In order to make me a little saner, I'll be breaking these questions up over the period of a few days between now and my next phone interview.
1. In your own words, how would you teach the Four Noble Truths? Be sure to define the following words: dukha, samudaya, tanha (Trishna), nirodha, and marga.
The first Noble Truth is that of dukha, which, to put simply and crassly, that life, indeed, sucks. Dukha is directly translated into the word "suffering" but suffering might be a little too extreme as to what dukha exactly is. Dukha is just the acknowledgment that life throws your lemons. It's actually really transformative - when you get lemons thrown your way, you can either make them into lemonade or you can sit there with a pucker on your face. Dukha is only painful and full of suffering if we allow it to be.
The second Noble Trush is that of samudaya. Samudaya can be desire, or can be craving. When we realize that we are craving (Tanha), or desiring certain things, the more discontent we are with what we have, or do not have. I truly believe that our capitalistic, consumeristic culture is based on the concept of Samudaya - creating a culture of must-haves and can't-live-withouts. It's why you see people killing each other in Best Buy over a flat screen in Boxing Day. So to sum up the first two Noble Truths, life sucks, and human beings, by nature, are built to desire and want things. It's what keeps us alive as a species, and also contributes to our suffering.
Nirodha is the third Noble Truth, and nirodha helps us cease our cravings, wants, and desires. We can end our suffering by eliminating the cause of our suffering. For example: We decide to put out hand on a stove top that is on. Our hand starts to burn. We can take our hand off of the range, eliminating our discomfort. So to sum up the first three Noble Truths: life sucks, because of it sucking we desire to end it, and by stopping what it causing us to suffer, we can end suffering.
The forth, and last Noble Truth is Magga, which literally means "the way" or "the path". We are all each on our own separate journey to achieving samadhi, and each one of our paths has different twists, turns, thorns and resting points. In order to get to where we want to be, we have to know where we are going. This is where calming and quieting our minds come in. We must practice to achieve the end-results we want in our practice and our journey. None of the first three Noble Truths are going to serve us any good if we don't pause to consider the path we walk.
In summation of all four truths, the Buddha (can I call him Bud? Cuz that would be funny) states that life sucks, and we thirst to end our suffering. We can directly end our suffering by stopping what causes our suffering, and we can do this by taking a personal journey through insight and mindfulness.
I read Larry Rosenberg's Breath by Breath awhile ago and thought I'd write my response on this, as this particular book really resonated with me.
I really liked Larry's approach to mindfulness - laid back, come as you are, etc. I appreciated his anecdotes while on his journey into insight, as it helped me feel like I wasn't the only person experiencing difficulty in practicing, difficulty in sitting, finding stillness, etc.
When I read this book, I wanted to kind of take his approach and have a more laid back, accepting practice with myself. While I believe that I've done this, at the same time I did notice sometimes I would be too accepting with my practice. While I have gone through periods in the past six months where I really haven't had time to sit and be still because life sucks ;), I do think there were times where I really should have "just sat" instead of being all "Well I'm tired and that's how things are so I'm going to use these 30 minutes to nap instead of sit."
I think most of all I appreciated that he wrote about things in such a way that made it easy for me to understand what mindfulness is all about. I felt after reading his book it was the first time I actually understood the path I was on, and why I was doing what I was doing. It isn't really any one specific thing, but more that I had many ground breaking moments while reading his take on the teachings, and those little "ah ha!" moments were what made me want to continue down this path after my initial struggle with the first three months of training. I guess to say, mindfulness became more accessible to me after reading this book. That is something I am extremely grateful for... I think we're due for another re-read!
Tonight, the world has lost a passionate musician, a wonderful friend, and one of my most influential teachers.
Bobby Green was my choral director in high school from sophomore to senior year. He taught me so much of what I know about music and ignited within me a passion and a love for singing, which I still have today. Mr. Green had been sick for quite some time with an inoperable brain tumour. Last year around this time he was given three weeks to live. In the following five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes, he traveled all over the world, completed his goal of visiting all 50 US states, and inspired so many people with his fight.
For ten years he was at Fremd High School, inspiring generations of budding musicians. More importantly that creating music, he helped instill a sense of community among the choirs, bands, and orchestras. He reached out to former alumni he didn't even know and invited them back for alumni events, to concerts, and even to sing on the stage at some of our shows. I truly believe a lot of what he helped to create at Fremd prepared me for both my Moksha Sanghas.
Mr. Green helped me through some extremely dark times as a teenager. He didn't turn and run in the opposite direction. His patience and preseverence and his kindness during those times are something I have never, ever, forgotten.
He helped me to become the musician I am today. Every time I sing, or any one of his students sings, his music will live on. I know he is definitely in my heart and in my soul. I hope that his Heaven is full of music, and tonight, there's a bright new star in the sky. I truly hope that wherever he is, he's singing right along with those heavenly angels.
If I can be half the musician he was, and touch half as many lives as he did, I feel like my work on earth will be done. It's been incredible to look at the outpouring of love he's receiving on his facebook wall, and I feel so lucky to have known him as well. It makes my heart swell with joy to read all the messages of those lives he's touched and continues to do so. Everything really is impermanent, however, I feel that through music, his soul and his spirit can live on in all of his students.
Thank you, Mr. Green, for your music. Thank you for teaching my soul to sing. Because of that, my heart soars. Every time I sing, you will be right there in my heart. I am a better person for having known you.
Love you always,
Kari
7h20
20 minutes
Tried to focus on loving kindness meditation, sending it to myself and loved ones. I found myself focusing more on me than on loved ones. I need a hug >.< I forgot how draining the work that I do is... noticed over the past couple weeks how my patience outside of work has become shorter, how I tend to short circuit with those I care about, and my unwillingness to want people to rely on me for choir-related things.
Reflecting on how, now that I'm back to multitasking lots again, I forget things, am not present, am not mindful... it's like I'm currently existing between two worlds and am having trouble combining both of them. I think I'm reacting better to stress (example: have yet to break down but do feel like I'm going to if next week is as awful as this week was) and I don't want to know how I'd be if yoga and meditation weren't in my life... not even as a daily practice, but as a semi regular one. Daily sits and daily yoga practice is suffering though, and I feel tight and wound up. My knees were pretty uncomfortable on my cushion today. Feet fell asleep in halves and found myself getting really angry at that.
Oh, life.
Month five project forthcoming.
Sits have consisted of "sitting" at ten minute intervals as I am too busy to take a half hour chuck out of my day, and I already get up at 5 am! Sit involve me being highly impatient, feeling like I'm not getting anything accomplished, and sometimes dissolving into fits of giggles.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm going crazy.
And I need to start project ALMOST DONE, which is what I have nicknamed it. Next month. Between full time work, full time teaching, and a music gig every night, I'm a slave to my own commitments from here until December 28th.
Shoot me.