Spontaneity. The fruit of life.

"I place a high value on personal initiative. Spontaneity underlies the spirit of autonomy and independence; conversely, taking action because one is told to amounts to slavery of the spirit. " - Daisaku Ikeda

I love this quote.  How many times do we do something because someone told us to do it? Get out of bed.  Go to school. Blah, blah blah.  The list goes on.  We often grow up doing we are told, not that doing what you are told is a bad thing, but when we grow older, by the time we begin to hit the peak of our life, we feel as if we begin to go into a rut.  Often we call that the midlife crisis. I am of the belief that as you continue to be creative within the constraints of morality and love, life remains sweet, and thus we remain free.  

I have a friend that is a developer in Zionsville. He just took over Creekside Corporate Park, their website is https://www.creeksidecorporatepark.com/

Issues. Just deal with it.

In a past version of me, Darrin 1.0, I would do anything to "avoid" drama, responsibility, maturity. You name it, I ran from it.  Now I might have denied I was running, but ultimately that is what it was.  I thought that not dealing with issues or problems that I created, or was a victim of, you name it was dealing with life.  Then one day, life ate me up. I needed to find a cheap criminal defense lawyer.  Literally took a great big ol' bite right out of me.  Any control that I thought I had, was taken from me.  When that happened I realized that no longer would I let the sun set on issues.  As I was confronted with problems I would deal with them immediately.  At that point, I created Darrin Marion 2.0.

Friendship, Impermanence, Attachment and Mindfulness

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is.
In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day,
'one who knows the better way to live alone.'
- Bhaddekaratta Sutta


As I go through my daily life, I periodically like to reach out to friends that I haven't heard from in a while. Sometimes they would return my calls,emails, reaches out etc. Sometimes they would not. I used to get upset, even offended when my attempted reaches out to contact would go unresponded to. I would think, "How dare they... Who do they think they are, not responding to ME!" It's funny how attached we get. Never thinking or being mindful of the fact that our friends or family even are not the same people that they were yesterday, this morning or even a few minutes ago. And they certainly won't be the same, neither will we. We have to accept the fact the love we have for friends grows,changes and matures. Sometimes the love we have for friends sours into indifference and at worst the friendship deteriorates into dislike. Such is life. Once I learned and began to understand what happens to us as humans it gave me a greater appreciation for each and every moment that I have to spend with friends, family even acquaintances. Because the person that you love and know now at this very moment will never be the exact same person that you love and know again. Appreciate that. Namaste.

Two Wolves

 This is an old blog post that I often re-read when I'm reflecting about life, coffee and other stuff. Hope you take a quick look. Things are going kinda crazy in Indianapolis. People here need some motivation.

A parable about life. What's your motivation?

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

How you choose to live your life is up to you.

I read this parable the other day to a group of friends in a discussion we were having about life. In our lives we all are struggling with feeding one habit or another. In our daily quest to achieve happiness, we can control only one thing. How we respond to every situation we are confronted with. As we start off this week, on this beautiful planet we call Earth, are you going to determine, which wolf will you feed?

I'm thinking about becoming a motivational speaker in Indianapolis, my home. What do you think? Oh yeah, you can find the book where I first read this story. It was a book about Buddhism, I think.

Darrin Marion
https://darrinmarion.com 
Indianapolis Speaker (in the making) native 
 

Self -Cherishing (Centeredness)

"All the suffering in this world arises from our self-cherishing wish for happiness for ourself."

As I reflect on what that statement means, I begin to wonder how many arguments, disagreements, burnt bridges I have out there lingering from my own self-cherishing. Knowing that karma is a direct result of our own actions, I can only think that the ramifications are inumerable! Imagine a world where all of the addictions, pain and suffering are no more, because we have all begun to start focusing on the happiness of others and not ourselves.

My own wishes for MYSELF to be happy, be it with the acquisitions of things, feelings or emotions have led to much suffering indeed. Is self centeredness natural? Is it learned? That is a question tht I often ponder in my daily meditations. I believe that if we can free ourselves from the self-centered distorted view of this world, we all can be free from the eternal cycle of suffering and bondage. Peace.

The Donkey and the Well... What it means to me.

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.


This parable means a great deal to me. Often in life, we are surrounded and sunken in circumstances of our own creation. We could sit back and let the situation get worse. Or we could do what the donkey did, use our circumstances to turn ourselves (or situations, whatever it may be) around. Lord knows that in life we all have created our own muck. The key is not to get down, stay calm, and look at how we can turn it around.

I remember when I was sent to jail. I thought long and hard about how much does an Indiana expungement lawyer cost would be to me and my family.