Day 10 Breathe Deeply

So yesterday was a bit of a disaster. It would seem that spending the day trying to recognize the intrinsic good in people is largely incompatible with living in London. But regardless of yesterday, I do like agathism in a very general sense. It seems more palatable than pure optimism with it's absolute belief that things are great now... p'haps by acknowledging things aren't great now but they will be 'eventually', no matter how vague an entity 'eventually' - or the future - is, it effectively lessens the impact of the bad, en route. ARGH! Brain ache.

HOWEVER. Needing just a tiny pick me up, I stumbled across the immensely satisfying Akabusi Company. Yes, Kris Akabusi MBE. has rebranded himself as a motivational speaker. This intrigues me in many ways, not least that each time his name appears it is accompanied with MBE. Do you think he has an MBE? Do you? I'm not sure just yet but I'll let you know when I am. Added to which, there is the rather fantastic title 'Ambassador of Now'. This is brilliant. I would like to be Ambassador of Approximately AD 350 please. How did he get first dibs on Now?? Ahhh, Ambassador, how you spoil us with your slightly hysterical disposition and 'buzzwords'.

Made a hasty retreat from the website after reading: 'So come on and invite me to your party so that we can get Jiggy with it!'

Today's ism is: Buddhism

And would you adam'n'eve it (probs not, wrong religion), I stumbled cross this quote which ties in everything from yesterday, Kris MBE, and today:

"Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real"

Intrigued by this quote, I wanted to find out more about the man behind it - Wei Wu Wei (meaning action that is non-action) - and I was NOT expecting this! Wei Wu Wei is in fact Terence James Stannus Gray, born in Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1895. Incredible. Having dabbled in Egyptology (never a good thing for your sanity), the ballet, theatre, and breeding racehorses, Terence upped sticks, traveled around Asia, settled in Monaco and wrote a series of books about Eastern spirituality (drawing mostly from Buddhism and Taoism). I would never wish to cast aspersions as to Terence's state of mind, but his final book was written under the pseudonym O. O. O and consists entirely of a dialogue between an owl and rabbit.

Right, obviously I am not going to even begin to try and squeeze the entire nature and teachings of a 3000 year old religion into one day, so I will focus specifically on meditation. Recent scientific experiments have demonstrated that Buddhists experience more left prefrontal lobe activity (oh sorry! A Science Bit. And this time I'm depriving you of Aniston), something that ol' Doc Davidson of the University of Wisconsin attributes to the ability to tame the amygdala - a part of the brain involved with fear and anger

"Buddhists are not born happy. It is not reasonable to suppose that Tibetan Buddhists are born with a 'happiness gene'. The most reasonable hypothesis is there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek”.

Today is going to be about breathing (I should hope this is a part of everyone's day), clearing my mind of chaos, picking a mantra (?), and meditating.