There are many benefits to positive thinking and many people know them. Positive thinking can lead to an increased lifespan, lower risks of depression, cancer, better psychological, and cardiological health. These benefits are so attractive. Who doesn’t want good health, beauty, and a long life? In fact, there are many self-help books, positive psychology, and even modern-day Western gurus that teach positive thinking.
There has been a global mindfulness and meditation movement to reduce our minds’ propensity to be negative. And meditation practices help to support positive thinking. How can we steer our minds towards positivity if it isn’t calm? But yet, it is hard to stay positive for the sake of having a long life, and good mental health. Sometimes, life gets so hard that we forget these practices. That’s when we have to ask if greed is a disguise for positive thinking in our practice.
What is Greed?
Being greedy is the desire to acquire more and more. They need not be material things, though greed often means having more wealth, fame, and good food. But it can also lead to wanting more and more of a good feeling. For instance, drug addicts who are addicted to drugs and alcohol are desirous of feeling high.
Is it possible to be greedy in meditation and positive thinking in order to feel good? There are people who practice meditation in order to feel good and they shut out the world by being in meditation. This is also known as social withdrawal. There are those who use meditation to come up with new positive ideas to get more from work and life. When they don’t get what they want, they may blame mindfulness or meditation practices as being ineffective. So we can see that greed can be a disguise for positive thinking.
How to Know if Greed is A Disguise for Positive Thinking?
It isn’t difficult to find out if greed is in your meditation toward positive thinking. In your daily conversations with friends, do you deny what is viewed as the negative parts of life such as ageing, illness, and death? Do you deny negative thoughts and push them away? Or, do you feel guilty about your habitual negative thinking and try to force yourself into thinking positive ones?
These are all signals that you are greedy for only positive thoughts and things in your life. If we cannot accept the negative things in life, our meditation practice toward positive thinking is not going anywhere. Meditation is a practice to calm the mind so that it can pay attention to singular objects. Whereas mindfulness meditation is about understanding the causes and effects of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily reactions so you can choose wisely without rejecting negativity. When practitioners habour greed in their practice – for example, to practice mindfulness and meditation in order to get something, they will drop the practice when it doesn’t serve them.
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