Business Chris

In Buddhism there is the concept of building up a network of positive actions - that by doing so we eliminate in time the effects of previous negative actions. How does this “collecting of merit” work? The following is from a talk by Alexander Berzin, a Buddhist scholar:

“Actually, Buddhism says that the wish for a better rebirth is an initial motivation to make you at least stop hurting others, stop stealing, and so on, but you have to go beyond that because, even if you gain happiness in a better rebirth, you are going to lose it. You are not really going to be happy. And so, in fact, you need to stop wanting to be happy in order to gain liberation.”

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Here’s a nice writeup on the place that I work. It’s hack night tonight, by the way - everyone is welcome!

Do you believe this?

We, ourselves, are made of many individual cells, yet we are individual. These little beings move in such connected harmony, that we take ourselves to be individual. Get it? Maybe this video that I found on Cliff Pickover’s very weird site will help you understand.

I wrote about two paintings in a previous post, Jazz Ain’t Dead. So maybe read it again while seeing them.

I have had what would be considered by the world to be a very difficult situation with some family problems. As I have practiced Buddhism, the challenges in life have become more and more - stronger and stranger. This time, however, I had the bodhisattva teachings and the vows just after the challenges appeared.

I asked Rinpoche for his advice about these matters and he responded simply, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.” This had a very strong impression - because the challenges that I was facing were the kinds of things that are considered generally to be a very big deal. He was asking me to take a very unconventional approach. So I worked with that - with not making a big deal as an intention. Like this: The things that are happening in life are happening on their own, spontaneously - they are very set up - cause and effect is there. Making a big deal is like yelling at the ocean to stop its tides from moving.

Rinpoche then offered teachings on the Bodhisattva understanding from the Lam Rim Chen Mo, written by Je Rinpoche (Lama Tsong Khapa). I was so happy to be able to sit in this center and learn again the meaning of bodhicitta. Aspiring to it, engaging with it, loving all beings equally and working tirelessly for their benefit. Rinpoche is kind enough to teach us the concepts over and over - and every time I hear the teachings, something new is there. I suspect this is because everything is always changing and, indeed, I bring a new person in myself to the teachings every time. So some new attitudes were there for me.

Look:

Rinpoche told us that thinking one is a Bodhisattva is a sign that one is not a Bodhisattva - this is true, he said, about being a “Buddhists” too. Indeed, we are not here to join a group of super-beings, to be super men and super women, higher than everyone else. I took this again to mean, “don’t make a big deal out of bodhisattvas”. I thought, “Don’t make a big deal out of the ‘bad’ things that are happening in your life, and now, even, do not make a big deal out of the ‘good’ things that are happening - that I am with Dharma brothers and sisters learning the profound meaning of the Bodhisattva path”. Yes, I felt relief - a permission - first from Rinpoche, and then from my deep heart - permission to be present. I could let it go. I am in fact, not obligated by anyone to feel a certain way or to take on some attitude or opinion. Everything is set up already - and I can open to that completely.

Please forgive me for being vague about the details of this family problem - I think it is important to understand that you can fill in the blanks with your own life - any sort of hard situation you might find yourself in, you can insert that challenge into this story and see the potential of opening up, of not making a big deal out of it. I have experienced that as I open up like this - becoming more independent and open, that there is truly already love there. Love is there waiting for the room to be expressed. People seemed to be able to see this working in me - for the first time in many months people were saying, “Hi Chris, you look good”.

Imagine that!

Of course, then, I felt moments of pride - but any time my mind started to chatter on about it, like: “I am doing so well, I am so peaceful”, I could see this as another attempt to make a big deal out of it. So, I remembered that permission to let my thoughts go. And so this Bodhisattva intention, the intention to become the most helpful type of person for everyone, it reminds me to open up and to let things flow. ‘Whatever happens, may it happen’. Have you heard of this Tantric vow? This is something that I have always appreciated.

The scriptures say that the different teachings are there for different potentials. In the past, I have thought, “Well, I must be of this highest potential! I am, after all, very special! These bodhisattva things are simple, and mundane. I’m going to get straight into emptiness and practice the subtle energy work of tantra because, of course, I can tell that I am that type of practitioner”. But, after my enthusiasm for being the highest wore off, I became like a piece of wood, an old log that could no longer offer any support. What I had learned had no resonance anymore, it had no life. But luckily the Universe is set up in a way to test us all from every angle and it seems that life is becoming, suddenly, very difficult, very emotional - it is suddenly very real and my intellectual understanding and pride is of no help.

I see now that these teachings about a practitioner’s potential and different levels are only ways of expressing the moment to moment situation of all beings. We will be challenged in so many ways and so the teachings are as vast as our lives. Reconnecting the bodhisattva intention - has, for now, brought a new sense of freshness and openness that allows me to coexist with this struggling life. I don’t need to remove myself from Samsara.

Whatever comes, I intend, I am decided to not make a big deal out of it. In the end, I will die! So what problem currently can compare to that? We will all face death some day - and so I am very lucky to be experiencing many difficulties now, because without them, death will still come and I will have had no preparation. After all, death is what is called the biggest deal of them all.

May we all be at peace through all of our situations - may we all enjoy completely the ever-changing and evolving situation and see the freedom in entanglement. Finally, may I never consider myself as part of a group - low, middle, or high. To do so is to forget everything - to lose myself into my mind-made-world.

Thank you, Rinpoche, for your patience, kindness and strength. May we all become beneficial to everyone, everywhere!

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Om Not a Big Deal Hum

I heard something on the radio about jazz musicians. Jazz musicians heads turn off when they play - the analysis/thinky part virtually turns off and they just sort of flow out with music. Have you noticed that jazz musicians close their eyes a lot? Eyes are very judgmental things - you know. Covering the eye-balls with the eye-lids I betcha works out pretty well for opening up with some sort of flow.

I have paintings on my desk and on my wall. My on-the-wall the painting is a group of rabbits huddled around a crouching kid who is focused on touching a rabbit group-member who is wearing sunglasses. He has to crouch so as not to be emblazoned by the dragon breath of another hopper who is hopping through a hula-hoop suspended from some unseen ceiling by a bow-tied string. With unshakable determination he focuses on the success of touching the weird one. I’m not being cryptic - that is the title of the painting - “I want to touch the weird one”. In a world where the status-quo is rabbits constantly blowing fire and jumping through hoops, a rabbit with sunglasses stands out as something finally worth getting interested in.

The painting on my desk, the off the wall painting, so to speak, is a of jazz musician gazing out of his world with tired and respectful eyes. I’m guessing at all this by the way. I guess that he is a jazz musician because of the patterns flowing through the air around him - even though there aren’t any instruments. There seems to be the movement of jazz there.

Jazz ain’t dead

I am working hard these days writing web applications. You do know that I am a programmer, right? Maybe you don’t know that it is not my tendency to work hard. You’ll see that so far there is not much reference of computers and programming and web applications on this blog. I am now immersed in all things Internet. I didn’t grow up in this world - I was 17 when I first used what was then a fairly obscure Internet. So I’m kind of an old man in this particular technology world. The whole day is busy with work now. As a result, I’m not day-dreaming so much - I seem to be more practical than before. Indeed immersing myself into work is very down to earth, actually. Many good spiritual teachers have said that work can be a very good practice - not necessarily something to avoid. Why do I say, ‘Not necessarily’? This reveals some old attitude of mine: Sometimes work can become the whole game - progressing, increasing, creating. You can live for work - let it define who you think you are. I have felt a lick of that living-working myself now that I have actually spent a day or a few days focused and creating. But I’ll tell you - its not necessary to live for anything - living just happens all the time. Haven’t you noticed?

That’s an important point. Living happens spontaneously. Not understanding that Living happens leads to some of us not wanting to retire because of an idea that retirees become complacent and and lose all their reason for for living. One is sure that one will just fall apart. So, here, a person “lives to work”. Or it might be better to shove this horse under the cart - and say he “works to live”.

But living just happens - there is no work. When we live to work, something is really being ignored - some basic quality of breathing and communicating and adapting. Hearts beat, suns set, pain increases and decreases. You and me - we are in this world and it is just happening like that, haven’t you noticed?

But life accommodates all of this. Everything is like this - art, science, spirituality, work, wives, children, the good, the bad and the ugly. All of these things are life spontaneously. They are each a grain of sand in life.

Life is jazz.

Typing on a keyboard. First a letter, then a word, sentence, paragraph web post. It goes like this:
Big Bang, Immaculate Creation (your choice), hydrogen, helium, etc, suns, nitrogen, planets, life, humans, Americans, Chris Young, Beesucker, typing on a keyboard, a letter, a word, a sentence. I hope you enjoyed it.

“Yellow Hatted Salute” by Claudia

“I Want to Touch the Weird one” by Stephen J. Yazzi

Early in this video, see a guy with perfect pitch dial a long distance phone number by whistling.

Snoop Dogg wrote a country song:

Watch “Buy My Medicine” on You Tube

Rinpoche said today: “Those who say they are in the Mahayana group, are not Mahayana.”

We are not Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Atheists or anything else. We are, all of us, simply human beings trying to connect with ourselves - these labels are just ego-decoration.

What do you think? Leave a comment already!

I enjoy to give them smile. Keep them out of their bad life.

It’s been a long time coming - there’s still much work to do, but now you see it! Clouds sky and lotus . . . what do you think? Well, you can’t tell me because comments aren’t working yet - or search - or the links. This is my first major design work and I’m pretty happy. Anyway, stay tuned - I have stuff to say again! Take care, all of you.

This was quite a surprise! You know, dogs and bears are closely related. Many times us humans can’t get along with members of our own species. Looks like the dogs and bears are showing us up!

link

Mantra protects the mind, however, if it is known but not applied, it becomes like the soldier’s Kevlar vest left in a foxhole. The bullets of delusion rip through the unprotected mind. Fortunately, when one realizes the emptiness of mind - there is no destruction, and so no need for protection.

Segue

Seung Sahn talked about primary point. Imagine a classic scale, with two trays. When both trays are empty, the arrow points to 0. This primary point is Zen, but what if you put some weight on this mind-scale? Well, 5 pounds of weight makes the needle point to 5 - is this a problem? No - what’s important is that when the weight is lifted, the needle immediately moves back to 0. 0 is Zen, Zen is clear mind - clear like space, not blank, or vacuous - but open, ready for anything.

So we say, ‘happy comes - happy. Happy goes - no happy’ but when coming and going disappears, this is called primary point.

This is a very important point.