Posts by Pat:
If you were the fifth monk?
One of my favorite zen stories is ‘The Four Monks”…
Four monks decided to meditate silently for two weeks. They lit a candle and began. By nightfall on the first day, the candle went out.
The first monk said: “Oh, no! The candle is out.”
The second monk said: “We’re not supposed to talk!”
The third monk said: “Why must you two break the silence?”
The fourth monk laughed and said: “Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”
They all said something for different reasons: distraction, condescendence, anger, ego. But each of the four monks shared his thoughts without filtering them, and not a single one improved the situation!
Had there been a fifth, wiser monk, he would have remained silent and kept meditating. In doing so, he would have been pointing out each of the other monks’ mistakes, without saying a single word.
The less we talk, the more we can listen. Listening always leads to learning. Let’s listen as much as we can.
After all, everyone we’ll ever meet knows something we don’t. And the more we talk, the more likely we are to miss it.
Wisdom is formed in silence. Silence is our friend. Let’s use silence. Let’s appreciate silence.
- Listening is free.
- Listening is kind.
- Listening gives us the time to observe, to reflect.
The less we speak, the smarter we’ll get. And, maybe not quite coincidentally, the smarter we get, the less we’ll speak!
Has anyone besides me ever felt that they talk too much?
Has it been a while?
These last 6 months or so have left many of us discombobulated!* And I’m sure that I’m not the only one for whom “it’s been a while!” *isn’t this a funny word for being upset or confused? It’s been a while… since I cleaned out my truck and got the outside washed, but I did […]
English is a crazy language!
After all, there is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple. And English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea […]
Is September YOUR new January?
From sending kids back to school, to strategic fiscal planning at work, this is a time of year normally marked by transitions and the anticipation of fresh starts. However, this year is completely different. But with change comes the opportunity to make a new start, to do things differently. With September now upon us, it […]
Don’t wait!
Worry takes a lot of effort and accomplishes nothing of value. And at the same time, due to the time-horizon of the pandemic, it’s also tempting for us to simply wait. To wait for things to get back to normal. But all the time we’re spending waiting (for a normal that is unlikely to be […]
Avoiding ‘toxic positivity’
One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do. By Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture No one could have anticipated COVID-19 […]
There’s still humor in this…
Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself entering a bank, wearing a mask, and asking for money. We want to publicly apologize to the year 2019 for all the bad things we said about it. In just two weeks we will hear if there are still two more weeks to let us […]
Herding cats, are you?
In a favorite SuperBowl commercial, a group of cowboys gallop across the screen, dust flying everywhere, whips snapping, yelling as they try to guide the herd. And then we notice why the cowboys are having a particularly difficult time. They are not herding cows; they are herding, or attempting to herd, cats. “Herding cats” refers […]
Learn from a Grouch?
But how? and why? Everyone (and everything!) can be a valuable lesson if we so choose. And there do seem to be lots of Grouchy role models to choose from: Oscar, the Grinch, the Grumpy cat, Scrooge, Maxine, Garfield, Lucy, Eeyore… AND, maybe, even a relative, or the boss, or…YOU? Maybe we can not only […]
What smart people don’t say…
There are some things we simply never want to say. These phrases carry the special power of making us look bad even when the words are true! Worst of all, there’s no taking them back once they slip out. No matter how talented we are or what we’ve accomplished, there are certain phrases that instantly […]