26 Sunday Jan 2014
Posted in poetry, Reflection
He says: are you going home?
I say: it depends how you define it.
He says: yes, you are going home
I say: not sure, where home is.
This conversation never ends!
Where is HOME?
Home is where your heart and mind meet and match
Home is where people share the same values
Where there is inclusion, laughter, joy, happy moments!
When you are with me
When voices of freedom ring!
Yes, that is home!
Tahereh Barati
29 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in Articles, quotations, Reflection
Tags
Compassion, Freedom, joy, kindness, love, reflection, relationships, spirituality, Understanding
We all want Love in our life. We all have strong desire to experiencing loving relationships. We all want to reassure ourselves that we are being loved by someone special. But what is Love? How can it be possible? Can it be constructed?
Loving ourselves, loving each other, our neighbors, and our enemy are essential part of philosophical political and psychological debates in human history. It is said, most fights/ conflicts are linked to the absent of Love in human relationships.
Thick Nhat Hanh shares his views and wisdom on ways of bringing Love more present in our daily life. In his book, True Love (1997), he says: according to Buddhism, there are four elements of true Love. I am going to share with you what he consider as essence elements of Love. They are the following:
a) The first element of true love is Maitri, which can be translated as Loving- kindness or Benevolence. Loving- Kindness is not only the desire to make someone happy, it is the ability to bring joy to the person you love. To have this ability, you must practice ‘deep looking’ directed towards the person you love. If you don’t understand this person, you can’t love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. How to understand the person? We must have time; we must practice looking deeply into this person. We must be attentive. We must observe and look deeply.
b) The second element of true love is Karuna, Compassion, this is not only the desire to ease the pain of another person but the ability to do so.
c) The third element of true love is Mudita, Joy. If there is no joy in love, it is not true love. If you are suffering all the time, if you cry all the time, if you make the person you love cry, this is not really love. It is even the opposite.
d) The forth element is Upeksha, Equanimity or Freedom. In true love, you attain freedom. When you love, you bring freedom to the person you love. You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free; not only outside but also inside.
I would like to invite you to reflect on your love according to these elements and see if your love has these elements and if not, what could you do differently. Please share your thoughts and ideas!
Happy Possibilities,
Tahereh Barati, M.A, RMFT
03 Sunday Feb 2013
Posted in Articles, Reflection
Tags
connecting moments, connection, happiness, happy life, have a fun joyful life, joy, make a better life, reflection, relational definition of joy, relationships, social cultural contexts, state of joy
Human beings are taught to seek, make and have a ‘better, fun, more fulfilling and happy life’. We want to be happy and experience joy in life. We seek every avenues to make ourselves and our loved ones happy. But what is a ‘better fun fulfilling joyful and happy life’? Who defines these notions?
We don’t live alone, we live in relationship. We socialize and learn from our families and peers. We are influenced by our social cultural contexts. We try to adopt, accept and, at times, question definitions given to us by our social networks. We want to make sense of things, ourselves and our experiences.
I am wondering how often you practice to step outside of your social cultural contexts to give some thought to notions such as joy, happiness and fulfillment. Michele Foucault says “… We should fight against the impoverishment of the relational fabric …. Rather than arguing that rights are fundamental and natural to the individual, we should try to imagine and create a new relational right that permits all possible types of relations to exist and not be prevented, blocked, or annulled by impoverished relational institutions”….
Do you think it is possible to view and re-view these concepts outside of impoverished social norms and institutions? What do you have to defy to create or co-create your own relational definitions of those concepts?
Fun, joy and happiness don’t exist by itself, they are in relation to other things. Their meanings are related to what we give value to. To me, these notions are names to experiences of ‘genuine connection to self, others and nature’. My relational definition of these concepts might be different from yours because we might value and locate sources of ‘joy happy life’ in different places. Therefore, each relationship may need to identify its core vlaues and define these notions in its own relational context.
It is not easy to become fully aware of our different states of being. It is not easy to differentiate between what you may call as ‘happy fun joyful life’ and what society may call as ‘happy fun joyful life’. The ability to step outside of our social norms may allow a creation of new meanings. This ability may lead to further self-knowledge, self- awareness and consequently enhance our critical thinking.
The state of Joy is one of the notions that could have many various meanings to any of us. To shed some light on the process of defining this notion relationally, I would like to invite you to reflect on the following questions:
Happy possibilities and Have a joyful life,
Tahereh Barati, M.A, RMFT
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