Live In The Moment, Live In The Dao.

Live in the moment, live in the Dao.

Nice compilation!

So much happens on your Dashboard that you end up missing so many great articles. So I decided to compile a list of blogs in Z-A order (A-Z for the articles) to help you guys out! If you reblog this, please reblog as a Text so your followers can see the entire post. Thank you.

The Non-Dualist

Brand Consciousness

For those interested in learning more about Buddhism

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Religious Education

Service as Part of Your LifeStyle

Stochastic Life

On the East vs. West: Perceived Differences

On Meditation

On Karma and Psychology

Practical Compassion

Ritualism and Buddhism

Samsaranmusing

Comfort for the Living and Comfort for the Dying

Hate is not a Softdrink

Instant Karma

Meditation is not just sitting quietly

Spiritual Teachers and the Western Cult of Celebrity

E-Sangha

Aging and Death

Anxiety Due to Clinging

Change is Constant

Gathas for your Daily Life

How can we stay excited about our practice?

Daoism Discussions

Defining the Dao

Four Agreements

The Mystery of the Cross

Thoughts on Opposites

Thoughts on Tragedy

Buddhazen101: 

A Mini Lesson On Pain

Dark Knight Zen

Why Incense?

Why I, Or Anyone Else, Can’t Make You Happy

Zen Buddhism, Martial Arts, and Non-Attachment 

“The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, is hopeless.”

- Hayao Miyazaki

Drugs and Daoism

I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with the use of drugs themselves, from a purely abstract perspective. In reality, there are a number of ethical, political, and physical issues with taking any mind-altering substance, depending on where it came from, how it got here, and what it can do to your body. But assuming that it’s a fair-trade product that isn’t supporting an evil empire and doesn’t have any extremely dangerous side-effects at the dosage standard, I see nothing wrong with their use. This is why I go out and have drinks every so often with friends, or why I drink coffee on an early (or late) workday. Like anything else in our lives, moderation and living well is the key to staying in line with the Dao.

But the problems start when we move out of moderation, when these substances become necessary for us to function, when we depend on a dose to keep us going. I believe that over-medication has taken a lot of people in my country off their Path, both from the established pharmaceutical industry and from the recreational drug culture. People look for something that can make them feel better without taking the time and effort needed to understand what they are trying to feel better from.

Imagine that your room has gotten quite messy, as rooms tend to do over the course of our lives. The bed is unmade, the laundry has piled up, papers and pens and old receipts have been strewn about everywhere. Things are in quite a state of disarray. However, you decide not to take the time to sort through things, to organize them and put things back in their proper place, to maybe even come up with a more efficient system of keeping things nice and neat for longer, but instead you rent a newfangled cleaning and organizing robot to pick everything up for you. It saves you a bunch of hassle, and things seem at least a little bit nicer than before. But the robot doesn’t know you and doesn’t know how you operate on a day-to-day basis, so things aren’t organized in a way that actually is easy for you to find and get access to. After all, the robot’s only parameters are to make the room clean, not convenient. And since you haven’t actually learned anything from tidying things up yourself, I would bet that the room is going to get cluttered again pretty quickly. So you rent the robot again, and again, and again; each time inevitably going back to the messiness of before, or even making things worse as you constantly fight against the robot’s way of cleaning your room.

This is what happens when you try to medicate yourself with drugs. They push us out of alignment with the Dao, and the more we use them, the more out of sync we will be. If we really want to set our messy room back in order, we need to do it ourselves. We can get help from our family and friends, even help from the occasional robot now and then, but ultimately it is something that needs to be by our own hand.

The only thing I would want to add is that even as we know anger as a negative and generally harmful emotion, you still must recognize and accept that you are experiencing it. Trying to deny that reality, whether to others or to yourself, can be very harmful as well. As with my thoughts on sorrow and loss, once you accept the emotions you are feeling, you can then observe what triggered them and let them pass by. What has made you angry? Is it something external, or did that simply set off something pent up within? See the truth of your feelings and your ability to control and check your ego will improve drastically.

Controlling Anger

Controlling anger is no different than control of any other harmful emotion.  First and foremost, our anger subsides naturally as we progress spiritually. It becomes very difficult to react with anger when we live our lives with compassion and kindness. 

Second, what is anger and where does it come from? Anger is a natural defensive response when we feel threatened or frustrated and our ego senses danger. When we become angry several physical things happen to us. We release adrenalin.  Our breathing and heart rate increases so our muscles are prepared for conflict.  We sometimes get the urge to void our bowels or bladder to better prepare for internal injury. 

You see, anger is a very primitive emotion it’s purpose is not to help you win an argument with your Mom but to fight a predator.  So, for this reason, anger is often a very poor response in a non lethal setting.  Anger shuts down the reasoning part of our minds and sends us into an action mode.  I guess the body figures that the time for talk and reason has passed.

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Incredibly well put. "Still waters run deep" after all, and I believe that choosing to release negativity is one of the single most effective ways to bring yourself onto the Path.

Negative Emotions

Here is an interesting thing.  When you gain in inner peace and no longer engage in the sort of hostile argumentative exchanges with those who you were accustomed to do so with they will not understand.  They will accuse you of being “unemotional” or a “robot”.  You can point out that you feel emotions such as joy and love but that won’t convince them.  You see, some people just love to argue, to fight.  Some just love drama and they are not going to be happy when you withdraw from this.  You might hear “don’t pull that Buddha stuff on me” or worse.  Negative emotions such as anger, fear and aggression benefit nobody.  Sorrow is something else though.  Sorrow is not really a negative emotion in the way anger is negative.  Sorrow can often be a kind of melancholy but sweet reflection.  Sorrow can be both therapeutic and a learning experience.  It only becomes negative when it is overwhelming and excludes other more positive and constructive emotion.