My Recent Struggles with Positive Thinking and The Law of Attraction

I have been meditating now the last 12 years. It all started when I found a book called "The Art of Power" by Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay pronounced as "Tie" as he is known by his followers). He taught a simple meditation technique after telling a few stories of people's lives as they were told to him.

One story he told was about Frederick whose story really made me think about my own life. This particular idea also has not really left me ever since this time.

In the story, Frederick worked as a top executive of a big corporation. He made a lot of money and he and his wife and little boy enjoyed a nice big house and a lavish lifestyle. His wife would ask him from time to time to take a break from work to go see his son play baseball or to spend some time with her. He always responded that he had to make more money for his company and thus for himself and them and that he would eventually get the time to take off but not now.

It was always, "sometime later when more had been attained", then he would have more time to spend with his little boy and his wife. Frederick was killed in an auto accident while his boy was still quite young. Frederick never had the chance to have a later time when he would have had more time to spend with his family.

Thay goes on to say in the book that the lesson to learn from Frederick's life and attitude about work and money is that we really only have this moment. We are not guaranteed another moment after this one. So we should learn to enjoy everything around us now, right where we are in the here and now.

He also asked a very provocative question and at this time when I read this I was 40 years old and had been working very hard since I was 22 to be industrious at my work and also went back to school for by Bachelor's degree in Business management which I did earn 10 years ago. I had not become rich by this time. For me, to get to earn a 6-figure income would be rich. So I was working and hoping to eventually get my degree and get a management job that would pay me a 6-figure income but I also felt like that attainment was a long way away, at least by another 2 to 6 years.

Thay's question was this: How long have you been saying to yourself, "not now, later, after I have attained more"? For me the answer was at this time, 18 years. His next question; "if you haven't attained more by now, what makes you think that you will attain it yet later on?" Why do you continue to trade in your present moments for your hopes of better present moments later?" "If you are not able to stop and enjoy this present moment then what makes you think that even if you do attain more later that you will be able to stop and enjoy that present moment?" The answer came to me immediately. "Never" I will never be able to do it because I will never have enough.

That is the mindset I could see I was in and I knew this was causing me to suffer the emotional pain of feeling like I am never good enough and the only way to feel good enough is to keep chasing the dream of more money and a better house and car.

Up until this time I had been practicing positive thinking and positive affirmations which were the same things really as The Law of Attraction. I had done meditations before but with the ideas of envisioning myself living in a mansion in the back country of New Hampshire with a beautiful blonde wife and driving a brand new Porsche. We would have so much money that we could work when we felt like it. This was the driving vision I had for my life for those last 18 years and even at this time I was starting to have just an inkling of doubt that I would ever attain it. I felt that giving up now on this dream would not bring an improved life so I kept holding onto it even though I was getting tired of going through college courses nights and weekends while working a full time job. But that job was a going-nowhere job so what else was I to do? At least that was how I thought back 12 years ago.

So when I read this much of the book, I really felt the force of the question. Indeed, would it ever happen? What if it never happens. It hasn't happened yet? So I started meditating as Thay described in this book for 15 minutes every morning. I remember when I first started. I had to make myself sit on my couch in a half lotus position and just breathe in and out. I remember thinking to myself that I had things to do each day and really needed to get going but then after a few weeks I enjoyed these times and they easily turned into 30 minutes.

After a few years, I started to notice that I felt at peace when my thoughts settled down and all I thought about was my in-breath and out-breath. I started to meditate for an hour each morning and I became addicted to this morning ritual. I came to realize also that what the Buddha was teaching was not only that true happiness is found only in each present moment but also by renouncing the chasing after the idea of becoming wealthy. Because this desire and idea and vision of wealth that I had was really also only thoughts that need to be let go in order to experience peace in this present moment.

I started to think in the last 2 years, more deeply on how these Buddhist teachings, if taken seriously and practiced as described by the Buddha in the Sutras contradict and prescribe we eliminate all other beliefs and philosophies because these are all mental constructions and not reality. There can be no real peace and happiness living in these mental constructions either.

I was listening to a YouTube video the other night of Christopher Hitchens who I have always admired as someone who never felt the need to "try out" a teaching to see if it might test true for him. I say this only because I have been guilty of that myself now at least a few times in my life. I started out by testing Buddhist teachings initially about how to meditate but also read and reflected on the teachings to see if they are true. Is it true that I can only be truly happy if I concentrate only on this present moment and not worry about more money?

Yes and No. Yes, as long as I have enough money to buy a basic comfortable standard of living. No, if not. So having money enough to be comfortable so one can have the time and space for continued meditations and reflections is important. However, if not then one might find themselves in a desolate place in their next present moment and that wouldn't be conducive for continued meditations and reflections.

I have found now that this meditation practice can be combined with positive thinking and affirmations. Here is how I work it. First, when a thought or feeling of fear arises in my mind of some imagined future where my living conditions may not be as ideal as I would like them to be, I replace these thoughts with one of my positive affirmations of the opposite scenario. I tell myself also that this scenario IS as possible of a future for me as the negative one. Then I let all my thought be (Let it Be) and then think on the mantra "There is only this in-breath, there is only this out-breath."