Discussing Britney Spears

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This evening I tuned into Channel Nine’s documentary on Britney Spears, called Framing Britney Spears. As I reflect upon what appears to be community concern over Britney’s mental state and of course her health and well being, I find myself asking the question to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, why is Britney so unhappy?

We all understand back just before 2008, Britney lost custody of her two children. Hard of course, but firstly, what did Britney do wrong to Justin Timberlake earlier to cause such a nasty split and then what else went wrong with Federline? Is Britney sinning, which of course is the cause giving rise to such suffering?

Secondly, when Britney’s father, Jamie took over as custodian of her estate, he appears to have stepped back into her life when things were not going too well. So Jamie Spears may well have tried to help her. This appears to be why the courts refuse to give control of the finances back to Britney. Why then does Britney show no gratitude towards her father? For some time now, Jamie has been managing Britney’s career. Britney is making some money, but she may well be proven to be very divisive, because when she walked off stage at the beginning of another year heralded as being Queen of Las Vegas, she let down a big group of supporters.

Why does Britney not just thank her father for his ongoing concern? What’s he doing wrong? Having family support, if it is healthy, is a good thing.

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What’s wrong with marijuana?

Buddhism, Culture, Education, ethics, Health, Medicine, News, Philosophy

A lot of people I know tried it. From my perspective of compassion and wisdom, I can quite clearly say, it does you no good. Firstly, everyone should know by now that smoking does cause cancer, and doesn’t do you any good. Marijuana also has nasty toxins. Have you ever tried walking after smoking? It’s very difficult. One’s lungs feel as though they have just suffered a horrible beating.

My father used to smoke cigarettes, but when I was young I managed to convince him to try the mediholder cigarette filter. Every day he would clean out the black tar that got trapped in the filter. That black tar ordinarily gets inhaled into the lungs causing disease and sickness. No one likes getting sick, so stop doing things like smoking that ruin one’s health.

In my experience, smoking causes increased anxiety, depression, hallucination or paranoia, suicidal thoughts and selfishness. It’s a selfish act. I think you can find Gurus and their disciples who care whether or not you engage in harmful acts. In Buddhism, it is considered to be very negative or harmful to engage in acts that harm the five aggregates. A person is the emptiness of form, feeling, recognition, karmic formations and consciousness. These are the five aggregates that are empty of inherent existence. Cause and effect and dependent arising however, are unfailing. This means unless you purify negative karma, you will experience the suffering result of behaving badly or negatively. On the positive side, if you are always virtuous, you will experience a happy set of results.

Do yourself and the community a favour and live well. Live healthily with compassion and the bodhicitta mind motivating your every action of body, speech and mind. Learn to aspire to and engage in the path to Buddhahood. That is a goal that is beyond the cycle of suffering. It is beyond samsara and cyclic existence. It, Buddhahood, transcends and cuts off or cessates the causes of suffering. Buddhahood has cessated the three types of suffering; the suffering of suffering (i.e. a headache or flu), the suffering of change; watching the elements age a home, and pervasive suffering, where life can always be found to contain some type of mental or physical suffering. Life is pervaded by suffering and it’s causes.

Learn how to go beyond the ordinary sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. Learn how to accomplish one’s own purpose and the purpose of others as well. Accomplishing the two purposes is a win win situation and good for everyone.

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The downfall of divisive speech.

Buddhism, Culture, Education, ethics, Health, News, Philosophy

I am going to write about the subject of negative karma, and how to avoid engaging in the ten black actions of body, speech and mind. If you engage in negative acts of body, speech and mind, you accumulate negative energy or black karma. Karma means action. Actions can be either black which are negative, and create the causes of suffering and misery, or white actions of body, speech and mind, which accumulate merit and act as a cause of good health, happiness, and wealth or prosperity.

Divisive speech is very negative. My mother unfortunately doesn’t understand how negative her speech is. Sometimes I even feel like she is illiterate, except to say she is pushed along by a very negative mind and motivation. When I was in my early twenties and practicing Buddhism, I was hoping to lead as many beings as possible along the Buddhist path, which I think gives people the opportunity to create much virtue and live a wholesome and meaningful life. I spoke to my old school friends and university friends about the virtues of being a Buddhist, but I didn’t get very far, because my mother chimed in and claimed, like the Chinese communists, that the tradition of Buddhism is garbage. Like a real sloth, atheist and negative being, she slammed my decision to be Buddhist.

The basis was my university and school friends, where we all used to get along, and I encouraged them to follow a healthy pathway to get out of the drug scene and give up smoking and to meditate on virtue instead. However, as soon as these people heard my mother bagging Buddhism, they soon disappeared from my life, falling for the lies and gossip and division that mother actually caused. So the recognition was unmistaken, Out of jealousy and ignorance, my mother severed the connection I had with these people.

The motive was wanting to cause such a division and to reduce the influence I had over these people. The delusion, as I have said, was jealousy, hatred and ignorance. The deed was as follows. Anne wished to divide the people who once got along and to not affect a reconciliation between those who did not. The final step is when the people understand the meaning of those words. So the karma of divisive speech was complete, because I have not seen these people who I was once friends with at school and university ever since. Anne wished to discourage me and my friends from following Buddhism or for engaging in the practice of meditation.

The consequence for Anne, twenty seven years on, is that she no longer seems to have the karma to see even her own daughter. In this blog, I have spoken about another set of lies and divisive speech that my mother engaged in to decimate peoples confidence and trust in me. I agree it’s all very sad to see the negative effect of engaging in black actions motivated by anger/hatred, attachment/desire and ignorance/wrong view. I have in my motivation, only been trying to educate and help. However, due to the delusions in others minds, still to date there has been little improvement in the situation.