Spending most of my time on chess there is not much else I can be much good at but I enjoy spending time with my wife, parents, siblings and friends, listening to music, some sports, the Web and well... the usual stuff.
Self-reflection is the gateway to freedom. It also brings greater appreciation and enjoyment. We begin to enjoy spending time with our own mind, and we enjoy reflecting on our experience of the teachings. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the teachings of the dharma become clear.
What is a bad thing anyway? A bad thing is something that is different than what I want. Who gets to decide what the bad thing is? Jerry and Esther watched the mother bird lay her eggs in the nest, and then the neighbor's cat ate the baby bird. Esther said "bad cat!" And the cat said, "good bird!
The Great Commission will not be fulfilled with our spare time or spare money.
When I was not working, when our children were little, our life was all about our kids and our relationship. We didn't spend tons of time going off and spending time with friends and going on vacations alone.
When I was growing up, we always had music playing in our household. I enjoy spending time with my father singing.
Oh cat, I'd say, or pray: be-ootiful cat! Delicious cat! Exquisite cat! Satiny cat! Cat like a soft owl, cat with paws like moths, jewelled cat, miraculous cat! Cat, cat, cat, cat.
Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. Each second, each minute of our lives can be like this. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, even the sensation of our breathing. We don't need to go to China to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to travel into the future to enjoy our breathing. We can be in touch with these things right now.
Government spending clearly needs some adjusting. But a budget is a statement of our priorities, and balancing our spending on the backs of our nation's seniors is not the right approach.
We need to stop spending so much of our time trying to make the right decisions and instead start spending our time making decisions and then making them right.
We spend our spare time taking care of little things. I can watch a little bit of college and professional football if I want to... Our favorite pastime is trying to take pictures of our hometowns from space.
You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat.
We overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house, or even intangibles like the number of our followers on Twitter or the way we look in our Facebook photos. As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.
But do you know why we are always more just and generous toward the dead? The reason is simple. With them there is no obligation. They leave us free and we can take our time, fit the testimonial between a cocktail party and a nice little mistress, in our spare time, in short.
We can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget, but in the size of our hearts, in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.
When you look at February's (2011) deficit spending alone, and the fact that it was larger than what our total deficit spending was in 2007, the proposals that the Senate is sending us simply are ridiculous, because it's not even a solution. It doesn't address the amount of spending that we have in a week's time. We need to get serious.