A Tit for a Tat (101)

Tit: Are you afraid to kill cockroaches because it creates bad karma?
Tat: I don’t kill them because they are afraid to die like us.
Tit: If all are like you, wouldn’t the world be overrun by cockroaches?
Tat: Firstly, not all are like me. Secondly, if we are more mindful, we wouldn’t attract or breed many cockroaches.

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Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/even-more-special

A Tit for a Tat (100)

Tit: Everyone should see someone as special.
Tat: Only one?
Tit: If not, that person wouldn’t be special.
Tat: Isn’t it more special to see two or more than one to be special?
Tit: Sounds like promiscuity!
Tat: What if everyone is seen as equally special?
Tit: Sounds like equanimity!

While the unenlightened seek special ’someones’
for mundane reasons,
the enlightened see everyone as special
for spiritual reasons [as all have Buddha-nature].

- Stonepeace

A reason why the Buddha is someone special
is because he truly sees everyone as special.

- Stonepeace

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/kockroach-karma
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/why-people-wear-toupees

A Tit for a Tat (99)

Tit: I wonder why people wear toupees when it looks so obvious that they are doing so.
Tat: As a rule, those who you spot to be wearing toupees must be obvious toupee-wearers.
Tit: What do you mean?
Tat: As a rule too, those who you don’t spot to be wearing toupees must be non-obvious toupee-wearers!
Tit: Huh?
Tat: You only see the obvious toupee-wearers while you miss the less obvious ones!
Tit: So people do wear toupees because they think it doesn’t look obvious that they are doing so!

Comments:

It might be easier said than done, but why not
embrace baldness graciously and not suffer due to it?

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/even-more-special
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/bizarre-baby-love

‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’, which is supposedly based on a true story (By Wade Davis) tells of a terrifying Haitian semi-scientific and semi-voodoo drug, that can induce a fake death syndrome, where the ‘deceased’ is seen to be thoroughly dead medically, who is not so at all. One might then be buried alive, but springs back to life while in a claustrophobic coffin a few feet underground. Sounds hellish? It is hell. Maybe due to being badly traumatised and cultural beliefs, and/or even truly due to the drug itself, survivors are said to become mindless zombies.

What is the Buddhist solution if one is infected by this drug? Given that you cannot move anything but your mind in the grave, practise mindfulness of (Amitabha) Buddha (nianfo) for divine help! And if one does become relatively mindless after crawling out of the grave, one should still practise mindfulness of Buddha – to rediscover one’s human and Buddha-nature, to regain normal mindfulness at least. And in the worst case scenario that one remains buried indefinitely, mindfulness of Buddha with the right faith and aspiration (and without attachment to the body) will lead to a swift rebirth in Pureland – away from the living hell. Amituofo!

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A Tit for a Tat (98)

Tit: He’s breaking up with her.
Tat: Why?
Tit: Because she doesn’t want to have a baby with him.
Tat: That’s it?
Tit: Uh huh…
Tat: Looks like he loves his non-existent baby more than his existing lover!
Tit: Now his lover doesn’t exist either!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/why-people-wear-toupees
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/its-better-but

A Tit for a Tat (97)

Tit: How’s your sore throat?
Tat: It’s better but am not sure if it’s permanent.
Tit: As if you will never get a sore throat again in your life!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/bizarre-baby-love
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/help-more-readily

When you’re born a lover
You’re born to suffer
Like all soul sisters and soul brothers…

I’m not looking for an easy ride
True happiness cannot be tried
So easily

- Depeche Mode (Goodnight Lovers)

We are reborn as lovers of Samsara, and suffer,
sometimes willingly and more often unwittingly,
even as we seek love and happiness.

If not, we wouldn’t be here…
unless we are Bodhisattvas
who are here to love unconditionally,
to rescue those trapped here.
But sometimes, we are in between?

True Love being Bodhisattva love that we strive to embody,
‘The course of True Love never did run smooth.’ (Shakespeare)

Conditional love is only good for one thing -
for transforming to become less and less conditional;
for purifying to become more and more unconditional.

- Stonepeace

A Tit for a Tat (96)

Tit: Why don’t you help more readily?
Tat: Because it’s not so easy to do so readily!
Tit: Because it’s too easy to think so readily!

Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/its-better-but
Previous aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2010/02/a-greater-desire

What if you said what you really want to say?
What if you did what you really want to do?
Will the world become a better place?

If the world will not become a better place,
there is something wrong with what you are thinking of saying and doing.
If so, why not change your mind now?

If the world will become a better place,
there is nothing wrong with what you are thinking of saying and doing.
If so, why not say and do it now?

With deeds of Loving-kindness, I purify my body.
With open-handed Generosity, I purify my body.
With Stillness, Simplicity and Contentment, I purify my body.
With Truthful Communication, I purify my speech.
With Mindfulness clear and radiant, I purify my mind.

- The Positive Precepts

The truthful are truthful, whether they believe in God or not.
The good are good, whether they believe in God or not.
Truth and goodness is truthful and good, whether one believes in God or not.
As such, belief in God is of arbitrary importance.

- Stonepeace

A good theist respects a good atheist.
A good atheist respects a good theist.
If not, what good is theism or atheism?

- Stonepeace

This is a video version of something that circulated by email years ago. It’s certain that Einstein never said what he was supposed to had in the video for he did not believe in a personal God and was widely regarded as dull-witted in school when young. This post is not anti any religion, but a simple philosophical exercise to stimulate personal reflection. It might seem logical at first but the reasoning in this very short video is flawed in many ways, as we shall see:

1. If there is a creator God, who created everything, not that there is a need for one at all (as nature can exist as it is by itself, recreating itself in natural cycles), he created the possibility of evil, cold and darkness too. Even if he did not, he allows it to exist as the other end of the spectrum. In this sense, he did created and sustains evil, cold and darkness.

2. To say evil, cold and darkness do not exist is ridiculous – especially to those who suffer greatly from evil-doers, who almost freeze to death and who are discriminated for being blind.

3. What the video shows indirectly, is that a God that is perfectly good who created everything cannot exist – because if he does, he would have created a world without evil, cold and darkness. And if there is really a creator God, it is true then, that he is evil.

4. To say that evil is a result of absence of God’s love in the heart is problematic too because it is saying that all who don’t believe in God are evil. This is obviously not the case as there are millions of good people who don’t believe in God, many of whom love more sentient beings (including animals) than the average God-believer, who believes animals are created by God for them to eat. It is also a problem why an all-loving God’s love should possibly be absent from anyone’s heart in the first place – unless there is no such God in the first place.

5. The video is about bringing religion back to school as a science when creationism is simply bad science according to most scientists. ‘The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience. Others in the scientific community have concurred, and some have called it junk science.” – Wikipedia

“He who has eyes can see the sickening sight;
Why does not Brahma [equivalent to creator God idea] set his creatures right?
If his wide power no limit can restrain,
Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
Why are all his creatures condemned to pain?
Why does he not to all give happiness?
Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?
Why triumphs falsehood — truth and justice fail?
I count your Brahma one the unjust among
Who made a world in which to shelter wrong.”

- Bhuridatta Jataka, No. 453

“If there exists some lord all-powerful to fulfill
In every creature bliss or woe, and action good or ill,
That Lord is stained with sin.
The human being does but work his will.”

– Mahabodhi Jataka, No. 528