The One – the Lover and the Best Friend

Freedom, Happiness, Life, Life Writing, Love and Compassion, Philosophy, Writing

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I saw a movie this week. Three times. It’s called The Lincoln Lawyer. It struck some deep notes.

In samsara, when you meet beauty, when you meet true love, things can go awry. This is a story about a young man, a wonderful young man, not rich, but with genuine qualities who meets The One. One night in bar they meet. The sparks fly. He recognizes her beauty instantly and values it. She finds him sexy and drops her price. The chemistry is there. The future awaits.

As samsara would have it, a jealous, uncreative and corrupt man looks on. Seething with rage and hatred, he makes the determination to ruin it all. Unbeknownst to the lovers, he lies in wait, cultivating his evil motivation. In circumstances where sex and love are involved, evil watches on close by.

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I suppose why this movie hit such a deep note is because I can draw so many parallels with events that have taken place in my own life. This movie focused upon a deep psychology, a psychology common to samsara, however this subject lies in a field of vision the ordinary person most often doesn’t recognize. The rich lay idly complacent, and the poor, wholesome ones unfortunately get lost in their naiveté and innocence. Really?

When a common, uncreative and flawed ordinary being witnesses the play of true love and wisdom, their mind begins to spin out of control. Unable to contain their hatred, jealousy, fear and competitiveness, the wretched determine a plan that attempts to undermine such love and innocence and does its best to make the whole system fail. This of course will only further prolong the suffering of all concerned, but the evil mind never pays heed to that. Too ignorant to fathom the true depth of the consequences of an evil act, the uncreative mind is unrelenting in its inability to face up to the shallow nature of its own focus.

When you see others succeed, when you witness true love, don’t try to destroy it and take it away. Rejoice and recognize that by supporting such a rare event you create the causes for your own future happiness and success. Anything else is but a folly and a play of the unoriginal.

Woman’s Day – How I coped

art, Buddhism, Culture, Fashion, Freedom, Happiness, Health

How Vanessa Anne Walsh went from this

to this

The tears and the heart ache.

No hair. No makeup.

Renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view helps.

Even the Prime Minister wants to speak to me.

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Nights in the Moon Lily Garden – Chapter Six

art, Buddhism, Culture, ethics, Freedom, Happiness, Health, Human Rights, Philosophy, wisdom culture

Mayhem and Misery – Catastrophic Suffering

Ignorance breeds confusion.

When you lack discipline and a proper understanding of ethics, or turn away from the dharma, from the types of mental states and actions that hold one back from suffering, only disappointment and unhappiness, degradation and mayhem will follow.

To raise a child without a deep grounding in the dharma can only be described as absolutely stupid. Forget what the world thinks. Worldly attitudes are born from a lack of understanding and knowledge. What the world rates as important is often based upon some egotistical and false view of the self, of I and mine.

I remember when I was just about to finish school, looking upon the adult world with a deep feeling of hopelessness. All the people my parents held in high regard appeared to be caught in a vicious cycle of misery. Even though they had attained some wealth and worldly status, not even doctors from the western world appeared to have all the answers to the pervasive type of suffering we were all immersed in. When your parents suffer a brutal failure in their marital relationship, when you are surrounded by people who are only interested in bullying the smartest at school into a state of submission and decline, when there is a lack of adequate role models for the young and the worldly blindly chase after material gains as though it’s the only solution to all of life’s problems, confusion takes hold causing wreckage and an enormous degree of emotional and physical suffering. Without the sword of wisdom to guide one through failure and disintegration of all that is familiar, one is truly as helpless and directionless as a dead leaf blown violently by the winds of change, uncertainty and darkness.

Although I was a straight A student throughout all my years of school, when it came to my final HSC exams, instead of blitzing all the subjects in the manner I had done in the past, I only achieved an average set of results. I didn’t even bother studying in the last week of swat vac. I went out and partied with friends who had already completed their exams.

I’m not proud of that, even though I did still manage to get into a course I was actually well suited to at university. However, the problem was, I fell into an unhappy cycle of regret, having been used to getting near perfect results in every subject. As I have said, a lot can be gained from having a high degree of intelligence, but without a proper understanding and realization of the dharma, of wisdom and compassion, you are still at the mercy of karma and delusions. This means that suffering will continue unless you actually cut the root of suffering itself. The root of suffering comes in the form of a false view of I, of self and of phenomena. Until one fully realizes that all phenomena lack inherent existence and one is able to let go of all negative emotions, one will remain like a bucket travelling up and down in a well, without the proper means to escape the cycle of existence.

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War – (part one)

Buddhism, Culture, ethics, Freedom, Happiness, Health

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This is evidence of course of terrorism and wrong view engaged in by haters of the Dalai Lama retinue.

2015; Approximately one week prior to the Yamantaka retreat at the Blue Mountains in Sydney, NSW.

It ws a sunshiny autumn day. Clear skies, no wind. I had to pack to prepare for a tour of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Remember, Tibet isn’t Chinese, although it has been known to be corrupt, hence the invasion by China, the communist regime that murdered 1 million Tibetans and destroyed six thousand monasteries, prior to the cultural revolution that Mao Tse Tung orchestrated which brought the whole world into a state of utter chaos.

Climbing into my car, I drove down a busy street, lined with golden and red autumn leaves. They are dead mind you. What do people have in mind for me? After driving fifteen minutes and nearly reaching the highway, a car full of thugs approached and started to harass me on the road from behind. I picked up speed, trying to get out of their way, but upon entering the highway they appeared from my rear view mirror to become even more threatening and out of control. As we took of from the lights, I noticed a bus and several cars swerve to get out of these thugs way, as their car chased me down the highway.

Several minutes later, I pulled off the highway in disgust, and jumped out of the car that stopped in a no standing zone, to hide. The middle eastern thugs approached warning me not to get back into the car, because they threatened to detonate a car bomb. I was hiding, but heard them as they approached my empty vehicle.

Several tense minutes later, they left, and I ran off down a neigbouring street, shitting as went, in terror. I made my way slowly to a friends residence. No mobile phone, no keys, no wallet, I was terrified and in distress. This all took place between 9:20am and 10am early one morning.

At approximately 10:30am or 11am I sought refuge at Tara Instiute’s Café Bliss, and was given some food and money to return home. I decided to catch the train, because I had become frightened of the road. It took me until 4pm to get home, so frightened was I. I called the police to report the incident, but no action was taken and I was fined for parking in a no standing zone. It took me one month to recover the vehicle, because I had to investigate just how serious this car bombing threat was. The police never got back to me, but it is a clear example of how shugden practitioners hate the followers of the Dalai Lama and seek to destroy the Buddhist practitioners’ inner peace and safe lifestyle wherever possible.

The Elephant in the Room

Buddhism, Culture, ethics, Freedom, Health, Human Rights, wisdom culture

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This is why I am bankrupt.

A while ago I listened to an advertisement 60 Minutes was running for one of their shows. In this advertisement, the journalist from 60 Minutes discussed the issue surrounding Australia, as a nation, being at war with China. You would have to be more than half asleep if you didn’t realize China is already at war with us. Just look at the way the Chinese Government encourages it’s people to bribe immigration officials and flood brainwashed and poorly educated Chinese citizens into the most prosperous and democratic nations around the world. When China invaded Tibet and massacred its people, destroying and bombing its educational institutions and oppressing the freedoms of this peace loving, gentle nation, the Communist Governments view at the time was that once they gained control over the Roof of the World (Tibet), power around the rest of the world would rapidly fall into their hands.

I guess if doing business with a regime of dull-minded, uncreative people who were happy to force young Tibetan children to shoot their parents and thought nothing of burying Tibetan people alive in coffins doesn’t faze you (as reported by Amnesty International in the early 1990’s), then perhaps you might conclude I am over-reacting, but I hold onto the virtuous and freedom loving idea we do in fact have a responsibility to respect human rights, especially when a greedy power like China marches into a foreign country and invades for the purposes of stealing another nations precious natural resources in order to strengthen it’s own power and oppress the freedoms and liberties of others.

Make no mistake; it is the deep intention of China to dominate the world’s economic and political sphere, whilst using their brutal military might to create a stranglehold on the freedom of all sentient beings. As a brilliant Buddhist master once told me, “China first takes control by getting people addicted to its money.” It is very clear now to see how we as a nation have become hopelessly addicted to the short term economic benefits we derive from giving away too easily, our precious and limited resources to China. This master then went on to say that “once China knows a nation has become addicted to the income they earn from doing business with China, China then seizes the opportunity at hand to take control over every other aspect of the lives of citizens living in such a nation.”

Do we as a country even recognize anymore what it means to be Australian? As you walk down any suburban or city street, it is clear to see we are effectively already living in China. The Chinese have long had the habit of buying up the most highly sought after and valuable properties and moving into the most prosperous regions of any country, once they develop pockets deep enough to steal away our freedom. It is a well known fact that businessmen working in real estate actively seek to sell off the best houses and properties we have in our country to the Chinese. Just look at who owns most of the Golden Mile now down in Brighton. Go and visit Box Hill, Doncaster, Toorak or watch more carefully who is filling the streets of Melbourne or any other major Australian city, and see if you can figure out where we are really living.

We should all know by now, China has an absolutely horrific human rights record. As a nation, and oppressive communist power, they simply cannot be trusted to act in a way that protects the integrity and freedom of any living being. Despite this catastrophic flaw in the Chinese character, we must rely upon diplomacy and a peace strategy that focuses first upon saving rather than needlessly and heartlessly destroying precious lives.

I would be remiss for not mentioning a story recently televised by Four Corners on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) network, which exposed China’s attempts to hack into a number of major western corporations’ computer systems. On this program, Four Corners revealed not only had China been caught hacking into His Holiness The Dalai Lama’s website and other Tibetan Government in Exile computer systems, but China has also hacked into the computer systems of companies such as BHP, Fortescue Metals, Rio Tinto, just to name a few. One can see from the ruthless way China conducts its affairs that they already assume they are at war with everyone. Just remember, the Chinese Government pride themselves on educating their people into the Art of War. The Tibetan Nation, on the other hand, excelled in it’s ability to prosper a country based on a philosophy of peace, love, liberation and freedom from suffering. Which cause would any rationally minded being choose to support, listen to and follow?

Following is just a brief profile of the methods used by China to destabilize already prosperous nations, which they view as an ideological threat to their own oppressive and freedom hating regime.

The whole global financial downturn can be attributed to the fact that Australia, Europe and other once well developed nations like America can no longer manufacture their own goods, due to the incredible difficulty that has arisen and stems from the Chinese government’s refusal to stop artificially lowering the levels of its currency. Countries like Australia have become virtually incapable of competing with China, due to the fact that the Chinese rely upon slave labor to manufacture all their goods. This has created such a huge economic and moral imbalance, that the entire world is now paying an enormous price for the fact that our politicians refuse address the critical causes for the downfalls in our economies and ability to produce quality goods which will allow us to trade on a more even playing field.

In western countries, we do our best to maintain relatively good working conditions for our citizens, but China has no such concern or philosophy. As a young country, we take too much for granted our liberties and current level of freedom, to the point that we have become blinded by the huge changes and shifts in global power that are rapidly taking place around us. Our major media stations and publications refuse to address these issues, creating a false illusion in the minds of all our people that our freedom and health is not degenerating to the degree and levels to which they currently are.

Look at how when the Burmese Government attacked its own people in order to suppress their rights of free speech and democracy, China funded and supported the ruthless dictatorial Burmese regime while this was going on.

Look at how the problem with plagiarism and pirating have enabled China to steal original designs, intellectual property and products from all other nations around the globe, so that they are then able to infiltrate business and political systems around the world, mass producing cheap fakes, which further impedes our ability to trade and work fairly on a world scale.

As long as the Communist Chinese Government continues to peg it’s currency against the US dollar at a level that is artificially low, Chinese goods and services appear cheaper than they really are when compared to products and services produced in Western nations.

One could go on forever about all the evil that resides in China, taking the form of the Chinese Government’s abuse of the rights and conditions of humans and animals, and the wanton and blatant corruption of its officials.

One could argue the reason the talks in Copenhagen failed was because of Chinese Diplomats blocking and strategically planning for methods and means to cause the whole process to fail.

We all need to become more aware of how the actions of a corrupt, ruthless and oppressive Chinese regime is causing degradation and decline on a world scale, and understand more clearly how we are all now paying a massive price for the corruption and degradation to the planet that is stemming from the actions of the Chinese Government and it’s brainwashed citizens.

China educates its own people into a philosophy and way of thinking and acting that has no respect for the law, for human rights, for freedom, for freedom of speech or for the truth and justice.

I urge everyone to take a deeper look into what is going on in the rapidly changing world around us and look for ways to think about how to protect ourselves and the freedoms and way of life we currently enjoy. Many sacrifices have been made by others in the past to protect the democratic rights of a people. We must never lose sight of this fact or think that just because our economy is currently quite strong, that our way of life and ability to achieve lasting happiness is not at stake. Never think ignorance is bliss and that not knowing the truth somehow makes life a little easier to bear. Lacking awareness of the true causes of suffering is always a recipe for disaster.

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The Language of Love

Buddhism, Freedom, Happiness, Health, Love and Compassion, Philosophy, Writing

Birth of the Buddha

The language of love does not, in any way, correspond with the language of desire[1].

When one person, or even one being, loves another, their primary concern always lies
with how to remove the suffering and pain of another. It begins, continues and ends with thinking about ways to bring pleasure and happiness to another, and will even focus upon the needs and wishes of all beings. This is not because it is trying in any way to deceive another simply to fulfill its own selfish gratifications.

Love aims to avoid creating losses for another person or being. Simply, it aims to protect
the integrity, morality and self-respect of another person. Desire attempts to do the opposite. Desire does not care if damage is created in the experience of another person. It cares nothing for the self-respect, morality or aims of another.

Love aims to protect and nurture the happiness, contentment and health of people and all
beings. It has no interest in trampling on the needs of others in order to bring about some superficial, short-lived and impermanent experience of satisfaction.

In my experience, the Buddha will think, devise and perform limitless actions aimed at protecting, nurturing and sustaining the happiness and fulfillment of another person. He has no commonality whatsoever in the mundane, selfish and destructive motivations of ordinary, self-possessed beings. An ordinary being, on the other hand, has no thought or care about the consequences of his self-centered actions. An ordinary being with no insight or love will, without hesitation, create suffering and misery in the mind and experience of another. True, deep, endless love, aims to transcend the boundaries of space, thought and time. It can move beyond the limitations of the human form and reach far into the realms of space to bring peace, contentment and joy.

May all beings identify, recognize and be conjoined with the supramundane love of a Buddha. May they transcend their sufferings and recognize without any shadow of a doubt, that a Buddha can and will free all beings from their limited, miserable lives and transport them to a state of never-ending happiness, peace and everlasting joy.

[1] Desire means thirst. Like drinking salt water. A taste that cannot be satisfied. Quote from The Buddha

Why We Must Abandon Negative Speech

Buddhism, Freedom, Happiness, Health, Philosophy

Modern society needs an improved form of communication. Our obsession with the lives of celebrities and the rich will never lead to the inner peace and freedom from suffering we are all seeking. If one’s concern lies with keeping up with daily gossip, this is no different to continuously rolling an old record. It is very unlikely that one does anything but harm to oneself and others by absorbing oneself in gossip and the private affairs of others, not to mention obsessing over harsh or divisive language and speech that is motivated by ignorance, lust, hatred or anger. When inuendo about our politicians is printed in the public arena, much damage is caused in the minds of others by misinformation that is circulated by the press. What I particularly object to is comments made that are untrue, harsh or divisive, not to mention the constant media speculation and inquiry into private concerns, which is not the business of others. To find peace, one must focus upon creating positive, wholesome deeds and not get entangled in the net of attachment, hatred and ignorance which binds sentient beings to cyclic existance.

What everyone wants to conquer is birth, aging, sickness and death. The only way to do this is to follow the advice of highly realized beings, the Buddha and his disciples. If you think you can achieve these sorts of accomplishments without guidance from someone who has freed themselves from the cycle of rebirth, you are really deluding yourself. The path to true, lasting, happiness is the path to the cessation of all suffering. You will not find lasting peace and comfort via any other means.

When is everyone going to wake up to this basic fact, the Four Noble Truths?

Practice love and compassion and stop judging others. Ignorance about the basic nature of reality, the way self and phenomena exist is the root cause of all suffering. If you do not understand the way in which the self and other phenomena exist, you have no hope of achieving your aims of freedom and peace. Grasping at a self is the root of all delusions. Saying I, I, I all the time, is the path to unending failure and misery.

Everyone needs to accept personal responsibility for achieving freedom from suffering and this can only be achieved by taking responsibility for one’s own actions and refraining from blaming others when things don’t go our way. We are the creators of our own peace and freedom. Adopting the right motivation is the key to overcome all suffering. Cherish the happiness of others, respect the rights of others to live a happy life and do your best to stop harming others with actions of body, speech and mind. This kind of advice has a long and very well established, practiced and proven history and was not invented in the New Age. By taking on board this kind of advice, one secures for oneself the opportunity for improving ones inner happiness and experience of inner peace, contentment and sense of satisfaction. The nature of reality is what it is. Ignorance has the nature of suffering and wisdom has the nature of peace, bliss and freedom. By practicing the path of love and compassion, working for the benefit of others, one can unlock the keys to liberation and enlightenment, and close the door to the lower realms and endless suffering.

Do yourself and others a favour and abandon hatred, anger, jealousy, pride and attachment. Understand what it means when one says the self lacks inherent existence.

Playing with your apple computer won’t act as the answer to all your problems. In fact, it is highly likely that they will increase with the continual pace of development.

One must meditate in order to understand the deeper nature of reality, the fact that love and not desire brings happiness and inner contentment.