Marketing Is Really A Long-Term Investment
Feet as you walk. Notice which part of your foot makes first contact and how the rest of your foot comes down. Feel how the weight of your body is carried forward onto the leading foot as you walk. Notice what muscles come into action and when. Also notice how your breathing has changed as you walk.
BN: Yes, that's the key. This retreat we taught some of the stories from the Dhammapada, and people asked a few questions about the stories. The questions are longer than the talk, and most of the questions are about the person's individual life. So these are even more important than the questions about the stories. The stories are a springboard to get to what the people really want to ask. I talk for about an hour and then we have dialogue for about an hour and a half. People get to bed about 10 o'clock and then get up at 3:45 a.m. At 4 o'clock in the morning, the retreatant begins meditation.
In yoga and in Thai massage, the hips are believed to hold a lot of emotions. For this reason, innumerable techniques have been developed over the centuries of Thai massage practice to release the hip muscles and joints.
Lay followers generally engaged in this kind of worship. Monks and nuns also worshiped these objects, but with a different goal in mind. They worshiped these objects in a kind of meditation, to be reminded of the Buddha's teaching.
There are many Thai amulets sold each day online. A very high percentage of these amulets are non-genuine amulets and generally worthless. I have found bronze and copper amulets for 4 cents each in bags of 500 pieces in Chinese stores in Thailand that I have later seen sell for $19.95 at Ebay. Are you buying four cent amulets for 500 times their worth too?
BN: Right. So the less we are causes or conditions for the destruction of animals, that is a better situation, even though in theravada we can eat meat without breaking the precepts.
BN: I changed my life. Before I had only read, but when you meet with a teacher and stay close to a teacher, well that is the great change. I turned around. I felt a transformation by practicing and learning from my teacher. I discovered an inner happiness and peace. I felt I found an opportunity to know what the Buddha taught. I stayed with my teacher until he died; even after I came to Mexico, I used to accompany my teacher when he traveled. I stayed with him for almost 20 years.
He goes through the Pali Canon and separates what was new to the Buddha and what was also held in Indian philosophy before the Buddha. He can then pinpoint what's unique to Buddhism. So he doubts rebirth and different realms of existence. He pinpoints as distinctively Buddhist: dependent origination; the practice of mindful awareness, being focused on the totality of what is happening in our moment to moment experience; the Four Noble Truths & the Eight Fold Path; the principle of self-reliance, not to be dependent on some authority figure.
