AltBrothers

Follow your dreams, help others
By D. J. Murphy

I want to encourage you brothas who may be wavering in the shadow of a dream in your mind to pursue what you feel is the best and most honorable profession or life adventure for you. People come up with a million and one reasons why something can not and will not work, but a lot of times they are operating on their own fears and trying to spread it to you.

There will be nicks and bruises along the way, but this should not be a deterrent because anything worth having takes sacrifice and I know from my personal life that I can spend an awful lot of time wondering if what I am doing is worth the journey. But if it is in the light of love and greatness, then it is. Just praying, chanting, meditating, or seeking in what ever way you do that, the wisdom to know the correct paths to take is a big help. Money will come and go, but your legacy will live forever.

My personal hope is that what ever you do, you keep others in mind as you travel on your journey. You are plenty powerful and its a responsibility to encourage and uplift others as we walk along our life’s journey. Take one day at a time, and perhaps one moment at a time and honor thyself and thy visions. That will make that dash between your birth year and your year of transition, lived to its fullest potential. That Dash is your life.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

Please allow me to share something from a book called “The Buddha in Your Mirror,” by Greg Martin and Ted Marino…

“The Buddhism of Nichiren teaches the necessity of a “You and Me” outlook. Thus, Buddhist practice to become happy themselves and, at the same time, to help others become happy and bring peace to society, recognizing that it is the ultimately impossible to build personal happiness on the suffering (or unhappiness) of others. Furthermore, efforts for the happiness of others becomes an important source of one’s own happiness. Therefore it is the greatest and noblest mission to make efforts for the sake of others. In doing so, the selfish ego recedes and the true self, or Buddhahood, comes to the forefront.”

“Living without compassion is a shallow existence. The Bodhisattva* way, the path of helping others, is the certain path to absolute happiness.”

*A Bodhisattva is a person who acts with compassion and in the best interests of others, knowing that it spread world peace and aids in his or her own enlightenment. The original Buddha, Shakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautauma, sat under a Bodhi tree in India and it is said that this is where Buddhism was born 2,500 as he set forth to go beyond his rich life and live amongst the people who was suffering to attain enlightenment.

Be Blessed all and I shall get with you again in the near future…

D. J. Murphy
www.sonslikeme.com