Palden Gyatso is a Tibetan monk who spent years in a Chinese prison enduring torture. He was quoted in Common Boundary magazine as saying:

     “Buddhism teaches that anger is the biggest sin, being patient the hardest virtue. Being able to endure pain without anger, even if someone is beating your arm with a ax –- that is the most difficult thing to do. Anger destroys all ability to be at peace with yourself and with others. If you harm me, it is you who lose. You lose your peace."

What sets your heart free?
Surrender

From a wall plaque a subscriber sent me ten or more years ago.
Unfortunately, I forget who, but it hangs above my desk.

Anger and surrender are major challenges for me. I’m an intense person. I need to constantly work to control my inclination to get angry at people, businesses that disappoint me. I have difficulty, and overreact, to people who don’t care. Particularly if I am dependent on them. The problem is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t care. Way too many to change or fight.

People don’t care because caring makes us vulnerable. Or because caring entails effort. Why bother? Many instead put their energy into figuring out the minimum amount of effort required to get by, and then becomes expert in how to do that.

The other problem, the real problem: after getting angry I think less of myself. For days. I lose self-respect. I lose inner peace.

So much about living a quality life on your own terms is about building internal energy. Hooking into the creative energy flows of the universe. Connecting your positive energy with the positive energy of others so that one plus one equals three. It is about building the energy to create something unique.

I tell myself: “Instead of getting angry, which dissipates your internal energy, your internal momentum, find someone else or another company to deal with. Get quiet. Think your way through rather than talk your way through. Take the negative energy, and hand it over to your subconscious mind and ask it to solve the problem.” Talk about it to the person who has disappointed you only if you can be calm and civil. Be understanding and kind or keep quiet.

You need to surrender to that which you cannot change. If you are going to live on your own terms, you need to ignore a lot of what goes on around you, in the culture. The reason that we have politicians who are dishonest, uncaring, corrupt, narrow-minded, is the fault of we who elect them rather than it is the politicians themselves. We elect politicians who are the kind of people we, or most of us, want running the country. In many ways, our culture is sick. To build a quality life on your own terms you need to ignore that, and live your life, focus your precious time, on the beauty that surrounds, on the things that give you joy. And energy.

A road opened up
I took it
Down some dark stairways into myself
In search of the light inside.

What was supposed to happen, didn't,
And what wasn’t, did.

Find the gentle person inside 
Nurture that.  

Nurture the one who goes with the flow
Flows with the go. 

Approach your work with a receptive humility
Don't think you know what is going on.

You don’t know how things are supposed to be.

     - Journal note. 

I interviewed Balbir Mathur, co-founder with his wife Treva, of Trees For Life, in Montreal. Trees for Life, which is actually based in Wichita, has planted many millions of fruit trees in India, Africa, South America and other developing countries. The trees help small rural communities generate income for schools, clinics and other community services. We met in Montreal because I thought he might enjoy meeting my friend and mentor Frédéric Back, creator of the Oscar-award winning film The Man Who Planted Trees. My thought that was since they were both planters of trees they’d relate and something good for both of them might evolve. A friendship did between these two highly accomplished and creative men.

In the day before our interview, Balbir referred to the help that continually shows up in his work and life. During our interview I asked Balbir about that support -- what he knows about it and where it comes from. He started by explaining that he became disenchanted with religion as a young boy in India. It divides people rather than unites them, he said. Politicians use religious divisions to manipulate people. This is some of our dialogue on these subjects.

Rod: Do you believe there is a God?

Balbir: Who knows?

Rod: Does that mean no? You do not believe there is a God?

Balbir: I cannot answer your question. I am not in theology. I do not understand those concepts. I do not live in those concepts. I do not worry about what others have to say. I have simplified my life to just three principles, which I try to practice. I cannot say I have mastered them. I attempt. I fall, I falter and I attempt, I attempt.

     I call my boat Surrender -- complete surrender to the will of the Greater Power. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude -- complete gratitude for the gift of life.

     I serve. I do the dance I must. I plant trees but I am not the doer of this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument. I am one part of the symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for a certainty that the world would end tomorrow.

Rod: To what do you surrender?

Balbir: The act of surrendering is so important that who you surrender to becomes insignificant. It is the surrender itself that is important. At different times you surrender to different things. Whatever it is, we will enjoy the moment the way it is. Call it God, call it Spirit, call it the love energy, call it by whatever pigeonholes you want -- but you surrender to life as it is, without demanding anything. If life is the master, I am dancer. How ever I can serve, I do serve.  

Rod: But there seems to be a recognition that there is a spiritual force involved somehow.

Balbir: Yes, but those that experience it need no words and for those that cannot, words will do no good. So why talk about it? Describing light to a blind man will not help the blind man. It is frustrating to put it into words -- like trying to put the dance of a butterfly into words. Each dance of a butterfly is totally different. But no one can deny that the dance happens.

You can only describe the beauty you see. People who wish to see it will see it. Trying to convert others is a violent act and denies the beauty of the dance.

. . .

I later traveled to Wichita to spend more time with Balbir. One of the more interesting aspects of my visit to Trees for Life is that they gathered each morning for a short silent meditation. That is an interesting way to bring people together psychically so that the work might move forward in a cohesive way, united.

I think about Balbir’s message almost every day. To surrender to the forces that are beyond understanding, beyond comprehension, is not easy, just as faith is not easy. It is a practice worthy of the gift of life.

The closer we are in touch with the strength of our gifts, the less likely we are drawn to negativity and conflict. 
- Mark Dubois.   

James Redfield From The Celestine Prophecy:

...when we control others we feel better. ...Most people go through their lives in a constant hunt for someone else's energy. Most people...aren't strong enough to keep giving energy. That's why most relationships eventually turn into power struggles. Humans link up energy and then fight over who is going to control it. And the loser always pays the price. . .we humans have been unconsciously competing for the only part of this energy we have been open to: the part that flows between people. This is what human conflict has always been about, at every level: from all the petty conflict in families and employment settings to wars between nations. It's the result of feeling insecure and weak and having to steal someone else's energy to feel okay. . . Understanding the Fourth Insight is a matter of seeing the human world as a vast competition for energy and thus for power.

Then, Redfield says rather than compete with people for the energy that flows between us, focus on hooking into the energy of the universe.

I don't know Who ‑ or what ‑ put the question, I don't even know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone ‑ or something ‑ and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self‑surrender, had a goal.
- Dag Hammarskjold

. . .

This is a rough first draft of a chapter in my upcoming book, “The 45 Laws of Living Life On Your Own Terms.”