Welcome to Zennen.net!

Posted on 07/01/2011 by Janne

First things first, what is the meaning of Zennen to me. Meaning of Zennen to me comes partly from the Japanese 千年 and partly of combining words Zen and Nen. Nen doesn’t mean anything with my limited knowledge of Japanese, however, it was cool superpower ability in one of my favorite anime&manga series Hunter x Hunter. Actually it was the kind of power like Chi is usually so I thought it would be very fitting power to cultivate.

However the 千年 or sennen, meaning thousand years, has gotten my mind around the concept of Kung Fu. And I am not talking about martial arts. Kung fu means ‘a long time spent doing something’, and that is exactly the message I want to convey here. Developing and challenging yourself takes time and above all, the will to do it!

By challenging yourself often enough, will bring you the necessary power to make meaningful contribution to this world. By staying mindful in the moment infects consciousness and good mood to all those around us too!

We are responsible for our own bliss, and if we are not happy, we should conceive a plan to become one. Happiness is not a permanent state, so even if you achieve it, you cannot just put your legs on the table and think that it will last forever, you gotta continue working. There are many pitfalls on the way and by the time you realize it, happiness does not actually consist of achieving, it is about challenging and developing yourself.

Each of us should have our own definition of success, and thus, about happiness too. Understanding that, in life, failure is only temporary helps a lot. Many times, growth is a lot about removing limiting beliefs and replacing those with more empowering ones. So you can improve your life hugely just by upgrading your beliefs so to speak.

As soon as discover your infinite potential we desire to soak ourselves with all kinds of new ideas and thoughts. This website is the result of me, filtering all kinds of great ideas and giving them to you in a different format, for free of course. For me writing, is a way to vent out my own ideas and having people to find any value in it, is a greatest honor.

So, be sure to bookmark this page, and come back later, as there will be certainly some fresh ideas for you to discover!

Then another important thing, is that I am open and willing to discuss about these things. So feel free to either write feedback. I’ll do my best to respond and improve upon it!

Now, enjoy the thousand year journey (it might take less if you walk faster)!

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Bright future of the humanity

Posted on 20/04/2012 by Janne

Humans are incredibly persistent and stubborn beings. Our greatest threat is pretty much ourselves, disease and hunger can try, but as we’ve fought against them our entire lives, it seems that less and less those are problems. How I can say this? Well, if we look at the facts, humans are at the peak of our progression and the way seems to be upwards too.

This is very surprising, due to the fact that all the time media brings up so much all kinds of negative things, that we sort of forget how well our things are after all. There is also one thing that we tend to forget, when we are looking at our grandest problems at the moment, which are undoubtedly, still the hunger, disease and probable doom of our planet. The thing that we forget is that, although we are using our current resources unsustainably, we still have the unlimited potential to solve our own problems before the so called doom. I mean there are many solutions already present, which may or may not be the ultimate, or so called last solution. But we do not want to resort to these, we are held back, because of fear. Often fear comes from ignorance, and of course many of us are ignorant, because we do not have sufficient amount of information to form good opinion on the subject. Good thing to do would be to find some optimistic professionals from each field of study and ask them how the things really are.

I think that humanity will overcome easily the limitations of human body, shun the diseases and solve the food problem. If we look at far enough, there is no really need for a human body anyway as we are able to transcend this bio-mechanical body. That would be truly the grand step. Think about it for a moment, for up until now, we’ve focused on altering our environment to suit our needs. Now that we could suit our needs towards the environment, wow what that could mean?

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Work as part of our lives

Posted on 12/04/2012 by Janne

Attitude towards working, from work oriented life, where the actual work is the major content of life is changing or at least people transition less eagerly to that, if they do not have to.

Anyone who works full time, knows that the work is major part of your life, since it takes about third of your day, maybe more if you commute longer distances. Does the work even so have to be a major interest to you, in order to do it?

Probably, but not necessarily. In fact, although you do not need to be greatly interested in what you do, as long as your work is aligned with your values and you are doing something meaningful, you should be able to see a whole lot of positive sides about it. In addition to that you’ll develop in your work and get some compensation for it also. You can use that compensation to carry your own weight in society, and if you manage it well, even save some of it for the tomorrow. Thus it is easy to see why working is so much appreciated in a society.

In this sense, also, working is being part of the society and not working is pretty much alienation from the society. By working, you assume responsibility. Do it voluntarily to develop yourself even further, and perhaps someday become responsible employer, or at least a leader that takes care of its own. Anything and everything starts at the ground level, be aware and responsible, those small things can change our world.

I do hope that the people would learn to value and appreciate any and every work more. Your own and your neighbors. Humbleness should work from top to bottom, not the other way around. There is dire need for appreciation on every level of work. Everyone should be able to work, eat and rest.

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Thoughts about happier life

Posted on 30/03/2012 by Janne

Accept the truth that there is no quick and solution to happiness; you can’t buy it, you can’t steal it, you have to find it within yourself. Work is the process of finding your own happiness, it will help you to know yourself and through that learning you should learn the things that have value and do not have. Do not be fooled by what other people value; things that have high social value are, but distractions from those true needs of a man, they are only necessary for those who do not know their true desires. There are many pitfalls on the way, but you will learn, grow stronger and train yourself to overcome those. Physical work trains your body, but you should also train your mind, abstain from unskillful behavior and challenge it with problems constantly to keep your wit sharp.

We born and die alone, however we are rarely alone on this planet. We are surrounded by life, whatever we notice it or not. There is a lot of other people too. Alone we are powerless and fragile, but together stronger than anything, by putting our heads together for a common cause is one of the strongest forces in the universe. Too bad that often happens for wrong causes such as war, but even you can affect to it, try to understand other people, instead of judging them. Violence does not solve anything, just diminishes our potential as a species. Doing things with people you love and care about makes to look life much more brighter. There is also a lot of sadness and suffering in this world, but it is kind of signal for change, times change so does our lives last only a while. We have to keep living and look at the bright side of life at all times.

Set goals that motivate you and work towards them with all your might. Doing things fully and throughly is a great feeling which results to many positive experiences. Do not let the failures to get you down, remember that all failures are, but a temporary state. Attaching to either positive or negative outstanding results isn’t really getting you anywhere either, so it is good to recognize what kind of behavior is skillful and what is not.

Take a risk, try something new! Trying everything at least once in this life is a very good rule of thumb for this life as that way we learn about our surroundings, have personal experience and thus can form more accurate model of a reality. The picture will never be perfect, but that is something people who come after us can build upon and learn from. Fresh input is necessary for fresh thoughts, so although there might be some sense of security in routines, in the end the power that comes from new things lasts long in the memories and gets you through even the most worst days.

In the end, ultimate satisfaction to life comes from very simple things like food, rest and work. Live life with other people, share your joys and sorrows and it is a whole lot easier. Give a helpful hand, forgive and learn to understand the human in all of us.

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Value what you have

Posted on 28/03/2012 by Janne

What does it take for you to appreciate your life?

Usually a lot of suffering, perhaps pain, before we realize to value that which we have. Otherwise we would’ve done things right to begin with! Still it pains me to see people who aren’t willing to put the effort to take care of themselves, instead they seem to think that by buying product X will be rid them of that problem. There are many things not reachable by man yet, not by medicine, not by money. No matter how much money you’ve got there are things that only you can do and usually those are the things we ignore up until something happens.

Suffering has many faces and many of those faces lead to much happier one eventually as they trigger the desire for change. So there is indeed unexpected bright side in it. Even thought it is good and thats how it should be, there is some strange craving in me to warn about the ignorance and suffering it will bring upon you. Even thought, I won’t say ‘told you so’; maybe the preach will at least plant a seed, which might someday grow a mighty tree of hope and resilience.

Once you’ve learned to take good care of yourself and other people too, it will make this world a whole lot better place and people much more happier.

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Dao can do: Negative to positive

Posted on 27/03/2012 by Janne

If it were possible to just turn the negative things in present to positive, wouldn’t it be great?

Today for me started great, but as the day went on, some thing started to drag me down and I felt quite bad about it. I haven’t been in such sate of mind for a while and it took a little bit of pondering. After some time spent in gloom, I remembered one important concept from Taoism once again: the possibility to just turn the tables around, turn the negative to positive energy.

Just by remembering and knowing that made me actually feel a whole lot better. This certainly is a useful belief that basically allows me to view the world as if I am able to turn any feeling into another one. There is also meditation practice to it, where you first visualize what you are feeling (either good or bad) and then visualize to transform it into positive. Overall I think these visualization practices are more useful than they are given the credit for.

Today I did not yet resort to these practice as I was already filled with inspiration and hope when I recalled this concept. I pondered upon the subject some more and I am certain that Taoism is certainly something that I ought to look deeper into.

There are some ideas to support this belief in the western world as well. Primarily the example of using anger to do something productive comes to my mind. However that still something chaotic and uncontrollable, you are just channeling what you are feeling into something concrete.

The real concept of negative to positive relies on oneself ability to change their feelings to suit their preferred state of mind. Strength of the feelings vary a lot and also some feelings are good to be, however there are also those that are good to be combated, such as laziness and general pessimism from the environment. Important thing to note, be mindful; this works both ways, actually it might be helpful to acknowledge this and stop harboring negative thoughts as those take up the room from positive ones as well. So stay mindful, be positive!

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Chains of suffering

Posted on 25/03/2012 by Janne

I would like to get started on a really big thing, that is hard to grasp and comprehend. It is about ethical everyday life and how well being is being imported us from poorer countries. Of course, easy life with all our basic needs met doesn’t mean life without suffering, however at least it isn’t imminent suffering like starvation and lack of clean drinking water.

Is is really ethical to transfer the exploitation of working class elsewhere and then import it back and call ourselves a well being country? I mean, is our consciousness completely clean?

Personally I do not think that it is so. It is easy for us to ignore that suffering, however, it is still there. Even if it isn’t direct kind of suffering; we are taking advantage of other people for our own selfish causes, so called well being. Striving to do the right thing should be higher priority than the new angry birds game on our fingertips.

It is hard to do that no doubt, with the amount of information and especially distractions available today, it is easy for us to fall into the loop of ignorance.

All our suffering is caused by the failure to understand our true nature.
– Buddha

In Buddhist philosophy ignorance is seen as the main cause of suffering, and I do agree on that. There are many ways to combat that ignorance, both within ourselves and elsewhere is life, where-ever we encounter it. The noble eightfold path contains the understanding and correct way to work upon, whenever you feel misguided.

At first and foremost, we need to combat the ignorance within ourselves, have all the virtues, but also have the courage and mindfulness to step up when we see ignorance in our environment! This is the way we can truly begin to change our world.

To begin now, we all can start to question the the ethics of everyday things, like the food we eat, clothes we use, beverages we drink and gadgets we use. Where do those come from, and what kinds of phases those things have gone through, before they come to you, the “consumer”? Start asking question and making some more ethical choices and transform this world to a better place.

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Developing positive habits

Posted on 23/03/2012 by Janne

When developing a new habit, or trying to unlearn old one, positive reinforcement is really a great aspect to keep in mind. This should be the foundation to anything you do, as with this you can really create self-reinforcing environment for yourself. It all really starts from within you, but it also infects other people to think more positive and encouraging; even that when it is in place, and you might try to do something that is not aligned with the good intentions you’ve had all the time, it will try to correct your error and support you to be more positive.

Positive reinforcement consists of many basic, simple things, that you might already be familiar with, however, if it is not habit it isn’t working for you yet. So more important than knowing all these possibilities is still to put it in action.

*) Greet the day with smile! Humans actually learn the positive response to things, so face the challenges with SMILE! :)
*) Compliment, give yourself a good pat on a head. Learning to appreciate your own work, also teaches you to appreciate the things other people do to you, remember to say that also!
*) Rewarding, after hard work and good effort, it is good idea to reward yourself. Use small rewards to get the action going sometimes, however be careful, not to make those small rewards a habit. Greater rewards are needed for greater achievements of course.
*) Look at the bright side, finding the good things, learning experiences, viewing things from challenge perspective
*) Feeling bliss (being thankful, appreciating things you’ve and saying that!)
*) Flexing & warmup exercises, people flex way too little and are for some reason ashamed to flex, especially if you are doing work in monotonous positions or sitting at same place for a long time, it is important to get that blood flowing and tone some muscles!
*) Correct ergonomy, woah! This is a big one, everyone should learn to embrace this as the gambling chip is your very own future health and well being. So why not do anything you can, to preserve it, especially, because you cannot be retro wise with your health.
*) Associate good music with the things you love, it creates positive mental image, however this too, works both ways, so be mindful!
*) Brain exercises, good puzzle or a problem a day will keep your wit sharp!

Human mind is surprisingly simple, we just need to stay mindful, observe and be patient with ourselves and we can transform our state of being into very great state.

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Effortless effort

Posted on 18/03/2012 by Janne

The feeling of being introverted, uninspired and even lazy has really limited my productive desire to do things for quite while now. As for exact reasons I cannot say, however I’ve done it with a good mindset: not really worrying about the stuff to be done. I mean, I cannot force myself to do things, I would normally do out of inspiration.

What makes it possible for me this mindset is quite simple: I’ve recognized my existing beliefs, hand picked new ones and thus I can just sit back and wait for the inspiration to come to me.
One of the most useful beliefs is the ‘effortless effort’ or Wu Wei. It is taoist principle, but as I discovered it I immediately felt it resonating within me and so it has been very good belief to have; giving me more optimism and energy to do things.

It isn’t very scientific approach, I feel like it is more of the intuitive type – affecting your way of thinking rather than the actual ‘physical state’. Psychological side of the human health is as important as the physical and the beliefs are great part of the way we operate. Thus to operate at higher level it is necessary to stay mindful, recognize false beliefs and in time to replace those with ones that work better :)

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Backdoor solution to personal development

Posted on 29/02/2012 by Janne

As I talked in previous article of soft curve approach, there are many ways to go about it! One thing that I’ve also will definitely raise your awareness of many things and also encourages the positive habit of not just changing those habits once, but also keeping them in check, which is very important!

You might want to check it yourself: http://betterme.org/cleansweep.html

I’ve tried it and certainly found it very useful, bringing light some aspects that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered or given enough weight in my life.

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Daily top lo<3

Posted on 29/02/2012 by Janne

Along with the writing and self reflection this is one habit of mine, that has had tremendous effect on my life. I believe many people are conditioned to find the positive to begin with, then there are some unfortunate ones, who only see the negative. The exercise is really simple, just find at least three good things that happened to you today and write them down. Write only the good things, no negative thinking at this time.

For me, this was surprisingly difficult, but after pushing through the initial resistance for a few days, it become somewhat easier. It also had the surprising effect of making me want to work harder. And even on a bigger picture I began to find more good things in all things in our every day lives. Soon enough I wouldn’t even join the public complaints about weather for example, I just saw it the good points like bad weather bringing people together, or having at least some luck instead of none ^^

I can contribute to this simple exercise quite a lot. So far I’ve been doing this for year and a half and I don’t see no reason not to continue. Everyday I come up with a several good points about the day and I also try to improve upon those criteria too.

If you are by nature a little pessimistic like I was, this will do a lot for you, maybe even transform your mind into more optimistic one or at least create a healthier balance :)

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Skillful way to deal with irritation and stress

Posted on 27/02/2012 by Janne

In my previous article from irritation to understanding, I talked about importance of recognizing the possibility of that feeling. Now I want to focus more towards the possible pitfalls, anger, remorse and hatred which are all symptoms of the prolonged irritation or stress. In some cases the irritation is the trigger for stress, while in other cases you will feel the guilt and not get irritated, even though you’ve tremendous amounts of stress.

Irritation to things causes stress, if you do not deal with those things. A major pitfall is to channel irritation to wrong things: instead of solving the problem, you channel it to your co-workers, or even hatred towards something very unproductive. That can cause plenty of other nonproductive habits too! In short: falsely channeled irritation isn’t going to get you anywhere, it is resistance plain and simple!

Some people have transformed irritation in the form of anger and put brakes on change, because they feel threatened by it. Not all change can be good, actually some bad is necessary for growth. However, to see it as overall good thing is still necessary. Change will be good in the end, as it will come with or without us.

Prolonged state of hatred blinds us from the change, instead of embracing it, we resist it. Our resistance is futile, and the change itself isn’t necessarily that big at all. Something ought to be changing, not everything. This can be easily proven by the countless, living fossils our planet holds, they’ve lived unchanged as species for a long times, even though their environment has gone through countless changes!

Contemplating to the irritations, helps you recognize the source and comfort it. It is important to comfort the source, because it helps you grow and to possibly change your environment. You will be released a heavy burden of stress which the irritation also brings to you and in addition, you might find out how powerful you actually are!

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Purpose of meditation

Posted on 25/02/2012 by Janne

Many people wonder and ask me, what is the purpose of meditation. This is not easy question to understand, as the meditation is not actually even doing, it is non-doing. It is just sitting really, and the mystification that some Hollywood stuff has done, isn’t really helping people to understand it.

Then the “why to meditate” question follows right after that. After trying out many answers, I feel like, I’ve got now a pretty good one! That is exactly why I wanted to share it here, so that you might want to try grasp it also, as it is very beneficial and not asking much. Only little of self-discipline is required, until the habit is formed.

Mediation isn’t always necessary, however even so, it is easier to do beforehand than afterwards. If you’ve habit of meditating five to ten minutes per day, it will almost certainly be around when you need it, then you remember it and it will support you. Even better, it might give you insight even before anything really gets happening as you attune more deeply into yourself, get to know yourself, listen to yourself and your environment also.

There is only gain in meditation, it is the single best thing you can do with your time.

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