I Like To Give Advice
Bliss and happiness : Another wordy one because I am not elequent enough to say things quickly.
A Shogun walked to a famous monk one day seeking a perfect life. The monk pondered the question and said 'Imagine you were to know you would die in a year, what would you differently today? What if you knew you would die in a month? Tomorrow? When the answer is nothing, you have found a perfect life.
You can build a perfect life from these three questions and I try to live by them.
A samurai walked to a monk one day and demanded to be shown heaven and hell. Instead, the monk began mocking him, laughing at how short his sword was, his unkept hair. The samurai grew enraged and drew his weapon to strike him down. The monk nodded: 'this is hell'. The samurai paled and dropped his sword, dropped to his knees to apologize. 'this is heaven'
A woman was driving a long highway and stopped for gas. She asked the attendant 'I'm moving, what's the next town along the way like?'. 'what was the one you came from like?' 'Horrible! The people were mean, always selfish, angry, sad..' 'Sorry ma'am, much the same in the next town '. A little while later another woman pulled up, same question, he gave the same question back. "Oh they were wonderful! Sweet, kind, helpful, always so loving!'. 'Good news ma'am, the people where you're going are much the same!'
That's basically where I began, stories like these, trying to grok them, then live them. There's not but it was a good start. There are some places and situations where it's harder to, lived through some of them, but they always improve things a bit. And I still love worldly things too - I have stuff, I have lovers, I go to festivals and indulge my basest desires.. Those things add to happiness though, not bliss. Happiness comes and goes but you always return to your baseline after. If you ignore that baseline you can't hang on to happiness - it only exists in the moment. If you raise that baseline to bliss though it won't feel like happiness... It feels different, I can't quite describe it, it's like that instant when you are driving after a storm and you see the sunset making all the buildings glow while outlined against a great sky, and you pause and you have no words but you feel.. full. From that place happiness is really easy to reach, you can go even higher, though you'll never feel as much need for it.
I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone, or if it helps, but there were a lot of sad people on this week.. maybe this will help one of them, at least aim them toward more useful practices. If nothing else know that happiness and bliss are out there, they can be reached by everyone, you can reach them
A Shogun walked to a famous monk one day seeking a perfect life. The monk pondered the question and said 'Imagine you were to know you would die in a year, what would you differently today? What if you knew you would die in a month? Tomorrow? When the answer is nothing, you have found a perfect life.
You can build a perfect life from these three questions and I try to live by them.
A samurai walked to a monk one day and demanded to be shown heaven and hell. Instead, the monk began mocking him, laughing at how short his sword was, his unkept hair. The samurai grew enraged and drew his weapon to strike him down. The monk nodded: 'this is hell'. The samurai paled and dropped his sword, dropped to his knees to apologize. 'this is heaven'
A woman was driving a long highway and stopped for gas. She asked the attendant 'I'm moving, what's the next town along the way like?'. 'what was the one you came from like?' 'Horrible! The people were mean, always selfish, angry, sad..' 'Sorry ma'am, much the same in the next town '. A little while later another woman pulled up, same question, he gave the same question back. "Oh they were wonderful! Sweet, kind, helpful, always so loving!'. 'Good news ma'am, the people where you're going are much the same!'
That's basically where I began, stories like these, trying to grok them, then live them. There's not but it was a good start. There are some places and situations where it's harder to, lived through some of them, but they always improve things a bit. And I still love worldly things too - I have stuff, I have lovers, I go to festivals and indulge my basest desires.. Those things add to happiness though, not bliss. Happiness comes and goes but you always return to your baseline after. If you ignore that baseline you can't hang on to happiness - it only exists in the moment. If you raise that baseline to bliss though it won't feel like happiness... It feels different, I can't quite describe it, it's like that instant when you are driving after a storm and you see the sunset making all the buildings glow while outlined against a great sky, and you pause and you have no words but you feel.. full. From that place happiness is really easy to reach, you can go even higher, though you'll never feel as much need for it.
I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone, or if it helps, but there were a lot of sad people on this week.. maybe this will help one of them, at least aim them toward more useful practices. If nothing else know that happiness and bliss are out there, they can be reached by everyone, you can reach them
41-45, M