Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Yellow Heads

I read the Book    Buddha by Deepak Chopra.




It was quite interesting at the beginning, although a bit slow.

Buddha was a son of a king, astrologers foretold would either be a great king
or world leader. His Mom died soon after he was born and he was kept isolated
by his Father from all things he considered evil.

Buddha suffered as he did not want to fight and kill or follow his Fathers' belief that
a ruler must be feared.
 He said: Father, I love you and I don't fear you, so why should the people?

It is something I could relate to because I also grew up with so much feeling of love,
I thought if I could only talk to the people I could resolve all the worlds problems.

When I went out into the world, all I could do was bend my head and block my ears
from the over whelming evil I saw out there and the hopelessness that
it could ever be resolved.
How do you resolve anything, when people are so divided and full of self?
They yell, scream, fight, throw bombs,back stab and come from all
religious back grounds.
 The more children are born, the bigger the problem becomes.

Buddha was special in that he was able to stand between two fighting people and just by the spirit of his presence, they would stop and go their own way.

Buddha believed God could not resolve mans' problems.
This was up to man to do through disassociation.

Through starvation and meditation Buddha became enlightened.
He found out that once desire for things left, there would be no reason to fight.

In life, we fight for everything: Love, food, shelter,jobs,clothes,money,education, freedom, country....
In order to get something, we are taught we need to persevere and fight for our rights to obtain
the things we need, to be happy.
Through out the years, no matter how nice you make life for people, they are never happy.
The more freedom you give them, the more they try to use their freedom, to stand in the way of others.
 Nothing ever stops but builds.

Buddha found once desire leaves you , we will have no needs and thus be happy and at peace.

It was a good book to read but the ending a bit weak. I expected a lot more from his teachings.

However, I can't see man going to the extent of disassociating himself from experiencing life and suffering,
such as it is.
We are here to experience and learn from suffering inside a living body. Life is a gift from God and this is what makes suicide so abhorrent because it's the same as throwing Gods' gift back into his face.
Taking a life, be it man or beast, is abhorrent for the same reason and once we begin seeing our ancestors
in plants,  eating them becomes also abhorrent.
 No matter what we do, we sin.

I guess once we are dead and become spirits, desires would lift of their own accord.
So the problem is not just desire but the material aspect of having a physical body and the desire to keep it immortal.

So far we found no solution to that problem. Immortality lies in what happens after we are born.
But if life is an illusion as Buddha says, then no matter what we do, is ok.
If we kill some one, it's not real. If someone kills us, it's not real.
 Our suffering is not real. Our life and our death are not real.
All the issues we fight over are not real.
So what is this all about if not for learning the experience of life and living in a physical world?
Can this illusion not be seen as a miracle?

I look at plants and animals today and find they too are becoming intelligent.
Lions are tamer, dogs are almost human, chimps can sign language, plants grow better when you talk to them.

All the yellow heads hiding behind tall grasses just might be our living dead cheerfully saying:
 Hi!
We see them all around us supporting us, nourishing us, forgiving us, saving us.

Should not mankind have the desire to a learning experience of knowing what it means to live without suffering?
It's tricky but I have faith one day, man will find the answer.
Kushinagar or Kusinagar is a town and a nagar panchayat in Kushinagar district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Gautama Buddha died.

Buddha died when he was 80 after eating some poison mushrooms.

Here is a short version of Buddha's bio.
http://www.markville.ss.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/history/religion/buddhbio.html
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I watched the Republican speeches yesterday and they were wonderful. Anne Romney brought tears to every womans' eyes. Working to keep the US number one in the world is indeed attractive.
It's always better to lead than to be led. Always good to be free to make your own decisions than have your
wallet emptied for services you will never get and thus denied financially to do things for yourself as well.
Answers lie between the people, not government. We can see that before government comes to help you, your neighbor is right next door and a more dependable source for aid.

Hurricane Isaac is slowly going behind the levees, flooding Louisiana after bashing Haiti Cuba and the Florida Keys.
 Now how does it know to do this? People had to break through onto rooftops to escape and get rescued.
What a terrible thing to happen again.
 I guess if people want to live in these areas, they have to build homes on 14 foot stilts and hope they don't get washed out by the water.
Terrible for the poor people who have to live with a trailer always packed, ready  to escape.
On the other hand, why doesn't the President send planes to disrupt the storm . I am sure they could do it.
xoxoxoxoxox






4 comments:

Diana said...

Some very interesting things about Buddha that I didn't know. I remember as a young teen having Buddha statues in my room, remember that? You would rub his belly for luck? I had no idea about the man himself.
As for the Hurricane's, well the weather just seems to be getting crazier and crazier. The last hurricane they had there wiped out my Pastor's MIL'S house. It is sad.
Love Di ♥

George said...

Thank you for sharing this review and information about Buddha. Much of this is new to me.

The flooding caused by Issac is much worse than anyone expected. It's unbelievable.

A Lady's Life said...

Diana - I read about Buddha when I was a kid and visited many of his temples.
I always thought it was so peaceful wherever he was. In caves or on top of mountains.It gave you a peaceful feeling being around this statue.
The laughing Buddha was typical of the Chinese who like everything jolly.lol

A Lady's Life said...

George - This man took different parts of Buddha and put it all together in a story so it's a novel full of truths and non truths.I think he did well in the first part of the book but had a weal ending. The enlightenment part is the real story about Buddha.But I guess no one knew how this man grew up.
I found out people don't have hallucinations from starving as much as they do from staying awake and meditating the way he did, apparently he never slept.
He obtained the solution to his questions. Apparently when someone would try to sword him, he would not be able to because Buddha would move faster than the blade could.