Sunday, November 25, 2007

Do not anger

Once upon a time I attended a seminar. It was a course in motivation and self empowerment. One of the lessons learnt then was to use anger as a motivation tool. It was the belief that there is no motivation stronger than that provided by anger. Reflecting back on all that and with sincerity would now say to all that that is not the way to work. Getting things done and achieving the material status in life through the use of anger to motivate oneself is NOT the way. Period.

If it is about motivation, then there are definitely many more better and effective methods. As human beings we have our ups and our downs. Who does not get annoyed once in a while anyway?

The difference is in the approach we can take. The Reiki principles say do not anger. However may we add a little more to that? Perhaps it may be better to know the anger that is coming around and be mindful not to let it get control of us. Taking a few deep breaths is a time proven method. Once the anger is seen as such our minds clear and the cause of that anger can be worked on and presto! We have the problem fixed.

Anger by itself is like a fire that takes us as the fuel. Once this is recognized it becomes powerless. In the application of Usui Sensei’s approach it is quite simply this :- an exercise in mindfulness and control.

There are many people who do meditation that brings about calmness of the mind. That on its own is fine as things can be seen more clearly that way. However it is also important that it can be used as a tool to work with anger. By this would mean that once we note anger arising, we can use our meditative mind to look at it. This becomes then a method of mixing our meditation practice with our daily lives. Meditation is one huge subject on its own but at this point it is good to say that deep calm meditation is of limited use if we are not able to employ it to cultivate ourselves.

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