Because of strong influence from Star Wars and the teachings about
The force I started to read about the Zen budhism several years ago.
The Noble Eightfold Path is simular to
The Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity. It describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by
Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. I have in many ways adapted these rules and mixed them with my own as I believe it may help you to become a bether person.
I do not believe you will become happy of living out others expectations of yourself. If you do not follow your heart you will become restless and perhaps even unhappy. When disrespecting or disliking yourself why would people respect you or like you at all? Follow your heart and be proud about the choises you make (and have made) in life. Then, and only then, you will be proud of yourself. Do what you feel like. If not you will regret lather in life that you did not give it a try. Experience makes you a wiser person and gives you a better insight of the world
around you. When you grow old you may regret what you did not do in your life and the chances you left behind. Be proud of what you have done. Time waits for no one. Spend the time you have in possession well. Death is no more than a heartbeat away.
Have faith in yourself and accept yourself for being the one you are. Then, and only then, people will be able to respect you and look up to you. If you want to change the world first change yourself. Do not be superficial but be true to yourself. How can you change the world if you can not change the one you are? The biggest mistake is to take and not give - from within. Share your knowledge with people around you. You are the only person that got your perspective on your surroundings.
Pass on what you have learned. The knowledge you have is unique. If any, few persons got the same knowledge and point of view as you do. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try. Why bother half-finish anything? Instead of half-finish something why not complete it and do this properly? Whatever you do in life, be patience. In seeking your destiny patience
is you allied. Nothing gets any better if you hurry or rush things. This is also important in seeking your destiny. No one can choose your faith for you. You, and you alone must follow your own path. Let no one live your life and make important decisions in your life.
Keep your promises. This will bring you far. Why bother promise to do a task you will not complete? This will only make people loose faith in you. And when people are loosing faith in you, what kind of impression do you think they will get of you? Be honest and sincere about what you do in life. No one values false people.
Have faith in your friends. They are your strength, not your weakness. Your friends are the family you choose for yourself. They are the blood you choose. Remember that the truth you claim to depends of your own point of view. Ask your friends about things you have done together - I am sure all of you will remember things differently. Do not judge people for having other points of view than you - by doing that you may provoke intolerance which may strike back at you. When calling someone a fool, ask yourself: who is the fool? the fool himself or the fool who follows him? Accept and respect people for whom and what they are.
Live every day as it could be your last. Death is no more than a heartbeat away. Death is smiling at us all, smile back when you have the chance. Life your life
today when you have the chance. Tomorrow it might be too late.
When you dance with the devil the devil doesn't change. You do. As a person you are a result of all your experiences combined. When you go to bed tonight you will have experiences you did not have when you woke up this morning. These experiences got a influence on you as a person and your point of view. Do not let your eyes and ears diseave you. They are there to fool you. What the eyes sees and the ears hear the brain believes, but is this the truth?
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels concentration also in everyday situations.
As a final word I would like to quote G'Kar who is a character in the science-fiction television series Babylon 5:
“If I take a lamp and shine toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding.
Too often we assume the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense
the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the revelation upon seeing it. Similarly,
someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search
for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished. Not understanding that it comes from us, sometimes, we stand in
front of the light and assume we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow and
assume all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose - which is use the light of our search to illuminate
the wall in all its beauty and all it flaws, and in so doing, better understand the world around us.”
