Upāsaka

You read or hear about something that claims to bring great benefits. You agree that practicing whatever it is will bring great benefits. As you comprehend the ideas, you find yourself nodding your head in agreement. You believe that what you are reading or hearing is true.

Once you have read the text or finished listening, you go back to playing video games, or browsing the web, or doing anything expect the great thing that will bring many benefits.

There is a disconnect. In your mind, you believe one thing, but in your actions you behave in opposition to those ideas.

When this is the case, you feel that something is not right every night when you go to bed. You feel like the day could have been better.

Instead of simply reading about or listening to ideas, and agreeing with them in your head, do yourself a favor and put those ideas into practice. Align your actions with your thoughts, and you'll fix the disconnect.

Buddhism and Christianity differ in their core beliefs. Nevertheless, while perusing the Bible out of curiosity, I found a number of verses that teach valuable lessons. Please pardon the archaic language. These verses have been copied from the King James Version, a translation of the Bible that was completed in 1611.

Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe [a man] with rags.

—Proverbs 23:20-21

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

—Matthew 5:27-28

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

—Matthew 6:19-21

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

—Luke 12:15

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

—1 Timothy 6:9-11

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

—2 Timothy 2:22

Frankology tells us to stop reading the news and to stop having conversations by email, and I couldn't agree more.

There are a number of reasons why reading the news is not helpful for someone who wants to improve themselves, whether from a personal development or a spiritual perspective. Steve Pavlina's list in “Overcoming News Addiction” is one that I always refer to when explaining my position. Among other reasons, he says that news is predominately negative, addictive, myopic, shallow, trivia, irrelevant. The one that stood out the most was that news is not actionable. It goes in one ear, possibly makes you angry or depressed, and goes out the other.

Dhamma Wheel, a Theravada Buddhist discussion forum, once had a section for “News, Current Events & Politics”. It was opt-out: you could check a box that said “No News Is Good News” if you did not want to see that section. There is no need for the checkbox anymore since that section of the forums has been closed.

I recall reading an interview with a monk, and he said that during his time at a monastery, which was measured in years, only two major pieces of news reached the monastery.

In general, it appears that those who are serious about following the Buddhist path eventually find that reading the news is not a wholesome use of their time.

In regards to email, I once listened to a monk give a talk, and at one point during the talk he described how he does not use email due to the unnecessary noise that it creates, or something along those lines. While most of us don't have the luxury of abandoning email in the modern world, we can certainly reduce our contribution to email noise. And that means taking the advice of Frankology and putting it into practice. “Use it to send what was previously sent by post or courier.”

Email takes a surprising amount of time. It's easy to pile up a queue of conversations to get back to because the nature of email doesn't require a person to respond immediately, unlike a phone call. Before you know it, thirty minutes have passed while searching for answers for someone, marking certain emails to be read later, glancing at others, and quite often being notified about things you either already know or frankly don't need to know. Cutting that down to ten minutes would free up twenty minutes, which could be used for meditation.

Cutting news and useless email out of one's life are wonderful, practical actions that benefit the meditation practice.

Thank you for the frank words, Frankology.

I came across this yesterday:

In what ways do you offer less than 100 percent dedication to awakening?
Learn what drains and diminishes your effort. Notice the effect of daily habits and entertainments on your meditation. Observe the effects that watching TV, engaging in gossip, or surfing the Web might have on your concentration. If you discover that an activity increases distraction or reduces your energy, you can do something different — engage in more supportive pursuits. Confront any obstacles that sap your strength and determination for practice.
Excerpt from: “Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana” by Pa-Auk.

For the greater part of this year, I have been trying to completely eliminate distraction (mostly in the form of entertainment) from my life. The longest I have gone is 27 days. Often, I end up binge watching YouTube videos on a weekend instead of practicing the Dhamma, meditating, or doing anything that will bring benefit in the long term such as learning a new skill or exercising.

When you begin meditating, you learn that in order to get the most out of the meditation practice, it must not end when the timer sounds and you get off the cushion. You must be mindful and develop concentration at all times. This complete dedication to the meditation practice is what brings the greatest fruits in this life and the next.

Last week was the last time I engaged in excessive sensual pleasures that only brought temporary satisfaction, not the long term happiness and equanimity that the Buddhist path enables. And I hope that I will never again willingly engage in these sorts of pleasures.

When a friend was showing me educational videos on YouTube, I suggested that he watch something that I considered to be “funny”, and he asked me “You watch this kind of stuff?” With this outside perspective, it struck me that what I was watching had little to no value. I was truly wasting my time. It wasn't even funny the second time around.

On the 24th of September, I will “break my record” for the number of days I have gone without engaging in fruitless entertainments. The goal is to keep track of this for one year, after which I hope to look back and wonder why I even considered wasting this life, which affords such a rare opportunity.

“Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?”
“It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.”
“It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
“Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'”
SN 56.48, Chiggala Sutta

When most people see a wasp inside their house, their first thought is to kill it.

In Buddhism, the first precept is to refrain from intentionally taking life, so when a wasp flew inside my house, it was the perfect challenge.

Instead of killing the wasp with a fly swatter, I waited until it landed on a window (most flying insects will do this eventually). When it did, I carefully opened the window, giving the wasp a large gap to fly out. Sure enough, it flew right out.

There have been two other occasions recently where I have done this with a fly and a moth.

Although it is not the fastest way to get rid of an unwanted guest, it certainly is the most compassionate way. After all, the insects don't want to be trapped inside a house, and they are not there to harm you. Why harm them?

For the longest time, my focus in life has been accumulating wealth in the form of money. However, I feel this is not compatible with the Buddhist path.

I am not against having a lot of money, if it happens to be that way. Throughout history, wealthy people have supported the monks and nuns so that they can dedicate their lives to studying, practicing, and teaching the Dhamma. There is no harm in having money as long as you do not cling to it.

Studies have shown that beyond a certain income level, happiness does not increase significantly, if at all. People disagree about what this income level is. I have seen anywhere from $75,000 to $200,000 per year. But the point is that there is no upper bound. If my only goal in life is to make a lot of money, I will never reach that goal because I can always get more. It is like an addiction. Once you have a little, you need a bigger dose to achieve the same pleasure.

The authors of a book I recently read, The Time Paradox, said this:

Time spent working is considered productive, while time spent being happy is considered wasted. Industry and economic success are prized over happiness in the minds of futures. But income in excess of what is required to meet basic needs does not bring happiness…Yet what is more important in life is more than skin-deep. It is a spiritual inner happiness that does not diminish over time.

This made me think about my priorities, and I realized that activities such as meditation were lower on my list of priorities than working a second job to make even more money.

This obsession with money is yet another aspect of my life that I can improve upon.

About one month ago, I came up with a few guidelines to help me focus on the Buddhist practice. The guidelines revolved around renunciation and limiting my use of the web to that which is necessary.

Later, I said that if I deviate from those guidelines, I must “punish” myself by not using my personal computer for one week. The idea was that losing access to my computer for one week would be unacceptable (I develop software for a living and for fun), and therefore I would not deviate from the guidelines.

However, I have deviated from the guidelines three times in the past month, so something is not working.

I found myself thinking that a week break would be good for me and using that as an excuse to binge on YouTube videos or whatever else may bring temporary pleasure.

Do you refrain from killing a person simply because it is against the law? Hopefully not. You should not kill a person because it harms you, the other person, and the community.

Applying this same thinking to my scenario, I should strive to follow the guidelines because it will be wholesome for my health, life, and Buddhist practice, not because there is some punishment for not following the guidelines.

A sign at Wat Pah Nanachat prohibits cameras and phones, and it's no surprise. In today's world, restricting the use of phones in monasteries and meditation centers is crucial to the development of an equanimous mind.

After reading Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, I realized that to fully practice the Buddha's teachings, one must limit their usage of the internet, specifically the web.

Carr's narrative brings together neuroscience and the history of technology to examine the effect that computers and the web have on our brains. Backed by research across several fields, Carr shows that when we go online, “we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.” He explains how connected computers offer “far more distractions than our ancestors had to contend with.” These distractions take time and energy away from meaningful pursuits.

Using the web almost every day for eight hours, sometimes more, has an effect on my mind that hinders the meditation practice, a time to bring the mind to a quiet focus, the complete opposite of what happens on the web. The more I use the web, the more I lose the ability to bring my mind to a contemplative state.

To remedy my overuse of the web, I added another rule to my previous post: to use devices with screens only between 8:00 and 16:00 (up to 8 hours per day). With work and school, I must make some exceptions, but in general this rule should help me stop scattering my mind.

1. May I observe the five precepts at all times.
2. May I observe Uposatha days.
3. May I single-task.
4. May I avoid distractions and entertainment.
5. May I sleep no more than 7.5 hours per night.
6. May I eat healthy vegan foods.
7. May I perform at least one act of generosity each month.
8. May I stand and sit with an upright posture.
9. May I take cold showers.
10. May I limit my use of computers and the web to education, work, research, and Dhamma.

A few days ago, I fell into the YouTube rabbit hole, watching video after video for several hours. Before I began watching, I told myself that after a few videos, I would be satisfied. After more than a few videos, I did not find the satisfaction that I was looking for.

In the Rājā Sutta, the Buddha says:

Any sensual bliss in the world, any heavenly bliss, isn't worth one sixteenth-sixteenth of the bliss of the ending of craving.

Going forward, I have two options when I find myself in a similar situation. I can either indulge in sensual pleasures, or I can strive for long-term happiness.

I created this blog for accountability. The title, Upāsaka, reflects the idea that I am going to practice the Dhamma more seriously from now on. I hope it will serve as inspiration for others to practice diligently as well.

Here are some blogs that inspired me to start this one:

• Dhamma Reflections
• Cattāri Brahmavihārā
• Zen Habits
• aberMinimal

At first, my plan was to create a blog similar to many of the “minimalism” blogs out there. However, there are plenty of those, and many of their authors actually stopped writing or gave up minimalism entirely. Minimalism is a broad concept that has no end. How do you know when you are minimalist enough?

After several years of reading about Theravada Buddhism, listening to Dhamma talks, practicing meditation, and following the five precepts (well, mostly—that is what this blog is for), now is a good time to sincerely dedicate myself to the Buddha's teachings as an upāsaka.