Realms of My Own Reality

I was awakened in the middle of the night (1:20 AM) to find myself wanting from some compulsion to write something that meant so much to me at the time. I don't know why but this is it. I need to understand that everyone has the potential for the Buddha nature. I can respect that but that doesn't mean I want to live next door to someone who can't show the slightest compassion towards other people. I lived a portion of my life as a selfish, self centered person and would like to change but no one will care since I did some things wrong at one time and it doesn't seem to matter, even to those who say that they believe in forgiveness, since they can turn me into the bottom class and that means more to them than anything else.
It occurs to me that I was smarter than most people and experienced in some ways but was always critical of myself. But doing the right thing is simpler than anything else. My game plan dates back before Christianity. It has to do with four realities and and eight step plan. Now, I wish to mention here that I have followed the Twelve Step program and it is really good to fix you if you are broken but the eight step plan is something that one can do to keep from needing to be fixed. Within it are the secrets of how to get along in life even better than Dale Carnegie could have designed. First I must digress here a moment to explain my point of view that has to do with humanistic values.
First we must look at society as we know it, as Professor Srikumar S. Rao explains, "We work really hard our whole life at being unhappy..." in that we put expectations on everything. First we must look at society as being dissatisfied. So, here is the problem and the four realities.
Most people in our society are unsatisfied. Most dissatisfaction comes from selfish desire, desiring to have what we don't have, even if it doesn't do anything but make us want more. There is an option that will cause us to stop feeling disatisfied. That option is the eight step program.

Step one is Right View: mostly right view has to do with the acceptance that you understand and accept the four realities. Simple, wasn't it?

Step Two is Right Thinking: Right thinking is one’s intent or resolve to develop a mind free of wickedness and cruelty.

Step Three is Right Speech: Right speech is to speak in ways to create positive value instead of causing harm through lying or slander.

Step Four is Right Action: Right action means abstaining from all wrong deeds such as harming other lives, stealing or debauchery.

Step Five is Right Livelihood: Right livelihood is generally understood as the purification of one’s thoughts, words and deeds while living with compassion and avoiding the harming of others. (Right livelihood is also interpreted as avoiding professions that cause harm to others such as slave trading or arms dealing.)

Step Six is Right Endeavor: Right endeavor is one’s conscious, diligent effort to stem evil and promote goodness toward the establishment of a wholesome state of life.

Step Seven is Right Mindfulness: Right mindfulness generally means being at all times mindful and aware of what one is doing, thinking, and feeling.

Step Eight is Right Concentration: Right concentration means training the mind to achieve the state of concentrated attention necessary to enter a deep meditative absorption characterized by lucid awareness and achieved by focusing the mind on a single object.

Even though these are called steps, they need to be achieved in accord with each other, not in a sequence. As you can see, if you elect your life to change, then you can follow the eight steps together in the understanding that they are the answer to the four realities and all are part of a happier life.
Now, can I tell you a secret? I just taught you the basis of Buddhism. The four realities are what we call the four noble truths, and the eight steps are called the eightfold path. It is that simple. Were you waiting for a divine deity or mythological paradises? There are things like that in Buddhist scripture but they are now understood to be analogies for parts of your own mind. I hope this makes it easier for you to accept that you just learned the basis of Buddhism and your butt didn't fall off and the spawn of Satan didn't appear. How about that? I hope now you can continue reading to find out the whole story. It doesn't matter to us what else you believe as long as you follow along with the basic philosophy which is designed to do nothing more than make you happy. Enjoy.

Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness | Video on TED.com

I am trying real hard to make mention of the fact that I have to be patient with other people. My ability to render things sensible instead of senseless takes time. I today, realised that I am going to be a Buddha / Bodhisattva who remains on the earth and teaches from NOW ON. That only means that I WANT ENLIGHTENMENT IN IT'S RAWEST FORM. Let me explain. To reach the type of enlightenment that Shakyamuni Buddha, as the Japanese call Siddhartha Gautama (Gotama Buddha roughly around 500 years before our present A.D. calendar), one must reach a state of Nirvana, which allows us to understand the things that he taught automatically. HE SAID, if you understand these things, and we should since they are inherently INSIDE YOU ALREADY, then you will be in the state of enlightenment. My problem is that I can't help from being selfish, but I do have an answer for myself finally. I have to be patient with ME, also. It will take time.
I can't expect myself to find overnight what it took Siddhartha Gautama 50 years to attain, naturally, I will have to set my path now and look for answers along the way. As long as I keep chanting to praise and polish my mirror (Nichiren Buddhist analogy)and keep teaching what I learn then, I will be in line with what I think I know. I love people. Not all the time, and some people do things which really make me want to slap them real hard but I love people in general. Once I was in a car accident and in that moment before I died, there was no conscious thought and I felt the blood go out of my body and all I knew was consciousness. Professor Rao is the guy who explains it better than I can that, people are "hardwired" to be happy.
I was in a traffic accident in this lady's truck once. She took me to the lake that day. We had an argument as she was kind of what I realise now, was, a cougar. She was 32 and I was 18 but I was in love with her. She thought the only thing I cared about was sex. That was all she cared about concerning me, as it turned out. The truck flipped end over end five times coming down a mountain road. Some guy at a service station saw the wreck as it was happening and called 911 immediately, thank goodness. He told her later what he saw. I, for some reason, just before the impact, threw myself around her and when we were thrown through the back truck window and the front camper shell window, I took out all the glass. I was cut from the top of my head to the back of my ankles. I came to in the ambulance and for a little while was told that they had already lost me repeatedly. I do remember that once I lay still and realised that I thought I was already dying that nothing mattered anymore. I believed I was virtually dead already so that NOTHING MATTERED concerning me. Nothing mattered concerning my past, my future, nothing at all and the weird sensation was that I suddenly was stricken with happiness. I reached for her hand to tell her, "Everything is going to be alright." I meant that from the bottom of my being. I was going to be fine, she was going to be fine because I for that moment had accepted life in the universe for what it was instead of trying to alter my reality and strive to consciously make it better. I forgot about that feeling and didn't until recently understand completely that THAT was what happened.
Now listen to this and Professor Rao will describe what I mean: Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness | Video on TED.com