supreme annoyance arising

[jlundberg]

So I've started taking a Dharma class at the nearby Amitabha Buddhist Centre, as I mentioned a few days ago. It's a discourse study of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche, which takes a step-by-step approach to the Stages of the Path to Enlightement (aka the Lam Rim). The class is two hours long (7:30-9:30 p.m.), once a week,

Comments

[sfdiplomat]

Clearly it was a test.

Lecturer has inner peace and so is not annoyed by such fleeting matters as a noisy child. Whereas you are clearly a simmering cauldron of rage ;-)

Epic Fail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not attain unity with the Godhead.

[jlundberg]

Today was just fraught with rage-inducing annoyances -- motobike racing up and down the street, gas-powered tree trimmers, fighter jets buzzing my building -- and this was just the icing on the cake. Enlightenment is still a ways off for me.

The only good thing about this is that all of this could be seen as previous bad karma ripening now. And I prefer taking that in the form of annoyances than in getting hit by a bus.

[sfdiplomat]

If your bad karma is taking the form of being irritated by unruly kids then you must have lead a very virtuous life indeed.

I probably have a rape and torture session looming up at me from my future ;-)

[jlundberg]

Bad karma can ripen in all kinds of ways, and it doesn't happen all at once. Which is why every time you get a toothache, or your car breaks down, or some unruly kid disrupts your Dharma class, instead of complaining about bad luck, it's better to think that a little more of your previous bad karma has just expressed itself, and that it's not building up to something truly horrible. Like your apparent upcoming rape/torture session. :)

I should be thanking the kid for being such an amazingly annoying brat. Our teachers are everywhere.

[scottedelman]

Any chance this was a set-up by the Venerable Tenzin Palzang, who invited those two there to see whether or not you could rise above it?

[jlundberg]

Man, if so, I failed it big time. I thought I was a pretty patient guy, but today just exhausted my last nerve.

Um, you still want a kid?

[vivian2112]

Being a parent to a three year old, I commiserate. My little girl would be doing something like this only louder, which is why I wouldn't put her in this setting deliberately.

On the other hand, your patience got some resistance training in the Gym of Life.

Salut, Jason, and much love to Janet :)

Re: Um, you still want a kid?

[jlundberg]

If the kid had been three years old, I would have understood, but he was old enough to know better. He still shouldn't have been brought to the class, because sitting still and listening to a man talking calmly is boring as shit for a child of that age. But when he started misbehaving, his mother should have taken him downstairs, or just brought him home.

[akashiver]

Sounds like a total brat. However, I also have to ackbowledge that for every 10 spoiled brats there are some genuinely disturbed kids

[jlundberg]

It's for this type of reason that I didn't intervene either. I'm still not sure if he had ADD or was mentally unbalanced, but from what I could see, he looked like an attention-starved brat. Still, the doubt was there, even while teacher in me was screaming at me to scold him.

[akashiver]

*sigh*

Well, whatever the reason, it sounds like the kid should not have been in your class.

[claredudman]

I realise there are some disturbed children in the world, and I sympathise with those who have to look after them...but surely there are better places for them to go than a class on Buddhism. It is unfair on other people in the class and it is unfair on the child itself.

[jlundberg]

Exactly. Buddhist centres and temples are supposed to havens for calm, which is what made it especially frustrating.