Posts Tagged ‘Buddhism’

Posted on July 12, 2009 - by Jus

#024 | Attend Buddha Day

Every year in May, Melbourne plays host to a raft of activities around the birthday of Buddha and 2009 was no exception.  An experience I had on my 101 List, I went along this year with my son and we had such a lovely time.  We made wishes for peace and happiness for our family, bathed Buddha, watched a ceremony or two, ate glorious vegetarian food and spent a lot of time with the children’s activities.  My son made a gorgeous little origami lotus flower on his own, learning in the process about why the lotus flower is a symbol of Buddhism.

We’ll definitely go again next year.

Posted on July 5, 2009 - by Jus

#034 | A Course in Buddhism

Starting July 11th, I am going to start going to a weekly class in Buddhism.  All of my learnings thus far have been from books, online reading and trying to remain open to opportunities to learn more about meditation.  So I am really looking forward to seeing what this weekly class, given in English, will hold.  It is also number 34 on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list, so that is just an added bonus!

It’s being held at the Buddha’s Light International Association of Victoria (BLIA) in Yarraville.  I’m really also hoping that I might be able to find something similar closer to my home, but at the moment the one closest to me is only offering beginner classes in meditation (which I may also do in the future, depending on my work/life/study balance!)

Would love to hear from anyone else that attends these classes, or some like them in Melbourne – I’m quite looking forward to seeing what type of people I will meet at them, I think it will be important to my growing in my faith to be surrounded by likeminded individuals on a more regular basis!

Posted on July 4, 2009 - by Jus

Meditation & Me

Several years ago I was given a book that introduced me to many of the teachings of the Buddha – prior to this I had always remained relatively disinterested in all types of ‘organised religion’ or faith. I think the main reason for this was the alarming degree of contradiction that I have found, not always necessarily in the religions themselves, but in the people that claim to lead their lives by them.

For this reason, it took me a long time to acknowledge to anyone that I consider myself Buddhist. While I agree with many of the teachings of Buddha (I have many more to learn) and try to incorporate these into the way I view and approach life, I am not at all disciplined with it (even though I would like to be). Because of this, I think I probably fall into the aforementioned “contradiction” definition, so I often keep my faith to myself.

However, it’s something I am striving to change. I want to learn more, understand and infuse my life with more of Buddha’s teachings. Meditation is something I need to make time for each day. It helped me so much through a rough time in my life a few years ago, and I don’t want it to become something I only fall back on in times of sadness.

I try to remind myself each day with a few little things, one of which is a blog called A Buddhist Perspective.  I find that reading heavy texts about Buddism can sometimes be difficult and hard to simplify for a busy lifestyle.  But this blog gives me great insights and new, simple, unique ways of increasing the impact my faith has on myself and others.

We classify giving into three kinds. We can give material resources such as food or money, as well as personal resources such as our time or energy.  Secondly, we can give teachings to enable those who wish to learn to improve their lives on a daily basis or, on a more spiritual level, to find lasting happiness through understanding universal truths.  And lastly, we can give courage: by giving our strength, stability, and understanding, we can relieve others’ worries and fears. And sometimes a smile is all they need. <<link>>

Sounds simple, right? I often have trouble balancing the demands placed on me. It’s easy to become insular and self-involved when things aren’t quite right in ones life.  But taking a step back and gaining perspective can sometimes be all I need to take the edge off… and a smile from a friend doesn’t hurt either!

At the Culver Academy yesterday, we did a very simple meditation that anyone, regardless of their faith tradition, can do.

After settling into a meditation position that is comfortable for you, breathe in thinking “May I be happy.”  Then, breathe out while thinking “May all beings be happy.”

That’s it!

First we take in happiness for ourselves. But we keep that happiness for the briefest of moments, and then we turn around and give it to all beings.  So the happiness we create, we immediately share with everyone.  The in-breath creates some tension as our diaphragm pulls air into our lungs on our thought of personal happiness.  The out-breath releases the tension as we release the happiness with the thought that it will benefit all beings.  <<link>>

This is possibly the most helpful explanation of applied meditation that I have come across.  It’s simple, and it works.

I’d like to find more blogs or texts like this – so if you know of one, please leave me a comment!