3 Page Paper “Dukkha”...

Dukkha and the ending of dukkha is something that from the beginning of class has been a topic of great importance. As I have experienced the class, I have gone from not understanding what dukkha is, to knowing a relative definition in the Buddhist prospective and applying it to the experience of life. Still though, our intentions in life according to the Buddhist practice should not only be to establish an understanding of what dukkha is in definition terms, but to apply the lessons in which to end dukkha. What is the definition of dukkha? According to the website...

Pride...

Today I had a good friend of mine give me a quote that he was inspired to think about while on a walk home. I thought it was fitting because it deals with some types of polarities… those blasted things that we grade the world by. Pride may come before the fall, but rarely does someone without pride reach heights from which they may fall. – Aaron Wilson I think that he really does reach the understanding of the polarity of pride. There is pride in which we describe how we are, what we believe in, and those things we are glad to be apart of. This pride we have...

Happy Sad...

This weekend turned out to be a very interesting one for sure. Friday night we had a get together for the Navy and Marines and it was a good party. After that we went out to take the town by storm. Well it wasn’t really that much of a challenge because hardly anyone was out in town. So a friend of mine and myself went around to different bars to see what was going on. We started at one side of the town and ended up coming right back to where we started. When we were walking in I saw a beautiful woman. Yeah I know I had been drinking a little so whos to say how really...

The Days Go On...

Today was one of those days. They seem to linger for ever, never ending without ease. I didn’t do anything different and really I woke up even on the “right” side of the bed, but still something was off. It’s days like today why meditation and the understanding that nothing is constant that is so important. My speech today was the main thing that was a problem. I notices that the words I said seemed to be not words of wisdom and seemed to be used to cause harm. I could see the actions of my words, I knew the intent, but still I did them because I...

In Search for Space...

The last few weeks I have been spending a small amount of time working on mediation and the practices that Pema Chodron suggested from her book “The Wisdom of No Escape”. I have found them to be very helpful however the time that I was meditating was not hardly enough. I would send about 15-20 minutes sitting and notice that about 20 minutes into it my mind finally started to stop shooting its massive amounts of thoughts to me. Friday I decided to sit for a much longer time, like the Buddha I wanted to have something happen and I didn’t want to move...

Little Buddha and the Nature of Things...

Last night our class had the chance to see the movie Little Buddha. I must say it was a great move in the sense that it showed a good story about how the Buddha made his journey to enlightenment and how everyone must make their own journey. The movie also gave me a little bit of the religious aspect of Buddhism because it talked about the reincarnation of individuals. The religious aspect of the movie really did make me uneasy in some sense. I think it was because of my large religious background and my life and how I have worked so hard to separate my mind from the...

Bad, Good, Karma, Me, Mine…....

Today was another day of class and full of great discussion. One of the main discussion was things thing that started yesterday after the moving showing of Little Buddha. I asked my teacher the question about Karma and what it is. Is it good? is it bad? is it something? It seemed to me to be very counter Buddhist to think of things in a sense of good and bad, or black and white, or however you describe something as in positive or negative outcomes. So I asked the teacher the question of what is it? My answer, we will talk about it on Thursday. Today, Thursday, yes awesome!...

Karma...

Today in class we learned about karma, and still I am very confused on the subject but ill try to explain what I know of the subject. Karma is not as everyone thinks it is. Its not something that builds up over time or you can cash in one day. Karma to me is the intentions of the actions caused by mind. We intent to cause well being or sukha in others lives, that would be “good” karma (even though good doesn’t really exist). If we intend to cause dukkha in our lives or others lives then we cause black karma. The dukkha in our lives are not things but just...

House...

When I say house I am not talking about the TV show, no I am talking about my ever running problem with my house in Virginia. I bought a house in 2006 because I thought it was a great idea, heck at the time it sounded like it. The market at the time was up, and looked like it was going up, why not buy a house and sell it in a few years once I moved and make some extra money? Sounds great right! Well since then the market has crashed almost to nothing, I have lost about 30 grand and it came to that time that its about to sell or I start to pay out of pocket. Really its kind...

These Are The Stressors of Our Lives...

This weekend has been a interesting one. I had a good time but like any good time it always seems to have its pay back. I am not sure if I am the only one that sees things that way but it seems to be true. Friday was out in the town, Saturday was a nice drive to Spokane, and today was a nice wake up to nightmares and the world falling down. I know I have been talking about waves a lot recently but its kind of true even in this instance, the hard times seem to come in waves. The sign wave is a mathematical function that has slopes that are steep, rolling hills, and hardly...