the fifth fold of buddha’s eight fold path. and basically saying our means of sustenance should not interfere with out spiritual development. any job is skillful job as long as it is not doing ( intentionally ) any harm to the person who is doing the job or to someone else.

some of the basic common sense questions to asses if the current work is skillful livelihood.

• is my work intentionally harmful for other people ?
• does my work leads me to break the precept ? is it asking to sacrifice integrity ?
• use some common sense !

it is a common sense that any profession can be made corrupt. and assessing skillful livelihood is an individual thing, same hindrances can disturb the mind for one while for other can catalyse spiritual growth. and as mindfulness deepen we can develop so much calm and patience that just about any honest job become perfect for us.

once we clear away the...

the way now I understand is, skillful actions are those which atleast not agitate mind as a byproduct. as a child need some enforced rules from the parent like don’t touch that stove. but once child grew up he realize these rules were there to prevent certain harm. same way once we understand moral behavior skillful action becomes automatic and it became impossible to break five precepts.

there is no running away from cause and effect. you break moral principle and atlest you will face worry, guilt and remorse. and mind filled with affliction is like pot with dirt, no good meal can be cooked in that. so first we need to abstain from negative. which creates proper condition for positive. like not killing gives the rise to compassion and not stealing gives the rise to generosity. and ethical actions shift slowly from what we want to what will most benefit us and others. because when we...

the 3rd fold of buddhas 8 fold path and something I struggle with a lot. one can understand the importance of skillful speech if buddha gave it a step in itself. it is clear that speech creates an environment which either contributes to happiness or destroy it. imagine never having to regret for anything you say. four quality of skillful speech

speak the truth
it is important to understand we are talking about, not lying for our advantage, someone’s advantage or for any advantage whatsoever. even some time silence could be an answer. but what if the truth harm someone. in those cases wait for the right time to speak right words. buddha himself resolve to silence if his answer can harm someone.

if you know something is untrue, incorrect or non-beneficial do not speak. if the words are true and correct know the time to speak, when words are true, correct, beneficial and timely, speak...

the second fold of buddha’s 8 fold path, skillful thinking flows from skillful understanding. some kind of thinking are unwholesome like fear, fantansy and some kind of thinkings are wholesome like compassion and loving-kindness. these wholesome thoughts also works as antidotes for unwholesome and all this could be experientially understood with cause and effect.

letting go
if the desire (attachment / clinging ) is the root cause of suffering, letting go or generosity is it’s opposite. but very easily generosity can be polluted by ego and make it a pride trip. but I would still argue even if you acknowledge your motive is not pure being generous is wonderful act. the best way to be generous should be

giving while knowing that we already have in our heart everything we need to be happy

another aspect of letting go of unwholesome thoughts is ,it creates the space for wholesome...

this is the week, where I didn’t put much of the effort in any thing. I slept a bit longer. not very mindful while working. entertained more afflictions. felt lost. sort of searching for something. I started the week with challenges of last weekend. fixed my laptop got a new phone. emotional rebound time was amazing. in the midst of confusion and aspiration I started to look at more buddhist teachings. brought another book and start reading about 8 fold path. I started to reflect and write about it. it does feel like my current approach of guiding principle meditation is not enough.

spirituality - continued meditations as normally. I think I am naturally moving from breath to mind as an object. reading and reflecting on eight-fold-path. probably next week I would have different kind of framework to judge progress. I was surely engaged in mental attachments, in absence of any good...

so I started to read more about eight fold path. which is based upon 3 cardinal points, understanding, effort and mindfulness. one of the core teachings of buddha. and i realized what I was trying to do from last few months was to build the right understanding. which is the first fold in eight fold path. but it is far more deep. what I believe he is pointing to understand is clear nature of reality. and 2 simple law of nature.

cause and effect -
it’s quite simple and profound argument, everything that we think, say or do has result. to be honest I never really investigate it like that. but at some level in my heart I can feel this to be a truth. and I am completely inline with arithmetic nature of mind.

current state of dissatisfaction or joy is basically the result of previous causes. greed hatred and delusion will always result into dissatisfaction and loving kindness and...

I am not really sure what I am doing from last few days. I am not making any deliberate efforts towards any particular direction. a thought of reading some books on buddhist was wandering in my head. even though it is in humpty-dumpty mode but my laptop is working now. a part of me feels like I am relaxing.

one thing that clearly gravitating me is reading/contemplating about eight-fold path and five hindrances in buddhist text.

another thing I am not really able to do is guiding principle meditation. some refactoring in that direction is also required.

so I would say, lets take a step back, read some books, contemplate a little, read your own old blog posts. watch some movies. relax and I can think about what to do next over the weekend.

And this is the week where all hell loose, started week with setting up website for cx. Walked on jbr with Hrishi and anmol. A bit disconnected. Work was fine. Clearity was missing. Not very high load And I was not so much engaged in work. I was definitely not utilizing available free slot effwctively. I was also very much thinking about the conference whole week.

And as I proceed to weekend I started to loose control. With such a subtle beauty mind lure me in. Ohh what’d wrong with it. I kind of forget my stand and Started to react.

And than came the beast. I went for that hackathon. Not really excited about cx. And first thing I started my laptop and its broke. In a hackathon without laptop. I started to walk around and talk to people.
The subject they were discussing felt completely disconnected to me. Eg Politics.

People were walking around looking for connection I guess. But as...

so it’s been more than a week and we have our website up and running. also being able to connect a person who might want to use it is also pretty good progress.

clarity of what exactly is happening is missing and also clairty of why seems to be keep diluting. one clear thing is there is not enough time. and there is quite a lot to be done. so even need of clear vision takes the back seat and still it makes reasonable sense that we are moving forward.

I think it is sort of prework. it has to do less with what are you building but just for building you need certain stuffs in place.

but be very clear about it. number one goal of doing it is actually going through this process of creating something from nothing. learning to build a product. learning the craft of entrepreneurship.

second goal is to get into the education domain. watch it intimately how people react, what exactly is...

I love the ideas joanathan fields put together in this book revU

1. revolution avatar - So, who is this person you seek to serve and rally to join with others to solve a bigger problem? Where does she live? What’s her mindset? What does she think about? What is her life like? What are her needs or aspirations, hopes, desires?

2. identify shared pain - You have to understand what people are living with. How is it keeping them from joy, belonging, awe, vitality, ease? What is the pain or unease or disease they would love to be free from? What is the driving emotion behind it? it allows you to build messaging that speaks directly to it. it allows you understand whether it is a unique pain or a shared pain.

3. the dictator - identify the Defining Traits of that person, company or product that are causing harm and then call those traits out as the dictator.Once you identify the dictator...