Super-Duper Zen Power - Dr.Ranganath Masthar MBBS.,MD

, After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022, the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.    

 After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022, the co mmunity practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a sweet home away from home. Here we give an article by our senior zen teacher Ranga Nath master, on how to handle compulsive negative thoughts.   Question: How to avoid negative thoughts like suicide or offence.? The first lesson is, you yourself will make all the thought waves in the mind and thoughts do not come from any outside source. You are just unaware of it. The problem is ego. Not the mind as such. You have a small world, and you are the whole and sole occupant of it. So, it is always "me, myself, my desires, my wants, my suffering and my problems". There is no room for any one else there. This I call ego. This is the problem. The real fact is you are one of the many residents of this world and yo

  , After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  We give here some dharma talks by Br. Ranga Nath master, on the ways of the zen. Look at this example of breathing.It occurs moment by moment. The shutters in the throat keep opening and closing moment by moment. Similarly you keep doing some tasks moment by moment. You may not be aware. Even when you say, 'I do not want to do that', still you are doing the 'not doing' work!  So, it is just this; you have to keep doing things of the internal and external world. You will either do a thing or not do a thing.  See, it is foolish to say I will do the breathing in the evening. Breathing is here, now. But evening is in future. But

  After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Here we give some dharma talks by Br. Ranga Nath Master, on zen practice   After visiting Damya and seeing him attain a perfect composure, my mind became more puzzled. How could he do that and why not others?  Buddha tells a story to throw light on this. In the horse families there are three kinds of horses. The first one is born to run and born to win. It has good health, good attitude. So, with brief teachings it easily runs. The second one needs a disciplining, a  regular teaching and even punishments and it catches up. The third one is a poor horse. It is not at all capable of running. Its very manufacture is like that.  Similarly the huma

  After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Here is a dharma talk by Br.Ranga Nath Master, on zen    When the forty year old Dharmaiah aliyas darmya was brought to my hospital with a complaint of severe depression, after a thorough examination  I decided that he be sent to live with  an old meditation master, who alone was capable of giving Darmya what he really needs: Love and compassion! The old master also felt relieved because he got a supporting hand to assist him. He taught Darmya how to cook rice, wash vessels and work in garden without falling into habituation of weeping.  An year later I happened to  see Darmya and I was taken by surprise to see a transformed fellow full of vit

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  I have been teaching mindfulness to our brotheren Indians for quite some time. Now most of my friends know what mindfulness is and what sangha (a practice center) is.  But I don't see any visible change in their quality of life. Day by day they get annoyed in their family matters, worried about the failing health and anxious about the diminishing peace of mind.  Arthritis, forgetfulness and a feel of discard. For your symptoms of corona, you would consult a doctor, clarify your doubts, take a decision about the right treatment and get well.  It is not so with your other problems. I am talking to you now as a loving friend, not as a head mast

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  When you are overworked, you know how to rest physically. You will sit for a while or take a nap. Your mind is equally overworked, busy and tired. Do you know how to rest your mind?  You have reduced sleep because mind is busy even in sleep. Shouldn't you do something to it? The cause of bone and muscle pain is the busy mind. It leads to arthritis in forties and forgetfulness in fifties and irrelevance in sixties. Look here, if you give perfect rest to your mind, then it amounts to emptying the mind! Do you believe in the emptiness of mind?  It is necessary that you have to have a firm conviction in the possibility of an empty mind.  Then yo

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.   DYou are probably wasting your time in ashrams or hill caves, if you are trying to attain the so called enlightenment. As Indians believe, most probably you are repaying your karma debts of earlier life, if you are trying to find enlightenment. Our main concern in this practice is to take care of the physical body, to take the erect, stable posture for sitting or standing or walking. Only then we are able to learn the new habit of being in the present moment.The body is one important tool available for us to practice awareness. The next important part of our practice is to be mindful of the breathing. This is another important tool available

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  At several stages in your life you might have faced embarrassing setbacks and disappointments. And so, you may enter the practice hall with a desire to prove your worth in the spiritual field by attaining enlightenment. This is just an egoistic idea, of a childish mind. We all humans create such fantasies and follow them. Some people repeat this over and over again and will be completely lost in such egocentric ideas. This is called karma. If your practice is based on any idea of gaining something, then this karmic spinning is ruling the roost. We are careful about this. Our practice contains the vigilance or awareness which cuts off this k

  After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  We are not interested in what happens after death or about our previous birth etc. We have a question. We have seen some sages who have overcome the  dissatisfaction's  of life. They live a life of peace and love for others. How could they do it? Can we do it? And how? That is our question, exactly. We are concerned about how an ordinary human being is transformed into a sage. It is like this; we love the sweet dish, atimadhura, a kerala delicacy of cooked rice, coconut and jaggery. We want to know how they make it. How the raw rice and jaggery would transform themselves  into a sweet like that. The secret is, you make it again and

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  The zen student has a single minded way, to live best each moment, there by express his true nature. He does this through his practice. That is all. Whatever we do, whether cooking rice or sitting in meditation, it is an expression of our true nature. And our sincerity. There is no goal. No starting point. Nothing to attain. This is the secret and this is the nature of zen practice. - A dharma talk by Br. Ranga Nath Master

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.   Dear Most beloved Thay,. There is no measure of the invaluables you have offered to us. We are grateful to you. You showed us that it is very much alright to suffer, to have a limited body. You represented the Buddha way so perfectly that the man Thich Nhat Hanh and the way were merged. It is not quite easy to take Buddha spirits to those western lands, where it is totally unknown, and you did it. Now there are umpteen number of monasteries and practice centers. You changed the lives of thousands of persons, transformed them to find the deep true peaceful nature. So also the story goes with many Asian countries. They were lucky to have your pre

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Deepa a three year old child lived most of the day in Latha's house, just the next apartment . Deepa's mother had died and the father, Sripada achar was alone, and working in our hospital. He came home only by evening. Latha Nair was in final year of micro biology PG course. Sripada was recently diagnosed with a terminal stomach cancer. He was worried that Deepa would be an orphan soon. She would either be taken away by unscrupulous relatives eying on assets and unwilling to adopt a female child or she would be sent to an orphanage. Latha was moved by the plight of Deepa. She found a stunning way to take care of the child. She married Sr

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  I wanted to make a cup of tea and write a blog article. Just then the child ( my grand son, one and a half year old), started crying. He wanted me to take him to garden to play. So, I abandoned my plans and took him to garden. He was happy watching butterfly. The most important work is to make someone happy. The most important person is one who is close by. Most important time to work is now. (It is not blog readers or club members who are away and virtual. It is not writing blogs. It is not taking care of tomorrow at today's cost.)

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Too much joy goes with too much sorrow. You will think I am leaning towards pessimism as I am talking about suffering often. A pessimist has a disturbed mind. He can never stay calm and serene for a few minutes.  A zen meditator remains calm all the time. It is that Wonder I am talking about. To say a birth is optimism, then death is pessimism. It is a over simplification of things. The reality is both are equally real facts. So if you spend more time finding joys, you are putting your self to  encounter sorrow equally in same measure. One extreme of this is called Bipolar disease.  Either they laugh too much or cry too much. They can never rema

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  If you are interested in Zen/ simply any meditation/Vipassana, here I wish to tell a few things that you need to hear. It is all about some wonders of this life, the wonders of humans, the wonders of human mind, body, and emotions. These wonders are even more splendid than wonders of architecture  and technology across the world. It is not a small wonder that lives of thousands of people are being transformed   from the so called inseparable suffering  into greatest joy of life. Yet it is about the usual life of being rich, famous, getting married and touring the world. This extra ordinary accomplishment of finding the treasure of our true natur

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  A rabbit is very cautious, mindful when it leaves its hole. It doesn't have to teach this lesson to a baby rabbit. It is there in the genes. We humans also carry this old brain but grossly ignore to use it. Hence the heavy price in terms of health and happiness. If you know the correct way of breathing, you will build vitality. Our fragile  lungs are open to the atmosphere full of good and bad air. So only the correct way of breathing can take care of lungs and heart. India plum village practice and zen is all about this. The only one in India. - Dharma talk by Br.Ranga Nath Master

  After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  These days you appear to be anxious , even worried about not being able to resolve some issues, score more or patch up annoying relationships. That means you are using more of a certain part of your brain that handles anxiety and anger. That also means you are not using certain other areas which handle new learning, memory, peace and understanding. Otherwise you are perfectly fine. Fine? Not really. Unknown to yourself you may be heading towards a fate of forgetfulness, depression, and restlessness. Doctors name them as Alzheimer's, dementia and Parkinson's disease or simply nerve weakness. Now it is not the time to work harder or impr

  After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  I have seen many wealthy and intelligent and powerful people in this long career in my field. I have found a few amazing facts. All, all of them have said  1. If they solved one problem that would breed a few more problems. 2. Things change most of the time, and do not turn out as anticipated. 3. One after another, people have hurt/ annoyed them and moved away. 4. Feel anxious about health, money, reputation and loosing. On the other side I have seen a very few healthy, contented people. They all have these traits. 1. They have plenty of time with them to listen, understand and help people. 2. They are large hearted, give more but  keep  expre

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  If you see someone with a positive attitude, physical strength and good health, a straight forwardness, and a simplicity in living, with a modest view of his importance, and being serene, untroubled, and with a shrewdness and a lot of compassion, then, you are seeing a meditator, a good guy for friendship and even a guru!  Keep the search on. It always matters in whose company you spend your time. Dharma talk by Br. Dr.Ranga Nath Master. 

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Meditation looks hard not because it is hard to sit in cross legged position. The body and mind are not separate things but same like two sides of the same coin.  As is the body, so is the mind. But you can't start from teaching your mind. Start from training your body. Take the right posture. Keep your spine straight. Ears and shoulders be be in one line.  Sit relaxed but like a log of wood. Don't move. Pay attention to nose area. Follow your breath. Air keeps moving inside and outside. You don't do anything. Just watch.  Your thoughts will stop.  This is meditation, called Zen in Japanes.

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  Trying to fight or remove our suffering is not a good policy. Or trying to ignore or cover up is again not a good policy. The best one is to watch them in a new way. When you sincerely watch, you become peaceful and undisturbed. You will be in a background of perfect balance. Your suffering or disturbed mind will be in the foreground. Or, the suffering will be taking place on the front stage with total imbalance. And you are there on the back stage watching with perfect balance, and stability. And this is meditation making life smoother.

After plumvillageindia news of vesak 2022,  the community   practicing mindfulness near Mysore, is back to life. On the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh with basics of nonviolance, compassion, (ahimsa and karuna) retreats have begun. This WordPress site is a practicing center, a true home away from home. A monastery as well as a short stay place.  You people who want to "improve", should note one thing early in life, before 30s - 40s. Stop caring about health/ success/ relationship/good looks. Those self help books, seminars, quote's do not work in the long run. They even hit back. Those skill curves are inverted curves. In the beginning the more the effort the better you become. Later, the lesser the effort the better you get. It is like honing your bowel habits and constipation. Initially you may need to put more effort eating ruffages, avoid contaminated foods, practice good eating habits. But once you are able to pass bowel with some strain, then it is time to withdraw,