On Monday, I was so overwhelmed by my mother's gossip that I got upset and left after dinner.
It's been over 5 years that my mother has shared gossip with me about what she claims is the truth, but actually is her opinion based on her biases. However, it is my contention that consistent negativity taints the truth with the negativities of the truth teller.
From my observations, my mother is heavily opinionated and thus her claim of truth suggests she embroiders a series of white lies using tidbits of truth.
In fact, it really is not gossip because it is one-sided, and each and every time I have responded with my own opinion, she has either rejected or ignored it.
According my interactions with her for most of my life, the good son is supposed to listen to her monologue without comment but with rapt attention to her even though he is left feeling sad and depressed because the commentary is distinctively negative and one-sided.
If I assert myself and give my point of view, then she will not accept that and repeatedly has gotten upset over it instead of accepting it. Most of the time I have tried to ignore her negativity rant and have kept my opinions to myself. Even though that comes at an emotional cost, it ends the minute I leave her home.
My mother has stated that she has the right to paint a negative commentary about our family and the world at large without me offering counter-argument.
Thus, this is not a conversation that I participate in willingly; rather I am her sounding board who is supposed to only listen to her litany of anxiety- and fear-driven monologues about our family.
Yes, I am my mother's sounding board - and it only makes me feel like I do not really have a say in the conversation because it is based on emotion-laced opinions based on ignorance.
I feel that she also has projected her negativity onto me. Although she is my mother and has never done anything wrong, she has projected her behavioural and mental negativities onto me which consist of her anxiety and concern about her family.
As a result of her monologue whenever I visit her, it has in the past led to the fine tuning of my biases and prejudices due to her stifling influence.
As I get older, I realize that my negative feelings and emotions were all labeled by my parents.
In fact, only she is allowed to express negative emotions. If I get upset about having to listen to this broken record of lamentation, then I am asked why I am angry.
There is no real compassion from my mother if I show anger. In her eyes, it is wrong for a good son to show anger. Thus, she is the parental model for maladaptive behavior.
This leads me to believe that I do not own my negative feelings because they have consistently been labeled by my mother. When my objections to her non-stop litany of negativity has led to confrontations, she has asked me why I am angry and claimed not to know why I am angry.
Well, I am angry at having to listen to my mother's negativity, which takes an emotional toll on me. This is why I spent a quiet Christmas at home this year (2014)
Yet I love my mother dearly. The only positive outcome of having to put up with my mother is I loathe gossiping and am not willing to be candid with her about my life when asked about it, except to tell the white lies that protect my privacy.
Privacy is also why there are no examples of what she has said or what I have said.
Of course, the lack of examples of my mother's behavior may cause anyone who reads this blog entry to doubt what I have written. Such doubt is based on the lack of facts I provide to protect my privacy, and I can accept that as a given.
Even writing this on my blog is difficult to do because I am aware that writing about it leaves me vulnerable. However, Christmas time makes me keenly aware that holidays are supposed to be a time of quiet respite, free of gossip and other white lies.
When a parent expresses herself negatively, it means she is unwilling to see life in a positive light due to what life has handed her. While I admit that she has found in me a willing sounding board, the psychic pain that results from listening to her has left me unwilling to spend holiday time with her.
So I will not be spending New Years Day with her either. My quiet time is too precious to share it under the barrage of negativity that taints her gossip.
Instead, I will have to work on my own behavioral and mental negativities through prayer and meditation. Indeed, my own anxieties and fears are but the legacy of my own parents passed down to me. So are my hopes and wishes, though my best work is found through self expression in this blog.
Rather than complain about my life, I would rather give the synopsis of a part of my life that will continue until my mother passes on to the glory she deserves. Much of this blog entry is carefully crafted to protect my family's privacy.
No details were provided to protect my family. Hence, candidness would only happen when I am in the company of a trusted friend. Anyone who reads this blog entry thinking they have dirt on me would be sorely mistaken. All you have as "facts" are carefully written white lies that protect my mother and myself.
Because the Internet is almost like the public domain, it would be unwise of me to be candid. Even so, as my mother declared recently, "I have the right to speak out, because it's the truth."
Ironically, all of these truths are covered by white lies to protect the privacy of my family. As well, I would admit that most of my blog entries are also protected by white lies, because the world cannot ever handle the unvarnished truth.
Logically, my opinion that white lies protect the privacy of the truth-teller is inconsistent with the argument that truth ought to be devoid of lies. My counterargument is that the white lies that I carefully dispersed in this blog entry carefully hide the truth to protect my own privacy and the privacy of my friends and family.
Showing posts with label sincerity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sincerity. Show all posts
20131204
Wake up Sheeple!! (satire)
Attention Sheeple: wake up from the dangers of the status quo!
I feel that society is antisocial when it lies about itself via mass media e.g. promotes a heteronormative and sexist status quo at the expense of homosexuals and women.
As well, youth culture that promotes ageism is also antisocial.
Thus it is society that promotes antisocial behavior when it deems anything the minority thinks is cool to be uncool and counter to the status quo of conformity.
Social norms only promote what is supposed to be normal within a cultural group.
Such norms become antisocial when they promote group harmony at the expense of honesty between members of that group.
When society promotes sincerity by promoting falsehoods to maintain status quo while calling it truth and penalizes anyone who exposes it, the seeds of antisocial behaviour are sown.
Are you still willing to remain sheeple?
Originally written October 26, 2013 at 3:38 AM
I feel that society is antisocial when it lies about itself via mass media e.g. promotes a heteronormative and sexist status quo at the expense of homosexuals and women.
As well, youth culture that promotes ageism is also antisocial.
Thus it is society that promotes antisocial behavior when it deems anything the minority thinks is cool to be uncool and counter to the status quo of conformity.
Social norms only promote what is supposed to be normal within a cultural group.
Such norms become antisocial when they promote group harmony at the expense of honesty between members of that group.
When society promotes sincerity by promoting falsehoods to maintain status quo while calling it truth and penalizes anyone who exposes it, the seeds of antisocial behaviour are sown.
Are you still willing to remain sheeple?
Originally written October 26, 2013 at 3:38 AM
20130217
Be Mindful of Your Mind! (poem)
Be mindful of your mind in your daily practice.
With all sincerity, serenity is what you find
When breath leads to the single-mindedness
Of samadhi so pure that Nirvana is but
A heartbeat away from a walk in the Buddha Field
leading towards bliss and the non-abiding Nirvana.
With all sincerity, serenity is what you find
When breath leads to the single-mindedness
Of samadhi so pure that Nirvana is but
A heartbeat away from a walk in the Buddha Field
leading towards bliss and the non-abiding Nirvana.
20130207
My Faith is the Same as a Christian's or a Hindu's
Jodo Shinshu has similarities to Lingayatism and Protestant Christianity in that all of these religions claim that an intercessor between humanity and the Absolute is unnecessary.
Jodo Shinshu abandoned tradition in that priest could marry as happens in Protestant Christianity. In Lingayatism, castes were set aside and lower castes were as likely to be members as upper classes. Likewise in Jodo Shinshu, priests, samurai, merchants and commoners are equal before the Buddha.
Despite the dissimilarities between Honen, Basavanna, and Martin Luther, I can safely say, a Buddhist's faith is no different from a Shaivite's or a Protestant's faith.
If we used the differences between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism to argue among ourselves, then organized religion is but a place to differ about dogma and doctrine.
However, given that faith is the equalizing factor along with the fact that humanity is free to believe in the form of the Absolute according to the doctrine of their respective religions, nothing is served by argument and differences of opinion.
Although I practice Jodo Shinshu differently from Lingayatism and Christianity, it is sincerity of faith that unites us.
Jodo Shinshu abandoned tradition in that priest could marry as happens in Protestant Christianity. In Lingayatism, castes were set aside and lower castes were as likely to be members as upper classes. Likewise in Jodo Shinshu, priests, samurai, merchants and commoners are equal before the Buddha.
Despite the dissimilarities between Honen, Basavanna, and Martin Luther, I can safely say, a Buddhist's faith is no different from a Shaivite's or a Protestant's faith.
If we used the differences between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism to argue among ourselves, then organized religion is but a place to differ about dogma and doctrine.
However, given that faith is the equalizing factor along with the fact that humanity is free to believe in the form of the Absolute according to the doctrine of their respective religions, nothing is served by argument and differences of opinion.
Although I practice Jodo Shinshu differently from Lingayatism and Christianity, it is sincerity of faith that unites us.
20130116
Sincerity Isn't Cheating but Non-attachment
I am sure after reading about the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the devas and devis — the whole Buddhist pantheon, the gentle reader is confused.
When I wrote that "Buddhism is not a religion; it's a psychology", it stands to reason that Buddhism as a toolkit is a religion, a psychology, and a philosophy.
However, there may be people who still don't get it — they scratch their heads when I say "All Buddhas point to Sakyamuni Buddha."
For the purpose of the Buddhas is to focus on a Buddhist term like "compassion", not for followers to adore one of them like a god, even though Adi-Buddha isn't even a Buddhist god. He represents the whole Buddhadharma as ultimate reality.
Yet that revelation is beyond human comprehension for the average person. And so it should be.
For not everyone is capable of fully comprehending what Buddhism actually is.
It's like a bunch of blind men trying to discover what an elephant is.
As long as each of us has made up our minds what Buddhism is, our cognitive biases will kick in and filter out everything else.
This even happens to people who are of the opinion that the Pure Land way only serves to leave a few followers with attachment to the idea that Buddha Remembrance is a cheat because it offers the reward of an easy path to Enlightenment.
This is not so, because anyone with such an attachment is letting his ego guide the way to rebirth in the human realm and thus is only causing himself suffering.
This is because the practitioner who says the Nembutsu thinking that it is a free pass to the Pure Land is not saying it with sincerity.
Rather, when a Pure Land practitioner practices Buddha Remembrance with sincere intent to be reborn in the Pure Land, she has faith in the Primal Vow to be reborn in the Pure Land.
For the reason why Buddha Remembrance is called the Name-that-calls is that the practitioner sincerely believes that Amida Buddha is calling through him, for this is to clearly affirm the sincere intent to be reborn in the Pure Land.
I for one say the Nembutsu with this intent and in doing so, burn off karma so that I may be reborn in the Pure Land.
In burning off karma in this way, the Nembutsu practitioner is assured rebirth in the Pure Land.
Therefore it is actually not a cheat or attachment. For there is no expectation of reward. Both attachment and reward require a soul that lives after death.
According to the non-self principle of Buddhism, it is not my soul that is reborn in the Pure Land, it is the fruit of my actions ( the sincere practice of Buddha Remembrance).
It is not "I" who is reborn as a bodhisattva but karmic merit accumulated by chanting the Nembutsu transforms the seed of Buddha Nature planted when the faithful hears the Buddha's teaching is transformed into Self Nature.
For the karmic merit of chanting acts like fertilizer to help the seed of Buddha Nature transcend this life when this body dies, and be reborn in the Pure Land. Amida nurtures the resulting Self Nature as bodhisattva into its awakened form called Buddha.
This foolish one's sincere chanting of the Nembutsu is empty of attachment and thus is non-attachment.
As well, sincerity in the belief that one will be reborn in the Pure Land means the same as having faith that one will be reborn there, which is the same as non-attachment.
Thus Buddha Remembrance (the practice of the Nembutsu) is empty of attachment due to faith in Amida Buddha and belief in the Primal Vow.
Pure Land Buddhists do not see rebirth as reward for their faith, but as working of Other-power.
When the practitioner's faith in Amida and belief in the Primal Vow is sincere, Amida embraces this old fool on his deathbed. The 48 Vows assure him of this.
Therefore the Pure Land path is not a cheat and is but non-attachment due to sincere practice of the Nembutsu.
By such Buddha Remembrance, one realizes the concept of non-self. In realizing non-self, Amida nurtures the seed of Buddha Nature in the heartmind of this foolish one. As a result, one is truly assured of rebirth in the Pure Land at this deathbed. For that is what it says in the 48 Vows of Amida Buddha.
For I was not born a Buddhist for my own Nirvana but for the Nirvana of all sentient beings. Therefore I practice Buddha Remembrance by chanting the Nembutsu for all sentient beings.
Namu Amida Butsu
When I wrote that "Buddhism is not a religion; it's a psychology", it stands to reason that Buddhism as a toolkit is a religion, a psychology, and a philosophy.
However, there may be people who still don't get it — they scratch their heads when I say "All Buddhas point to Sakyamuni Buddha."
For the purpose of the Buddhas is to focus on a Buddhist term like "compassion", not for followers to adore one of them like a god, even though Adi-Buddha isn't even a Buddhist god. He represents the whole Buddhadharma as ultimate reality.
Yet that revelation is beyond human comprehension for the average person. And so it should be.
For not everyone is capable of fully comprehending what Buddhism actually is.
It's like a bunch of blind men trying to discover what an elephant is.
As long as each of us has made up our minds what Buddhism is, our cognitive biases will kick in and filter out everything else.
This even happens to people who are of the opinion that the Pure Land way only serves to leave a few followers with attachment to the idea that Buddha Remembrance is a cheat because it offers the reward of an easy path to Enlightenment.
This is not so, because anyone with such an attachment is letting his ego guide the way to rebirth in the human realm and thus is only causing himself suffering.
This is because the practitioner who says the Nembutsu thinking that it is a free pass to the Pure Land is not saying it with sincerity.
Rather, when a Pure Land practitioner practices Buddha Remembrance with sincere intent to be reborn in the Pure Land, she has faith in the Primal Vow to be reborn in the Pure Land.
For the reason why Buddha Remembrance is called the Name-that-calls is that the practitioner sincerely believes that Amida Buddha is calling through him, for this is to clearly affirm the sincere intent to be reborn in the Pure Land.
I for one say the Nembutsu with this intent and in doing so, burn off karma so that I may be reborn in the Pure Land.
In burning off karma in this way, the Nembutsu practitioner is assured rebirth in the Pure Land.
Therefore it is actually not a cheat or attachment. For there is no expectation of reward. Both attachment and reward require a soul that lives after death.
According to the non-self principle of Buddhism, it is not my soul that is reborn in the Pure Land, it is the fruit of my actions ( the sincere practice of Buddha Remembrance).
It is not "I" who is reborn as a bodhisattva but karmic merit accumulated by chanting the Nembutsu transforms the seed of Buddha Nature planted when the faithful hears the Buddha's teaching is transformed into Self Nature.
For the karmic merit of chanting acts like fertilizer to help the seed of Buddha Nature transcend this life when this body dies, and be reborn in the Pure Land. Amida nurtures the resulting Self Nature as bodhisattva into its awakened form called Buddha.
This foolish one's sincere chanting of the Nembutsu is empty of attachment and thus is non-attachment.
As well, sincerity in the belief that one will be reborn in the Pure Land means the same as having faith that one will be reborn there, which is the same as non-attachment.
Thus Buddha Remembrance (the practice of the Nembutsu) is empty of attachment due to faith in Amida Buddha and belief in the Primal Vow.
Pure Land Buddhists do not see rebirth as reward for their faith, but as working of Other-power.
When the practitioner's faith in Amida and belief in the Primal Vow is sincere, Amida embraces this old fool on his deathbed. The 48 Vows assure him of this.
Therefore the Pure Land path is not a cheat and is but non-attachment due to sincere practice of the Nembutsu.
By such Buddha Remembrance, one realizes the concept of non-self. In realizing non-self, Amida nurtures the seed of Buddha Nature in the heartmind of this foolish one. As a result, one is truly assured of rebirth in the Pure Land at this deathbed. For that is what it says in the 48 Vows of Amida Buddha.
For I was not born a Buddhist for my own Nirvana but for the Nirvana of all sentient beings. Therefore I practice Buddha Remembrance by chanting the Nembutsu for all sentient beings.
Namu Amida Butsu
20121002
Be True to Yourself (poem)
Touch not my heart
with love insincere,
lest we both forget
all sense of self.
Be true to yourself.
For each of us is
inspired by true love
to act with the heart
of compassion.
with love insincere,
lest we both forget
all sense of self.
Be true to yourself.
For each of us is
inspired by true love
to act with the heart
of compassion.
20051228
Transcending Concern for the World Beyond
The person who tells a lie,
who transgresses in this one thing,
transcending concern for the world beyond:
there's no evil
he might not do.
-Dhammapada, 176, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The footnote on Verse 176 refers to "the principle of truthfulness." It also points to another verse in Iti 1:25 which further amplifies the above quote:
This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "For the person who transgresses in one thing, I tell you, there is no evil deed that is not to be done. Which one thing? This: telling a deliberate lie."
The person who lies,
who transgress in this one thing,
transcending concern for the world beyond:
there's no evil
he might not do.
Indeed, sincerity helps the truthteller, more than it does the liar.
For it is the depth of one's sincerity that determines the truth.
Reference:
Dhammapada 176: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/dhp/tb0/dhp-13-tb0.html
Footnote for Dhammapada 176: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/dhp/tb0/index.html#n176
Iti 1:25: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/iti/tb0/iti1.html#iti-025
who transgresses in this one thing,
transcending concern for the world beyond:
there's no evil
he might not do.
-Dhammapada, 176, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The footnote on Verse 176 refers to "the principle of truthfulness." It also points to another verse in Iti 1:25 which further amplifies the above quote:
This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "For the person who transgresses in one thing, I tell you, there is no evil deed that is not to be done. Which one thing? This: telling a deliberate lie."
The person who lies,
who transgress in this one thing,
transcending concern for the world beyond:
there's no evil
he might not do.
Indeed, sincerity helps the truthteller, more than it does the liar.
For it is the depth of one's sincerity that determines the truth.
Reference:
Dhammapada 176: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/dhp/tb0/dhp-13-tb0.html
Footnote for Dhammapada 176: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/dhp/tb0/index.html#n176
Iti 1:25: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/khuddaka/iti/tb0/iti1.html#iti-025
20051116
Secrecy The Mark of False Doctrine
The Buddha said:
I have taught the way without making any distinction between inner and outer teaching. For in respect of the truth there must be no such thing as the "closed fist" of the teacher, who hides some essential knowledge from the pupil. Secrecy is the mark of false doctrine.
— Digha Nikaya
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