I was just asked by Jason (my roommate) about this “Save The Humans organization” that he saw me looking at on the internet. “What are they about, what is their objective?” he said, and it really quite numbed me because I don’t know what it is about at all. I just said that I really don’t know what their purpose is, just trying to improve human life and helping people see the world in a different light I suppose. I did not feel that it was in me to tell him that it is my website or that it had to anything to do with me at all, because I don’t see it as something that I do. I think that these words help me just as much as anyone else who reads them. Would I be wrong to say ‘yeah it’s my website and I write a lot, you should check it out sometime’? This just feels weird for me and I never have really promoted myself in such a manner before and wasn’t about to, this is me for anyone who knows me. I would rather remain nameless and unrecognized than to be put up on stage for people to praise or to criticize. So I have never been asked this directly before, where I had to contemplate a purpose or the meaning of Save The Humans. What I simply try to do help others, offer a word or some piece of mind that there is something that we all share. We all have this knowledge but some of us are not ready to see it, while others are momentarily distracted. I, too, am on this search and just relay stories and insights that have come to me and need to be passed along and written down for my own improvement. I even feel comfortable saying that there really is no purpose at all, it is what it is, and if I tried I would never make any sense at all and wouldn’t be human. It just is.


I have this head full of ideas and beautiful things and I want to write them down but when it comes time to sit in front of the screen and flow all these thoughts and images through my fingers into the key board then on to the screen, I look at what I have written and think well that’s not it at all, not even close. And I can’t try hard enough because none of it can come close to what’s flying through my head second by second and I just feel there is no point in trying because the words can never be what is actually there, no matter how hard I try they can’t add up to satisfy me. And by the time I coherently put a sentence together that I am alright with, so much more has come and gone and slipped through my filtering net that it seems that no one can ever know the extent of a galloping mind. No one can relate how their butterfly flies. No one can fully share the feeling of the inspiring wind sweeping through the wheat fields of the mind. No one can explain the miracles that sprout instantaneously within their own blood brain barrier. These vessels can never fully escape without somehow being dismantled and broken down, so we don’t know what piece went where and can never properly relate their original construction. This is the mountain that deters me every time, but yet I strive to conquer it.

Walking Meditation in a Buddhist Mind
We must keep in mind that the first step to walking must not be influenced by purpose. If indeed we have a destination let the destination come to you rather than going to it and missing the ten thousand things in between. The virtue that must be focused upon, and is in fact the essence of walking, is mindfulness. Why do we do the things we do, if we really do them at all. We do not beat our hearts or grow our hair, it is just a function of our being. However, one of the main concepts of Buddhism is the realization of non-self (anatta). For those not familiar with these concepts, it can be broken down to simple grasping, grasping at the world and at ourselves as beings. For we must realize that this grasping is indeed the cause of all our suffering and disharmony (dukkha). Walking anywhere at anytime can be a type of meditation. It is the practice of mindfulness, insight, and non-self. With every step we can cultivate a tranquil mind, be one with the world around us, be “awakened” to reality, and not feel any suffering or attachment. And how do we do this you might ask. Well I can but only relate my own experiences from walking and knowledge of the dharma as I have learned in my short but insightful studies. So here we go, out on a walk and what is it that we are actually thinking, are we just buying time until we get there? Isn’t this just a waste of life, still living in ignorance and dwelling introvertly amongst our own problems, problems which really don’t exist at all. To be mindful is to know reality, to hear and see what is actually going on without your interpretation. Once we interpret something, some action, in terms of ‘I’ then it is not actually that ‘thing’ anymore. So this walking is entangled with the observing of all natural phenomena, through the faces of passing people or the breeze that kisses you. Once we are able to notice these things around us, the happenings as it were, we can start on the path of being mindful. I like to place my consciousness in my feet and toes, instead of the blackness behind my eyes and between my ears. For are my feet not as aware as my eyes? This is another way of looking at things, and there is really no direct way of doing it, it is simply feeling just as conscious in the every movement of my feet as every thought in my head. Now we are getting somewhere, and it is amazing how much we can learn through this new perspective. If you are able to walk without noticing yourself than you are simply free, in all sense of the word, moksha (liberation) from samsara (cycle of life and suffering, birth-suffering-death-rebirth). Although I do not want to oversimplify it. I wish to talk about walking merely as a tool to liberation, one of many. With walking we can meditate, be in the moment of every step and yet still have a direction in mind. I have felt many times that I have walked quickly, to where I needed to go, and then noticed that when I got there I feel cheated out of the amount of time it took me to arrive. Those fifteen minutes or so can be put to use, or as I like to feel we can actually live continuously instead of intermittently achieving goals and then setting new ones for the future. It is just like listening to music. We don’t start a song with the goal to finish it, we listen to it and enjoy every moment of it. While walking to somewhere we are acting out of mainly ego, as in we need to go somewhere to get this and do this. Our ego must be understood as something really quite non existent, and only a false sense of the world. So our goal is to forget that we ever knew it in the first place. This is one of the main reasons for meditation, it is contemplation of the things we think we know, but really don’t know at all. We can treat sitting meditation the same as walking or any other action we do. What I mean to say is that it is just like any other action we do, if we do them in right action, for the right reasons (no ‘I’ involved) then they are perfect in themselves. So walking is particularly beautiful when looked at in this sense, for when we set out somewhere we can never know what will happen or what we will see or who we may meet along the way. It is the discovery of the unknown and an adventure in itself. Traveling this way is a pure human action, and a defining a characteristic that I believe is loosing its tradition. We are slowing becoming much like the machines we create and are being controlled through automated processes, while loosing the human quality of life. If we can walk with human purity, loving the dust under our feet and emitting the radiance of non-self, then we can slowly understand that this moment is it, we have all that we need, and to grasp for more means to suffer more.

Unfinished
The world is blind and I am its seeing eye dog.
If I am as ignorant as I think, is that ignorance after all?
I say I want to escape into reality, but reality can never be escaped
It does have the answers and I have the questions, isn’t that fitting?
But can I be so bold as to listen for the answers,
When I know we can’t be taught that way
How can I invite change, but ask it to wait at the door,
Yet it does, watching me put on my shoes like I need to go somewhere
But after all we all live in the marshmallows of our own brain
Sitting on overstuffed skin
Watching through our eyes a movie of the world
Where do we go after the credits roll through?

Teachings of the Buddha compiled by Paul Carus.
“And the Bodhisatta went to the priests officiating in the temples. But the gentle mind of the Sakyamuni (Bodhisatta) was offended at the unnecessary cruelty performed on the altars of the gods. He said:
Ignorance only can make these men prepare festivals and hold vast meetings for sacrifices. Far better to revere the truth than to try to appease the gods by shedding blood.
What love can a man possess who believes that the destruction of life will atone for evil deeds? Can a new wrong expiate old wrongs! And can the slaughter of an innocent victim blot out the evil deeds of mankind? This is practicing religion by the neglect of moral conduct.
Purify your hearts and cease to kill; that is true religion.
Rituals have no efficacy; prayers are vain repetitions; and incantations have no saving power. But to abandon covetousness and lust, to become free from evil passions, and to give up all hatred and ill will, that is the right sacrifice and the true worship.”

“Though many births I sought in vain
The builder of this house of pain.
Now, builder, thee I plainly see!
This is the last abode for me.
Thy gable’s yoke and rafters broke,
My heart has peace. All lust will cease.”

“How blest in happy solitude
Are they who hear of truth the call!
How blest to be both kind and good,
To practice self-restraint to all!
How blest from passions to be free,
All sensuous joys to let pass by!
Yet highest bliss enjoyeth they
Who quit the pride of I am I.”

The Sermon on Abuse
The blessed one observed the ways of society and noticed how much misery came from malignity and foolish offences done only to gratify vanity and self-seeking pride.
And the Buddha said: “If someone foolishly does me wrong, I will return to that person the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from such a person, the more good shall go from me; the fragrance of goodness always comes to me, and the harmful air of evil goes to that person.”
A foolish man learning that the Buddha observed the principle of great love which commends the return of good for evil, came and abused him. The Buddha was silent, pitying his folly.
When the man had finished his abuse, the Buddha asked him, saying: “If a man declined to accept a present made to hi, to whom would it belong?” And he answered: “In that case it would belong to the man who offered it.”
The Buddha said, “You have railed at me, but I decline to accept your abuse, and request you keep it yourself. Wit it not be a source of misery to you? As the echo belongs to the sound, and the shadow to the substance, so misery will overtake the evildoer without fail.”
The abuser made no reply, and the Buddha continued: “An evil person who reproaches a virtuous one is like one who looks up and spits at heaven; the spittle soils not the heaven, but comes back and defiles the person.
“The slanderer is like one who flings dust at another when the wind is contrary; the dust does but return on the one who threw it. The virtuous cannot be hurt and the misery that the other would inflict comes back on the slanderer.”
The abuser went away ashamed, but he came again and took refute in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
-------------
Much of Buddhism is universal, if you read these passages in the context of your own religion – Christianity to Islam- and take them to heart, then they can only do good and help you to your own spiritual goals. As I read much of the Buddhist scriptures and teachings it reminds me much of Jesus’ words and the parables in the bible. Yet it is the example that matters and how we take it in and relate it to our own life. There is wisdom in it all if you choose to look...