September 23, 2005

A bit of Dhamma Fun ! :-)

A friend sent me this cool website (www.dharmagames.org) which has a bunch of fun flash based games that combine teaching of the Buddha. The Dhammapada game is particularly good!

September 16, 2005

Getting back into old habits ...

After almost a month away on vacation, getting back into the old routines of work, rest and play have been a slow process. Of course it doesn't help that the month or so just before I left were an atypical haze of frantic activity where I was rushing to get my PhD thesis completed. Now thaat this is out of the way, coming back from a long break means that I no longer remember the old routines I had for the smooth day-to-day running of my life. So the past week has been an exercise of remembering the old and experimenting with the new.

The old habits I have rediscovered is the simple act of sitting down in the morning for a few minutes and meditating. It is not a daily activity at the moment, but by doing it whenever I can (and remember!) means that I am being reminded of the benefits of taking 20-30mins each morning to train one's mind to really concentrate on one thing. Of course, the mundane day-to-day stuff continues to come to mind during this process, but as time goes on it does become easier to let go of all that baggage and just relax into the moment. My sitting this morning was particularly refreshing, and at the end of the 30 mins I was almost unwilling to get up and break the concentration :-)

A new habit that I am developing is to eat more healthily and also get a lot more exercise. I say this is a new habit, but in reality it is just a long forgotten one. Why is it that getting back into a healthy lifestyle is always more difficult than leaving one behind and indulging ones laziness and food cravings! Anyway, I am getting into the habit of satisfying my snack cravings by having fruit (instead of biscuits and chocoaltes) and also getting some extra exercise by cycling between home and the tube station. The cycling is a bit of strain at the moment since I am really out of shape but I am slowly getting back into the swing of things.

Well, it is getting towards the end of Friday and the weekend beckons with more activity to ingrain these good/better(?!?) habits. Tomorrow I plan to drive up to Amarvati (a Buddhist monastery close to my house - www.amaravati.org) for a meditation workshop, and also visit the London Buddhist Vihara in the evening and enjoy some pirith chanting. In between all of this, and catching up with house cleaning / laundry stuff, I should get some cycling and swimming done as well :-)

Have a good weekend!