- Only I know what's right or wrong with me.
- I am on my own path in life.
- I always am ready to succeed. Success is determined by my happiness, not how rich I am.
- I'm useful.
- Love is based on truth. Indeed, its fruit is happiness.
- Happiness comes from within. It's all about love.
- Be true to yourself.
- I'm intelligent enough to manage my life.
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
20160819
Eight Truths I Keep Close To My Heart
20141124
When Social Drinking Becomes A Sociopathy (satire)
Rather than a short disclaimer, this article is a satire on the dangers of the risky behavior in drinking known as preloading when social drinkers are determined to party by drinking before a public event due to high alcohol prices at the even and/or strict liquor laws. After my monologue on preloading, I will rant about social drinkers who become problem drinkers, which is when social drinking becomes a sociopathy. Finally, I will give my take about American Psychopath and the rebooted Halloween movies to explain my conclusions about problem drinking.
Before I move onto the body of the rant itself, my exposure to alcohol and drugs needs to be shared because I truly care for the social drinker.
During my life, I have mostly been a light drinker thanks to intolerance of alcohol due to my Asian physiology when one or two drinks often made me drunk. As well, I practiced safe drinking because I was never exposed to peer pressure over social drinking.
Apart from the rare forays into drinking until my early 30s, my drinking days only occurred around social events. 2007 was a great challenge because of reconnecting with a friend I had met 10 years earlier who is a moderate drinker.
Today, I don't drink alcohol and am totally dry since June 2014 mainly because I believe in sobriety and have continued prayer and meditation to distract me from seeking comfort in the bottle.
Because I had a brief history of binge drinking and other risky behavior until I stopped drinking in 2009, I retain the privilege of experience to be the party pooper in regards to drinking. However, the following rant is because I am stone cold sober.
Addictive behaviors occur long before children are introduced to alcohol and drugs around middle school (grades 5-7). Peer pressure only causes addictions when children want to fit in and socialize.
So I am glad that I chose to not drink until well into my 30s. YMMV.
Tolerance to alcohol occurs when a person who drinks needs more alcohol during regular drinking hours in addition to the copious amounts of drink at home. However, the myth that drinking is fun is encouraged by the fact that you only live once, an attitude that will be addressed later on in this rant.
According to the anti-drinking propaganda, it is said that risky drinking threatens people who once lived productive lives.
In aother myth, public health (doctors, nurses, hospitals) is anti-drinking. Actually public health recommends 1-2 drinks a day as being safer than drinking up to 14 drinks or more over a 60-hour period on the weekend, depending on whether everyone is in party mood, due to a public holiday or other event.
Perhaps it is more fun and entertaining to drink 1-2 drinks with each meal from breakfast, lunch and dinner, as long as the intended purpose is social drinking, be it at home or every day. For the purpose of social drinking is to be of good cheer, apparently.
As has been stated before, preloading behavior occurs when prices are high and laws are strict.
According to health officials, alcohol preloading is harmful, only if the drinker drinks more alcohol later on in the evening. Thus, the risk of excessive drinking is higher than not preloading. The resulting higher consumption levels increase risk for injuries and possibly death.
Strict alcohol laws increase the chance of preloading. Additionally, licensed establishments have a high risk of liability serving already inebriated patrons.
Thus, lowering alcohol prices tends to lower risk of preloading.
Therefore, liquor laws need to be moderated. Liquor prices need to be low enough to encourage less preloading but not so low as to encourage binge drinking. Additionally, both binge drinking and preloading need to be addressed through the use of propaganda advertisements.
It is less risky and cheaper to drink 1-2 drinks at bars, pubs and restaurants with affordable prices every day of the week than to preload on the weekend and risk higher levels of consumption.
From the viewpoint of the consumer, public education from middle school to college level should still discourage preloading and risk factors that may be encouraged by the "you only live once" myth (YOLO).
You do live once, but it is a factor that is disproved by preloading due to strict liquor laws and high alcohol prices.
Contrary to the myth that preloading is safe, more people risk dying from alcohol-related injuries including poisoning, fights at establishments and car accidents.
From the viewpoint of sobriety, preloading might indicate future risk for alcoholism when drinking also occurs during the rest of the week. However, I believe social drinkers are potential alcoholics when inebriated if they are led to the belief that drinking is so fun that every day must be a party in order for them to feel in control. After that suspension of disbelief, they may turn every evening into a party and the line blurs between social drinking and alcoholism.
However, the alcoholic will deny he is an alcoholic because of two pernicious attitudes about drinking: "everyone is doing it" and YOLO. However, a minority of people drink that much or more, while the majority of people may be their concered friends and family who are saddened by the fact that drink became more important than them.
I know of people who met in bars, had a few drinks, and flew in for a Vegas wedding, including Britney Spears who had hooked up with a high school friend, partied, got married and subsequently got the marriage annulled. Fortunately her Vegas wedding was not a career-breaker.
Despite all the late night talk show hosts joking about Spears at that time, the risk of ruined ratings reduced their call for less drinking. That's because the entertainment industry needs the extra revenue from alcohol sales and often considers safe drinking behavior to be an economic threat to their industry.
Yet safe drinking behavior is actually no threat to their industry because more social drinkers can spend each day drinking up to 6 drinks a day with meals per person and not lose sleep over preloading and binge drinking on weekends.
Also the purpose of buying liquor - preferably beer - at night is not to drink it all away before morning but to have enough alcohol to stay within the 6 drinks a day limit. Public drinking education should consist of math quizzes to meet that limit and stay within it, in order to maintain a healthy social drinking climate.
Indeed, the sly promotion of "drinking is fun" by a bar or club is done to obtain high drink sales to derive enough alcoholic revenue to offset the hourly minimum wage. Beer bongs, drinking shooters off hot models, and associated antics are actually done to encourage social drinking at levels which not too many social drinkers can sustain. Nor does ladies' night with half price on shooters promote safe drinking.
All this does is lead to a 1-5 percent of a party of revelers to encounter blackouts and all the mayhem that happens during blackouts, especially the ones that last a month, a year, or maybe even a decade or two.
Right now, I have to discuss sociopaths who drink, because they are the people who have lied to themselves so much that drinking is fun. One successful sociopath too many has said, "I like to have vodka in my cereal every morning." They thus center their lives around being the pernicious party animal.
Although the public health officials have labeled them "problem drinkers," their problem is the ability to believe the lies that they tell other people about their drinking. Since their world revolves around drinking and socializing, they are able to socially engineer a way to stay drunk throughout their lives and often turn binge drinking and preloading into performance art.
Along the way, alcoholic sociopaths give a bad rap to successful sociopaths like celebrities, business people and even Randolph Hearst, a publisher who made his money from alcohol advertisers before Prohibition but also made money by being a moral compass when Mae West came to New York City. Yet Mae West helped Hollywood make money by challenging the moral taboos about being a sexy and successful sociopath for the entertainment industry.
A marvelous Hollywood celebrity who was quite successful during her career is Tallulah Bankhead, who not only drank her way around Hollywood but also snorted her way around the secret party scenes, too. Being a relatively successful sociopath, she also slept her way from casting couch to the beds of other celebrities, men and women alike. Once she had to get a hysterectomy after a bad case of gonorrhea, and said in passing to the hospital surgeon "If you think this is going to stop my behavior, think again."
Thus, society must be ever vigilant about sociopaths who shall be detected during their first forays into social drinking before their white lies lead to the bigger whoppers they tell themselves once they totally buy into the YOLO attitude and make it their motto for life. For alcohol and sociopaths are a dangerous mix that may lead to risk of violence to themselves and their loved ones.
Anyway, I am all done with ranting and would like to thank Hollywood for popularizing social drinking (Jackass), cocaine (Traffik), risky behavior (American Pie), decadent hedonism (those crazy movies from the 30s involving dancing the shimmie while dressed in sheer fabric), and a sociopathy that fails so horribly that sexual psychopathy becomes confused with benign sociopathic behavior by the sociopath's victims (American Psychopath).
If it wasn't for Hollywood, then we wouldn't have all the failed sociopaths who crossed the line into their five minutes of fame. If it wasn't for the brilliance of American mainstream media to enshrine individualism as freedom from neo-conservative sheep mentality, then there wouldn't be the Craigslist killer meme.
In conclusion, I would like to insert a sober moment here to end this rant by stating that the sociopath is not a broken individual as a child. Rather, she is not a victim of child abuse, neglect or anything that horrible.
Rather, a sociopath learns early that society is based on white lies which help us to sleep at nights. When a child is fibbing, it is child abuse to force them to stop lying when few parents can stomach telling their children the truth too early but sometimes failing to figure out the truth about their society.
For a sociopath learns early in childhood that toeing the line comes with benefits and risks, including telling a white lie to ensure family harmony. What a brilliant career in big business awaits them, if only parents were taught from middle school about ethic and morals in a manner than benefits every child.
Indeed, when drinking becomes a sociopathy in middle school, parents should admit to the double standard and determine if they are narcissists, empaths or sociopaths instead of lying about these descriptions for what passes as normal human behavior.
Even so, "normal" is the biggest white lie to promote social harmony while leading to the stigma of the mentally ill without just cause. As is "denial" a white lie when declaring that a psychopath is sane.
Personality disorders are not a sign of insanity unless a person described as sociopathic are mistreated by former friends who can only see through the lies of the sociopath but have little insight into the white lies that lead to real whoppers like "the mentally ill are not really normal people".
Truth be told: Hollywood manufactured the propaganda that psychopaths are horrible people but the reboot of Halloween turn the story of a failed sociopath Michael Myers, who was neglected as a child but was molded by unprofessional therapy by Doctor Samuel Loomis and the incompetence of the State into a serial killer, the criminal psychopath.
However, American Psychopath is not an honest portrayal of sexual psychopathy because it leaves out the antihero's childhood. On the other hand the rebooted Halloween movies is only a portrayal of two kinds of sociopaths, the failed sociopath known as the criminal psychopath and serial killer Michael Myers and the successful sociopath, Dr Samuel Loomis.
Hollywood tells us white lies about sociopaths like Myers while showing Doctor Loomis as a successful sociopath. It also only documents the sexual psychopathy of the antihero in American Psychopath in adulthood, but offers no insight on the fact that he is a failed sociopath whose social drinking helped him to fit into urban society.
Those people who fail as sociopaths sometimes develop a psychopathy if they maladapt to the stress that society places on them. Otherwise, they would be make fine successful sociopaths such as many CEOs, world leaders, and celebrities whose normative behavior endear them to their fans.
Perhaps society is just as subtly as sociopathic as it is empathetic, narcissistic, for it encourages us to be normal in our lives, which might be described as one big snafu where the situation is normal but all fouled up.
On a positive note, 95 percent of people are not sociopaths. Most of them do not drink and few of them turn to drugs. Society is not inherently sociopathic. Rather, it might be that the empathetic and the narcissists in all of us realize how to be successful without harming other people.
YMMV
Originally posted on Oct 13, 2014 at 5:55 PM
American Psychopath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psycho_%28film%29
Halloween: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_(2007_film)
Before I move onto the body of the rant itself, my exposure to alcohol and drugs needs to be shared because I truly care for the social drinker.
During my life, I have mostly been a light drinker thanks to intolerance of alcohol due to my Asian physiology when one or two drinks often made me drunk. As well, I practiced safe drinking because I was never exposed to peer pressure over social drinking.
Apart from the rare forays into drinking until my early 30s, my drinking days only occurred around social events. 2007 was a great challenge because of reconnecting with a friend I had met 10 years earlier who is a moderate drinker.
Today, I don't drink alcohol and am totally dry since June 2014 mainly because I believe in sobriety and have continued prayer and meditation to distract me from seeking comfort in the bottle.
Because I had a brief history of binge drinking and other risky behavior until I stopped drinking in 2009, I retain the privilege of experience to be the party pooper in regards to drinking. However, the following rant is because I am stone cold sober.
Addictive behaviors occur long before children are introduced to alcohol and drugs around middle school (grades 5-7). Peer pressure only causes addictions when children want to fit in and socialize.
So I am glad that I chose to not drink until well into my 30s. YMMV.
Tolerance to alcohol occurs when a person who drinks needs more alcohol during regular drinking hours in addition to the copious amounts of drink at home. However, the myth that drinking is fun is encouraged by the fact that you only live once, an attitude that will be addressed later on in this rant.
According to the anti-drinking propaganda, it is said that risky drinking threatens people who once lived productive lives.
In aother myth, public health (doctors, nurses, hospitals) is anti-drinking. Actually public health recommends 1-2 drinks a day as being safer than drinking up to 14 drinks or more over a 60-hour period on the weekend, depending on whether everyone is in party mood, due to a public holiday or other event.
Perhaps it is more fun and entertaining to drink 1-2 drinks with each meal from breakfast, lunch and dinner, as long as the intended purpose is social drinking, be it at home or every day. For the purpose of social drinking is to be of good cheer, apparently.
As has been stated before, preloading behavior occurs when prices are high and laws are strict.
According to health officials, alcohol preloading is harmful, only if the drinker drinks more alcohol later on in the evening. Thus, the risk of excessive drinking is higher than not preloading. The resulting higher consumption levels increase risk for injuries and possibly death.
Strict alcohol laws increase the chance of preloading. Additionally, licensed establishments have a high risk of liability serving already inebriated patrons.
Thus, lowering alcohol prices tends to lower risk of preloading.
Therefore, liquor laws need to be moderated. Liquor prices need to be low enough to encourage less preloading but not so low as to encourage binge drinking. Additionally, both binge drinking and preloading need to be addressed through the use of propaganda advertisements.
It is less risky and cheaper to drink 1-2 drinks at bars, pubs and restaurants with affordable prices every day of the week than to preload on the weekend and risk higher levels of consumption.
From the viewpoint of the consumer, public education from middle school to college level should still discourage preloading and risk factors that may be encouraged by the "you only live once" myth (YOLO).
You do live once, but it is a factor that is disproved by preloading due to strict liquor laws and high alcohol prices.
Contrary to the myth that preloading is safe, more people risk dying from alcohol-related injuries including poisoning, fights at establishments and car accidents.
From the viewpoint of sobriety, preloading might indicate future risk for alcoholism when drinking also occurs during the rest of the week. However, I believe social drinkers are potential alcoholics when inebriated if they are led to the belief that drinking is so fun that every day must be a party in order for them to feel in control. After that suspension of disbelief, they may turn every evening into a party and the line blurs between social drinking and alcoholism.
However, the alcoholic will deny he is an alcoholic because of two pernicious attitudes about drinking: "everyone is doing it" and YOLO. However, a minority of people drink that much or more, while the majority of people may be their concered friends and family who are saddened by the fact that drink became more important than them.
I know of people who met in bars, had a few drinks, and flew in for a Vegas wedding, including Britney Spears who had hooked up with a high school friend, partied, got married and subsequently got the marriage annulled. Fortunately her Vegas wedding was not a career-breaker.
Despite all the late night talk show hosts joking about Spears at that time, the risk of ruined ratings reduced their call for less drinking. That's because the entertainment industry needs the extra revenue from alcohol sales and often considers safe drinking behavior to be an economic threat to their industry.
Yet safe drinking behavior is actually no threat to their industry because more social drinkers can spend each day drinking up to 6 drinks a day with meals per person and not lose sleep over preloading and binge drinking on weekends.
Also the purpose of buying liquor - preferably beer - at night is not to drink it all away before morning but to have enough alcohol to stay within the 6 drinks a day limit. Public drinking education should consist of math quizzes to meet that limit and stay within it, in order to maintain a healthy social drinking climate.
Indeed, the sly promotion of "drinking is fun" by a bar or club is done to obtain high drink sales to derive enough alcoholic revenue to offset the hourly minimum wage. Beer bongs, drinking shooters off hot models, and associated antics are actually done to encourage social drinking at levels which not too many social drinkers can sustain. Nor does ladies' night with half price on shooters promote safe drinking.
All this does is lead to a 1-5 percent of a party of revelers to encounter blackouts and all the mayhem that happens during blackouts, especially the ones that last a month, a year, or maybe even a decade or two.
Right now, I have to discuss sociopaths who drink, because they are the people who have lied to themselves so much that drinking is fun. One successful sociopath too many has said, "I like to have vodka in my cereal every morning." They thus center their lives around being the pernicious party animal.
Although the public health officials have labeled them "problem drinkers," their problem is the ability to believe the lies that they tell other people about their drinking. Since their world revolves around drinking and socializing, they are able to socially engineer a way to stay drunk throughout their lives and often turn binge drinking and preloading into performance art.
Along the way, alcoholic sociopaths give a bad rap to successful sociopaths like celebrities, business people and even Randolph Hearst, a publisher who made his money from alcohol advertisers before Prohibition but also made money by being a moral compass when Mae West came to New York City. Yet Mae West helped Hollywood make money by challenging the moral taboos about being a sexy and successful sociopath for the entertainment industry.
A marvelous Hollywood celebrity who was quite successful during her career is Tallulah Bankhead, who not only drank her way around Hollywood but also snorted her way around the secret party scenes, too. Being a relatively successful sociopath, she also slept her way from casting couch to the beds of other celebrities, men and women alike. Once she had to get a hysterectomy after a bad case of gonorrhea, and said in passing to the hospital surgeon "If you think this is going to stop my behavior, think again."
Thus, society must be ever vigilant about sociopaths who shall be detected during their first forays into social drinking before their white lies lead to the bigger whoppers they tell themselves once they totally buy into the YOLO attitude and make it their motto for life. For alcohol and sociopaths are a dangerous mix that may lead to risk of violence to themselves and their loved ones.
Anyway, I am all done with ranting and would like to thank Hollywood for popularizing social drinking (Jackass), cocaine (Traffik), risky behavior (American Pie), decadent hedonism (those crazy movies from the 30s involving dancing the shimmie while dressed in sheer fabric), and a sociopathy that fails so horribly that sexual psychopathy becomes confused with benign sociopathic behavior by the sociopath's victims (American Psychopath).
If it wasn't for Hollywood, then we wouldn't have all the failed sociopaths who crossed the line into their five minutes of fame. If it wasn't for the brilliance of American mainstream media to enshrine individualism as freedom from neo-conservative sheep mentality, then there wouldn't be the Craigslist killer meme.
In conclusion, I would like to insert a sober moment here to end this rant by stating that the sociopath is not a broken individual as a child. Rather, she is not a victim of child abuse, neglect or anything that horrible.
Rather, a sociopath learns early that society is based on white lies which help us to sleep at nights. When a child is fibbing, it is child abuse to force them to stop lying when few parents can stomach telling their children the truth too early but sometimes failing to figure out the truth about their society.
For a sociopath learns early in childhood that toeing the line comes with benefits and risks, including telling a white lie to ensure family harmony. What a brilliant career in big business awaits them, if only parents were taught from middle school about ethic and morals in a manner than benefits every child.
Indeed, when drinking becomes a sociopathy in middle school, parents should admit to the double standard and determine if they are narcissists, empaths or sociopaths instead of lying about these descriptions for what passes as normal human behavior.
Even so, "normal" is the biggest white lie to promote social harmony while leading to the stigma of the mentally ill without just cause. As is "denial" a white lie when declaring that a psychopath is sane.
Personality disorders are not a sign of insanity unless a person described as sociopathic are mistreated by former friends who can only see through the lies of the sociopath but have little insight into the white lies that lead to real whoppers like "the mentally ill are not really normal people".
Truth be told: Hollywood manufactured the propaganda that psychopaths are horrible people but the reboot of Halloween turn the story of a failed sociopath Michael Myers, who was neglected as a child but was molded by unprofessional therapy by Doctor Samuel Loomis and the incompetence of the State into a serial killer, the criminal psychopath.
However, American Psychopath is not an honest portrayal of sexual psychopathy because it leaves out the antihero's childhood. On the other hand the rebooted Halloween movies is only a portrayal of two kinds of sociopaths, the failed sociopath known as the criminal psychopath and serial killer Michael Myers and the successful sociopath, Dr Samuel Loomis.
Hollywood tells us white lies about sociopaths like Myers while showing Doctor Loomis as a successful sociopath. It also only documents the sexual psychopathy of the antihero in American Psychopath in adulthood, but offers no insight on the fact that he is a failed sociopath whose social drinking helped him to fit into urban society.
Those people who fail as sociopaths sometimes develop a psychopathy if they maladapt to the stress that society places on them. Otherwise, they would be make fine successful sociopaths such as many CEOs, world leaders, and celebrities whose normative behavior endear them to their fans.
Perhaps society is just as subtly as sociopathic as it is empathetic, narcissistic, for it encourages us to be normal in our lives, which might be described as one big snafu where the situation is normal but all fouled up.
On a positive note, 95 percent of people are not sociopaths. Most of them do not drink and few of them turn to drugs. Society is not inherently sociopathic. Rather, it might be that the empathetic and the narcissists in all of us realize how to be successful without harming other people.
YMMV
Originally posted on Oct 13, 2014 at 5:55 PM
American Psychopath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psycho_%28film%29
Halloween: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_(2007_film)
20140130
Buddhist Mysticism: The Art of Surrendering
Surrendering
Quotations from Dennis Genpo Merzel
In our practice, really to fail, once and for all, to fail absolutely and completely: that is it.
(p. 112)
"Practice" refers to Zen meditation. Failure is the essence of surrender.
When you give it all up, you get it all. You end up losing absolutely nothing, other than some well cherished opinions and ideas.
(p. 39)
"Give it all up" refers to surrendering. By surrendering the ego to Zen meditation, the rewards are many: happiness, love, patience — these are all transformed into their positive forms.
The very effort to stop the ceaseless movement of thoughts keeps us stirred up. Just give up all this effort to stop thinking! Fruitful effort is to let go of effort. Strive to stop striving! When you do, everything settles by itself.
(p. 31)
Why try to stop the ceaseless movement of thoughts then? There is no point in trying to stop thinking. It is easier to follow each thought as they come and go. By letting go of "stop thinking", the calm mind arises eventually. This is what is meant by "everything settles by itself."
And what really happens the moment you say, 'OK, thoughts, come up, I welcome you!' Suddenly there are no thoughts! What is happening? 'Come on, thoughts, where are you?' Except for an occasional blip, they stop arising.
(p. 96)
When the Zen practitioner becomes open to the ceaseless movement of thoughts, all of his thoughts will leave him less stirred up. In the end, he shall achieve "no-thought" with little effort. Even when he goes looking for them during the practice, the movement of thought no longer distract him.
It is a simple fact: whatever you resist will persist. If you are resisting suffering, you suffer more. If you are resisting confusion, you remain confused. If you are looking for peace, you find yourself constantly disturbed. If you are seeking after clarity, you are in a muddle. If you do not want to be angry, you are going to walk around angry. If you do not mind being angry, you will never be bothered about anger, because you will not be holding on to it. Having no opinion for or against, just being open to whatever comes, you are free.
(p. 97)"
By resisting change, the thinking mind will continue. That which you resist may cause its opposite to arise, be it suffering, confusion and even peace. The Zen practitioner ought not mind being angry until he is no longer bothered about it, due to letting go of it. Likewise, to neither be for or against the opinions you hold dear, is true liberation.
By surrendering to the ceaseless movements of thoughts, I develop the ability to rise above them and not let them stir up my feelings.
Thus, letting go of "thinking" by returning to "breathing", no-thought is achieved.
Despite the ebb and flow of "just thinking", it is still possible to be free of their influence. By not minding being angry, I am able to let go of anger.
By not clinging to anger, I am free of it.
Indeed, by not clinging to thoughts, true freedom arises.
This is what the art of surrendering is about.
Originally posted: October 17, 2003 3:27 AM
Quotations from Dennis Genpo Merzel
In our practice, really to fail, once and for all, to fail absolutely and completely: that is it.
(p. 112)
"Practice" refers to Zen meditation. Failure is the essence of surrender.
When you give it all up, you get it all. You end up losing absolutely nothing, other than some well cherished opinions and ideas.
(p. 39)
"Give it all up" refers to surrendering. By surrendering the ego to Zen meditation, the rewards are many: happiness, love, patience — these are all transformed into their positive forms.
The very effort to stop the ceaseless movement of thoughts keeps us stirred up. Just give up all this effort to stop thinking! Fruitful effort is to let go of effort. Strive to stop striving! When you do, everything settles by itself.
(p. 31)
Why try to stop the ceaseless movement of thoughts then? There is no point in trying to stop thinking. It is easier to follow each thought as they come and go. By letting go of "stop thinking", the calm mind arises eventually. This is what is meant by "everything settles by itself."
And what really happens the moment you say, 'OK, thoughts, come up, I welcome you!' Suddenly there are no thoughts! What is happening? 'Come on, thoughts, where are you?' Except for an occasional blip, they stop arising.
(p. 96)
When the Zen practitioner becomes open to the ceaseless movement of thoughts, all of his thoughts will leave him less stirred up. In the end, he shall achieve "no-thought" with little effort. Even when he goes looking for them during the practice, the movement of thought no longer distract him.
It is a simple fact: whatever you resist will persist. If you are resisting suffering, you suffer more. If you are resisting confusion, you remain confused. If you are looking for peace, you find yourself constantly disturbed. If you are seeking after clarity, you are in a muddle. If you do not want to be angry, you are going to walk around angry. If you do not mind being angry, you will never be bothered about anger, because you will not be holding on to it. Having no opinion for or against, just being open to whatever comes, you are free.
(p. 97)"
By resisting change, the thinking mind will continue. That which you resist may cause its opposite to arise, be it suffering, confusion and even peace. The Zen practitioner ought not mind being angry until he is no longer bothered about it, due to letting go of it. Likewise, to neither be for or against the opinions you hold dear, is true liberation.
By surrendering to the ceaseless movements of thoughts, I develop the ability to rise above them and not let them stir up my feelings.
Thus, letting go of "thinking" by returning to "breathing", no-thought is achieved.
Despite the ebb and flow of "just thinking", it is still possible to be free of their influence. By not minding being angry, I am able to let go of anger.
By not clinging to anger, I am free of it.
Indeed, by not clinging to thoughts, true freedom arises.
This is what the art of surrendering is about.
Originally posted: October 17, 2003 3:27 AM
20110109
Repentance (Poem)
Repentance bears fruits both sour and sweet:
Sweet redemption ferments one
Who gives vain promises to God again,
While vict'ry turns sour.
If he who errs tries again,
The marks he's made might cause him pain
With goals set higher than his aim.
When he attains each goal within his reach,
A lesson he has learned:
Keep one's aim within one's reach.
Within one's reach is one's sacred heart;
Close to one's heart, the precious soul.
Touched by God, this spark has lit anew
Forgiveness so divine.
When she succeeds in her life
By learning much from each failure,
Her goals may be set much higher
Until she makes the mark with great success.
Having learned her lesson,
With modesty shall she thus confess:
"All the sins that lead one to regret
Bring that soul to repentance,
Until, once again pardoned by Him,
One comes closer to God."
Sweet redemption ferments one
Who gives vain promises to God again,
While vict'ry turns sour.
If he who errs tries again,
The marks he's made might cause him pain
With goals set higher than his aim.
When he attains each goal within his reach,
A lesson he has learned:
Keep one's aim within one's reach.
Within one's reach is one's sacred heart;
Close to one's heart, the precious soul.
Touched by God, this spark has lit anew
Forgiveness so divine.
When she succeeds in her life
By learning much from each failure,
Her goals may be set much higher
Until she makes the mark with great success.
Having learned her lesson,
With modesty shall she thus confess:
"All the sins that lead one to regret
Bring that soul to repentance,
Until, once again pardoned by Him,
One comes closer to God."
20080408
The Root of All Evil is Still Lust for Money, not the Drive for Success
IMHO it is because the ages-old imperitive to be successful is conflicting with more ancient tradition to "don't make waves or cause family shame".
When once, people were respected and treated equitably, in the rush to succeed, people forsake family and friends for something transient (power, wealth).
Nobody wants to be self sufficient because most of us live in an urban setting, where our needs can be met either through hard work or HUD supplementation (if poor).
Yet the rural areas get the short end of the stick due to a complex variety of reasons, mainly due to the myth of the "redneck" mentality. Plus if a bunch of Asians moved into the rural areas in droves, there is a myth about plummetting property values, none of which materialized especially if you look at the influx of Hmong people into Minnesota.
Much of the poverty facing youth among the Hmong and the Blacks was precipitated by unfounded fear by the whites that both racial groups are "others" unworthy of equal rights, due both to culture and language differences in the case of Hmong.
So laws were abused to protect the economic rights of white people in Minneapolis, and certain specific cultural behaviors of both blacks and Hmong were unfairly criminalized. The resulting oppression only accelerated inequity and poverty.
This rationalization can also be generalized for America proper.
You may make your assumptions from all this or call BS, but it appears to follow a global trend too.
Rampant striving for success may have unwanted side effects and repercussions, including risk of poverty (for "have-nots") and continued inequities of increasing proportions (mainly due to overpopulation).
Drug abuse and recreational drug use are only side effects of what can be generalized as "urbanization". Indeed, it may be part of the checks and balances inherent in complex societies, and include such examples as crystal meth in rural America, the rise and fall of Amy Winehouse, and Wong Fei's decision to marry for love.
At the same time, this drive for success tends to blind people to what self sufficiency actually means i.e. actually buying land, and working a farm rather than viewing it all as investment.
IMHO the drive for success is not a root of all evil, but our lust for money is.
Therefore we should not discount acquiring some hippie ethics like recycling, having a truck garden, and raising livestock, even if it is just guinea pigs.
When once, people were respected and treated equitably, in the rush to succeed, people forsake family and friends for something transient (power, wealth).
Nobody wants to be self sufficient because most of us live in an urban setting, where our needs can be met either through hard work or HUD supplementation (if poor).
Yet the rural areas get the short end of the stick due to a complex variety of reasons, mainly due to the myth of the "redneck" mentality. Plus if a bunch of Asians moved into the rural areas in droves, there is a myth about plummetting property values, none of which materialized especially if you look at the influx of Hmong people into Minnesota.
Much of the poverty facing youth among the Hmong and the Blacks was precipitated by unfounded fear by the whites that both racial groups are "others" unworthy of equal rights, due both to culture and language differences in the case of Hmong.
So laws were abused to protect the economic rights of white people in Minneapolis, and certain specific cultural behaviors of both blacks and Hmong were unfairly criminalized. The resulting oppression only accelerated inequity and poverty.
This rationalization can also be generalized for America proper.
You may make your assumptions from all this or call BS, but it appears to follow a global trend too.
Rampant striving for success may have unwanted side effects and repercussions, including risk of poverty (for "have-nots") and continued inequities of increasing proportions (mainly due to overpopulation).
Drug abuse and recreational drug use are only side effects of what can be generalized as "urbanization". Indeed, it may be part of the checks and balances inherent in complex societies, and include such examples as crystal meth in rural America, the rise and fall of Amy Winehouse, and Wong Fei's decision to marry for love.
At the same time, this drive for success tends to blind people to what self sufficiency actually means i.e. actually buying land, and working a farm rather than viewing it all as investment.
IMHO the drive for success is not a root of all evil, but our lust for money is.
Therefore we should not discount acquiring some hippie ethics like recycling, having a truck garden, and raising livestock, even if it is just guinea pigs.
20050717
Universal Responsibility
Adopting an attitude of universal responsibility is essentially a personal matter. The real test of compassion is not what we say in abstract discussions but how we conduct ourselves in daily life.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "Imagine All the People"
Just talking about harmlessness isn't enough.
When spiritual practice (meditation) does not lead to reciprical compassion from others, a person's conduct should still be to practise harmlessness.
To feel guilty for past wrongs is not enough - one must strive to learn from one's mistakes.
Even in the Dhammapada it is written to not cling to regrets and worries.
Dhammapada 67-68:
It's not good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you regret,
whose result you reap crying,
your face in tears.
It's good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you don't regret,
whose result you reap gratified,
happy at heart.
As well, the cure for regrets about wrongs done is simply letting go:
348:
Gone to the beyond of becoming,
you let go of in front,
let go of behind,
let go of between.
With a heart everywhere let-go,
you don't come again to birth
& aging.
Thus what the Dalai Lama says about the real test of compassion is ... how we conduct ourselves in daily life.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, "Imagine All the People"
Just talking about harmlessness isn't enough.
When spiritual practice (meditation) does not lead to reciprical compassion from others, a person's conduct should still be to practise harmlessness.
To feel guilty for past wrongs is not enough - one must strive to learn from one's mistakes.
Even in the Dhammapada it is written to not cling to regrets and worries.
Dhammapada 67-68:
It's not good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you regret,
whose result you reap crying,
your face in tears.
It's good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you don't regret,
whose result you reap gratified,
happy at heart.
As well, the cure for regrets about wrongs done is simply letting go:
348:
Gone to the beyond of becoming,
you let go of in front,
let go of behind,
let go of between.
With a heart everywhere let-go,
you don't come again to birth
& aging.
Thus what the Dalai Lama says about the real test of compassion is ... how we conduct ourselves in daily life.
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