Walldren's World

I'll admit it - I didn't get around to doing a daily reflection on the Dhammapada as I had intended. Work and family life took priority, however I was able to step back and reflect a bit here at the end of the year. One very popular quote attributed to the Buddha is this: We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. Our perceptions shape the reality we live and breath in. If we perceive danger where there is none - then we perceive there is danger. If we cultivate anxiety and fear, then the fruits of those feelings are what we shall reap. That is not to say there are no threats or dangers outside the mind, but as Alan Watts pointed out - the mind is really our radar - scanning for threats. It wants to find threats to keep us safe - but often it tricks us and we should remember: we are more than our radars. For those that may read this, I wish you blessings and peace in the New Year - and may 2016 be a year of great

Outside of work, it's been a long time since I've written anything in a blog, journal, or diary. For the last two years, I have enjoyed listening to the lectures of Alan Watts as well as reading some of his writings and his insights into consciousness and existence have me thinking back to the semester I read the Dhammapada . For those not familiar, the Dhammapada is one of the most widely read Buddhist scriptures and contains sayings attributed to the Buddha. I have come to believe that a strong function of any scriptures is to get the reader or listener to reflect critically on their own experience and in so doing, they project their own meaning onto the text. So, that is what I propose to do in December - blog about how I reflect on the collection of 26 groupings in the Dhammapada as translated by Thomas Byrom. There are 26 groupings of sayings that cover a lot of ground that I will attempt to explore in the coming days.

This post originally appeared on my now defunct marketing blog "Waiting for the Conversion" in 2014 As a father of three, I am growing used to experiencing the unknown -- or at least experiencing the other side of things as the now adult in the relationship. As a result, the older I get the less certain things appear to be to me. Perspective is an amazing thing. Each experience adds new data, if not an entirely new dimension to my consciousness. It’s scary and exhilarating and frustrating all at once. To quote Aldous Huxley, “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Because a lot can happen to you but if you do not take the lessons and gain the insights, it benefits you little. I began working on the web in 1997 as a 17-year old summer intern at a company where my brother worked. I did research finding public e-mail lists and newsgroups and entered their pertinent information into a database that talked to a subscription