The Greatest Wealth is Mental Health: A self-development journey

After my meditation I found this great Tibetan cuisine restaurant!! I was so excited to try a new style of food and spices. This restaurant has a deceiving outer appearance but inside it is so colourful and full of prayer flags! This place also has been on the Canadian food network show “You Gotta Eat Here” and finally it won “Best Asian Cuisine” in Canada in 2014. 

Here is a sample of the menu... 

It was also nice to see in the restaurant, they had a shrine of the Dalai Lama and the decor was very authentic. It made me feel like I travelled to a traditional tibetan kitchen.  

This place also served lots of Tibetan curries! I tried the pork one and it was sooooooooooooooo tasty! It had a bit of heat but so much flavour!

As my project is coming to an end my Buddhist self development journey has just begun! One of my objectives for this project was to participate in a formal meditation class at a Buddhist Centre. When in Victoria I scoped out a centre that was well known by most people in the area community. I was excited and nervous to try a class because I wanted something more structured than my own home meditations but was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. 

Below is a picture of me waiting for the centre to open for their daily 30 minute lunchtime meditation. 

Once I got in the hosts were so friendly and calm. They made me feel less anxious as the end of year festivities and last minute school assignments have made me a tad stressed. There was a choice of sitting on the floor or in a chair. I chose a chair in the second row. There was a leader that would guide the public through the meditation. The meditation began with reducing tension throughout all parts of the body. Relaxing our muscles. Then the leader told us to think about a bright light when we breathed in. This light symbolized peace and the light we wish to see in ourselves. When we were to breathe out, we were told to imagine a dark smoke. This smoke represented any negative emotions we had, leaving our body. 

Finally, we ended with a 10 minute silent meditation. We were to focus on our breathing and the images of the light and the smoke. When the meditation was over the leader guided us out of the meditation. 

This was a really cool experience because I had been able to keep my mind completely focussed on the images I was imagining while my whole body fell completely asleep. My arms, hands, legs, and feet could not move they were so relaxed. After the meditation, I felt very calm, a sense of peacefulness, and a feeling of safety. Safety, in the sense, that I was completely in control of how I was going to feel for the rest of the day. The sun was shining that day and I truly felt so appreciative for the light and warmth of the sun. 

My perspective changed after that experience. This is why I plan to attend a few of the lunchtime meditations every couple weeks to keep me on track. In addition to challenge me on my meditation time. This is because at home I only meditate for a max of 10 minutes at a time. If I am being honest, after not meditating for a couple days now, I can feel heaviness in my chest and stress of little things building. This shows me how important meditation is for me now. 

I encourage everyone to give a meditation class a try! :)

This novel is written in the voice of James Doty throughout the adventures and lessons he experienced in his life. It begins at the time when he was a child living in a poor household with a mother that had mental illness and a father with drinking problems. James escaped during his days in summer to a magic shop where he learns the greatest magic of all... gratitude and compassion. A woman teaches Doty to relax his mind and body, to breath, to visualize, to open his heart, and to be mindful. If he does all these things he can recieve anything he wants. 

Over the last few months I have been attending a 12 week yoga course. The course ran once a week for 2 hours each week. 

My understanding of yoga has transformed over the course the last few months. Before the 12 weeks began I thought yoga was a great form of exercise and that yoga made a person flexible. There is so much more to yoga. My understanding of yoga now is that it serves as a bridge for the mind and body. Yoga compliments our spirituality and disciplines the mind to focus on the body’s position during poses and breathing. Yoga focuses on the alignment of the joints and the movements of the muscles. Yoga increases blood flow throughout the body. In addition yoga can also increases one’s connectedness to the self and world around them. After the 12 weeks I felt more connected to myself and aware of how my body felt. Yoga can also serve as a form of meditation because it requires concentration and regulation of the breath. Many people I know complain of tension in their bodies and anxiety in their  pressure in their chest. Yoga can help and be an outlet to become connected with those feelings and channel it through poses that release tension. 

Yoga has made me feel stronger. Holding all of these poses, for me, serve as power poses. I am focussed the whole time during my practice. This makes me forget about everything else that is going on in my life and I can truly be present. Very grateful for this experience. 

So I have meditated everyday for over 50 days now. Before my self-development journey I took a self assessment of my happiness, stress, and anxiety. I did not calculate my score in the beginning because I didn’t want to be persuaded in anyway by the results. I journaled everyday after my meditations to see if there were any changes in my perspective or attitude. I noticed my comments towards myself were more self-compassionate. After the 50 or so days I took another self-assessment. I then calculated the results from the before self-assessment and after. I knew mindfulness would help with my negative emotions but it was amazing to see the hard evidence. 

My stress level went from a score of 25 to 7! (Moderately stress to low stress)

My anxiety went from a score of 21 to 8! (Very anxious to low anxiety)

And my happiness level score went from 3.8 to 5.6! (Average feeling towards life to very happy and content) (Each emotion had its own scoring scale)  Unfortunately life gets busy and I was unable to meditate for 3 days... I quickly noticed how my thoughts and tendencies began to change to more tense and negative ones. I realized after those 3 days that meditation is a very useful tool for me as it impacts my character daily.

I was chatting with my grandfather who himself, is a buddhist. He was so proud of the personal work I have been doing on this journey that he pulled out some old posters he got a long time ago from Lasa, Tibet when he went travelling over 20 years ago. I felt a tremendous amount of honour rush over me. WOW. My grandfather displayed a great example of letting go of attachments. These posters meant alot to him but he knew giving them to me would inspire me. I will cherish these posters and use them as motivation to continuing practicing the buddhist principles. 

To add to my meditation I have prayer flags, a buddha statue, prayer bells, and beads. The two bracelets I try to wear everyday. This is because wearing them reminds me of my practice. 

I was gifted a new candle that represents “protection”. In the candle there is tibetan quartz, which is known for its protective and healing properties. It cleanses and purifies negative emotions.

We often get stuck in our ways... whether its getting worked up over someone cutting us off in traffic or dwelling over what a person said to us at work. Why do we do this? I asked myself this same question. 

I realized that I didn’t have an answer. I guess it was because I couldn’t control my emotions. 

Buddha says we learn the most from people we consider our enemies. However, these are the people who teach us patience, tolerance, and an ability to look past a person’s flaws and accept them for everything they are. WOW. How much easier life would be if we accepted some flaws in people...within reason of course. We often focus on what a person doesn’t bring to our life but how about we focus more on what they do bring to it? I love the picture and quote below because it really speaks volumes to the fact that if we forgive others we don’t have to do it for them. We should do it for ourselves. Because then the negative emotions we foster against them, diminishes. When we let go, we make room for better things to enter our hearts. 

As I drove of the driveway lined with giant red prayer flags I was immediately overcome with a feeling of peacefulness. 

It was such a beautiful day and the energy surrounding the temple was calming. I walked around to all the different Buddhas in the garden. As I walked and took in all the sights I couldn't decide if I was in a meditative state or a state of true happiness. 

Around the temple there were prayer wheels. When a person spins the wheel, whatever prayer in printed on the wheel will go out into the universe. I took a moment and paid respects to these wheels as I spun one for a couple moments and closed my eyes. 

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the temple. So I pulled one from their website.

There is no one word that describes how I felt stepping into the sacred temple. It was decorated with buddhas in gold, flags all over, offerings from people, and flowers. The energy inside was safe, calm, peaceful, accepting. It felt as if nothing mattered once I stepped inside. Just in “awe” of the beauty. Before leaving I was able to light a prayer candle.  

This novel was a long read for me because every sentence serves the reader with great knowledge, teachings and meaning. I couldn’t just skim some pages, I fully immersed myself into each chapter. I was drawn in to fully understand each concept covered. The novel is based around a psychiatrist ( Dr. Culter) interviewing the Dalai Lama over some time. They covered topics like: - Our right to happiness - Sources of happiness - Training our minds - Our innate wanting for happiness - Intimacy - Deepening our connection to others - Value of compassion - Facing suffering

During the chapter about deepening our connection to others I did a lot of reflecting on my own life. I think in todays society people are on the technology train and live in fast speed. We are always rushing our time away and making more friendships but have less deep meaningful ones. How often do we ask our friends how they are doing or questions about themselves? How often do we listen? Listening is the greatest way to build connection with someone. We need to realize the whole conversation should not be about ourselves. It is difficult as we have been brought up in a selfish society. This chapter has made me more aware of my relationships with others and has encouraged me to listen more. 

The intimacy chapter was very truthful. It mentioned about how all human beings are constantly changing. When we meet a partner we are infatuated with the feeling they give us in the beginning. Then wonder why a few years later why feelings have changed. Usually for the most part it is because we have held on to the wonderful feeling from the beginning of the relationship. Which is unrealistic. We must accept change. Accept the impermanence of life. If we can accept people changing and grow with them this will increase our feelings of intimacy and loyalty with them. 

In conclusion, this novel gave me great insight into the paths of happiness we all need to take. The main take away for me, was that material items or great jobs or great experiences are good but, are they still good if we have no one to share them with? The basis of true happiness is our relationship with ourself and the relationships we have with others. In the end, when we are old, material items won’t matter, money won’t matter, acknowledgements won’t matter. The close and deep connections with family and friends is what matters. They are the ones that will be there for us. They are worth our energy. These relationships serve as a long term answer for happiness, longterm gratification. 

The Buddhism philosophy states most if not all suffering is caused from our need to attach ourselves to things, people, clothes, money, etc. Being attached to something is okay if it serves us pure happiness. For example, family. People who support and cherish us are ones worth being attached to because they serve us in a positive way. However, being attached to material items that just create unneeded excess in our lives create suffering because the more things we own the more stress occurs to take care of it all. In addition, being attached to people or friends that treat us poorly causes suffering so it is important to know when to cut ties from people who don’t serve us and cause us stress, anxiety, or negative emotions. 

I wanted to put this to the test. I analyze my social circle of people who treat me with respect and care for me and people who just use me. It lifted a weight off my shoulders when I began to direct my attention to the people that served me in a positive way instead of people who brought me down. I also went through all my clothes... and yes I had a lot... and I purged. I got rid of TWO GARBAGE BAGS full of clothes and a whole basket of shoes. Wow I felt so much better. To have a more simple wardrobe actually made me feel like it doesn’t matter if I have the coolest clothes. What matters is that I am warm, comfortable, and happy! :) 

Still going strong and meditating everyday. I really look forward to the 10 minutes I give myself once a day. My favourite is morning meditation, it just puts me in the right frame of mind for the day. Sometimes I meditate before bed, which makes me super sleepy and ready to snooze. Or I meditate in the middle of doing homework, which helps to reset my scrambled thoughts and bring my worries down. 

Gen-la Kelsang Khyenrab spoke at a recent public talk I attended. He spoke on anxiety, depression, and stress and how we can decrease these sufferings by practicing on training our mind.

He described that our mind is the one thing in the world that we have control over. We will live inside our mind for the rest of our lives so we should strive to make it a peaceful place. Only when our minds are peaceful can we achieve true happiness.

The buddhist monk made great emphasis on external objects as sources of happiness and internal emotions. Buying fancy material items may make us happy but this type of happiness is temporary. When we look inside ourselves and get to know where the root of our anxieties or fears come from then we can achieve a true and longer lasting happiness.

Another part of the public talk focussed on our desires as forms of suffering. For example each person has their favourite binge food! Mine would be popcorn with butter teehee... :) When we desire these food items we fantasize about them and look at the beauty of them. Then we indulge too much and sometimes to the point where we might get sick. Then we look at the food item with disgust and nausea. This has caused us suffering. Having desires to sex, alcohol, food, people, etc. is totally okay as long as we are aware of how much we desire.

The buddhist teacher ended the talk but acknowledging the fact that we cannot just go to this talk and our anxiety will disappear. Practicing mindfulness, tolerance, patience, kindness, generosity, love, and peacefulness takes a long time. Its a matter of changing the way we think.

Overall the talk was very inspiring and insightful. It was great to have the buddhist monk talk about teachings I had already read about. This showed me the information I am taking in is consistent throughout the literature.

During our last night in Hawaii my partner and I took a long beautiful walk along the beach. I had heard there would be a huge Buddha statue at the end of the walk. When we reached the end and the sun was setting we meditated in front of the historic Buddha. I continue to be surprised by how much Buddhist influence there is at the places I travel to and where I live. There are many different types of Buddha statues. The one below is the calming meditating buddha that promotes serenity. 

I also ran into the laughing Buddha teehee... :) He represents prosperity and abundance. 

Morality is a set of principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour. The three aspects of morality in the realm of Buddhism are:  Right Speech -  Avoiding lies and mean or abusive speech.  Right Action - Not taking life, not stealing, not hurting others. Right Livelihood - Rejecting jobs and occupations that conflict with Buddhist ideals. Disciplines that are incorporated: Individual liberation, morality of concern for others, and morality of tantra.

My Morality Process

I have been following the above aspects:

Right Speech: it is always on my mind to be careful of what I am saying to others. I am more aware of my words and how they can affect someone.  Right Action: I am not doing any of the above actions, rather I am making a conscious effort to participate in more selfless acts, such as, doing favours for people if asked. Overall, I am trying to be more compassionate towards other people and practice patience.  Right Livelihood: This aspect can also speak to living ones truth in career. This means, not taking work or participating in events that may hinder my spirits or conflict with my morals or values. I am finishing school and have chosen a career in Registered Massage Therapy. This occupation will allow me to help and heal others and give back to people who have suffered pain. This occupation can also help people who experience emotional suffering and are looking to relax.