From Graham English comes the Ten Zen Laws of Attraction
Ten Principles To The Zen Of Attraction
1.Promise Nothing
Just do what you most enjoy doing.
Hidden benefit: You will always over-deliver.
2. Offer Nothing
Just share what you have with those who express an interest in it.
Hidden benefit: Takes the pressure off of wanting other people to see you as valuable or important.
3. Expect Nothing
Just enjoy what you already have. It’s plenty.
Hidden benefit: You will realize how complete your life is already.
4. Need Nothing
Just build up your reserves and your needs will disappear.
Hidden benefit: You boundaries will be extended and filled with space.
5. Create Nothing
Just respond well to what comes to you.
Hidden benefit: Openness.
6. Hype Nothing
Just let quality sell by itself.
Hidden benefit: Trustability.
7. Plan Nothing
Just take the path of least resistance.
Hidden benefit: Achievement will become effortless.
8. Learn Nothing
Just let your body absorb it all on your behalf.
Hidden benefit: You will become more receptive to what you need to know in the moment.
9. Become No One
Just be more of yourself.
Hidden benefit: Authenticity.
10. Change Nothing
Just tell the truth and things will change by themselves.
Hidden benefit: Acceptance.
8 comments:
Hi.. I'd like to add some comments regarding the "Nothing's Principles"! Let's assume that one likes these principles and wants to follow them, so what kind of person he/she would be? Of course, anything else but social human being! I completely do not agree with such ways of living. Such principles aim to create an isolated and negative person! what is the purpose of life if one doesn't offer, need, create, plan, learn, and definitely CHANGE?
Life is a formula of "give and take", but "giving" comes first here! it is always appreciated that a human lives for giving others, and plays a big role in changing the world to the best. These selfish and self-centered principles lead us only to world-damage! Although that there are some "Hidden" benefits, but I still disagree with them. I may change all these "Nothing" points to "Everything" ones. So we can say:
- offer, expect, need, create, plan, LEARN, and CHANGE everything! Only in this case one could become a part of a coherent society! But remember one thing: Don't promise EVERYTHING... especially when you are happy.. otherwise, you'll have to deal with rows of claimers! Also, don’t expect too much from others, just “give” to the sake of “giving” itself. Struggle for learning and changing; learn from your mistakes and others’ ones; and start changing yourself first to the better and then try to change wrong things around! Always be creative.. some creative ideas develop from very simple and unusual ones! Don’t be so selfish and so authentic… world is melted man! Learn from other cultures, and meet different people, let’s leave the authenticity aside for horses! Don’t wait the achievement to come to your door steps, achievement and success need efforts and insistence…
Best,
Thanks for the comment, Alanoud.
I'll respond more completely as soon as I can.
I'd have to say I agree significantly with Alanoud.
My mind/personality/spirit is naturally drawn to Buddhism and Zen (of which I realize this list is just a perhaps-characitured snipped). I tend not to be very inclined to get my hands dirty in the struggle against impermanence, especially when that includes stuggle with, or against, other people. Just let me sit in my room, listen to Mahler, and be anti-social.
But that struggle, and even the very tragic fact that we are destined in the end to lose it, is the very meaning of life. How we struggle for order and progress as entropy and chaos wash in from every corner is how we make our mark. I find it difficult, as a practical thing, to jump into that struggle, but at least intellectually I realize that's what it's all about.
Perhaps we can start a discussion about these "nothings" including plan nothing, create nothing, etc., with the following passage from Lin Chi:
"There is no place for exertion or effort in Buddhism; it is just a matter of being normal and nonobsessed, taking care of bodily functions, dressing and eating, lying down when tired. Fools laugh at me; it is the wise ones who understand this. An ancient said, “Those who work on externals are all ignoramuses.” "
- Lin Chi (d 867?)
This is a text on "doing nothing." The wise person in doing nothing does not lie down and throw a blanket over his head. That is doing something, indeed, doing something stupid.
Look! He takes care of bodily functions, dressing, eating, lying down when tired. But he doesn't work on externals. He remains within his own arena of life.
In our lives we find ourselves unavoidably in various roles. Even if we are monks, we have a conventional role that e.g., requires to get up early, prescribes conduct concerning food, sex, money, etc.
Whatever our role, we have to get up in the morning, dress for work, take care of our tasks. We can respond naturally, allowing our capabilities to arise from within us as we perceive the needs of the situation to restore balance or harmony. We can allow ourselves simply to be ourselves. We do not then make any great 'efforts' or 'exertions' which only leave us frustrated and without energy; we do not reach beyond ourselves (work on externals). In this way, at the end of the day we can accept that though we have done nothing, nothing remains undone.
Let me riff a bit further about doing nothing.
Here is a brief excerpt from Hilton Als's review of Chazz Palminteri's "A Bronx Tale."
Als states "No matter what role Palminteri plays, you never get the sense he is anything less than solid. He's no showoff. He wants to get the story told and then get on with the day's work"
In line with my previous comment, Palminteri doesn't deal in externals. He shows up but he doesn't show off. The job is done without 'exertions' but is solid; nothing is left undone.
Here is one last riff on the same theme.
In Peter Schjeldahl's review of the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Walker, he has this to say about Kahlo:
"Kahlo is authentically a national treasure of Mexico, a copuntry that her work expresses not merely as a culture but as a complete civilization, with profound roots in several pasts and with proper styles of modernity. She didn't acomplish this by trying, as Rivera (that is, Diego Rivera, her husband) did. She simply did it."
That is to say, Kahlo, daughter of a Hungarian Jewish immigrant photographer and a Mestiza, already embodied European art, technology, the photographic gaze, Indian roots, Mexican struggles. Her penetrating awareness of all that surrounded her made the Mexico of her day her own, brought it into her inner milieu, to be reconfigured as an interior intuitive force. It came from her and it stood revealed in her art without effort or exertion, without any attending to externals, in short, without planning, without creativity.
In response to Brian, a form of activist response to the evils of our day could grow in quite the same way. Live among people, open yourself to them, bond with them, and respond.
Compare this to the graduate student reading Marx or Friere, wearing a Che Guevara T-Shirt and calling out for social justice in a journal article.
Here is another take on non-action, this one from the Tao Te Ching. It could just as well be from Machiavells's The Prince, so I have often wondered about its authenticity.
Not praising the worthy prevents contention,
Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.
In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.
If people lack knowledge and desire
Then they can not act;
If no action is taken
Harmony remains.
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