Making a post in lieu of eating chocolate

[charliesmum]

Nothing like 3:30 on a Monday to make a person's mind wander.

I have a 2nd interview on April 13th so...yay, I guess. I mean, yeah, yeah, it seems like an okay job, but I so didn't want to be going through this again. Heavy sigh.

A couple of nice Dalai Lama quotes from my calendar that I thought I'd share - maybe if the spirit moves ya'll you could comment on what your interpretation of these quotes would be.

Political leaders need to inculate more spiritual values than those sages living on the mountaintops

The essence of Buddhism is if you can, help others. If not, th an at least refrain from hurting others This I like. I mean that's not asking a lot of a person, right? So it should be simple.

and finally, The most important thing is to promote compassion and positivism

In other non-news, I had the weirdest dream last night. The essence of the dream is totally lost in translation, but the crux of it was I was in some sort of otherworld where all different mythologies converged. It was sort of a waiting room, or a shop, and you could sort of pick which door you would want to go through to join different worlds.

And, just because I can, here's a cute photo of Charlie from the weekend.

Comments

[zambonigirl.livejournal.com]

Can you hold him still long enough so that I can kiss him and ruffle his hair a bit? You can let him go exactly afterwards, I won't blame him for wiping his cheek off and glaring for a moment before running off to play some more.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

*makes inchoherant squealing noises when she sees the picture.*

The dream sounds cool. Wouldn't that be cool if there were actually something like that?

[lizzyrose89.livejournal.com]

Good luck with your interview next week. And Charlie is so cuuuuuute! He's gorge!

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

The essence of the dream is totally lost in translation, but the crux of it was I was in some sort of otherworld where all different mythologies converged. It was sort of a waiting room, or a shop, and you could sort of pick which door you would want to go through to join different worlds.

Sounds a lot like milliways_bar.

I don't really understand what the Dalai Lama is talking about.

Political leaders need to inculate more spiritual values than those sages living on the mountaintops

The first one threw me because I thought that "inculate" was a misspelled version of "inoculate." Then I looked it up. "To impress something on the mind of another by means of repetition or frequent instruction."

I'm still not sure what it means. Does it mean that political leaders need to impress spiritual values on the public more than sages on mountaintops do? Does it mean that spiritual values should be impressed on political leaders by constant repetition? Whose spiritual values? And who should do the impressing?

And WHY should they be indoctrinated with spiritual values? I remember when Ronald Reagan introduced James Watt to Congress saying, "James Watt is a God-fearing Westerner and a fourth-generation rancher." I knew EXACTLY what Mark Russell meant when he said, "Gee, I was hoping for a first-generation atheist tie salesman from Syracuse."

Also, I've noticed that political leaders who are fierce believers in their religions tend to be far more dangerous to the rights of others than non-believers. No offense, Dalai, but I don't really WANT to live in a theocracy. Especially as most religious zealots (of whatever religion) consider women to be second-class citizens at best.

The most important thing is to promote compassion and positivism

I looked up "positivism" too. It means "a doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought."

That doesn't sound like what Buddhists believe. I think that he probably was talking about the state of being positive. But even that runs into some problems, because "positive" has a lot of different definitions. Does he mean that people should be optimistic? Situations don't always call for optimism. Or does "positive," in the eyes of the Lama, mean "admitting of no doubt"? Isn't being that confident--one might say dogmatic--sometimes unwise, spiritually? Does it mean "relating to formal laws"? But didn't Siddhartha walk away from formal religion and formal laws? Is he talking about affirmative elements and characteristics? If so, which ones?

I suspect that the Lama knows so well what he means that he finds it impossible to explain to others. It's so ultra-clear to him that it doesn't occur to him that anyone would need further clarification.