busy day

instead of taking an excerpt from my 'in buddha's words' book, tonight ill be taking 2 things from a book a buddhist monk gave me that was his own, called 'how to practice' by the dalai lama. that was a long sentence..anyway

"I have had the opportunity to meet several people who have attained extraordinary spiritual development. There was a not very scholarly monk from my Namgyel monastery who came out of Tibet to India around 1980. Since we knew eachother we were casually chatting one day. He told me that while he was in a Chinese Communist gulag for almost eighteen years, he faced danger on a few occasions. I thought he was referring to a threat to his own life. But when asked, "What danger?" he answered "Losing compassion toward the Chinese." He considered this to be the danger!" pg. 62, Refraining from Harm
"You too can come to see the hardships you endure as deepening your practice." pg. 79, Extending Help

these are from 2 different chapters. the first one is just so touching an inspiring, ive already remembered it a few times since reading it to help dispel some bad thoughts..and the second illustrates the complete compassion of the dalai lama, who is a model for everyone. if you dont know what hes been through and had to be responsible for, i suggest you do some reading. lets just say the weight of our 'hardships' arent much compared to his..yet he doesnt view it that way. any little struggle, like the bad thoughts i had, are of enough concern to him that he would not only write all of these books for us, but say things like that that put what we endure on a level with him. to truly care and find significance in our little troubles, and to illustrate with his own experiences how we can help ourselves..this is why this is what ive chosen. i want to become more loving and kind. really think about what this prayer means and suggests:
As long as the sky exists
And as long as there are sentient beings,
May I remain to help
Relieve them of all their pain.
i have such anger towards people for what theyre doing to the earth, and what theyre not doing, i know any good buddhist would tell me i should just have compassion for them, these ideas of theirs doesnt make them any different from me, there is no reason at all for anger towards these people, and anger towards the situation wont help any. i just need to always keep these things in my mind, along with the story of the gulag prisoner.


as for today, it was busy and towards the end i got rather stressed and then me and heidi had a talk and now i feel frazzled..i want to go to bed, i really dont know if michael makes the same effort as i do every day to try to get a chance to talk to him, but that doesnt really matter, i know he loves me..i got stressed from hurrying to finish cleaning this car before dark or supper was ready, i thought more time had passed than did and i was freaking out thinking heidi would be done by the time i was back in the house and i knew i wasnt doing a great job cause i was hurrying and UGH but it turns out i made it back in surprisingly good time...but on top of that i didnt do any homework all week, i created a little stress pickle for myself today. but it was a prodective day, i think i made heidi a little proud, i got to spend some awesome time with the neighbors' dogs which also made them happy probably, i got offered to be able to come help out cooking at this little youth group thing (i wonder if theyd still let me if they knew about my flamboyant atheism LOL well they never asked). yesterday im almost positive i found out what a certain monthly problem is, and am making good progress on my fursuit head. this post seemingly has contradictions in it, but i assure you i am aware of things and that makes it a little better im sure :)