Thought on MARATHON — SUFFERINGS

Tomorrow, tens of thousand of people will run for London Marathon.

Quite few of my friends did it and till some years ago, I was thinking I’ll do too though,

I’m becoming aware, better not.

( I can invent hundreds of the excuse not to do = it’s mean to think about itself is utterly a waste of

time.= So that, in accordance to my Zen Moto [Just do it] => Just think not. Ha ha ha 😀

Therefore, in my peaceful mind — Marathon ?  What Marathon ?   What a nice day !

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Why people run for such enduring action which is not even their imperative, which is,

some said useless action.  = Of cause, some are running for the Champion Medal and some are running

for Charity though, bast majorities are running for a sake of just running, or even for a fun.

What is a fun while giving 50 km or so torturing, punishing task to the own body ? —– of cause, as

I used to be a member of the Alpine Club, I know what it is, as we did similar training and above all,

we did pretty similar body punishing long walk in the mountain, often carrying 40, 50 kg of lord on

our back. —– and we mountain climbers were always making joke

“ What silly things we are doing 😀 ”

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Then give a thought or two. —– ? ? ?

Have I, have we ever had an easy life ever ? —– We, the greedy creature, the human,

always assess an action in comparison to the gain though, is this kind of view true ?

For a sake of convenience and to have an quick answer, we Buddhists having a tendency and good

excuse to end the argument, we have pretty nice story to convince ourselves into contented, which

called Enlightenment 😀

—– See this in reverse. = Need to have an excuse to have a peace of mind is,

because it is not in a peace at all isn’t it. 😀

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In Lord Buddha’s teachings, life was defined as SUFFERING (how nice). Yes in deed, this is true.

So, a training is the training for this unavoidable enduring life. = training for the Marathon but the

Marathon itself is a training to face a situation in the life.

June in every year, we members of our High School Alpine club had a special stamina training for a

preparation for a summer climb while carrying 40 kg of stones to a 900 m high mountain top,

starting 6 o’clock morning, reaching the top about mid day.

It was on a ridge called Baka o-ne in Oh-yama, west of Tokyo. Why it called Baka o-ne, Nut’s ridge

is, it is just one continuous boring climb, no respite = makes anybody just fed-up.

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While carrying 40 kg of utterly useless stones, I cursed every single step “What am I doing.

How silly I am. Ok, on the next step, I’m going to through this stones away and shout to the leader

“ Kill me here, I’m out” — on the end we reached to the top AND came down with empty ruck-sack,

that was all.  (Since many clubs are doing this many years, the mountain top having tens of tons of

round shaped river stones, which makes innocent walkers just puzzled.  “How come ?” 😀 )

( Soon or later, I tired to complain = after all, to join the club and came to the mountain was my

choice.  I’ve gained a kind of contemplation [Just walk] otherwise I shouldn’t have born to this

world. — And I continued this, while keeping Mountain shelter as a volunteer, we had to carry-up

the food staff for the lodgers of up to 300 people a night, without receiving any money, far from it,

we had to spend our own money to get there  Kita Yatsuga-take.)

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Anyhow, the life is the suffering  😀     But, if we have a training while having heavy punishment

to the physics and to the mental strength, we obtain good resilience to a cause of those sufferings.

To over-come the endurance of Marathon, the person gain the proof in the fact, I did.

And this proof gives the person a confidence = I can do, because I have done.

This confidence brings a peace of the mind = Don’t worry too much, it may not

as bad as the Marathon. 😀

So, it is a good news, it wouldn’t be in vain.

Enjoy a running.   Have a good Marathon 🙂

___/\___

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Selflessness – Detachment

” How to get selfless state of the Mind “

After reading the previous post ” Selflessness Demonstrated “,  you may convinced

that the selflessness is nothing special and it is everywhere in our life.

Then you may start a question ” If everybody has selflessness, can all of us make

good Buddhists ?  ——- Not quite.

To become a Buddhist, one has to cross over the first varier, which is to learn to brake

off from the Ego, by doing the repetitive practice, unconditionally.

To accept this Duty  unconditionally, and able to keep doing it indicates, you have gave up your Ego.

( May not necessary the proof of  non-Ego, but Not accept is definitely the sign of  Ego )

Keep doing its practice endless times, you become get used with it and able to do without

thinking, and it will became your mundane daily routine.

In order to survive this boring tread-mill, your mind become apathetic, and become

emotionally detached from what you are actuary doing.  ———–( In Neurological term, the

threshold of the signal  became higher, therefore incoming repetitive signal loose the significant impact )

——It may looks a contradiction, while doing it in full commitment ( so-called mindfulness / full hearted )

but disconnected from the emotion, in the same time able to carry out perfect practice.

——————–

The emotion is not an essential component to do the perfect business,  in most of the situation

it is more of the destruction, otherwise a  Gynecologist couldn’t do their business.

Another example appeared in the brain scan analysis of the

Alzheimar’s cases, the reason why a patient loose the ability to recognize a family face is,

its visual signal lost the connection to the emotional region of the brain, while visual cortex  is still intact.

It is the matter of the control of the signal connection or to make association.

Even without making connection, each faculties of the brain can  works perfect.

——————–

As the emotion is directly connected to the basic instincts, such as the feeling of hunger or

I want to have this, I want fuck this woman etc etc, its forms fundamental part of the Self and Ego.

————First, detached from the raw basic emotion, then connect the signal in the brain

to the Spiritually conceived Notion or Ethos and to the activity of the life , is the Zen and the Buddhism.

Even though observing the self doing something, without having the emotional connection, it wouldn’t

produce the conscious of being as the Self,   This is The Selflessness.

Once a person mastered this control, it can be applied to other practice and to the whole life.

( This is why Half Buddhist or Thinking Buddhist couldn’t see the Buddhism. —- need to cross the varier first)

——————–

(Some of the reader may not want to agree with  this, as this theory seems (as far as I found) the

first of its kind in the history——-Neuro-scientists would confirm this, soon or later.  But the fact of that the

Zen monk is not emotional is medically tested and established fact—— simply nobody ever thought why )

—–

Fortunately or unfortunately, I went through this first varier in my youth, in the mountain.

To climb the mountain, we just accept the situation, and keep walking, days even a month.

Most of the time, there was no margin to exercise Ego.  We just carry on walking without cry.

———————

(I’m going to discuss spiritual (or even super natural) aspects of the Zen in near future)