Timewarp: Buddhism in everyday life

In 2008, I found it difficult to apply Buddhism to my every day life and keep it in mind constantly. It's not always easy to remember teachings we agree with and want to apply to our lives, but I think I find it easier now than I did back then.

Buddhism Every Day

When I started reading the book I have been referring to in my previous posts, I had barely anything to do each day. Now, a week later, I have started back at university, my third year, and I am slightly apprehensive about fitting Buddhism in to my every day life. That last week of summer, I was reading that book and every single day i was thinking about Buddhism and trying to apply its teachings to my every day life. I was trying to be mindful, remembering that everything is impermanent, and this all came naturally to me. Now, suddenly thrown back into university and all the work that comes with the final year of a degree, I find myself losing sight of the fact that everything is impermanent, and worrying over the things that are going to be unpleasent for me in the upcoming academic year, such as group work and presentations. I found it difficult to talk myself around to the way of thinking that I had previously been practicing, and when I thought of it at the end of the day, after being at university from 9am to 5.30pm, I felt that I didn’t have the energy to apply that kind of thought to my day, that I would rather push my worries away and forget about them than deal with them and realise their impermanence. I don’t want every uni day to be like that. I want to be able to apply these beliefs to everything I do, and I think it might be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated.

Timewarp: It's okay to feel, man.

In October 2008 I rambled a bit about emotions and how we shouldn't necessarily put labels on them to define them as good or bad. I think I'm actually learning things from my past-self.

Blogging As Meditation

My friend wants to borrow my book, which I haven’t read for a few days, but will give to him as soon as I have. It doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t agree with what’s written there, I’d just love to have someone to discuss it with. I’m looking forward to hearing what he thinks.

It’s still difficult to remember to be mindful during the day, while I’m out and about, socialising and working. It’s hard to stop and think, and apply what I’ve been learning to what’s going on. If someone is being annoying, it’s easier to snap at them than to pause and think, and react appropriately. It’s something I forget to do. Perhaps it will come more easily with practice.

I’ve been thinking about suffering and emotions, and I’ve started to realise that yes, our emotions cause us to suffer, but the answer isn’t to tell ourselves to stop feeling a certain way. I think it’s too much to ask – I’ve spent twenty years feeling angry and happy and excited and upset, and everybody is the same. What we should be doing is acknowledging these emotions; not putting labels on them like “this is a bad emotion” or “I am a bad person for feeling like this”, but to realise how we feel and that it’s okay to feel that way, then to realise that these emotions are impermanent, and to not attach ourselves to them. In the past, I have felt angry, and somehow enjoyed being angry a little, and knew that I should be angry about whatever it was, and so I held on to this anger – I was attaching myself to it, and that was causing my suffering.

And, a final  thought. This blog really helps me to think about Buddhism, and to understand it a little more, relating it to my life. Perhaps blogging is a little like meditation. My other blog, which I use as a diary really, might also be a bit like meditation – I get my thoughts out,  I observe them, I have written them down and then I can let them go.

Timewarp: Rebirth

Written in October 2008. I have made little headway with these questions!

I finished reading The Dharma of Star Wars, so now I need something else to read. I’ve read Buddhism For Beginners by Thubten Chodron, and also have Buddhism For Dummies, which I’ve read parts of. However, neither of those have been as helpful as The Dharma of Star Wars. I also have The Art of Happiness, which I read most of, but haven’t picked it up for ages so I’ll probably just start it over.

Reincarnation

The question which was playing on my mind last night was to do with reincarnation, or rebirth. Since Buddhists don’t believe in a soul, exactly what is it that is reborn? It kind of ties in with the theory of no self. I can sort of understand the concept of emptiness, that we cannot exist without all of the things that make us, us – our parents, the environment, our habitats, the people around us, and that everything is impermanent – who we are today is not who we were yesterday or last year – the argument that if our bodies are ever so slightly different to yesterday because skin has fallen off, we have cut our nails or our hair fell out a bit when we brushed it this morning, then what exactly is it that is the same as yesterday, what part of us has carried on, and will still be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day? Even our emotions have changed since last night, maybe we feel a little differently about our relationship with someone today, and some things are more important today than they were before. The answer, then, to the question of what was here yesterday and is here today and will continue tomorrow and the next day, is nothing. I can understand that. However, I cannot let go of the fact that I am myself, in this body, with this mind, and although things about me have changed, I am the same person. If I bought a car brand new and then five years later it was involved in a crash and was written off, it would be very badly damaged and unusable, it will have changed dramatically, but it would still be the same car. Wouldn’t it?

This is why I cannot get my head around reincarnation – if we are reborn, what is it that is reborn, and how does it happen? I suppose every moment we are reborn. Maybe we are reborn into a new body and a new life, a new person or a new creature in the same way that we are reborn into every second – an hour ago, my hair was wet and curly from being in the shower, and now it is dry and straight. A few moments ago I took a sip of my drink, so there is something in my body which wasn’t there the moment before I had a drink. But I am still the same person who wrote the first entry in this blog over a week ago. But I’m different. So rebirth – does it work in the same way? Does it happen straight away or is there something in between? Are we just the same, but different? How much do we change? And does rebirth mean the same thing as reincarnation? All these questions to be answered – I’ll get back to you as soon as I learn more.

Timewarp: Is Buddhism a religion? More importantly, does it matter what on earth you call it?

Dear past-me: you're right, it really doesn't matter, and I get that now more than I did back then.

A rose by any other name would surely smell as sweet, or some such.

What Annoys Me
What irks me ever so slightly, is when people use the words atheist and religious as antonyms. Now, I like to think of Buddhism as a religion. But it is an atheist religion. Because all atheist means is that people don’t believe in any gods. I know it shouldn’t matter whether people think Buddhism is a religion, a way of life or a philosophy, and that I shouldn’t have to put a label on it. But thinking of it as a religion makes me feel safe. Maybe it is a religion. I can think of one reason why: rebirth. Surely the idea of reincarnation makes it a religion. Well. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. It just gets a bit annoying when you’re trying to talk about religion and people butt in to tell you that Buddhism isn’t a religion. It’s quite pedantic, I suppose. It is what it is.

***

This was written in 2008, and this is what a commenter back then said:

"Religion or not, it’s of much consequence if we don’t try it and see if it works for us. All the time used in arguing would be better spent testing the validity of the teachings."

They're absolutely right.

Timewarp: How to let go of anger

I really like this blog. The example in it is a great example of the reasoning I still apply today almost as second nature now, and I think it's one of the biggest ways in which Buddhism has changed my perspective, and changed me as a person. This was written in 2009.

Anger and Motivation

In The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama talks about how we can deal with anger. I feel as if I’m always in here talking about books I have read and not real experience, but this particular section of this book is something I feel I can really apply to my life, and I have in fact, without really realising it. It seems that the more I read, the more I absorb, consciously or subconsciously, and I find myself applying ideas to my behaviour.

Anyway, this particular chapter stuck with me and made a lot of sense. It teaches us to think about why we are angry and if our anger is justified. It asks us to question whether or not we should really be angry at a person – did they intentionally try to make us angry? For example, I was at work yesterday, just about to close my till and go home, and was serving my last customer. My shift finishes at half six and as the clock on my till said six thirty and I was yet to close up my till, I was beginning to get impatient with my customer, who was slowly searching through her purse for her store card. As I felt myself get frustrated with her, I stopped and realised that of course she wasn’t keeping me waiting on purpose. She probably didn’t realise that it was time for me to go home and so, why should I get angry at her? I could have allowed myself to get annoyed about not getting out of work exactly on time and had a bit of a rant about it when I got home, but it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be. So I let it go, and until I came to think of an example to demonstrate in this blog, I had completely forgotten about it.

Of course, sometimes people do things which are intentionally mean, and perhaps we should be angry about them. But what does this anger achieve? How does being angry at the person solve the situation? It just makes us feel bad and is an obstacle in the way of our happiness. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be doormats, and should certainly point out when someone is being unfair or hurtful because they might not realise it. But it is always best to let feelings of anger go and to not get attached to them because ultimately, these feelings do not help anyone.

Talking about bad stuff leads to even more wallowing

Today I'm realising that if you stop talking about something negative, you don't think about it so much.

Let me rephrase that.

Today I'm realising something that sounds totally obvious.

Today I am realising that when faced with a reminder of something, I can either dwell on it and wallow in my own little negative world of remembering and unhappiness (why do we sometimes seem to want to do that?), or I can decide not to think about it and to concentrate on something else.

Also that talking about something makes you think about it even more. Which sounds obvious, but I mean... so much thought has to go into what you're going to say, who to, how to say it... it'd take less thought to think about it and then decide to not pay it any attention.

Just one of those things that we sometimes forget, even though when you say it out loud it's like... duh?

Timewarp: Yet more Easter eggs!

From February 2009. I don't agree with this post. The most Buddhist thing to do probably would have been to not eat the Easter egg, and have some gosh-darn discipline. I was definitely attached to the egg's yumminess!

Chocolate Reasoning

I was thinking about attachment again a couple of nights ago. I don’t know about other countries, but in the UK when it’s getting close to easter (well, ish), stops start selling easter eggs – large eggs made out of chocolate. I bought my first one the other day because I really like them, and for some reason easter egg chocolate tastes even better than chocolate bar chocolate. This egg I bought was a little smaller than most, so I was in two minds whether or not to eat one half of the shell or the whole thing. I decided to take a Buddhist approach, and thought about my attachment to the chocolate. Talking through it with a friend online, I realised that if I was to eat it, it would show I was not attached to it because I would not miss it when it was gone. However, if I did eat it, I would be giving into temptation, thus holding on to my attachment to its yumminess. I declared myself to be in a no-win situation. Or…a win-win situation. It seemed that either action would be showing an attachment to the egg, and it was of no real consequence whether I ate it all then or saved some for the next day. It seemed that the Buddhist view on this small matter would be that it didn’t matter what I did.

So I ate it all up that night. It was very yummy.

Timewarp: Still trying to be mindful

Another blog post from 2009, this one talking about yoga and being mindful. I'm beginning to think I wrote a lot more cohesively back then!

Yoga and the Future

*** Yoga means “unity”, the linking of the mind and the body. It seems to be very aptly titled as after a session I always feel a lot more mindful of what I am doing. I don’t know if it’s the yoga or the meditation that follows, but it always has the same effect. This was written two days ago after one of those sessions.***

It was today that I realised that life isn’t about what’s going to happen or what we are going to do. It’s about right now, me locking my hands together behind my back, stacking my knees on top of each other and folding forward. It’s about me writing this now, gently, still feeling the peace that comes after a yoga and meditation session. You reading this now. It’s so easy, especially now, so close to graduation, to get bogged down with difficult decision making – what will I do next, who will I work for, will it be enjoyable? What about right now, focusing on the rhythm of the pen as it scratches the paper, how soft the bed I’m lying on is and how refreshing the cool parts feel against the soles of my feet. That’s how our feet should feel. They’re always walking somewhere, taking us to something, what’s next, what’s next, what’s next? How about right now? How many things do you do during the day that you don’ concentrate on, you just do them automatically, or out of habit? Maybe climbing out of bed,washing your face, putting clothes on, locking the door, talking to a friend. How consciously do you notice every part of these interactions? Next time i find myself feeling worried about the future, I’ll stop and ask myself, what about now? The future is uncertain, because everything is constantly changing. The only thing that is certain is what has already happened, and since we can’t change that, we might as well focus on what we do have control of – this very moment.

Timewarp: Is everything relative?

This one was written during my Derren Brown obsession in September 2009. I think the last sentence is probably the most interesting part of the whole thing, but that may be because I don't remember any of the tricks this post talks about!

Linking Derren Brown to Buddhism

I seem to have a full-blown case of DerrenBrown-itis. While I was at work, daydreaming, I realised that what Derren does can be linked to Buddhism.

Buddhism teaches that everything is essentially all in our heads. Nothing is naturally good or bad, but this is how we perceive things to be, and everyone perceives them differently. Sometimes we think things are great one day and not so good the next – the things are the same, but our state of mind is different. The thing itself, be it an object, an event or a person, might seem to be the same (although rebirth states that everything is changing all the time, these changes are not always obvious), but we might feel completely different about them from day to day. This is because our state of mind is changing.

In the show explaining the lottery prediction, Derren said that his technique might not work with people who actually wanted to win the lottery. How true that is and how much of his explanation was true, I have no idea. Maybe his explanation is true. People have believed crazier things. He also said that the fact that people were driven by fear (in the tricks with the cup with the knife in it and the box with the mouse in it), this fear made them fall into predictable patterns.

When people go to see a psychic’s show, their state of mind affects what happens as well. Maybe the psychic says “does anyone here know a John?” and someone in the audience stands up and says they do, and the psychic builds on John’s story through guesses (I’m talking about a fake psychic here), they might get something a bit wrong, but that person in the audience will want the psychic to be right, and in their mind they will make the information fit with John’s story. If they had a different state of mind, they would think that the psychic is being very vague and actually doesn’t really know anything about John at all.

I think that our state of mind also affected how we felt about Derren’s lottery prediction. I’ve watched several of his shows this past week and I’ve seen him predict what people are going to say, sometimes when they’re not even stood in front of him, sometimes over the phone, and it is the most bizarre and interesting thing to watch. When he’s in front of an audience and a person from the audience thinks of a question to ask him, and he guesses the question and the answer just by the person’s handwriting, what they say, what they look like and how they say it (I guess), nobody says “hey, we want a definite, exact explanation of how you knew all of this stuff that you couldn’t possibly know. ” They just accept it. But when he predicts the lottery numbers, everyone wants to know how he did it. Why? Because they have something to gain. People want to know how he did it so that they can do it themselves, or some similar recreation of it. They didn’t care about how he knew stuff in his shows, they just enjoyed it. Because their state of mind has changed – from simply feeling entertained, to desire and maybe greed.

The main thing that made me think about Derren Brown’s  (acts, tricks, talents?) in relation to Buddhism is an episode of Trick or Treat where he showed a woman four coloured cards – red, blue, green and yellow. He showed her the blue on and said that it might not definitely be blue, there could be a bit of green in there, people might have different opinions. He then asked her what colour the card was, after a bit of convincing, and she said it was green. Continuing in the same way, he convinced her that yellow was really red, and then she seemed to come to the conclusion herself that the red card was black. They then went outside to look at her red car, and she was absolutely certain that someone had painted it black, and, pointing to a big yellow car, she said that her car (before alledgedly being painted) was the same colour as “that red car over there”. Bizarre. I suppose this isn’t just to do with the point I made earlier about people’s state of mind, but more about how different people perceive things differently – a kind of sea colour might indeed look green to one person and blue to another, or maybe even to the same person on a different day. Nothing is definite, there are so many things that depend on people’s emotions, experiences, and in turn their state of mind. It makes me wonder:

Is everything relative?

Timewarp: Puppies don't stay puppies forever

In this post on 31st January 2010, I attempted to explain why happiness just doesn't stick around.

Why happiness can be fleeting

I am definitely going to make an effort to post here more often. What’s brought me here today though, is a topic that was brought up on the Young Writers Society (www.youngwriterssociety.com). A member asked “Why are the feelings of happiness/joy generally only momentarily?” I thought I could apply some Buddhist thought here, so this is what I came up with:

Why are the feelings of happiness/joy generally only momentarily?

Because everything is always changing – people, places, situations, relationships, etc. Even our perception of happiness changes. Let’s say Suzie buys a puppy. She’s so happy that she finally has a puppy. She feeds it and walks it and plays with it. But over time, the joy that she felt when she bought the puppy begins to fade. Perhaps because she’s gotten used to it (so her mind has adjusted – her own mind has changed), perhaps because she doesn’t have as much time to look after it as she did at first (her circumstances have changed), maybe because the puppy is getting bigger and isn’t quite as cute as it used to be (the puppy has changed). Things just change. And if everything is always changing, including ourselves, how can we possibly expect the same thing to always make us happy?

Timewarp: No, past self, you can't eat televisions

This post was written on 5th February 2010, and involves me rambling about potatoes and televisions being the same in an attempt to explain the concept of emptiness.

Is everything empty?

I was thinking earlier about the idea that nobody, or nothing, is inherently good or bad. Instead, it is us who creates the positive and negative in everything through our thought processes – something good for someone is not so good for someone else, people enjoy different things, have different morals. Not only that, but the things in question change, for example, someone might look forward to the summer holidays, but the weather changes after a week, and suddenly spending a day at the beach isn’t so appealing anymore. Or, the person’s view on it changes – one day they want to go to the beach, the next they don’t really feel like it.

So if people, objects and places are always changing, how can they be inherently good or bad? And if one person thinks something is good and someone else thinks it is bad, how can it truly be either of these things? So, the state, names and labels of these things are not created by them just being, but because we label them – what they are is dependant on us. (A table is a table because we put things on it… if we sat on it, it would be a chair.) Does that mean that everything is empty? The concept of emptiness meaning that things do not have inherent qualities. And if everything is empty, does that mean that everything is the same? A potato is empty, the television is empty, my jacket is empty. So a potato is the same as a television? Perhaps not, I can’t eat the television. Then again, I can’t very well eat a raw potato either, or at least, I’d rather not. Some people don’t like potatoes at all, and so a potato doesn’t seem edible to them. So in that way, the television is the same as the potato – neither of them are very edible as far as that person is concerned. But then, they do acknowledge that some people eat potatoes. Maybe some people try to eat televisions, too, who knows. It’s tricky.

The theory certainly is easier to apply to humans. We are not inherently bad and good, some people like each other, some people don’t. There is also unrequited love. It is clear that people are different in terms of morality, and what some people consider acceptable is immoral to other people, so the idea of someone being “bad” and someone else definitely being “good” is pretty much out the window. But really, people have the same biological needs, everyone has feelings, and everyone wants to be happy. So everyone is the same, and everyone is empty. (Even though everyone is different in some ways and people are always changing, the basic needs are the same.) I’m not so sure this theory of same-ness can passed to inanimate objects to the same extent.

Timewarp: The Easter egg obsession continues

This post is from my old blog written on 19th February 2010.

More thoughts on Easter eggs

I was thinking about easter eggs last night (while eating one, of course. A little early, but I can’t resist) and I was wondering what it is that makes it taste better than regular bars of chocolate. Is it the shape, do they make it slightly differently, somehow? What’s the secret?

And then maybe I thought it’s the fact that they are so rare that makes them so tasty. Perhaps because we know they aren’t sold all year ’round, we savour them more and make more of a point to enjoy them. Then it’s not the egg that’s different – it’s the same chocolate – but it’s our own minds that make the chocolate more enjoyable. So our own perceptions of food are part of what makes them taste good. Or bad. Maybe mud only tastes disgusting because we know it’s not good for us. I assume it tastes bad, anyway. Maybe we (or I) dislike vegetables because they are good for us, and there is that general feeling that if something is bad for us, it tastes better. Interesting. Of course, there are things such as taste buds and other personal differences to take into consideration, but perhaps this is one factor. I mean, surely the way we think affects absolutely everything, taste being no exception.

Quick Tip: Get a massage

My quick tip for today is to get a massage. And I mean go to a proper place, not just get your significant other to do it... unless of course your significant other is a masseuse, then you're practically living the dream.

I've had headaches for a few weeks now but I went to get a massage and the woman said no wonder I was getting headaches, my neck and shoulders were full of knots. And since then, the headaches (not to mention the neck ache) have been a lot better. I'll definitely be going regularly from now on (next time I'm trying an Indian head massage for the first time), so whether you have back ache, you're stressed, or you've just never had one before, I'd fully recommend getting a good massage... even though it did hurt the next day!

Timewarp: New year

Here's another instalment from my old blog, this one written on 1st January 2011. I was 23, and I'm pleased to see my way of thinking hasn't changed that much. I'm pretty happy with this entry. :)

New Year

New Year has got me thinking.

Hello, by the way. I know I haven’t posted anything in a really long time. It’s been a bad year, health-wise, and I’ll say no more than that because I don’t want to get bogged down. There’s more to come, but I think the worst is over. I hope so, anyway.

I don’t really bother too much about New Year’s Eve. I normally do something with friends, usually at someone’s house, nothing more than an evening in, but I think it’s just another day really, that clock ticking over into the morning is just another second of our lives, another second of the year. Big deal. And it’s true. But when it turned midnight, I did feel that sense that it’s a new year, a new start, a new slate. Sort of cliché, but a little inspiring.  It’s all a state of mind though really, isn’t it? It’s not as if anything has changed significantly within that second. It’s just that our view on the world has changed. The world hasn’t really changed.

But the world has changed a little in that second, hasn’t it? Everything is always changing, nothing is permanent. Everything is ever so slightly different – our bodies, the room we’re in, the creases in the sofa we sit on, the dust on the table when we set a drink down, we’ve breathed in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide, we’ve blinked so the state of our eyes has even changed. We’ve moved our foot because we were uncomfortable with it in that position. All these tiny things. And it occurred to me today that it’s because the world around us is constantly changing that we need to find consistency within ourselves and keep a clear mind. You know when things are hard sometimes, you look for the one thing that’s always constant, like a friend to talk to or music to listen to or movies to distract us? Well, why can’t we find that consistency within ourselves? Why can’t our minds be the one thing we can rely on when the ride gets a bit rough? I know it sounds like something that’s difficult to achieve, but I think that’s what we should be striving for. I mean, when there’s chaos all around us, we must make it ten times worse for ourselves because our minds are so chaotic and we’re stressed, maybe we’re thinking irrationally and letting things get on top of us. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could make our minds a safe place that’s always calm no matter what’s going on around us? Maybe that’s a good new year’s resolution.

Timewarp: The three important things

This week I'm taking a look at an old Buddhism blog I used to write sporadically, my last post being exactly two years ago on Sunday. I'm reposting any posts I find I still agree with right here, and any I think weren't quite the right way of thinking, I'll pull apart a little. Here's the first one, from 11th May 2012!

Three Things

I’ve decided that there are only three things that are important in life:

1. Do what makes you happy. (Whether it’s big or small – from travelling the world, to having children, to eating pizza.)

2. Don’t do things that stop other people from being happy.

3. Try to stay alive in between.

And that’s pretty much it. Does it have to be any more complex than that? I think sometimes we just over-complicate things. Instead of analyzing things to death, maybe we should take a step back and say “would doing x make me happy?” and if it would, then do it, and if it probably wouldn’t, then don’t bother.

Maybe that’s a bit too black and white. But there isn’t enough time in the day to worry about things that don’t matter so much in the grand scheme of things. There’s not enough hours in the week for doing things you don’t enjoy doing. I know sometimes it can’t be helped, but I mean when it can be. I’m probably just rattling on now.


I never used to think like this. I’ve changed, for sure. I don’t know if this is all strictly related to Buddhism really, but it’s just how I think now. Do enjoyable things, don’t make other people unhappy, and try not to die. Pretty straightforward.

OECD Better Life Index

I found an interesting website today - the OECD Better Life Index, which looks at different countries and sort of tells you where you might be happy living. You state how important different things are to you, like safety, community and income, and it ranks the countries in order of how closely they match what you've entered.

You can also see other people's responses, learn more about how countries fare in terms of the different topics, and read interesting articles like how happiness can get you money. These guys also recently reported that Australia is the happiest country for the fourth year running.

Someone wants to look just like you

I went to the gym again today and while I was there I remembered what it was I was going to write about the last time I was there - told you it was a place of inspiration!

What it was, was I saw a girl there who was really slim. Like, she was so slim she didn't look very well at all. And I thought, I'm glad I'm not that skinny. maybe she was unwell, maybe she's just naturally slim as some people are, I don't know. It just made me think that it wasn't a shape I aspire to be, but many people do want to look just like that. And some people want to look larger, whether that's because they're not happy being slim, or they're like that woman who's trying to be the fattest woman in the world - there are people of all shapes and sizes who want to be whatever size they think is ideal for them, and that leads me to thinking that whoever you are in the world, there is someone out there who wants to look like you in some way, whether it's your shape, your hair, your eyes, or anything else. Kind of a nice thought to bear in mind?

Though of course at the end of the day there's only one person whose opinion on your looks is important, and that's you.