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12 Pieces of
Buddhist Wisdom
That Will Transform
Your Life
By Matt Valentine
When I was little, my grandma had this little green Buddha statue.
It wasnt a statue of the original Buddha, but rather a statue of
whats generally considered Maitreya, the future Buddha,
usually represented as a hefty man1 sitting with his robe partly
opened and often with beads around his neck. This particular
statue was a pretty common image, one where his belly protruded
out to reveal his belly button.
My grandma would always tell me, Rub his tummy and youll have
good luck! So naturally, as a kid, I rubbed his tummy every chance
I got. I was supposed to rub his bellybutton specifically, as I
12 Pieces of Buddhist
Wisdom That Will
Transform Your Life
1. Live with compassion
Compassion is one of the most revered qualities in Buddhism and
great compassion is a sign of a highly realized human being.
Compassion doesnt just help the world at large, and it isnt just
about the fact that its the right thing to do. Compassion, and
seeking to understand those around you, can transform your life for
a number of reasons.
First, self-compassion is altogether critical towards finding peace
within yourself. By learning to forgive yourself and accepting that
youre human you can heal deep wounds bring yourself back from
difficult challenges.
Next, we can often be tortured because of the fact that we dont
completely understand why people do certain things.
Compassion is understanding the basic goodness in all people and
then seeking to discover that basic goodness in specific people.
Workbook Exercise:
Think of someone you dont like. This could be someone you hate,
someone you generally dislike, or someone whom youve only
recently had an argument with.
Whoever they are, sit and meditate on this person. To do this, hold
the person in your mind. This of course isnt possible, but youre
holding as much of the person you know, your perception of the
person, within your mind.
Once you have this picture, do these three things:
Workbook Exercise:
Have one mindful conversation every day for the next 7 days.
To do this, when you have a conversation with, say, your best
friend, be fully present for the conversation by putting down your
phone, turning to look them straight in their eye and turning off and
away from any additional potential distractions.
Be fully present for the words theyre speaking and the thoughts
arising in your mind as a result of their words. If you speak during
the conversation, speak carefully and compassionately, staying
mindful of where you stand or sit and the fact that youre right here
in this moment having a conversation with your best friend.
One of the most powerful things we can do to improve our
relationships is simply to be fully present for the other person.
Attention and awareness are your primary tools in both connecting
with and nurturing others. Use them wisely.
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3. Wake up
One of the most powerful points on this list, the power of simply
living in a way that youre fully awake to every moment of your life
pretty much couldnt be exaggerated even if I tried.
Mindfulness, greater awareness, paying attention, whatever you
want to call it- it changes every facet of your life and in every
way. Its as simple as that.
Strive to live fully awake to each moment of your daily life and
overcome your greatest personal struggles, find a great sense of
peace and joy, and realize the greatest lessons life can teach you
as a result of living fully awake to the present moment.
Workbook Exercise:
Mindfulness is the primary tool used in realizing any level of
awakening. This was the foundation of the Buddhas teaching.
Mindfulness can be practiced any time of day and in any situation.
In the beginning, mindfulness is a rather progressive practice.
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4. Live deeply
To live deeply, in a way that you become keenly aware of the
precious nature of life, is to begin down the path of true peace and
happiness.
Why? Because to live in this way is to gradually become aware of
the true nature of the world. This will happen essentially in
sections of the whole, such as realizing your interconnectedness
(you begin to see how everything is connected to everything else)
and impermanence (you begin to see how everything is everchanging, constantly dying only to be reborn in another form).
These realizations are the bread and butter of Buddhism and all
spiritual practice. These sections of the whole are fragments of
the ultimate realization, ways for us to understand that which cant
be fully understood in the traditional sense.
By living in a way that you seek to realize these various qualities of
the ultimate you find greater and greater peace in realizing the
natural way of things. This cultivates in us the ability to savor every
moment of life, to find peace in even the most mundane activities,
as well as the ability to transform your typically negative
experiences into something altogether nourishing and healing.
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Workbook Exercise:
Pick an object, any object. Preferably an object you have near you
and can sit down and look at.
Think about that object deeply, imagining the huge amount of total
work- of manpower, machine power, technology, knowledge, and
time- that it took to bring that object in front of you as it is in that
moment.
Continue further and imagine what that object was before it was
the object. If its a machine imagine all the various pieces which had
to be created, manufactured, and pieced together in order to
create the object in front of you.
Now imagine what allowed that object to come to be, realize that
the object was a very part of the world around you before it took
the form of the machine in front of you. Take this meditation as far
as it will go, eventually arriving at the realization that this object
was once in the soil, in the sky, and in the ocean in a very real and
tangible way.
You can meditate on any object in this way, so go wild! This
meditation can be the source of significant insights which lead to a
great sense of peace, joy, and a reverence for life.
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5. Change yourself,
change the world
Buddhists understand that you can hardly help another before you
help yourself. But this isnt referring to you gaining power or riches
before you can help others, or living in a way that you ignore
others.
This is mostly referring to the fact that because were all
interconnected, by you helping yourself you create an
exponentially positive effect on the rest of the world.
If you want to make an impact on the world, dont falsely convince
yourself that its you or them1. You dont need to drag yourself
through the mud to help those around you. If you do this, youll
greatly hamper your ability to create a positive impact.
At the deepest level of understanding, by making it about you
youre also making it about them because you know theres no
separating you and them.
Take care of yourself and seek to be more than just a help, but an
example of how to live for others to follow and youll create waves
of exponential possibility that inspires others to do the same.
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Workbook Exercise:
This entire workbook is about working on yourself, which in turn
helps others in the ways described above. So take a moment to
meditate on exactly how by changing each of these things you
change the world around you.
By living with compassion, how do you help others?
By connecting with others and nurturing your relationships, how do
you help others?
By waking up and realizing your true nature, how do you help
others?
By living deeply, seeing the interconnected nature of all things and
how what you do affects all things and how what all things do
affects you, how do you help others?
You get the idea, continue to do this for the remaining points in
order to fully realize just how changing your own life will change
the world.
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6. Embrace death
Death is an often taboo topic in Western society. We do everything
we can to not only avoid the subject, but pretend that it doesnt
even exist.
The reality is, this is really unfortunate and in no way helps us lead
better lives. Becoming keenly aware of your own impermanence
and deeply understanding the nature of death with regards to our
interconnectedness are both things which can help us find great
peace.
In Buddhism, students in many sects at one point or another
meditate on the corpse as it were (a practice which is said to have
originated at least as far back as the Buddhas lifetime).
This is literally what it sounds like. They meditate on the image of a
corpse slowing decomposing and imagine that process through to
its end, eventually resulting in a deep and profound realization on
the true nature of death.
That might sound a little intense to you, but the truth is, if you live
youre entire life acting as if youre never going to die or ignoring
your own impermanence then you wont ever be able to find true
peace within yourself.
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Workbook Exercise:
Im not going to ask you to meditate on the image of a corpse, so
dont worry. But I will ask that you meditate on the idea of death
itself.
Imagine youre viewing the events leading up to your own death
and beyond from a third-person perspective, looking down upon
the various events.
Imagine you getting sick, going through treatment, getting worse,
finally passing, your funeral, and then take this as far as it will go. By
that I mean meditate on the idea of being dead itself. Specifically, I
want you to meditate on the idea of going to sleep and never
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Workbook Exercise:
For this exercise, you can do very much the same as we did in #4,
but in this case meditating on a piece of food. I tend to pick whole
foods like fruits and vegetables because theyre easier to visualize.
You can pick whatever youd like though. J
When it comes to food, imagine where the food came from and
what the food was before it sprouted into the fruit, vegetable, or
what it is. Think about where it came from before then and what
made it what it is.
This can be a rather involved exercise, so you might not want to do
it before every meal, but its very beneficial to do regularly.
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Workbook Exercise:
Think about what you do on an everyday basis and how that is a
form of giving:
Work
Home life
Interacting in various ways with friends, family, and strangers
Just being you
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Workbook Exercise:
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Workbook Exercise:
Your mindfulness practice will allow you to notice when youre
succumbing to the three poisons. Keep in mind these three poisons
cover a wide range of topics.
Greed isnt just monetary greed but the general feverish desiring of
things which we so often fall into. Ultimately this means attaching
ourselves to the idea that we need to acquire more in order to cure
ourselves, when in reality this cure is a poison that just continues to
make us suffer. Be mindful of when you desire something,
anything, and simply observe that desire without yet interjecting.
Once youve done so you can see with clarity how that desire is
effecting your thoughts and actions and be able to make a change.
Hatred covers anger, aggression, envy, and the like. Be mindful of
any moment in which you feel dislike for another or get angry and
ask yourself why these feelings have arisen. As always, go deep
here and dont just readily accept to first answer that arises.
Delusion refers to wrong perceptions and is about identifying those
things which keep us from seeing with clarity. Here, you should
begin to become mindful of your opinions about things, particularly
your strong opinions, and simply observe your feelings with
mindfulness. What does how you feel about the topic tell you? This
sense of conflict is a good identifier that you should look more
closely at whatever it is.
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Workbook Exercise:
Become mindful of how you feel while at work and begin
contemplating how you feel about your work in general and how
your work affects the world around you.
Doing so is the foundation of discovering whether you need to
make a change or not. If something makes you feel uncomfortable,
explore the feelings further.
If you discover that your livelihood is less-than preferable, and that
you can and should make a change, do so carefully. Dont jump to
leaving your job or closing your business though, understand that
whats really important here is understanding deeply how what you
do and what your company does affects all living and non-living
beings.
You cant always do something about your position, but you can
become more aware and compassionate and seek to do things to
offset the imbalance.
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Workbook Exercise:
For this exercise, I want you to ask yourself one simple
question: What can I not live without?
And I dont mean what do you need in order to live, the
basic necessities, I mean what are those things you love or like
too much that you could never see being able to give them up
or be without. This is a simple exercise which can help shed
light on some of the attachments you hold.
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Sit
Walk
Stop
Eat
Drive
Arrive
Rest
Love
Communicate
and much more.