I stumbled across this video today while watching another a friend posted.  I was immediately taken back and throughly enjoyed this.  I have never heard a more simple and direct explanantion of Buddhism ever and am very excited to share this with you.  Please enjoy.

ABSTRACT We spend our lives being seduced by the outside world, believing without question that happiness and suffering come from “out there.” In reality, Buddhist teachings explain that they come from the way we perceive and interpret things, not the things themselves. This deeply held misconception is at the root of our dissatisfaction, self-doubt, anger, depression, anxiety, and the rest. But our minds can change. By becoming deeply familiar with the workings of our own cognitive processes through introspection and learning to deconstruct them – truly, being our own therapists – we can loosen the grip of these neuroses and grow our marvelous potential for contentment, clarity, and courage, which are at the core of our being. Speaker: Venerable Robina Courtin A Tibetan Buddhist nun for 30 years, beloved teacher and power-house personality, Ven. Robina Courtin is Executive Director of Liberation Prison Project, based in San Francisco. (LiberationPrisonProject.org) A lifeline for people with nothing and no one, since 1996 Liberation Prison Project has supported the spiritual practice of over 15,000 prisoners, mainly in the US and Australia. These days, the project spends $50,000 every month, nearly half of it on salaries and benefits for a fulltime staff of ten (eight in the US and two in Australia, including three former prisoners), supported by a team of 150+ volunteers worldwide. Ven. Robina travels the world, teaching and raising funds, touching countless hearts and minds with her down-to-earth, no-nonsense packaging of the Buddha’s teachings, often filled with tasty stories from her own real-life struggles, attachments and relationships. She is able to put across to her students in and out of prison that change is possible; everyone can learn to develop their qualities, to be joyful in the face of difficulties – even on death row. “Ven. Robina has taught me to look at everything that occurs in my life with a different view,” writes one Australian prisoner. “She has given me dignity, courage, and honor.”

If you don’t know who Aplusk is, you probably don’t Tweet, but you might now him by his real name:  Ashton Kutcher.  I know what your thinking, Ashton Kutcher? That guy? Really?  But yea, I follow him on Twitter, because he is actually quite an interesting guy, he has his hands in all types of new technology and is involved in a lot of interesting things.  But I digress, a bit ago he posted the article below on his blog, and it blew me away.  Read it for yourself, I think you should.

To appreciate something is to see how every thing we have in this world comes from a source greater than ourselves. For the last 3 weeks I’ve written about a lesson from my teacher. This week I learned about appreciation. I struggled to find the words that would best pass on the lessons that I’ve learned on this subject. Every time I tried to write down what I’d been taught I would get caught up on some aspect of earnership that built the awareness of what the true value of something was and it would all just start to look like blah blah blah. But when I got right down to it, I struggled with sharing this lesson because I wasn’t fully appreciating what I had been taught. We’ve all have heard somebody say, if we do not appreciate something we will lose it. That’s a great thing to say, but is it true? We all enter this world with one thing. We come popping out of the womb bare-assed and screaming with not a damn thing but desire. We just came from a nice warm place with out a worry in the world and all we want to do is climb back up that canal because change blows! We then make a couple slight adjustment. We learn how to breath, pull milk from a nipple, and collect warmth off of another human body. Then we get use to that and our answer to everything is scream when I don’t get what I want. We proceed to grow older and change some more, almost always against our will, the only difference is we become better at screaming. In fact we even learn how to use words, quiet tones, and negotiating tactics to get what we want. We learn what other people want and become friends with with people that have the similar desires as ours because we may not have to change if we surround ourselves with people that are like us. We even learn to share, because we figure out that if we give others what they want we are more likely to get what we want. But at the end of the day there are 2 constants here: 1. Change is constant and we don’t like it. 2. We are beings of Desire. One could say that we enter this world with our body but ultimately that is temporary after all we don’t get to take it with us when we croak. When we get right down to it if, or as most people believe when, we die we don’t get to take anything with us; our car, our house, our favorite pair of jeans, that sweet new Michael Buble song, or the ipod I’m listening to it on. We leave behind people, pets, belongings, and a wake of actions. So, if we don’t appreciate something we will lose it but it seems even if we do appreciate it we are gonna lose it anyway. So, what the hell are we appreciating for? And how could so many people repeat this lie about appreciation as if it was an absolute truth? Maybe it’s not a lie… Maybe we are just appreciating the wrong things… I remember getting my first car. I was 15 years old and I got a school permit that allowed me to drive strictly back and forth to school work and church. At about age 13 I started hang posters on my wall of the perfect vehicle for me. A Dodge turbo Cummins desiel pick up truck. More torc than any young man should ever have at the tip of his toes. However when the day came to pick it up off the lot it looked a lot more like a 1984, very used, very baby blue, Ford escort. But the great news was it only cost $400. But when I think back, I don’t remember that day as a disappointment. I recall it as one of the happiest moment of my youth. I remember getting be hind the wheel and heading off down that gravel road and feeling the potential that came with this new chapter in life. This lease of freedom that was delivered with my new responsibility. I didn’t want a car, I wanted FREEDOM! Now, that’s something to feel. That is something to appreciate. We enter this world with desire the problem is that along the way our wires get crossed. Culture, preexisting behaviors, and marketing train us to believe that we desire these physical false idols. However, our true desire is never for the thing, it’s the feeling that we get from it that holds the value. It’s not food, money, houses, and cars that we need to appreciate. The objects themselves are finite. And we will lose them with appreciation or no appreciation. It’s things like health, wealth, security, love, and freedom that lead to happiness. They are infinite and they are valuable. These are the things worthy of appreciation and if we don’t appreciate them we will indeed lose them. However if we hold them dear and keep them as the focus of our existence the epicenter of our desire we can have them forever. My teacher once told me the way to live a happy life of appreciation is to remember that you are just managing the energy of some greater source and that source can take it back when ever it wants. I’ve found this to be very humbling. To be granted the right to manage the oxygen I breath, the sun that shines on me daily at no cost, the friends and loved ones I’ve been provided. It certainly keeps you in debt to the source. Love + Light – A+K Btw: I’m not a writer so there will certainly be grammatical errors in nearly all of my post.

What did you think? Good stuff huh?

pseudus: wishes it was Sunday, cause that's his funday, his "I don't have to run day" but no, Its just another shitty Monday! (That's right, Bangles)

pseudus: I've got no strings, To hold me down, To make me fret, or make me frown, I had strings, But now I'm free, There are no strings on me...

pseudus: I'm at Mi Casa (460 Lindsey Manor Creek, Mc Kaughan St, Kernersville). http://4sq.com/9e6hIz

RT @M1XMASTERM1KE “Napalm Rockets” available on http://www.mixmastermike.com (Free download)

pseudus: I'm at Mi Casa (460 Lindsey Manor Creek, Mc Kaughan St, Kernersville). http://4sq.com/9e6hIz

pseudus: What a freakin' gorgeous day! Windows Up, stereo on....commence...chillaxin'! :)

pseudus: Lol. Read this my fellow members of Troupe 3178. http://bit.ly/dieIXH It misses the mark on a few counts, but some of them are dead on.

pseudus: RT @questlove: lol 10 years too late universal FINALLY comes to senses and drops cd prices http://bit.ly/bRl1S8

pseudus: I guess there is no way to delete a tweet if you screw up and hit the wrong button in Threadsy... Sorry...

pseudus: This one is my fav CTD song. @DirtyUrine ♫ http://blip.fm/~n40c7

pseudus: Reverse White Stripes... ♫ http://blip.fm/~n3wug

pseudus: RT @jimmyfallon: Watch the record for longest time of two dudes touching noses streaming right now: http://bit.ly/bw3ifo #urdb

pseudus: RT @ToplessRobot: I believe the phrase you're looking for is "OH MY GOD IT'S FULL OF PAXTON." http://is.gd/aNmPY

pseudus: did not get enough sleep....

Lifted from In The Rooms.com Submitted by SassySoberGirl on March 10, 2010

Breaking news on late night tabloids flash to a picture of a bloated teen star. Quote from an interview with Britain’s The Sun in 2004 voiced over by a late night floozie.  “I was working on The Lost Boys (1987) when I smoked my first joint.  But a year before that, I was starting to drink beer on the set of  the film Lucas (1986).” Another shot of Haim, young adult now; you can see his addiction like a mottled stain of shame on his face. “I lived in Los Angeles in the ’80s, which was not the best place to be. I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack.” And finally the kicker. The news flashes all over, during the day this time, cause you know dying is BIG NEWS.  This tortured soul said so much more than his words related. I am an addict and I am dying.  “I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck. But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day – the doctors could not believe I was taking that much. And that was just the Valium – I’m not talking about the other pills I went through”. Final picture of Haim in his happy days before his addiction took a downward spiral that sucked the life out of him.  Newsflash! “It was an apparent overdose,” said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Frank Albarren. Oh and as  for the four empty pill bottles found in the room?  They’re not talking bout that. Yet. Tune in next time. Apparent. Indeed. Almost voyeuristic in nature, our society reacts to a celebrity death from addiction like rubbernecking a multiple car pileup on the interstate. Something titillating to the world about watching someone go down, over and over and over again. Make it a “B” celebrity and all of a sudden, television screens are reflecting images like a two AM infomercial; watch him go to treatment, watch him relapse, watch him drunk and high, watch him embarrass himself, watch him die … it’s the amazing DRUNK AND DOPEFIEND SHOW. Corey Haim is just another number in the list of those who die every day from addiction. The difference is living in the public eye, scrutinized by others because they “think” they know. It is on television; and of course you believe everything you see there right? Did the cameras catch the pain of his family? The dark nights of the soul where the choice was death or using? The humiliation of not getting it and using after telling the papers that he was “clean and sober”… again. The torture and torment of “this time it’ll be different” thinking and seeing his life, career, future become wrapped in a neat ball of SICK. The legacy of Corey Haim as Reuters news feed so wonderfully described him. “Hollywood teen star of the 1980s who became as famous for his struggles with substance abuse as his acting”. Bleck. How bout being famous for his willingness to never give up until it killed him? So much for the perpetual optimism of the media. Oh wait that’s right. Living doesn’t get ratings. We as recovering folk get the whole idea, have a gut level understanding of the living hell that was his life. As a result we have compassion. Responses such as “drug addicts should die cause they’re stupid” via Twitter, make me cringe and shudder. As if anyone would consciously choose to be sick in the first place.  Cause you know that public displays of sick bring about fame, but not in the form of the next movie role.  Bankrupt by a hundred thousand dollars, Haim lost it all. Including and especially his reputation as an actor; using and the chronic relapse train made him a hollywood has been joke. Yeah I hear you buddy. I get you. I relate. More than a celebrity gossip show for people to say “awwww”, you are me.  Funny thing about addiction and celebrities, you always hear about them when they’re on the down and outs. But when they’re recovering? Being healthy, active, productive members of society? Not word one. Guess public shame and death is more newsworthy. Pity.  Back to rubbernecking. But those of us who “get it”,  celebrate the quiet dignity of recovery. And we know. Yes indeed… we know. From those of us who have been down that same dark alley of hell… Rest in peace Corey. —– Check out Sassy’s blog at http://www.iloverecovery.com

pseudus

Snaggle-tooth!

pseudus

“We see it happening among us every day. This miraculous turnabout is evidence of a spiritual awakening.” Basic Text, p. 51 —-=—- We watch them walk in to their first meeting defeated, their spirits broken. Their suffering is obvious, and their desire for help even more apparent. They collect a welcome chip and go back to their seats, shaken by the effort. We see them again, and they seem a little more comfortable. They’ve found a sponsor and are attending meetings every night. They still won’t meet our glance, but they nod their heads in recognition as we share. We notice a spark of hope in their eyes, and they smile uncertainly when we encourage them to keep coming back. A few months later, they are standing straight. They’ve learned how to make eye contact. They’re working the steps with their sponsor and are healing as a result. We listen to them sharing at meetings. We stack chairs with them afterward. A few years later, they are speaking at a convention workshop. They’ve got a wonderful, humorous personality. They smile when they see us, they hug us, and they tell us they could never have done it without us. And they understand when we say, “nor could we, without you.” —-=—- Just for today: I will find joy in witnessing the recovery of another. Copyright © 1991-2010 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved