Yes, tonight was another very successful night for DHARMA Youth. Lots of new faces, lots of returning faces, always lots of cute faces (+/-). At the end of the night, driving back home, I realized I was frustrated that I couldn't really have fun with any of them. Oh well, plenty of other fish in the sea, right?
Tonight was also a special night because the abbess of the Oklahoma temple was here, as most of American abbots/abbesses were invited to some sort of annual meeting at Mt. Shasta Abbey. Anyways, the class started with actually all of us learning and relearning to put on the black robe. I was most familiar with it, so I helped everyone, including the cute ones (secretly smiling, secretly embarrassed). Then we got started talking about the abbess, asking her questions, her experiences so far a a new immigrant, a new abbess, and a Buddhist nun in the heart of the Bible belt. It's good, so far.
Then the real talk began when Chris mentioned he wanted the serenity and calmness of the monks. Shifu asked for some personal tips, and as no one else raised their hands, I volunteered my experience with classical music and reading as ways to calm me down. We talked about how classical music has more levels of listening involved, and how listening to classical music during pregnancy improves intelligence. TV is a proven tool for stupidity, and how reading is a lot more intelliging, as it requires more parts of the brain to interact to pull off successfully. Basically, anything that really involves mental interaction is better than just letting things be shown to you.
Somehow that got the talking to how awareness is the key to serenity. Just observe your feelings, your emotions, your annoyance, your hunger. Anger, pain, these are bad feelings, but awareness itself does not have any bad feeling in itself, so there's no need to fear it. Like when you're playing a game, of you're at a party, and you think the adrenaline has gotten the best of you, just sit back, take a moment to realize where you are, and realize what you are feeling, and wisdom will naturally spring forth.
Vegetarianism may be a bit extreme, as we discussed, because human beings are biologically omnivorous, leaning more to the herbivorous side. Carnivores pant to release heat from the body, herbivores sweat. Carnivores have a relatively short digestive track, herbivores have a relatively long track. Carnivores naturally have a mechanism to remove cholesterol from the body, herbivores have practically none, as vegetables do not have harmful cholesterol.
Shifu was also somewhat disappointed, but probably not surprised, that no one mentioned meditation as the best way to have a calmer demeanor. Just 15-20 minutes a day is all it takes. From personal experience, I don't even need that. Just 10 minutes will do, as I have found ways to bring my meditation skills to a daily, active level. I just need to motivation to do it every day. Just as we were finishing our meditation practice in our black robes, I couldn't help but think that longer would have been so so so much better.
On the ride home, I also really thought about how I get myself to be more active in my quest for spiritual enlightenment. I'd like to be like back then when I split my time between the center and home, and thought about how I could achieve a balance and agreement between work and religion. I also thought about how I could get myself more active and interactive with the abbot, whom i could learn a lot about how to talk to people. Through the years, so much information and knowledge about Buddhism and it's techniques have found their way into my head, only to have little or no venue out. I want to find a way to bring these pieces of information all into play in my daily life, and achieve my destiny as a great Buddhist lay person. America, I think, will be a great center of Buddhism, if it can keep itself from being destroyed while trying to the failure of dominating the world economically.

Tags: asians, awareness, boys, classical music, dharma youth, observing, reading, sex, smart, stupid, tv, vegetarianism
Current Location: ZCS

I recall one of the first homosexual thoughts that I had, way back when I first moved to Danville in 3rd grade. Just around the block was this really cool blond guy, Johnson, I think his name was. Taller than me, he treated me like a younger brother, brought me along to bike rides and random strolls around town. It was a great summer. Then he left, for what I can't recall, whether college or something. For the rest of the summer, I hung out with his younger brother, who somehow had dark brown hair, and was really pale in comparison. I'm thinking it's because of this experience that I now have a thing for tall and skinny guys. Hair don't really matter. Kinda heart, isn't afraid to ask me to do things with him, anything, to share a passion with me, and share passion. *sigh* here my depression comes again....

Tags: bike, boys, brother, crush, memories, summer