Namaste to all,
First of all, thanks to Lal for creating the site and now the forum. Wish him a stage of Arahat in this very life time as I feel he is helping all those who seek Buddha Dhamma.
Nice topic by Tobias and I have had experiences starting from 2013 where slowly with understanding of Buddha’s tilakhana and what started as a kindle slowly merged into knowing and experiencing more and more.
With that there was change in my attitude which my wife was the first person to notice and then my son also got interested. He is now in a college and we discuss on Dhamma topic everyday between all 3 of us.
As Lal has stated correctly that “dhammo ha ve rakkati dhammacari”, it has practically happened in me where there is withdrawal of senses from worldly affairs.
From my childhood days, never was interested much with movies and other stuff and even interaction with others have changed drastically from 2013 and always in look out for discussion on Dhamma else I’m just silent observer of all that is happening.
I feel that due to good karma if the remaining family members are also contributing to Dhamma discussions and practice, it enhances the experience which is the case with mine, something similar of Tobias.
I try to just be like a dew drop on lotus while being with people and profession (not working on full time job now after I moved into Dhamma) so that others do not feel lost in my discussion while I maintain the balance of thoughts and words ensuring that I don’t get carried away either by just being there yet withdrawn and as a spectator.
Right now, developing the art to balance between worldly events and dhamma where-in if people are genuinely interested in Dhamma, then I speak in length else will just engage to limited extent on worldly aspects relating to one or other profession so that the energy is conserved in experiencing dhamma.
With increase inclination to Dhamma, many people have moved away including near and dear ones and friends. This is expected since the gati takes care accordingly.
I live in Bangalore, India and engaged with Software development as a consultant (if anyone refers to me to help on their projects) along with showing Himalayan regions to people especially the Wheel of Life (patichasamutpada) depicted in Tibetan monasteries.