The Nature of Seeds and Trees

The Nature of seeds and trees

There are old trees, new trees, big trees, small trees, green trees, brown trees, red trees.Trees can grow pretty much anywhere given the right conditions set out in nature.  Trees come from seeds and seeds come from the fruit of the trees. All trees are beautiful in their own right. Each tree serves a purpose, and together they co exist in their family of the forest. You plant the seed, you water it, you provide the right soil, the right sunlight, the seed blossoms into the tree. Nature is so perfect in its ability to multiply, that each tree will bear fruit. Each fruit has plenty of seeds that once shed and sown will bring about the exact genetic replica of its parent, and so nature procreates and prospers.

Seeds are akin to our own attributes. There is an old adage " You reap what you sow" The more you sow seeds of happiness, joy, kindness, generosity, love and caring, the more each seed can take root and create trees of abundance of these qualities and attributes. The good  fruit that is generated through the  spread of such trees, these will then  nourish others as they consume them through interactions. This multiplies and multiplies and feeds the society and raises a civilization to become better, more utopian. In this modern era of social media, any bad news can figuratively burn down a forest as it churns through the internet with great rapidity. However, imagine what goodness can spread through the tree of the internet, so long as the seed planted has the right attributes. 

So each seed has a potential tree within itself and each tree has millions of seeds within itself, and natures' perfect idea of global survival is preserved. We  plant the wrong seed with hate, jealousy, envy, and greed to name but a few negative qualities, then that is the tree that will emanate and spread. Ill fruit born of this tree will only serve to demolish the consumer. Thank fully nature has a pruning plan. A seed will not sprout in an arid area with no soil, no water. A seed tends not to germinate without sunlight. If the soil is fertile with good thoughts. If the light shining from within is bright and pure. If the elements nourishing the seed is full of good deeds it will bring forth a tree of good quality. 

Maintenance  of the tree, through continued horticultural care is equally important, just as is continued practices of patience, meditation, selflessness, and equanimity. The roots grow stronger and deeper. The ties to community and family are such roots. Connecting to them is as important as connecting to oneself. If each of us is an individual, like a root, then these roots together can help find water, nutrition and help in survival of the tree, the community, the civilization and the human race. Do not let mad practices of stressful lives bulldoze your personal forest of peace. 

The Banyan tree is known as the walking tree, as it usually stays in one place, and with its new branches that hang down, the branches are the ones that create new trunks and a new tree forms and spreads and so gives the appearance of the "tree that walks." The banyan tree is a very old tree, living over 100 years with very ancient powerful roots, and very plentiful and abundant fruit. Imagine the amount of good seeds that it has spread in its age old life time. It keeps healthy and well preserved, as should we with good practices of calm, reverence, peace and the willingness to learn and be more than a mere seed. How old is your spiritual tree?

Go plant a seed in your back yard and grow a tree. 

Go plant a seed of goodness within yourself and see what you can be. 

Wearing your life vest

Wearing your life vest

On the plane there are so many safety instructions to watch out for before you take off. The airline staff go through an elaborate demonstration for seat belts, no smoking, emergency evacuation procedures, wearing your oxygen mask and of course how to put on your life vest. If you look around at your fellow passengers, you will note that most people are not sparing the 5 minutes and not paying any attention to the valuable education lesson that is being provided free of charge. Everyone assumes that automatically if the need arises they will know exactly what to do in an emergency situation and be perfectly calm. Rarely this is the case and the airline staff has to reorient every panicked person to stay calm  and follow the procedures that they so kindly did not remember. 

One particular emergency procedure that I thought was interesting was the wearing of the life vest. More over the instructions are clear. " Wear your life vest first before helping someone else" This of course got me thinking. This is a very fundamental concept but since we are rarely actually in the moment and aware of our surroundings we do not realize that before helping someone else we have to be able to help ourselves. This is not the greedy version of "helping oneself" but more the idea that if we ourselves are not situated in peace how can we possibly help from a position of peace. We then either are not helpful enough or provide the wrong kind of help. In any case help that is not useful is still no help. Just like wearing a life vest there are certain steps that you have to undergo in the correct sequence to enable the appropriate deployment of the life vest. Similarly there are prescribed sequence of steps to undertake to learn meditation in order to attain a state of awareness.

Certainly help others but understanding that to help yourself first to be more useful, is the first step on the path of awakening. Practicing to put your own life vest on  is akin to practicing meditation. You follow certain methods and then do it repeatedly so that you get the act of meditation down as a habit, so that when you need that technique in a pinch, you are already well versed in its practice. Same with the life vest. Once fully understanding the methodology you are able to immediately put it on yourself without effort, and then calmly put it on someone else, such as a child. 

Your advancement of your meditation serves to bring forth awareness of the moment so that when the need arises, you are awake, alert and able to assist. Your actions are also modeled by others such as a child who is still in the stage of learning, and so by copying your good actions of self discipline, the child learns how to eventually be able to put on their own metaphorical life vest. The life sometimes you save may be your own through the techniques learnt of being in the moment, as you conquer your own anger, your darkness, your demons. The life vest is your self preservation. Be prepared to use your life vest when needed through the practice and awareness of the moment, just do not open it when you do not need to, and create a scene :)

Hope you have a safe flight and journey !

Feeder bands or peripheral winds

Feeder bands or peripheral winds ?

Nowhere on earth can you go without experiencing storms in some fashion or the other. Thunderstorms, NorEasters, Hurricanes, Tropical storms or depressions, are all names of types of storms but essentially they are created the same, and they create the same effect in the end, destruction in its wake. If you are fortunate enough to have missed the storm but still close enough, you might be feeling the effects of the storm with strong gusty winds. What you do not know is whether these winds are feeding the storms ( feeder bands) or are these winds simply the after shocks of the storm as peripheral winds.

So too is the nature of anger. When someone falls into this state, this generates so much of negativity that you cannot help but get dragged into it. This is like the periphery winds, where you feel the energy of these negative winds emanating from the storm of anger, and this energy can sway you toward the storm. This eventually can also lead to feeder bands or winds. These winds as the name suggests feed the storm with moisture and power, enabling the storm to grow. So too if we let ourselves dragged into the storm with our own negativity and react, we just enable someone else's anger ( verbal or vocal) to grow. We can talk or think negatively very easily about another who we once respected or spoke fondly about, in the presence of another who is spurring a negative portrayal  of  this person. They are generating anger, hatred and a lack of positivity, but it does not mean that we have to feed the storm or for that matter be effected by the peripheral windy backlash. 

Holding your ground in a storm is not easy, but with the correct foundation and the correct frame of mind, it is not only possible but necessary so as to not lose footing when dealing with tumultuous emotions. Non reaction is part of the process, but so is a positive reaction if needed. How can this be?  How can you be equanimous yet be reactive? This is the art of meditation and enlightenment. When faced with a negative situation, reacting positively will enable the balance to be restored and equanimity to reign. So using the hypothetical example above of talking ill about another. The person who is negatively venting  for whatever personal reasons with their own deep seated roots of frustrated experiences, will continue to keep spewing their verbiage in the  hope to gather momentum  of their stormy conversation. You can choose to be a feeder band, or choose to hold your ground in the peripheral wind, and so shed a more positive light to the conversation with a differing opinion. The moment you choose to be different, you will think differently, you will speak differently and you will change the course of the storm. You can do it with calmness in your voice and be equipoised. This will lead to the state of equanimity, which usually generates a better outcome. Sometimes silence is a good thing, but in others if you are silent you are allowing agreement to occur thereby fueling  the fire of the storm. 

The forecasting of weather is as unpredictable as human emotion. But how prepared are you for a storm is entirely up to you, and your trained mind. Being  on the edge of a storm experiencing its effects is a constant battle that we deal with, not only for ourselves but when dealing with each other. Reacting or  not reacting to the nature of the weather of the abrupt emotion is a more tedious task. If you are more alert and aware of your own emotions and how to keep them in check, you can prevent becoming a feeder band to the storm. Being in control of your emotions, you are less likely to succumb to the peripheral wind of the storm. 

Which way is the wind blowing in your neck of the woods?

Getting the bad report card

Getting the bad report card.

A,B,C,D,E,F....Pass, or Fail, grades on a report card.  We strive towards the Pass or the A grade, and when achieved we are happy. When a lower grade or Fail grade  occurs then this disrupts our demeanor and we get upset. We continue on this roller coaster of trying to fulfill others' expectations, and then we base our own happiness on these emotions. Why are we so dependent on these grades and why do we let  these expectations affect us adversely. We should always aim for the best, but as long we are doing it for ourselves. All too often we expend our energy towards pleasing others, and end up living our lives for others and not for ourselves.

When we start the process of getting successful, have you noticed that in many cases that it does not last. Same goes for resolutions that we embark on  every New Years Day. But give it a fortnight and we are back to where we started, and then the grumbling, frustration, and dissatisfaction begins all over again. It is our normal tendency to strive for a good outcome,  and then as things go our way, we end up with a concept called self sabotage. You might be thinking "that cannot be right, why would we do such a preposterous act?" The answer is simple, guilt. Since childhood, some experience or the other has taken seed that led us to feel guilty and in doing so harboring the feelings of undeserving. Such an example is when you were doing really well in school, but were compared to someone else (either a classmate or sibling) who was not, and so our subconscious out of compassion towards the person who was comparing, sets the scene for us to be less than who we are, and so backing off from our well-doing, with the feelings of guilt. This leads to self sabotage and then we falter. We are unconsciously repeating this in our daily lives. In teenage years this is called rebellion. 

" I don't deserve  this really high paying job" " I don't deserve to be happy in this relationship" " I don't deserve these new toys" These self deprecating thoughts race through us with so much force that we believe them to be truths, and then just as subconsciously as they arose, then subconsciously we prophesize our doom, and we fall from our path. This leads to our failure, subsequent anger that we then hate, and start to go down the path of negativity.  So here in a nutshell, is not only the answer to how we end up with a bad report card but also how to change it around.

Overcome the subconscious seed planted innocently, with new seeds of courage, conviction, and  consistency. Know that you were not meant to merely live, but instead to live merrily, with valor, victory, and vigor. So go laugh at your bad report card, and know that it is not YOU, and that you can do better. Know that you are not the product of this bad report card, and you are not to be defined by it. Strive for the "rebellious bad report card "with a smile, and find that just the reverse happens.

 Bad report card? Time for a time out to rethink your life and how you approach your future.