he was thinking, he caught hold of himself: 'You curd-addict!' he thought, 'Here you go again'.

"He immediately turned his bowl upside down. As it turned out, there was enough curd for everyone. When the man serving the curd came and asked him if he would like some, Gabriel Ben refused."

“This evil mind has already taken its share,” he said.

"But there was nothing wrong in wanting to have a fair share?" Mary objected.

"Indeed", Matt agreed as he got up from the dining table, "but it was the realization of the self-contentedness of his expectations, that made him refuse it in the end.”

“If the mind can always be examined like this and taught, adopting what is wholesome and rejecting what is harmful, it can become malleable and there can be hope that it can be tamed."

"And have you tamed your mind yet, my husband?" Mary teased, clearing the dinner table.

He smiled and replied, "No my dear, not yet. I try often, but I always fail."

"Then make sure you do not fail me tonight!", she commanded, a twinkle in her eye.

His smile deepened as he responded, "I have never said, Do as I do. But do as I say, and there is hope - for you."

She laughed throatily at his rejoinder, then retorted, "There is always hope, so long as there is love."

'He knows so much', she thought, 'yet he knows so little.'

"Come here", she flashed a mischievous grin, "Let me fill you with both."

She touched him ever so lightly. Sensually. Music began in his mind.

“Go Kamli”, he said, as he waited. Waited and watched.

She moved slowly. Then her tempo accelerated, accelerating the beats in his temple.

Taming of the beast had begun.

Caught You Red-Handed

The night was dark. The shriveled moon paled in its efforts to bring light to the earth. Matt lay awake late that night, thinking.

Mary sensed his restlessness, and turned around to face him.

She touched his face lovingly, and with her finger gently traced his facial contours down to his neck.

"What bothers you so?" she asked.

"Morality is a not an innate trait which humans are born with. It is a social construct imposed and enforced by society so we can all live in peace with each other. It is the parent's duty to teach it to their child."

"But you already do," protested Mary, "you already teach them everything."

"I didn't today," Matt answered, "I failed. I yielded to your judgment, as it seemed so reasonable. But I suspect, we have both erred today."

"Why do you think so?" she asked.

"We cannot teach our kids to watch their minds, when we are unable to watch ours. We have to be like Gabriel Ben Gungyal."

"Who was he?" she asked. She loved the stories he told, just like her kids.

"He was a 12th century Tibetan Zen master", answered her husband, "It is said that he neither recited prayers nor meditated in traditional ways. All he did was to observe his mind very carefully. Whenever he noticed his mind becoming agitated, he became especially vigilant."

"For example, if he felt self-cherishing was about to arise, he would immediately recall its disadvantages, and focus on Universal Love, the opposite of self-contentedness. He became renowned for his novel ways of nipping such persuasive feelings in the bud."

"To gauge his spiritual progress, it is told, he would put a black pebble down in front of him whenever a negative thought arose, and a white pebble whenever a positive thought arose. At the end of the day he would count the pebbles."

"If there were more black pebbles he would berate himself and try even harder the next day. But if there were more white pebbles he would praise and encourage himself."

"At the beginning, the black pebbles greatly outnumbered the white ones, but over the years his mind improved until the white ones began to greatly outnumber the black ones."

"As a youngster, Gabriel Ben Mark had a reputation for being wild and unruly, but by watching his mind closely all the time and judging it with complete honesty, he gradually got better. Several stories from his life can be found in Patrul Rinpoche's book Words of My Perfect Teacher."

"Tell me more about him", she asked, as she adjusted her pillow and settled back more comfortably on the bed.

"As was customary at the time", Matt began, "Buddhist monks, or Bhikkus, begged door to door for alms, when they were not engaged in their spiritual development activities. The people were poor and the takings were minimal at the best of the times. But recent times had been leaner."

"Gabriel Ben hadn't eaten for days. A householder invited him inside to be fed, as he roamed the streets on this particular day. He was seated respectfully in a room and the host went off to the kitchen to prepare food for him. The room was bare except for a jar of food on the shelf beside where he sat."

"Time passed slowly and the expectation that he was finally going to eat made his stomach growl with eager anguish. Gabriel Ben was so hungry that he found it difficult to wait. His eyes kept returning to the jar of food within his reach."

"Obviously, he couldn't just take food from the jar himself, without it first being offered to him by his host. But the host was nowhere to be seen. He was alone in the room. Yearning for food was beginning to cloud his mind. His mouth watered, yet his throat hurt from empty swallows. His fingers trembled, intestines grumbled."

"Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hour. The waiting was made worse by the delicious smell of food cooking in the kitchen that wafted into his nostrils."

"To his complete shock, he found himself stealing food from the jar. Gabriel Ben suddenly burst out into loud cries of "Thief! Thief! I've caught you red-handed."

"His hosts rushed into the room, to find him berating himself and threatening his hand with being cut off, if it ever behaved like that again."

His point made, Matt said no more. Sleep came quickly to him. Mary lay awake, pondering late into the night. She was blissfully oblivious of Matt's usually annoying loud snores as images of Buddhist monks flashed on the canvas inside her closed eyelids.

Some encouraging words I wrote:

* See a dear friend in your position. What would you say to encourage them? 

* Challenges are inevitable. Getting back up however, is a choice. 

* Are you really going to let this defeat you? After all the work, sweat, and tears you have put into this, you are going to give up now? 

* You’re not alone. Many have gone before you. Many will go after you. The important thing to keep in mind is that you need to keep on going. 

* You may think you know your limits but you don’t. You’re capable of far more than you realize. 

* Root for yourself even if you’re the only one. Even if no one believes in you, you have to at least believe in yourself.

* No matter what, today will come to an end and tomorrow will arrive, leaving you one less day to live. You can either sit there and waste another day feeling sorry for yourself or you can get up and do something about it. 

* You’re more than your past failures and mistakes. You’re more than what you’ve been demonstrating up to this point in your life. Don’t let your screw ups define you. Instead, let your potential guide you toward becoming the person you want to be.

* Things could be worse, much worse. Consider yourself lucky that things aren’t worse than they are. 

* If you’re still breathing, it’s not the end and as long as it’s not yet the end, make the remainder of your life worth living.

* Sometimes, not achieving your current goal is exactly what needed to happen in order for you to step up your game and experience greatness. 

* If you’re going through the pain of a break up, realize that the odds of that person being your perfect match is incredibly low. In other words, there’s a very good chance that you will find someone much better. 

* We tend to learn the most when things don’t go as we had hoped. If anything, past failures can make you better prepared to take advantage of greater opportunities. 

* Things will turn out okay not because it’s a guarantee that your situation will improve but because you have the strength to deal with anything life can throw at you and the power to turn things around if you choose to do so. 

* The ups and downs of life, it’s all part of the life experience package. Without the downs, the ups won’t feel as good. Without the absence of the sun during a storm, you won’t appreciate the warmth of its light when it eventually reappears. 

* You’ve got one life to live; one life to experience all that life has to offer. Embrace it while you still can. 

* Sometimes, it helps to take a step back and look at the grand scheme of things. Perhaps then you’ll realize just how silly it would be to spend another minute worrying and stressing about things you won’t even care about or remember a year from now. 

* Life can be tough and even unfair at times. I don’t really have an answer as to why certain things happen but I do know that these are usually the moments in life where the potential for personal growth is the greatest. Diamonds are created under intense pressure. Muscles are built by overcoming tremendous resistance. You could either let these moments in life break you or use them to become a mentally stronger person.

* How far you can go in life is yet to be seen. Don’t let other people’s limited beliefs about what’s possible diminish your potential. 

* Losing someone dear to you can be one of the toughest things to go through but you’ll get through it when enough time has passed. Keep in mind that they wouldn’t want you to stop embracing your life because of their passing. If anything, they’d rather you take this as a sign to live life to the fullest if you haven’t been doing so already. 

* Through our failures and setbacks, we can become wiser and more mentally prepared to deal with future obstacles. The problem is, we usually don’t realize the value of the experience until later on since we can be too emotionally involved. If you’re struggling through something right now, chances are, it won’t be for no reason. You’ll eventually find some sort of benefit from this experience even if it may not be obvious at the moment. 

* When you think about just how short a human life is compared to time itself, you’ll realize how insignificant our problems are in the whole grand scheme of things. No matter what you’re going through, it’s all temporary. Work on letting go of all the unnecessary stress you’re carrying around in order to have more time and mental energy to enjoy life. 

* When life gets you down and no one is there to help lift you back up, you can either continue waiting for someone to come along to help you, stay down, or decide that you’re strong enough to lift yourself back up. 

* If you feel like your life sucks, it’s a sign that something needs to change. If you don’t like where you are in life, do something about it. Improve yourself, daily. Sitting there and feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to change anything. Plenty of people have turned their entire life around just by deciding to do so. Realize that you have the power to determine your own destiny. You can either waste it and live an unhappy life or use it to design and enjoy an incredible life. 

* Give yourself some time to heal, but not too much time. Misery can be addictive and no matter how comfortable it can make you feel at times, hanging on to it will only make things worse. 

Words of Encouragement

Challenges and difficulties are a part of life and words of encouragement can often help you get out of your rut. It’s easy to tell someone to hang in there and to keep a positive outlook when they are going through tough times but when it happens to you, keeping your chin up isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Even so, it’s not impossible. There are a lot of things you can do to help you stand back up and move forward. Whether you’ve been dealt with a setback while working towards your goal, lost a loved one, or just feel down, inspirational words of encouragement can help.

Words can have a powerful impact on your mindset. Although we’ve all heard the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”, the fact is that words really do have an impact on how we feel. Often times, when things seem pointless, when you’ve just come face to face with yet another failure, it can seem as though it’s the end. It can seem as though no matter how hard you try, the life that you want will always be just out of reach.

During these times, some positive words of encouragement can help you shift your focus. When it comes down to it, how you feel is really just about what you focus on. What words of inspiration and encouragement will do for you is help you put things into perspective.

Who doesn’t go through failures, setbacks, and challenges? We all do. In fact, after you get through this challenging time, you will have more to come in the future. Although that sounds pessimistic, it’s also reality. Those who succeed in life and get what they want as well as those who are the most happiest aren’t people who never face difficulties. If anything, they probably deal with more challenges than most people. The thing that makes them different is how they respond and react to those obstacles.

Yours Faithfully

Yours Faithfully – a funny story with a retold joke about a miser who wanted his wealth buried with him.

His faithful wife kept her promise, but ...

"He, he, he he," giggled Joy, poring into John's work laptop.

"Will you let me focus?" John grumbled. He had been trying to complete his project report.

"This joke is quite hilarious," she replied. "A miser gets outsmarted by his woman. Wanna know how?"

"Hmm

..." he stopped work, knowing he wouldn't be allowed to concentrate now anyway, until she had finished.

With a barely suppressed smile playing on her lips, she told him of this miser who dearly loved his money. He had worked all his life and saved all his money.

Just before he died, he had said to his wife, "Promise me love, that when I die, you will put away all my money into my casket with me. I won't have peace in the afterlife without it."

The loving wife had solemnly promised.

All things eventually reach their expiry date. When he had reached his, he too had expired.

So, he was laid out in his coffin. His wife sat there in the black, with her best friend beside her. When the ceremony finished and the undertakers were ready to close the casket, his wife walked over to the casket and placed a box inside it.

The undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away.

When she returned to join the other mourners, her best friend whispered, "You are not foolishly sending him off with all his money now, I hope."

"My word is my bond," the faithful wife replied. "I promised him that I'll see him off with all his money with him, in his coffin. I keep my promises."

"You mean, you really did put all his money into the casket with him?" asked her shocked friend.

"I sure did," answered the wife. "I wrote him a check. If he can cash it, then he can spend it!"

Assassin

“Pa,” said Hosh, “I’m submitting a story called 'Assassin', for my College magazine again this year."

"Can you read and check it please, before you go to Office?”

“Sure,” said Rosh, as he walked down the steps and took the printed sheet.

Hosh hugged him and together they sat down on the sofa and read…

Not a sound was heard as she crept up the steps to the tenth floor of the dilapidated building. The sky was clear, but the sun was dying.

She set up her telescopic rifle on the sturdy tripod in the bare room by the broken window.

Her casual attire hugged her smooth and elegant body as she peered through the cross hairs and concentrated. She attached the silencer and adjusted the aim to account for the divergence caused by the silencer.

She clipped the transmitter to the mechanical hand that would press the trigger and control the rifle’s zoom and lateral movements. She tested it again. Satisfied, she descended the steps, and stepped into the deserted street.

Keeping her head low, and never looking up, she walked the two blocks to the Theatre basement garage where her car was parked. She got in, peeled off her face mask and disguise, and put it in the acid canister that sat below the passenger seat in her car.

Changing quickly into a dark business suit, she shredded off her casuals into pieces before feeding them also to the voracious canister. Out of the car in less than two minutes after having climbed in, she drained the acid in the storm water drain and disposed of the canister in the basement junkyard.

Then she climbed back in her car, signed into her iPad and ran her garage script one final time. It instantaneously hacked into the garage CCTV server, paused its unmanned recording, deleted the last three minutes of footage and created an i-movie by repeating the screenshot before the edit-out.

It then restarted the recordings, logged out and deleted its footprint from the registry of the CCTV server and her own iPad. She deleted the script from her iPad and drove out to the Xucorp Complex.

The meeting would be starting in one hour. As she rode the elevator alone in the gleaming Xucorp Main building, she checked her facial expressions in the little vanity mirror she always carried in her purse.

'Everything on schedule?' she spoke to herself in the mirror. She sounded her usual confident self.

Committed now, she waited for the elevator to come to a stop on the tenth floor.

“Everything on schedule?” she asked smilingly, as she walked past her secretary towards the Boardroom.

“Yes ma’am,” her secretary replied.

She nodded pleasantly at Mark, the C.E.O, as she took her seat on his left. She opened her laptop and typed in her Deputy C.E.O. authorization codes. Information about the billion-dollar project began dancing on her screen.

She opened another program on her screen and watched with satisfaction as Mark’s head filled up the little window. It would be perfect. Technology would ensure that, despite the distance and other difficulties. One shot. Clean kill.

They were soon joined by the rest of the project team and the client. It was time. Everyone exchanged greetings and took their seats around the conference table. Lights were turned down. Her presentation began.

Her laptop projected charts and pictures on to the projector screen as she spoke. She cascaded the project window on her screen and activated the little window. No adjustment was needed. She pressed Enter.

A bullet journeyed to its destination. There was no sound, but blood appeared in the little window. She pressed Delete. The window closed instantly and the program self-destructed.

Far away in the dilapidated room, acid exploded from the tripod base, damaging everything along with the rifle. In the Boardroom where she sat, Mark’s lifeless head hit the table with a dull thud. Then, there was chaos.

On cue, she shuddered for the benefit of Boardroom CCTV cameras, looking as shocked at the sight of actual blood, as the others. She knew the camera footage would be viewed and analyzed thousands of times in NYPD and Interpol offices across multiple countries.

Forensic programs, trained animals and specialized detectives would be intensively scanning and extensively sniffing from Earth and Sky over the next month. Mark's exit would stir up the hornet's nest, as the company stock plunged and the greatest manhunt in the history of New York began.

Detectives arrived soon and the investigations began. She sagged, knowing it was going to be a long night.

“A bloody mess!” muttered the chairman as he was leaving.

He looked at her and asked, “Have we lost the project now?”

“Not as long as I live,” she replied tiredly.

“The Board will confirm you as C.E.O. tomorrow. Call the Press Conference before New York Stock Exchange opens. I've got Legal working on Media Releases already."

He walked out to go home and get a couple of hours of shut-eye. A new day had begun.

Knowing Where To Tap

“What do you want to be in life?” asked Mack, as he walked with his son on their daily walk the next day.

“Rich!” replied Mack somberly.

Despite Mack’s grave demeanor and the events of yesterday, Mack laughed at his answer.

“That was not what I asked,” he said, “but that is a good goal. How will you get there?”

“By working hard, getting good Mack's and a bit of luck,” responded Mack.

“Hard work? Good marks?” Mack was beside himself with mirth. “They are a good start, but no, they won’t make you rich. And what is Luck?"

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, Lucius

Annaeus Seneca had said."

"Opportunity is always there. Even if it weren’t there, you can create it. So, opportunity is not the issue. The real question is, how prepared are you? Are you ready to get lucky?”

When Mack didn’t answer for a long time, Mack softened and said, “Effort is important son, but it bears lean fruit."

"For richer pickings, you need vision, passion and reason to direct your efforts. Directed effort is what makes men rich. Knowing where to make the effort makes all the difference!”

“Tools don’t make the expert, knowledge does. You can name your price if you know your stuff. I read a story once, about a steamship boiler failing."

"The owner tried one expert after another, but none could figure out how to fix it. Then, they called an old local mechanic who had been fixing boilers since he was young.”

“The frail old man came, carrying with him just a small bag of tools. He listened to the distraught engineer, asked a few questions, then went into the boiler room. They followed him in.”

“He looked at the maze of twisting pipes, and felt them with his hands. He listened to their heartbeat and heard what they had to say."

"Then humming softly to himself, he reached inside his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the boiler awoke from slumber.”

“As it hissed and roared, the old mechanic put away his tool and left. There was much jubilation on the steamship. Later, the owner received a bill for ten thousand dollars."

"What?" he exclaimed when he saw the invoice, "$10,000 for a puny tap. He hardly did anything. I was prepared to pay him well, but this is outrageous!"

"So he had his solicitor write to the old mechanic, requiring an itemized bill. He got back a bill which read:

• Tapping with the hammer.........$10
• Knowing where to tap ........$9,990”

“Pa, people can’t do that kind of thing in real life,” Mack objected.

“Can't they?" asked Mack, "In 1984, a similar incident is said to have happened at General Electric, Schenectady, New York, with an old-timer named John Steinmetz."

"His consulting charge was $100, and in Steinmetz' day, that was a King’s ransom. Accounting demanded an itemized bill, and he responded with, '$1/tap + $99/knowing where to tap'."

“He wouldn’t get paid today!” persisted Mack. “He’d have to fight for it in court. And be lucky to win!”

“There’s luck again,” answered Mack. “Howard Schultz said that Luck was seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It was seeing what other people don't see and pursuing that vision."

"Today is no different. Don’t multinationals pay millions in salaries to some, when others barely earn pennies. They are not being paid just for their hours. They are being paid for their skills, for their knowledge, for their experience.”

“The mechanic did what no one else could do despite their best efforts. How much was restarting the boiler worth to the steam-ship owner? How much was the time lost unproductively in waiting, worth?"

"How much was he paying in wages while all his crew sat twiddling their thumbs? What was the replacement cost of the boiler? Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.”

“But that’s still blackmail,” countered Mack. “Isn’t it?”

“No, son,” Mack said. “If you overvalue your work, the world will likely step in to knock down your price. But if you undercharge yourself, it's unlikely that the world will step in to compensate you appropriately."

"You can’t rely on others to value you correctly. It is not in their best interests to do so.”

“The mechanic knew where to tap. It only took him a moment to fix the problem, but it took him a lifetime to learn how to recognize it in the first place. And to learn how to fix it. Why do you value knowledge so cheaply?"

"His job seems easy to you because he made it look so easy, because of his intricate knowledge, which took him a lifetime to acquire.”

“To others, it still remained undo-able. Just because something is easy for someone, doesn’t mean that it’s easy for everyone else."

"Become a hammer tapper, always learning new stuff, new tools and techniques, new ways of doing things. Creating a niche is the road that leads to riches.”

“Knowing where to tap the hammer is what will set you apart from the rest. Set you apart from the blind - who will try the same things over and over until they fail so many times, that they declare it impossible."

"For hammer tappers, impossible is just an opinion. To them, impossible reads I M Possible.”