by Gundula Welti
19 Mar 2021
Do you like receiving gifts? Knowing that someone has thought of you? That someone has taken the trouble to wrap up the object and takes pleasure in giving it to you?
Gifts say as much about the person that gives them as the person that receives them. Often, we give what we would like to receive.
Someone who likes books tends to give them as gifts. Someone who likes giving flowers will have a bouquet hidden behind their back when they ring your doorbell. Someone who likes sweet nothings and beautifully written phrases will write you a lovely poetic note.
That someone becomes like an open book to us. They are telling you what moves them. What they have on their mind or simply what they enjoy.
Feel like pleasing someone? Simply remember what they have told you about themselves through their words, their gifts and their compliments.
Would you really like to please someone? Listen to them.
by Gundula Welti
07 Apr 2020
In amongst the crowd that has come to listen to Buddha is a man who clearly doesn’t agree with his teachings. He is yelling out at the top of his voice. As he walks away from the crowd, he loudly insults the unflappable sage one last time before going off.
As he leaves the town, walking at an energetic pace, his anger fades and he feels ashamed of his behaviour. He goes back into town to find Buddha to apologise to him. Buddha assures him that he has nothing to apologise for and gives the following explanation:
“If someone tries to give you an object that you don’t want, what do you do?”
“I don’t take it!”
“So where is the object?”
“The giver has it!
“That’s why you came to see me. You are suffering more from the insults that you hurled at me than I am, because I simply didn’t accept them. Another person only has the power over you that you let them have!”
What about you? Have you given someone too much power over you and would you like to take it back?
