Wanna be Buddhist? First Do No Harm, then STFU…
…because if you’re Western-oriented, especially, then you almost certainly talk too much, are far too opinionated, and may even think too much in general. And I won’t tell you to follow your bliss here, because your bliss is likely BS. But you can follow the Five Precepts, and if that’s not enough, then follow the Eight Precepts. And your opinions are probably far too passionate and much too irrational, anyway. So were mine, until I realized it was mostly fantasy…
Yes, kindness and compassion come first, and are the watchwords and catch-phrases of popular Buddhism, easily remembered and easily understood, if not so easy to practice, a constant vigilance necessary to ensure that no harm is done to any living thing, even at the risk of harm indeed being done to ones own self, which is really a non-self in the Buddhist principle of non-substantiality… (More …)
…in a decade of displacement, in a century of subterfuge, in a brand new millennium of change and misfortune. These are the times that try men’s souls, if only we had souls and if only we had time, this in a world with limited space, but all the time in the world, or so they say. They say lots of sh*t, of course, but they just may have this one right. No one claims to have all the space in the world…
kc, and 1 other are discussing. 
Why meditation? Why not? Can nothingness heal? I say ‘nothingness’, though Buddhists generally prefer the term ’emptiness’, and I won’t quibble over syntax nor semantics, as long as no one says the word ‘nihilism’, not to be confused with ‘Nealism’ for all you rock-and-shouters, and holy rollers. But after long riffing on Sartre’s ‘nothingness’, I now prefer the term ’emptiness’, also, as it implies a form, a vessel, though equally accessible with or without content, an important distinction…
“Man is the measure of all things”…and there began our downfall, this from the Greek Sophist Protagoras and his very sophisticated argument that we human beings are the only thing that matters in this world, our silly views and opinions superior to all others, of course, by virtue of our virtue, and in spite of our spite, the pathological needs of humanity, a sort of radical solipsistic relativism…
Back in Thailand the king is dead, so all other plans are automatically on hold. The temples are now full of temporary monks, so my own meager plans are secondary. My temple priest once told me it’s up to my own heart, and so it is, I must say, even if I have to pay to play. But if I can meditate in a moving plane and meditate on a moving bus, then I must be moving toward something real and good, is it not? I think it must be: I meditate, therefore I am…
I think it’s a bum rap, the false narrative about smart-phones and other tech, how we never talk to our neighbors any more—we never did! Unless they’re nice. And we still do, if there’s something to discuss. Should we regress to the day when stay-at-home wives have nothing better to do than chew the fat with the housewives’ club all day every day? Yes, I know it’s a real job, but still…
The conundrum of existence is that consciousness inhabits flesh, some how some way, or that flesh possesses consciousness, if viewed from the opposite perspective, inside out upside down, impossible to say which came first, or whether they came simultaneously like all the best sex, though the material paradigm always takes precedence in the material world…
streaming consciousness... 
tiramit 8:52 am on January 15, 2017 Permalink |
Yep… STFU, point taken
hardie karges 5:41 am on January 16, 2017 Permalink |
555, yes, had fun with that one…