Hey Zennen.net reader…

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Janne

BodhidharmaWorld is changing constantly, during recent years even rapidly than ever before. This is mainly due to the amazing rate of technological and innovations which change the way we act with each other. Currently ideas are everywhere and even more accessible than ever.

Change itself isn’t brining any value to the table. Rapid change isn’t probably any good and there is plenty of ancient sayings about plowing too much too! As individuals it puts us under incredible amount of need to make good decisions about the change all around us – which ones to pick and which ones to pass? We affect our environment with our own action, so we are shape the future.

For the best possible tomorrow, we need to develop enough open mind to embrace the possibilities of change, while maintaining enough understanding to see if there is any relevance in that change. There are tremendous amounts of possibilities during this age, we just have to see and notice them!

This is one thing that I wish my writing will do: share a new point of view to your life.

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Towards discomfort

Posted on 19/05/2013 by Janne

For some, it takes a lot longer to figure out that the life can’t be lived by running away. When you lack the self-confidence, your ability to process stress goes to zero and you start running away from things, instead of confronting them. This is exactly what happened to me: my comfort zone grew so small that eventually problems cornered me. Eventually life will force you out of the comfort zone anyways. Actually for us, it is much easier to constantly push our comfort zones, even if it is just for a little.

Pushing our comfort zones makes us grow as a people and at the same time we can benefit others many ways. First we can make the days better by compliments and good attitude, then we can make a real impact in lives by taking initiative.

Here is some tips for building up self-confidence, or lower the bar to do things.

How to build higher self-confidence

  • Courage, take the initiative. It all starts by getting experiences, good ones immediately make you feel good and you can learn a lot about the bad ones too.
  • Self-reflection: observe your feelings, previous experiences, desires, wants and see find out what satisfies you the most.
  • Improve method, do your routine plus something extra. Really good way to stretch the comfort zone.

Lower the barrier

  • Explore your mind: conquer irrational fears and recognize limiting beliefs.
  • Build positive beliefs that support your desired outcome.
  • Correct your reality, find out if your sense of the reality is correct after all.
  • Learning environment: try new things around family, friends or other familiar people

Tools for your mind

  • Non-attachment meditation: helps you to get over painful and negative feelings, reminds you to keep working hard towards your happiness.
  • Visualize success: see that which is not. Become the employer of your subconscious mind, a great source of creativity and intuition.
  • Imagination: always imagine better or alternative options for outcomes. Creative imagination lets us to think that which is unthinkable and eventually lifts us into greatness.

Psyching up

  • Through many breathing exercises used in meditation, you should be able to control your breathing, and through that get yourself in a calm and focused state.
  • Mood is contagious, so try to find out a way to be cheerful and happy 
  • Activate the audience: if you are having audience, try to connect to them, it melts the ice in a incredible way.

Source for the ultimate confidence

  • Practice. Knowing your thing is probably the ultimate source of practice. Ask yourself: have I done everything I can, to master this subject?

Confidence comes in time, but there are always ways to increase its presence. This is way preparation and practice are important. In the end, nothing good really comes without any effort. The effort to get better, get more confident and get out there to improve not only your own life, but also the lives of others, is very inspiring feeling. Potentially it will affect all those around you and carry you even further than you’ve imagined. So for all of our sake: seek some discomfort to your life, it feels good.

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Good Karma

Posted on 17/05/2013 by Janne

dharmaLife for me is all about feeling good. The good feeling on the other hand comes from many factors: actually there is many distinct causes for feeling good. Personally I don’t believe that lasting happiness can be obtained from any form of can or bottle. Long lasting sense of happiness is satisfaction that comes from good combination of power, challenge and work.

This is because you’ve to constantly work to improve yourself, develop your skills, sense, thinking and action. These actions increase your power which furthermore give you a certain sense of control over things. By control I mean competence, self-confidence and respect to things you do. This all disappears however, as soon as things get too comfortable. This is why we should constantly think what do we want to become? Many of our values change on the way and that is okay, because every day we learn new things and this means also that your ability to see many perspectives grows with that experience.

These three factors provide the chance to put some real self-reinforcing habits into work. If you do good work and look to benefit others, it will reflect as increased welfare in the world. If there is increased amount of good deeds done in the world, it will also increase the chance that good things happen to you.

The real karmic law doesn’t view one lifetime as that long time. However I view the idea of the good karma as more of a positive cycle, which itself is a purpose to improve myself. This is due to the fact that the more power I’ve, the more good I can do. That also means that I get to choose how to redistribute the end result, so now the power is filtered through my own value system, instead of someone elses. This is kind of ultimate form of responsibility: keep improving yourself, in order to benefit others.

You benefit instantly by getting the good feeling of doing good, but in the long run by doing good, it has the strange habit of returning the favor manifold. Then as the cycle starts again, you can evaluate the usage of your power through your value system again and redistribute it where you see it fits the best.

So what would be a good way to get started? One good way to go about it, is of course start by developing your personal competencies. Steve Pavlina (2005) recommended to spend 3% of your monthly income to personal development. That is certainly a very good place to invest money, because your ability to produce more value will increase and in the end you will be a whole lot richer. Definition of the rich can mean monetary wealth, but also the wealth of the mind, which in the end, is the more important one which creates all the rest.

So do good things, think of your values and develop your own power. That way you can eventually change the world to your liking. With great power comes great responsibility. As you take the steps and develop the courage to face it, it does feel very good to do good and be good at it.

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Think bigger

Posted on 13/05/2013 by Janne

SpaceI don’t like to think big, since is a constant state, instead I like to really stretch out those limits of my own thinking. Stretching means of course bigger, tinier or something completely different. New things can be resisted, they can be feared, they can be found exciting. It is up to us to allow ourselves to challenge our own comfort zone, and allow ourselves to be a little bit weird in order to bring the brighter tomorrow to this present moment.

To think bigger, means also to be very confident in your own self and your ideas. Outside influence will guide the direction that the ideas will go: if you’ve support around you it might be nurtured into a great thing. Then again the outside influence is mainly negative you might end up burying it before even lifting a finger. To be aware of this fact is one thing and then to keep believing into own ideas is another.

Exercising this kind of open mind brings the world of possibilities to you. No longer there is no need for limitations, as there are no limitations in your mind. Also if there are limitations in the real world, those too are just problems waiting to be solved by someone.

Vision the goal, and your subconscious will try to do its very best in order to get the things happen. Of course, as humans our individual capability is limited: however together we can do truly great things. Group of people with a vision can achieve astonishing things. According to Napoleon Hill, when two or more people get together, they form so called mastermind, which is described as the third mind. I kind like that way to think about it; it essentially boils down to the fact that two people are more than two, they are at least three! Same goes with any group, they are more than just the number of the group. What I am trying to say is, that groups which have a vision, and purpose will exceed the expectations. That’s great potential for everyone.

Lastly I want to remind that, we can achieve great things in groups, but also great tragedy is possible. It is in our own responsibility to raise our voice, be responsible and as I’ve said: be visionary and allow everyone else to think bigger too.

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World as the mirror of your own actions

Posted on 18/04/2013 by Janne

I for one love to think that everything we are and do, reflects in the world all around us. This is to the things and beings around us. Thus, I’ve come to the conclusion that all the negativity in the world can be cured by so called ‘right action’, which is indeed a certain core principle of noble eightfold path in the Buddhism.

Personally I like to idea of being the best me, and improving my behavior. This is because, many of sad or bad things that happen to me, I feel like I can correct with as easily as taking correct route of action. Usually under the optimal results are somehow related my own behavior which is mainly caused by my mind. Let’s take cowardice for example. It is many times to cause for failing to do things, even if the things are really good and sweet, if I don’t have to courage to do them, there is no point.

Thus I’ve to improve my behavior bit by bit, and the more I do it, easier it becomes. Also I learn to see my own impact on my environment a whole lot better. Although there are many definitions for the success, for me it matters to make a better impact on everyone’s lives where ever I go. It is something I am still learning to do whole lot courageously, however I am improving on many areas, like not letting my own imagination of other people’s opinions to dictate my own behavior. I am really glad to be able to break these chains of, even if it is just bit by bit.

We can make impact on the world if we take courageous action towards improving our environment, and benefitting other beings around us. I believe in the process we can achieve lasting happiness too. This is due to the fact that, we cannot really benefit other beings around us to the full extent if we do not know ourselves first. By looking inwards, we can improve a lot of things that we in the all ignorance do not notice in ourselves. After taking control of our own minds we can truly start benefitting others and create lasting happiness for ourselves too.

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Finland, land of the free education

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Janne

Never before, I’ve appreciated my country’s free education system more than yesterday. I am studying currently very passionately, and with that I’ve received not only very good lessons, but a lot of credits as well. Then I started wondering if they actually will bill me because I’ve completed more studies than required for my degree. I got the answer: no they won’t.

It’s so big opportunity for me now to study and learn. Not only business, but many other things as well, as much as I like 

I am very thankful for this present that I’ve decided to put myself into. I am genuinely interested in these things I get to do in my daily life. They discovered as a from trial and error. Before studying, I used to work as a cleaner. I worked for three years. For maybe two years I didn’t really know direction in the one way or the another, but after that I got slight hints that I should go back to study. I wasn’t sure what and how I would like to do it. There was a few interesting things and the desire to make some impact. At first round, I didn’t really have any idea at all, I applied to couple schools and got into none. Actually there was one business school there too, but nothing to get my curiosity up. Another half year passed, I started to really desire something more meaningful to do.

When I first tried to apply, HAAGA-HELIA stood out for me as the most pleasant place to go the entrance exams, and the staff were really professional. Actually at first I was thinking to apply to some of the information technology degrees, but it really put me to think: that if I am especially looking forward to the business studies, I should do just that! So I did put all my energy towards the business schools. Even with that I didn’t reach my personal goal to get into my first choice. However, I still got into HAAGA-HELIA university of applied sciences to study business.

This has been very good match for me, even thought it was really hard to see any differences at first. I had to get some experience and hear from acquaintances before I could even start to think about it. I think the entrepreneurial spirit and way to do things is the thing that works for me.

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Develop yourself in order to benefit others

Posted on 02/02/2013 by Janne

We are very privileged to live in such enlightened age. As humans, we have innate capability to be very happy and driven people. However, seeking these things from outer things is not a good thing. We have to train ourselves, to summon the happiness from inside, without this skill one can suffer even though he is living in abundance.

Even with slight changes to your perspective, you would appreciate more and thus feel more satisfied to your lives. Often times, as I’ve observed, people are reluctant to do so, unless they have to. Mind has tendency to cling things and thoughts.

There is practice, to train mind not to cling or there are actually many ways to go about it. Some prefer not to cling while others prefer to let go quickly, it is just a matter of choice, in the end result is the same: a trained mind. You may have heard of meditation. It is simple word, with a lot of different meanings behind it. In Buddhist sense, meditation is the primary practice to train the mind, and the practices come in many varieties. Simplest are the Soto Zen meditations where you basically count your breaths from one to ten and then start again. It is very simple, and very powerful. It is all about the basics.

When it comes to basics, how many of us have been taught to breath correctly? Are we mindful of our body postures? These very basic things affect so many other things that it starts to pile up to many other things. It’s like a pyramid scheme of suffering; get the first block wrong and all the others suffer too.
Practicing each day, lets us be mindful. From mindfulness rises the effort to try little harder to do things correctly and battle against the wrong. Effort advances us to correct livelihood, where we do no harm to beings around us. Then if we are truthful, we have right intentions and understanding, we will live a little bit better lives each day. [1]

It is called the Noble Eightfold Path, liberation from suffering. I’ve lived by it, not to increase my suffering. Most recently helped me to face the ever changing world with little more confidence. I think the basis of action very well put there, because it is heavy on the mindfulness of your actions, which purges ignorance. I do think that ignorance is something where you end up, if you are not mindful.

“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” – Buddha

Lets say that everyone capably would reach inner level of happiness, where they would work to benefit others. How wonderful would that kind of future be? It is my vision, we are capable to that, but are we willing? It is a choice we all have to make for ourselves.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

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XYZ amnount of things that limit your potential

Posted on 03/01/2013 by Janne

Next time you read article about anything you are interested. Let’s say you want to increase some physical or mental attribute of your, like love or power. You want to be more loving husband, or you would like to be able to set clear boundaries in life. Then you go and google, ”how to be more loving” and get a article ”X ways to be more loving”.

For anyone who is around computers and internet all day, the things that google provides has become increasedly limiting trap. Human potential isn’t limited in what google can find or what anyone can write. We also forget the important lesson of using our minds to come up with the solutions. Brainstorm!

Anyone who is adept with computers, knows how easy it is to google things. I’ve often fallen in to this trap myself, googling things even when I should be in fact letting my thoughts loose and brainstorming. It isn’t only about brainstorming and getting results, it is also learning to appreciate the vast amount of knowledge you ALREADY posses. You just have to learn to summon it from the memory, instead of quick googling.

Personally I’ve felt that googling requires less effort than brainstorming, thats probably the reason why this topic inspired me to write about it now. I’ve gotten lazy in my own thinking and that is no good. Something that must be changed. However, another side note: anything that isn’t actively practiced easily gets left out of the routine.

Voluntarily to keep up all the good things in life, without a clear purpose would take tremendous amounts of self-discipline. I’ve tried that and failed miserably. Memory techniques, mathematics, mathemagics, reading, meditation, drawing exercises, learning languages… As the list would be quite great, I feel like currently I am using a great compromise: I practice mindfulness (meditation) and thanks to that I can practice all of the previously mentioned skills, whenever convenient. Of course I am not able to achieve mastery in many of these things, but maybe in some I will.

Thus I am still looking many ways to improve myself: like actually using my brain. This is what I recommend you to do as well :)

Happy new year 2013!
– Janne

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Turn the failures into successes

Posted on 14/11/2012 by Janne

Internalizing the mindset that every failure holds the potential seed for success, will help you bounce back from the failures quickly and continue to progress towards success. This is one way to work forward, instead of attaching to the temporary failures that life holds for us. Each setback or failure is just a lesson to learn from, nothing too serious.

This training is important to keep your mind tuned and primed for doing your best all the time! Without that effort you will fall back to repeating same mistakes, which is something you do not like. Thankfully this approach is very forgiving, so even if you do fall back, you will build yourself up once again, only to rise even higher than ever before!

Also be optimistic of your success. Belief that you will succeed, will carry you through the process. Often it is the continuous belief to themselves and their actions what makes people succeed. What keeps them trying? Optimism. Without seeing the possible good outcomes, no-one would even bother to try. Even optimism is something that can be trained into, even if it isn’t your default setting at the moment.

Optimism is also a aid to a inaction called procrastination, which is ‘action in the future’ and yet always in the future. It’s easy to plan to do things in the future, however only place things are done is the present. So take action and be optimistic, at some point you’ll get the thought reinforced by positive feedback from the world. When that happens optimism starts to form a more self-sustaining state and it will become much more easier to try out all the possibilities that the world has open for us.

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Motivation to change your habits

Posted on 14/11/2012 by Janne

What would motivate you to live longer? Transhumanists want to live longer because they believe, humanity will achieve immortality and that is something they would like to have. Personally, I’ve just learned to appreciate small wonders in life and my potential as a human being. I am also very thankful for the gift of life so that makes just me to want to appreciate more. My motivation comes originally from ignorance towards the very same gift: I believed life was short and ‘happiness’ was some sort of a substance. So I literally had to dive to the bottom to confirm, that it is not the way to go. My reality crumbled there and it was a good thing, as I was really a bad person for everyone, including myself.

When there is nothing left, it is good to finally start building up your own sense of right and wrong, values and life purpose. Consciously built life purpose is more solid one and at least a one that you’ve questioned before accepted. It should be a one that supports you through any hardship and let’s you see the bright side of life. Life is full of little choices, and your values should be a compass which helps you to make those choices easily.

Make choices that show your appreciation to life. No-one can guarantee the results, however it’s the appreciation that brings the fulfillment to our lives and without that we are void of emotions and happiness. I do feel like people who feel like life is short and decisively make it more so, are not really appreciating the life at all. They have not found the deeper joys of life, but are being distracted by material and bodily joys which are also suffering at the same time. Suffering from the sense that they can never permanently achieve that state with their current course of actions.

No matter how we look at the life, all the things are in constant change. That is something we’ve got to learn to appreciate. Our moments with our loved ones and other people are dear, however they are just moments. If we would like to keep living we would have to learn to live with ourselves and always appreciate the present: find something positive about it, there are always new perspectives to look at the things with. We should also be kind and share our insight with other people, we do not seem to grasp the better sides of life.

Quest to a happier life starts from our own choices. We ought to be aware of the world around us and we ought make choices that do not cause suffering for others. Set goals that motivate you on your quest!

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Kickstart courage

Posted on 12/11/2012 by Janne

The trouble with many people who feel like they are stuck in their lives, social life or anyway is that they lack people who tells them the truth. The truth is actually a thing that only optimistic and generally people who are willing to develop themselves actually have internalized. It isn’t a answer it is a question: who is the boss in your life? Is it your mother? Your brother? Someone else? Or is it YOU?

Realization of the responsibilities is a good step, however it rarely alone gets you anywhere. So what to do? Realize hope. Hope & optimism is something that gets us to do things we don’t perceive possible in our current reality. However hope is like a cheat code in games: it let’s you do things that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

Kickstart courage is a process where you get that all important ACTION out of YOU. Let’s keep it simple:
1) Realize who is responsible
2) Visualize success (Hope for the best)
3) Take action

That’s all really. You succeeded in taking initiative, praise yourself for that or even reward yourself. Even if your other goals did not go as planned, you’ve gained a whole lot of experience. Experience upon which you base your sense of reality is really important, because without that you ”assume” things, that really aren’t there. In many cases is a major cause for fears, which prevent you from taking action to begin with. Silly, isn’t it?

So pickup the hope, wield it and take a charge at your fears. Soon after persisting a while you will notice, that ‘fear’ was only a gatekeeper that tested your determination. So defeating your fears is a gateway to the highway of your life!

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Achieve the sense of belonging

Posted on 12/11/2012 by Janne

I’ve achieved sense of belonging to this world, by learning to love. Learning to love others is hard, but loving myself has been even harder. A bit by bit however it has been possible to correct my reality in to a much more pleasant one.

False reality which I’ve had built on lies, limited views and expectations slowly crumbled into a one, where I can accept myself more easily. By accepting myself, I’ve also understood the limitations of other people more easily. This has enabled me to be much more empathetic, considerate and kind person.

Pleasant personality is something that I’ve cultivated consciously for about two years now. It isn’t about pleasing others, its about taking others in consideration, seeing world in many perspectives and applying that to your own action. This allows you to see things from different points of views. Perspective is the magical thing that reveals errors in your own reality.

There is reality and there is the perceived reality. How you perceive that reality depends on many factors, most importantly experience and knowledge. An experienced person would see many more sides to a subject than beginner who only thinks about one or two things.

If person has a motive, for example to earn some money. The person gets a job, then that persons only motive might be to work and to earn money. However as the experience accumulates, the person might see improvement in environment, that his doing might have purpose greater than just personal agreement between employee and employer. By noticing and being aware of this, might give the employee another perspective to work harder in order to do that purpose. However, perspectives to things aren’t never limited. There is even greater perspective the employer, who might have many motives to work also.

Depending on the person’s values and the background, peoples perspectives differ a lot. It is possible to consciously learn these perspectives, if you wish. Just be aware and pay attention, it is really that simple! Be present.

Seeing things through various perspectives will make you more understanding, loving & lovable person. Loving people is always good karma which will find back to you. Loving others, creates the sense of belonging for everyone and makes this world a better place. Also good news is that, love is unlimited resource as long as you’ve open heart and a mind, it won’t run out.

Personally I find joy to love from appreciating small things, which also comes from being present. Mixing up the routines is good way to appreciate the moment, like taking longer route to home or work, stopping to appreciate the scene, or anything you feel like, let your inner child loose! :)

Starting to appreciate more and desire less will certainly make your life much more satisfactory in the long run. This is simply because you enjoy what you’ve now, instead of clinging to what you want or will have in future! In fact if you closely look at this: appreciation and clinging/ wanting is a habit. What was a habit again? It is re-occuring way of action, meaning that if you’ve such HABIT, it will happen again and again. So take a notice, be genuine, aware and present. That way you’ll start finding more and more good things out of life and in exchange you’ll feel more positive too!

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