Long Time

I know it's been a long time since my last post. Lots of stuff has happened and I've been very busy with school, but I hope that regularity will now follow.

Teachers continue to come and go. Classes are unpredictable and sometime unintelligible. School is reorganizing with new administration punctuated by school functions and events. Island life never really changes but offers peace in the form of diving and hiking for me. Looks  like we are open in Summer, but beyond that is anyone's guess.

I think it's time for some Buddhist balance and perspective.

"If we use our human life to accomplish spiritual realizations, it becomes increasingly meaningful.  Thus by using our human life for gaining spiritual realizations we can solve all our human problems and fulfill all our own and others' wishes. What could be more meaningful than this?"- Spiritually I'm still in the "right" place and finishing the basic science years is still the "realization".

"The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we will be happy all of the time, regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in anyway, we will never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be." - I'm not quite there yet. I still have expectations that are not fulfilled, but I'm getting better at realizing that school can never provide everything we need. How close they come is a matter or daily gradations.

"If we respond to difficulties with a positive or peaceful mind, they would not be problems for us. Eventually we might even regard them as challenges or opportunities for growth and development. Problems arise only if we respond to situations with a negative state of mind. Therefore if we want to transform our life and be free of problems, we must learn to transform our mind." - Sound so easy, but the exam we take at the end of this process is make or break, and all important. It is hard not to hang that success or failure on what happens now, but "positive and peaceful" is clearly the goal. That school can provide everything we need is a delusion, a bad mental habit, and that habit can be broken.

"Delusions are just bad mental habits, and like all habits they can be broken. With no delusions remaining in our mind, there is nothing that can disturb our inner peace and joy."  - Gyatso