The Magic Mindset: How to Find Your Happy Place By Preeti Shenoy, An Extract

The Magic Mindset by Preeti Shenoy is full of tips, suggestions, fun exercises and practical advice on career, family, health, relationships, finances, social media, and more. An excerpt:

A few years ago, I visited Bhutan, a beautiful kingdom between China and India, on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, known famously for its happiness index. The landscapes were dramatic, ranging from sub-tropical plains to large mountains and valleys.

After a three-hour slippery and steep trek, with the persistent rain adding to the danger, I sat inside the Paro Taktsang monastery (popularly called ‘The Tiger’s Nest’), which hangs off the cliff. A strange sense of peace and calmness enveloped me. It was as though I had stumbled upon a treasure inside me. I never knew such euphoric calmness could be experienced by doing nothing but simply being present. Nothing existed but that moment when I closed my eyes standing before the larger-than-life figure of Padma Sambhava. I spent a few minutes in exhilaration and absolute bliss—an almost Nirvana-like state.

I travelled to many places in Bhutan and visited many monasteries. I loved the quaint cafes, the bookstores in Thimpu and the absence of traffic lights on the roads. Anywhere I went, there was a feeling of peace and calm in the air. Almost every person I met had a wise saying or a quote for me. I saw unbridled joy, hope and acceptance. Simplicity was a part of life in Bhutan, and I naturally fell in love with the place. I dreamt of relocating there; I would be happy, forever, in this serene country. I would rent a pretty little cottage by the hills. I would stroll down an idyllic road, dreaming up the plots for my novels and writing in bliss. I wondered if it was possible for anyone to feel negative in such a place.

Later that day, we stopped at an old cafe, overlooking the deodar and pine trees at the foothills of the mountains. We met a European man who had been in Bhutan for a few years and ran a de-addiction centre for youth. Despite everything that the country offered, there were still people falling into addictions, trying to escape their demons. I was stunned. Depression, addiction and other harsh shocks of life weren’t something I associated with Bhutan. I was perhaps, naively, viewing Bhutan through rose-tinted tourist glasses.

It made me think deeply about the big role our external circumstances play in how we feel inside. But can we seek peace within ourselves?

We often seek an escape from our problems by ‘going on a vacation’. Popular culture leads us to believe that by ‘taking a break’ from our daily life, we will come back refreshed, better equipped to deal with our stressors. I might have been doing the same with my vacation in Bhutan. But vacations are just that—mini-breaks. They do not magically make our problems disappear. No matter where we go, our problems will accompany us unless we develop a mechanism to cope— the magic mindset.

Breaks are necessary, but we simply cannot take a vacation from life.

Using Our Choices to Develop the Magic Mindset

The same day, when we stopped at a monastery on the banks of River Paro, I came across a famous Buddhist painting called The Wheel of Life or the Bhavachakra painted outside almost every Tibetan Buddhist temple. It shows the fierce figure of Yama, the god of death, holding a wheel with different divisions. These divisions portray the various realms. Our guide explained to us that Buddhism has six realms in the ‘wheel of life’. Things such as addiction and craving fall into the realm of ‘hungry ghosts’. No matter how much we ate or drank, our cravings would never be satisfied in this realm. But if we accumulated good Karma by doing good deeds, we would have a chance to transmigrate into other realms. We control our life’s path through our actions, which in turn are shaped by our thoughts.

The more I studied the various elements of this painting, the more the painting began to speak to me. Buddhist teaching is founded on compassion, kindness, tolerance and calmness, which lead to peace and positivity. Thus, in the painting Buddha points to the path one can take for liberation from these realms.

We can change our lives by cultivating the right mindset to help us view our problems in a new and helpful light. My father was a great believer in the idea that our thoughts shape our life. Though his job was extremely stressful, we rarely saw him get angry with people. He worked at an oil corporation and was in charge of the entire Kerala region for the distribution of LPG. He had to deal with hundreds of calls from distributors, ministers, government officials, media and many other people whenever there was a supply shortage. When I asked him how he managed to remain so calm even when the people at the other end were agitated, he narrated to me a story about Buddha. It has remained with me ever since.

When the Buddha was walking through a village, an angry man approached him and started yelling. The Buddha stayed calm and did not get affected by the man’s words. The man got angrier and abused the Buddha.

The Buddha asked him, ‘Tell me, if you bring me a gift and I do not accept it, who does the gift remain with?’

The man was taken aback for a second at this strange question. He thought for a few seconds and said, ‘It will remain with me.’

‘Well, it is the same with anger. If I do not accept it, it stays with you.’

When my father told me the story, I replied, ‘But he could do it because he was the Buddha.’ My father replied, ‘He wasn’t born the Buddha. He was born as Gautama and became the Buddha through meditation.’

My father’s words had a deep impact on my thinking. We do have choices, no matter our circumstances; we are free to choose how we want to live. We can continue like we always have, repeating patterns that keep us in our comfort zones, performing the same actions over and over, coming back to our beds at the end of a long working day, and then doing it all over again the next day. Or we could choose to live consciously and try to grow, regardless of the external reality.

Extracted with permission from The Magic Mindset: How to Find Your Happy Place By Preeti Shenoy published by HarperCollins India.

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