So many rich teachings, you can get indigestion. Don't get gout from your spiritual consumption.

"Don't' quit before the miracle." Now I don't buy into the the whole Christian scheme of things, but I do like it as a metaphor. A miracle is something that happens that we don't quite understand how, but we really like it. That's a crucial aspect to a miracle. We don't understand quite a lot of things, but when something really good happens we want to understand how, so we can make it happen again.

NYCFC had an amazing come from behind, end of game winning goal. For the long suffering fan--I say that sarcastically because the team is only in it's 6th season--but for someone who has watched live or on TV the 159 MLS regular season games, plus 10 so far this year, plus playoff (mostly losses) and US Open cup and CCL games. Materialistic Yankee fans are used to 27 championships, but I'm a Mets fan with 2 championships. Yankees fans call up WFAN and ask for a trade for Mike Trout when they lose a few games. An original 6, the Rangers only have 4 Stanley Cups. The Islanders got 4 in a row in the 80's. 

Atlanta United has a MLS Cup, but NYCFC doesn't. The hopes of a fan are bound to be dashed. You can't always win. I was watching NYCFC play. They have great passes, they link up, build up an attack, but often flounder and can't get a goal. That is soccer, not just NYCFC. Real Madrid, the greatest soccer team, has that happen all the time. My team Barcelona even more. Batting in baseball is a great example. If you hit 2 out of 10, you're almost out of the league, but if you hit 3 out of 10 you're a great player. In between those two results is all of baseball. Well, Ty Cobb hit .366 lifetime, so he hit better than 7 out of 20, but he played last in 1928. Shoeless Joe Jackson is the only other player to hit over .350 lifetime. But I digress. Sports is about coping with failure more than it is about triumph.

I think the suffering also creates the joy of an amazing comeback win. NYCFC has had some hard losses to DC and NE. But they beat DC yesterday in an amazing comeback win. 

Plastic fans tuned out, quit watching at 80 minutes. Plastic fans wrote on Reddit, "should I watch the game?" And my feeling is "Don't quit before the miracle." 

Sports are a distraction, but it's a parallel that I respond to regarding practicing Buddhism.

 

"With great power comes great responsibility" Meditation and psychotherapy can integrate you, help you learn to process your emotions, give you confidence. But you can use those things to be more ruthless, or follow the Sith path. This is why I think ethics is the first teaching in Buddhism, the heart of Buddhism. And not because I'm some perfect moralist--I'm actually giving advice to myself here. Ethics is the groundwork of everything. I love the positive precepts because it's about what to do, not what not to do: With deeds of loving-kindness I purify my body.

Worldly winds and Scott Stringer: Trump can argue with Epstein about who raped the 16 year old girl tied up in the bedroom first, Biden can stick his finger inside a woman without her consent, and they're president. Scott Stringer grabbed his girlfriend, and 20 years later she felt the need to tell everyone during his campaign for mayor, and his lifetime dreams are dashed. There's an article about it in the NY Times. Life is about coping with the worldly winds. Lets see what he does from here. How do you handle setbacks and adversity. It's quite possible the person who wins will be miserable. de Blasio has been crucified while Mayor of NYC. One of the central teachings of Christianity is to not be taken up by superficiality, you will be crucified in this life in a million different ways. You have to look past superficialities. When people use superficial Christianity to manipulate the masses it drives people crazy, but it works. Public opinion should not lead us, that is a paradox of democracy. We need integrity in our leaders, not poll followers, but if you don't at least look at the polls you're going to instantly be to unpopular to succeed in politics. It's all contradictory dialectics. People take a teaching intended for a certain kind of personality at a certain point in the path and they say, "oh, that's not true, that's too weird, therefore the whole of the teachings are not true." It's not always easy to take things the right way. So many rich teachings, you can get indigestion. Don't get gout from your spiritual consumption.

"First of all, I'm taller." AOC points out reality to MTG's comment that she's a "little communist". The facts are pretty inconvenient to the Trump led Republican party, they undermine the sales pitch, the scam. You can raise to the highest office in this country even if you're a business failure, you cheat charities to steal money from the needy, and rape your way through life. Everyone else is an object of your gratification, not subjects with feelings of their own. I hate Trump because he has the traits in myself that I hate. He's represents my shadow, America's shadow.

Being reality oriented seems to be a dying art these days. I got injured, but not at work, but everyone told me to get workers comp, though I was a chump for being honest. It takes more energy to enforce compliance with the laws, our society relies on people following the rules. Driving on the right side of the road (in the USA) is a rule we follow easily because it just doesn't profit to break the rule, but you bet when you can profit from breaking the rules, that's what people do in a greedy materialist society. Is the phone you're reading this on built on the child slave labor of children in poor countries? You say you love animals, do you eat them too?

Yes, you can joke about going to hell because you drank almond milk, make fun of the "woke culture". Go ahead, stay selfish and fend off all those worrying qualms. I think that is why Trump can suggest to men to grab women by the pussy, even if they are married, and he's still been a one term president of the USA. Nobody cares, nobody is paying attention. 

The idea of power is more attractive than the idea of integral sustainable growth, lovingkindness. What a nightmare when things I have done, were done to me, and they seem wrong now that I'm on the other side. We're just waking up to the gap in empathy with others and how important it is. Tissa can criticize others, but can't take criticism about himself. You wake up one day to find yourself a cockroach. Pema Chodron made a living out of beating the drum: Start where you are. Where you really are, shedding the narcissistic story you need to get out of bed. When you read the lofty statements from evolved beings, you can mouth the same insights, and nothing happens. You need to feel the words in your body, you have to do the work to even understand it in your body. Real compassion is an ongoing struggle. You can hide away in a monastery, you can indulge in spiritual individualism, but the harder path, the path the Buddha took, is to move out into the world with your insights. 

That's why a lot of people quit psychotherapy or meditation. They take a look and don't like what they see. So just stop looking. 

The teaching that it's better to stick your dick into a snake's mouth, doesn't get much press. Chastity is probably the least taught aspect of Buddhism. John Wellwood isn't going to make it rich teaching about spiritual bypassism, people want more sexy teachings, to reinforce your lifestyle. What I appreciate about reading Sangharakshita is that it's quite challenging--not intellectually, though there is that too but to actually do. Deep teachings that hurt, are the opposite of superficiality, quitting before the miracle, the worldly winds, pragmatic lying.