Members Bios - please contribute yours

Introduce yourself to others at Dhamma Wheel.
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Mr Man
Posts: 4016
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:42 am

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Mr Man »

Sutiro
Are you conected with The vinyana group/Four winds Lao?
Mr Man
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marc108
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:10 pm

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by marc108 »

Sutiro wrote:My life in the Sangha
awesome story! Sadhu! :anjali:
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
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BubbaBuddhist
Posts: 640
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:55 am
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by BubbaBuddhist »

Greetings my Buddhahomies,

About me:

I am the seventh son of a seventh son, born with a caul, eight planets in Aquarius and according to family rumor, a di-rect descendant of the illegitimate offspring of Voodoo queen Marie Laveau and Privateer Jean Lafitte, born under a full moon with the wolves a-howlin and the banshee a-wailin. Therefore, I see all, know all, and tell a great deal more.

Facts: Born and grew up in Knoxville Tennessee, the Armpit of the Southern US. Moved to Bloomington Indiana, where nothing exists except Indiana University where I am currently their oldest student. Oh yeah, the Mongolian Cultural Center and Tibetan Buddhist Temple is here. I'm Theravada, so I've been there twice. It's nice, very pretty and I don't understand a thing that goes on there, or what those big bells and spinning wheels are for, why there are dragons and big colorful banners, but it is pretty. The nearest Thera center is a four hour drive from here. I have three college degrees: A bachelor of Fine Arts, in oil painting, a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and one I'm currently working on finishing in Creative Writing, expected matriculation Spring 2013. I started taking piano lessons two years ago at age fifty and I'm awful at it. I have been married four times, have a grown son and two cats. I retired from engineering circa 1994 and went into the entertainment business, where, according to the suttas, I'm assured rebirth into Hell. I'm a professional stage Hypnotist and Magician, which undoubtedly casts me down into hell's lowest circles.

In addition to school and operating my own business I'm currently working on a five-novel series of supernatural horror/murder mystery and have completed the first two books in the series. I'm vacillating between shopping for an agent or going the self-publishing route. I don't know if being a fiction novelist is condemned somewhere in the suttas but it probably is, as pretty much everything I enjoy seems to guarantee rebirth as something awful. Nevertheless I practice with reasonable diligence hoping to offset my hedonistic lifestyle and lusty appreciation for women, cognac, opera, chocolate, coffee and other of Samsara's sensual pleasures too plentiful to enumerate here for fear of overloading the server. Suffice it to say as a libertine I make Oscar Wilde look like Saint Augustine, and practice Buddhism in the hopes it will keep me from toppling over completely into the heresy that yes, happiness can found right here, right now in this here old world and that people are basically capable of their own salvation.

No one is more surprised than I that I made it past the half-century mark and I feel every day beyond this milestone is free and a gift, and when I awake each morning not dead I try to make the most of it. This is because I'm an idiot who hasn't realized what an awful place the world is. I attribute this moronic POV to the fact I don't watch Fox news, a habit many of my acquaintances see as a sign of mental aberration. I've done the research and discovered they are correct: Happiness, it turns out, is a symptom of an electrochemical imbalance in the brain and according to the DSM-IV there is both a diagnosis and a prescribed drug for Dyseuphoric Hedonia-presentation Maladjustment Disorder, or inappropriate contentment. My more down-to-earth friends howl: "What the hell's wrong with you--can't you see the world's about to end? The economy's in the crapper, terrorists are going to blow us up, and the Mayans are going to rise from the tombs in December 2012 and eat us all!" Buddhism offers a non-psychiatric take: "Well, you know all this happiness isn't actually happiness at all. It's really suffering, you just don't realize it because it's on a subtle level. All that giggling you're doing is just an illusion." In other words, if you're happy now you'll suffer later, so suffer now so you'll be happy later. My grandparents believed the same thing I think. They were the grimmest people I ever met but always talked about heaven like it was Branson Missouri, another place they hoped to visit one day but never did.

There's a lot more about me but I'm starting to feel narcissistic and besides, it's a nice day to sit on the balcony with a cognac. :toast:

BB
Author of Redneck Buddhism: or Will You Reincarnate as Your Own Cousin?
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Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Kim OHara »

Thanks for that, BubbaBuddhist.
:smile:
If you can write like that for a few hundred thousand words, you'll do okay with the novels. Just make sure to tell us when they come out and some of us (Tilt and me, for starters) will risk lower rebirths for the fun of reading them.

:namaste:
Kim
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puppha
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:56 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by puppha »

Dear Frank,
frankinnc wrote:Hi, my name's Frank...and my bio is gonna read alot different than most others, lol. Here goes: Grew up poor, did drugs, broke laws, smoked crack, broke more laws, went to prison ( 5 and 1/2 years), discovered Zen second year of prison, sat zazen almost everyday thereafter, went on "community passes" to a zendo last year of prison, got out of prison and continued to practice..still sober and sane and breaking no more laws. there ya go.
Sadhu! I am very happy for you! :twothumbsup:

Metta
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jasonfei
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:55 am
Location: ningbo, China; Calgary, Canada
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by jasonfei »

Hi, everyone!

Here is my brief background:

I am from China and began to learn Buddhism in graduate school about 8 years ago, and my major is law. I have learned both Mahayana and Theravada tradition, and have tried meditations like Goenka, Mahasi, and Pa-Auk, and the Thai Action Meditation. Besides, I have taken psychology courses, and studied for about 4 years.

I think the legal mechanism a state to harmonize the conflicting interests and ideologies are similar to the psychological process an individual balancing his or her thoughts, which means an equal, humane system can achieve happiness both in social and personal aspect.

I will take the Action meditation which is a kind of Vipassana to achieve an ultimate liberty. However, as a husband and father, it is also my duty to support families and do job I don’t like very much as a law teacher.

I do like to share thoughts and experiences with you guys, and hopefully we will support each other and finally achieve Nirvana.

Metta to you all!
TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
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Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Ben »

Greetings Jason and welcome to Dhamma Wheel!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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jasonfei
Posts: 6
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Location: ningbo, China; Calgary, Canada
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by jasonfei »

Ben wrote:Greetings Jason and welcome to Dhamma Wheel!
:),thank you, Ben!
TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
kilgoretrout83
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 11:17 pm

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by kilgoretrout83 »

I have taught US and World History for 19 years now. Prior to that I was and am a musician. When I moved to this town I noticed lots of churches and explored Christianity for a few years. I was never really a very religious person, but kept getting invited to different churches. What I have been searching for was not in those churches. About 6 years ago I began taking a form of Okinawan karate and my Sensei had a certain presence about him. I began to explore Buddhism just recently, but it was something that has always been in the back of my mind. To be honest, I found Buddhism less "stressful" than anything else I have tried. However; I am a beginner, and as far as I know, there are not a lot of Buddhists around this area. Most of what I am learning is from reading and conversations with my Sensei. He is actually not a Buddhist in name, but has many of the qualities.
So...I am new and am very open to this way of life. Buddism makes sense to me.
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves
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cooran
Posts: 8503
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:32 pm
Location: Queensland, Australia

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by cooran »

Welcome kilgoretrout83!
It's an interesting journey.

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
Anandavajri
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 4:08 pm
Location: Northwest England

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Anandavajri »

Hello world, my username is Anandavajri, the name I dreamed that I would be given when I was ordained, but wasn't. I is a mix of Theravada and Mahayana as am I.
I have thought of myself as a Buddhist since I was a young teenager at school but with no access to a sangha then. I eventually joined one in 1991. It is based on the teachings of the Buddha and his senior disciples without the cultural stuff that it picked up over the centuries. I teach there and do the admin.
I am married but did not want children. I have poor health with a long list of illnesses, some related, but I am just about able to keep going supported by the Dhamma.
I found this site by accident, it looks as if it may have some thoughtful contributors. I hope so. :anjali:
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Ben
Posts: 18438
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Location: kanamaluka

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Ben »

Anandavajri wrote:Hello world, my username is Anandavajri, the name I dreamed that I would be given when I was ordained, but wasn't. I is a mix of Theravada and Mahayana as am I.
I have thought of myself as a Buddhist since I was a young teenager at school but with no access to a sangha then. I eventually joined one in 1991. It is based on the teachings of the Buddha and his senior disciples without the cultural stuff that it picked up over the centuries. I teach there and do the admin.
I am married but did not want children. I have poor health with a long list of illnesses, some related, but I am just about able to keep going supported by the Dhamma.
I found this site by accident, it looks as if it may have some thoughtful contributors. I hope so. :anjali:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel, Anandavajri!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
Yana
Posts: 396
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:45 am

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Yana »

Hi everyone,

I realized i haven't wrote my bio :tongue: so here goes..

My name is Yuliana but my family calls me Yana. Since you are my family i would like you to call me Yana. :hug:

I was born on the floor of a very small clinic in the middle of nowhere.My mother was alone and didn't feel any pain so was shocked when i came out.She was standing and had to hold my head so i didn't..you know..smash my head on the floor or anything.. This i think was a very traumatic experience for her as she was left in shock on the floor covered in a pool of blood while That One Doctor tried to make sure i was alright.

I don't know if it was that experience or not but my mother never really liked me.I could tell because she never likes to touch me and when she sees me she gets angry a lot.Almost like just by being there was enough to irritate her.I don't know what motherly nurture means.My father was my mother and i love him dearly.Though my mother was practical and made sure i had the basic necessities,she never nurtured me emotionally,she was also very controlling and could be quite abusive.People think it's sad my mother has this attitude towards me but i don't.. the best thing about growing up in that sort of environment is your taught at an early age that rejection is just a part of life.

As for my personality generally speaking,In this lifetime,I was born with a lot of Scorpio planets :tongue: so i am naturally very quiet,private,focused,calculating and determined person..i can also be very intense..and i tend to make people uneasy i am not sure why..i've always had people make the "why so serious?" or " Who died?" jokes..which annoys me even more..maybe it's because i am akward,serious,shy,and withdrawn..i don't know have your pick..i gave up even trying to smile more or whatever..which is such a shame because i really do mean well.The combination of all this just turns me into one big loner.But i don't mind i like the solitude.

I love to write though :heart: And i am drawn to anything spiritual or more than the material world in a sense.something higher. It's where i feel nurtured.I was raised as a Christian by my very devoted Christian mother.And i felt at home going to church or bible studies or prayer times.In fact it was after one of these bible studies that i fell asleep and had a dream about the Buddha radiating,golden and smiling.I was sixteen years old and it was the first time i have ever encountered anything Buddhist in a sense.Buddhism was just not a part of my devoted christian life.It never crossed my mind.In a world where you were taught that other religions were just the work of Satan trying to deceive you from Christ the Saviour..that dream couldn't have been more far fetched from my daily life..I didn't give the dream much thought except that it was very memorable and i developed a quiet reverence for The Buddha.

I didn't know that many years later,while i was sitting alone in the middle of the afternoon.I would remember that dream, look up a Buddhist website,read a random page about the four Noble Truth and suddenly change.

It was like learning how to read.Everything looked alien and foreign to you.You had to learn the alphabets one by one and finally when you can piece everything together.They gave you a word and to your great surprise It Made Sense..It made sense!
That's how i felt when i read the buddhist teachings like i understood what the hell these monks were on about.

So i have been practicing since then and hopefully be free from suffering :jumping: and that's my story folks! :smile:
Life is preparing for Death
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DNS
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by DNS »

Anandavajri,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel and thanks for the bio. If I ever ordained, I would want to choose my ordination name too, if it was allowed. :tongue:

Yana,

Interesting bio. I had a similar birth event and there was a discussion a couple of years ago about births and I was happy to see that several others here had similar types of birth that we had. There are always some troll-types who use it to insult (not anyone here), but just something else to put equanimity to.

In another discussion thread I remember you also mentioning that your father taught you to play chess and that you played when you were younger. :thumbsup:
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Anagarika
Posts: 915
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:25 pm

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Post by Anagarika »

Yuliana, perhaps by your name I inferred that your Mother was Russian or Ukrainian? I have some family in Russia, and it's not unusual for young women to give birth in these solitary clinics, cut off from any family, and surrounded by other lonely women in pain and giving birth.

I wonder if your mother was a product of a difficult upbringing. I have seen families in Russia where the mother was strict, controlling, sometimes not loving at all, but the father was more nurturing, more friendly, more sensitive.

You mention learning at a young age about rejection. Maybe its not so much about rejection, bu that your mother didn't have the experience herself of being accepted or validated, so in turn, she had no capacity for cultivating empathy or acceptance. In other words, she didn't reject you, only because she always lacked the ability of acceptance, even of herself.

I am glad you have your father's devotion, but I'm guessing that because you have such an enlightened view of your mother, with your Buddhist practice you have the capacity and opportunity to be a loving and accepting force in the lives of others around you. This really is at the heart of the practice, to take the Buddha's acknowledgement of suffering, and cultivate the practice to allow ourselves to find release from these fetters, and then work to help others find release as well.

I don't mean to be so personal, but your letter suggested to me that you have a some very developed insights and a bright light that you can use to guide yourself and others down the path. Perhaps your mother's karma created for you a gift...one that you can share with yourself and others.
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