Happiness Part #3 (or “happiness pu pu platter”)
Since my recent “awakening,” I’ve spent the last few weeks getting deeper into this area of awareness, mindfulness, consciousness, and spirituality. Here, for your enlightenment, is a collection of some of my favorite teachers.
I know I promised a full post on Brene Brown, and I will get to that, but in the interim, if you haven’t seen this TED talk, you must. Here’s her groundbreaking book The Gifts of Imperfection.
Here is Tara Brach (who is awesome by the way), talking about Happiness. Her youtube channel has a ton of amazing content. One of my favorites is the video on learning to respond rather than react.
Here is Jack Kornfield talking about forgiveness. His simple meditation on forgiveness is intensely profound. Try it.
Here is Dan Millman’s amazon page. I read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and the Laws of Spirit in the last two weeks. Both were very good and worth reading – the same principles presented in slightly different ways. (They are available on Scribd, by the way). Here’s his TED talk.
Here is Eckhart Tolle talking about the Power of Now at Google. Check out some of his other videos on Youtube. He’s a really interesting person!
Finally, I’ve decided that I’m going to start training for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. Here is a documentary by Australian filmmaker Mark Shea.
Enjoy!
August 28, 2014 @ 7:39 am
Good stuff. Tara Brach’s story about “where the monkeys left the ball” seems especially appropriate for me now. After almost 2 years looking for a full-time position, I have accepted a position as the Student Attorney at New Mexico State University and am driving into Las Cruces today. It was a hard choice in some ways because it means temporarily leaving my family but I am open to change, even at the age of 53.
I wish you well on the Camino. A year or so ago, we watched the movie “The Way” and enjoyed it.
August 28, 2014 @ 8:29 am
Hi Karl,
Thanks for stopping by and for the comment! I’m still feeling my way through this stuff, so take the following with a grain of salt.
One of the central tenets of most spiritual traditions is that pain is inevitable, but suffering isn’t. For me that means that life will sometimes give us what we want, and sometimes won’t. How we deal with the latter is what leads to, or keeps us from, suffering. The measure of that suffering is the distance between what we expect or want, and what we actually get. I found it very helpful to really investigate why I expect the things I expect (rather than just trying to convince myself to be content when I’m deeply disappointed). Most of our expectations about what “should” be are grounded in core beliefs. Those core beliefs are sometimes silly and when we see that, we can change them. And when we do that, we “surrender” to what is, and life (with all its difficulties) becomes really enjoyable.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a difficult time over the past few years. I wish you lots of luck with your new role!!