How to use attention to transform you life

Most of the time when I was a Buddhist monk I was trying to be ordinary which made me a kind of extraordinary. I now spend my time being ordinary while the market wants extraordinary. When I am not seeing clients, I am focused on networking and introducing myself to potential clients. Recently I was getting frustrated in not getting a response to a meeting I would like, so I accepted how I was feeling and practiced what I share with others - I made it playful! I wrote the following in an email to the potential customer…

‘Santa is coming and it does not look like I will be receiving your presences... Although I know it would make a difference - hoho’

Mindfulness is not a one hit wonder like Christmas

What it reminds me to do is make every day like Christmas a celebration, with the gift of presences, and the willingness to turn fully to what ever is going on.

I continued the email by telling the story of when I was a monk and went on my alms round (begging) on the streets of the local town. It was the Saturday before Christmas and I thought it would be good time to go. I walked six miles to the local town in the crisp morning of an English winters day. I was dressed up in several layers underneath my thin saffron robe. Then I stood silently, with hands focused around my bowl and my eyes down cast, waiting for somebody thinking about giving me some food which I could eat for my last meal of the day. All I got that day was a sausage roll and I was a vegetarian! Most people were too busy to give: they were looking at their lists of what they need to get, which taught me a lot about the human condition. Shortly after this email I got a meeting.

Where you place you attention is what you see

When I place my attention on the wide open space I am, I can receive the monkey mind with it likes and dislikes and frustrations. Sometimes attention collapses in on itself and for some people there is a radical awakening. 

All change please! The bus to Freedom

I was reminded of this when I wrote a review of Suzanne Segal book called ‘Collision with the Infinite’ for the Dutch non-duality magazine InZicht.

“… Suzanne had an experience of stepping on a bus in Paris and having what Ken Wilber calls a vertical experience. A profound awakening shifted her worldview from being driven by her ego to a structural change where she could no longer identify herself as Suzanne. She was confused and dazed by the experience, lacking a conceptual framework to place her experience.”

As you can read in the review in English here, an awakening like this can be a shock to the sense of who you think are and sometimes needing to integrate the hidden aspects of our identity. Something I enjoy supporting my clients to do both in their personal life’s or with my mindfulness based executive coaching for work.

Well I'm off for some vegan gluten free mince pies recipe is here

Be well

Amaranatho

www.amaranatho.com www.playfulmonk.net?