Zen Tips to be Mentally Strong

 

I'd love to be mentally strong. Who wouldn't love to be mentally strong? I mean, I don't know what that means, really. The ability to bend iron girders with the power of thought? Brain press ups? Remembering my phone? It used to be the number I couldn't remember, now it's the actual phone. Not a clue where it is. Could someone ring me? Shit. It's on vibrate. Oh. It was in my hand all along. I'm using it to write this. That's actually embarrassing. 

But I have a feeling it's none of these. This looks like a self-help meme, cunningly disguised as the teachings of Siddartha Gautama, famous for his two wisdoms: "Too many snakes around here," and "It's just me and the kids now." I'd like to be mentally stronger. I'd like to copy Buddha's sweet style. But is it possible for me? Can I achieve this goal? Let's look at these ten precepts: 

1) Stop expecting from everyone - focus on yourself. 

That's so him. His exact phrasing. I can hear his voice: "Yay, I say unto you: stop expecting from everyone." What does the Buddha, who definitely said these words, mean by this. He's saying people are unreliable. Anything you want to do you will have to do for yourself. Focus only on you, your dreams, your goals. Other people will try to crowd you with the hot mess of their lives. Forget them. You are a hot knife through butter, a broadsword through screaming flesh. Communities never work. Networks are time-wasting bureaucracy. You are alone on a dead planet clawing the ashes with broken fingers. That is what you must do to survive. Oh, did I miss your birthday? Sorry, I was saving the world!

Wow, strong start, Sidd. 

2) Accept that life isn't always fair. 

You make your own luck in this life, son. Another pint of numbers? Okay, Dave, do the honours. *snort*

3) Don't beg for love or attention. 

80's/90's/whenever Love Actually came out, filmmakers, please note: standing outside your intended's bedroom playing Peter Gabriel songs at her, or visiting your best mate's wife at Christmas with a selection of cue cards declaring your love for her or, indeed, editing their wedding video, where you were best man, so every shot is of her, does not fly anymore. That sort of behaviour is psychotic. Well, not the playing a Peter Gabriel song, but I would have gone for Shock the Monkey. But the second one. Bloody hell. What is wrong with you, Richard Curtis? What would the wife's great-granddad have said about that? 

What Buddha is saying here, in his weird isolationist way, is let them come to you. Let other people do the begging. Let them crawl on their bellies to declare their love. You won't even notice, because, Rule 1, you were focusing on yourself. 

4) Keep your emotions under control. 

I'm sensing a theme here. Icy sangfroid, that's the ticket. Lift up the drawbridge, prepare to repel boarders. Above all: FOCUS ON YOURSELF, damn it. How many times? How many times? 

5) Stay calm in the midst of chaos. 

Just leave the chaos. What are you doing in the middle of chaos, anyway? Anyone would think you like cha...oh, I see. That's why you're sharing the meme. Gotcha. 

6) Don't take things personally. 

Again, sounds just like The Buddha. So him. I can hear that quizzical upturn in his voice that always drove me to distraction. Not everything is a question, O serene one. 

It's another one about restraint, isn't it? Blotting out the world, fingers in ears, na na na na. Can't hear you. Why are they talking about you, anyway? They don't even KNOW you. 

7) Walk away from toxic people.

Buddha was speaking over a thousand years ago when he said these words he definitely said. There's no way they were typed up by a wellness instructor who developed some pretty interesting theories about psychiatry and general medicine during the lockdown. So, when Buddha tells you to walk away from toxic people - a description of people he used ALL THE TIME - he couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams a bicycle. He was dealing with the world as he saw it. It is permissible to use a bike, or a car, or roller-skates, or any mode of transport at all, the important thing is to get away from the toxic people, once you've identified them as solely toxic, and therefore irredeemably evil. RUN. 

Unless, "toxic" is your "type". Then you're powerless. You'll just have to go back to them again and again. You can't fight against "type". 

One thing though: should you really be taking life advice from someone who couldn't even imagine a bicycle? Hmm. 

8) Focus on solutions, not problems. 

I mean I do this, and I've got rid of all of my problems save one. I have billions of solutions. I am solution rich. I have an ocean of solutions. You could wash your hands in my solutions for so long they'd be smoothed down to pebbles. The only problem I have is that I can no longer remember the problems these solutions are for. But, I guess, if you can't remember the problems for your solutions, you can't have had too many problems in the first place, am I right? I'd high five someone but, adhering to the tenets of Buddhism, I am alone. Which is not a problem. It's a solution. 

9) Believe in yourself, always. 

Always.

"I reckon I can fly this plane." "How hard can defusing that bomb be? No, I haven't any experience, but I it's just wires and wire-cutters, isn't it? C'mon, let the dog see the rabbit." "I reckon I'd be an excellent Prime Minister." 

Believe in yourself. 

Always. 

10) Want to grow stronger? Start practicing these habits today. 

Oh. Well, that's not really one, is it? That's just a recap. Lazy Buddha only came up with 9. But he's a busy guy. Your mental flabbiness is not his problem. Let's look back at his teaching: 

Focus on yourself. Life is shit. Don't look for love. Display no emotion. When people talk to you ignore them, or decide they're toxic and cut them out of your life. Focus on only one part of any equation and, above all, believe in yourself. Don't believe you'll fuck everything up, despite a life time of empirical evidence, believe the opposite of that based on, what? Hope? A will to power? Solipsism? 

Wow, Buddha. You dark.