I Am Because You Are
“Perception is reality” that’s the philosophy we preach and practice in our paradoxical world; image is everything, put your best foot forward, and your first impression is primary. We were taught these ideas growing up and it has been instilled in our conscious. Thinking of the contrary is something that’s hard to do. We conform to the standards and ideas of our society ever-more, and believe that reality is not reality unless acknowledged. We judge and confront people by their extrinsic values: credit score, external beauty, wealth, and culture. A very famous essay, The Paradox of Our Time, beautifully points out the paradox of our day-to-day lives: “We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers, wider freeways, …show more content…
I only know of three others that are in the fleet, and I am certain that I was first one to go through boot camp at MCRD San Diego. While in high school, whenever I told classmates or teachers that I am enlisting in the Marine Corps, their heads would turn and point out the oxymoron of my decision. You see, Tibetans have this aura of being peaceful and a proponent of non-violence. I was the oddball by joining the Marine Corps. After MOS school, I got stationed at Jacksonville, NC on May of 2010. This town consists of pawn shops, strip clubs, steak houses, and tattoo parlors. Marines run the streets in giant, mud-slanging, confederate flag flying trucks with grins on their faces (if you 're a woman, and you have breasts-Oorah!) and loud music. Other than a brave hearted soldier who gloriously defends his country when the call of duty cries out his name, a stereotypical Marine would be a tatted, obnoxious, ignorant, meat loving chauvinist. I don’t drink, smoke, dip, tattoo it up from head to toe, eat meat, go to strip clubs or any of those things that I see done by most Marines. I don’t refrain from these actions for a false sense of superiority; I just do it because those characteristics aren’t me. If one brings up veganism, vegetarianism, or anything involving NOT ingesting meat, one is stigmatized and often ridiculed. Imagine! A marine that doesn 't eat meat... …show more content…
Born into a world of princely magnificence and nowhere does princely than India. He was given life on a golden platter from birth to his epiphany. After seeing the signs and having the earnestness to transcend his earthly lifestyle, the Buddha meditatively came upon philosophy of emptiness. Like most major religions, the Buddha preached on the ideal of inner-spirituality and took it one step further by formalizing one of the most developed philosophical descriptions of emptiness (Skt. Sunyata). "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form." That single line is the most celebrated paradox associated with Buddhist philosophy. Though that line may sound nihilistic, what is truly meant in those words are that friends, enemies, lover, and any intrinsic values are nothing more than mere labels and that everything around our sensual world is a projection of our mind. “All things have no inherent existence.” Just the idea of that is mind boggling and hard to digest. What makes a table a table? Is it its intrinsic “tableness”? Without the person or the office supply applying it, then the table is nothing more than a block of wood. That can be said about everything in this world and that its existence depends on other phenomena. All things and events, whether material, mental or even abstract concepts
“Perception is reality” that’s the philosophy we preach and practice in our paradoxical world; image is everything, put your best foot forward, and your first impression is primary. We were taught these ideas growing up and it has been instilled in our conscious. Thinking of the contrary is something that’s hard to do. We conform to the standards and ideas of our society ever-more, and believe that reality is not reality unless acknowledged. We judge and confront people by their extrinsic values: credit score, external beauty, wealth, and culture. A very famous essay, The Paradox of Our Time, beautifully points out the paradox of our day-to-day lives: “We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers, wider freeways, …show more content…
I only know of three others that are in the fleet, and I am certain that I was first one to go through boot camp at MCRD San Diego. While in high school, whenever I told classmates or teachers that I am enlisting in the Marine Corps, their heads would turn and point out the oxymoron of my decision. You see, Tibetans have this aura of being peaceful and a proponent of non-violence. I was the oddball by joining the Marine Corps. After MOS school, I got stationed at Jacksonville, NC on May of 2010. This town consists of pawn shops, strip clubs, steak houses, and tattoo parlors. Marines run the streets in giant, mud-slanging, confederate flag flying trucks with grins on their faces (if you 're a woman, and you have breasts-Oorah!) and loud music. Other than a brave hearted soldier who gloriously defends his country when the call of duty cries out his name, a stereotypical Marine would be a tatted, obnoxious, ignorant, meat loving chauvinist. I don’t drink, smoke, dip, tattoo it up from head to toe, eat meat, go to strip clubs or any of those things that I see done by most Marines. I don’t refrain from these actions for a false sense of superiority; I just do it because those characteristics aren’t me. If one brings up veganism, vegetarianism, or anything involving NOT ingesting meat, one is stigmatized and often ridiculed. Imagine! A marine that doesn 't eat meat... …show more content…
Born into a world of princely magnificence and nowhere does princely than India. He was given life on a golden platter from birth to his epiphany. After seeing the signs and having the earnestness to transcend his earthly lifestyle, the Buddha meditatively came upon philosophy of emptiness. Like most major religions, the Buddha preached on the ideal of inner-spirituality and took it one step further by formalizing one of the most developed philosophical descriptions of emptiness (Skt. Sunyata). "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form." That single line is the most celebrated paradox associated with Buddhist philosophy. Though that line may sound nihilistic, what is truly meant in those words are that friends, enemies, lover, and any intrinsic values are nothing more than mere labels and that everything around our sensual world is a projection of our mind. “All things have no inherent existence.” Just the idea of that is mind boggling and hard to digest. What makes a table a table? Is it its intrinsic “tableness”? Without the person or the office supply applying it, then the table is nothing more than a block of wood. That can be said about everything in this world and that its existence depends on other phenomena. All things and events, whether material, mental or even abstract concepts