Meditation 2

Have any of you ever practiced meditation?
It's not something that I do on a regular basis, but I've done it before and had mixed results. I truly have had some very spiritual moments during meditation, but also have had no results whatsoever. I'm absolutely positive this is because I don't do it as much as I should. I was wondering what some of your experiences have been like...

My introduction to Buddhism

As we start our next I'm very excited because I've been interested in Buddhism for some time. I first became interested in it from an early age. One of my favorite bands is The Beatles and some of you know that George Harrison was interested in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Indian culture as a whole. After hearing Indian influenced lyrics and instrumentations I started to do a little research of my own. But this got me thinking, did I truly learn about Buddhism, or just what uninformed Americans know about it? There must be so much more than what I learned from a bunch of George Harrison lyrics and a few books written by The Dalai Lama. This got me very excited about this new book! Is their overall goal to reach enlightenment? Why is this their goal? You don't necessarilly need to answer these questions for me because I'm sure the book will do that, but I just thought they were fun to think about.

The Church of Kurt

As long as I've known my Dad (yes his name is Kurt) he hasn't been a religious person. But he always had a neat answer when people asked him about religion. He would respond, "I attend the Church of Kurt, I think what I want, and I do as I please." When I was younger this was very silly, and i still is today, but now it makes me wonder... can I create my own religion? If you think about it not even Jesus Christ created a religion. He started a following that developed into a religion. Would it be possible to start one all on your own? If so, who would join? How long would it last? and would it be taken seriously?

Why......

.......was religion created? The only purpose of religion seems to be to get people to do the right things and behave correctly. It seems like we should be able to do that without religion.  Religions just seems like the easy way out as apposed to truly teaching some one what is right and wrong.  We need to convince others using stories and tall tales that we call religion.  Who started this, and why? Was there a friend who had trouble seeing right from wrong and the creator thought that perhaps a good story would display the concept well?

Gospel vs Reality

As we learned in class there are portions of the bible that should not be read as fact because they were written as gospel. But I know many Christians who take most of the Bible as fact... do only Christians make this mistake? I'm sure that Gospel and similar techniques are used in all religions, so maybe people of other faiths make the same mistake.

This also reminded me of a book I read in a few years ago about a man who lived an entire year abiding by every rule in the Bible. http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp
Thankfully nobody goes that far on a normal basis.

Do Not Feel Lonely...

I have a friend who paints almost non-stop and I've loved everything she has shown me. Recently she said she would paint something for me and I couldn't have been happier!
Only a few days after saying she would do a painting for me she gave me this, http://slicedfruit.tumblr.com/post/17352379822/do-not-feel-lonely-the-entire-universe-is-inside.

Thankfully she put it on her blog too because I have no idea how to work a digital camera.

But I was stunned! Not only because I loved it and thought it was wonderful, but because of how much it reminded me of Krishna and the Gita. Obviously Rumi, who first said this quote, was familiar with the things we have been learning in class.

Meditation

When we think of meditation today we think of it as an act.  Meditating and meditation are things we do, and Krishna speaks of it the same way. But also in another way too, and that is meditation as a goal. He says, meditation is a goal to aspire to and reach. Why is there a difference in language or translation, and was there something lost in translation?