He said: “try not, do or do not”. Luke was ‘trying’ to lift his aircraft using his Jedi powers, and he failed.

If you are a NLP Practitioner, you know about the power of words.

The words ‘try’ and ‘do’ have an neurological effect to the brain and to some micro-muscles in our body that impact your performance when you do anything.

But There’s More to It Spiritually

When I “try” to make a mental action or verbal action or physical action, the mind doesn’t believe (or have confidence) that what I am about to do is going to work.

When I “do” and make mental action or verbal action or physical action, the mind isn’t concerned about belief but rather concentrates on what I am about to do in the present moment.

No belief makes you a skeptic. Skeptical about:

1. Yourself
2. Your method (or the mechanics of it)
3. The ones who gave this method

When you have skepticism, your mind can’t concentrate.

When you can’t concentrate, you can’t focus.

When you can’t focus, then you’re out of balance.

When you’re out of balance, then you can’t stand on your own two feet.

When you can’t stand on your own two feet then you fall.

The power of words is just one domain to enter into your heart and soul. The essential core of your being is to get rid of skepticism and gain concentration.

Rather than say to yourself that “I can do it”, or “I will do my best”, try to get rid of skepticism and gain full concentration of your mind in the moment. And then you can do your best at your best performance without even trying.

Skepticism is your foe, drive away from it.

Concentration is your friend, stick with it.

How? By meditation. Close your eyes right now, and stay with the moment by observe your breath for 5 minutes. Then continue to surf with the power of concentration.

‘Try’ or ‘do’ doesn’t matter now when you have the power of concentration.

Close your eyes and do it now

Editor’s Note: I’ve cleaned up some of Paiboon’s text and added a clip of the famous Yoda scene to help refresh your memory

In fact, to me monkhood is nothing much, it’s just wearing a different uniform, from Dockers’ pants to saffron robes, or like working in a different firm.

What’s more, being a monk is what’s made an individual like me change.

And l don’t feel inadequate or contempt or inferior. I only feel happy.

The answer actually boils down into just one sentence.

I just ‘let it go’.

When I let go, I feel lighter. When I feel lighter, I feel happier.

Look at this mathematic function [y = 1/x]

When ‘x’ is less, ‘y’ is more.

When ‘x’ is a lot lesser, ‘y’ is even much, much more – exponentially more.

‘y’ = happiness, ‘x’ = the attachment I have.

Why is that so? That’s how the game works; it is the law of nature. When you let go of something from your hand, obviously you feel lighter. No doubt about it, right?

Why Can’t I Let Go?

Let it go…but how?

You know yourself that sometimes you have to let go of certain things in your life to make your life happier each day, but somehow it doesn’t work.

“Why can’t I forget him after so many years of relationships” or “Ahhh…This person makes me so frustrated!” or “Oh…they have it? I also have to have it.”

Letting go sounds easy but why can’t we do it sometimes? You know why? It’s a law of cause and effect.

You can’t let go by just letting-go. You have to produce enough cause for ‘letting go’ to happen.

What causes the ‘let-go’ effect? That’s a question we shall address today.

The Path

The answer is ‘The Path’. When I step on this path, the ‘letting-go’ effect begins to take shape and I become lighter. When I become lighter, I feel freedom. When I feel freedom then I feel relaxed. When I feel relaxed, then I become tranquil. When I’m suffused with tranquility, then I experience equanimity from within. And this is the process of happiness.

What is The Path? It consist of 8 elements.

1. Right Understanding

You have to understand what the problem is, and what isn’t. When you realize what the problem is then you can solve it.

2. Right Thought

Those negative thoughts are harmful. Get rid of them.

3. Right Speech

When you have positive thoughts then you can speak positively. In fact, speaking positively can also influence positive thought and vice-versa.

4. Right Physical Action

It doesn’t mean to take action towards your goal, it means to act positively. When you think positive, say positive things, then of course you can act positively.

5. Right Livelihood

When your ‘thoughts’, ‘speech’ and ‘action’ are right, then you have to put it into your life. Living by doing it all the time. Live by it.

6. Right Effort

In doing all these, you have to put in your effort. A kite needs to go against the wind to be able to go up. Whenever obstacles put you into the negative domain, you have to use your effort to push it back.

7. Right Mindfulness

Be careful, sometimes negativity comes. So you have to be mindful. Guard all your senses by being mindful of what enters your mind.

8. Right Meditation

It is a balance of the mind. It the state of mind where you can gain inside happiness and use this power to ‘let-go’.

I hope you can start to hop on The Path and experience more inner peace, by letting go of some of the things that have been bothering you right now.

Be well.

P.S. Alvin mentioned about Living The Important, that’s an exact example of how we use our path to be happier and make the most out of our life.

Edit from Alvin: I’ve made some changes to the grammar and helped Paiboon create a table.

Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraodinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammer tweaking is mine

The death of a friend or of a loved one changes our life forever. Even the deaths of those we don’t know, such as the thousands who died in the Tsunami at the end of last year, alters the way we think. Death is a fact of life and, when understood, teaches us how to care.

Many years ago in Thailand, my teacher, Ajahn Chah, raised his ceramic mug.

“See this!”, he told us, “It has got a crack in it.”

The monks looked closely at the cup but could see no crack.

“The crack is invisible now”, Ajahn Chah continued, “but it is there. One day someone will drop this mug and the crack will appear and split my cup apart. That is its destiny.”

“But if my mug were made out of plastic”, explained the teacher, “then it would have no invisible crack. You could drop it, knock it or kick it, and it wouldn’t break. If it were plastic and unbreakable, then you could be heedless. But because my mug is fragile, for that reason you must take care!”

“In the same way”, Ajahn Chah began to emphasize, “your body has a crack in it. The crack is invisible now, but it is there. it is called your future death. One day there will be an accident, a disease of old age, the ‘crack’ will appear and you will die. That is your destiny.”

“But if your life lasted forever”, Ajahn Chah concluded, “if your body were unbreakable like a plastic mug, then you could be heedless. So it is because our life is fragile, because we know that we will die, that is the reason why we must care!”

Understanding death teaches us to care, for ourselves and all other beings.

Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraodinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine

It is said that there are three rings to a marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffer-ring!

So trouble is to be expected. When there is trouble, it needs to be solved for the smoothness of the marriage. The following stories will illuminate how to keep the marriage couple out of trouble for as long possible.

Commitment

My view of relationship and marriage is this: when the couple is going out, they are merely involved; when they become engaged, they are still only involved, maybe more deeply; when they publicly exchange vows, that is commitment.

The meaning of the marriage ceremony is the commitment. During a ceremony, to drive home the meaning in a way people usually remember for the rest of their lives, I explain that the difference between involvement and commitment is the same as the difference between bacon and eggs.

At this point, the in-laws and friends start to pay attention. They begin to wonder, ‘What has bacon and eggs got to do with marriage?’ I continue.

‘With bacon and eggs, the chicken is only involved, but the pig is committed, let this be a pig marriage’.

The Chicken And The Duck

When we have harmony then we can have that level of success. It’s the ego itself which gets in the way. I’m best, I’m right, everybody is wrong. In marriage, why do we have those arguments?

Afterwards, when you have those arguments, if you can actually ask that person, your wife, your husband, they both feel terrible. It’s foolish to have an argument with someone you love, you feel that inside but they can’t stop themselves but can they?

Since I became a celibate monk, I have married many women. Hang on! I don’t mean I personally marry with women! Part of my job as a Buddhist monk is to perform the religious part of Buddhist marriage ceremonies.

According to my tradition of Buddhism, a lay Buddhist is the official marriage celebrant, but many of the couples regard me as the one who married them. I have married many women and many men as well.

When there is a marriage, I take that marriage out of self interest as much as anything else. I don’t want those married people to come to me afterwards and bother me with their problems.

This is a beautiful story on harmony. This was a favorite story of my teacher; Ajahn Chah.

A newly married couple went for a walk together in the woods, one fine summer’s evening after dinner. They were having such a wonderful time being together until they heard a sound in the distance: ‘Quack! Quack!’

‘Listen’, said the wife, ‘That must be a chicken.’

‘No, no. That was a duck,’ said husband.

‘No, I’m sure that was a chicken,’ she said.

‘Impossible. Chickens go “Cock-a-doodle-doo”, ducks go “Quack! Quack!” That’s a duck, darling,’ he said, with the first signs of irritation.

‘Quack! Quack!’ it went again.

‘See! it’s a duck,’ he said.

‘No dear. That’s a chicken. I’m positive,’ she asserted, digging in her heels.

‘Listen wife! That…is…a…duck. D-U-C-K, duck! Got it?’ he said angrily.

‘But it’s a chicken,’ she protested.

‘It’s a blooming duck, you you…’

And it went ‘Quack! Quack!’ again before he said something he oughtn’t.

The wife was almost in tears. ‘But it’s a chicken.’

The husband saw the tears welling up in his wife’s eyes and, at last, remembered why he had married her. His face softened and he said gently, ‘Sorry, darling. I think you must be right. That is a chicken.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ she said and she squeezed his hand.

‘Quack! Quack!’ came the sound through the woods, as they continued their walk together in love.

The point of the story that the husband finally awakened to was, who cares whether it is a chicken or a duck? What was much more important was their harmony together, that they could enjoy their walk on such a fine summer’s evening. How many marriages are broken up over unimportant matters?

When we understand this story, we will remember our priorities. The marriage is more important than being right about whether it is a chicken or a duck. Anyway, how much times have we been absolutely, certainly and positively convinced we were right, only to find out we were wrong later? Who knows? That could have been a genetically modified chicken made to sound like a duck!

Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraodinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammer tweaking is mine

If you find one thing boring,

You’ll find everything boring.

Dogen, “Guidelines for Studying the Way”

Boredom lies in our character, not in the world. “If you’re bored,” I’ve heard it said “you’re boring”. Think about this.

When you’re bored, you tend to bore others. Conversely, when you’re bored, it is because you are boring: you are the one who engages in the act of boring. It’s not the world that is boring you; it is you who are boring the world. This is the Buddha’s meaning.

So, when you are boring, stop doing it. Look inside and ask yourself, “Why am I draining the life from this moment?” Answering this question restores you and the world to life. Boredom becomes impossible.

Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraodinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammer tweaking is mine

What Would Buddha Do When A Loved One Dies?

Not through weeping and grief do we obtain peace of mind. We increase misery; we increase misery; we harm our bodies. We become thin and pale, destroying ourselves by our own power:

Sutta Nipata 584

There are times when we must weep if we are to remain human, when our feelings demand expression, whether that expression brings embarrassment or tears to those who watch. Buddha knew this; this is not what he counsels against here. When a life ends we do need to mourn. But once we have faced and expressed our grief, we have to let it go.

This is the rub, because we hold on to grief. We hold on to it as held on to the one whose loss prompts the grief. This holding drains us and prevents our directing that energy towards someone new. We remain attached to those we love.

How he longs for permanence! But he won’t find any; nor will we. Yet if his tears will not bring back his child, may be his verse will return him and us to an awareness of how things really are. His grief, even this will pass away.