giving

By practicing Vipassana meditation, I have realized through actual experience that giving is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

By giving selflessly one diminishes ego. One relieves oneself of solitude and creates bonds of love with others. Even if the action of giving is selfless, it brings much benefit for oneself. Harmony and happiness are bound to come to those who give selflessly. 

As a Vipassana meditator, I am convinced that the greatest of all gifts is the gift of dhamma. My way of giving the gift of dhamma is to inspire others and give them the resources to follow the same path of happiness that I am following. Giving dhamma will always be the most important task for me, only maintaining my own practice of Vipassana meditation is more important. 

I want to live my life not just for myself, but for the welfare of all. I want to surround myself with opportunities to do good for others. 

I think that nursing will be the right occupation for me. My mother is a nurse and she is one of the most content and healthy people I know. Because nursing is a flexible occupation. As a nurse one can work anywhere in the world, with any people. There is work almost everywhere. Nursing is diverse with the options of many specializations. Most importantly, one works for the welfare of others. It is a humbling experience. 

I think that as a nurse I would want to work foremost with children and women of the developing world. Dealing with childbirth, maternal death, female gender mutilation, family planning, child survival, undernourishment, rape, aids, empowerment of women and human rights. I would like to work with organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross. I plan to begin the three years of studies next semester to earn the bachelor of nursing degree. 

When I was in Geneva I visited the Red Cross and the Red Crescent museum (that is where the above picture was taken). It is the most inspiring museum I have been to. It covers the history of the Red Cross and the need to preserve human life that has been a constant theme of all civilizations. If you are going to Geneva I strongly recommend you pay the Red Cross museum a visit.

May all beings be happy.

reborn

“Look on the world as a bubble, look on it as a mirage.  Come look at this world!  Is it not like a painted royal chariot?  The wise see through it, but not the immature.”  - the Buddha

After my second course I felt a lot had changed within me.  I now feel like I am becoming aware of the world at the actual level.  Everything changes.  Nothing is consistent.  The only thing that is always there – unchanged – is the universal law, the law of nature, the dhamma.  

I have committed myself to at least one years practice of Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka, to see where the path will take me.  Nothing is more important to me.  The happy colors of selfish pleasures are fading.  My path is turning from darkness to light.  From misery to happiness.  

I feel like a reborn.  Opening my eyes for the first time.  

I imagine myself sitting in front of a river of time.  Instead of seeing myself as passing through time, time passes, but I am still.  

After leaving the military and finishing my second Vipassana course, I met up with my girlfriend in Switzerland.  I have traveled here to give myself time to reflect about what I want to do with my life, to spend time with my girlfriend, work at a farm, learn french and continue establishing myself in Vipassana meditation.  

My girlfriend and I backpacked for three weeks, seeing much of the Bernese Oberlands and also Geneva, Interlaken, Lucern and Bellinzona.  Now we are staying and volunteering at a family run organic farm in the french speaking parts, in the mountains.  We got in contact with them through an organization called WWOOF.  We work for a room, food, the experience and to help the farmers.  We have only been here for a week but already I have learned to press apples for making juice, which is the messiest job I have ever done!  I love being here.  I am happy to have the opportunity to get my hands dirty.  Making food is fundamental to our existence and yet so many of us have lost that experience.  Working like this also helps diminishing ego.  Ego is something one really has to work hard with.  It is so easy to get caught in a game of selfish pleasures.  One really have to make a big effort to give without expecting anything in return.  Little by little though, one becomes good.  

I have signed up to serve a Vipassana course for the first time right when I return to Sweden in October.  I am looking forward to get to know others who serve, spend time closer to the assistant teachers, help people learn Vipassana and foremost strengthen my meditation.  I am really happy that I am ready to serve.  I thought it would take me much longer.

If one would ask me to rate my happiness from 1 to 10, 10 being happiest, I would say 10.  Because I feel I could not be happier than I am, here and now, in this moment.  I would not want to do anything differently.  I am content with life.  

I hope you too get a chance to give Vipassana meditation a trial.

May all beings be happy.

my walk

As you can see on my expression I am a very fortunate man.  Being only 21 years old and already have found a way of life that brings nothing but happiness, for myself and for others, I feel very grateful.

I first got in touch with Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka through my girlfriend.  She was meditating and I was inspired by her to sit the first 10-day course.  During the course I had so many moments of tears mixed with relief and happiness.  Because I realized the technique works!  I could feel the breath on my upper lip, I started to feel sensations all over my body, I learned about the suffering of the world at the actual level, the experiential level.  And how to come out of it.  I had been looking for something like this since I was in my early teens.  Well, I did not know what I was looking for, but there was a big piece of the puzzle of my life that I was missing.  I have worked so passionately, so hard, trying to create happiness for myself.  Now I feel I have found the path that leads to it.  All I have to do is follow it by continuing my  practice.

The interesting thing about practicing Vipassana meditation is that the benefits start happening right away.  Not in another life, not later – now.  For every step one takes on the path there are benefits.  If there is no benefit, then one is not practicing correctly.  One has to ask ones teacher for guidance.  I have not heard of nor experienced any other way of life that give such great results.

My first course was truly a life changing experience for me.  This was in April of 2007.  I had been trying to start a business with a friend of mine for half a year.  It wasn’t working out, and the situation was getting tense and frustrating.  After the course I realized I was very selfish.  My ego was so fat.  I was more focused on my title as executive director than being honest with my friend.  I knew now that starting a business was not what I wanted.  Ultimately I could not face what I had done, I just had to get away from it.  So within a couple of weeks I left Sweden, where I was working and were I’m from, to go with my girlfriend to Sri Lanka.

In Sri Lanka I experienced for the first time poverty, conflict and corruption.  It affected me deeply and rooted an urge to help those in need.  I soon realized, if I had a university degree I could do a lot of good for these people.

At this time I had been waiting for almost 2 years to begin my military service back in Sweden which was mandatory but that I wanted to do.  For me it meant 11 months of practice war along the Swedish east coast.  I wanted to become a soldier because I believed that there were situations where killing a man would be the only solution to a problem.  If the man was about to kill ten or a hundred others, then by killing that man, ten or a hundred lives would be saved.  I figured that after my mandatory 11 months I would want to sign up for UN “peacekeeping” missions in conflict zones.  I realized only later that the weight of the suffering and misery a soldier carries is too great to do much good, if any.

The moment I had started traveling to Sri Lanka it was getting harder to follow the minimum practice of Vipassana meditation which is 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening, everyday.  I started to meditate less and less until I didn’t meditate more than a few hours every month.  I was falling back into my old behavior patterns.  Negativity was growing in my mind.

After 10 weeks of living in Sri Lanka I returned to Sweden to begin basic training, or boot camp.  I joined the Swedish amphibious corps, similar to the U.S. marine corps, on the 30th of july 2007.  During basic training I really liked the military.  I was learning to take care of myself.  I was having many new, exciting experiences.  Like living in the forest in the dark of night, shooting with a rifle and throwing hand-grenades.  The training was very ambitious, I felt as if I was among the best of the best.

After the 10 weeks of basic training this all changed.  I was, as I wished, transfered to the medical platoon.  But I was very unhappy to discover that most of our medical training had been cut and that we were going to train as military logisticians for three months.  This was not what I wanted at all.  The ministry of defense had cut money from the recruit training budget and transfered it to the Swedish troops abroad.  And so the quality of our training was cut in half.

After Christmas I had lost most of my motivation for the military and I was almost completely sure that I would not continue after the mandatory 11 months.  It got better when we actually started training as medics.  I learned many good skills.  We also had an interesting week of talking about religion, war psychology and death.  That week I realized that by no chance would I ever want to have anything to do with the military after the mandatory time.  I realized how pointless it is.  I can do so much more good for the world by being a nurse, I thought.

The ministry of defense kept cutting our budget so we ended up having a lot of time on our hands with nothing to do.  Whenever we did something it wasn’t very ambitious or interesting.  My motivation was low, my misery great.  I was feeling so much hatred towards all the people around me, so much craving for the outside world.  I was making the atmosphere around me even more unhappy than it already was.  I knew this, but could do nothing about it.  All I wanted was to leave.  I did not have the courage to.  So I stayed.

In the last few weeks of my service there was an exercise where a conscript, just like myself but belonging to another platoon, was shot.  He died the instant the bullet penetrated, bounced around in and totally shredded his upper body.  He was 19 years old.  It was a tragic accident.  Again I realized how pointless it is.  Those who killed him were my friends from basic training.  If I had not left for the medical platoon, I could have fired that killing bullet myself.

I finally got out of the military the 17th of June 2008.  The next day I began my second 10-day introduction course of Vipassana meditation.  The first thing I realized was that there is nothing good coming out of war.  There is so much negativity and misery just in practicing it.  I will never support any war, for any reason.  Much less be part of it.

I also realized I had forgotten so much from my first course.  I felt as if I was doing most of the course for the first time all over again.  Although, this time I reached a lot further than last.  This time I understood the technique well enough to keep up the practice.  I have now been practicing for two months.  I cannot begin to express how much it has benefited me, and it keeps benefiting me.  I am blown away by it.

I know now that my highest priority in life is to practice Vipassana meditation and dhamma.  To enable me to give this greatest gift of all to others.  To spread real harmony around the world. Real happiness.

May all beings be happy.