Greetings from Fiji

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fijiNut
Posts: 124
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:11 am

Greetings from Fiji

Post by fijiNut »

Hello Dhamma Wheel forum.

FijiNut here.

A little bit about myself below.
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Ajahn Chandako and Tan Mettiko,

Thank you very much for sharing your tales of travel.

I think what especially touched my heart was your "Tales of Tudong Pt. 6 - Kingdom Come".
I am of Chinese descent and I work in a restaurant in Nadi, Fiji.
My family migrated from Guangdong in the late 70's and made Fiji their home.
So it was a sight to behold this little skimpy Chinese lad playing barefoot in the dust and heat with his Fijian brothers.
You talked about beliefs and being in a different cultural environment from at home and at school, I had the privilege of being exposed to different beliefs; my parents were non-demoninational traditional sort of Confusionists(pun intended), I attended Catholic school till 8th grade-you can imagine religious classes were my favourite time - I loved arguing with my orthodox-bispectabled nuns.
Middleschool I attended Swami Vivekanda High School- named after the famous reformist Hindu from India, student of Shri Ramakrishna.
I figured there was something amiss and then in University I discovered Buddhism and it was like a relief or refuge of coming into a warm house from the cold pouring rain. But it was actually Mahayana/Varjrayana that I had inadvertently been reading about. And then I came across http://www.accesstoinsight.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and came across an interesting hyperlink that said thai forest traditions and then I knew I was home.

In my understanding, all religions have good qualities, but it doesn't address the 3rd unwholesome root - delusion the same way the Buddha has so precisely elaborated.
All other religions counteract with greed and hatred in certain ways.

But how profound it is when the Buddha said that he taught nothing else but the Dukkha and the Cessation of Dukkha. There is no dogma, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, experience it for yourself and then see if it makes sense.
"Try before you buy!" and if you like the view up here, jump on board!

This is not to discount other factors of the path, but somehow, for myself, the question of saddha/faith and that of hard work and conviction has been always been the challenge.
It is somehow sometimes easier to mediocre and be pessimistic in this day and age.
It is easy because it is the default thing to do. And it doesn't require effort!
Just like your crusader, it is easier to avoid the road less taken.

But working in a restaurant with a bar and having met people from all walks of life who have been successful, it seems that their success can only be attributed to their hard work and perseverance.
But yet their success comes at a price, either they have family issues, morality issues or somehow, they have this gnawing sense of dissatisfaction in terms of what society had made them believe falsely, "Gain money and power and you shall live happily ever after".
For many of them, they have gained money and power but yet they feel that they've been short changed and been sold a lie.

I feel I've been sold a lie. There is no pot of gold at the end of rainbow. Happiness does not exist in the future, nor in the past so where does it exist? In this fleeting moment of the present?

But perhaps it might be a blessing in disguise as the Buddha talked about the benefits of renunciation and dispassion towards the material world.
But yet it seems hard, just as you said the intentions behind beliefs are more important than the belief itself, I had to examine my own views and then I realized that my intentions weren't pure, I was merely just trying to run away from the stress, hassles, and responsibilities of running a business, it wasn't a noble cause of trying to reach enlightenment. It was more push factor than pull.

So I have to suck my stomach in and roll with the punches - its been nearly 3 years now and it definitely has made me a better person.
The sense of dispassion is still there, but I realize that to be able to financially support 20 of my staff must be good merit.
(Apart from the unfortunate live crab and happen to end up on my shopping list!). We do serve alcohol but it isn't really a problem; my clients don't come here to get mindlessly drunk.
It is not easy running a restaurant, but this is my kamma for now, and I have learnt to accept that responsibility with a little bit more equanimity now.
And in the meantime - I try to maintain my 5 precepts and and a little bit of quiet meditation every now and then.
But as I have learnt so far in my 26 years on this planet, nothing in life comes easy and to progress on the practice a lot of hard work needs to be done.
Besides there is no such thing as free lunch. [pun intended ;-) ]

With metta,
Sung Zen Low aka fijiNut
^ yes my real name on my birth certificate!

update with the restaurant - I have put the restaurant under management now, to straighten my sila.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings and welcome, FijiNut.

:hello:

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Ben
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by Ben »

Welcome Fijinut
I'm glad you found us!
Metta

Ben
“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

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fijiNut
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by fijiNut »

Greetings Ben and retro and all Dhamma friends, thanks, I'm very glad and fortunate to be here.
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jcsuperstar
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by jcsuperstar »

:hello:
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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Dhammanando
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by Dhammanando »

:hello:

Welcome Fijinut.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Greetings back to you Fijinut - from California, USA.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Cittasanto
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by Cittasanto »

hello
:hello:
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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cooran
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by cooran »

Hello Fijinut :smile:

Welcome Sung - Glad you're here!

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 ---
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bodom
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Re: Greetings from Fiji

Post by bodom »

Welcome!

:namaste:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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