The New Year is now not quite so new, and the newsfeed is filling up with all sorts of, well, shall we say different and interesting things. My guess is that ‘things’ will only get stranger and more chaotic the further we move into 2025. So how do you keep your feet on terra firma, how do you keep yourself on track. To quote the start of If, by Rudyard Kipling, “If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs…” Keeping your head despite what anyone else chooses to do is going to keep you on track this year and beyond. To help you with that, I thought it would be useful to take a quick look at the Buddhist Eight-Fold Path. Now, just to be clear, I’m not a Buddhist, I do not subscribe to any religious doctrine, if anything my views are spiritual, but definitely not religious. I like to look at various different philosophies, practices, and ideas and take what works from each of them. I’m not just going to quote the Eight-Fold Path either, if you are interested, you can look that up for yourself. But what I share below is directly inspired by it.
Why do I think this is useful. It all boils down to how I see reality. As I explain in my book, It’s Time, and as I say on my podcast, Just Two Things, in life, what you put out is what you get back. The, ‘what you get back’ bit, you will either experience in this physical space-time reality or during your life review afterwards. Given that and our increasingly chaotic times, a little guidance about being able to utilise this causal mechanism positively is useful.
- Understand Reality: This is the point that I just made above. Reality doesn’t operate the way that most of us think it does. You are a spiritual being having a physical experience. After the physical experience you return to your spiritual existence. And understand the underlying causal mechanism of, what you put out is what you get back.
- Have Dedication: You can interpret this as motivation, perseverance, or stick-at-it-ability. Choose to be yourself, choose to follow the path, and stay on it, regardless of what chaos swirls around you.
- Speak Your Truth: Free speech is, once again a talking point. Connect with what is true in your heart about you, and then let your speech reflect that. Avoid lying, or abusive, or divisive speech. If you have nothing constructive or helpful to say, then say nothing at all.
- Act Congruently: In the same way as your speech should reflect who you really are in your heart, so should your actions. Act in a way that is supportive of others.
- Serve and contribute: Make your work life about helping others and or contributing to the advancement of humanity.
- Manage Your Emotional State: Feeling emotions is a natural part of being human, but become more aware of your emotional state. Investigate your triggers and let them go. Feeling negative emotions is often indicative of a limiting belief or definition, investigate these too, and let limiting ones go.
- Attention: Pay attention to where you place your attention. Does your mind wonder around, do you procrastinate, do you spend too long on your smart phone? Be mindful of where your mind is.
- Grow and Connect: Work on your own self-improvement, become an example to others of how to be. Expand your understanding of yourself, as you do you may well discover that you are more than you thought you were before. Connect to more examples of people like yourself, and connect to more of who you are.
As with attempting to follow any process you are not going to get it right 100% of the time. I won’t either, just do the best you can. I believe that the world we live in is a multiverse, and there are many possible futures that contain versions of you. By cultivating a mindset that understands this, and behaviour that supports and demonstrates that understanding, then it won’t matter one iota what other people do or what you see happening in the world around you, you will still be okay.
“It’s better to travel well than to arrive.” Buddha
