January 19, 2022

Notes by Ambika Mishra

Review

Last class, we talked about Shama, control of thoughts. Shama is when you are able to control your thoughts and have a quietude of mind. One way you can practice Shama is by helping others. When you help others, your thoughts shift from your own negative self-talk to positive thoughts, and it helps take the attention of ourselves

This week

This week, we started on our 4th virtue, Dama. Dama means calmness of the body, as control over our actions. The main way one can practice Dama is by having discipline. Discipline is control of actions, and our ability of overcoming likes and dislikes. Indulgence is when you don’t have discipline, and you give in to likes and dislikes.

Story

This week, we watched adventure time. It starts with Jake and Finn near the seashore looking for scraps and junk to make an obstacle course. After a while, they find some businessmen who had washed up on the shore in a iceberg. They melt the iceberg, and the businessmen get out and ask for a job. Finn gets the businessmen to build the obstacle course for them, and get hem to come back to the treehouse with them. Eventually, Finn and Jake let the businessmen do everything for them, and they get lazy about doing anything, and don’t even bother to fight monsters. Soon after, they realize that the businessmen’s motives are not good, when they start hurting people, and Finn and Jake stop them from hurting anybody else.

Moral

This story represented how it is bad to procrastinate and that no good will come out of it. Finn and Jake started by just letting the businessmen make the obstacle course, but slowly, they got more and more lazy, and didn’t even bother to fight monsters, and they didn’t want to do anything. When they gave in to indulgence, they became unhealthy, and it made it harder to do the things they needed to do. The second thing it did was make them lose all motivation to do what they needed to do as well. It made both they’re mental and physical state weaker. The story helps remind us to be more disciplined, and why indulgence, though tempting, will do no good. 

R.A.W.  

This weeks RAW is to exercise for at least 30 minutes each weak, and contemplate on the relationship between exercising and calmness of body.