The Musing Mind

“If we practice looking deeply we see that our notion of happiness may be responsible for our suffering. That is why the Buddha advises us to look again deeply into the nature of our desires. We suffer just because of them.” – Thich Nhat Hanh, Under the Banyan Tree. I was bestowed upon the title of a banyan tree today. I do not know if the title bestower considers himself as the seed or sapling that is trying to germinate and grow. Also, I do not know what is the point that the title bestower is trying to make. Let me try to make an attempt to understand what the title bestower is trying to communicate.   Let us, for the sake of this conversation, believe that I am a tree. Traversing back in time, I recall, I was brought to this place as a mid-sized plant. I was planted and expected to grow with time and deliver results of blooming and fruition. Whether I grew strong or not, only time and the people who saw me can say. I tried my level best to utilize all the resources and ...

And then Lord said, "Let there be week days"! --- 1 --- Manic Monday Hello Monday! Starting day of the week is usually the one filled with frenzy. You are the day when the "To Do" list that's written in the first morning hours is long; and the Inbox gets flooded too. Chase and get chased; and it runs into the other days of the week when the chase weakens by Wednesday and tries to pause by Friday, only to start afresh the next Monday. Home takes backseat. --- 2 --- Turn Up Tuesday Hey there Tuesday! Work craziness continues with growing number of rush hours, calls, clicking and clacking of keyboard and mouse, multiple windows of word processors, spreadsheets, and browsers strewn open across multiple systems. Programmers feverishly scripting away their ideas to meet the expectations of their principals amidst balancing the poking requests of a network of users.... silently cursing themselves and their days for they cannot satisfy all. The...

I (we) had been riding under and over chaotic situations for quite sometime now. Not uncommon! Everybody does. In  fact I had been racking my brain as to how to plan for so many events, responsibilities and commitments in life so that I (we) do not end up crashing into pecuniary problems or demeaning situations. I was checking through all kinds of opportunities for earning, saving and investing etc. I am not a wise shopper. Nor am I a big spendthrift. I may perhaps figure-out somewhere in between these two. Despite having a decent job and a reasonably decent pecuniary footing, I still feel insecure. Comes naturally to females, I guess! While engrossed in the interplay of such thoughts and regular office work during hot climes of April, my colleague brought me in the freshly arrived bunch of magazines for the month. As a regular practice I browsed through the magazines and chose Reader's Digest for a detailed reading. In that issue, an article by David Hochman particularly caught m...