A Map

Let there be a little mystery about your destination, and enjoy the road-trip.

 

2 essentials

1. LOVE YOURSELF -- NO MATTER WHAT! NO-MATTER-WHAT! (Especially good when feeling scared/guilty/lonely/lost -- basically everything bad.)

 

What does this mean? It's nothing magical or mystical. Just freakin' love yourself. Close your eyes and care for you, and hold that mindset like a rock in eternity. Focus on your chest. Feel it warm your heart and arms. You'll get emotional and probably cry, like girls tend to during happy movie endings -- this will pass; I think it's emptying sadnesses and being overwhelmed with gratitude. Most importantly, ignore anything you think, just love you. Do this, and you'll have enough love to give; don't do it, and all you'll give anyone is empty actions of supposed 'caring'. To truly love, you have to fill yourself with it too. Have the courage to keep doing this and the courage to share what you really want to, who you are.

 

2 HAVE FAITH that things will end up okay.

 

Faith is a slippery sucker. Have faith in what? God? Maybe, maybe not, some will say. It might be illogical, seemingly unnecessary, weak... until the proverbial shit hits the fan, until your world breaks around you, until your alone and scared and helpless. Faith is this: trusting that things will end up okay, you are limited and there is something greater beyond you that you're part of and so cares about you. Faith is tricky because reason doesn't like it -- until it has a reason to, and even then it doubts. Just keep your thoughts locked on something bigger than you being there. It's a fact. Family, your country, the world, the stars, God -- there is stuff bigger than you and your worries. There is always hope, things will change to be okay.

 

I've needed these things, and had times without them, so I know their value. I'm sure we all do.

Dalai Lama on happiness & purpose

In an interview on:

 

http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/world-religions/buddhism/dalai-interview.asp

 

The Dalai Lama gives some answers:

 

What is the goal of human life? What are we born to achieve?
To be happy!

What is the purpose of existence?
Happiness.

Happiness for others or ourselves?
Take the example of a plant. What is the goal of its existence?

Service to others?
May be the plant just is! It doesn't have fixed goals. It just grows. The plant has no mind, so to speak. Animals also seem to have happiness as their aim.

Nature never remains static; growth is essential for a human being. Why do we always say 'Happy Birthday' and never 'Happy Deathday'? Because we don't want to see the end. The human mind is attracted to growth, beginning and freshness. Compassion thus is the force of growth and development while anger is destruction.

 

Writing Stories

Writing stories isn't a duty, it's a privilege to be enjoyed.

Purpose

Just being alive is fulfilling your purpose. Anything more is recreation.

The World Navel

True compassion can't distinguish between loving others and loving yourself.

What Matters

From where I'm sitting, this is what matters in life:

 

1. Compassionate love
2. Recreation

 

In that order.

Feeling Better

Make sure you love all of yourself.

Problems and their answer

When you have a problem, listen for an answer.

 

Proactive, obsessive searching often yields no true solution. Just listen and be aware, and gently follow intuitive paths, and the answer comes.

 

Amidst it all, you need faith that a bigger part of you knows.

the guilt crutch

Guilt is like a crutch supporting fear.

 

When we feel guilty about something, we're using that something to hold us back, or to blame etc. We're afraid to move forward, so we make ourselves feel bad so we can't. We don't need to do that. Let it go.

reason and meaning

Reason and the reason for things is often uncertain, but you can still feel meaning in those things.

enjoy

There's really only two things to do in life: spend time enjoying things, and work to make things more enjoyable for everyone. I really can't think of anything else worthwhile.

Faith/Courage

Faith/Courage can be about doing what we're scared to do, but it's equally about not doing what we're scared not to do.

Injoy

It's not a luxury, it's your duty to enjoy yourself.

Human Potential

There's so much you can do as a human.

Guiltless

Guilt is false worship. Can you see everything? Do you know all ends? No; so why would you blame yourself? You're not all-powerful -- if you were, you'd realise the falsity of guilt.

 

A carpenter was once accused of being guilty, and he was nailed to wood and killed by that false accusation. There's a carpenter in all of us; don't bind or kill Him/Her with false accusations of guilt.

 

And bringing yourself down because you feel guilty that you have something others don't have is useless, not righteous. You have your own strengths -- as do those you've accidentally deemed 'less fortunate' -- and the most loving thing you can do for them is fully live out your own potential, reflecting what's inside them and everyone.

 

Be your best. Nothing is your fault.

No Less

Don't be less than you are.

Simple Buddha

Deepak Chopra (on Buddha) :  Yeah, he summarizes his teaching very simply.  The relative is impermanent.  Everything is interbeing.  Nirvana is the ultimate reality.  And there is no separate self.  If you understand those four principles you've got the whole thing.

 

Can't be too hard. What's all the fuss about? Think I might awaken :)

 

Stories show us us

Great stories put us in touch with our invisible selves.

Take the pain

Perhaps the greatest thing we can learn in human life is to take pain without ignoring it. Go through it, let it destroy what it can because the indestructible is what we're all after anyway. Don't deliberately inflict pain on yourself or anyone, but when pain comes, drop everything and give it full attention; afterwards, you'll see something clear.

 

I think avoiding personal pain results in the world suffering it at large.

 

It isn't easy, but the more we do it, the less troubling it becomes and the quicker the phases of pain pass, because we've learned to listen to what it's telling us.

 

Teaching

Someone who teaches truth won't become egotistical; they know the knowledge was given to them.

the dream about a game

Last night I had a dream:

The thing everyone forgets is that in the end it's all a game.

the way to face the dark

A story should teach us how to face the dark.

a return to peace

Star Wars CG series has 30, 30 minute, episodes-- with more to come-- and will begin in 2008 with a movie released at cinemas!

 

Once again, I return to peace.

Carl Sagan quote

"If you want to make an apple-pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -- Carl Sagan.

knowledge and power

Knowledge is power, and wisdom is superpower.

individuating

Be a real fragment, rather than an unreal whole.

 

(Derived from 'Ego and Archetype' by Edward Edinger.)

Jung quote

"Richness of mind consists in mental receptivity, not in the accumulation of possessions." -- C. G. Jung.

Very cool.