Cope with.....

In counselling and therapy very often psychotherapists try to help us coping with stress, with difficult situations, with other problems.
But when we think longer about the verb cope, we have to assume that coping with a problem mean to tolerate it, learn how to deal with it, and not to SOLVE it.
When you cope with problem, on the assumption that the problematic situation is unchangeble and unsoluble, so from the very beginning use loose, you defeat, you don't win.
When we have a problem, we want to solve it. We don't want to tolerate it all our life.
All course, there are situations which are unchangeble, when we can't modify past and change it. For example, the death of someone close. We can't change it, we can't solve "the problem", because there isn't any. Only what we can do, is to change our attitute, our approach to whole situation. We can learn how to cope with our emotions, how to transform them is something positive.
How do you solve the problems and how do you cope with some stressful situations?
In San Diego I know one very good Istitute, where you CAN SOLVE your problems in 10 sessions. Chad Hybarger use brief strategic approach in his Family Therapy Institute in El Cajon (California).
In Italy there are many good private practices with the General Center in Arezzo (Toscany) - Centro di Terapia Strategica.

Meditation

Sogyal Rinpoche said: " When I teach meditation, I often begin by saying:

Bring your mind home. And release. And relax.

Quietly sitting, body still, speech silent, mind at peace, let thoughts and emotions, whatever rise, come and go, without clinging to anything.(...) Imagine a man who comes home after a long, hard day's work in the fields, and sinks into his favorite chair in front of the fire. He has been working all day and he knows that he has achieves what he wanted to achieve; there is nothing more to worry about, nothing left unaccomplished, and he can let go completely of all his cares and concerns, content, simply, to be.

• create the right inner environment of the mind.
• don't question or doubt whether you are in the "correct" state of not.There is no effort, only rich understanding, wakefullness, and unshakable certainty.
• meditation is not something that you can "do", it is something that has to happen spontaneously, only when we have perfected the practice of meditation

The Posture
There is a connection between the posture of the body and the attitude of the mind. Mind and body are interrelated, and meditation arises naturally once your posture and attitude are inspired.

Sit, then, as if you were a mountain, with all the unshakable, steadfast majesty of the mountain. A mountain is completely natural and at ease with itself, however strong the winds that batter it, however thick the dark clouds that swirl around its picks. Sitting like a mountain, let your mind rise and fly and soar.
Keep your back straight, like an arrow, so the prana - the inner energy will flow easily through the subtle channels of the body, and your mind will find its true state of rest.

Part 1. (Fragment from Chapter V-"The Tibetan Book of living and Dying".

Reflections about life and death

I would like to share with You my thoughts related to "The Tibetan Book of Living And Dying".
I focus my attention on some important for me elements and stories, that are part of life.

The birth of the man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable og living in the present. CHUANG TZU

Let's Sogyal Rinpoche speaks.

Most of us do live like that - we become unconscious, living corpses. We live according to a preordained plan. We spend our youth bein educated. Then we find a job, and meet someone, marry, and have children. We buy a haouse, try to make a succes of our business, aim for dreams like a country house or a second car. We go away on holiday with our friends. We plan for retirement. The biggest dilemmas some of us ever have to face are where to take our next holiday or whom to invite at Christmas. Our lives are monotonous, petty, and repetivive, wasted in the pursuit of the trivial, because we seem to know of nothing better. (...) We smother our secret fears of impermanence by surrounding ourselves with more and more goods, more and more things, more and more comforts, only to find ourselves their slaves. All our time and energy is exhausted simply maintaining them. Our only aim in life soon becomes to keep everything as safe and secure as possible. When changes do happen, we find the quickest remedy, some slick and temporary solution. And so our lives drift on, unless a serious illness or disaster shakes us out of our stupor. (...) Think of those people who work for years and then have to retire, only to find that they don't know what to do with themselves, as they age and approach death. [page 17-18]

Everything the Rinpoche is saying, seems so well known to me.

Tibetan Buddhism

During my six month residence in San Diego I met people from RIGPA - the group who study Tibetan Buddhism. I've never had opportunity to know it better. I also thought that being catholic I should not to practice or try to understand others religions. But buddhism philosophy doesn't force you to leave own religion to switch to another. It makes me calm and peaceful. I really find it interesting and inspiring. "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche is the first position on my list of books to read.