In a few hours, the ritual of handing out the candies and treats shall commence! Happy Halloween, everyone! I’ll see what’s on TV. Maybe “The Exorcist” will be on…

I was studying some Buddhist teachings that were quite similar to Don Juan’s (from Carlos Castenada’s books) teaching about “death”.

Death, is an advisor…

..meaning that we must embrace the thought that someday we will die. Perhaps since I was a child I felt that I would somehow live forever on this Earth. Only when we get older do we realize that life is short and we must live our lives accordingly, and on borrowed time.

Of course, whether or not we believe in a life after this one, we still have to come to terms with the fact that we will all die. Maybe, sooner than we think.

So, we must look upon our own death as an advisor. What shall we do with our life to make it useful to others… and not just to ourselves. How can we make an impact in this world during our brief stay here.

For me, being a musician who plays a lot of wedding receptions, I feel that I’m already doing something good for the bride and groom and their families… becoming a part of their lives, if only for a brief time to celebrate their joyous and loving union. I love playing wedding receptions, and I enjoy seeing couples so happy and just beginning their lives as husband and wife. It’s all a beautiful experience and I don’t take it for grant one bit.

These are the kinds of things I think about, always, in the back of my mind. Not only is it a valid survival tool, but a great motivator for us to be doing something with our lives before it is over. Many times we go through life like zombies… just going through the motions. It’s important to know just how much we affect others, and how we can make a difference in people’s lives. And in most cases we’re already doing something significant… raising a child, teaching someone something profound, making someone happy… we just have to really feel it… that we are actually doing it, and realizing just how important our actions are.

Imagine, in 100 years time, all of us will cease to exist, and life will go on and others will take our place. And hopefully, we humans would not have screwed up the environment too much so that our future generations will be able to enjoy what we enjoyed.

Anyway, knowing full well that I could be gone in the next moment, I live my life from moment to moment, and I’ve realized just how beautiful this world is right now!

Boy, I’m talking as if I’m a goner, but I’m just living for the moment….

Am I bored like some claim to be sometimes… Certainly not!

I look around me and see such beauty, my eyes are full of tears of joy… this is it! Realization!

On Buddhism:

“Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.” —Albert Einstein

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” —John Muir

I was browsing around in the Religion/Philosophy section at Borders. And I was totally awed by the number of books written by the Dalai Lama.

Browsing through many other books there in that section… Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sufism, etc… I ended up sitting on the carpet in that particular aisle just skimming the pages of many books about the Dalai Lama and Buddhism.

Self-Realization Fellowship was a church I used to go to in my early 20s, and so I ended up browsing through some books on Paramahansa Yogananda, the pioneering Yogi who founded “SRF” and brought Indian Philosophy and Wisdom to the West. I still like SRF’s approach of respecting the world’s great religions.

I’ve been really getting into Buddhism lately… not that I want to become a Buddhist right this moment, or become a monk and live in the Himalayas in a cave, but I’ve been studying Buddhism as a philosophy and many things I’m reading reflect a practical application to the real world.

But then again, what is real?

Buddhism teaches that the material/physical world we’ve known out there is all an illusion. Meaning that, our “mind” interprets what we see, hear, feel, taste… so, what is our mind? If our entire life experience has been based on what our limited senses have perceived up until know…

…then what is this world in which we live in?

Anyways, I got a nice catalog in the mail from Hugger Mugger… their Fall Catalog and they really have some awesome Yoga stuff, and Buddhist as well as Tibetan stuff… at Target I actually was a little surprised to find a statue of the Buddha in the candles and tea lights section. Hmm… But the most awesome store to get a Buddha statue is over at Buddha For You, here in San Diego. I was there some weeks ago and was simply amazed at the number of Buddhas available ranging in price from $10.00 to thousands of dollars for a 6 foot statue!

I was watching a special tv show about Siegfried and Roy, and the accident that happened to them. They showed footage of their beautiful mansion, and they had this enormously inspiring Buddhist shrine/altar with a very large golden Buddha in the center.

It seems that I’m suddenly seeing images of the Buddha everywhere, but I know it’s just because I’ve been reading about him lately…

I got this one from Onebear:

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
—Mahatma Gandhi

I found some old photos of me meditating in the lotus pose, way back when I was 20, I believe (circa 1978).

It’s amazing how I was doing the yoga even way back then… a lot of water under the bridge.

Somewhere along the road of life perhaps I lost my way with regards to yoga, and then I found it again.

Now I recall I was pretty hardcore about my Eastern Philosophical endeavors. I even attended Puji Festivals put on by the Hare Krishnas. But I was never really satisfied with any one religion. I was always questioning things like I am now, even still.