Lessons From Buddha

September 28-October 4

Buddha

Wuthering Heights 

The Rock 

Bourne Supremacy 

Up 

One of the greatest lessons I learned from Buddha is the folly of spending my time on what has no value in my life. 

I used to try to prove myself to people who I don't even care about. I thought it was cool to show how smart I am until I realized it was stupid and pointless. 

At the end of the day, it all amounts to nothing. 

By implication, Buddha has also taught me it is enriching when I try to see the world from another person's view. 

My experiences in the present is enough for seven lifetimes. If I come across a character I can relate to, and he's in a situation that hasn't happened to me before, I tend to imagine how I would have reacted. 

I wonder what I would have done if I were Heathcliff, Fredericksen, Mason or Jason, all from movies I saw on cable on July 2013 

Almost all of the most important people in my life are dead, and I have wallowed in the most unimaginable pain. 

I've never been suicidal, not even self-destructive, but I know what it's like when it seems there's no reason go on living anymore. 

So I know what Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights must have felt when Catherine died and life has lost meaning. 

But I don't know how I'd feel if, unexpectedly, I saw my girlfriend alive, and she's now with somebody else. Then I hear that she's pregnant, but with my child.

I'd rather die than be in prison. 

So if I'm incarcerated for three decades, like John Mason (Sean Connery) in The Rock, I'll be out for blood. 

Then the son of a bitch who put me in prison now says he needs my help. 

I'll play along until I get my chance. 

But when you realize an entire city is under threat from rogue Marines with biological weapons, then it certainly changes everything.

I want a quiet life. 

Being hunted by a Russian assassin while hiding in India, like Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy, is the last thing I want. 

I like to think I can deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome and flashes of repressed violent memories. 

Maybe I can even live with myself knowing that I've been a CIA-trained killing machine. Maybe. I don't know. Too much adrenaline can kill you.

I want a love to last a lifetime. 

But I'm not sure, like Carl Fredricksen in Up, how I'll spend my remaining years alone if I'm an old widower. 

All I have to remind me of my wife is our home. It's the only thing I have left in the world. 

Then some people came and wanted to take it away. I know I will want to fly away, and I would want to take the memories with me.