Waaz yaa plaan?
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
yaa hav a plaan or no plaan for yaa 
on a serious note, coming back to ground reality, as far as my assessment of myself goes - clear mind with no thoughts, jhanas, samadhi, awakening, dropping away of mind and body - all these are out of scope for me.
As far as I am concerned, since meditation is almost out of scope for me, but still i sit as a daily activity, may be to satisfy my ego. so I am thinking of trying to be slightly generous and slightly reduce my narrow-mindedness and my selfishness - though these seem too far away for me from my current egoistic, selfish, greedy and arrogant position - i have defilements of lust, anger, greed, hatred, attachment, ego etc.
So how to make the most of this life? what areas do you focus on - meditation, increasing virtues, reducing defilements and if so then which defilements? how do you practically approach it?
So do you have a plan or an idea about how to go about for the above thing in your life? If you wish, then please share. Thanks in advance.
Comments
Practice compassion. Perform random acts of kindness. Spend some "quality time" with your little daughter every day. Let her enjoy her father's love. This is very important to her self-esteem, and to her future ability to have a healthy, loving relationship with a partner. You are her role model for how to relate to men. If you're distant, she may choose a partner who's distant and not very communicative. If you're happy and warm and affectionate with her, you'll increase the chances of her making a healthy, happy choice as an adult.
Relating to her, you'll learn patience and kindness. She can be your teacher, if you'll allow it. You might learn to forget about your worries and your "to do" lists (including your dharmic ones), and lose yourself in a spontaneous moment of play with her.
This, too, is dharma. This is one way householders practice, and advance on the path. Opportunities abound right there at home, with the family.
I am currently cycling through these audio meditations from start to finish then starting over again:
http://thubtenchodron.org/meditation/06-lamrim/
Along with much prostrating and offering to my altar at home.
Things are ticking along nicely......
Beautiful words @Dakini - thank you.....
@Dakini : thank you for your words
, which are so beautiful and i was loving it, when i was reading it.
My wife and my daughter both seem to be teachers to me. My wife teaching me that whatever you do, it is never perfect and there is something which was left and something which could be done better. My daughter teaching me she is most of the time not going to listen to me, so I can give advice to her and scold her, but she will go to her mummy to get the way she wants it - though on a downward side, she is turning into a kid, who thinks she is always going to get what she wants. My daughter is moody, so if I or her mother says something, which is not as per her liking, it turns her mood off and she goes in another room and when we go to see her, she start screeming, but we cuddle her and give her some kisses and after that she returns back to normal. Both have taught me that they are not in my control, so I have said to them literally that - i have freed them both from me and they can do, whatever they wish to do, and so later they cannot praise or blame me for their actions - seems like I am running from my responsibility but when i see that my saying usually is not given any importance by my wife and my daughter, so i have stopped saying much to them, though due to my habit of trying to control, i still scold my daughter. Both their teachings i do not like, but thankfully I have them so that they can always try to correct me.
Seems like this thread has turned around from what is your plan in your life for getting the most out of your life - to - how should i practice in my life - both ways it can help me to suggest ways on how to use the most of my life.
Hi All,
Anyways, what is your plan or idea to get the most of your life - mindfulness, jhanas, increase of virtues, reduction of defilements, awakening or something else?
The plan is to greet each day - how lucky it is that we get to awaken and open our eyes! Blessings abound!
Then take each day as it comes.
Accept each incident mindfully and skilfully, and enjoy the teaching therein.
Each day is an opportunity to either struggle, or not struggle.
I choose the latter, but that does not make me weak or compliant.
To not struggle does not mean to give up.
To not struggle means to perceive each moment as an opportunity to DECIDE.
"Went the day well?"
See what unfolds, then deal with it.
OP, combining this with your question about priorities, or the "to do" list, I'd say, just be the best you can be each day. For example, each day, observe the 5 precepts. Be mindful of them when a trying situation arises. I think if you work on that, then over time, defilements will gradually fall by the wayside of their own accord. The entire process is leading towards Awakening.
You have anger, greed and hatred? Really? I guess you know that all of those are symptoms of ego-clinging. Your question was, what to do about it? Meditate on how the object/s of your hatred are just people like you, struggling through life. Maybe they're burdened with even more ego-clinging than you. Forgive them their ego-clinging; they're only human, like you. Do you believe you deserve forgiveness for your defilements? You're only doing the best you can. Everyone's fallible.
Try the meditation where you focus on love. First visualize those you love most: your parents, perhaps. (Hopefully you have a relationship with someone in the family that isn't fraught with difficulties. Start there.) Open your heart in the meditation, and let yourself become bathed with love. Experience that love in relation to the person you're visualizing, and dwell in it. Do this for several days, as it becomes (hopefully) easier to maintain your focus in meditation. (Don't worry about breathing, if that's a stumbling block.) Then move on to other loved ones. Practice extending that love to those close to you, in spite of the faults you perceive. Nurture the loving feeling, as you meditate. Work with it. Do this for several days, or a week; as long as you need to in order to arrive at genuine unconditionally loving feelings for the objects of your meditation. Once you feel you've done a good job there, move on to the next stage; visualize people about whom you feel neutral--neither positive nor negative feelings. Bring up that love again, and imagine including them in your loving vibration. See yourself opening up your heart to them, and bringing them in to your loving light. Dwell in that space with them. After mastering that stage, move on to people you dislike. Then move on again to the people towards whom you feel hatred. See how that works? Good luck. Be patient with yourself.
Hi @misecmisc1.
As a parent of a 4 year old and 2 year old, here's my two bobs worth:
Just be there for your daughter when she needs you. Tell her that she can talk to you anytime and always be prepared to stop what you're doing (not always easy!) and listen to her.
Try and give positive reinforcement rather than negative i.e. if she is doing something you don't approve of, rather than scolding her try and gently steer her toward doing something else.
I am not sure telling her she can do what she wants is the greatest advice. That may make her think you don't care. Having grown up in that kind of environment myself I wouldn't advise it.
Good luck - it's a tough job!
Letting a child have their own way, means they develop no boundaries.
I hate to say it, but your wife is spoiling your daughter, and to be honest, from the sound of it, you give in to your daughter too easily - probably for "The Quiet Life". How much easier it is to let her have her own way - she calms down so much more quickly.
But this is not the skilful way.
Once she learns - going out into the big wide world - that she cannot ALWAYS have her own way - this will spell trouble for you.
She may become quarrelsome with other children, and become hostile to their equal wishes to be appeased and accommodated.
Discipline does not mean cruel deprivation.
It means reinforcing certain rules which all children MUST have. They NEED these rules, these boundaries, these limitations.
Your daughter may have 'taught you that she is not under your control' - but actually, yes, she is.
She has to be. Or else, how else would she learn?
Did your parents not administer discipline with you?
You should encourage your wife to follow a similar route - and I'm sorry, but if she argues or protests, than this may lead to further need for guidance.
Your wife and daughter look to you to be head of the household. Unless you answer to your own role of authority - Mindfully, skilfully and with the Right Intention - I see things developing in an awkward way.
I didn't mean for this to turn into a parenting column, or an examination of misecmisc's family dynamics. Sorry, OP. But the problems you mention seem to boil down to the fact that you and your wife aren't on the same page re: disciplining your daughter. Parents need to present a united front. I can only assume you've talked to your wife about this, or tried to, and haven't been able to persuade her. If that's the case, you have my sympathy. I didn't mean to open a can of worms.
@Dakini, I think there is a general interconnectedness with regard to everything that is going on... It's all a bit of a Domino effect... As I personally see and perceive it (and of course, I may well be entirely incorrect, this IS merely supposition) I think @misecmisc1 is actually trying to spin plates, and is feeling the strain to the extent that he believes he is failing at all tasks....
I think although things have rather veered off at a tangent, it's all grist to the mill, and we ARE trying to help....
Always remember, @misecmisc1: wisdom, morality and meditation.
Read and study to develop wisdom, lead an ethical life, and incorporate meditation and awareness into your everyday life.
It's an interactive plan in progress. Tackle what the need of the moment demands.
Astute observation re: the italicized. You could be right. Thanks.
If I remember right, the OP is in another culture (India maybe?) where different parenting expectations seem to apply and it's much harder to institute things that we often use. Also, he travels for work and if I recall that presents challenges as there isn't consistency.
@misecmisc1 Just because someone insists you are doing everything wrong doesn't make them your teacher. It doesn't mean you should strive to meet their expectations. People being our teachers (and they are everywhere) is more about accepting our weaknesses and learning how to work with them in our lives. Not about meeting the expectations of others. It's about learning better ways to react and work within situations, and with the other people in those situations. Just because someone demands something doesn't mean we are failing if we don't meet it. But we might need to examine how we react when they are demanding. Just one example.
ANYHOW. For myself, I find that when my meditation practice is there the other things (virtue and so on) come into my life more naturally. I focus more on how I react with my family and how meditation helps that, than I do specifically working on particular virtues. Without looking it up, I couldn't tell you what all the virtues and defilements even are, lol. But I know I still struggle with them. Studying to know what they are doesn't help me much. Meditation does. And yoga.
@karasti, I'm not sure if your second paragraph was directed at my contributions, and I take your point. However, I wasn't implying he was doing something wrong; people do what works.
But I was merely presenting the consideration that perhaps it's a case of reviewing methods to get better results...
No offence was intended....
My plan, for this moment, is to rise above it all!
Was responding to a post on another site about how to deal with computer frustration that turns into so many other frustrations and shared how I find humour helps me in most situations. But there are some I simply could not find humour in. I went on to recall how my mother used to tell me to toughen up. I'm not one who can do this. So I found a different way - a way that leads to "peeling the onion", getting beneath layers of delusion one at a time. It came into my mind that there might be a seed of humour in that. But to get seeds, flowers are necessary. So I searched on images of flowering onions and found these:
Reckon I can rise above anything with a face like that!
@federica no, no not at all
I was referring to his first comment where he said no matter what he does, his wife always points out what he does wrong and how he doesn't do anything perfectly and he was saying he is glad she is his teacher. It just seemed to me perhaps he was seeing that from a bit of a skewed point of view.
Meditation
Mindfulness
Compassion
I am a simple sort.
I noticed that, and wondered if he was being sarcastic. There seemed to be a note of frustration to it.
Ok, thanks, @karasti....I see what you mean now.
@Dakini , I think there's a great deal of frustration in his comments, purely from my perspective, yes.
Basically, I'm reading "I can't do anything right (wife, daughter, meditating) so can anyone give me some options or things I CAN get my teeth into AND be successful at, because whatever I do, isn't working."
I think, in a nutshell, although it's difficult to have any direct, immediate influence, the OP is simply just trying TOO hard to be all perfect things to all people - and it's an impossible task.
I dare say The Buddha really got up some peoples' noses, and put some peoples' backs up and noses out of joint (funny how so many psychological states have physical descriptions!) but he must really have pissed some people off with what may have sounded like self-righteous, inflexible, patronising advice.
But of course, very often when someone wise and all-knowing gives advice, to the ears of those who may perhaps like some sympathy, or validation, such comments seem callous and uncaring.
The first thought may be "Well thanks a bunch for being so understanding! You just don't get how bad this makes me feel!" But of course, on later reflection, and having time to think about it, we may see that this wise and all-knowing person has a point; and that the only thing obscuring our eyes is our longing to be right, understood, appreciated and loved.
Basic human needs, we would like to have answered.
The crux of all this is that, I sense that @misecmisc1 my have deeper needs and turbulent feelings that he may not be having validated, respected and responded to.
Or else, I may just have wasted 10 minutes of everyone's time, fuffing in the breeze, and may be completely off bat.....