Mindful life

Hi, welcome back, I hope you enjoyed your weekend. Last year around this time, I was on a phone call with my dad. Honestly, whenever I get a chance to talk to my father, I feel delighted and energized. Actually, my father might be reading this, hi dad :-) In his younger days, my father used to go on adventure trips, and he told me about them in our talks. He described to me when he was in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). He went for a walk along the river and reached the Triveni Sangam. It was early in the morning when he arrived there and apart from his friends no one was there. He decided to take a swim in the holy rivers. He was swimming towards a point where it was becoming dangerous, and he also saw a sign saying the water might be treacherous, don't go any further. You would think that was the sign to turn around and go back, but he decided to carry on anyway. He said that as he continued swimming, he sort of found himself increasingly caught up in thinking. There was a sense of fe...

Hi, my name is Ambuj, Welcome to Mindful life, and it's a beautiful Friday morning. I was looking back a few days ago at one of my favorite books. The author of this book has been called the happiest person in the world. I can as well think of another person who has had that same title, who was on the front page of Time magazine once. They both happened to be Buddhist monks. To be honest, I quite like them going up against each other, smiling to see who can give the biggest smile 😀.  Interestingly, we don't talk a lot about science on this blog, even though I have done my master's in science from a national institute. But there is something interesting to looking at what's happening beyond the mind, perhaps in the brain, in the body as we train the mind. No matter what nature the training takes, whether reflection, contemplation, meditative, learning, etc. Indeed, in these peer-reviewed studies, they have ended up coming out with the ideas of the happiest person or mos...

 Hi, It is a beautiful Thursday morning. I hope you enjoyed it. I have a question for you,  Is it Ever Okay To Lie?  This is the question that recently came up when a close friend asked my opinion about it. Assuming that I would naturally say NO to this question, it is never okay to lie. I am also not advocating it; to be clear,    I am not suggesting it is a good thing :-) Of course, we should always try to lean into the truth. But I feel like it is not always black and white. It is not always relatively so straightforward. I was reminded of a story told to me by my grandfather when I visited my village. I will try to keep it short. He was talking about a man who had had an affair with this lady, and the ladys' husband was chasing after him through the village. And this monk had given him shelter in his small home. This man came to the door and said: " I am looking for this person who had an affair with my wife. If I find him, I am going to kill him." The monk ...

  Hi, Welcome back! In the last two years, during this lockdown and staying at home, I have thought a lot about how to instill a healthy routine? More importantly, how not to fall out of a healthy routine? It is interesting because the focus is on the thing itself very often. For example, you work in the same environment as your fridge, where all that food is. How can I even think about exercising when I am in the same space as I sleep and work? It just doesn't feel right.  It is interesting that we focus on the food, perhaps, or on the exercise rather than  what's going on in our minds.  Let me give you a context around that, so let's say we are thinking about exercising. Now for me trying to get out of my stuff the night before, so I am more likely to use it first thing in the morning. But let's say that the alarm goes off I wake up, I open my eyes, and the thought arises in my mind, "I don't feel like running or working out today." Now, if I took that t...

 Hi! Welcome back. It is Monday morning. I hope you had a good weekend. I traveled in the last month and interacted with people about their work. One of the lovely things a privilege of staying in a national institute is that I chat with many different people. I get to hear from a lot of people. Often about the personal aspects of their life. Yesterday I was talking to someone who had been feeling particularly frustrated and irritable for quite some time. So they asked me how to work with it and how to approach it, and I asked them in turn, What was the cause of the frustration? What was the cause of the anger? And the response back was interesting. They said, "because I feel grumpy, and I don't like feeling grumpy. I am angry that I am grumpy." What is being grumpy is other than frustration and irritability itself? And as we unpacked it, we got to the point of discussing his feeling angry about feeling angry. We do this a lot as human beings. We feel anxious about feelin...