How to live a full life - Tips?

[MooNiNite]

Sharing experiences and lessons learned with the goal of assisting each other experience a full life. 

 

 

 

 

[MooNiNite]

For me the most fulfilling lesson I have learned was from Liao Fan who teaches individuals to correct their faults each day. Through this they achieve a balance with nature and create the environment necessary to cultivate higher levels of concentration. 

 

His teaching being primarily that of letting go of worldly desires. Contrary from what I originally thought, this does not mean running into the jungle, but instead the opposite. Just meaning not letting things get in the way of handling one's responsibilities. The cultivation of silence and fearlessness. 

[Daeluin]

Act without acting

Give without giving

Taste without tasting

Tao alone becomes all things great and all things small

It is the One in many

It is the many in One

Let Tao become all your actions then your wants will become your treasure your injury will become your blessing

Take on difficulties while they are still easy

Do great things while they are still small

Step by step the world’s burden is lifted

Piece by piece the world’s treasure is amassed

So the Sage stays with his daily task and accomplishes the greatest thing

Beware of those who promise a quick and easy way for much ease brings many difficulties

Follow your path to the end

Accept difficulty as an opportunity

This is the sure way to end up with no difficulties at all

 

daodejing 63

Jonathan Star

 

 

When we focus on what is invisible, everything else emerges. When we embrace what is right in front of us, we take tiny steps, yet are ever moving forward to surmount giant obstacles. Thus goals are accomplished without ever seeing them as goals, and thus fullness comes without ever looking for it.

[Bud Jetsun]

The body is a fleetingly temporary loan of energy.  It's function is to enable some sensation/perception experiences to aid self-realization.

 

There is no-thing to know, and the mind is incapable of knowing more than it's own fabricated artifacts of perception limitations. 

 

Live each moment with awareness this isn't a 'practice' run of living, ones body will crumble to dust used or unused alike. 

 

Recognize there is no shame and nothing to be feared in death, it's the singular divine entitlement the universe kindly provides. 

 

A shameful life is one spent fearfully clinging to the yet-to-be-completely-rotted body, and in doing so living as though death already claimed oneself while the heart still beats. 

 

Seek experience and embrace it with equanimous unconditional Love.  

 

Unlimited Love,

-Bud

[Benjamin]

One thing that's really important in my life is creating things.  There's something about creation that makes my life feel "full".  I love writing & making videos for my blog.  I love creating music from my piano & my computer.  I worked on a farm over the summer and loved building gardens.  If I go too long without creating something I start feeling unfulfilled.  If I'm creating a lot then I feel awesome.

 

Of course creation isn't the only thing everyone needs for a full life, including me.  There's plenty more.  The spiritual advice other people posted is awesome.  I mean, one day my body will be decomposing and there will be no "I" to remember my creations, so at some point I've got to let go of what I create.  But creation feels important as I inhabit this particular body, mind, place, time, and self.

[liminal_luke]

Lukes tips:

 

Take time to cultivate close relationships with others.

 

Laugh a lot.

 

Treat other people kindly and pat yourself on the back after you do.

 

Spend time in nature.

 

Find work that gives you a sense of purpose.

 

Take time for play.

 

Listen to music.

 

Find a fun way to move your body: dance, weights, jogging, martial arts, etc

 

Eat nourishing food.

 

Spend time with animals.

 

Mix it up -- vary your routine.

 

Cultivate gratitude for the good things in your life.

 

Declutter your living space.

 

Face the hard stuff straight on.

 

Don´t take Taobums too seriously.

[Nungali]

How to live a full life ?     

 

 

Ask a fat westerner. 

 

 

 

 

[MooNiNite]

How to live a full life ?     

 

 

Ask a fat westerner. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if they are a representation of the TIbetans "Hungry Ghosts"

 

[Brian]

How to live a full life...

 

Once, many years ago, I was in a class assigned to sit on some benches and describe the wall in front of us, to fill two pages.

 

It was big. It was brick. The bricks were red.

 

Ummm... How many pages did you say?

 

After a few minutes, the teacher returned and changed the instructions.

 

Walk forward, close your eyes and think about the wall. Open your eyes and pick a brick -- any brick. Write about that brick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Approaching "the here & now" richens the details. The symphony is as grand as you can perceive.

[Karl]

Do something you enjoy doing.

Get married and work at it.

When everyone else runs in one direction, walk the other way.

Don't rush and notice all the mundane things.

Challenge yourself constantly.

Eat well

Walk a lot

Read.

Learn to play an instrument.

Never stop learning.

Sing or dance.

[doc benway]

Be more aware 

 

Be more open

 

Be more warm

 

Be more helpful 

 

Be more playful

[Ell]

One thing that's really important in my life is creating things.  There's something about creation that makes my life feel "full".  I love writing & making videos for my blog.  I love creating music from my piano & my computer.  I worked on a farm over the summer and loved building gardens.  If I go too long without creating something I start feeling unfulfilled.  If I'm creating a lot then I feel awesome.

 

Of course creation isn't the only thing everyone needs for a full life, including me.  There's plenty more.  The spiritual advice other people posted is awesome.  I mean, one day my body will be decomposing and there will be no "I" to remember my creations, so at some point I've got to let go of what I create.  But creation feels important as I inhabit this particular body, mind, place, time, and self.

 

One theory (if you could call it that....I remember reading it from a printout of a weird graphic novel/comic strip) that has stuck with me through all my spiritual pursuits/everything is that, past religion, past all our huge lofty human ideas, life all really just comes down to two drives: food and sex. The desire to stay alive and the desire to reproduce. But the huge caveat was that some think there's one more element - the mystery, the enigma: art. The desire to create. 

 

I always thought that was a powerful notion.

[Ell]

Do something you enjoy doing. Get married and work at it. When everyone else runs in one direction, walk the other way. Don't rush and notice all the mundane things. Challenge yourself constantly. Eat well Walk a lot Read. Learn to play an instrument. Never stop learning. Sing or dance.

 

Everyone else around me seems to be running towards marriage....

[Marblehead]

In the Army I learned to shoot first and ask questions later.

 

I'm not saying that this led to a rich and full life but it kept me alive so that I could experience those things later in life.

[Aetherous]

Full implies fulfilling. What's fulfilling is virtue, or in other words: being a good person at all times. This is incredibly challenging, if not impossible...but you get out what you put into things. The harder it is, the greater the satisfaction at having done it.

[Karl]

Everyone else around me seems to be running towards marriage....

 

Rule 3 then :-)

[thelerner]

The best and shortest answer to living a full life is:

Cultivate Enthusiasm. 

 

 

<from the play 1,001 Arabian nights.  Don't know if it was in the book>

[Nungali]

'Enthusiasm '  - that which allows us to work all night in a creative productive frenzy until " what's that light outside  ? .... Dawn  ! ? " 

 

Dont even need food in that state , actually, eating will bring you out of it a bit. 

 

90 hours painting once  (not in one go ) ,  turned out pretty amazing  - then the cockroaches nibbled  it in storage ....    

[Kubba]

My teacher told me once - no matter how much you bless out, always try to come back into 5 elements and ground yourself there. Feel the gravity, pay bills. You can stay, blessed out for weeks, but there is always floor to clean.

 

And - you are okay, everything is all right with you, never ever try to doubdt in yourself, all changes will come when there will be the time. But also do not fool yourself - ride the horse, do not let the horse ride you, be smart about the life and spirituality

[Seth Ananda]

People have mentioned some great things already. I would add a few things that have been greatly nourishing to me:

 

Change things up. Really experience diversity regularly. 

 

Regularly go to suburbs you know nothing about. Find out where a safe place to sleep is in an underground tunnel or cave. Wander aimlessly. Go to a boxing ring and ask to have an actual fight. If your already a boxer go to a kyokushin class and fight.

Spend a few weeks attending a church, then a mosque, then somewhere else.

Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Ask to have a police drive along. Go to speed dating or other strange dating parties. Sleep with someone outside your sexual orientation. Explore BDSM.

Travel to remote locations. Live on the street without money {that you bring with you} for a week.

Attend an autopsy and watch a cremation.

Study the various mystical experiences people of the world describe, and try to imagine what having those experiences does to a person, and then seek to experience them yourself. Then when you have them, try to consider several ways of viewing them. Sure, the experience is real, but what about the interpretation of the experience? Then try to have it again.

Take full advantage of adult learning centers, painting classes, other languages, anything that seems interesting, horrible or unusual. Read all kinds of books. Both fact and fiction. Derrick Jensen's 'A Language Older than Words' may fuck you up and elate you at the same time but you will be richer for it. Read the cream of the right and left wing thinkers. Noam Chomsky. Alain De Benoist. Then go stay in poor areas or with a poor family. Then the rich. Hang out with immigrants.

 

You get the picture. Do anything to not ossify, as ossification is the enemy of fullness.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Seth Ananda

[Benjamin]

Thanks!  Cool ideas   I think of it a lot like Maslow's hierarchy of needs: if the basic survival needs are fulfilled then we feel called to produce more.  Another side of it is that in human society, creation shows you're a productive person, which makes you a person of value, which means you're more likely to be able to acquire the things you need for survival since you can work and produce something for another person - and all of that makes you sexy

 

Somewhere in there, I'm not sure where, I think the basic human survival needs underlie the drive to create.  Our drives build upon one another - the primal underlies the lofty.  I think it's important to be in touch with all our drives & needs.  If we're not, we definitely can't fulfill them, and we have absolutely no chance of transcending them in any kind of spiritual/emotional/psychological way.  But the more in-touch and aware of our needs we are, from food & sex all the way to spiritual fulfillment, then the better we can work on how to best respond to them.

[Perceiver]

I echo thelerner's advice: be honest with yourself, and follow through on your dreams in life. Ts'all dat's needed dawg! (im so gangsta today)

[ilumairen]

Be present.

 

Be open.

 

Be honest.

 

Be sincere.

 

Don't hold to strongly to words and ideas. They are only descriptions. They are not experience.

 

 

Don't look outside yourself for a this or a that to make you happy. Find your center, that place of inner peace and contentment, and hold to that.

 

If you stray too far from center and find yourself off balance, be kind and forgiving with yourself.

 

Return to center. And return to center again.

 

Let go of ideas of what should be, and embrace what is.