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March 29, 2015 at 12:42 pm #74594Martin MarseticParticipant
Hello everyone, I’m new to this site and I find it quite interesting so I decided to share my thoughts which I often wrote when I was depressed or bored. Everything that is written is based on my own experiences, so it won’t necessarily be true for you. I realize it’s long but if you have the time to read it and leave a feedback or share your own thoughts about stuff written below, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you! and sorry for my english.
15.2.2015
These are my current thoughts about life based on experience, written freely without any educational facts and they will surely change as time goes by.They say history repeats itself and you know what? It does. When you think about something and you take no action, you will find yourself in the same situation with the same or maybe not the same but similar thoughts but another time. And you will think about the same thing and you will ask yourself, why didn’t I do it then? And what’s different now.. Will I do it now? But if not now, when? Does realizing this have any impact on our actions? In my personal experience the answer would be no. Do you as a person, change because you realize something is wrong? I don’t think so. But I would say realization is the first thing that you need if you wanna be able to change. Well.. there are situations that force you to change because of the extreme circumstances but lets talk about a willing change. When a person wants to change, one does not only have to realize the current state but also needs courage. We all want to be happy but we are too scared to change things.. We are afraid of what awaits us after making the step towards charge.. The goal is to be happy. Everyone wants that. But do they want it badly enough to risk it? I don’t remember who but someone once said.. »Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.« Take action! Do not be afraid! If you’re unhappy you have nothing to lose.
People often find themselves in emotional breakdowns and try to keep busy to avoid certain thoughts and let me tell you, it helps! What I wanted to talk about is quite the opposite. I am often bored with myself. But there’s a bright side to this boredom as well. When you’re bored you will take time for yourself. You will think about things you usually don’t because you never really have the time to. I’m a spiritual person and I think about myself alot, I want to improve myself as a person as much as I can. Look where this boredom had brought me. Here I am writing my thoughts down. Not sure much good will come from this but I can tell you one thing, I’m enjoying it and I don’t feel bored at all, time is actually flying.. What I wanted to say is that if you take the time to think about yourself you will most certainly learn something new about yourself. Don’t forget, the key to happiness is within us. »What you think, you become.« Gautama Buddha.
3.3.2015
Key to life? Balance. It doesn’t have much meaning to what I’m gonna talk about but it might pose some questions to you. I’ve always been a very emotional person. Being very emotional has it’s ups and downs. Feelings cloud our judgement.. or do they? Well sure they do in a way. But lately I’ve been thinking.. Are feelings curse or a gift? Well they can be both. Controlling your feelings or better said, controlling your actions and thoughts while having strong feelings for something or someone is one of the hardest tasks. Do we follow the brain or the heart? I’ve always believed making choices under influence of strong feelings can lead to bad decisions.. I’ve always favored the brain. Brains know what they want right? But even when in a deep emotional situations where you have to make a choice between the brain and the heart, follow the brain and you will make the right choice. I don’t wanna talk about how hard that is because we all how hard the battles between the heart and the mind are. Lately I’ve been trying to figure things out from a different prospective. For example, when we are looking for a potential partner, lets say a person you wanna spend you life with. Maybe a future husband or a wife. We all know that nobody is perfect, although depending on a person, certain flaws can mean perfection to specific people. We all visualize in our minds how our »perfect« partner should be like. Most of us would like an attractive person with inner beauty. Can’t we be happy with less than what we imagine? Is it our ego that creates our standards for outside beauty? Well feelings can be used to overcome that standards, they can make us ignore the visual flaws that bothered us all along. They can help us make a deeper connection between people regardless of their looks. Isn’t this beautiful? Somehow a gift? And is this truly what we want? Will we ever be satisfied that way? Once you connect with that person and grow feelings for him/her you can have a healthy relationship until you lose those feelings, usually it’s either losing trust or respect for a person. Once this happens you will start seeing the outside part of the person and you will wonder how you fell in love with a person that doesn’t attract you on the outside. But does it matter? You were happy, were you not? You were satisfied with that person as long as you had everything healthy relationship needs. Once that is lost, it doesn’t matter what kind of person there was, either a price or a princess. So, does that mean someone can be happy that way until something goes wrong? Is that not the most important thing, to be happy as long as it lasts? You were happy even if that person didn’t meet your standards. Maybe not as happy as you would be if it was a person from your dreams. But isn’t happy good enough? Just to remind you. It doesn’t have to be perfect for you to be happy! The less you need the happier you will be. Don’t accept less than you deserve, but know what you deserve. Be true, be you.Sometimes I get the feeling I’m not who I’m suppose to be. But the problem is that I don’t know what I’m suppose to be or who I’m suppose to become. They say I’m a good person but I’m I suppose to be a good person? Why do I have the feeling I’m not myself. Is it possible that we were born in this world with sealed fates? I’ve changed a lot over the years, I’ve improved as a person. I’ve become better in many ways. Well better than I was for that matter. Although I realize all this it doesn’t change the fact that whenever I want to find out more about myself for example what I want to do, what I want to be, I search for answer in the past self. What did I want back then? What did I want to be? Is the reason for this not knowing what I want to be now as a present self? Or is there another reason? How am I evolving if I keep looking behind my back.. The person walking behind me is my past self, a different person, worse than the present self. So why? Am I really on the right path? Cause it sure doesn’t feel that way.. I’m feel like I’m lost in the void. »Rule your mind or it will rule you.« – Buddha.
How do you accept yourself? It’s clear to all of us that the things we can’t change, we have to accept or we will never be happy. »Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.« – Buddha. We are all born with differences. Our appearance might not be the way we want it to be for many of us. Our souls are trapped in the bodies we don’t like.. You can keep ignoring it for only so long.. But our daily activities, mirrors and even people remind us of who we are. The fact is that once you accept yourself for who you are, you will not need confirmation from anyone else, you will not be offended and won’t even care about what others think. Well accepting yourself is harder than it sounds. After all everyone around you is trying to be perfect and you are trying to accept your imperfections.
You see I have such a problem as well. So I’ve said to myself many times.. I have accepted it, yet I still think about it a lot. I was trying to force myself to a point where in the end I would always say »I Don’t care about it anymore.« Well.. accepting and ignoring are two different things. You can pretend that you accepted it, which will make others believe you did but it won’t be enough to make you happy. You are who you are, and there is not one person in the whole world that is the same as you. You are living you own life, don’t waste your life worrying about how others see you, what matters is how you see yourself. Life is short, don’t live it for others. And remember, you are the center of your own universe. When you disappear, so does everything else.We all talk to ourselves, some more some less.. Those are the times we usually speak our mind out loud and that is our true self. It may seem strange to others but not to ourselves, that’s why we do it mostly when we are alone. Sometimes I ask myself questions and answer them just as if there was another me standing beside me. Sometimes it even turns into a conversation with myself. It doesn’t always have to be out loud, we talk to ourselves in our minds all the time. But what is the reason for all this? Do we lack a person that understands us as good as we understand ourselves? Is that why we talk to ourselves? After all it’s us who understand ourselves best. Do we sometimes want our own advice? Do we ask ourselves for permission?
Many times I have found myself in strange unpleasant situations. I often find myself surrounded with people, normal people you could say. I will say this before I go any further, I do not like to judge or be judged, since I was little I used to judge everyone around me for being different or not being the way I imagined them to be. And I’ve been working really hard to break this bad habit. But you could say I was only half successful. I’m mature enough to know when not to say something that might offend poeple around me. But even though I don’t say it, I still think about it. The judging thought is still in my mind although It never comes out of my mouth. But even if it did, would be it any different than it is now? People would be offended, but so would they be if they knew what was going on inside your head. In that moment when I realize my own thoughts I try to ignore them. But is there a way to get rid of them? Is there a way to see only good in people? Or are we all devils, and only some show their true faces? Does forcing ourselves to be good make us better eventually? Can we dream for so long that we forget we’re dreaming and the dream becomes our reality? »Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face.« Nonetheless I believe that someday, I’ll achieve what I want and become the man I want to be.
6.3.2015
It’s human nature to be curious. We would put our hands in the fire just to see what happens. Some may say it’s crazy and stupid. Well we all know that now but was the first person who did it really stupid or just curious or maybe something else? That person taugh us what fire does to us if we touch it. But even so, when we were young, we all touched fire with our fingers for a second or two. And why is that? Did we not believe our parents when they told us what would happen? Or we did and we still wanted to see what happens for ourselves? Well. Do we regret something we did, or do we regret something we didn’t do? After all experience is the best teacher. But can really learn from experience of others? Or do we have to experience it ourselves to truly believe it.When I was young I often looked down on myself, I felt like I’m wasn’t good enough. I could never have imagined being loved by someone other than my family. For some reason that didn’t make me feel any better cause I thought, you know.. It’s my family ofcourse they love me. It took me ages to realize how lucky I was to have a family like that. I was pretty desperate.. I didn’t love myself so how could have anyone else loved me. But then, one day time stopped and for the first time in my life I felt in that moment, what it feels like to mean the world to someone. As they say, everything ends eventually and so it did. But after losing that feeling, it feels like I’m back to my old self. Well not quite like that. I’ve changed a lot since then, I am finally seeing my worth, I’ve built my character, self-esteem and many other things yet I still feel lonely and crave for a deeper connection. I want to mean the world to someone and I want someone to mean the world to me. It’s that feeling, that I miss the most. »You will never be lonely if you like the person you are alone with.« We are suppose to love ourselves the most, only then we are able to share our love with another person. Does that mean I do not love myself enough? »You love when you’re ready, not lonely.« Love happens, we cannot choose who we fall in love with. But we choose what we do with those feelings. We either hide, ignore or show them. Although sometimes ignoring those feelings means being strong. Relationship is much more than just love.
When I was little, I thought the world was just another ball that we knew everything about. Even though I didn’t know much about it back then, I thought I knew enough to know that it didn’t interest me. So I was focusing on a bigger picture. At first I wanted to know if there was life on other planets, then I wanted to know how fast the light travels then about the big bang and in the end how the whole the universe works. I thought it would make me happy if i knew all that stuff. Learning about the universe was fun but somehow it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would. Then I discovered another universe. It was the universe within me. It was finally a something I could alter and have an impact on. I’ve found out that understanding myself was just as hard as understanding the universal laws and it’s theories. We might be powerless against the universe but we are able to change ourselves, improve our own universe. Change yourself and you will change the world around you. Since then, nothing interested me more than the human mind and consciousness.
14.3.2015
You reach a point in your awareness when you realize how much it means to feel good around someone. Different people can make you feel different way and until you will meet someone who will not only understand but also express their feelings, ideas, their way of life the way you do, you will feel lonely. Emotional intelligence, empathy, being able to speak about the feelings you feel at that exact moment and much more, all these things matter. You might realize that even though you have a lot of friends, you feel lonely and missing something important in your life. But once you find a person who is similar to you in such ways, you will notice the difference and the invisible holes inside you will start to fill. It’s important to have a person like that in your life and it does not matter if it’s a friend or a partner.Every person that passes by can teach you something about yourself. It doesn’t matter what kind of person that is. You learn a lot about yourself when you engage with people. It is true that how you treat people tells a lot about yourself. So when people treat you badly it’s them who have a problem, not you. That’s why you will often see what kind of person you do not wanna be. So whenever you have a problem with someone or something about them might be bothering you, consult yourself in your mind why is it that it bothers you. Be open minded, admit your own mistakes and flaws, only that way you can improve yourself.
19.3.2015
No matter what kind of person you are, there will be people who won’t see your beauty. Also there will be people who will love you for who you are. But accept that not everyone will love you and that’s okay! People have different opinions, they are being attracted by different things and if some don’t notice how good you are, it’s their loss not yours, so don’t feel bad about it. You must know your worth and it shouldn’t bother you or make you feel any less worth if someone doesn’t approve or like you. Carry on with you life and instead of wondering why some people don’t like you, focus on the reasons why some people love you. Searching for reasons why people don’t like you is meaningless.April 7, 2015 at 8:47 am #75014NatashaParticipantI sit down sometimes and wonder about the world around me…the people in it. Why are we all so different? We would be boring right? Except why do you feel so bad when you try to help people, show them compassion, show them happiness, yet never receive anything in return. True; we do not give to receive, but we expect some sort of gratitude in return, even if it is just to say “thank you”. Many a time I have felt like this, but since studying Buddhism, I understand now. We do not show compassion to provide happiness for ourselves. We need to cherish others and want to help them through their struggles and difficulties without any benefit to ourselves. Many of us are guilty of self-cherishing; selfishness and putting ourselves before others. When we try to help people and do not receive a positive response to that action, it is a test. These things are sent to test our patience, test how we react. Often, we may react with “how can they do this I am better than them!”. The word “better” suggests a significant amount of pride in us. What makes us better than anyone? This is a delusion in our minds. You may say “I am good at music” or “I am good at card making”, but this then becomes a problem when you suggest you are better than others because of this. Recognise your strengths, but do not use that strength as a weakness of others.
We may respond with “i cant believe they did this im such a failure” or “its because im so stupid and not likeable that they hurt me”. This is discouragement; another delusion in our minds. This is not true; you are not worthless, unlike able, useless or disappointing.
They are our distorted views of reality. Wisdom, is the ‘happy medium’. On the contrary to beliefs, wisdom is about what you learn, your realistic views, regardless of your age. Your wisdom tells you that these delusions are not realistic and it is only in your mind.
It is difficult to show compassion towards those who have wronged us. Instead, we may show feelings of anger. This is easy to do, and compassion is difficult to achieve in these circumstances.
Showing compassion towards others can free us of our own pain and anger. For example, sometimes if we refuse to show forgiveness to someone who has wronged us, we can continue to feel hurt, pain and anger. The theory behind this is that this does not make a difference to the person who caused the wronging nor does it make a positive difference to you. Chances are, the person who has hurt you is not giving a second thought to how you are feeling or what negativity their actions may have caused. Therefore, we may continue to live a life of bitterness and anger for what someone has done. To reduce the chances of this and have a happy, fulfilling life, we should forgive those who have wronged us. However, this does not mean a person can ‘walk all over us’. A person still needs to be confronted about their actions and must know that the way they have behaved is unacceptable. Instead of rehearsing again and again in your mind, forgive their actions and move on. One of the problems we have is that we ‘dwell’on the past. It is wise to look at your actions and think what you could have done differently, however leave it as just that. Worrying and wondering what could have been if you behaved or reacted in a certain way will not change what has happened. It is done; move on.
I have often felt “why is this happening to me? Why me!?”. We have these ideas that negativity comes our way and life it out to ‘get us’. Why not look at it as that these are tests sent to us. We are meant to be learning the art of ‘patience’ and until we learn this, we will come face to face with these negative situations. You may interpret patience in different ways. For me, it is about learning everything cannot fall into place, everything cannot be Perfect as you wish them to be. We have heard the saying “patience is a virtue” and “good things come to those who wait”. If we expect everything to fall into place at once, we will face negative situations. This could be within education, employment, friendships, relationships, new homes etc. We cannot always get what we want at the ‘get go’. Because we expect things to go smoothly, our patience is tested. We need to learn that this is not always the end result and we need to be patient in receiving what we desire.
April 7, 2015 at 8:56 am #75015NatashaParticipantMartin im pretty new to this aswell and kind of had the same feelings… like i wanted to share my views and what the buddhism means to me. I am not a buddhist, but my experiences i relate a lot to the buddhist views and perspectives.
I totally agree with what u say around changing… sometimes we dont change.. no matter what happens, we do make those same mistakes, which i suppose you can link in patience that i talk about in mine. Sometimes u may feel u make the same mistakes in the same situations but it maybe is a test to see if we have learnt from the previous time?
I have felt in the past worthless and useless…except of course from my family like u say. But its about reliezing what we have and learning to be comfortable with that. Tis true that people are in much worse situations than us, but our pain cannot be ignored because its our pain, it is important to us.
I also agree with what u say about the fact we can learn something from everyone. thats kinda something i have just reliezed because i have been dwelling on the past and how people have treat me, but today in fact, i thought about how much they have actually taught me. i am glad for the negative situations i was in with them because they have taught me something…taught me that patience i was looking for. I was angry and hateful towards them, but now, I feel forgiving and thankful. There behaviour was unacceptable and they know that, I do not want to speak to them ever again or have them cross by path, but at the end of the day i feel some release now that i forgive them and look at the experience as providing me with the learning i needed. now i am in a much better place than i was because instead of being upset and dwelling, i am happy knowing that they ‘helped me’.
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