"To be beautiful
means to be yourself.
You don't need to be
accepted by others.
You need to accept yourself" — Thich Nhat Hanh
In striving for an authentic life, I realize that accepting myself as I am is the secret to humility. By being humble enough to be myself, I am empowered by unconditional love to accept myself.
By loving myself as I am, I realize that the key to self perfection is the ability to accept myself. No matter how imperfect I am, becoming perfect is a guide to a better life.
However, I do not seek to be perfect. Perhaps I am perfect by accepting myself, warts and all.
It is said that the pure mind is recovered after calming the mind until its pureness is revealed. After calming the mind through breath meditation (samatha), I am able to stay still, for there is no need to keep moving to prove that I am alive.
For I am beautiful enough to humbly accept myself as I walk on this journey called the authentic life.
Reference:
The pure mind mentioned in this article is the amala consciousness, the ninth consciousness of Yogacara Buddhism.
For details on the nine consciousnesses, see: http://operationmeditation.com/discover/levels-of-consciousness-a-buddhist-perspective/
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authenticity. Show all posts
20131129
Mass Media A Propaganda Tool That Only Paints Authentic Pictures of Success
Anyone ever notice that the majority of celebrities come from good homes? Not one rags to riches story among them?
Gad, now I know why they have problems acting poor authentically in a show or movie, especially on soap operas.
I feel Traffik was more authentic than Silence of the Lambs, as even Hannibal Lector and his dead sister were born of good parents. His psychopathy had to do with the evil of other men who kills his sister, and his inability to let go of anger. I do not believe anger should ever be allowed to be vented in a violent manner.
Rather anger requires loving-kindness to transmute into compassion and a righteous concern for the welfare of others.
However, killing brings everyone down to their lowest denominator: survival.
Mercy in contrast needs compassion and loving-kindness to throw away the Law of Hammurabi and replace it with Roman-based laws, of which most of Western civilization is based.
It also takes an act of mercy for a celebrity to actually see a poor person as a human being. Charlie Sheen.sometimes acts out of mercy when he's sober, more so than when he's either drunk or high on recreational drugs, as is evidenced by his ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, not all of whom are on a higher road than the one he travels. Mercy is derived from the power of humility to transform a person's life.
Though, I don't take the moral high ground on the matter of celebrities. For the moral code according to Hollywood are mean and despicable, and ought not judge the poor, and the inaccurate portrayals of people on poverty are indeed telling.
Unlike today, when you look at an old movie and the family is portrayed authentically as poor, the movie is in black and white, so you know it represents a time when becoming a celebrity was a rags to riches story.
Based on what I have observed so far, watching movies and reading the newspaper, mass media is manufacturing propaganda to urge consumers to lead productive lives so that they might be able to meet their favourite celebrity.
I don't think Hollywood can accurately portray poverty because hardly any actor ever goes that far into the rural Midwest or even Kentucky and Tennessee to be that accurate.
Often a news story focuses on a crime but the widening gap between the rich and the poor is overlooked because such details tend to politicize the crime and turn it into a moral drama.
Yet the purpose of mass media's obsession with success is to motivate consumers to become financially successful.
In doing so, mass media is complicit in manufacturing the myths about poverty and failure, which are just as exaggerated as the myths about wealth and success.
Indeed, we may need more stories about riches to rags to riches which may be more authentic than the stereotypical rags to riches story.
As well, to even out the mix, a few riches to rags stories could be told by a narcissistic homeless person. ;)
In my case, I live my life authentically as one of the millions of people known as the working poor. Since my father worked on the green chain at a sawmill, he would be one of the many working class poor. Most definitely, ours was a modest family financially.
So mass media wouldn't be knocking at my door because a consumerist society craves only success stories. In this way is mass media the biggest propaganda tool of the 1 percent manufacturing myths about the reality of poverty with any authenticity in its various portrayals.
That's because the writers are unable to get a sense of what it is like to be poor since it would not sell very well in the box office.
That's what makes mass media a propaganda tool for the myth of success.
Originally posted: February 4, 2013 at 0131H
Currently posted: November 28, 2013 at 2356H
Gad, now I know why they have problems acting poor authentically in a show or movie, especially on soap operas.
I feel Traffik was more authentic than Silence of the Lambs, as even Hannibal Lector and his dead sister were born of good parents. His psychopathy had to do with the evil of other men who kills his sister, and his inability to let go of anger. I do not believe anger should ever be allowed to be vented in a violent manner.
Rather anger requires loving-kindness to transmute into compassion and a righteous concern for the welfare of others.
However, killing brings everyone down to their lowest denominator: survival.
Mercy in contrast needs compassion and loving-kindness to throw away the Law of Hammurabi and replace it with Roman-based laws, of which most of Western civilization is based.
It also takes an act of mercy for a celebrity to actually see a poor person as a human being. Charlie Sheen.sometimes acts out of mercy when he's sober, more so than when he's either drunk or high on recreational drugs, as is evidenced by his ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, not all of whom are on a higher road than the one he travels. Mercy is derived from the power of humility to transform a person's life.
Though, I don't take the moral high ground on the matter of celebrities. For the moral code according to Hollywood are mean and despicable, and ought not judge the poor, and the inaccurate portrayals of people on poverty are indeed telling.
Unlike today, when you look at an old movie and the family is portrayed authentically as poor, the movie is in black and white, so you know it represents a time when becoming a celebrity was a rags to riches story.
Based on what I have observed so far, watching movies and reading the newspaper, mass media is manufacturing propaganda to urge consumers to lead productive lives so that they might be able to meet their favourite celebrity.
I don't think Hollywood can accurately portray poverty because hardly any actor ever goes that far into the rural Midwest or even Kentucky and Tennessee to be that accurate.
Often a news story focuses on a crime but the widening gap between the rich and the poor is overlooked because such details tend to politicize the crime and turn it into a moral drama.
Yet the purpose of mass media's obsession with success is to motivate consumers to become financially successful.
In doing so, mass media is complicit in manufacturing the myths about poverty and failure, which are just as exaggerated as the myths about wealth and success.
Indeed, we may need more stories about riches to rags to riches which may be more authentic than the stereotypical rags to riches story.
As well, to even out the mix, a few riches to rags stories could be told by a narcissistic homeless person. ;)
In my case, I live my life authentically as one of the millions of people known as the working poor. Since my father worked on the green chain at a sawmill, he would be one of the many working class poor. Most definitely, ours was a modest family financially.
So mass media wouldn't be knocking at my door because a consumerist society craves only success stories. In this way is mass media the biggest propaganda tool of the 1 percent manufacturing myths about the reality of poverty with any authenticity in its various portrayals.
That's because the writers are unable to get a sense of what it is like to be poor since it would not sell very well in the box office.
That's what makes mass media a propaganda tool for the myth of success.
Originally posted: February 4, 2013 at 0131H
Currently posted: November 28, 2013 at 2356H
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