How to make Tiger Woods look sympathetic

[AJ-47]

What I do appreciate about CNN is they do more stories about soldiers heading out overseas or returning home. FOX News just SHOWS soldiers going overseas and coming home. MSNBC uses soldiers for shout-outs only.

When I do watch the cable news networks I flip mostly between FOX News and Headline News. I like the live radio look and feel of the networks. HLN would be moderate compared to the CNN and MSNBC, and slightly to the left compared to FOX. Kinda nice.

Hume's appearance on Bill-O was just... capitalizing on interest. Didn't say what he needed to say. Just sort of whined that they had to talk about the controversy. It's easy to avoid that: don't have him on to talk about it.

[Reformed_Buddhist]

Oh but I am a gamer, a friend of mine sent me this link. LOL I'm curious Silver, what is the difference between being Buddhist and un-Buddhist? :-)

And like I said before, if Hume said 'Jews can't offer the kind of forgiveness and redemption that the Christian faith can' he would have been fired before he left the building.

Cool forum ya got here.

[TinSoldier]

Originally Posted by Chimaera

The practice of Buddhism?

Perhaps, or maybe ed means "un-Buddhist-like"?

Originally Posted by silverwhisper

for some reason, these just don't sound like the words of a buddhist to me.

Originally Posted by carmachu

Proabably a reformed Buddhist.....

Originally Posted by silverwhisper

[wonders if kyle lovett frequents RPG forums and posts using the handle "justice".]

Originally Posted by Reformed_Buddhist

Oh but I am a gamer, a friend of mine sent me this link. LOL I'm curious Silver, what is the difference between being Buddhist and un-Buddhist? :-)

And like I said before, if Hume said 'Jews can't offer the kind of forgiveness and redemption that the Christian faith can' he would have been fired before he left the building.

Cool forum ya got here.

Welcome aboard, Reformed_Buddhist!

I'm interested in learning more...

[Reformed_Buddhist]

Cool, thanks Tin_Soldier. Damn, you guys have no idea how much hate mail I got when my quote got aired on MSNBC. Lot of angry Christians out there...probably a lot of angry Buddhists too. LOL

Buddhists in the West aren't like the sterotype that a lot of people think of as Buddhists. We can be a bunch of juvenile clowns that tell a lot of fart jokes, but we talk the philosophy seriously.

[AJ-47]

Welcome to the forum, Reformed Buddhist!

You write a very entertaining blog. Consider me subscribed.

The question I have for you is what do American Buddhists think of the Tiger Woods issue and him as a said believer/follower/practioner of the faith?

[Reformed_Buddhist]

AJ - I think Woods is like a lot of American Buddhists, who explore more of the core teachings, ya know, understanding how our thoughts rise and fall, but leave out a lot of the extra robes and bowing and statues. For many Western Buddhists, Buddhism is more a study of mind rather than a set of rituals.

And I doubt you'll find many Buddhists that believe in anything. What I mean by that you'd have to see before knowing. Like if I said I had a coin in my hand, you could either believe me or you not believe me. Either way, belief gets in the way. If I open my hand and show you that I do in fact have a coin in my hand, the need for and usefulness of belief is gone. You know.

Thats where a lot of the mix up comes from in the whole Hume crap, while Christians have blind faith, Buddhists steer clear. Blind faith ain't bad, but I think this confuses a lot of those pundints. :-)

[BlueNinja]

My co-worker was just commenting about how disappointed he is in Tiger ... not because he was committing adultery, but because he was getting it from "such a bunch of ugly es".

[Reformed_Buddhist]

Originally Posted by Chimaera

Buddhism (at least Western Buddhism) is less credo and more religio, teaching a number of practical psychotechnologies, exercises that allow one to directly intervene and participate in the cultivation of one's character. The clinical efficacy of mindfulness meditation is being seriously studied, with some very interesting and encouraging preliminary results. Moreover, there is also evidence in other areas of psychology, like the problem solving literature, that indicates that such practices have a noticeable effect, actually improving people's performance.

Quite right. For example, an interesting thing to get people to try is, feel the point on your nose where you can feel a breathe come in and go out. The point is to keep your focus on that point, and if your mind wanders, ya have to bring your concentration back to the breathe. Try focusing on your breathe for 60 seconds without having your mind stray with random or compulsive thoughts, like "why am I doing this?" or " I'm hungry" or m favorite "this is stupid!". Its a lot friggin harder than it sounds, no one can usually focus for long periods of time at first. You'd be shocked how our minds wander will, even if we attempt to reign in our thoughts, so they don't wander.

Then we ask ourselves, who is in control of our thoughts, my mind or me? But if we are our thoughts, then who's trying to control them? Us Zen folk love the circular questions, it pisses people off at first. haha

Hey, can ya tell I got the day off of work today, bored. Girlfriend is at work and I'm pigging out on some beef-a-roni. hehe

[Emilia Jenius]

Originally Posted by Reformed_Buddhist

Cool, thanks Tin_Soldier. Damn, you guys have no idea how much hate mail I got when my quote got aired on MSNBC. Lot of angry Christians out there...probably a lot of angry Buddhists too. LOL

Buddhists in the West aren't like the sterotype that a lot of people think of as Buddhists. We can be a bunch of juvenile clowns that tell a lot of fart jokes, but we talk the philosophy seriously.

So you're Kyle Lovett? I originally thought you were just someone's sockpuppet in an odd joke I didn't understand, because of the nature of GE&R and all that. Seems like you're for real, though. That's kinda amusing. GE&R passed the Arcana check for Summon Minor News Celebrity. EDIT: Whereas I failed the Intelligence roll to get the forum name right in my first attempt.

Welcome to the forum! And I like the blog. Condolences for the hate mail, but at least it worked for advertising.

Any good websites you could recommend as an intro to more western style Buddhism? I'm not especially interested in the more religious versions (especially not the ones that are merged with ultra-conservative religions), but I'm interested in the skepticism aspect, meditation, and some other stuff.

[Reformed_Buddhist]

Tell ya what, I'll link back to you guys in the post I am about to make. :-)