Samsara

Samsara means to ‘flow together’ and refers to the continuous cycle of reincarnation to which all human being belong. The quality of one’s next body and life is based on one’s karma in this one. For example, if one builds a hospital in this birth, one will enjoy good health in the next.

If you give any credence to this philosophy, then you will quickly realise that karma is not just important between births, it is also a vital component of your day to day living. You might have noticed in your own life that if you are rude to your neighbours they will not be so likely to lend you their mower when your grass gets too long. This and countless other examples give us an indication that it’s rather advantageous to be nice to people.

And, of course, your writing is not exempt from this principle. If you write rubbish and put it out in the world, then what are you going to get back? Yep – rubbish. If on the other hand, you write clear, loving material that will help people to get through life with the minimum of stress and strain then something of that will come back to you in your life.

Here are a few tips on how to be kind in your writing practices:

• Prepare. Before you start writing, just sit for a moment and ask yourself what you want to achieve by your writing. Ask yourself if you want to heal or hurt your readers. Remember that according to the principles of karma – what you give is what you’ll get and then proceed on that basis.
• Clear. Once you have decided to write something helpful, try an exercise designed to clear your mind of the usual ‘audio ads, popups, or other annoyances’ that bug the web page of your mind from second to second. Prayers, mantras, visualisations, meditations are all good techniques to clear your mind of dross.
• Focus. Bring an idea of what you want to write about to your mind. Different people’s minds work in different ways – some might try to picture a visual, coloured scene in their mind’s eye, others may want to replay words that describe the scene. Still others may want to bring the smells, tastes and touch of their subject to mind and some may want to work with the emotions that their scene evokes. Whatever method you use is fine – just flow with it.
• Write. As you write, keep the focus on bringing benefit to your readers. Try to keep asking, in a corner of your mind: ‘how would I feel if you were reading this?’ Alternatively, keep checking how you yourself feel as a result of writing. If you feel any tension rising in your body, chances are that this tension is flowing into your words (or from your words into your body, which is in itself an example of karma). Feel free to change direction if you are experiencing such things.

The key thing is to try to remember to be nice to as many people as you can, in as many ways possible and as often as you possibly can. Notice how you feel after a particularly kind interaction with the world and then let your feelings guide you into your next kind act. Notice how good it feels to be good.

What are you going to do today to make yourself feel wonderful?