test

I saw a guy a few weeks ago in a lotus pose with a look of absolute tranquility about him. This isn't uncommon, people do it all the time. However he was sitting on a patch of grass on the edge of an industrial park. The chaotic spring weather was whipping a chilly breeze off the harbour, and even sheltered along a line of trees I was feeling the bite. This guy was a picture of contentment and relaxation.

Surround yourself with candles, scented oils, or incense with soft music and its still a challenge to meditate for some. When you put yourself in a harsh environment where noise fights with the weather for biggest distraction, and find that quiet solace, then you know you've found the path to controling your mind and your senses.

I envied him.

cv

How can an individual reach spiritual perfection while others around him live in misery and spiritual malaise? If limitless compassion is part of being a perfect buddhist, then how can one reach this spiritual goal without ignoring the sufferings of others?

If enlightenment involves the destruction of the self, how can an individual achive such a goal?

It would seem to me that while some may attain an advanced state of spiritual awareness, true enlightenment cannot achieved alone, but must be something that humanity arrives at together over time.

Since it is biologicaly & physicaly impossible to be born and raised in this world without outside intervention it would therefore not be possible to exist on this world without being affected somewhat by the actions, emotions, and words of others. So although it is concievable that people can be born in a perfect state, it would be impossible to remain in that state as you gradually accumulate the baggage of those imperfect beings around you.

This all leads me to believe that stories claiming that the Buddhas have achived nirvana are in fact mistakes, misconceptions, or perhaps even lies.

This however does not disparage their teachings. Ironicly, it actually proves them.

cv

Find me anything in buddhist literiture that proves that those who die literaly come back from the dead. This notion to me is so anti-buddhist I don't know how it manages to perpetuate.

The very thing I admire most about zen is its ability to stand on its own two feet. It asks for no faith in some imagined paradise, and does not come off as having all the answers.

Buddhism is however descended from the brahman traditions, and vedic scriptures who seemed to be taken more literaly in the passage of time. From what I see, the further you get from India, the less literal the translations are. Zen hardly speaks of it at all. Tibeten buddhists think that humans are actually reborn again.

What I believe the whole wheel of becoming and cycle of rebirth represents is that we are creatures of habit. Bad habits are hard to break, those who have flaws in their personalities tend to make the same mistakes over and over until they address that flaw. How many times have you repeated the same mistake again and again? Those who do nothing to improve their stake in life are doomed to be trapped in the same old rut. You take steps to better yourself and you improve your life now, and gain confidence in yourself for accomplishing this. That in turn helps you take the next step, and so on, and so on.... you are "reborn" into a higher spiritual form of life, you don't die and come back as a dolphin, bird, a princess or whatever you consider a higher physical form of life.

cv

Happiness is accepting the fact that you cannot single handedly wipe out stupidity. Probably not even your own.

cv

Kharma Jar? Excuse me? I don't consider begging for tips related in any way to kharma.

Kharmic re-alignment. Just one of the many BS services offered by another practitioner of mastercard buddhism who has no skills to get a real job.

Kharma isn't something you can buy, or any quack can "re-align", its the infinite calculations that equal the sum of what is now, and everything that's ever happened to everyone and everything is part of that equation.

So yeah, I guess putting a buck in the jar does affect kharma. So does stepping on a flower, or putting on your sunglasses. In fact, that guy at the cafe putting out the so-called kharma jar did affect his kharma, because I saw it, was miffed at how it seemed like he was begging for money, and decided not to leave a tip, so maybe he was right and it was a kharma jar.

Of course that would be totally reliant on whether I was going to tip someone for pouring a single cup of coffee in the first place.

It wasn't a kharma jar after all.

cv

This morning I'm out getting breakfast when I walk by what looks similar to a tai chi gathering, except its not. Out front is a sign asking you to write to the Chinese government and demand that the Chinese govt stop oppressing them.

Are these migrants from China? No.

Are they new-age wannabe hippy ladies who always wanted to be an oppressed minority? Uh-huh.

I think that its terrible that the Chinese are oppressing these middle aged white people. I'll bet ever night they get home there's another phone message waiting from the Chinese secret service telling them to stop doing their exercises out in front of city hall.

There's enough REAL oppression in this world without bored hippie divorcees going out and trying to invent more just so someone will feel sorry for them. Get a life. You wanna be oppressed? Go live in China and try this crap. When you're here, try appreciating the freedom. The same freedom that allows you to be a self-rightous wannabe victim.

cv

Satori is the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism. It comes not like a final destination of a spiritual journey, but it comes in flickers and flashes right from the beginning of memory. Just think of the first time you actually became fully aware of something with such certainty that you physicaly felt it. That is satori.

That is Zen