Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

hello everyone

I'm just wondering what changes you would like to introduce in your lives for 2014?

2013 saw me put intoxicants firmly in my past: alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis and coffee(!)

for the coming year i wish to learn the Dhamma in detail
and will spend a few months in a monastery to establish a solid meditation practice .
I hope to allow more compassion and kindness to arise continuously for friend and stranger alike .

wishing you all success, peace,and joy.

Remember: this life is short

Coffee??? Ok that I am impressed by

2012 I became vegetarian, late-2012 / 2013 has mostly been about gritting my teeth and surviving, although I have at least settled on a branch of Buddhism.

2014 . . . well the list is endless, but I guess my top priorities are a daily meditation practice (even if it's only 5mins to start with) and a healthier relationship to food.

I have two aims for coming year:

• To maintain pristine sīla (Five precepts).
• To meditate at least twice daily with full effort, and improve my samādhi.

Congratulations on giving up the intoxicants.
And well done with giving up coffee. Its not really an intoxicant but I am sure you are feeling a lot more calm as a result of the reduction of caffeine in your system.
I don't do resolutions but this past year I focused on lifestyle changes. This coming year I'll probably make some fine tuning to my lifestyle and continue to practice Dhamma.
kind regards,

Ben

Oh, well, I definitely am resolving to 1) meditate daily for at least 20 minutes, having now overcome the major medical hurdle that had interfered with my prior attempts at regular meditation. No sense in waiting until 2014 to get started, of course—I'm already three successful days in!

My next order of business will be... business. I've been out of work through this long transitory period and need to clear up this gap in my resume, network my way into the industry I'm interested in, and re-accumulate some savings (if I am indeed going to start the business I have my eyes on in the long-term). The resolution I think I have to make, however, is to resolve to 2) put the right effort into my research and interviewing. I've been hasty and overly optimistic in the past, hurriedly taking on work that supported organizations with questionable values, so I want to at least ensure that I build up my reputation and nest egg doing interim work that qualifies as samma-ajiva.

Lastly, although I haven't really figured how best to do it, I'd like to resolve to 3) bring my second languages back up to speed this year. I've maintained my French well enough by listening to local French-language public radio, but my Spanish and Portuguese are faltering after years of disuse. In fact, they've mixed together into a single language in my head that I can only call Portuñol.... I'd really like to find people or a project that will force me into a trial-by-fire scenario in these languages—that's what worked best for me in the past. Otherwise, a lot of books will have to be hit.

I've asked my family what they would change of me and the answer from all was smoking.

So I guess I shall quite smoking for the new year.

Unless someone offers me a cigarette as it would be rude to turn down a gift.

Taijitu wrote: I've asked my family what they would change of me and the answer from all was smoking.

So I guess I shall quite smoking for the new year.

Unless someone offers me a cigarette as it would be rude to turn down a gift.

If you accept other peoples cigarettes you'll never be able to give it up. It isn't rude to say: "No thanks I've stopped smoking".

Smoking can damage your health and shorten your lifespan. My aunt was a smoker and died in her 50's from smoking-related lung cancer 5 weeks after it was diagnosed.

My resolution for this new year is to get enlightened

Taijitu wrote: Unless someone offers me a cigarette as it would be rude to turn down a gift.

If I recall correctly, that does not apply to things that cause harm. For instance, a lactose intolerant monk can (and should) turn down an offer for milk.

Taijitu wrote:I've asked my family what they would change of me and the answer from all was smoking.

So I guess I shall quite smoking for the new year.

Unless someone offers me a cigarette as it would be rude to turn down a gift.

do it for yourself, you have to want to give up smoking to succeed. and if you're willing to accept one when offered you're never going to overcome the cravings

good luck and a hve a happy2014

Accept the cigarette. Just don't light it.

corrine

Taijitu wrote:I've asked my family what they would change of me and the answer from all was smoking.

So I guess I shall quite smoking for the new year.

Unless someone offers me a cigarette as it would be rude to turn down a gift.

Hi Taijitu
Do not feel guilty to turndown an offer for a smoke.

I stop taking alcohol for more than a year now.

I went to few Christmas Functions this year. I
was the only person who did not drink alcohol.(except children)
My friends try to tempt me with my favorite past time alcohols. Scotch and Coke, Moet Chandon etc.
I just told them I have simply given up alcohols.

Are you really discussing about accepting or not a cigarret? Oh, my God. A cigarrete is something toxic. It's poison. It's unhealthy. A person who offers it to another is a... mmmm... a... mmm.... ok I'll say an ignorant.

corrine wrote:Accept the cigarette. Just don't light it.

corrine

That sounds like an idea. Perhaps I will only smoke if they put it in my mouth and light it for me.

When someone offers you a cigarette you could say,"Oh good, an offering for the gods" and then shred the cigarette and scatter it to the winds saying, "Oh spirits of the wind, better your lungs than mine." And then bow to the four directions. If you do this a couple of times it is likely that you will not be offered cigarettes at all.
chownah