Best Of
Re: Bugs bug me
We are their karma as they are ours ...
Their deaths by our hands is karma shared.
Intent plays a significant role in karmic consequences.
Ask yourself: are you acting out of anger, hatred, or ill will?
Or do you view this as a necessary harm, where the outcome may be the lesser of two evils?
In the end, it is your own conscience you must answer to.
Shoshin1
Re: Bugs bug me
I tried always to stick to humane methods but nevertheless I am faced with a little killing.
I think your intentions are good, your thoughts are wholesome but unfortunately life implies death. To live we need to kill certain beings even if we do not desire to do so. Poor ants, but also poor you. I don't think living in a house infested with ants will bring much good to you.
Kotishka
Re: Blessings
Life is a blessing unto itself
Challenge is a blessing
Loss turns to blessing
Gain reflects blessing
Compassion enhances blessing
Mercy expands blessing
Gratitude creates blessing
Empathy enriches blessing
Peace to all
Lionduck
Re: Good news
Historically, Buddhism did indeed reach Europe. Perhaps that is behind the early Christians warning about Influences from the East hundreds of years before the Mongol invasion. I am not surprised at the discovery "Viking Buddhist statues" from the 6th century.
Lionduck
Re: Bugs bug me
@Ning said:
If I'm not supposed to harm other living beings, what should I do if there's an ant infestation at my house 😅
I'm serious please help me 😭
If ants they can be guided to new sites with trails leading to their favourite food. I use tiger balm smeared trails.
Wasps and bee I have a particular affinity with and place gumdrops or plant flowers for the bee visitors.
You can also try talking to them or moving them on an individual basis...
lobster
Re: Bugs bug me
It’s a tricky problem… in the past I’ve put my Buddhism on temporary hold in order to had exterminations done, and then make reparations by leaving a cake in the forest for the ants there to eat.
Jeroen
Re: Good news
This is a viking Buddhist Statue from the 6th CE
Maybe we have them all wrong and they were civil celts? Who knows? Maybe they were the first Berserker Buddhist Evangelicals? 
lobster
Re: Bodhisattvas?
As we know and even experience:
Enlightenment occurs in all ages, religions and secular life. The level , intensity and nature of which can:
- Drive one crazy
- Drive one sane
- Drive one to spirituality or away from it
And yet...
It is nothing, a flash of realisation of where one has always been
How can we prepare? According to Zen we can not 'polish a stone to make it a mirror' BUT we can find a mirror in the wisdom that rings true and constantly from many sources...
Happy Easter Sunday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism
lobster
Re: Bodhisattvas?
@Tavs said:
Are Bodhisattvas important to you or do you think the opposite and consider them irrelevant to your practice? Or somewhere in the middle?
Thank you for the question. Just some musings...
I am not well-acquainted with the 'requirements' for being considered an 'official' Bodhisattva, either in Theravada or Mahayana.
Maybe my personal definition would be someone that a) provokes in me and others a deeply wholesome sense of 'gimme some of that!' and b) provides tools that actually move me and others in that direction.
Since in offline life, with only a couple of exceptions, I am rather isolated in my spiritual meanderings (something to remedy), since I am mostly surrounded by decent but 'ordinary' people, and since the Buddha rightly said that good spiritual friends and mentors are the whole of the path, I consider such influences (whether from books or modern forms or people I meet and associate with) tremendously important in my development.
Finally, personally, I'd say that 'Bodhisattvahood' lies not in a binary distinction but on a continuum. Each one of us sometimes manifests 'Bodhisattva-action'. Some rarely, some often, and some (maybe) always. Each one of these 'Bodhisattva-actions' helps to lower aggregate suffering in the world and, maybe to some paradoxicaly, in self too. Great success!
I don't think that musing too much about the details of Bodhisattvahood is very helpful. One zen monk came to an elementary school and, in silence, wrote on the blackboard: 'Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes'. Let us 'help mom with the dishes' with cheer, this is Bodhisattva-action. It's a training, like in the gym. We practice over and over and over again, keeping failing but slowly hitting the mark closer and more often, and slowly 'move up'.
marcitko