How to Create Happiness
I have read the ten stages of life according to Buddhism and shared them with all of you in a series of blogs. I started to think about he ten stages of life and have decided that in a small way these stages are the answer to living our life in more joy and clarity. The stages that resonate for me are:
1. Tranquility-Humanity
Finding tranquility in our life is key to being in our highest form of joy. The way that we find tranquility is by doing the things that bring us peace. For some of us it is prayer and for others it is serving others in need. For others it is accessing peace through doing things like meditation or taking time to be silent. Music seems to be helpful for others and playing melodic music and laying down with a good book could be a great way to find our tranquil state. This stage is one where we see our connection with others as humans, hence the humanity aspect of this stage. Human contact is important in finding our center because in part our peace comes from our loving interactions with people, specifically our loved ones. If we could live our life feeling tranquility we are living our life in a peaceful state of mind, body and soul. We are practicing our loving interaction with others and by doing so we feel inner peace. Finding ways to practice our tranquility is essential in living a life that is centered, joyful, peaceful and balanced.
2. Bohidsattva: Caring for Others:
We can pretend that people around us are not our responsibility to care for but we are dead wrong. We are all related as humans and what happens to others, their suffering is ours. We carry the weight of our brothers and sisters simply because we are all the same and we are all deserviing of compassion and kindness. Caring for others means that we are willing to take the time to give to a person in need or pick them up off the ground. When we step over a person to get to the other side of a sidewalk and ignore them we have ignored the law of what comes around gets around. In one such incident my friend almost died because she had a heart attack in Paris, feel to the ground and people walked over her because they did not want to get invovled or thought her to be drunk or drugged up. Finally a woman called an ambulance and paramedics saved her life just in time. If it were not for this woman caring for my friend she could of died right there. Bohidsattva asks us to see each person as valuable and that we are responsible to love each other and care for one another, to step up.
3. Rapture: Heaven:
This stage of life asks us to live in a heavenly place. A place where we feel utter peace and where we believe that we can be in a heavenly state on earth. We don't have to die to be in heaven or to live a life of rapture. We can begin to live our life this way now and in the moment. Heaven is when we live our life in a positive manner and we see the light in others and in ourselves. Heaven is when we look for every way to lift ourselves and others by being kind, loving and making an effort to do more for others and for the earth.
4. Learning-Self-Reflection:
Being willing to learn and self-reflection says that we know we are not perfect and that we are learning something in every moment. We are learning all the time and if we know this we are willing to change and to transform in ways that will make this world a better place to live in. We are in a state of reflection all of our life. We are in a state of learning all the time. When we are willing to reflect we can always grow into more of who we are. We become wiser, more caring, more kind and more creative. We grow much like a beautiful butterfly does from a dark cacoon where they start as a caterpillar.
These four stages of life are a lesson to learn and some guides to living. There are more answers inside these stages of life that we can learn and become better for. There are cultures who rarely get cancer because they live in a way that we don't. They eat and practice ways of living that we don't. We actually have one of the highest rates of cancer. Perhaps it is time to look at other ways of living and thinking about life.
1. Tranquility-Humanity
Finding tranquility in our life is key to being in our highest form of joy. The way that we find tranquility is by doing the things that bring us peace. For some of us it is prayer and for others it is serving others in need. For others it is accessing peace through doing things like meditation or taking time to be silent. Music seems to be helpful for others and playing melodic music and laying down with a good book could be a great way to find our tranquil state. This stage is one where we see our connection with others as humans, hence the humanity aspect of this stage. Human contact is important in finding our center because in part our peace comes from our loving interactions with people, specifically our loved ones. If we could live our life feeling tranquility we are living our life in a peaceful state of mind, body and soul. We are practicing our loving interaction with others and by doing so we feel inner peace. Finding ways to practice our tranquility is essential in living a life that is centered, joyful, peaceful and balanced.
2. Bohidsattva: Caring for Others:
We can pretend that people around us are not our responsibility to care for but we are dead wrong. We are all related as humans and what happens to others, their suffering is ours. We carry the weight of our brothers and sisters simply because we are all the same and we are all deserviing of compassion and kindness. Caring for others means that we are willing to take the time to give to a person in need or pick them up off the ground. When we step over a person to get to the other side of a sidewalk and ignore them we have ignored the law of what comes around gets around. In one such incident my friend almost died because she had a heart attack in Paris, feel to the ground and people walked over her because they did not want to get invovled or thought her to be drunk or drugged up. Finally a woman called an ambulance and paramedics saved her life just in time. If it were not for this woman caring for my friend she could of died right there. Bohidsattva asks us to see each person as valuable and that we are responsible to love each other and care for one another, to step up.
3. Rapture: Heaven:
This stage of life asks us to live in a heavenly place. A place where we feel utter peace and where we believe that we can be in a heavenly state on earth. We don't have to die to be in heaven or to live a life of rapture. We can begin to live our life this way now and in the moment. Heaven is when we live our life in a positive manner and we see the light in others and in ourselves. Heaven is when we look for every way to lift ourselves and others by being kind, loving and making an effort to do more for others and for the earth.
4. Learning-Self-Reflection:
Being willing to learn and self-reflection says that we know we are not perfect and that we are learning something in every moment. We are learning all the time and if we know this we are willing to change and to transform in ways that will make this world a better place to live in. We are in a state of reflection all of our life. We are in a state of learning all the time. When we are willing to reflect we can always grow into more of who we are. We become wiser, more caring, more kind and more creative. We grow much like a beautiful butterfly does from a dark cacoon where they start as a caterpillar.
These four stages of life are a lesson to learn and some guides to living. There are more answers inside these stages of life that we can learn and become better for. There are cultures who rarely get cancer because they live in a way that we don't. They eat and practice ways of living that we don't. We actually have one of the highest rates of cancer. Perhaps it is time to look at other ways of living and thinking about life.
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