No shit, no flower my dear.

Following up on on my recent introductory post, A SIMPLE GATEWAY TO HELP EXPAND ACCESS TO WISDOM, which was a prelude to this coming collection of little nuggets of wisdom from The Art of Transforming Suffering with No Mud, No Lotus by THICH NHAT HANH. No Shit No Flower My Dear is a starting point in providing a simple gateway to help expand access to wisdom, giving my personal views and perspectives into the fundamentals of the book, the art of transforming suffering into happiness, joy and fulfilment in life.

This is the first section I am posting today, but I will break up the nuggets of wisdom from the book during November into very modest bite size chunks targeting the key points and messages. My goal here is to provide a simple gateway to knowledge that expands human consciousness, delivered in small manageable bites and with a humorous twist, for people who want to better understand themselves, life, and how to cultivate a fulfilling existence.

Our man Hanh offers practices and inspiration for transforming suffering and finding true joy. Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics and peace. In my opinion, he was a great human being and even after suffering a stroke and passing, his mind lives on offering great wisdom, and unimaginable value to anyone wanting happiness & joy.

So, what's all this shit about no flowers then mate?

A view on The Art of Transforming Suffering with No Mud, No Lotus by THICH NHAT HANH

“If we can learn to see and skilfully engage with both the presence of happiness and the presence of suffering, we will go in the direction of enjoying life more. Every day we go a little farther in that direction, and eventually we realise that suffering and happiness are not two separate things.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Personally I believe that a lack of understanding of life across the centuries is devastating the modern humans ability to cultivate a fulfilling existence. I am advocating here that by removing the bullshit that negatively impacts our minds, degrades our well being, and keeps us from transforming suffering to happiness, over time we can leverage knowledge, power and the ability to transform suffering into opportunity, joy, happiness, and a fulfilling life regardless of our personal external circumstances so unique to us all, while in many ways being the same for us all. Life energy and human experience are not the same thing.

Clearly we are not actually talking about shit and flowers here, this is about understanding that the greatest most beautiful things in life, in fact, everything worthy of having in life, must be cultivated in shit. Amazing things do not just appear amazing, fully formed, ready to be awesome, smelling and looking beautiful, and if they pretend too, they are likely false, pointless, hiding the facts about their own existence, and ironically they are full of shit and not worth much. So anyone preaching that their shit don't stink, should be avoided!

Let's face it, just take a look around, you can see it everywhere every day, people desperate to convince you they are perfect, no flaws, no past, never stepped out of line, and are living the dream without effort, while ironically and so effortlessly, passing judgement on everyone else. We are all guilty of judgement to some degree, all of us in humanity with no exceptions.

In case it is not clear to us already, this false ideology being peddled by the aforementioned bullshit artists is just not real, you don't have to dig down far to see the facts on that. However, these self proclaimed masters who never experience the suffering of us meagre mortals, continue to assert perfection via the media, without great substance or care for anything other than ratings and sensationalism, are driving us all into a state of fear, anxiety, and poor mental health by promoting false idols, pointless people as role models, and enabling toxic practices that harm us all. Look no further than the Kardashians.

Deep down I think most of us know it’s all shit and yet still, because we don’t have a solid basis of truth in real timeless wisdom to counterbalance the endless diatribe of mediocrity and bullshit through all forms of media, it somehow becomes real in our minds, and that's where all the anxiety, suffering and challenges arise.

Frankly, it is all mental! I however would argue against the common understanding of that word "Mental" and say yes, life is "Mental", but by that I mean it is all about brain chemistry and having the knowledge to transform the inevitable hardships of every day life into opportunity, creating beauty in our own lives and the lives of those we choose to care about, support, and enable to live Brighter Better Futures through a positively transformed mind.

For me personally, having been cultivating my own education and knowledge across all fields relating to the study of life for near enough 30 years, I am now only just in the last 5 years turning knowledge to execution and starting to implement these amazing practices effectively in my own life. This has been transformational on so many levels and writing about them as I read every book and paper again, helps me to maintain an opportunity mindset.

I firmly believe that creating and evolving the ability to stay focused on how to create good from bad, sugar from shit, and beautiful metaphorical flowers by continuous life long learning from the incredible wisdom available to us all, is how we develop an opportunity mindset leading to strength, stability and peace of mind by accessing the great thinkers like THICH NHAT HANH through the written words of these great humans in books such as The Art of Transforming Suffering with No Mud, No Lotus. There are many, many books, audio, video available to us all across a life time of subject matter that is there to change our minds!

I firmly believe we need to find balance between modern technology and leveraging measurable value from the ancient technology of “Wisdom" to level the playing field, while also giving people who are suffering, which I believe is everyone, every day on some level, the tools to improve, to better understand themselves, life, and how to cultivate a fulfilling existence.

Ultimately to be happy, regardless of what anyone may think! Learning to switch off other peoples opinions, create an Opportunity Mindset, and BE RELENTLESS BEING ME has been game changing to my mental health and well-being, although I am the first to admit it will be a journey through my entire life, based on 45 years of practical experience that I am truly grateful of, every single day is an opportunity to make myself better in my own eyes, and the eyes of the people I care about. Happiness is simply the other side of the same coin of suffering, and so this is the journey on which we must choose both, to have either.

Access to wisdom through knowledge not information is fundamental here, and knowledge drives self mastery, that creates wisdom, and wisdom with self mastery is TRUE POWER. This is all part of my own journey through life experiences as I implement and practice what I preach, aiming to survive for the next five decades while chose to represent an ideal, one that I am willing to die for, as I implement my vision for The Positive Transformation while knowing that WE TEACH BEST WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN AND IMPLEMENT MOST.

So before we start getting into the fundamentals with our man of the moment Thich Nhat Hanh during November let's be very clear on one fundamental point, you will never get to a point where you are completely happy and have no suffering. Period.

“When we suffer, we tend to think that suffering is all there is at the moment, and happiness belongs to some other time or place. People often ask, ‘Why do I have to suffer?’ Thinking we should be able to have a life without any suffering is as deluded as thinking we should be able to have a left side without a right side.

The same is true of thinking we can have a life in which no happiness whatsoever is to be found. If the left says, ‘Right, you have to go away. I don’t want you. I only want the left’—that’s nonsense, because then the left would have to stop existing as well.

If there’s no right, then there’s no left. Where there is no suffering, there can be no happiness either, and vice versa.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

No suffering. No happiness. Human beings need trials, we need hardship, progress, challenges and connections to each other to survive. If we want to be happy first we need to address our mindset, attitude to suffering and how we use our own brains.

Right now in this very moment we can be happy but before we get into all that, let's take a look at our most immediate and effective route to brining happiness and joy into our own lives, keeping 5 FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF HAPPINESS in mind each day.

There is no magic trick, its all about understanding ourselves, being still and learning to breathe. Sounds simple? Well Simple and Easy are not the same thing my friends!

5 FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF HAPPINESS

1. If you like something, enjoy it. You're human and don't need to be a saint, live like a monk, or live at extremes. Find a balance and enjoy everything you choose to have in your life.

2. If you don’t like something, avoid it, in fact REMOVE it immediately. Jobs, people, a cheese sandwich, anything not aligned to what you decide MATTERS it your life. Decide today, now, and then just cut off lhe negative distractions like a gangrenous leg and move on. Remorselessly.

3. Don’t like something and can’t avoid it, change it? Happiness is key, life is short, and so decide what you are prepared to tolerate, what matters, what steps to take, and what to remove. Do it every day. You decide!

4. If you can’t or choose not to [important distinction there!] avoid or change something you don’t like, then accept it. You are making the decision to tolerate things that you don't like, you are making a choice to suffer. Pain and suffering are not the same. Pain is physical, suffering is a choice.

5. You accept something by changing your perception of it. I hated running for example, still do! I do however like being efficient and walking long distances. I changed my perception on running, to taking a very efficient walk, then trained my mind to accept it. ICE Baths, trained my perception to look at it in the same way as sitting in a hot tub. Lovely. It's all mental as I said.

All of this will be broken out during November, maybe into December but certainly during the remainder of 2022. However, before we look at the BIG IDEAS from the book, tethered with my own thoughts and perceptions, let’s have a little story about understanding Bullshit.

While in this modern age we all consume it, preach it, and propagate it daily through social media and other networks, long term, it will NOT lead to success, happiness, or a fulfilling existence. In fact quite the opposite, if we don't change our attitudes, focus, and the way we treat each other and the planet soon, frankly we are all fucked. Seriously. Not happy!

Anyway, to that little story about why all the Bullshit in our lives is not leading us to success, happiness, or a fulfilling existence.

“On a certain day, a bull and a pheasant were grazing on a field. The bull was grazing, and the pheasant was picking ticks off the bull, a perfect partnership.

Looking at the huge tree at the edge of the field, the pheasant said, “Alas, there was a time I could fly to the topmost branch of the tree. Now I do not have enough strength in my wing to even get to the first branch.”

The bull said nonchalantly, “Just eat a little bit of my dung every day and watch what happens. Within two weeks, you’ll get to the top.”

The pheasant said, “Oh come on, that’s rubbish. What kind of nonsense is that?” The bull said, “Try it and see. The whole of humanity is onto it.”

Very hesitantly, the pheasant started pecking. And oh, on the very first day, he reached the first branch. Within a fortnight, he had reached the topmost branch. He sat there, just beginning to enjoy the scenery.

The old farmer, rocking on his rocking chair, saw a fat old pheasant on top of the tree. He pulled out his shotgun and shot the bird off the tree.

Moral of the story: bullshit may get you to the top, but it never lets you stay there!”

And OH YES, all us Pheasants in humanity are getting fat on a monumental pile of bullshit being dumped on us every minute, of every day, from every angle. Why is this happening?

How I ask? Well, bullshit needs an arsehole to create the shit storm we find ourselves in, and the media in all forms today is the greatest, most magnificent, effective producer of bullshit the world has ever seen. Does that make the media the greatest bunch of arseholes of all time? Yes, it does. So keep this in mind every time your switch on the phone, the TV, Radio, laptop, chrome book, PC and so on, and on and on. We have all been warned.

So on that note. Have a great day!

You may like to think about the 5 FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF HAPPINESS and how we might better implement them for ourselves each day, regardless of the shitty weather and ever increasing stream of bullshit we are being force fed daily.

Remember, happiness is a choice so give it a go! When finding the mind wandering off through all the negativity, simply make a choice and move your awareness to something happy, a recent experience, family member, friend, partner or exciting event. Anything! TRAIN YOUR MIND.

ALTERNATIVELY, SIMPLY JUST PULL A STUPID FACE, GRAB A COW, AND MAKE YOUSELF LAUGH, BE STUPID, BE HAPPY, BE CHILDISH, LIFE IS SHORT.

WORTH REMEBERING THIS, THAT THOSE WHO MATTER IN YOUR LIFE DON'T MIND, AND THOS WHO MIND REALLY DON'T MATTER TO YOU OR ME!

In the coming weeks we will delve into the Nuggets of wisdom I can draw out of The Art of Transforming Suffering with No Mud, No Lotus by THICH NHAT HANH. Please do however think about reading or downloading the book, it is short, very powerful, and a tool for life.