Buddhist Wisdom to help you
Good morning, Meth Heads. How are you doing? I've still got a blocked nose. It's been a week now. Been weird.
Speaker 1:Been weird. But, again, it's a it's a Monday, which means, you know, the the advice is coming. Let go of what happened. Did you overdrink on the weekend? Fine.
Speaker 1:Full stop. Did you overeat? Full stop. Did you not do your workouts? Full stop.
Speaker 1:Did you not get your steps in? Full stop. There's no need to add anything above after the full stop. It's not I overate this weekend. I'm a useless person.
Speaker 1:No. I overdrank this weekend. Why do we keep doing it? No. Just use the facts.
Speaker 1:Right? Go with the facts and start today. Today, I'm a human being and things happen on the weekend. Good and bad in my in my perception is good and bad. But today's the day I can act.
Speaker 1:You know? There's no need to you know, you're the one causing all the problems yourself inside your mind. You're the one telling yourself you're useless. You have an idiot. You you should never deserve to be this and that.
Speaker 1:You know? You're doing that based off God knows what conditioning in the past, diet culture, all this stuff. Right? But it's still you doing it. You have to notice yourself saying it, you know, and that's the start of change.
Speaker 1:You can't change if you're always fighting yourself, like, can't do it. So this week, I wanna cover some topics. I wanna I'm re rereading this, book about Buddhism. So I wanna share some of that and some studies to back some things up in the in those viewpoints. Now it's, interesting reading these texts because Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, never wanted never was someone who said there is a system or, like, he never said, turn me into a religion.
Speaker 1:He always said to all his people listening, you are becoming an island to yourself. Become the haven for yourself. It's all inside you. Right? Because his disciples went by worrying, what are you oh, you're ill.
Speaker 1:You're gonna die. What then? He's like, don't worry about turning this into a thing. Become an island onto yourself. Look at yourself.
Speaker 1:That's where it lies. Right? And then what people did, they took it all and created a religion out of it. Same with Jesus. Right?
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't go around saying create Christianity, organized religions and churches and stuff. He was probably just trying to help people live. And then people were like, oh, we need to turn it into a system and systematize it and get people to believe in him. Then then they turned it into the exactly opposite of what he probably wanted, you know. It's quite interesting seeing that happen in, in history where they take a person's help and then they just organize it.
Speaker 1:And in the organization, there's this kind of falseness with them because you have to, like, go through all this nonsense stuff that wasn't even said. But anyway, a different point. So the first thing about this part about Buddhism and this book, and the author's great. I'll share the book. It's a bit of a hardcore one.
Speaker 1:He says a true wisdom is always young and always near to the grasp of the open mind. I would definitely think that's true. You can have old people who are not wise. You can have young people who are wise. Wisdom is there for the open mind.
Speaker 1:And Buddhism deals with the basic facts that's common to all humanity. You know, it's not your anxiety. It is humanity's anxiety. It's not your sorrow and sadness. It's humanity's sadness and sorrow.
Speaker 1:We all feel sadness the same. Things that happen to us are different, but we all have the same sadness, the same sorrow, the same anxiety when it happens. Right? So the answers are within us. And if the answers are within us, the answers are for everyone.
Speaker 1:Once we divide ourselves and think, no, no, my my sorrow is different to your sorrow, that you can't be helped because you then think that you are this that's the ego saying that what that what has happened to me is so unique that it's never happened before, and therefore, other help, anything that these wise people from all ages have said doesn't apply to me. And they shut enough complete help from the world, you know, and that's a problem. Okay. So if the mind is comprehended, all things are comprehended. That's probably true.
Speaker 1:Right? You believe in that? If the mind is comprehended, all things are comprehended. Now the first thing in Buddhism, it talks about, like, laying the ground. Laying the ground laying the ground of framework is to have something called bear attention.
Speaker 1:Now this is clear single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us at the successive moments of perception or the successive moments of seeing or happening. Right? Bear due to the bare facts. There's nothing added to it. So you're registering facts observed without reacting to them by deed, speech, or by mental comment.
Speaker 1:There's no judgment of reflection. And if any words pop into the mind after you notice bear attention on an object, that then becomes the object of bear attention. So for example, if I if the if my focus of my bear attention is on my reaction to wanting to eat cookies going, oh, really want those cookies. That's the object of my bad attention. I really wanna eat those cookies.
Speaker 1:I then my daughter might think, why am I such a why do I keep wanting these? That then becomes the object of bad attention. And maybe something else pops in and says, you're such an idiot, Scott. I thought you meant to be on track. That then becomes the object of their attention.
Speaker 1:What you'll quickly notice is this chain reaction that we think is instantaneous. Right? It's not. It's always chain reaction. Always reaction.
Speaker 1:Action and reaction, always. This is all this is the chain. Once you do this spare attention, you notice it becomes one or two things as opposed to 10 instant what we think is instantaneous reactions because we we we see a cookie, we think we want it, and then boom, we don't want it. We're an idiot. Why do I want it?
Speaker 1:Oh my god. I'm never gonna achieve my goals. Feel terrible. I'll never look like her. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Feel terrible. I don't deserve anyone. Oh, I'm gonna go and eat eat all of them. I'm I'm never gonna do it again. Like, all this stuff comes in fast, but it's always in a chain.
Speaker 1:Right? So we have to be able to look at the facts, the bare attention of the facts. Think it's a it's a great way to go through the day. And there's no labels as well. Right?
Speaker 1:There's no labels. So a bare object to be examined by wisdom is prepared by bare attention. So if you can't see things as they are, we can't do the right action. Okay? And now you've heard this probably before the podcast, but it's, you know, this is the root.
Speaker 1:And he goes on to say very often a single moment of mindfulness or wise reflection would have prevented a far reaching sequence of misery. That's what I'm saying there. That cookie, you being given a cookie and eaten it turns into a spiral of negativity then later on in the night you're crying. You can't believe you've done it again. Right?
Speaker 1:But a single moment of that time of you've eaten the cookie, right, having bare attention on the eating of the cookie, right, you will have stopped that in his tracks going into a downward spiral and then you crying at the end of the night. Does that make sense? So bear attention slows down or even stops the transition from thoughts to action. Right? So it's kind of like in the breaks to give wisdom, self control, and common sense a chance to operate.
Speaker 1:That's what we're doing. We're looking at things. We see we're we're looking at them. We're looking at them without anything else. About five seconds of looking at something without any movement gives yourself the break, gives your mind some breaks.
Speaker 1:You stop, the breaks come in. Wisdom has a chance. Self control comes in. In. Wisdom runs up.
Speaker 1:I caught you. You know, self control runs in. Yeah. Common sense comes around, boys. We're here or girls.
Speaker 1:The three Musketeers here.
Speaker 2:Look at that. Let's have a
Speaker 1:look here. Alright. Nothing to see here. Nothing nothing no. It's not it's not a disaster.
Speaker 1:Let's carry on, you know? And you can move on with it. But if it's so fast, boom. Oh my gosh, disaster. No.
Speaker 1:Those people are behind you. Common sense, wisdom, self control, they're trying to catch you up, they're gonna tell you it's alright, but you've gone. You've run with it. You said, oh, it's
Speaker 2:the worst thing that's ever happened. I know
Speaker 1:I'm useless. And they're like, god, we can't catch her. We can't catch her. We can't help her. Gone.
Speaker 1:Always in front of us running away. But then you look at the stuff, it wasn't even that bad. It wasn't bad at all, actually. Her running away now. She's running into more danger.
Speaker 1:That's the problem. You know? So, again so I think it's kind of like driving too fast, right? If you're driving too fast, you know, you don't got enough time to brake, you don't have enough time to see, you don't have time to react and, you know, disaster happens. You're driving slow, leisurely, aware, you know, a lot more time.
Speaker 1:There's no rush, and you feel a lot more smooth and still. Right? It's all this stuff. It's this fastness. We're not giving ourselves the brakes.
Speaker 1:Give yourself breaks today. At least your mind, you know how to do it. Bear attention, just observing things without judgment and all that stuff. Give yourself five seconds. That's enough for the breaks to work.
Speaker 1:Right? Then he moves on to attention and what attention means to be present. Right? Face the this is what it says in the book, the quote from the book. Face the present without trying to escape into thoughts about the past or the future.
Speaker 1:Past and future are for average conscious consciousness, not objects of observation, but they are for reflection. Insight is the direct and penetrative realization of the three characteristics of existence, which is impermanence, we don't live forever, suffering, we all suffer, and impersonality, where we all think there's a self, there's really not. It's one that it's just the human mind, human beings. So this insight produces a growing detachment and an increase in freedom from craving, desire, and then basically will help you free yourself from sinsavement and see free yourself from suffering really. So it says one should always question whether the intended activity is really in accordance with this purpose, aim, or ideal is to pause and ask this, you need better attention.
Speaker 1:So this is important. Dean talks about the why. Right? So in Buddhism it talks about the the right action. And right action comes from the the your purpose.
Speaker 1:Right? So you have this spare attention, you put the brakes on. Right? You have a habit of having bad attention. You put the brakes on things, you look at stuff, You stop and think.
Speaker 1:This gives you clear comprehension of purpose because you can stop and think and you can gain wisdom. You can get you can gain miss wisdom, miss, what is this? Wisdom, common sense, and self control. The three musketeers can come and stand by you and say, you know what? This is your purpose.
Speaker 1:Your purpose isn't to do this. Your purpose is to do this for your family, to get healthier your family. Your purpose is to be strong enough, right, so you can fight these chronic illnesses. Strong enough so you can fight against, future potential illnesses. You know?
Speaker 1:Your friends, you're doing this. And it it gives you a chance to have this sense of purpose, and it strengthens purpose in action. It strengthens mind's leadership. Right? And the strong purpose makes it hard to take you off the path.
Speaker 1:So if you were able to be reminded of your purpose and it's a strong why, and that's why we tell you to do the seven levels deep, what is your real why behind this action? Why really do you want to become healthy and the best version of yourself? You know, to fulfill your potential and you've got family to look after them to be good examples. These are very powerful whys, but we don't give them the chance to catch up to us in day to day living and tell us about the the why, the purpose. But what the Buddhists are saying, what the Buddha says is that this kind of self mastery, this non forced, bad attention, you're not saying I'm gonna I'm gonna force myself to look this thing.
Speaker 1:Well, then you're just gonna look. You're gonna create the stop and think, the brakes put on, the three musketeers are coming to you. You're looking at what's in front of you with a bare facts. You're reminded of your purpose. And once you're reminded of your purpose and your why, it's very strong that's a very strong thing to take you off that path of that purpose is tough.
Speaker 1:If you can make this a thing that's part of our day to day life, you're on the right track. Right? You're on the right track to right living. Okay? The next step of the Buddhist kind of clear comprehension is called clear comprehension of suitability.
Speaker 1:Says Buddha says, it's not always in our power to act how we want. So we need to act practically. So adaptions, right, to the conditions of of time. We have to be able to adapt. We might want to eat the best food today.
Speaker 1:We might want to train today, but sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes it was so what do we do then? Well, we have the same thing, the bare attention, the purpose. What can we do? What is the best next action?
Speaker 1:Not to dwell and have a negative judgment of the truth in front of us, like the car's broken down. I literally can't go to the gym. What you do with bad attention is the car's broken down. You might go as a disaster. Don't you know, then you make that the object of bad attention.
Speaker 1:And you actually you know, then you've got a very pragmatic approach to life. You go, car's broken down. Nothing I could do about it right now. I'll go for a walk. I'll try and phone some mechanics to see if they can fix it tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Full stop. You know, there's nothing you don't need to add this is the end of the world. This is a terrible time. Why me? Why me?
Speaker 1:Could be what's next? That comes from being able to stop and think though. Right? And the fourth part of it is called clear comprehension of the domain of meditation. And this just means that if you've got your purpose, the molding power, the purpose, you've got the suitability, the mental plasticity and adaption.
Speaker 1:Okay? And you clearly see in reality in front of you. Right? You can't really go wrong. The the the answer is in front of you to take all the time.
Speaker 1:Like I said, the car broke down. The answer is clear. Get it phone someone and get it fixed.
Speaker 3:And if you really wanna go for
Speaker 1:a walk, go for a walk, get exercising. There's there's that you don't need to add more to it. I mean, you might say I haven't got enough money to fix for the fix it. Right? And you go, okay.
Speaker 1:I haven't got enough money to fix it. I need to look at that. What is the solutions to this? Can I phone a friend or family to help me out? You know, you you what's the pragmatic approach?
Speaker 1:Because losing your head is not the right approach. Losing your head does the exact opposite way you need to do in that moment. I don't know how many of you been there with no money. I've been there. Terrible place to be.
Speaker 1:But even now in business, when you go, do you know Our costs are high. App. Apps cost some money. We're investing a lot into this. You know?
Speaker 1:Put in a risk there. There's no need to panic and worry and be, oh, well, you know, it's just like this is the truth. What now? What do I do next? Simple.
Speaker 1:You just gotta do what you do next, but only you can only see what to do next clearly when you have these things come in. Right? So to finish off with this, it talks about the delusion of man. The biggest delusion of humans is that they believe in a self or a soul or an external substance. Right?
Speaker 1:So this belief of a self, of an ego, creates enough the offspring of that is craving and hate. Okay? So they say that the self creates craving because the self wants more all the time. But there is no self. And once you see that there is no actual self, then there is clear comprehension, they say.
Speaker 1:There's clear seeing. There is no craving to be more. There is just the right action. You know? And I think it's a truth to him.
Speaker 1:I would say it's true. It's hard to see, but it's true. And it says only by training oneself again and again in view in the presently arisen thoughts and feeling as mere impersonal processes can the power of deep rooted, egocentric thought habits and egoistic instincts be broken up, reduced, and finally eliminated. Okay. That's the first part.
Speaker 1:I'll cover more than in a week, but very interesting. Right? Very interesting viewpoint. I think it could be very helpful. And the reason I say this is because when you look at so if I give you a map, that's not the journey, is it?
Speaker 1:The map isn't the journey. Give you the map to go off to Wales. You gotta walk out. The map isn't the walking. The map isn't the perils of getting to Wales, fighting off the dragons, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:We got that, you know, crazy stuff. So the same with this fat loss. The calorie deficit is the map. The science is the map, but the actual journey is not that. The journey is this part.
Speaker 1:This is the stuff. This is the obstacles. The mind is the journey. You know? That's this is where really we we get stuck up on.
Speaker 1:And I wanna just finish with a study actually about, healthy eating and the meaning of life. So, you know, new study having a clear this is why. They said it's very positive related to healthy eating behaviors. And if you just shoulder shrug at that and say, oh, no, neither why, that suggests you could be more likely to struggle with emotional eating because there's there's not that link there. Right?
Speaker 1:So long story short, we study they wanted see if the if a strong sense of meaning in life would lead to a positive effect, which would then lead to healthier eating behaviors. Okay? So according to researchers, positive affect with an a refers to pleasant feelings and a good mood, which are closely related to positive psychological outcomes. Okay? So you might also think of positive effect as your tendency to experience and express positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, pride, cheerfulness, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So the research indicates that meaning in life intervention can significantly increase positive effect, and then positive effect increases your eating behaviors, your healthy eating behaviors. Right? So they looked at the 2015 meta analysis study that suggests positive effect might influence some healthy eating behaviors. Okay? A 2021 University of North Carolina study shows positive effect may predict same day healthy eating behaviors.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. You feel good today, full of joy, cheerfulness. You go to gym. You eat better. You go for a walk.
Speaker 1:You go to bounce in your step. Happy days. And 2004 paper proposes positive effect could help people build better coping resources. Okay? So what study really found was a stronger sense of meaning in life might promote healthy behaviors by itself.
Speaker 1:Okay? That's the main route. So there's one root that directly causes bad eating. But the main roots are the a positive meaning in life. Finding your why and being reminded of every day like the Buddhists say has a positive effect on your mood and emotions, and that lead to healthy eating.
Speaker 1:But you have a bad meaning to life or no meaning to life or no why and you feel lost, that gives you a negative effect, so low moods, which then causes emotional eating. So this meaning in life question is a very important one to deal with each day and you don't have to be the next Steve Jobs. You don't have to be a world changer. You there's there's enough meaning in life being a good family member, a good friend, a really good role model in your small community within your family. You know, being the best human being you can be to the people that matter in your life.
Speaker 1:Because that's how the world changes. You know, being the best mother you can be, very, important job. Oh my god. One of the most important jobs. Next generation, you see that in America now, the overturning of the giving the women right to abortion.
Speaker 1:You know, those families, unfortunately, in the red states, they've got very, like, deep rooted parents who think that way, and then they're gonna think that way. And then they're actually gonna it's gonna take ages. Right? The way to overturn all this stuff and have a bright future is that the younger generation see clearly all the mistakes of the past, right, and can lead a healthy life of healthy body, healthy mind. Right?
Speaker 1:That's the way we're gonna change the world is the next generation, you know, and us as well, but of course, the next generation. So you can find a meaning in life. You can find it. And if you don't have kids and you you hate your job, right, and you don't know if there's anything else out there for you, what you don't have any you feel like you've got no prospects or whatever. You know, there doesn't have to be a grand meaning in life.
Speaker 1:You know, we're lucky to be human beings, you know, that that you you hear that scale, you know, you hear that stat 400,000,000,000,000 to one, you know, lucky to be born. Think about all the links, all the ancestors, the link going back to the start of humanity to to to you being born, unbroken link through the plagues, the wars, everything is actually a miracle that you're here. So making the most of that is a good meaning, and to make the most of life you've got to be in health, you've got to be in good health, because when you're ill, the only thing you think about is being not ill. Right? When you're injured, the only thing you think about is just to be able to walk again.
Speaker 1:So there's a huge meaning in just being this healthy person. This health looks after their mind and body because then you're are really maximizing how you can approach life. A lot of people can't maximize life because they can't walk down the street. They can't get out the house. They can't breathe properly sometimes.
Speaker 1:Some people are so unfit, they can't move. And they're just stuck watching TV. Right? The body is completely ceased to be in moving intelligently at all. So yeah, I think that's just powerful meaning, and you'll be a light to other people, no doubt.
Speaker 1:So that's all for today, guys. Bit of a long one. Bit of a long voice note for you, but I hope it was useful. I I really resonate and go back through these things. And I think redoing your seven level deep exercise, you can go on the website seven,thenumber7levelsdeep.com to do it and figure out what your your strong why is.
Speaker 1:And, read Man's Search for Meaning if you want another kick start to what meaning of life is. And, you know, at the end of the day, we've only got today to do to do to work on. Today is the clay we got to work on. Today is the dish we clean. You know, you got a stack of dishes on the left dirty and the right cleaned.
Speaker 1:Doesn't really matter. The only dish you can clean at the time is the one in front of you in the sink, and that's what the day is. The day is that dish in the sink. So we get to work on that, and we have the clean dishes on the right and the dirty dishes that go on the left. And that's really it.
Speaker 1:So enjoy your day, folks, today. This is your prompt, by the way, to do whatever you need to do, your track, or walk, or workout, or whatever, and, get that done and you start some momentum. And it gives you a positive effect and then have a healthy day. So guys, see you soon.
Speaker 3:See you tomorrow.
