How to Protect Your Children
In this answer to a student’s question, Lama Marut addresses the question of how parents can really protect children — by teaching them karmic principles. But this requires that first we’ve convinced ourselves that karma is the correct worldview. Taken from the question and answer session held on January 8, 2012, at the “Five Freedoms Retreat” in Australia.
Buddha Taught No Dharma
Enjoy the audio file from Lama Marut’s special Ustream teaching from February 5, 2012 (Feb 6 in Melbourne…)
Download Here > (Please be patient if you have slow internet. It is a 44.2mb MP3 file)
Daddy… I’m Bored!
When was the last time you were bored? Hopefully a long time ago! Check out this little image snip that clearly highlights how ludicrous it is to be bored. Because if your’e bored, you’re just not paying attention.
Enjoy!
Occupy Your Mind
If you want to occupy something, start with your own mind. As Teddy Sczudio teaches us in this rap, “The revolution will not be televised; your revolution has got to start inside.”
The Revolution will not be Televised 11.15.11
No Worries
In this audio, Lama Marut introduces the 2011 Summer Retreat in Massachusetts by talking about the virtues of going on retreat, letting go of all stress, and being able to practice real freedom for a few days. For next summer’s retreat, visit the official Summer Retreat website.
Itchlessness
A little segment on contentment from Lama Marut’s recent public talk in Hong Kong.
What Will Happen In The Future?
In a question and answer session, Lama Marut speaks on the uselessness of spinning out imaginary scenarios about what might happen in the future, or of reviving unpleasant memories of the past – both of which just undermine our present happiness.
What Will Happen In the Future?
Resolutions
Resolution suggestion #1: New Year’s reminds us that every day could be a new beginning. Resolve to take advantage of this. Drop the old baggage you’re masochistically carrying around. Stop re-empowering the Frankenstein monster of past regrets and resentments, making yesterday’s sorrows live again and again. Forgive, unconditionally and unilaterally, stop craving ‘more stuff’ and get on with your life! Resolve to start each day fresh and unencumbered, as if it were New Year’s Day.
Resolution suggestion #2: Someone once said, “It’s not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us happy.” Resolve this year to keep a daily gratitude journal in which you note all the things and people there are in your life to be grateful for. The more you pay attention, the more gratitude – and happiness – you’ll feel.
Resolution suggestion #3: Be kind to yourself this year! How? Resolve to pay close attention to your ethical life (don’t hurt others – physically, verbally, or even in your thoughts), and do something helpful for someone else everyday (anonymously, if possible). Work the karma and see the results. What goes around, comes around. . . but it has to go around first!
Resolution suggestion #4: Resolve to waste less time this year watching TV and DVDs, playing video games, reading trashy magazines and novels, surfing the ‘net, mindlessly blogging, etc. Remember your mortality and use your time wisely. Life is short; don’t squander it on things that won’t matter at all in the end.
Resolution suggestion #5: Resolve to keep your resolutions. Don’t write no checks with your mouth that your body can’t cash. Do what you say you will do and create the karma for success and healthy self-esteem (and avoid the karma of lying and depression).
How to Change Your Karma
The “law of karma” can seem quite foreign and exotic to a modern Westerner. But in a post-Freudian age we are accustomed to thinking that the past affects our experience of the present. And this is, after all, the essence of what karma’s all about.
We can all agree that our present lives are at least influenced, if not wholly determined, by what happened to us in the past, and by what we did, said, or even thought in response to what happened. And so, to this extent at least, we all accept a fundamental premise of the karmic worldview.
But as we have also learned here in the West, it’s not what really or actually happened in the past that matters. In fact, what really happened is totally inaccessible to us – partly because events are subjectively and not objectively experienced, and partly because the past is, after all, done and gone and therefore obviously unavailable to us.
What is available – the only available thing – is not the past itself but our memories of it. And our memories of the past are not what actually happened (is anyone still unclear about this?) but what we think happened.
So the past does exist, but only as a part of the present. William Faulkner was right when he said, “The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” What we mean by “the past” is, upon analysis, nothing other than an idea of what has already occurred that we carry around in our present minds. “What happened” is really just (and always) a portrayal, a construal of the past. It’s what we think happened, or more accurately, it’s what we presently think happened.
The "Live in the Present" watch (click image for link)
The past is never like it used to be. What we remember are not snapshots or videotapes but abstract paintings that we are perpetually touching up, if not recoloring altogether. The past and the present exist, like everything else, interdependently. And so it is that the past depends on the present – it is the backstory we give ourselves from our current perspective. And it is also the case that the present depends on the past – our sense of who we are in the here and now is a function of the kind of past we think we had.
We are who we think we once were. And this is why karma is true. We don’t have karma; we are karma. Our memories – conscious and subconscious – of the kind of person we think we once were, based on what we think we have done, said or thought, are indivisibly connected to our present sense of identity.
But because neither the past nor the present exist independently of the other, it is also the case that our sense of the past is shaped by our present. It is from the perspective of the present that we think about our past. So if we are who we think we once were, it is also true that we used to be who we think we are now.
And here’s the really cool thing. Since the past and present exist only interdependently, when you change one you change them both. We can change our karma – but we do so by changing our vision of the past that, in turn, transforms our sense of who are in the present.
At one level, this means what we usually think when we think about changing our karma. If we want to improve our future sense of self, we must create better future memories. What we do, say, and think now will provide the fodder for our interpretation of who we once were when we arrive in the future. The kind of person we are now will be the kind of person we will remember being later – and therefore we will be later that kind of person!
And we used to be who we think we are now...
But here’s another, and more radical, implication. Since the past exists only as a function of the present mind, we can more or less instantly change it. John Lennon was right! There is such a thing as “instant karma,” and here’s an example of how it works: If we can think about the people and events in our past with gratitude rather than anger and resentment, we will have instantly changed part of our backstory. And when we in this way change our understanding of the past (and the only past that exists is our “understanding of the past”), we feel differently (happier!) in the present. Presto changeo! We just changed a bit of our karma!
There’s no history except for revisionist history – so revise your personal history; gift yourself with a better backstory. Change your karma. Be aware that your present actions will be the data that your future self will shape into its idea of the past. Mind your p’s and q’s, knowing that the present will soon be the past a future present remembers and is defined by. And practice forgiveness and gratitude in the here and now so as to revise your current sense of the past, and therefore also your experience of the present.
Stay Connected Be Inspired
Thank you for looking at the options for staying connected!
As you know, the social media opportunities are pretty boundless these days. Everything is out there from the tried and true old friends such as Twitter, to the latest Generation of Connection via Pinterest.
Because the Social component is such an important element in staying connected these days, we of course must participate. Please do share what you feel would be helpful with and to others and please engage in the dialogue as you are able. And if you feel like helping, please send us an email and let us know how you think you may be able to help… we can always use more hands and eyes and hearts.
Below is a list of our main social outreach efforts:
- Our Latest: Lama Marut’s News on Twitter. The account is @marutnews and here you will get the updates about events, teachings, new blog posts, other lineage events and links to inspirational materials posted in other places. You want to stay up to date the easy way with Lama Marut? This is the way! (Please spread the word)
- Daily Inspiration (Well almost): This is where Lama Marut sends out his wisdom in short bits to inspire, challenge and transform. A great way to stay mindful and a great addition to any spiritual renegade who is tweeting along the way to enlightenment. The link is @marut on Twitter. Enjoy!
- Videos: Great tidbits of footage edited to be on a single topic all pulled from a variety of Lama Marut’s teachings from around the world. So if you are chillin’ at your computer and have 3 minutes or 5 minutes or even 7 minutes, you can get a nice dose of something that is actually good for your brain! Enjoy! Click here for the “Official” YouTube channel for Lama Marut.
- Facebook: It’s all about community and friends. Connect here and new doors of opportunity and friends and inspiration will open for you. Through Lama Marut’s Facebook page you will not only get smatterings of delicious pearls of wisdom filtering through, you will also learn about lots of other events and teachings not only in the USA but also overseas. And not just with Lama Marut but also his ACI Centers and other teaching events and retreats. Definitely a “must do” for any Facebook participant.
- Eblasts: Want this info sent to you inbox? Great! Sign up for our newsletter which keeps you updated on all things Marut. Enjoy! Just Sign-Up over in the sidebar widget >
- Pinterest: This is a new one to us brought to our attention by David Simmons of Nashville Dharma. Though we don’t have an official presence there, David has pointed out that many people have accounts and are actively sharing content at an algorithmic rate! Check it out and see if this social channel is something you may like. Who knows… maybe someday we will have an “official” presence there as well. Here’s a link to the Pinterest.com home page >
