From: tt@wag.caltech.edu (Toshi Takeuchi)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Our desires and our way of life....
Date: 7 Jan 1993 00:22:21 -0800
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gap.caltech.edu

Hello all!

It's been quite a while since my last post...
I have been going through quite a few changes in my life.  I will try
to describe some of the things that I have been thinking about in my
upcoming posts.

The main concept that I have been struggling with is perfectly captured
by one of my favorite quotes:


                  You are what your deep driving desire is.
           As your desire is, so is your will.  As your will is,
           so is your deed.  As your deed is, so is your destiny.
                  Brihadaranyaka IV.5 (The Upanishads)

--The content of the quote seems so logical, and yet we do not necessarily
  grasp the full meaning of it!

---------------------------------------------------------

Let's think about what TV, movies etc... want us to desire.

All the TV commercials, and the portrayal of the "Rich and Famous" show
that you need to HAVE THINGS in order to be happy.

You need that brand new sports car, or that fine luxury sedan, or that
powerful 4wd vehicle.

You need the fine clothes and the sparkling jewelry.

You need the big house with fancy furniture and giant TV and stereo.

And don't forget, we need that "great looking", athletic, trim, individual
to be our mate.

--If these things are what we want, then ALL OUR LIVES will be spent
  trying to satisfy these desires!

--We may think about love and compassion and helping others AS LONG AS it
  does NOT conflict with our having enough stuff, buying that new computer,
  buying that new car, or getting that beautiful person to date you.

-------------------

The point that I am trying to emphasize is that we live in consumer 
society.  If we can get "things" to keep us occupied, then we are
happy.

It's like that post that's been discussed in sre:

I'm happy!  I am wealthy, healthy, and happily married.  What is this stuff
about suffering?  There is no suffering in my life, so why worry about
these Buddhist principles?

You see, this is how we are trained!

GOOD= wealthy, healthy.....
BAD=  destitute, sick....

As long as I maintain GOOD, then who cares about the rest?

--The point is that we are so busy maintaining that GOOD aspect of life!
--We are terrified of BAD, and work so hard spending all of our life
  making sure that we don't live the BAD side of life.
--There is little room for unconditional love, compassion....

-------------------------------------------------

Second point:

One of the great principles that I learned from Buddhism is that change
brings pain.

If I am attached to being wealthy, and I lose my wealth, then I SUFFER
when I am no longer wealthy.

In order to truly end suffering, we need to live freely without attachments.

(Yeah right!)

--Meditation actually may train the mind so that some of our attachments
  become unimportant!!

--When you start to become in contact with your true_nature/God/Universal_force
  then having a new compact disk seems trivial!

Please meditate and contemplate some of these principles 
if you have the time....

Toshi
tt@wag.caltech.edu