Realisation:
How to Handle the Most Difficult Person(s) in Your Life
some tricks to see past the delusion of anger



I found this post in my weekly thedailyenglightenment.com email, which often has interesting dharma movie bits and fine zen quotes. I repost here without permissions, thus happy to take it down.

It is a most ironic "illusion" that there are many difficult people in our lives out there, especially while the most difficult person is the most immediate but continually missed one. Now, who is this person so close yet so far? It is none other than you! No, not me, him or her, but you. (Of course, when I read "you" to myself, it refers to me!) Due to the deep-seated tendency to self-rationalise, the person least likely to admit one's mistakes could be oneself. We might think we have got most, if not all things right. But that's self-deception - especially when we are obviously unhappy. If we are so right in the way we see and handle everything, how could it be that we are not happy? Surely, if truth is totally on our side, there would naturally be happiness.

The ones who really make our lives difficult are us - because we choose to react negatively to those around us. Obviously, to react negatively to those neutral or positive to us is downright foolish. So is it not alright to react negatively to those difficult to us? It might be "natural" in terms of force of habit, but it doesn't make it wise or right. When we react negatively, we are hurting ourselves, when our intention is to hurt others. We will definitely succeed doing the first, while there is no guarantee for the latter. Ironic isn't it? Since the one being difficult is suffering, we should focus on being compassionate, not difficult! The truth is, psychologically, no one can hurt us, other than ourselves choosing to let ourselves be hurt. Just as we perceive it wrong for others to hurt us, it is first and foremost wrong to ourselves to hurt ourselves.

Our suffering can be related to our karma in many ways. First, it can be an effect of our past unwholesomeness. Second, it can be an instant effect of the present unwholesomeness of our reaction. Third, it can be a combination of the duo. In other words, at times, we aggravate and perpetuate our own suffering when we react unwholesomely to suffering. It's a vicious downward-spinning spiral. When we mindfully train to sever or reduce the second form of suffering, much suffering is reduced. In fact, when we master the art of not reacting negatively to suffering by realising the unsubstantial transience of suffering, whatever remaining suffering becomes powerless in making you unhappy. When you are less of a difficult person to yourself and others, your world "magically" has less difficult people – because your "difficulty" is the centre of it all. -Shen Shi'an

And this:

"One attached to personal delusions cannot be liberated by the impersonal truth." - stonepeace

Thus we turn inward and then outward again, using knowledge to gain experience and experience to gain wisdom.

Labels: buddhism, liberation, peace, philosophy

Dear friends,

This Harper's article presents convincing evidence that our executive branch and our chief executive's ideological handlers are using Fox News to quicken our nation's pace toward war with Iran, just as they did in the lead-up to Iraq in 2003.

For the fast, dirty evidence and an online petition asking other networks not to follow Fox New's lead, check out this page.

Let us do more this time than hope and pray that we do not go to war again.

Peace.

~JJW

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School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, UCSD
Masters of Pacific and International Affairs candidate 2008
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"Ten Years ago...Hong Kong was the tiny flickering light of internationalism on the south coast. Now the whole country is lit."
  --Professor Michael de Golyer

Unconstitutional:
The War on Our Civil Liberties

...is the third in a series of Public Interest Pictures films ... Unconstitutional provides the facts and stories that illuminate administration lies, wrongheaded policies, and the real victims of these actions--the American people.

Here, you'll get the real story behind the USA PATRIOT Act and other administration policies and the gut wrenching stories behind those affected--from law-abiding store clerks to United States Olympians unable to travel. It'll remind you of what America used to stand for and what it seems we're falling for now. In short, this one-hour film will affirm why you're angry and give you a tool to help others join your ranks.

Check out this video here.

Labels: civil liberties

the last days of guqin camp
at the Royal Academy of Music
London

Following from this post.

I could write a lot about my week at the Royal Academy of Music's summer school, but I won't. I enjoyed the people I met and being in that atmosphere of exploration and excitement about Asian music. There were many people who had never seen a qin before, and others who had practiced half a lifetime.

The campus is near Baker Street and Regents Park, which meant new friends and I could stroll out to smell the roses or buy a sandwich with shops painted with Sherlock Holmes murals.

On the second day, the organizers asked me to translate some talks by Zeng Chengwei, guqin professor at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and Hu Bin, erhu professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music. It was really a "pre-concert lecture" in which they described the songs they were going to play the next night. Though my music vocabulary was a bit rusty, I got through the technical aspects of the lecture just fine. It was Professor Hu's emotional language of her songs' heroines that stumped me, along with Professor Zeng's rattling off of classical Chinese phrases. I think he was asking me to translate something about sage emperors in the picture on the right.

The next night ZCW performed five songs, the first being Zuiyu Changwan (The Drunken Fisherman Sings at Dusk), which he was also teaching me. After the performance, I congratulated him and told him how marvelous it was to hear him play in that nearly acoustically perfect auditorium. He said in typical Chinese modesty that he "played poorly."

Our class on stage:


Thanks to Peng Hua, scientist and musician extraordinaire, for taking and sending the pics.

Labels: guqin, London

Future Mediascape?
Don't say you weren't warned...


Admittedly a bit sensationalized, but still a decent video that adds something to the debate and wonder of our emerging mediasphere.

Labels: media, video