Sunday, December 14, 2008

Defamation

Dalai Lama under attack: video.

No matter how beautiful a person seems, there will always be people who will notice his or her mistakes and amplify them to the boost his own sense of being good.

Two nights ago, I was up all night reading criticisms of Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle, some spiritual mentors I have a lot of respect for. I felt pretty shitty going to bed after all that. That's how I came to my aforementioned conclusion: People will go to great lengths to prove they are better than others, even to the point of defaming others who are overall positive manifestations of love. They do so waving the banner of truth, but the anger and hatred is fairly evident in their voices and choice of words.

The question then becomes, how is my frustration toward these defamers affecting my mental, emotional, and physical state?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Pure Nonjudgmental Awareness

Guilt is bad mkay? There's never a proper time to use guilt to motivate behavior. I'm not even sure it's a good thing to use against myself!

Who cares why we do it. It doesn't work. It makes me feel shitty and unmotivated. It makes others feel uncomfortable sitting next to me. Should I hold my tongue then? Yes. By all means, go silent. Monks do it. But what if I have their best interests at heart? Then understand that guilt will not make them their best.

See the ignorance in my wrong perceptions and breathe in. Anything that causes anger is definitely a wrong perception. So how am I angry? I'm angry that people are pushing me around. Wrong. They aren't pushing you around. You're not allowing your values to be expressed. Your true values. Not your opinions and need to be right. Your values. The things you know are right. The thing that no one can attack because they know it's right too. Fuck the superficial stuff.
See them, breathe out smiling. I'm sorry buddy. Your story just isn't true. You really don't have to hold on to it any more. It's not gonna work for ya.

I want to do beautiful things for her. I want to take her to nice places and let her enjoy the splendor of living. I want to show her the wonders of the world. I want to give her hope that life has meaning. I want to dance with her to the music of life. I want to show her that she is beautiful inside out, no matter what she eats, no matter what she wears, no matter what she thinks even. Yes, even thoughts. Thoughts after all are not important. Let's drop the thoughts. Let's just be with her as a human being, not a thought partner. What is the deepest part of my being? It is love. It is pure nonjudgmental awareness.

It's so rare to see such a thing. A glimpse of the ultimate nature of reality is really just two steps away in an unfamiliar dimension, that of love. If I can just sidestep those two steps, I would be in the land of ultimate bliss already. Poof. I'm here.

Here, there is no judgment of any sort. No one judges me. No one judges her. No one judges any one. We are all expressing thoughts and fears. Every word is an expression, nothing more. There is no such thing as judgment. Whatever you see as judgment is a misuse of the imagination. Even if people think they are judging, they are only fooling themselves because what is there to weigh against when the universe is whole?

Monday, September 1, 2008

Display Affirmations on Your Screen

"Conscience" is an application I made to display affirmations on my computer. It's sort of like a screen saver except you run it manually.

Make a text file with affirmations, quotes, or whatever you want displayed. Separate the messages with a return (newline). Save it as "messages.txt" in the working directory (usually the same folder the program resides in).

Run the program. Right-click the cat to minimize or set the interval, the time to wait between messages. Drag the cat to move it around.

>> Download Conscience <<

Friday, August 29, 2008

Breath Pacer

Breathing slowly, quietly, and rhythmically helps you
  • Feel calmer
  • Feel and release headaches
  • Loosen bodily tension
  • Feel and release body aches



To that end, I've created a simple program that lets you pace your breath. As the blue bar goes up, inhale. As it goes down, exhale. (This one is set to 6 seconds.)

In the downloadable version, you can select anywhere from 2 to 10 seconds per inhalation/exhalation by right clicking on the bar. Move it around your screen by dragging the bar.

>> Download Breath Pacer <<

Friday, January 25, 2008

Destiny Makes a Cameo Thrice

I ate at a restaurant supporting Master Ching Hai last week. I wanted to find out more about her, so I Googled, and avoided the Wikipedia article so I won't get a consensus bias. Found her news channel to be really touching, albeit something I would've described as corny in my teenage years. The site had many links about vegetarianism. Cruising around on iGoogle. Funny, the first story on the Digg list was 10 reasons to be a vegetarian. First story on the howtos section was pilates to strengthen your back. Great, just what I needed since my back is terribly sore. Just when I thought the synchronicities had ended for the night, I found a flyer for something like Buddhism near my dad's computer telling me a few timely quotes like,
  • Helping others is helping yourself. Harming others is harming yourself.
  • Offenses that fill up the skies are dissolved by a sincere thought of repentance.
  • Stop procrastinating. Life is exceedingly short. Don't squander your time.
  • Value, appreciate, and be content with what we have. Enough is enough!
  • The past is history. The future is a mystery.
  • Overcome and accept our problems and obstacles.
Ironic since my dad is a devout aspiritualist. Wonder where he got it.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Comparison of Jesus and Siddhartha

  1. Jesus Christ's divinity ~ Siddhartha's carriage on the trunk of a heavenly elephant into his mother's womb.
  2. The incarnation of the Son of God ~ Siddhartha's reincarnation as a Buddha.
  3. His baptism and crucifixion for the salvation of us all ~ Buddha's vow to end all suffering, nearly killing himself in the process.
  4. His resurrection ~ Buddha's enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. From Mara's hell of temptations rises a liberated man.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Trishna

Trishna: a Buddhist concept similar to desire. The word is the root word of the English word "thirst," but it's meaning is here is wider. Trishna is the desire for things to be a certain way, a desire that is easily disappointed when reality turns out to be different than what you wanted. In this sense, it is not just desire but also aversion, since aversion is just desiring something to go away.

The Buddha's admonition to rid ourselves of desire is seen by many people as an austere rejection of pleasure. What motivation do we have for living if we are not to desire? I think this misunderstanding comes from taking the word "desire" too literally. Of course you must desire to be free from suffering to even start to learn about Buddhism.

The kind of desire we must investigate is the desire to reject reality. We look around us and categorize the world into:
  1. Stuff I like (the good)
  2. Stuff I don't like (the bad)
  3. Stuff I don't care about (the neutral)
When someone criticizes me, I don't like it. That is "aversion." When I'm disappointed with reality, I'm rejecting reality. When someone tells me how smart I am, I like it. "Attachment" or "desire." (Remember that these words are just approximate translations of what the Buddha meant.) How is this rejection of reality? I am smart, of course, and that person did tell the truth. Well, imagine once the person changes her mind. Or if someone else calls you an idiot. Suddenly you are disappointed with reality, rejecting reality. And believe me, for every person who praises you, there will be at least one person who will look down on you. So within each desire is a hidden aversion to reality. Reality will be what it is, but our ideas of what it should be and shouldn't be get in the way of our happiness.