The serpent, the bringer of truth, spoke to the first woman and told her she had a choice: eat the fruit from the tree of good and evil (i.e. take the red pill) and “grow up,” or never leave her state of eternal childlike innocence. The latter may sound appealing in theory, but it runs counter to how most people are hardwired.
Self-reading with a divination tool is a form of self-administered therapy, and the better one knows oneself, the better their results are likely to be. It takes time, commitment, and a willingness to face things that will sometimes feel uncomfortable.
When changing something as dramatic as one’s worldview, one will likely find that there are many things that remain unchanged “by default,” which is to say, some things just tag along as baggage from one’s old ways of thinking. Having myself come from a staunch Christian upbringing, I understand how these things can happen. I wanted to share a few of the “gotchas” that I encountered along the way.
“Ignorant” isn’t quite the insult that our society considers it to be. Ignorance isn’t stupidity; it’s a lack of knowledge about a given subject. Due to the massive amount of information available to us today, combined with the limitations of the human brain, it’s a given that we’re all ignorant when it comes to perhaps millions of topics. Being ignorant isn’t a bad thing; it’s completely normal — and totally unavoidable.
Buddhism offers no magical answer to make the death of loved ones not suck. But the acceptance of impermanence changes how we behave toward others, but it also changes us.
Many of us – this author included – would say that we prefer facts to faith. Yet, the world in which we live today is so vastly full of accessible information that we cannot help but accept the word of others for many things.
These days, the truth has become irrelevant to many of the people in power in the United States, whether their power is political, popular, or economic. Power and profit are the primary motivations, but this is nothing new; human history is built upon such stories. If anything, the real lie here is that somehow it would be different now because of a particular political system or your vote for a given political party.
…the real value of honest discussion of sensitive topics such as political opinions or religious beliefs is in their ability to enable us to live side by side in peace. …it allows us to realize that they’re much like us; they chose to accept certain values because it is where life led them, and they’re neither stupid nor evil because of it.
The Four Noble Truths are often the first thing that one hears when s/he seeks to learn more about Buddhism. In English, we often use the word “suffering” or “dissatisfaction,” … When the idea of “suffering” is tromped out as the first Buddhist discussion topic, many think we’re a negative lot. We’re not; we’re among the happiest people you’ll meet. We’re realists who are willing to take the facts head-on.
The historical Buddha was very much a realist. He accepted that pleasurable situations and circumstances would always come to an end and that unpleasable things would always come back around sooner or later. The word used for this reality is “dukkha,” and it is the …
Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply “the Buddha,” was an enlightened human upon whose teachings the path of Buddhism was founded. [He] is recognized by Buddhists as a fully enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end rebirth and suffering.
Within Buddhism, there are some basic ethical principles that adherents are encouraged to follow. The primary purpose of these is not to adhere to a so-called higher moral authority; instead, their main purpose is to help one avoid distractions as they walk the Buddhist path.