BrainBawz Oct30-18
Gratitude
October 30, 2018
Everyone has the same human experience.
All of those little emotions, quirks and preferences which are so important to you.
Everybody else has them too.
We are all brothers and sisters in the same human simulator.
Everyone knows the same stimuli,
Everyone has felt the loss and happiness you . . .
Simple isn't stupid (Repost from Livesimpledude archive 2010)
Use of the word simple. Being a teacher and seeing other teachers, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of labelling people. As the great philosopher Wayne from “Wayne’s World” said “If you label me, you negate me”, it is so easy to say “well that guy is a bit simple”. This implies that the person in question is in some way lacking something. I wonder if maybe it is the person who has the inclination to condescend in such a way (and I am talking about myself as well here) who is perhaps lacking something. I think the important thing that I struggle to remember is that everyone is all they can be. All we are is simply what we are, no more no less and I think that is wonderful. That is not to say we shouldn’t strive to be more than we are but that desire to be more must come from ourselves and not from the judgements of someone else. The whole idea of one person judging someone else comes from them holding someone up against a set of beliefs about life. Beliefs can change or are perhaps even wrong in the first place. You could even say this post is a bit ironic as I am judging those that would seek to judge, Goodness look at me being the subject of my own criticism. I hope this post doesn’t come across as preachy. The things I am writing are reflections on my own way of thinking and being and it anyone else gets a little something from it then that is cool too. Love all the simple people around you because they are amazing like you.
March 05, 2018
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BrainBawz #10
The kids are bored.
March 05, 2018
Why do you resent the people because you bore them?
The kids in your class walk with a stupor because they are bored by your lesson!!
The people at your show don't laugh! not because there is something wrong with them they don't laugh because you are not funny.
Your product sucks because it is generic and derivative. You . . .
Zen (non) Meetings (From 2010)
Dont do it!! In every aspect of my life I try to stay positive and find the good in all things. This applies especially to my working life where it is very easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on the negative, which I believe is ultimately a futile exercise. I realised recently that I love my work but I hate meetings. Sometimes I can even end up in meetings about meetings in which I wonder if I am trapped in some kind of kafkaesque alternate dimension where I have been sentenced to go from one pointless meeting to the next. I tried to recall I can’t think of a single meeting where there were more than two people in attendance at a scheduled time and place and the result was nothing less than a complete waste of energy. “Yes Dave! We know meetings can be mind numbing but they are needed to make an organisation function” I hear you whisper. I don’t think they are. In theory meetings serve three purposes: 1)to allow the exchange of information, 2) the generation of ideas, 3) to create a social context where people can get to know their co-workers better. In my experience the modern meeting fails on numbers 2 and 3.The forced situation of a meeting does not allow for the space and humanity that genuine creativity requires- and really good ideas need creativity- the artificial social context of a meeting doesn’t allow for genuine relationships to develop, in fact they can possibly contribute to resentment of one’s colleagues. Going back to the first purpose of the meetings I reckon the technology now exists to bring people up to speed without taking away from their useful working time. I wonder what would happen if we asked the question: Will this meeting mutually enrich all those in attendance? If there is even the slightest hint that the answer may be no then don’t have the meeting. This will give the people the space they need to work on the stuff that will cause the success that having people fully engaged by things they are passionate about brings. I think that passion breeds passion and truly successful people will naturally seek out those they can share that passion with, thus allowing creativity to grow organically. Obviously this is a very idealistic view of a world without meetings. Also you may be sitting there thinking that you find it hard to get passionate about your work at all, then your passion should be finding a to do something that you will care about. It all comes down to one idea. Call it the rule of mutual enrichment: If all the people in attendance aren’t going to be happier and more stimulated at the end of the meeting……then don’t have it.
March 05, 2018
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Skillful Means RePost from 2012
Skillful means (Upaya) was a term I used to think made Buddhist teaching more significant than many other teachings I had come across. The stories I found that were used to explain skillful means often gave an account where a teacher had used subtle deception in order to aid someone in the greater goal of gaining enlightenment. This can seem like a laudable goal however recently I realised that my understanding of this concept was flawed and even the way I had explained it to other people was so flawed as to be misleading. To those who in the past I have tried to explain this to. I apologise my understanding was not deep enough to try and explain it properly. Skilful means on it's most basic level means the use of clever (skilful) methods of teaching others the dharma (buddhist teaching). When I first encountered this it was in the context of hearing how a zen master has used his words in a way that was understandable to those who he spoke to. I was imagined it in my head as the idea of an undercover zen master in bar telling a story and people finding a moment of enlightenment from that story. To me this lack of clinging to a central way of delivery of a message which is so common in so many religions and philosophies meant I found buddhism to be more realistic and relevant. However I found that using skilful means became something of an excuse for some negative things. When I think back now I found some disciplines to have too much restriction of my "natural" behaviours. I was a guy in my early twenties so you can use your imagination. Skillful means at it's core meant to me that I could treat people like shit and rationalise it in the name of helping then gaining their enlightenment. Think about it! You could technically shoot and kill someone and justify it by saying you helped on their way to the next karmic stage, if their death brought about more perceived good. Bullshit, right! That was the kind of self talk bullshit I had started to buy into. What I mean by that is that I was able to use skillful means as a way of bypassing guilt sometimes. However the fact I was feeling guilt was and should always be the indicator that I had done something wrong. Recently I had been thinking about empathy and how difficult it is to really listen to people (see my previous post on relearning to listen) and it is such a difficult think to achieve consistently in our conversations with other people that I suddenly realised that skillful means was not the flexibility to "teach" the dharma any old way you felt like but in actual fact skillful means is the ability to really "be" the person you are talking to, the ability to understand them from their very core, their own perspective and wishes. It is this empathy which is the skillful part and the ability to communicate with such empathy that makes us skillful.
September 13, 2017
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BrainBawz #9
Little things
September 10, 2017
Little things can make you happy or sad.
Your thoughts guide which it it.
Every little instance of a thing has positive and negative outcomes. (So does every big instance of a thing: births, marriages, bereavement etc).
The big things don't happen every day but the little things do.
Does the tree in your back . . .
Brainbawz #8
You have two walls. Pick one!
September 09, 2017
You have been weighted to the spot.
You have a wall in front of you. This wall is made of drinking, eating, oversleeping, letting your life be dictated by consumption and negative influence of others.
You have a wall behind you. This wall is made of a clear head, eating for fuel and not pleasure, . . .