Where do you think all this started if it wasn't born out of violence and ignorance? Has the spiral of violence has escalated out of control to the degree where we have public executions....how would this help?
Things go bad, things go good, that is the way of life, nothing to do with 'god.' We have free will to respond to life's events, a 'godly' person will respond with peaceful awareness, understanding and forgiveness.
I've walked the full length of Swat Valley from the old fort in Mastuj to the road head in Swat. The upper reaches of Swat are quite spectacular, although the views from Tirich Mir base camp in the Hindu Kush, not far from Swat, takes some beating.
The one I used was a conversion costing less than £200. The batteries are reclaimed from computer batteries giving a range of around 60 miles. Being a 1kw motor, the hill climbing capabilities are amazing, I was surprised how it kept going, mile after mile despite the steep gragients, although I was pedalling to assist.
Yes the Yorkshire Dales are beautiful. We cycled up from Dentdale which you can see in the distance, then on to the village of Ingleton and then to Settle where we caught a train back to the campsite. The line from Settle to Dent is well known Settle to Carlisle steam engine route. Unfortunately we weren't able to catch a steam train, but the journey back to Dent on the regular train service was wonderful. Dent station is in fact the highest mainline station in England, great downhill ride on the bikes back to the campsite in Dent.
Went cycling in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales last weekend and my friend kindly let me use his electric cycle. He converted a mountain bike and added a 1kw motor. I was amazed at the power and also the life of the batteries. We covered many miles, some of which were on very steep gradients, but the bike just kept on going without me ever having to give it full power. Still prefer my old mountain bike but for a fun and easy ride in the hills, this was hard to beat.
Almost everyone suffers delusions, in the Buddhist sense of the word. Anger is one of them, to release anger you have to acknowledge it, accept it's there and try to understand why it's there. "Letting it out" doesn't get rid of it, more likely you will just project it onto to someone else. Usually when anger is displayed, or acted upon, the situation only becomes inflamed. Anger is not like a balloon, it's a negative energy, it doesn't dissipate when the energy is released suddenly, anger needs to be calmed not suddenly released.
"Delusion refers to belief in something that contradicts reality. In Buddhism, delusion is ... a lack of awareness of the true nature or Buddha nature of things, or of the true meaning of existence. "According to the Buddhist outlook, we are deluded by our senses-- among which intellect (discriminating, discursive thought) is included as a sixth sense. Consciousness, attached to the senses, leads us into error by causing us to take the world of appearances for the world of reality, whereas in fact it is only a limited and fleeting aspect of reality." (The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen.)
A mental factor that arises from inappropriate attention and functions to make the mind unpeaceful and uncontrolled. There are three main delusions: ignorance, desirous attachment and anger. From these arise all other delusions, such as jealousy, pride and deluded doubt.
To further my practice of meditation, I started reading “Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom” a couple of days ago.
Last night, I was about to put the book down and go to sleep when I came across this passage:
“The mind that thinks every day ‘I shall not die today’ is deceptive—it leads us in the wrong direction and causes our human life to become empty. On the other hand, through meditating on death, we shall gradually replace the deceptive thought ‘I shall not die today’ with the nondeceptive thought ‘I may die today.’ The mind that spontaneously thinks each and every day ‘I may die today’ is the realization of death. It is this realization that directly eliminates our laziness of attachment and opens the door to the spiritual path.”
Wow! I stopped right there and put the book away so I could think about what I had just read. I closed my eyes and mentally said to myself, “I may die today.” All of a sudden my mindset changed. I wanted to tell my husband how much I loved and appreciated him. I wanted to savor the comfort of my bed. I wanted to feel the closeness of my dog sleeping next to me.
By changing my thoughts from “I shall not die” to “I might die,” I had altered my whole attitude.
When I woke this morning, I tried it again. During my meditation, I said to myself, “I may die today.” It worked like magic. My coffee tasted better. I listened intently to the birds singing outside my door enjoying seed from the feeders. I enjoyed watching the five kittens in my house just frolic and play with each other. I can already tell it’s something I’ll be saying to myself every day, to remind me that life is finite and we must live in the present instead of worrying about the future or agonizing over the past.
Try it yourself. Just say, “I may die today,” and see how much the world changes around you.
bodleing2 Forum Posts (6,132)
I would move to a more civilised country.
RE: Fight terrorism with terror???
Where do you think all this started if it wasn't born out of violence and ignorance? Has the spiral of violence has escalated out of control to the degree where we have public executions....how would this help?