AVOID TAILGATING!

Tailgating or following too closely is one of the ten worst habits of drivers who consider themselves competent. Dr. D. Shanra writes in East and West Series on how to avoid this habit.

• BY following the two second rule, you can create a safety zone between yourself and the vehicle you are following. As the car in front passes a stationary object, count one thousand and one, one thousand and two. If you pass that object before you finish the count, you are too close.

• In bad weather, extend the rule to four seconds

• Always use the 12 second visual lead time. The defensive driver should always scan the road ahead for any potential hazards as far as the point the car will reach in 12 seconds.

Source: Dhirendra Sharma
East and West Series, 2001

Maintaining Peace After Losing Your Job

One of the most stressful events in life is the loss of capacity to support one’s self and one’s love ones. Ernie O. Cecilia gives 5 suggestions on how to keep a peaceful disposition when you lose your job.

1. 1. Accept reality. Many spend more time and energy getting angry than in preparing for a new life. Realize that your dependency on a fixed income is over and that you have to tend for yourself.

2. Take stock of what you have. Do a serious assessment of your assets and liabilities, financial and otherwise. Can you ask your bank to refinance your house and use your separation pay to start a new small family business?

3. Go back to your old dreams. Recall what you really wanted to do in life and see what you can make money out of your passion. What makes you happy? Most successful people are those who are happy with what they do. You might even make more money with a hobby that makes you happy than with the job you lost.

4. Check your network. See if you have friends who can refinance, refer or even join you in a business. Start with looking for a need and filling it, and use your connections to jumpstart your efforts. Your first client might even be your former boss.

5. Organize, then mobilize. If you want to be in business during the lull between jobs, organize yourself, your time and your resources. There is nothing wrong with using other people’s brains. Get friends who are similarly situated to join you. Organize and form a team before someone else takes advantage of an opportunity.

Retrenchment is not the end of the road. Rather see it as an opportunity rather and a problem.

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All of us, by the choices we make, help to determine the world of the present and the future.
Our choices therefore have endless consequences.
The book of Proverbs says that we think, so are we.
Because we are the world, as we think, so will the world be.

- ANNIE BESANT
2^nd President of the Theosophical Society

RECITING MANTRAS

Zen Masters are famous for assigning their students to meditate on a kind of insoluble mind puzzle known as koan. Though it seems on the surface to be quite different, the recitation of mantra, a verbal formula associated with some aspect of universal Buddha-mind, a practice common in esoteric Buddhism, serves a similar purpose. The literal meaning of a mantra is less important than the way it acts as a channel opening us to our inherent Buddha-nature. The same is true of a koan, whose meaning or answer is obscure at best. Both techniques serve to shut down the discursive mind with its negative emotions and thoughts so that the radiance can be revealed.

The most basic mantra Is the letter sound “A” (pronounced “Ah”) which Buddhist masters have taught is a manifestation of the “unborn nature of phenomena” – in other words, Enlightenment itself. The way to use this mantra in meditation practice is quite simple. After settling yourself comfortably in meditation posture, focus on your breathing for a short time by counting the cycles of inhalation and exhalation as you have learned. Then quietly intone the sound “Ah” to yourself excluding all other thoughts from your mind. If you shut your eyes while you are doing this, you can also try to visualize the essence of this sound in the form of a radiant bead of white light within your mind. As you become more familiar with this technique, you can stop reciting the “Ah” sound aloud and just let its sound reverberate within you mind while maintain the image of a brilliantly shining white bead of light. Though simple, this technique is very powerful. For this reason, I recommend that you consult a reliable teacher if you want to progress further using this method as it can cause undesirable effects on the unwary.

When we meditate for a long time at a stretch, we tend to get tired, and our minds wander easily. Later, Zen Masters devised various ways of dealing with such obstacles, such as alternating periods of sitting with periods of walking meditation. People engaged in the practice of esoteric Buddhism as just as likely to grow tired and careless when they meditate for a long time. Traditionally, they refresh and invigorate themselves using a different method, reciting mantras without any accompanying visualization. You might try using a mantra in this way. The mantra I suggest is the one included in the famous Heart Sutra, a text that speaks in koan-like terms about the world.

Here is what you do: When you notice that your meditative concentration has begun to wane, open your eyes and relax a little, perhaps unfolding your legs and resting your hands on your knees. Then begin to recite the mantra aloud. If you have a set of counting beads, you can use these to keep a tally of how many times you have repeated the mantra. I suggest a minimum of 108 times, which is one round the most string of counting beads.

Source: Stephen Hodge, Zen:
Master Class: A Course in Zen
Wisdom from Traditional Masters.
Copyright

In order to overcome our tendency to overcome others’ needs and rights,
We must continually remind ourselves of what is obvious:
That all of us are the same.
= DALAI LAMA =