Serve!

Causing the red zone to fade away

Consider the following extract from the autobiography of Russel Williams, ('Not I, Not Other Than I,' O-Books, e-edition, Steve Taylor ed., 2015, pp.136-142) who has been president of the Buddhist Society of Manchester since 1974, but does not consider himself a Buddhist. After a period of, literally, wandering Russel gets a job in a circus looking after horses. He was determined to understand the horses fully, wholly, through careful observation:

'So I set my mind to watching and observing every detail, every moment of the day, for days on end.
'After about three months, as I became more concentrated on the horses, I noticed that I wasn't thinking anymore. My mind had gone quiet. I realised that knowing and thinking are two different things, and that you could know without thinking...I had a strong feeling that I was finally going in the right direction, that this was my path...' (p.141)

'In effect, I was meditating about 20 hours a day, 7 days a week for three years, completely absorbed in caring for the horses. It was a life of continual service, with no thought for myself.' (pp.141-2).

The same effect occurs when we focus our attention on humans, on the people around us. When we live a life of service.

We are social beings and being wholly focused on others enables us to re-balance our brains and cause the red zone to fade away.