David's Philosophy

When I was 8 years old, I got hit by a car and sustained some brain damage and my mum thinks this made me a bit of an angry kid. I started using cannabis to help me sleep and without it I would be quite stressed and punch holes in walls, I would slam doors on my cars so hard that it would smash the windows. I would be pretty angry a lot of the time especially when not stoned.

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Once me and mum had an argument and I punched the wall where the joist was and broke my hand. I stopped punching walls when I was in gaol with concrete walls. I would feel like punching the wall but stop myself. I was stressed about being locked up for a breach of conditions by smoking cannabis and this stress did not help. Gradually my anger got better and I stopped smashing things but would still get angry at times. Now when I get angry, I don’t even get the impulse to punch a wall. I was frustrated and angry for many years but I was never one to verbalise my anger towards others and take it out on others.

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            The first precept in Reiki is to ‘Do not anger’ or ‘Let go of anger’. It can take many situations to learn how to do this over time and we will be tested occasionally until we overcome our anger. Situations will occur and give us the opportunity to learn to overcome anger. I rarely get angry these days. I used to get stressed and frustrated and angry everyday then finally one day I did not.

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Anger is a disturbing emotion and it is quite negative and draining. If I get angry, afterwards, I feel drained and it can take a couple of hours to pick back up. I have found catching myself as I react and calming back down helps before responding. Another thing is if you’re in a positive mood in the first place before the situation it is easier to stay calm. Practicing understanding can also help as we don’t take things personally and accept the other persons behaviour seeing that maybe they are just stressed or tired etc.

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            My mum got upset one day when we were talking, she said she felt like I hadn’t listened to her. I reacted with frustration and said you didn’t listen to me. I walked away quite angry for an hour, 2 hours later I apologised and cleared the air. It felt good to apologise I knew I was in the wrong. I also reflected and thought how could I handle this situation better in the future, it had been happening occasionally. I practiced some understanding, she is 73 years old and her mind is no longer very good and I realised I have to be patient with her and more tolerant to her reactions and stay calm. I also realised I need to be in a positive mood more of the time and that this will keep happening until I learn the lesson. I thought she had pissed me off but then realised that I got pissed off and it was my reaction so I owned it.

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            I have learnt to calm myself down when I get angry. Listening to something relaxing helps and then picking myself back up so I am happy again. I apologize when the time is right. I have found if I am in a good state of mind, I don’t get angry in the first place. This book will help you find a better state of mind and I say state of mind is everything. I got angry one day but expressed it appropriately just venting verbally in my room. I was angry about the drs putting me on Clozapine and Lithium when I didn’t need them. After this vent I felt really good it cleared a frustration that had been affecting or bothering me for a long time. I guess it is normal to get angry sometimes as long as you don’t hurt someone else that is the main thing.

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Anger frustration and stress are normal responses but expressing your anger appropriately must be learnt and then you can learn to not get angry in the first place eventually. If you punch someone or a wall when you get angry it will take time and some situations for you to learn not to do this. At first you will get the impulse to punch and you will have to control yourself but over time the impulse will not happen anymore. Try not to take your stress and anger out on others whether it be staff, inmates or patients. Sometimes something from the past that you are angry about will come up in your mind and it is good to feel the anger and get it out of your system your emotional body. I have been told that the anger is on the surface and actually we need to feel sad not angry, this takes time to learn. We have many emotions in our energy field which will need to be released and emotional intelligence can take a long time to learn. These days I am getting better at feeling emotions and sitting with them until they pass.

 

‘It’s easy to get angry but not hard to stay positive and calm’.

‘You will find when you are positive it will be easier to not anger’.

Reiki precept, ‘Do not Anger or Let go of Anger’.

So, this is all about being satisfied with the way things are with the situation you’re in, your predicament. This is about accepting your present situation and being happy in the moment, no matter what your predicament looks like. This is about thinking positively. You have to think positive despite your predicament. If you think negatively, you’ll feel negative, if you think positive, you’ll feel positive. Thinking positive can take you from a rock bottom to an extreme high, being happy with your predicament despite it. Then by being happy with the present you can then be happy in the present.

Forget about the past, let it go, accept it, you can’t change it or your present. However, you can think positively and be happy about the present no matter what your predicament is. You can choose to be happy about your predicament and this is entirely your perspective of the present. This is about being happy with living in the present despite where you find yourself in life at this very moment, rich or poor, in gaol or hospital, living in your own house or even on the street. All this can change in the future with a positive mindset to begin with and some hope.

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This lays the foundation for stability by positivity and gratitude about our present. It’s not necessarily bad after all, it’s all good, or everything is, just as it is, all perfect, but that takes a while to learn. We can either see things as good or bad, this is our perception that decides and chooses to see our predicament as good or bad. We can think positive or negative and we can be satisfied and happy with our current predicament. This can carry us forward from here making the present and the future more positive. It can lift us up appreciating the present. In the present we can still be happy with nothing, it’s our choice to choose to be happy despite our circumstance and basically grateful that at least we are alive. We can then begin to make the most out of our life and create a better future for ourselves slowly if that is desired or needed.

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It is the beginning and the basis which enables us to start with a positive mindset and be happy with our life, our predicament. No matter the situation we find ourselves in, we can be content with the here and now, our present circumstance, our current situation, our predicament and be happy with our life as it is. Being content with our life by accepting it as it is for now and being grateful about it makes it better instantly. It is possible to go from a rock bottom to a very profound high level of contentment with practicing this principle.

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I had this experience a few days before robbing the bank and that was a bad idea. At this point I should have seen the error of my ways, that drugs had got me into this position. I should have renounced them and stayed clean and made a better future for myself. Days later I made a bad decision to break the law and rob a bank and the rest is history. If you find yourself in a position like this, renounce drugs and alcohol and do not go down the path I followed. For anyone else know that you do not need a lot to be happy, for a monk only has his robes, a razor and bowl and sometimes they live in the forest but a cave is nice.

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I want you to imagine you have lost your job.  Your friends you have been staying with ask you to move out and you are living in your car. You have no job, no money, no food, no petrol, no tobacco, no alcohol and no drugs, virtually nothing. You have the basic necessities, water, clothes and the shelter of your car. You’re at a loss, a rock bottom down in the dumps and you are wondering what you are going to do when you have a profound thought that even though you have got pretty much nothing, you can still be happy. Next thing you know you’re feeling on top of the world and invincible. It’s amazing you’ve never felt so good being so happy with just the basics. You realise you don’t need much to be happy and you can be happy with things just as they are.

Happiness is independent of your situation. You can be happy no matter of the circumstance you find yourself in. You can however try to better yourself, make yourself more comfortable and improve your situation, your predicament and your future by being positive about your current situation. This positivity will or may help you manifest a better future for yourself. You can get out of a rock bottom quickly but see why you are there in the first place. Make changes so this does not happen to you again in the future, time and time again like what happened to me. Avoid a long recovery and wasting half your life, turn your life around or realise you don’t actually need that much to be happy.

27 years later at one point I was feeling a bit down about my predicament although it is a hell of a lot better than that time. I am living in my mum’s house, I have no girlfriend and I have no job but I am practicing some gratitude. I have a warm bed, food, money and some cigarettes at least and plenty of coffee. With some hope I will get a nice young lady one day and hopefully have a child or two. I haven’t had any children yet because I spent half my life in institutions. I was feeling a bit depressed and regretting wasting more than half my life because of addiction to cannabis but I had to be positive to pick myself up and lift my spirits. I have to be content with my predicament and as I actually think about this way it isn’t that bad really, all is not lost, I am only 49. I have many years ahead of me to build a life up for myself. So, I reminded myself that I have to think with a positive mind about my predicament, it’s not that bad really and practicing this principle lifted my mood and I felt better.

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The third time I was in gaol I really practiced this concept. I used to say you can stick me anywhere on the earth the earth is my home and so I was not at all upset or affected by being in gaol. Even though I was in gaol I felt on top of the world. I was so happy it didn’t bother me one bit. Back then I was not badly addicted to anything and so I didn’t need any drugs. I actually remember thinking that you have to be as happy as when you’ve got drugs as without them. It was very easy for me to be happy despite my predicament. Then a few times when I was put in hospital, I was like wow this is alright this is great, so much better than gaol and so even in a hospital I was happy.

 

‘Your situation is irrelevant to your happiness’.

‘You can still be happy no matter your predicament’.

‘If you think negatively, you will feel negative.

If you think positively, you will feel positive

despite any predicament you are in’.

‘Sometimes you’ve got to hit a rock bottom

before turning your life around and going up’.

‘A monk only needs his bowl, his robes,

a razor and a cave which is nice’.

Things happen and once done cannot be reversed. However, many reasons will come out of these occurrences. Lessons, learnings and growth and so good comes out of the bad and we can give thanks for the valuable life experience and wisdom we can learn from these things these trials and tribulations. Once you reflect and ask the question what is this trying to teach me you will see what needs to be changed and what you have to learn.

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Life gives us lots of things to accept and acceptance gets quicker and easier with practice. Indeed, we are tested until we learn this skill and principle. One of the first things that taught me and allowed me to practice acceptance was breaking a bolt on my motor. It took me about three hours to accept it, but I did. Also, I had to accept being breached and thrown in gaol purely for personal use of cannabis these days widely considered a medicinal product. I broke the rules and I got breached; it was my fault the system was as it was at that time. They did the right thing at the time; it was the law and the rules and I broke them. In other ways it was the right thing it was just that my perception told me it was bad and I didn’t accept it. Had I have known the good that would have come out of it I would have accepted it straight away, but I couldn’t see that yet. It took me 7 years of stress and anger about being breached before I accepted it and that made those 7 years very difficult. If you find yourself in a hospital or gaol, accept it as soon as you can otherwise you will do your time hard.

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I’ve learnt to accept things pretty easily and quickly these days and in the right mindset nothing will bother you. There is no end to the things we can accept. Accepting our past is also very important as it makes us content with our lives up until now. We can’t change our past, but we need to find peace with our past, learn from it and see the positive that can come out of it and the things we learn from these experiences. Life is about learning lessons and principles and growing into a better person.

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Recovery is about learning how to process problems, accepting, forgiving, apologizing and gratitude etc. We clear the past by accepting it, we can’t change it but we can be happy in the present. If we accept our life, we can find peace with our past and then learn to live and be happy in the present. This is often easier in hindsight to see the good that comes out of the bad and that everything happens for a reason. This is just the universe clearing our karma and bringing purpose out of bad situations and teaching us lessons and helping us grow if we learn. We learn from the past with reflection to be better in the future. Later we learn to have faith at the time, until things work out and we see the reasons that things went the way they did. We learn to understand why these things happen and see our past just brings us to the present which we have to be happy with and in. Our karma can make these things happen I believe.

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Once again imagine for example that your parents get divorced when you are five years old. You don’t accept it at that age, and it breaks your heart. You carry on with your life for a very long time and then one day you decide to accept it realising that you can’t change it. You see the benefits of having four parents the good that came out of it. You learn things from your stepparents that your real parents would not have been able to teach you. It is something that happened which is out of your control. You find yourself at peace after accepting it and now you are truly happy because you see the positives and you pull the good out of the bad.

Also imagine you’ve gone into gaol or hospital and that you didn’t accept it for a long time. You are fighting to get out, you are shaking the bars and it stresses you out. This stress of not accepting it and being angry affects your wellbeing which affects your mental health. Your anger and non-acceptance stops you from being able to relax, be happy and enjoy yourself in the moment. All this makes the experience very unpleasant and you do your time hard. Your perception of it, being locked up, determines how you feel about your incarceration. At last, you finally accept it, calm down and find some peace, the fight is over. You stop shaking the bars, you relax and enjoy the rest of your time and you get out one day. Sometimes they put a monkey in a cage and the monkey shakes the bars. Once the monkey stops shaking the bars then they let the monkey out. Relax stop fighting it, accept it and be calm even if it is not your fault and at least you will feel a lot better. There is no point being angry and stressed it will not help.

 

‘Acceptance is the Key to returning to positivity’.

‘God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can

and the Wisdom to know the difference’.

Being thankful for what we do have and realizing that things could always be worse is practicing gratitude and being positive. We should be grateful that we are even alive and have this opportunity at life. It is very lucky to be given a life in the physical world. This can bring us a feeling of abundance as we feel like we have everything we need and that we are actually very lucky. This need not be much. More things come to us when we appreciate what we already have, when we are satisfied with what we have even if we have next to nothing. This picks up our vibration and makes manifestation quicker.

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This can help us acquire more. It makes us content and satisfied with the way things are and we become happy with our life. Being grateful is being happy and is a form of thinking positively and it helps uplift us. Things could always be worse. Remember that and think how lucky you actually are and be grateful to be alive and have this physical life in the flesh. There is always someone better or someone more worse off than us. We think some things are bad but there could always be something worse. In the end it’s all good and our experience teaches us things, lessons and so good comes out of the bad and we become a better person for it. We can use our experience to teach others, anyone and our children.

We have to learn to overcome black and white thinking. Everything is, just as it is, perfect, it’s all meant to be. Pull the purpose, the reason and meaning out of things. Try and understand why things happen. Pull the good out of the bad, learn the lesson and be grateful towards others and what they are teaching us. Sometimes when you are suffering you are clearing your karma.

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You are given the opportunity to be a spirit in the flesh; a human being and you are lucky to be alive. Be grateful to be alive and have this opportunity to be living in the flesh. Turn your life around, start living, find some purpose, learn, grow and improve. You are here to learn and grow, to help others and for others to help you. Have gratitude that you are still alive and make the most of every day.  Keep trying and learning. Be grateful about what you do have, a monk only needs a bowl, a razor and robes anything more than that is a bonus. You don’t need much so be content with what you do have and be grateful that you are even alive by being given this opportunity which can be wonderful if you make it so. Be grateful.

 

‘Gratitude is the attitude to give you altitude’.

‘Thank everyone and everything

for the help they give you

and the lessons they teach you in many ways’.

‘Thank each other and praise each other

this is how we build each other up’.

When we see the divine and beauty in others, we can admire them and then love will flow to them and when we do this, we are also being mindful and in the present. It’s also about taking our time to really enjoy something and eating or drinking mindfully. It is how we learn to feel love and be a little enlightened. It can be very uplifting to have anything mindfully. Sometimes I stop and sit down and really just appreciate a nice cup of tea and smile. Stop, sit or stand, sip, smoke, stare but not in a bad way and smile. It picks me up enjoying the things I consume. I take things slowly and mindfully with appreciation. Sometimes I just walk mindfully and slowly in my cell size bedroom and this helps me to relax as I meditate. Sometimes I just like to stand nice and straight and tall and still and feel my energy lift as I rest in the pure moment.

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Babies need love and admiring them allows love to flow forth to them. They need lots of love and good energy. Admiring others will enable you to uplift them and pick them up. This is one principle where we learn to love again, to send energy to others and it is how we start to learn how to heal others. It can be nice to sit down and purely just enjoy and appreciate whatever you’re consuming and admire the view, person or whatever you are looking upon. I like to try and see beauty and the divine in all people and all of creation.

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Imagine you are having a coffee. You slow down and get into the moment: you think of how nice it is. You take your time sipping it sumptuously and slowly. You really enjoy and appreciate it. You are being mindful and you are completely taken away from your cares and worries. You are right here, right now, just wholly drinking your coffee fully in the moment. You are being present and living in the moment. You are admiring everything and seeing the beauty and divine in everything and this is enlightening you being mindful and meditating purely in the moment. 

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During the day here and there practice slowing down. Relax, use the things you consume as tools to do this by way of mindfulness. It’s a form of meditation by using tools, the things we consume, to allow us to get into the moment. Then you can practice this without using things and this can help you to get into the moment. This is a form of meditation in action learning to take your time when consuming by using appreciation, mindfulness and admiration and then doing it in action. This is seeing the beauty in things, people and the world around and outside of us. So, we can first learn to get into the moment through mindfully consuming and then we can learn to get into the moment without consuming. Then and now, we can get enlightened and learn to stay enlightened in action as well as in sitting. We can take our enlightenment with us everywhere throughout the day being mindful and being in the moment.

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A lady asked the Buddha how do I meditate? He replied, ‘when you’re drawing water from the well watch your hands’. So, this is being mindful by being present and aware of our actions. Zen monks sometimes do a walking meditation called Kinhin and I often do this myself. I walk slowly and mindfully and it is very relaxing and helps me get into the moment and be present and aware. Mindfulness meditation is very beneficial and we can learn to be mindful of our emotions as well. This becomes a skill when sitting with any strong emotions and we can learn to just observe these emotions until they pass and to not feel overwhelmed by them. This mindfulness also works for sitting with cravings and just observing these thoughts and letting them pass without being involved in thinking about it. Learn to meditate and let thoughts pass like clouds in the sky, just sit and observe them and empty your mind.

They say that Zen began when the Buddha was giving a teaching where he was simply admiring a flower. It is also said that Zen began when the Buddha was silent, in the space between words – it was the teaching of no teaching. I like Zen Buddhism because you can have a wife, I couldn’t be celibate for the rest of my life.

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When I meditate, I like to smile and feel positive and pick myself up and feel higher levels of consciousness and feel enlightened. When we admire others, we feel love and it flows to them and this how we begin to learn to heal really well. Accept others as they are and without judgement about what they have done and see everyone as a divine spirit, see everyone as a beautiful human being. Appreciate and enjoy the things you consume this will make it a nice experience. Be mindful of what you are doing and be more present in the here and now in this moment. Spend time meditating, relaxing, smiling, uplifting and enlightening yourself.

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If you want to learn some really powerful meditations, I highly recommend a great little book called Reiki Meditations for beginners by Lawrence Elyard. It has many types of mediations to choose from and is really well written. I read it over two days and the second day I went through all the meditations, it was very powerful. I had been struggling a bit with my addiction to alcohol and cigarettes but these meditations fixed me really well. If you learn Reiki, I really suggest purchasing a copy of this book. It’s hard to find online so here is the publisher where you can order a copy. It can help you be better at performing Reiki and can also help you to selfheal. The website is www.lotuspress.com or phone +1 800 824 6396

Being pleasant to other people can take you a long way and come back to you, what you put out, give out, comes back to you ten-fold. You can use pleasant conversation to uplift you and others. Be positive, pleasant, kind and have amicable uplifting conversations. It’s about not being judgemental of others but just respecting them and accepting them as they are. It’s also about uplifting others and picking them up through casual pleasantry. Being polite and pleasant, picking people up is good for us because it also picks us up. We create a good vibe, and it can extend out into the whole of humanity. It comes back to us instantaneously. What we give out comes back to us and when we are nice to people, people will usually be nice in return.

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If someone is being rude or angry to you just smile at them with kindness. Don’t say anything, let them talk until they stop then choose your words carefully thinking about what to say or what advice to offer. Don’t let them bother you and don’t have aversion towards them, their anger or behaviour, just love them anyway. This is actually what they are looking for energy that they don’t have, love that they don’t feel, so give it to them by just admiring them whilst they are misbehaving. When you get good enough you can send them so much energy that you’ll pick them up out of their misery instantly. Trust me, sending energy that well is amazing and actually once you get your energy and your vibration up enough, people can calm down as soon as they enter your energy field. Enlightenment is very powerful.

You go for a walk. You are passing people on your travels. You smile at this and that person on your way, you say g’day to a few people. You stop and talk to a guy playing the double bass. You share this book with him as he is an artist and might be interested in this book.  It picks you up and you make others smile. You feel good after being nice and polite, kind and amicable. You use kindness, politeness and positivity to uplift people and you also learn to deal with tricky people, but this takes time, patience and practice. Spend time reflecting, thinking and learning how to better deal with others and try to learn not to get angry. Keep your vibration high as this will make it easier to deal with troubled souls.

The Divine is the one of the first poems I wrote and it was the one that inspired me to keep writing poetry. It was based on the experience I had at 21 after awakening and ceasing cannabis and cigarettes. The concept came from a little book I read called ‘The Quiet Mind’ by White Eagle. It said ‘if you endeavour to raise the light inside yourself, you’ll also raise the light in all of humanity’. My first day of not smoking I was more extroverted and I went around uplifting people all day in my travels. My mum knew I had stopped using, she phoned me and said it was amazing she could feel my growth. I have spent much time doing this walking around uplifting others. I can sometimes do it that well, that after talking to just a few people I am really uplifted, and I have to bring myself down a little. My bipolar has been helpful in making others happy but my peace and love is better at uplifting others and maybe humanity.

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In gaol or hospital, it is like a little community and if we see everyone as our friend and all get along it will make our time easier. I see everyone as my friend and I can talk to anyone and build instant rapport and I like to lift people up. We should all get along and be friendly towards each other and create a nice positive environment. A few officers in gaol would give me a hard time but I kept being nice to them. After a few months they respected me and treated me nicely. This also happened in a forensic community Hospital ward I was in. There was a nurse who was ex-army and would be hard on us boys but the same thing again I kept being nice to him, in the end I probably changed his hard attitude a bit.

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Connect to people wherever you go

Stop if you want and say hello

Smile, be polite use pleasantries

To all people all faiths of all countries

Coming together connecting forever

Bringing forever everyone together

‘One kind word warms three winter months’ a Japanese quote.