In this video podcast or video blog (vlog)I I talk about what I see as the two major types of meditation. There are meditation systems which encompasses a very large, rule-filled system for meditation and there is simple meditation that is almost a pure physical effort without any of the fluff.

Video 3, Meditation: Two Types >

This is a .wmv file and plays with Windows Media Player. The file is about 41MB in size and runs for 37 minutes. This is the largest video - and they likely won’t be this large again. I wish someone could invent the magic video compression codec that gives me 30 minutes at just 1MB.

If you want your audio to sound better, try to copy the settings (in general) from the equalizer image below for Windows Media Player. Vern sounds best at these settings or raising the left side up just a little overall.

Here is a short video about the temple I filmed the video above at. It’s called, “Wat Tum Sang Phet” and is located in Krabi, Thailand. They are developing it to include a road around the limestone karst lined with fruit trees and vegetables. They’ll likely have cave tours. It’s a really quiet Buddhist temple and the abbot there is very kind - always inviting me in for tea and fruit when he sees me.

Wat Tum Sang Phet, Krabi, Thailand >

This video is 9MB and about 8:40 in length.

Enjoy!

Best of Life!

Vern

A cave at the Buddhist temple “Wat Tum Sang Phet”

Over 10 years ago when I started meditating I was in a state of mind where I didn’t want to follow a religion. I didn’t see any truth in religion as many of the beliefs require faith in something that I cannot prove or disprove. I’m a very logical person and faith in the supernatural does not happen for me, unless I experience it directly.

I became interested in Buddhism in about 1995 I think it was. I’ve read a lot about Buddhism over the past 10+ years and I have come to see that there are really 2 types or lines of thought about what Buddhism is. Even here in Thailand there are two camps so to speak.

2. The second type are those that believe in the whole -ism. The whole ball of wax including the hundreds of rules for monks and everything that Buddha and all the important meditators and Buddhists after him said and did. The Buddhist machine here in Thailand is huge and very rich. Superstition plays a large part in Buddhism here and most Buddhists believe that if they give money to the local temple they will earn karma points and go on to better things in this life and in the next life.

Westerners tend to be of this variety. Well heck, the majority of people tend to be of this variety. People love to follow a system and to compare their system to others. They love to talk about their religion and debate all the little points in it. It gives them something to do that they think is worthy of their time and effort.

Buddhadassa Bhikkhu called this type of Buddhism the “tumor” that has distracted us from what Buddhism truly is.

1. The first type of Buddhism is the simple, believe nothing until you try it for yourself line of thinking. I really like this style of Buddhism. Buddha said, believe nothing you hear if it doesn’t jive with your experience. He cautioned people not to believe what HE said without trying it out and finding the truth in it. This means we’re free to experiment with meditation and about anything in the realm of Buddhism on our own. It means we need not follow the entire game of Buddhism and all that has been built up around it to call ourselves ‘Buddhist’.

Buddhadassa Bhikku, founder of Suan Mokkh Buddhist temple in Chaiya, Thailand was someone that believed Buddhism was vastly different from the other religions of the world. He even wrote a book, “No Religion” which details his view on the subject. It’s a very small book and given away freely here in Thailand. Occasionally you can find it at Buddhist temples in the USA. Another of his books which illustrates his ideas about the right kind of Buddhism is, “Handbook for Mankind.” You can download the free PDF version of this book at Buddhanet’s page here. Scroll down to find it. This is a quote from that book…

“The real Buddhism is not books, not manuals, not word for word repetition from the Tipitaka, nor is it rites and rituals. These are not the real Buddhism. The real Buddhism is the practice, by way of body, speech and mind that will destroy the defilements, in part or completely. One need not have anything to do with books or manuals. One ought not to rely on rites and rituals, or anything else external, including spirits and celestial beings. “

And another…

“Buddhism does not demand conjecture or supposition; it demands that we act in accordance with what our own insight reveals and not take anyone elses word for anything. If someone comes and tells us something, we must not believe him without question. We must listen to his statement and examine it. Then if we find it reasonable, we may accept it provisionally and set about trying to verify it for ourselves. This is a key feature of Buddhism, which distinguishes it sharply from other world religions.”

In this video I talk more about Buddhism and the two lines of thought about what Buddhism really is, and what I believe in personally.

Video 2, Buddhism… Two Basic Lines of Belief >

This is a .wmv file and plays with Windows Media Player. The file is about 9MB in size and runs for 22 minutes. This was an experiment at the smaller resolution - 176×144. Future videos will be at 320×240 which will be much bigger!

If you want your audio to sound better, try to copy the settings (in general) from the equalizer image below for Windows Media Player. Vern sounds best at these settings… though in this particular video - the sound from the first 4 minutes is not good. It gets better. I’ve learned something about compressing the video that small!

Enjoy!

Best of Life!

Vern

Psst: I almost forgot, below is a photo of where I shot the video today - awesome place!

This is my first attempt at video for the Aim for Awesome site. I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get there yet. I noticed in this first video I’m too mellow for the first part, I’d like to get more energized like around the 9:30 minute mark you’ll see that I’ve changed delivery quite a bit. I know how to fix that for the future - shoot a few takes first and get comfortable with talking to the camera.

Talking to a video camera is not an easy thing. It’s not easy to pretend it’s a friend you’re talking to at Barnes & Noble… but eventually it feels comfortable enough at some point and the video starts to work.

Questioning your religious beliefs is something I feel very strongly about. I went from Catholic to Christian to Buddhist to nothing and maybe swinging back around toward Buddhism at the present. But a basic form of Buddhism that pretty much consists of: Try it. If it works, use it. If it doesn’t work, toss it.

At some point the Buddha said:

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

So many times I see people go through life playing the game of whatever religion they were indoctrinated into without questioning it.

They never ask themselves…  Where did it come from? Is it the perfect truth?

A serious effort, a no holds-barred questioning and critique of your religious beliefs is called for. It’s a must. Your religion is the ultimate guide for your life. The one that holds the keystone to your beliefs, thoughts, decisions, actions, how you treat others and yourself… your career… and the meaning you derive from life. Your religion better be up to the challenge. It better be PURE truth or it’s not good enough.

In this questioning your religion video I cover:

• My experience with religion and how I went about questioning and challenging my religious beliefs over the years.
• A shot of southern Thailand from almost 1000 feet up a limestone mountain as a storm comes in.
• What I consider the 3 levels of truth or knowledge.
• Why questioning your religion is so important!

Questioning Your Religion, Video 1 >

Best to right click the video and choose “Save target as…” if you’re using FireFox browser or “Save file as” if you’re using IE browser. This video file is .wmv and opens with WIndows Media Player, is about 12 minutes long and about 13Mb in size.

Enjoy it! Comments welcome. Feel free to criticize.  I aim to improve on this first video greatly!

Best of Life!

Vern

Aim for Awesome Video casts are starting soon!

I’ve been wanting to create some videos here for a number of weeks now. I’ve kept it in the back of my mind and gave it some serious thought a few times. I just couldn’t nail it down…

What should I do video about that I couldn’t write about?
What would be better on video than writing?
What kind of format for the video?
Where to shoot?
Shoot what? Me?  Scenery?  Screenshots?

Then, this morning it all came to me…

When ideas are flowing you gotta get up and record them or they’re lost. At 5:30am after 5 great ideas for videos and books I got up, grabbed the notebook (computer) and went into the back part of the apartment and sat on the floor so I could type without waking my sleeping beauty (wife).

I quickly typed up over 50 topics I could shoot video on and added some of the content areas I thought I might talk about during each video.

I’ve become bored of the typical online video casts I see online - even from the top level bloggers. Darren Rowse at Problogger.net posted a question the other day asking readers about the benefits of using video on their blogs and he got a lot of comments. I left a comment too. I’m don’t like 99% of the videos I see at other personal development sites.

Darren does video on his site and he’s just so knowledgeable that you have to watch out of fear that he’ll say something you’ll miss if you don’t watch it. I’m not particularly excited by his videos - but, no matter. He’s an expert - I watch the experts’ videos whether I like them or not.

Even if you’re not an expert adding video to your blog occasionally can be a positive improvement to your site. For myself I have pretty strong ideas about how to make video look good. Not sure if I can put them into action, but these are some things I want to keep in mind as I shoot my videos here at Aim for Awesome:

1. No hats. Seems that a lot of top bloggers wear baseball caps during their videos and have the wrong exposure on their faces. The face is the most important part of the video - unless you’re shooting at some worldwide tourist destination. Hats block what little light is coming from above to light your face. I want the lighting on my face to be bright and happy, not drab. Lighitng is a major issue for most bloggers as they don’t understand that they need to increase the exposure if they’re sitting in front of a brightly colored wall as video cameras aren’t smart enough to know your face is more important than a wall.

2. I’m not a newscaster. I don’t want to sit in one place and talk. I can’t get myself excited about that kind of video. How are you going to be excited or motivated? You’re not. I just don’t have it in me to sit there with proper clothes on in front of a wall with a photo of a fish and get you excited about some topic - even if the topic is exciting. I like walking around and talking to the camera. I prefer shooting here inside the apartment and walking around in my room - but there’s no excuse not to get outside and show you something as I walk around and talk about whatever subject is the topic of the day. Thai people see a lot of wacky foreigners walking around here, what’s one more talking to himself going to hurt?

I’ll make the effort to get out to somewhere scenic most times so at least you’re looking at palm trees, islands, mountains or beaches behind me and not white wall and my ceiling! I promise, no newscasts at AFA Video.

3. I’m not an actor. I couldn’t read a script and make it seem unscripted if my life depended on it. I can’t act like I’m not regurgitating a written or memorized script. I can’t read it off a wall or have it playing in my earphone as I talk to you about it on video. It’s gotta be unscripted. It will take multiple shoots to do that because I say uhm, and uhhh too much. But, much better to do it that way - more spontaneous and I can get excited about the video which in turn might get you psyched about it.

So, assuming I can follow the guidelines above I’ll be churning out some video over the next few days and posting them along with a written post to go along with them. I’ll post the videos at YouTube I think, maybe the first couple here on site until I get the hang of it. For YouTube you probably know the trick you can use to get the uncompressed version of the videos - but I’ll post it below.

Youtube trick to get the uncompressed video which is higher resolution and nicer to look at:

Add this to the end of the url of the video - no spaces just add:       &fmt=18

Now, I need to say something about the quality level of the videos I’ll be posting here. I have a rather slow connection to the internet from my apartment and I’m using my mobile phone to connect. I can do about 1Mb upload per 2 or sometimes 4 minutes. In order to give you even a 150kbps quality video at 320×240 resolution that’s a roughly 13Mb file. At that size the video is NOT high rez and is NOT the clearest video out there. I have the nice 640×480 version that maybe I’ll offer on DVD’s each month or something - but for now I hope you can get accustomed to the small videos at limited kbps.

Video 1: Questioning Your Religion >
Length: 12 minutes. 13MB. .wmv file played with Windows Media Player. Hosted on-site, not at YouTube.

Enjoy them and be sure to comment - positively or negatively, I’d like to know what you think is good or not so good.

Best of Life!

Vern