Life is stressful. Stress is a complex problem involving your body’s response to your increased mental tension, which is often a byproduct of modern living. Knowing how to cope with stress is the only solution to this complex body-mind problem.
How to cope with stress has to do with nurturing the inner self, developing an appropriate attitude to life, and creating peace of mind—which are the basic tools for relaxation to cope with stress.
How to cope with stress has much to do with having a holistic, practical, and honest approach to relaxation. How to relax involves the physical body, the mind, and the soul. Relaxation is not about taking a holiday, going fishing, watching a movie, or reading a book; relaxation is about living a stress-free life—how to live your life without stress. Relaxation is an integral part of life, without which there is no stress relief.
Spontaneity living
How to cope with stress is about learning how to deal with life’s natural flow, and how to go along with it—that is, going around life problems, instead of avoiding them or confronting them head on. Avoiding problems is procrastination, which inevitably intensifies the stress. Confronting problems causes traumatic experiences that may lead to mental disorders further down the road. How to cope with stress is about spontaneity of living.
Learn how to cope with stress and relax by way of Zen, which is spontaneity living.
The word “Zen” is Japanese, which derives from the Chinese, meaning “meditation.” Zen is a transcendental mental state that affects the overall physical and mental being of an individual; that is, it creates total body-mind relaxation through spontaneity living to cope with stress.
Zen is also intuitive knowing—that is, naturally knowing the ultimate truth of living. According to Plato, the great philosopher, life is a process of “forgetting” with episodes of experiences and happenings that make you “forget” the ultimate truth of spontaneity living, which you are supposed to know intuitively. In other words, stress makes you forget how you should live your life, and the way of Zen is to re-discover that inherent wisdom of knowing the eternal truth that may have eluded you in the process of stressful living. Zen living is “self-awakening” to the real meaning of spontaneity living; once you understand that ultimate truth, you will be liberated from the shackle of memories of the past and worries of the future, and hence you will know intuitively how to relax by living in the present, which is the essence of meditation. In meditation, you deliberately focus your mind on the present moment, such that your mind is free of memories of the past and worries of the future.
The simplicity of living
The way of Zen is simple: Life is not a problem, and it is never meant to be one. If you find that life is a problem, it is because you have created the problem for yourself. If there is no problem, you do not need a solution. Fixing a problem that exists only in the mind is creating a problem for yourself, and hence the stress.
Logically, a problem requires a solution. Your thinking mind presents to you a number of options to solve the problem you have created for yourself. Your rational mind then begins to analyze the problem and to choose the possible solutions to the problem; and stress is thus created in the process of analyzing and choosing. In Zen, the rational mind is not a friend, but quite often an adversary. Your stress is further reinforced if you made the wrong choice: you become ridden with guilt and regret over your wrong choice.
Cope with stress by way of Zen
Do not make life into a problem, and there will be no problem. Do not look backward. Do not look forward. Just being present completely and fully; it is just that simple! Yes, Zen focuses on the present moment—not the past, and surely not the future, which is unknown.
Unfortunately, we are living in a goal-setting world in mad pursuit of fame, fortune and success. The way of Zen, on the other hand, accomplishes things without exerting undue efforts.
Lin Yutang, the great contemporary Chinese philosopher, aptly epitomizes the paradox of the wisdom of “accomplishing things without much doing” in his famous quotation: “A wise man is never busy, and a busy man is never wise.“
But Zen living is not inactive and passive.
Zen focuses only on the present (always the present moment), not the past (dwelling on the past may make you judgmental and remorseful), and surely not the future (expectation of the future may make you anxious and frustrated). In other words, in Zen living, you focus only on the process, not the result, of doing things. Just do what you must do at this very present moment, and do not be anxious of the outcome. Concentrate on the “doing,” and not the “expectation” of the result. That is the essence of how to cope with stress by way of Zen.
Strategies to cope with stress:
- Do not permit your rational mind (the rational mind is more of an enemy than a friend in the way of Zen) to be in control.
- Do not strive to get things done your way (that often creates undue stress in your life).
- Do not selectively welcome only good experiences but reject the bad ones in your life (if you want only the good experiences in life, you will do anything not only just to repeat those good experiences in the future, but also to avoid the bad experiences encountered in the past—the source of stress). Instead, embrace everything that may come your way.
- Live the present moment to the fullest in spite of the bad experiences encountered.
- Go back to the beginning, and be a child again. In Zen, you remember where you came from, who you are, and where you are heading—the ultimate truth of living. In real life, many rush through their lives without knowing who they are, and where they are going; they pursue one goal after another, and in their pursuit, they lose their true purpose of living—which is appreciating the gift of life and living in the present.
Living By Zen: Discover the 2,000-year-old Zen living secrets of living a calm and balance life no matter of what is going on in your life.
Complete Zen: Unlock the secret to happiness, contentment, and inner peace. Learn the secret from celebrated hypnotherapist Steve G. Jones.
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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