HOW TO DEAL WITH FINANCIAL CRISIS

I just got back from New York where I took classes from His Holiness Grandmaster Lin Yun Rinpoche. He spoke one day about overcoming the difficulties that we are all facing in the financial crisis. Much of what he said I have heard before and he included secret cures that aren't for public consumption but there was also advice that can be discussed here that will be benefincial to all who take it to heart and use it seriously. I know this because I have experienced the benefit of living with these principles and can attest to their effectiveness.

To deal with difficulties, you need to FACE IT, ACCEPT IT, DEAL WITH IT,LET IT GO. I have actually mentioned this blueprint for facing difficulties before but this letter will go into more detail about each point.

Face Your Problem

One of the biggest reasons for procrastination is to avoid facing what might be in front of you. His Holiness emphasized that we must not run from our problems. Try to face them bravely. If you avoid a problem one way or another, you will weaken your energy. This could lead to you having such weak energy that you can't recover from the issue facing you.

In dealing with financial crisis His Holiness advised us to use both our knowledge and intelligence to weather the storm. This means not engaging in risky investments or getting into things that we know nothing about.

Accept It

Accepting our problems means really taking responsibility for them. This is a mature way to behave. I spent much of my youth avoiding issues that were painful or difficult to accept. Looking back on it, I can see that the problem didn't disappear, it was there getting bigger while I was trying to ignore it. When I finally accepted it, it had morphed into a monster.

Recently I was stopped for a traffic violation. While I was waiting for the policeman to approach my car, I realized that I was going to put the face it and accept it into practice. When the policeman asked me questions, I answered them truthfully, acknowledging my responsibility. Even when I sensed that he was asking me questions so that he could avoid ticketing me, I didn't waiver from accepting my part and in the end he didn't ticket me. Of course I'm not saying that the next time I violate the law that this will work in my favor but I feel that the universe was offering me a valuable lesson on being conscious of accepting responsibility for who I am and what I do no matter what that is.

Deal With It

This is the action part of the equation. Here you need to summon all of that knowledge and wisdom that were mentioned above to discern which action is best to help your situation.

Here His Holiness had several suggestions. The first one was to use softness to subdue hardness. This is a valuable piece of advice particularly for me. When dealing with a crisis, I have a tendency like many of you to come on strong, to try to overpower the people I feel are opposing me. However, the way to turn enemies into helpful people is often to "go belly up", to be soft and available for shifts on both sides of the fence.

The next suggestion was also powerful and that was to go with the flow of your adversity so that you can redirect your problem onto the right course. I once had to be rescued from a rip tide in Hawaii. I am a strong swimmer and thought I could swim my way out of the rip. Had I understood that I needed to swim with the current until it carried me back onshore, I wouldn't have had to suffer the humiliation of getting on that handsome lifeguard's surfboard to be ridden back to safe sand. Sometimes it is not working with accepting the problem that makes us stubbornly resist riding the flow while the universe devises the perfect solution to the issue.

Finally use all of you wisdom to come to a solution. You need your wisdom to find other ways of making money in a financial crisis. This means using everything at your disposal. We all have many tools. Our intellect is one tool that is extremely important on deciding what path to take to mitigate our problems. Meditation or prayer is another tool that can help. It gives us the space and faith to understand that all is right order even when it doesn't feel so. We can seek out reliable helpful people that can help us through our problems or at the very least listen so that we can process the issues.

Let it Go

So many of us live in the past wondering what would have happened if we had done things differently. Once we have gone through the thorough investigation and decided on an action, we can be clear that we have done the best we can do. Pondering whether it is right or wrong or thinking about the alternatives after the fact makes no sense. If you made a mistake, you can face it, accept it deal with it in a different way and let it go.

His Holiness had a unique expression for describing what happens when you hang onto the past problems. He says the lucky ch'i (energy) won't be able to find you. I have seen this to be the case with one of my clients who when I talk to her and ask her how she is doing dredges up every disaster that has happened to her in the last 30 years. Each time she does that, she is burying all the support, the good times and the love that has come her way along with the difficulties.

A Few Last Suggestions

One consistent suggestion that His Holiness makes to us is to do at least one good deed a day. When I have suggested this to some clients they are stumped. What is a good deed? Do I need to walk the streets of skid row handing out money? Should I stand on a street corner near an old folks home and help them across the street?

Your good deeds don't need to be huge or expensive. Some days my good deed is listening carefully to someone, sometimes it is letting a frantic driver go ahead of me, sometimes it is just smiling at a sad person or saying hello to someone in a wheelchair or picking up litter. The little things in life count for a lot and our intention to put love is what is important. Good deeds give us a positive focus for our mind so that we aren't dwelling on what is wrong with us and the world. They also serve to cleanse our negative deeds.

The last suggestion that His Holiness had was to let go of your ego and self centered thoughts. Sometimes when we are self focused we can't let go of our bad fortune because we are too identified with it. Again meditation and/or prayer can help abstract you from the fears and fortune that you think is "yours" so that you can open yourself to new possibilities and a new future.