[Yash RS]

I was at the gym and there was a boxer.

In India, these athletes pay respect to their equipments.

I  kicked a dumbbell mistakenly , he came up to me and said “Please don’t touch the equipment with your feet it’s disrespect” .

I told him that I didn’t even know about that and he just went away.

Now the point is that, with no offence at all, I find all these people idiotic!

They would fight with a living being, with a mind, with emotions , on the behalf of a non living thing as I disrespected that object! What 😂?

Not even these, there are many religious people as well , who are ready to kill you if you disrespect their rituals or gods or whatever. They are always ready to show how “Moral” they are!.

These athletes in India are generally indoctrinated of such “rituals”, and majority of them are uneducated, if I would have argued with him, it’s possible that he would have started to fight with me, and then I too would have had to fight back.

I didn’t want to do all that. Dhamma is always in my mind. So I just ignored him. It caused a distress in my mind. Thats why I am sharing it here ,to feel some relief.

I don’t like it when people impose stupid “philosophical” statements ,thinking themselves as very moral and respectful and trying to humiliate the other person and portray them as bad or immoral.

Have anyone else also faced such types of situations? If yes then what did you do?

I don’t really know how to handle such oversmart beings, so I just tolerate.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jittananto

[taryal]

LOL something similar happened to me in Tennessee. I was in a college campus and walked on top of a piece of land rumored to be “sacred”. A group of guys confronted me and said “Yo dude, you can’t walk there. This land is sacred.. blah blah”. The funny thing is that land was open (with no fence) and there was no sign either. I told them I’m new here so I didn’t know and they understood. In situations like these, I would say it is better to try not to heat up the situation and walk away as soon as you can. Of course such ritualistic beliefs are dumb but there are people who strongly believe those and if they suddenly hear someone say it’s stupid (even though it is), they can think their personal beliefs are being attacked. Plus such events are not worth wasting our energy on.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Yash RS, Jittananto

[pathfinder]

Hmm i guess to relate it to us as an extreme example if we see someone spit on a buddha statue that we visit often then we wouldn’t like it too! At that moment some of us can be quite agitated, if we are not well practiced on the path then all hell can break loose. Although it is more extreme than the 2 examples you’ve mentioned, we don’t know how much value they put into these symbols.

Something that helps me get less agitated is to try and understand the causes, eg reason why they are acting this way. Is not just for religious beliefs but anything in general! From the dhamma we are further equipped with the knowledge that they are acting based on the gati and 5 aggregates, but even without that by learning the “mundane causes” eg they grew up with it, their parents told them about it, they respect their parents too, their whole community cares about it, you insult this you insult their community, they are close to their community etc can make you less angry!

Also when I find myself angry I try to think of it as “my fault” for being angry. How can we let our anger or happiness be subject to the external conditions! We have learned that it is in the mind. Then it becomes a “test” that i have failed, an area for improvement. It lets me learn “hmm something is still wrong with my understanding here.” then I try to reflect with dhamma principles until I am not annoyed. But it is still difficult because my puthujjana instincts kick in.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Yash RS, Jittananto

[Author]

Posts