Padraig O'Morain's guide to managing life
You've heard of the seeds of resentment, the seeds of jealousy and so on. Hidden in the phrase is an idea from Buddhist psychology that is worth knowing about.
First, though, let me make it clear that, impressive and all as casual references to Buddhist psychology may sound, I cannot claim any general expertise on the topic.
I am indebted to the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh for the seeds metaphor which goes like this: Imagine that your mind is a storehouse and that down on the floor of this storehouse, in the dark, are many, many seeds. They include seeds of anger and joy, peace and conflict, love and hate, contentment and discontent and so on.
The seeds are slumbering. They have not come to life. What makes them come to life? The light of attention brings them alive.
Take an incident that happened some time ago and that made you angry. Direct your attention to it for a while and there is a good chance you will become angry again. This works especially well with old injustices. Give them enough attention and they will torture you and keep you awake at night.
It's all a matter of attention. You could give your attention to good memories and have a far better experience.
Let me digress here and mention a linked idea from Neuro-Linguistic Programming. (NLP is somewhat similar to hypnosis). The idea works like this: Suppose there is a place, an area of your life or an activity in which you want to feel more positive, relaxed, energetic, or whatever the desired feeling might be. First, imagine the situation in which you want to feel better.
Suppose, for instance, there is a person you have to deal with at work and you feel you never really do justice to yourself when you're dealing with them - you stumble over your words, you say Yes too quickly and so on.
Now think of a situation in which you have dealt with someone in a way you're pleased with. You stayed cool and calm and you expressed yourself well. Remember that incident. Play it like a video with sound and colour. Feel the feeling again.
Now switch back to the situation in which you want to do better and carry that good feeling, those good thoughts and those good behaviours into it, all in your imagination. Do this three or four times. You can "anchor" these good feelings to a word like "confidence" or "calm" by saying the word to yourself as you do the above exercise or by pressing your thumb and forefinger together.
Next time you're really in that situation in which you want to behave differently, re-awaken those good feelings and those good behaviours by mentally repeating your anchor word, like "confidence", or by pressing thumb and forefinger together.
Do this and there is a good chance you will perform better in the situation than you did before. It isn't magic: you won't turn into a tiger all of a sudden.
But it can give you an extra edge that can make all the difference for you in the situation.
Back to the Buddhists: I know and I bet you know people who dwell on those seeds of resentment and anger and bitterness long after there's anything useful they can do about it. They can dwell and dwell all they like and it isn't going to get any better.
What they need to do is to leave those seeds in the darkness and dwell on something better, something more positive.
Well, never mind what "they" can and cannot do. Sometimes you and I need to recognise that there is nothing we can do about old, dead grievances except to leave them in the dark and deprive them of the light of attention.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
Let sleeping dogs lie
Resentments and sources of anger can be thought of as seeds which slumber unless we shine the light of attention on them and bring them to life. Sometimes it is best to deprive them of attention and to get on with our daily lives.
This article is based on the ideas of the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.
Website: http://www.plumvillage.org/