Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great

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This is why I do a lot of reading, especially of spiritual books. Meditation is another essential for moving toward enlightenment. And again, meditation, reading, and devoting yourself to your inner peace are all things you have to do every day. (More on this below.) 2. Find joy in menial tasks When the moment arrives, only those who have been training and expecting the day to arrive will be ready to seize the opportunity. And truthfully those people tend to create and attract many of those opportunities to them BECAUSE they’ve been training to their max rather than waiting for their moment.” In the question "A question regarding the level of worldly participation for a buddhist monk", Bhante gave an answer containing a Zen quote.

We encourage you: Take off the training wheels. Focus on true mental toughness. Focus on commitments and controllables, you can’t control the results anyway. Love people. Serve people. Provide value. Burn your goals. Fall in love with the process of becoming great.”

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Consequently, the more time I spend doing these things, the more fulfilled I feel. And, based on conversations I’ve had with others, it seems that these are also the two main things that put most people into a “flow” state. Comparison is the thief of all joy, and the grass isn’t greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it.” Joshua Medcalf Lesson #4: You Don’t Need Goals. You Need A Compelling Mission

I want to become the type of person people love being around because my life inspires them to become everything they are capable of being.” Jess's computer display dies moments before taping, leading to an all-from-memory discussion of great new CA legislation, signs of COVID hope, what's wrong at the USPS, and Vote Forward's new data dump on the Big Send! Your Resistbot codes for this week are: text SIGN PZQZPE to 50409 and text SIGN PAQYGH to 50409. Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” — Zen Kōan The now famous speech by admiral William H. McRaven about making your bed is perhaps one of the best life lessons (via metaphor) that our modern age has seen.

Everything in life is impermanent—even enlightenment is transient. If/when you achieve enlightenment, it’s not like you can say, “Whew! Thank goodness I’m finally enlightened. That was a long journey, but I’m glad I’ve made it to the end.” Zach is the author behind Four Pillar Freedom, a blog that teaches you how to build wealth and gain freedom in life. Although it appears nothing has changed on the outside (doing), everything has changed on the inside (being). Many of us think that once we achieve some future state – enlightenment, financial independence, the top of the mountain, etc. – we will finally be content. But the truth is that none of these destinations will bring lasting contentment.

Actor Jim Carrey once said, “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that’s not the answer.” Mike Posner Alex Ikonn, a fairly well-known YouTuber, once shared in a video that he was able to create a mostly passive online business that gave him and his girlfriend complete freedom over their time, and yet they found that they weren’t happy with a lifestyle that involved sitting around all day with nothing to work on.

Before and after enlightenment, your life may look relatively the same. Before enlightenment, you go about your everyday tasks like brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, and putting the kids to bed. After enlightenment, you still have to do those tasks. Secondly, the original quote is from Layman Pang; from Wikipedia: "Layman Pang (Chinese 龐居士 Páng Jūshì; Japanese Hōkoji) (740–808) was a celebrated lay Buddhist in the Chinese Chán (Zen) tradition. Much like Vimalakīrti, Layman Pang is considered to exemplify the potential for non-monastic Buddhist followers to live an exemplary life and to be fully awakened."

Jess talks about the overlap between politics and spirituality, China’s move away from coal, EPA’s move towards cleaner refrigerants, vaccine equity, good moves by Democratic state legislatures, bad moves by corporate Congressional Democrats, drug prices, and oh wow, Virginia!!Kimberly Holman has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maine and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Naropa University. She is a certified mindfulness teacher who has been practicing mindfulness meditation, centering prayer, and lectio divina since 1996. Kim is a co-founder of Contemplative Light. She is accomplished in various styles of writing; poetic prose tends to be closest to her heart. When you were a student, you probably hated those classes where the teacher droned on and on about something you had to learn. The Life Lesson: Be responsible for what you do, do what works, and keep on doing it. 5. Every Journey Starts with a Step Nowadays, we actually refer to this mental state as the imposter syndrome. A collection of feelings that convince us that despite our past achievements, we’re still not good enough.