blog title too short

So, I need to make some money. My life is kinda crappy right now. It doesn't seem like I have all that many options.

I am a very peaceful person but other than any violent aspects, I think I could make a pretty good soldier.

I am not really looking for anything very long term, I just need a place to live and a source of income to pay back my debts. I want to become a monk after my debts have been paid.

Any opinions/experiences? Thanks

I want to get high

so seriously, help me figure out how to make a flame to take hits from my bong

I have no lighter or matches and have 0 money on me and no one is around.

all I have is toilet paper, paper towels, notebook paper, electrical outlets, a cheap lighter with no fuel in it, an oven, and electric stove


heeeeeeeeeeeelp

First half, he introduces that he thinks he is going to be a schizophrenic, and that he has introductory symptoms. I bring up buddhism and cessation of suffering through annihilation of the ego.

+ Show Spoiler +

ME says:
what is it for you?
ME says:
what's it like that is so bad?

MY FRIEND says:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/earlysigns.htm
MY FRIEND says:
i have most

ME says:
ok but what is it
ME says:
that's bad
ME says:
that makes u suffer

MY FRIEND says:
i feel no emotion
MY FRIEND says:
only stress
MY FRIEND says:
cant really feel good
MY FRIEND says:
i feel dreamlike

ME says:
are you unable to relax?

MY FRIEND says:
have no desires
MY FRIEND says:
yes
MY FRIEND says:
have no feeling
MY FRIEND says:
at all
MY FRIEND says:
all i do is sleep

ME says:
so then you aren't unhappy ?

MY FRIEND says:
and sit at the computer
MY FRIEND says:
mm
MY FRIEND says:
id say i am unhappy
MY FRIEND says:
i can feel somewhat bad

ME says:
ok well...
ME says:
you aren't sad
ME says:
i guess
ME says:
?

MY FRIEND says:
frustrated
MY FRIEND says:
tired

ME says:
yeah I have been like this a lot too

MY FRIEND says:
desperate

ME says:
well, how i was before adderall
ME says:
except now im quite a bit better
ME says:
I can tell you what I have done to make it better

MY FRIEND says:
did you read the symptoms

ME says:
ok i will right now
ME says:
--The inability to experience joy or pleasure from activities (called anhedonia)
ME says:
has been the worst for me
ME says:
my whole life ive struggled with this

MY FRIEND says:
i wouldnt be surprised if you matched a lot of the symptoms

ME says:
u don't have hallucinations right?

MY FRIEND says:
no
MY FRIEND says:
had some delusions though

ME says:
have u spent time

MY FRIEND says:
if they werent delusions
MY FRIEND says:
then were living in a matrix
MY FRIEND says:
which is actually quite possible
MY FRIEND says:
and likely

ME says:
naw i don't think so
ME says:
i have reason to believe it isn't so
ME says:
you have spent time analyzing yourself and exploring your own consciousness?
ME says:
right?

MY FRIEND says:
yes

ME says:
I think you're just waking up, and that is hard
ME says:
you need to get in touch with the source of your experiences as much as possible
ME says:
you know, when you are really focused, and your ego disappears
ME says:
do you know what im talking about?

MY FRIEND says:
well
MY FRIEND says:
i dont have an ego
MY FRIEND says:
anymore

ME says:
well i dont believe that
ME says:
if you didn't have an ego you wouldn't have anything to complain about

MY FRIEND says:
i felt i lost it on lsd actually

ME says:
if you are unhappy you definitely have an ego

MY FRIEND says:
thats a buddhist concept
MY FRIEND says:
that doesnt seem true to me

ME says:
well it seems true to me and i wish it seemed true to you because it's where my improvement in life has come from

MY FRIEND says:
yah if you want to not feel anything
MY FRIEND says:
i dont call this an improvement

ME says:
tell me
ME says:
if this makes sense to you
ME says:

ME says:
it gets to the point when he starts talking about the blue jay
ME says:
don
ME says:
don't you wonder why you are unhappy?
ME says:
you think it's just a material thing that you can't change only with your mind ?

MY FRIEND says:
im listening to a song now
MY FRIEND says:
later

ME says:
i
ME says:
will become enlightened
ME says:
and show you that it's real and worth doing

MY FRIEND says:


ME says:
if you're unhappy it's because you want something you've had before
ME says:
i'd think
ME says:
if u don't want to talk about this stuff it's fine

MY FRIEND says:
i dont mind

ME says:
if you had food
ME says:
to live
ME says:
and shelter to keep you warm
ME says:
and nothing else
ME says:
and no responsibilities
ME says:
you would still have that unhappiness right?

MY FRIEND says:
yes

ME says:
do you wonder why that is?

MY FRIEND says:
i do

ME says:
in that situation, shouldn't you be able to be happy anyways?
ME says:
in any given moment you aren't sad right? I think I understand because I am so similar to you.
ME says:
I think it's because you want to be happier
ME says:
that you are unhappy
ME says:
it's a wanting things to be different
ME says:
that causes the negative aspects of how you feel
ME says:
it is certainly impossible to feel bad
ME says:
if you give no attention to how you feel

MY FRIEND says:
hmm
MY FRIEND says:
thats interesting
MY FRIEND says:
ive smoked a bit
MY FRIEND says:
and when you said
MY FRIEND says:
about wanting things to be different
MY FRIEND says:
i kinda stopped doin git
MY FRIEND says:
and felt better
MY FRIEND says:
immediately
MY FRIEND says:
it wont disappear that easily but
MY FRIEND says:
seems like youre right

ME says:
Something else I would recommend
ME says:
is to try very hard to be thankful for things, and appreciate
ME says:
each and every little thing
ME says:
be happy about each and every thing
ME says:
if you are in a good mood, it is much easier to see
ME says:
that everything is great, every little thing is a gift
ME says:
but we can still condition ourselves to see things that way, even if life is hard for us
ME says:
just spend time, look at a tree, see how beautiful it is and what a gift that is
ME says:
or feel your body, that you can feel sensation. what a gift that is
ME says:
if you get good enough at it, everything is a gift. even pain
ME says:
to simply be able to feel anything
ME says:
is a blessing
ME says:
and if you condition yourself to think this way
ME says:
it is eventually true
ME says:
and if you are looking at everything positively
ME says:
it really doesn't matter what other people think of things, for you, life is beautiful and great
ME says:
but that takes time and effort
ME says:
and requires you to stop and put effort into it
ME says:
when you are feeling down

MY FRIEND says:
interesting

ME says:
Even if you have uncurable schizophrenia and eventually you were a total lunatic, I think you can still change your views to the point where life is great and something you appreciate

And I want to say, thanks to the people who wished me happy birthday in that thread last year. I wasn't actually around for it, and I discovered it like 2 months later, lol. But thanks.

I currently have this ringing in my ears... I went to this battle of the bands thing last night and got too close to the stage I think and it was real loud, and now even 14 hours later and after sleeping this ringing in my ears won't go away.

Oh well, time to make some stir fry and then have a nap.

I love sleeping. It feels great. I mean really really great.

I love being in the intermediate state between sleeping and awake. I am aware, but I am not connected enough to the world to care about anything that's going on. That's what feels the most pleasant to me.

When I first wake up, I immediately want to go back to sleep. And so I do. I generally try to go back to sleep over and over until I eventually can't and that's when I finally get out of bed.

I like the feeling of being asleep/drifting to sleep so much that this morning I got up, did stuff for like an hour, and then proceeded to take a nap. During this nap I woke up like 4 different times, and just went back to sleep each time. It felt awesome.

Does anyone else think sleep kicks ass?

ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.4GHZ --- 2 of these, so dual processor i guess

Radeon X1950 Crossfire Edition
Radeon X1950 Crossfire Edition

a fast CD/DVDW - i dnt know the speeds

300 GB 5400 rpm HD
140 GB 10000 rpm HD

3 GB Corsair ram DDR2 800

standard nice case




and on the side I also have a 21" wide screen apple monitor that is still pretty nice even though its like 4 years old. but the back of it is broken (the stand part). i dunno how much that would detract from it's value. it was really expensive when i bought it


ok the end

Have any of you guys played this game before?

It's such an awesome card game. It takes a very deep level of strategy, but also there is considerable luck involved.

For those who know how to play Bridge, it is like bridge on crack.

Really it is too complicated to explain if you don't know how to play Bridge, but if you do, it is Bridge except

1.) There are wizard cards. These cards are better than trump cards, and can be played at any time. There are 4 of them. The first person to play a wizard card wins the trick.

2.) There are jester cards. These cards are lower in value than anything and assure that you lose the trick. They also can be played at any time. They are great to block having to play a card of a certain suit(especially trump cards).

3.) First round, everyone gets 1 card. They bid on how many tricks they will win. Every round, everyone gets 2 cards, and then bidding. 3rd round, 3 cards. This continues until the final round, which will be like 10th to 20th round, depending on number of players. Trump suit is determined by flipping over the top card of the deck, after hands are dealt. If a wizard is flipped, dealer picks the trump suit. If a jester is flipped, there is no trump suit.


It really is an amazing game, I suggest anyone who likes card games to check it out.

Ok guys, I am going to try to give a brief lesson on the concept of rebirth in Buddha's teachings. It will be a 2 parter, with this first part introducing the basics.

First I would like to address some misconceptions about what rebirth is/is not.

Rebirth is not reincarnation. It is not the dying of a body and then it coming back to life.

Rebirth is also not the dying of a body and then coming back to life as another body. There is no soul in Buddha's teachings.

So then you may ask, what is reborn? Well, to explain this, I will first introduce the skandas.

The skandas are 5 elements(parts, classes of phenomena, whatever u want to call them) which make up what we experience in our lives. The skandas are manifested into experience through desire, but this is complicated and will probably be delved into in lesson 2.

The 5 skandas are classified as follows:

1.) Form (not particularily important to the lesson)

2.) Feelings (emotion, sensation)

3.) Perceptions (what you think of the feelings - like or dislike, etc)

4.) Volition (intent of your actions. karma is a result of this)

5.) Consciousness (your mental state, it is comprised of many mental factors, Theravada Buddhism separates it into 52 different mental factors)



Ok, so these 5 skandas are what comprise everything you experience. So, in reality, they are what you are. You are the 5 skandas, nothing more. Everything you feel, percieve, believe, remember, experience, it's all just the skandas. You are your skandas.

But the skandas actually come as a result of something else. The skandas are the result of craving. I will give an example, for the sake of simplicity I will choose an easy one to understand.

The 2nd skanda, feelings. When you feel pleasure, it is the 2nd skanda. Now - feeling this pleasure - it is actually the result of a craving to feel the pleasure. It is only because we are so blinded and distracted that we don't realize this. This is the kind of stuff monks are figuring out when they spend all their time meditating - they are seeing past these illusions. But I digress, this blog post could end up running on forever.

The reason this is relevant to rebirth is that what is being reborn, over and over, is actually craving. It is craving that the skandas result from, and so it is craving that our experiences result from. So when Buddha taught about rebirth, he was actually talking about the death of craving, and it's rebirth.

To put this in terms relevant to our physical bodies - when we die there is a death of this craving. Desire for sensation, for the various experiences - ends. Temporarily. But the craving comes back.

The craving comes back and the desire to experience manifests as experience. In doing so, the experiences must have a form - and so they do. That form is a physical body. Understand that this craving has no physical bounds, it is untied to the physical world. But to experience the skandas, there must be a link to the physical world.

So, when you die, your cravings end and then they come back, they are reborn. And so the skandas are reborn. And so, depending on the skandas, they may be attached to a physical form - a body.

And this is what Buddha means when he talks of a person being reborn as another person. There is no soul or self moving, just the elements that result from the craving that was left behind when the body died.


Ok, I hope this isn't too hard to follow. I will write part 2 some time, I don't know when.

Feel free to write questions or comments. The end.

I sleep an awfully lot. I always have. In my teens it was because I enjoyed sleep more than being awake. It was a respite from the way i felt, from confusion and anxiety and stress that lurked just below the surface of my conscious mind. I wouldn't want to wake up in the mornings. But now it just seems to happen naturally.

I had a strange dream this morning. It started with me talking to a friend of mine from college. We were going to go to a bar, I wanted to discuss life with him. Suddenly we were on a school bus. The bus was basically filled with significant friends and peers from the various stages of my life. Maybe 15-20 different people I recognized - from my life-long best friend to a kid who picked on me during middle school.

The bus was on top of a mountain, being driven down it, but the road was way too steep and it seemed like we were all going to die. I directed everyone to put their hands out the windows and grab onto the side of the mountain to slow our descent, which saved us. Then I woke up.

I don't know what to make of this dream, but I woke up in an interesting mood. It made me think about my life, about the choices I have made and what my life is currently like.

My life is very hard. I don't know if this is just chance, or if it is of my own making. I have made many mistakes, learned many lessons the hard way. I never was any good at taking advice from others, I have to experience it for myself. I never felt like I had a natural purpose in life, and my goals had to be made up just so I would have a point to doing anything. I never held onto attachments to people, and I have treated many people in my past with less respect and courtesy than I would like to admit. I have spent most of my life very confused, and if I could go back things would be much different.

But I can't, and so I look ahead. I know this is just rambling right now but there isn't really any other way I'd like to write this stuff. It's just gotta come out I guess. I am 24, and I don't know wtf I am doing. I am focused right now on continuing to play poker and getting out of debt. I think I am doing a good job of it now.

But once I am out of debt, what then? What is the purpose of this life for me. Do I really want to be a buddhist monk, and devote my life to emptiness, giving up everything based in the material and sensation in this world? Leaving behind my connections to all the people I have known who have influenced me?

I can't remember my younger years as a child. But I know at some point I became separated from my parents. When I was maybe 10 years old I broke a small mirror that belonged to my mother, and I started to cry. She hugged me and said that it was ok. I remember wishing she hugged me like that more often. Parents make mistakes too, they are human just like their children.

I guess I will stop rambling now. I wonder if I have said anything of value to any of you. I guess it doesn't matter much. Is life so difficult for everyone? Maybe I care too much. I remember when I was young, deciding I would aspire to greatness. The greatest thing I thought I could accomplish is to figure out my role in this world, what I am, and how to be as happy as possible. I have always wished for that. But life is distracting.

I wish the best for everyone. I think my general lack of emotion catches up to me during moments like this. I am not particularily sad - and even if I was i would not want pity. This blog is not meant to be "emo". It is just the truth, as honest as I can be.

Sometimes I think that maybe I... think too much. But I can't help it. One day I will be ready to stop, but not yet I guess.

so im doing a pullup workout on my hangboard
and im in the process of doing a front lever. and suddenly the hangboard rips from the wall.

note to self, use longer screws

as im falling my immediate thought is "oh fuck". my arms were up so what slams into the ground first is just the upper middle part of my back. hurt quite a bit.


then a half second later the hangboard comes down. and it lands directly on my chin, before it hits anything else. it hit my chin so hard it broke it into 2 pieces.

i yell "help" a few times, cuz my sister is there and she is a doctor. i knew i prolly wasn't hurt TOO bad cuz i was able to yell anything lol. but i couldn't really move for the time being.

anyways she said an ambulance should come. they came and they checked me out, long story short I am ok and I chose not to go to the hospital, but I am not allowed to go to sleep for the next 12 hours.

I'd add pics but I don't have a camera. nothing real exciting to look at anywyas. jsut a broken hangboard and a swollen bloody chin.

ok here is a pic(not mine). this is what the hangboard looks like, in 1 piece that is:



mine is blue tho hehe