What would Buddha do?

WWBD What would the buddha do? If the Buddha was responding to todays political climate, he would most likely urge people to take a middle path. He himself would try to use logical words to expound on the four noble truths and most likely he would come up with some sort of progressive step by step solution people could follow to Better themselves and society. I am not sure what the middle path is between liberals and conservatives. It seems to me that there is very little compromise in conservatism. That the middle path is what president Obama is walking. The actual liberals are not very happy with his policies. To me Obama is in a very sparsley populated middle ground. Is president Obama doing what Buddha would do? No not really. The Buddha would focus much more on individuals progress towards enlightenment. But, I don’t think the buddha would suggest any huge changes to national policy. The Buddha would understand the huge complexities of running the US government. What do you think?

Turmeric tea

I followed a post from huffinton post yesterday. It was talking about the health benefits of turmeric. It included a recipe for turmeric tea. To make it you bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Then add 1 teaspoon turmeric powder, simmer for about ten minutes. You either pour it through a sieve or just use the clearer liquid off the top of the pan. The article suggested using black pepper and honey. We did this, but we also added sugar, ground ginger powder and ground cardamom. It was really good! Besides the taste it definitely has some effect on nerves or headache. But anyway, turmeric is widely reguarded as good for you by Indians, Chinese, Japanese and natural foods people in the U.S.

Christmas is coming

As Christmas approaches I would like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. It is a wonderful time of year. Full of good acts of altruism and humanity. May all Christians be reinvigorated in practicing the teachings of Christ. I have 2 children who still believe in Santa claus. What joy is in the heart of children at Christmas time. May we all be safe and happy. Merry Christmas!!!

Economy

I must put in my 2 cents about the economy. The average arguments I run into make no sense to me. The republicans keep saying that lowering taxes in the rich is the key to growing the economy and lowering the deficit. In actuality, we tried lowering taxes for the last ten years and all we got was a ruined economy and soaring deficit. I would gladly pay another 5 percent in taxes to insure that the country was secure. My childrens future is worth it. I think the security of our economy would likely allow me to make more money.
Onto health care, I pay 6 thousand dollars a year for health care.
Income tax, sales tax, property tax, social security and Medicare combined only cost me around $3,000 a year. Most people I know are exactly in the same circumstance. Why do “conservatives” have no problem paying these premiums which enrich health insurance execs and wealthy doctors. But, they don’t want to pay anything to insure our country exists. If they bankrupt our government there is no military strong enough to save us. There is much more to be said here, but I feel I vented enough for now.

Why I am Posting again

I was thinking a personal blog was a good idea. My name is Nathan Heffelman. I had this wordpress account several years ago. Mainly for the purpose of expressing my political views. The web address yamantaka.wordpress.com comes from Tibetan Buddhism. Yamantaka means death-killer. Yamantaka is a tibetan Buddhist deity whose role is to help a boddhisattva destroy his aversions and desires. The boddhisattva would then achieve enlightenment and not be subject to eternal death and rebirth. Thus this deity kills death. I thought this was in interesing notion a few years ago, and I still do now. Currently I am not quite as politically active. So, I won’t write to much about politics. I just want to document some of the themes of my life as they are happening. WordPress will be a good spot since it isn’t nearly as interconnected with everyone as facebook. I won’t worry so much about anyone elses sensibilities as I do on FB. It would be nice if more people were to edit their own thoughts on FB, but I’m sure no one else will. But anyway, I’ll get on to what I’m about which is to post some life events and interests.

A human approach to world peace.

Read a speech by H.H. the Dalai Lama.