Tell me how you chant and I will tell you who you are.

So, I am a Fukushi, yes? I have spent my life listening to people chanting. I honestly can’t quantify the amount of buddhist meetings I have attended. Let’s try anyway. Between meetings, activities and home visits, I do an average of 2-3 buddhist functions a week. Let’s use 2 to make a very conservative estimate (also to take holidays into account). That is about 100 functions a year. I was born in 1985, so that’s around 3000 functions. Not bad. So I can honestly say I have been to THOUSANDS of buddhist meetings. Fab. 

Many (and by that I mean MANY) of those are lilac activities, a fair amount of which (especially in the past year) have consisted in me chanting at the front of a butsuma for, say, three hours. That gives you plenty of opportunities to observe the different ways people chant. Most of the time, there’s a great person leading and the daimoku flows like a majestic river, or runs like a herd of white horses galloping in the clouds. Marvellous transformation then ensues.

Unfortunately, other times, our life state is not that brilliant and we are distracted by people’s quirky ways of chanting or the things they do as they chant.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS TO THE RESCUE: please take the following with a pinch of salt. It’s not meant as slander, just as honest fun. If it offends you, don’t read. 

A volte ritornano - Buddhist quotes

Ages ago, I had writer's block. I know, shocking. This never happens to me, aye?

And I had this great idea: I am going to create a series on Buddhist quotes! After all...

[q]uotes are a wonderful thing. They are concise, dense nuggets of guidance that can be easily memorised and do provide enormous help when needed. I have been comforted, soothed, right-kicked up the bum, guided and just generally made wiser by quotes (not that I am wise).

Sloganmania

This morning I was bored and mooching about on the internet. The plans for the morning are to do a long, sweaty bellydance session (my exercise routine has been disrupted by the holidays), a shower using the new citrus fruit stuff I treated myself to yesterday and calling some guy to buy a new mattress. None of this can happen for another hour (just had breakfast, you try and do undulations if you just had breakfast!). 

So, mooching about it is (well, also made a batch of gluten-free chocolate muffins with berry compote and put some chicken in a homemade garlic marinade, but that was before breakfast).

Sometimes the internet surprises me. Today I found the Sloganmaker.
It's an app that transforms any word you input into a catchy slogan. You can keep hitting the button until it produces something you like.

Let's see the results when inputting some Buddhist lingo.

And here is a picture of a cat. Just 'cause. Oh, my comments are in italics.

Sometimes you just need to blow your own trumpet...

As part of my journey of becoming a person of unlimited self-esteem, I decided to write a list (or two), of things that I can do well and that I am proud of. 
I am generally my harshest critic, so putting it together was a pain, but I think it's important if I want to learn to truly appreciate myself. 

My first meme: The Buddhist meme

I love memes. My old and now practically defunct blog was at one point only dedicated to doing memes. I like how they bring people together and especially like the memes consisting of lists of questions, because of the randomness of it, the summarising skills necessary and the somewhat surprising insights they give on people. 

Sure, you can't say you "know know" someone after reading their meme, but it never fails to show some little detail of them that you previously ignored, or at the very least it will confirm what you thought.

Unfortunately, quite a lot of said lists are not exactly appropriate for this blog.

 

Ur doin it wrong

Rant alert!

I don't know about you, but me, I have a thing with bad spelling. And bad grammar. It might have something to do with me being a teacher, and a languages one at that. That said, some TEACHERS I know are guilty of some of my biggest pet peeves. 
The other day, an English teacher in my school corrected me when I said "I wouldn't do it if I were you", saying that "were" is for plural, and the snotty deputy head of English, who at least knew that "if I were you" is correct, had the nerve to give both of us a condescending smile and say that there was no rule for that.

No, darling. There is a sodding rule. You are just ignorant. And arrogant. Pretending you know stuff when you don't, and ASSuming that because I'm a foreigner you automatically know better than me. Look up the word "subjunctive" and then we'll talk.

A Buddhist Half term

I know readers of this blog are just dying to know how I spent my half term holiday.
I know, I know, but fear not, the end to your anguished questioning in the small hours of the night has come to an end, I am going to present you with the highly profound and dramatically interesting account of how a Nichiren Buddhist teacher spends her half term.

Now, allow me to give you a bit of much needed (and clearly yearned after) background.

Really really nice things kids say

I just wanted to make a gloating list, AKA a list of all the really nice things that happened to me since I started waking up at ungodly o'clock to chant in the morning.

One of my main goals for my morning chanting is to really feel my students' Buddhahood and profoundly respect their lives. I try to keep this quote at the centre of my thoughts:

You should rise and greet [them] from afar, showing [them] the same respect you would a Buddha. (Lotus Sutra, chap. 28)

Top... reasons to practise this Buddhism

I was making my cup of coffee the other morning, getting ready to chant, and obviously found a way around it. I'd like to present you with a few (mostly tongue in-cheek) reasons why to practise Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism. Ready?

   

Some blog that I used to know

Just in case you were wondering, I have not fallen off the face of the Earth.

I'm on holiday.

I spent two weeks in sunny Salamanca, improving my Spanish and having adventures (like spending the night in the car park of Madrid airport with 20+ hippies), and am now about to relocate to Sicily for another couple of weeks, before going back to my beloved job of trying not to murder children on a daily basis teaching.

That, however, is not the reason why I haven't kept up with my weekly update on my blog.

I hit a dry spell. I haven't got the faintest clue what to write next. Hopefully my mother will have some ideas when I get home later on today, but as of now, I can just stare at the blank page.

So, if any of the lovely people who are reading this blog has any idea or question, please do ask. I'm not a Buddhist scholar, but I have access to vast literature and expert consultants (dad? DAD!?!?!?!) and I'll be glad to sink my teeth into any topic you would like me to write on.

Please.

I beg you.

Thanks.