So I Was Thinking About Everything…

About two years ago I adopted a Mahayana Buddhist lifestyle. I began visiting a Buddhist temple to meditate and learn how to make others happy and, in turn, myself as well.

Before you make any assumptions, in the case that you do, I hope you’ll understand that I am in no way any sort of “hipster” because of my conversion. Rather, I am simply always looking for a way to be happy. I think the first step to being capable of being happy all of the time is of course open mindedness, a skill that led me to Buddhism in the first place.. Anyone could tell you that open mindedness is important, and you probably already knew that anyway! If you are open minded you are inclined to observe, question, and apply without bias. Given you are able to do this, open mindedness is not only the most essential building block to achieving true happiness, but it can also become the most valuable tool for just about everything you ever do for the rest of your entire life.

You are probably saying to yourself “Yes, I know this. Everyone knows this. As a matter of fact I’m already like that!”

Perfect! Then you are ready to read the rest of this.

First… I have a controversial request of you. Bear with me and forget your religion for just the duration of this essay. I’m not asking you to believe in anything other than what you already do believe in, I’m only asking for open mindedness. Keep your mind open and evaluate what I have to say. Use good reason to decide whether you like or dislike what I think. It’s ok to disagree, but I think this remains a valuable thing to consider everything as a possibility using your unbiased, intelligent, open mind. And that is exactly what I am going to discuss; considering possibilities.

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Discovering and practicing Buddhism got me into the habit of meditating for about an hour a day every day. I’ve been doing this for a while now, and it’s become my favorite part of the day. At first it seemed difficult to enjoy because living in the city makes you a fidgety-overstimulated-ass with a terrible spontaneous case of attention deficit disorder. But as it turns out the real reason I had a hard time enjoying it was because I didn’t know what meditation was supposed to be about.

Meditation is not any of the following:

-An opportunity to:

Forget the world
Observe silence
Become aware of your physical body
Sit like a pretzel
Fall asleep

What meditation IS about:

Casually thinking.
Casually wondering.

With this, I dug up a wonderful seed of an idea for the ultimate answer to pure happiness.

The answer is wonder itself.

I’ve decided that the answer to leading the most wondrous life possible is somewhere between 0 and ∞.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but hold your mind open and listen! I’ll explain this in more detail later.

Now if you’ve made it thus far, you’ve obviously got an open mind, which as I said is the first essential step to achieving a happy mind! But we need to move on to the next step: Acceptance. This is huge, quite literally. Consider accepting that humans are not as awesome as we think we are. Accept the potential size of the universe. The size of the universe for instance is something we simply do not know. This is the basis to acceptance, accepting that we do not know. In the grand scheme of things we don’t really know anything at all actually, and we never will.

We don’t know the size of our universe.

We know about what’s called the observable universe. And by “know about” I mean “we can see”. We really know nothing about it. So who’s to say where the universe ends (if it does)?

We don’t know if there’s other lifeforms out there.

Sure there a great chances that there is an enormous conglomerate of lifeforms out there, but there also exists the chance that we are totally isolated and are the only biological existence in the universe. The point is that part of acceptance is being able to conceive the possibility of possibilities. In other words, with open mindedness accept that you don’t know so you can’t assume. Every possibility is a possibility for a reason. It’s possible. Whoa, too many possibilities, literally and figurat- well literally.

-Also, as a side-note: A little pet peeve of mine is scientists in search of alien life that don’t know acceptance. What I find most ignorant of these scientists is their tendency to insist that lifeforms across the universe must require oxygen and water. This doesn’t seem right. Those are the requirements for earth-life. Who are they to know what other undiscovered potential lifeforms require for sustenance? Why must these other possible and unknown lifeforms require the same things we do? This is a good example of the illusion of human significance.

We don’t know how many universes there are.

Parallel universes? Sure! Single universe? Also equally possible! Our universe is a giant illusion? Yea could be, why not!? Think about it, who are we to believe fully in any of these or anything when we just do not know?

When asking these questions and then considering and accepting the endless possibilities, the realization of human insignificance in the universe inevitably pops up.

Now think about the flaws of the human race whether it’s war, racism, religion, or any of the hundreds of problems we seem to have. The root of all evil here is inequality of course. Be it one race thinks it’s better than the other or one persons beliefs and thoughts are better than another’s, it’s all a matter of someone or some people thinking they are somehow more significant than the other.

If you ponder on the questions above the notion of human insignificance in the universe eliminates all reason to hate anyone. To put it bluntly, why would you hate anyone when you just don’t matter? In a kinder way, why would you waste your time hating anyone when you could be enjoying the wonder of the universe. Having fun by conjuring up and accepting the possibilities of everything instantly eliminates all reason to ever hate anyone or think less of anyone or anything on this planet.

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Now, what I meant by “the answer to leading the most wondrous life possible is somewhere between 0 and ∞” before is hopefully slightly more clear now. The answers to everything and anything are infinite, and accepting that is actually a wonderful feeling. It is literally the most wonderful thing ever. It is pure wonder. Whoa, overload on the wonder now.

But this is the third and final key step to happiness. Wonder. With open mindedness you are able to accept the possibilities of everything and thus bask in the wonder of it all.

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This concept has granted me the ability to love every single person on earth and enjoy every second of my essence and existence here. If that isn’t absolute happiness, my open mind is ready to hear what is.

Posted on May 26, 2012 with 1 note

Because I know you are all dying to see this.

Posted on May 24, 2012 with 4 notes

heavenandmacandcheese:

hookedonsemiotics:

bonjoursex:

nom-chompsky:

joegressivism:

shortformblog:

Today in Anderson Cooper making people look stupid simply by asking questions: This lady. It may be the best entry in this subgenre of news since this video. (via pbump)

Ignorant Bigot: Ignorant, Bigoted more at 11.

Anderson Cooper: If some people were talking about putting Jews behind electric fences, I imagine that would be of concern to you.

this bitch:

apparently not…

This was too painful not to share.

Stacey Pritchard

Stacey Pritchard

STACEY PRITCHARD

brb, gonna kill myself

This shit is outrageous. I think they just went to the least educated, most prejudiced redneck church they could find, and sought out the least educated, most prejudiced redneck person in that church to interview them. This is not what real Christians believe and this is not what the Bible says.