Daily Readings From the Buddha

The Buddha could say such profound things with so few words. Anyone who has taken an interest in Buddhism has most likely read countless quotes and sayings from the Buddha. I have added a link to the list of links in the lower right-hand box: Daily Readings From the Word of the Buddha, presented by BuddhaNet. It presents a calendar where you click on the date and a new saying from the Buddha appears. I personally plan on making it my homepage, so that when I first log onto the Internet each day, I can read a new saying. I'll post the link here, too. Just click right here to go to the web page.

Lojong slogan #27: Work with the greatest defilements first.

Some Westerners come to Buddhism looking for a way out of whatever personal problems they're going through. While Buddhism does offer to provide a way to become happier and live a more fulfilling life, this can only be done through work. Buddhism provides a sort of list of rules that must be followed if we want to move towards contentment. But most times, practicing meditation is not enough, and sometimes it is used as a crutch. People may think, "Well, I am meditating and reading lots of books on Buddhism, so this will eventually help me overcome my problems. I am doing something to work towards overcoming my problems." Oftentimes, this is a person's reason for not seeking help elsewhere. Sometimes we try to convince ourselves and others that we are doing enough just by practicing a sending-and-taking meditation or an insight meditation for ten minutes daily. But there is a lot more to Buddhism than meditation.

The Lojong slogans of Atisha are a set of 59 proverbs intended for training the mind. We can read these proverbs and, provided that we can understand the meaning behind them, we can use them as reminders to help turn away from our destructive patterns of behavior and thought. They are useful because, a lot of the time, it seems that we get stuck in these patterns because we don't really know any other way. Many of the Lojong slogans can be extremely helpful to anyone who reads it, and I may choose to create more posts highlighting some of them, but for now I want to focus on #27.

Lojong slogan #27 reads as follows: "Work with the greatest defilements first."

Let's break this statement down. What are the greatest defilements? A defilement is an impurity, anything that steers away from the Eightfold Path. The "greatest defilements" can be seen as the most pressing of our problems. A good example is any kind of addiction, maybe a person has a tendency to be very judgmental with friends and family and place exceedingly high expectations on others, perhaps a person tends to take advantage of others for his or her own gain. The "greatest defilements" refers to anything that is a condition of clinging, or of ignoring right livelihood, right effort, right intentions/speech/actions/view, etc. So the slogan is saying that in order to find happiness and contentment, we must work to overcome these obstacles before we can begin to concentrate on any other aspect of our search. We can spend hours upon hours in meditation and never gain any ground if we do not first overcome these "greatest defilements."

Although it is extremely scary to face your greatest problems and figure out how and why you came to depend on them, it will inevitably be very rewarding. You can get to know yourself better and you become stronger. In working with these problems, you are practicing self care, thus cultivating love and kindness toward yourself. This is where we must start. Those already learning about Buddhism know that loving-kindness aspirations and compassion aspirations always start with the self, and then extend to the rest of the world. It is common knowledge that we can only have compassion for others if we are able to feel compassion for ourselves, and this unyielding, all-encompassing compassion is central to Tibetan Buddhism and is central to being truly happy.

Make sure to take care of yourself and work with the greatest defilements first, because as much knowledge as a person might have of the teachings of the Buddha, he can never gain anything from it if he has not been working to fight through his greatest personal problems.

Just a note...

I'm revamping things a little bit. This blog is going to foster positivity, and I plan on doing my best to stick to that. And I also want to try to write as much as possible all the time. This thing has been going for a while and it only has nine posts. There's something wrong with that. I just have a tendency to be really into stuff for a while and then get writer's block and then forget about it all together. But I'm going to work harder now to keep this blog updated as much as possible.

With that said, this first new post is a reminder to everyone out there who has ever felt under-appreciated. I think we've all felt at one time or another that someone that we've worked hard to help has completely crapped all over us in the end. We've all had thoughts like, "That's it, I'm never helping anyone again. I don't care about anyone anymore. This way I won't be treated like this again." I'm kind of having one of those moments right now myself. So this post will serve as a reminder to myself and to whoever reads it.

One hundred percent of people will not appreciate your compassion one hundred percent of the time, but you are not responsible for the words, actions, and thoughts of others. It can hurt to feel like your help is not appreciated, or to feel that you are being scorned or reprimanded by the person that you may have gone pretty far out of your way to help. But stick with compassion, keep caring, keep helping people, keep doing what you're doing. You are living rightly, and that is far greater than any negativity that person could possibly throw your way. Let that be what keeps going, and don't forget to feel happiness and to appreciate yourself for the loving and kind person that you are.

Maybe this could be considered a really small almost sort of enlightenment experience?

Tonight I was chatting online with a friend. We were catching up as she lives across the country and I haven't really spoken with her in months. She's been through a lot of really rough things these past few years that I've known her, and now has something profoundly beautiful in her life to feel happy about. At the time it didn't feel out of the ordinary for me at all, but looking back on it I realize that I felt almost as happy as if I was her, at a moment in my life when many other people would have felt jealous and/or resentful in the same place. We all know that at times over instant messages, we use phrases like LOL, LMAO, ROFL, and the different emoticons when in reality we are just sitting and staring at our screen, maybe cracking a slight smile. But this time, I was literally laughing out loud at certain things and smiling because I honestly felt like I found money on the street or ran into a celebrity while I was out running errands or something.

And all of a sudden, I thought to myself how glad I am that this is me, that I am the kind of person who can feel these things in response to someone else's happiness at events that have no effect on my life whastoever. For this to come at a time when I have been feeling discouraged and just really low about myself is amazing. It was as if the negative things I was feeling about myself were clouds that were parting to let the sun of who I truly am shine through. I feel as though I've never seen myself in this way before.

I know that was really cheesy, and I don't know what else to say or even where I'm going with this. I guess I just wanted to record the event. It's a pretty big deal to get to this point for me. I'm seeing certain things more clearly and loving myself more as a result of it.

Maybe I'll get shit for this, but who knows...

So I guess back in May a report came about that detailed drug use in each state and in the District of Columbia by means of some sort of survey that was administered. The results have spawned a series of news stories that I've come across in print and on the internet with headlines stating that Rhode Island has the highest rate of drug use in the country, but never really cared enough to read into. But today, while listening to the radio I heard a news segment on this very report that lasted for all of thirty seconds, and I therefore sat through it. This is the statement that provoked me to write this post (and I'm paraphrasing, so deal with it): "Rhode Island has the highest rate of drug problems in the United States according to a survey. It has the highest rates of marijuana use as well as illicit drug use." Three are a couple of problems that I have with statements such as this one, one being the fact that after looking at the actual report, there are just some things about the way that the stats are compiled that doesn't sit right with me. The second is that marijuana use does not equal a drug problem.

Let me elaborate on my problems with the statistics for a minute. They took stats on drug use by reporting on marijuana use, cocaine use, non-medical use of prescription medications, alcohol use in general and binge drinking, and illicit drug use other than marijuana. These include cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, and prescriptions all in one category. However, these are all very different things and I would like to see how the states compare on heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants separately. If they do it for other drugs, why don't they do it for these? It just strikes me as weird, I guess.

The other issue I have with the statistics is the fact that they had separate tables and figures and discussions for use of all of these drugs, and then they had tables and figures and discussions for the percentage of people in each state ages 12 and up who are dependent on drugs. First of all, how many people are going to honestly report that they are dependent on a drug? And we all know that there are many people who are dependent on drugs and alcohol who don't believe that they are, and thus probably wouldn't report themselves as such on a survey. Second of all, the District of Columbia had the highest percentage of persons aged 12 and up dependent on illicit drugs. The study then listed a bunch of other states that were also near the top of the list in this category. Rhode Island was not among them. So, can we really even say that Rhode Island has the highest occurrence of drug problems? Because to me "having a drug problem" = being dependent on a drug of some kind, and not that you have used it at least once in the past year or month or whatever and sometimes use it once in a while for fun. Drinking once in a while with friends does not make you an alcoholic. And it is this same point that irks me the most when applied to marijuana use.

When someone in the news reports that "Rhode Island has the most drug problems in the United States," does it not make you picture crack heads on the corner, used needles in the gutters, little hungry children crying while their parent is passed out high on the couch? What really pisses me off here is that when citing marijuana use on the radio as the main supporting point for the fact that a state has the most drug problems, it places marijuana use beside the scenes I have just described for you. However, while I know that marijuana can cause problems in some people's lives, I am betting that a good portion of the people who reported that they use marijuana are regular, average upstanding citizens.

I think that more people use this substance than people realize. Your son's high school history teacher and baseball coach who you probably think is an excellent role model, and you're most likely right, might come home once in a while after a long day of working and turn on his vaporizer. Your accountant maybe might watch the football game on the weekend with his buddies while they smoke a bowl. Neither of these people have done anything that is criminally suspect. Both may be very happy and successful individuals. With drug problems? I don't think so. Maybe one day you'll get a brain tumor and need brain surgery and your future neurosurgeon right now at this moment is getting high with other future doctor and scientist friends.

Smoking weed does not make you a drug addict, it doesn't make you a lowlife. Yes there are people who sit around all day with no job in their parents' basement at 35 smoking from a bong and watching porn and cartoons while eating Cap'n Crunch. But there are also intelligent, successful, good people who do it and it never causes a problem. And from what I've seen, the lazy 35 year old pothead is a caricature. It's someone that I've never met or heard of any of my friends (smokers or not) knowing.

Interestingly, I noticed that in her report, the radio announcer cited high use of marijuana presumably just because it is illegal. I would think that alcoholism causes a greater deal of personal problems and ruins a lot more lives than marijuana use does, but she didn't cite alcoholism in her report. Utilizing the occurrence of marijuana use to support the statement that Rhode Island, or any state, has a high rate of drug problems is equating it with drug addiction and demonizing something that is in most cases, at least in those cases that I have seen firsthand, harmless and fun and being enjoyed in responsible ways by your average person. When is this country as a whole going to start admitting to this fact?

What amoeba decided to grow legs and then a conscience??

So I have a subscription to Alternative Press that a friend bought me for Christmas. And as I was flipping through today, I noticed in the AP Poll, where they ask fans and band members to respond to a yes or no question every month, they had asked, "Do you believe in fate?" Reading through the answers from the bands to see what kinds of opinions people that I admire have, I read the following quote and proceeded to put down the magazine on the spot and write this blog post (with my own emphasis on the BEST part):

"Surprise, surprise; I do believe in a higher power. I personally believe in the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ. I grew up in church, but then in my late teens and early 20s, I rebelled and just didn't care. But I could never escape a few questions in my life that kept bringing me back to God. What amoeba decided to grow legs and then a conscience?"

-Toby Morrell of the band Emery

Um... How about... That's not how it works? Just because you don't have the intellect to understand something doesn't mean that you should ascribe it's occurrence to a fairy tale. Farther down in his little paragraph on fate, he goes on to say the following:

"There is truth and you can choose to find it or not."

Looks to me like Emerey's Toby Morrell has chosen not to find it. Because it's too hard for his brain to comprehend. I think that the thing that bothers me most about this is that he is in the public forum of this magazine, which thousands of young impressionable teens attempting to emulate their favorite bands will pick up and read. And when an 14 year old Emery fan reads that quote, he might say, "Wow, I love Emery and think they are awesome guys, so this must be right! Where could humans possibly come from other than God? I don't need to try to learn anything from my ninth grade biology class, because I have already CHOSEN to find the truth in this one quote from a dude in a band I like that God did everything."

It's annoying when you yourself choose to ignore something that you are not smart enough to understand. It's more than that when you decide to tell other people that what you believe is true, just because you are not smart enough to understand any alternatives, and imply that they should believe it too. Especially when you are a public figure for young impressionable people. Way to go, Toby Morrell. Way to go.

Never doubt yourself.

Everyone has an innate Buddha nature. Every thinking being on this planet has the potential to be enlightened and become a Buddha. At times in all of our lives, though, things go wrong and they may or may not be out of our control and they can make us lose sight of this fact. Someone may say something mean, a friend may hurt you, in work or academics you may come up short of your own expectations or those that others may have for you. These situations can understandable cause a person to think negative thoughts about herself. For example, a low grade on a test can make you feel stupid. A bad soccer practice can make you feel as though you suck at soccer. A rejection when asking out that hot girl that came into your place of work last week can make you feel like a loser. You may dwell on these thoughts and situations until you lose faith in yourself. These are the kinds of thoughts that the Buddha would refer to as delusions. They are simply not true. And just as negative thoughts against others can turn into negative words and actions and simply breed misery and anger, so can negative thoughts about yourself. Rather than change the crappy situations that happened in the past, or causing positive changes for the future, they will not accomplish anything except for making you feel horrible right now.

Always remind yourself that the negative thoughts you have for yourself are delusions, and they are only getting the way of your true potential. Always show love and compassion, and know that even if they don't seem to appreciate it, that you are a good and beautiful person. Take up a new activity that will allow you to help others. If you meditate, then concentrate on your innate great perfection and Buddha-hood. Meditate on the fact that everything is transient, and thus your current unhappy situation is bound to change. Remember the law of karma, and keep in mind that positivity in your own life can only come from taking positive action yourself.

The main thing to take away from all of this, though, is that negative self-talk is delusional. Always remind yourself when you think, "I am not good enough," that this is entirely untrue. You are perfect.


"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection."

-The Buddha

"Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, 'I am of no value,' is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought -- so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything. It is usually said that you are your own master."

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I swear, the world makes me SO MAD sometimes.

So I work for Greenpeace. If you don't know, it's the world's largest independent environmental organization. In two days, I've had two people come up to me and tell me that I work for a criminal organization. Yes, there has been talk of Greenpeace being linked to eco-terrorism. Why do you think that is? Where do you think those ideas are generated? Greenpeace is professional organization that has been around for 38 years and has never had any problems legally. We do protests and sit-ins sometimes. But we do not and never will hurt anyone. Our name is Greenpeace for a reason. It's because we like peace. Here's our mission statement:

"Greenpeace is the leading independent environmental campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future."

One of the most important things to take note of from the above statement is that we expose environmental problems. This means that we are not afraid to stand up to big corporations and governments when they do messed up things to the world that we live in. Of course if we tell people about these messed up things and convince them that they should stop using the products made by these corporations, the companies are going to get really, really pissed off. And they're going to do whatever they can to make us look bad. And trust me, they say some really ridiculous things. Check this quote out from an article I found on the web:

"As nationally or internationally organized groups, environmentalists can become radical, extreme, anarchist or nihilist entities such as Greenpeace or Earth First with truly ecoterrorist tendencies. Greenpeace is widely known for its eco-stunts of installing human chains and large protest signs on ships, trees, skyscrapers and bridges, jeopardizing both lives and property."

Truly ecoterrorist tendencies? Yeah, because a bunch of people standing around holding signs or sitting in place is totally a threat to your life! Watch out! And yes, Greenpeace has climbed up on cranes (and other extremely tall objects) to post signs for politicians and others to see.


This is from April 27, 2009, when Greenpeace members hung this sign across the street from the State Department, where representatives from 17 of the world's biggest polluters, to discuss emissions. It was placed so that it would be right out Hillary Clinton's office window before she went to the meeting.

There's also this, on the statue of Jesus the Redeemer which is in Brazil:
This statue is HUGE. And that definitely looks really dangerous and I know I could never do it. Just seeing them up there makes me anxious. But the only lives being jeopordized there are the lives of the members involved, and it's their choice. No innocent bystanders are in trouble in these situations. And these are the most dangerous things that Greenpeace does, besides protesting certain things and risking people getting pissed off and getting violent.

After a Google search, I was not able to find any valid information that the Greenpeace organization is an eco-terrorist organization. If some of it's members have commited illegal acts, which I wasn't able to read about, then that by far does not mean the whole group is about violence. Just like we all know that not all Muslims are going to blow up buildings, right? It's the same exact thing. We have 3 million members and the vast majority of them are normal, every-day, law abiding citizens. And if any of them break the law, they are not doing so with Greenpeace's money, as all of the money goes to campaigning.

So seriously, know what you're talking about before you accuse people of stuff just so you can live comfortably without acknowledging that you need to do your part to help the planet.

Religion = child abuse?

Okay, so it's been a really long time since I've posted anything on here. But that is only because of the end of the school year, graduating from college, moving home and trying to get all settled in and stuff. Now I finally have the time to write because I am currently unemployed. Hopefully that will change, but hopefully I'll still have the time time to write on here because I really enjoy doing it.

Anyway, this is sort of a little rant. Earlier in the semester I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Great book. There's a chapter in that book where he gives his opinion on why indoctrinating children in any religion is (in his mind) considered child abuse. If I remember correctly, his main point was that no child really understands or believes in a religion. Children are not religious. Think back to your own childhood. Even if your parents took you to church with them or made you go to Sunday school, would you say that you were religious in that you tried to cultivate a relationship with God or any other divine being? I'm guessing the answer is no. At the beginning of the semester, my introductory religion class was surveyed by the professor with this exact question. All of us, currently religious or not, conceded that we would not consider ourselves religious as children. Thus, Dawkins believes, and I believe as well, that there are no Christian or Muslim or Jewish children. There are only children of Christian or Muslim or Jewish parents. Dawkins also believes that if a parent tells a child that she is a Catholic, there is a good chance that she will grow up believing in Catholic dogma and never questioning the nature of life and the world, and this brainwashing is child abuse. To teach a child that is wrong to be inquisitive and to want to learn is child abuse. I can see Dawkins' point.

Lately, I have been watching a lot of the TV show Intervention. One thing that I and a friend who was also watching have noticed, is that the addict in every episode we watched had something traumatic to some degree happen in their childhood, and mostly every parent makes the mistake of using religion as a tool to fight their child's addiction. Some parents tell their child that what they are doing is a sin, and they must turn to God so they can live a better life. This usually pushes the addict away. They tend to express feelings of being misunderstood and attacked. In one case about a cutter, the addict was sexually abused as a child and the parents simply "turned to God" and prayed that she would get through it. She ended up severely self-mutilating in her adult life.

These cases from Intervention show how people attempt to use religion to get them through difficult times in their lives. In some situation in life, it helps. But in these situations from the show, it clearly didn't. Otherwise, the families wouldn't be on Intervention in the first place. What these cases show is dangerous. People believe that God can and will fix everything, simply because they believe in Him, because they have asked it of Him, because they are good people. Because they go to church and because they pray and live their life by the Bible. However, something that does not exist cannot actually do anything to help people. In the hope that God will solve their problems, these parents leave their children to suffer in an extreme way. They ultimately end up with mental problems and at times turn to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to feel better. Many end up destroying their lives, because instead of getting their children the help that they need, the parents just sit and watch and pray and hope. This is what religion does. It can cause people to ultimately screw their children over for life. Just another reason for me to be anti-religion.

Not just a theory...

You've probably heard people suggest that homophobia is an individual's attempt at hiding, denying, or repressing his or her own homosexual urges. In 1996, a group of psychologists at the University of Georgia decided to actually test it out.* They tested 64 white male volunteers using the Kinsey Scale, which shows how gay you are on a scale of 1 to 7 chose only those that identified as completely heterosexual in their arousal and experiences. They also tested the men with an Index of Homophobia, which rated them on how much anxiety they admitted to experiencing at the thought of being in a room with a group of gay people, among other things.

For step two of the experiment, they put each individual in a soundproof room alone where he attached an instrument to himself that measured changes in the circumference of his penis. In this room, with this instrument attached, they each man viewed three videos showing foreplay, oral sex, and anal and vaginal penetration. Each video was four minutes long, one showing heterosexual sex, one gay sex, and one lesbian sex. They used the lesbian sex video as a way to gauge the individual's level of homosexuality, as lesbian sex is known to be very arousing to straight men. They supposed that if the men were truly heterosexual and not just in the closet, they would show a high level of arousal after the lesbian video. Before starting a new video, the men's penises were allowed to return to their normal size. After each video, they were asked to record their level of psychological and physical arousal.

The study found that in the group of homophobic men, there was a significant increase in penis circumference after watching the homosexual sex video. In the nonhomophobic men, there was no increase after the homosexual sex video. They also noted that the homophobic men recorded low levels of arousal even though their erections indicated otherwise. Thus, they were not very willing to admit that they were turned on even though the data indicated that they were.

The study clearly shows that homophobia is a result of fear of one's own repressed homosexuality, at least in men. It's not just speculation any more.

*I'm pretty sure that the link to the actual article only works if you're on the Wheaton campus. If the link doesn't work, here's the citation:

Adams, H.E., Wright, L.W., Jr., and Lohr, B. "Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal?" The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(3), 440-445.

Trying To Let Go and Be Free

The First Noble Truth in Buddhism states that suffering is a part of life. The Second Noble Truth says that this suffering is a result of desire. As Lama Surya Das writes in Awakening the Buddha Within, "we crave satisfaction in ways that are inherently dissatisfying." This is because we become attached to people and to things, and everything in the world is impermanent. We don't know what we'd do without cell phones and iPods and laptops and become angry when these things break. We love our family and our friends and we have deep romantic relationships with other people. When a family member dies, a friend moves away, or we are going through a breakup, we hurt. Sometimes this pain is so bad that it can put us into a depression and we start to become consumed by negative thoughts. We may get stuck in such a negative place that we do not know how to get out.

The Third Noble Truth gives us hope, in that we can find freedom from suffering. The Fourth Noble Truth offers a solution, in the form of the Eightfold Path: right view, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. We can use these things to free ourselves from the desires that lead to suffering.

I am writing this because at this point in my life I am experiencing suffering because of an attachment to a person and to a friendship that I may have permanently lost. I will be the first to admit that although I believe in these truths, they are very difficult to actually live by. It is very hard for me to imagine myself being able to completely separate myself from desire because I love the people in my life a lot. But somehow recognizing where my suffering right now is coming from and trying to let go as much as I can help a little.


"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection"

-The Buddha

A reminder to myself and all of my friends...