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I didn’t expect this city to have such a positive effect on me. Mentally healing.
First impression of the capital of Austria
There are successful people in the world who possess a quality I deeply respect — it’s their lifestyle without showing off. A solid and worthy life without the slightest desire to brag, show off, or blatantly flaunt themselves.
On the inside, such people are truly ADULT — calm, self-aware, solid, smart, confident titans; on the outside — they look good and very respectable, but without the slightest hint of showing off (no matter if it’s cheap or expensive). They don’t need to demonstrate or prove anything to anyone anymore, they’ve freed themselves from the need and desire to look pompous, pretentious, flashy, rattling with expensive shiny trinkets and other “status” show-offs.
Take Bill Gates, for example — search “Bill Gates waiting in line at a diner” — there he is, standing in a sweater on the street, waiting for his burger. Or google his photo with Mark Zuckerberg — you’ll understand everything. They have about 200 billion dollars between them, I think. And yet — they look quite simple, like ordinary people, and don’t even care what others might think of them. They are not celebrities, they don’t appear in the media every day, journalists don’t peek into their underwear, they don’t stage prearranged fights on talk shows. They don’t flex their muscles, don’t rattle weapons, don’t look for enemies, don’t blame others for their troubles.
Not everyone lines up to take a selfie with them. By the way, such people may not even have promoted social media accounts. They don’t always have the latest phones from famous brands. And so on and so forth.
This is exactly what Vienna is like. Dignified, wealthy, successful, beautiful, but at the same time — not a trace of showing off or any of that. I respect that. Super. This is what I call the highest class. The very highest.
How do you like this street bluesman?
Everything here is so neat… And at the same time — no “show-off”, no bright flashy signs, no gold, no farce. Everything is done very decently and maintained at a level that not everyone will understand.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Someday I will post a few photos, but for now here are 2 short videos:
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DCI with Geshe Michael Roach in Vienna
In such a city, it was especially pleasant to attend a Diamond Cutter Institute event with Geshe Michael Roach.
Listening once again to his explanation of Emptiness using a simple writing pen as an example — for me personally is a very useful pleasure. I have achieved excellent results and solved many problems using the methods of the Diamond Cutter System.
[wpremark preset_name=”default-quote” icon_show=”1″ icon_image=”quote-right-regular” icon_color=”#9ca9c7″ icon_width=”32″ icon_height=”32″ icon_indent=”16″ background_show=”1″ background_color=”#eff4f5″ border_top=”0″ border_right=”0″ border_bottom=”0″ border_left=”0″ border_width=”2″ border_color=”#9ca9c7″ shadow_show=”0″ shadow_x=”0″ shadow_y=”5″ shadow_blur=”10″ shadow_stretching=”-5″ shadow_opacity=”0.3″ title_show=”0″ title_bold=”0″ title_italic=”0″ title_underline=”0″ title_uppercase=”0″ title_font_size=”18″ title_line_height=”1.5″ text_bold=”0″ text_italic=”0″ text_underline=”0″ text_uppercase=”0″ padding_top=”20″ padding_right=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”20″ margin_top=”20″ margin_right=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ margin_left=”0″ border_radius=”5″]But in this place I simply must quote Geshe Michael himself (who, in turn, said these words referring to the words of Buddha Shakyamuni): “Don’t take my word for it — try it yourself.”[/wpremark]
At the time of the next editing of this post (December 2022), I am attending another DCI event (Advanced Level), already online. Studying, practicing. Enjoying.
That’s why I wasn’t very surprised when I saw an inscription on one of the streets of the Austrian capital, briefly and accurately describing what Geshe-la teaches.
It was nice to meet like-minded people I already knew at the event, make new useful contacts, and talk to one of the event organizers — Uta Scharf https://www.instagram.com/uta.scharf/
Walking through the center of Vienna, we saw horses with blinders. I thought — in many ways, we are similar.
We close ourselves off, trying not to notice what is happening with our lives. We don’t see (don’t want to see), don’t think, don’t study, don’t do anything to really avoid problems. Wearing such mental blinders, we remain almost blind, seeing only a small part of the world ahead of us. Most of us, exhausted and breathless, spending a huge part of our lives at work, don’t even have the opportunity to stand up and think — why is this happening to my life? And if we do think about it — do we find the causes? Or, as usual, do we just find excuses and look for someone to blame?… Or maybe we once again rely on someone we just believe in (sometimes absolutely blindly, without the slightest evidence)? And yet the answers are so close, you just need to realize that you are wearing blinders, and want to take them off.
And of course, such thoughts once again lead me to studying and practicing Dharma. Meeting Geshe Michael Roach was a great fortune.
I would gladly continue writing in this post about him, his events, books, practices, and transmitted knowledge, but I made it a rule to do this little by little, evenly distributing it across different posts. It’s more organic, useful, understandable. IMHO.
The best TV in the world
So, the capital of Austria. Walking through its streets, I saw the best TV in the world. It looks like this.
A beautiful city, where you can take cool Instagram photos in the streets. It’s not like Instagram Bangkok, but different doesn’t mean worse))
We managed to visit Budapest. The capital of Hungary, of course, deserves a separate post. Someday…)
Buying gear for the upcoming trek to Everest Base Camp
Austria is not only Vienna and green meadows but also the magnificent Alps. By the way, the word “Alpinism” comes from the word “Alps”, you know? Having such mountains, the country gave birth to a constellation of their conquerors, who, of course, didn’t limit themselves to their native Alps but began to climb peaks all over the world. Therefore, here you can find excellent mountain gear and equipment stores.
We visited them because in 3 months we were going on a Trek to Everest Base Camp in Nepal.
In addition to that, we bought jackets, thermal underwear, special socks, and more. I will write about it in more detail in the post about the trek to EBC (Everest Base Camp), the link to which I gave above. Why? Because people are interested, they search for information online, and my experience will surely be useful.
A couple of observations about Austria:
- In this country, you won’t meet homeless people. It seems there are none at all. Their problems are handled by a special government agency. Apparently — quite successfully.
- On the signs with opening hours of establishments, there is no Sunday. Because by default it is assumed that on this day people don’t work here (the exceptions I managed to notice are Turkish and Arab fast foods). This is a completely different level of thinking, much higher than I’m used to.
A few years later, preparing for a trip on the world’s largest cruise ship Wonder Of The Seas, we flew from Cyprus to Barcelona via Vienna, and I once again saw how they honor the memory of their great compatriot here. His image is everywhere. Will you name him looking at the picture? 🙂
Hint — it’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although, I think, in the future he might appear on such souvenirs too. As well as another well-known person in our Geshe Michael Roach community named Peter.
