If you are a believer

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You need not adorn your house with his likeness, but instead adorn your heart with his teachings.

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On Filial Piety

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I am mostly western-educated, and I have had the skepticism about filial piety that people like me tend to have. I once talked to a monk who talked about the debt of gratitude we owe our parents, and being an angsty teenager, I was immediately skeptical. I remember asking the monk directly "is it not possible for your parents to be such terrible people that they are not deserving of love and gratitude?". I didn't understand the answer very well, but I remember it was some form of "no". I still think it was a fair question. We often hear about parents who have committed unspeakable atrocities to their children, or raise them with such neglect that the children become a menace to the world. Do even those parents deserve gratitude? Today I think the answer is clear to me. If I could talk to my teenage self, I would offer the following corrections to his world view. Firstly, to be grateful to your parents does not always equate to being blindly obedient. It is to fo...
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Mara thrives on division and hatred. Mara thrives on me and mine, my ally, my enemy, my country, my views Mara thrives when there's a "them" to hate, when there's something you want to see dead, someone you wish to see gone, someone you wish ill upon. Oh, how satisfying a meal that is for Mara. The supply of nourishment has never been so abundant. It thrives with such vigor and destroys all in its path. Piece by piece, once peaceful countries crumble. Don't you see it? For humanity to survive this shattering, you must reject Mara. Align with its ideals, and you only have a life of suffering ahead. When you say "let's work together", Mara retreats. When you set aside your differences and remember we're all human, Mara cries out in pain. When you feel grateful for what you have, Mara is gravely wounded. When you spread compassion in the face of hardship, Mara is vanquished. Mara is naught but the corruptor of our mind, Who has built a palace there...
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