Buddhism and Valentines Day.

This year the average American will spend $116 on Valentine's Day, which is a holiday in honor of love. In years past, I have boycotted Valentine's Day because of it's commercialism but this year I have decided to focus on the love aspect while discarding the consumerism that clouds this day dedicated to love. In honor of the true meaning of love, I would like to share several quotes from Buddhist thinkers on the subject. First, it is important to understand what true love is about.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that true love, is love that is given freely and unconditionally without expecting reward in return. Love that hinges upon the other person doing everything we like or want of them is not true love, but rather based on attachment, conditions and control.

But, one can not discuss love and Buddhism without mentioning the Metta Sutta or Sutra, which is claimed to have been spoken by Buddha, himself. I am not going to quote the full sutra here, but if you want to read it in its entirely, then click here:

Let none deceive another, Or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life, her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings: radiating kindness over the entire world spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, is not born again into this world.

Many people today look to His Holiness the Dalai Lama for inspiration and wisdom. So, I added a quote from him on the matter of love, it's importance and power:

If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue" -His Holiness the Dalai Lama from 'The little book of Buddhism'

It is my hope that you find love today and always. If you do not feel love from others then perhaps it's first important to focus upon loving yourself. It's hard to accept or believe true love when it presents itself to us if we don't accept that we deserve to be loved. And, I want all who read this to know that I deeply love you and care about you all; and hope that this day and many others will find you filled with that love as well.

You are not alone--imagine the world-wide sangha all coming together to acknowledge your worth and importance with a collective hug; feel the compassion and acceptance coursing from our hearts and veins into yours. But, don't forget to pass that love on to someone else!! May you we all soon be free from selfishness, hatred and self-loathing. These are all delusions that keep us from feeling the ever present love that is essential to a life without suffering in this universe.

~Peace to all beings~

5 Tips to Grow Blog to 1000+ visitors per day

Building your blog traffic from scratch can seem like a long and daunting task, especially when you're just starting out. It can seem like hours of effort and work on your blog will only bring an additional 10-20 visitors, and the traffic levels are hard to sustain without constant effort. However, I want to share with you five simple tips and strategies that will vastly increase your blog visitors and blog traffic.

1. Realize that blog traffic growth is exponential, not linear: One of the biggest mistakes that bloggers make is to give up on their blog right when the traffic is ready to explode. The reason for this is that they fail to realize that blog traffic growth is exponential, not linear. Let me define these terms so that you can understand what I'm talking about.

Linear Growth: This means that your blog will grow at a constant rate proportional to the effort that you put into it. For example, if blog growth was linear, for every 100 hour you put into the blog, your traffic might increase by 1000 visitors per month. So, starting with 1000 visitors per month, after 6 months x 100 hours of work = 6,000 visitors per month if the increase in blog traffic is linear.

Exponential Growth: Here, blog traffic will increase at an every increasing rate proportional to the amount of work you put into it. As an example, lets say that, for every 100 hours of work you put into your blog, the monthly traffic doubles. In this model, after 6 months and starting with 1000 visitors, your blog traffic would be 1000*2*2*2*2*2*2 = 64,000 visitors per month, 58,000 more than if the growth were linear.

The downside of exponential growth in blog traffic is that it means that when you're starting out, the growth rate for your blog is going to be pretty slow. For example, if you start with a blog with only 100 visitors per month, 100 hours of work might only increase that to 50 visitors per month -- meaning you won't have much to show for your work right away. However, the key here is that you have to keep trying because the rewards will come, especially when you start to experience the type of insane, run away growth that comes on the back end of your blog. Many bloggers give up just when their blog is on the brink of exploding in terms of the traffic.


2. Use Social Media effectively: The second thing you should do is to make sure that you're using social media effectively to promote your blog. This process has basically two parts: posting your blog entries to social media and making sure that lots of people see those posts.

For the first part, you can use a service like Onlywire to send out each post to a variety of social media services, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Reddit, and more. If you have a large following on Twitter account, you also want to use Tweet Random to tweet out old copies of your blog posts so that your previous work doesn't go to waste.

I've already written one article about how to get lots of followers for Twitter and the other social media services. Basically, the method I follow is: a) follow lots of people and b) unfollow anyone who doesn't follow you back. There are some more tips I explain in the article above, including which internet services to use to easily follow and unfollow from Twitter, but this is the basic idea.

3. Use lots of pictures, videos, and interactive features in your posts: People often forget that the best blog posts have a variety of pictures, videos, songs, and interactive features (such as polls or games) to reinforce the text. Your readers don't just want information; they also want to be entertained. You should make every effort to put lots of pictures, videos, and interactive applets into your posts so that your blog will stick out in the minds of readers and keep them coming back for more.

4. Use basic SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something that the largest commercial websites can spend millions of dollars per year to perfect. However, you can make significant improvements to your blog's ranking in a search engine by making small, free changes to your posts.

First, always make sure to include 4-7 search tags in the body of your posts. These tags should be geared around terms that people would look for if they were searching for the information you have in your article. Also, if you can do a little keyword research and try to target keywords that are popular but not too popular (like "Twitter" or "Google"), the results will be even better.

Second, make sure that you repeat your targeted keywords often throughout the body of your post. Since this article is about getting 1000+ visitors to your blog, I need to make sure that I keep repeating the phrase "1000+ visitors" or "blog" frequently enough that the search engines catch on to what my post is about. Obviously, you don't want to go too overboard with this idea and repeat "1000+ visitors" every five words, but even repeating the term as frequently as 10 -15 times in a given post couldn't hurt.

Third, make sure that you organize your posts into lists. Lists are not only easier for people to read, they're easier for search engines to understand as well.

Fourth, make sure that you have a catchy and relevant title to your post with as many targeted keyworkds in it as possible. Search engines place a lot of emphasis on the title of a blog post in ranking the post, and you should always make your titles as specific and relevant as possible.

5. Post frequently: Often bloggers will get stuck in the mindset that they should make one long, epic masterpiece of a post per month. If you're writing your blog for posterity, I guess this is a good strategy to follow. However, if you're writing your blog to attract visitors, you may want to rethink this idea.

In general, a blog post should be 300-2000 words. Anything longer than 2000 words should be broken up into multiple posts.

Summary: Using these strategies should help you to get your blog traffic flowing. Even though it may seem like an ambitious goal, 1,000 visitors per day on a blog is a goal that is both realistic and attainable with hard work and efficient strategies.

Related articles

• 10 Blogging Myths You Must Ignore (problogger.net)
• Why Search Engine Traffic Is The Lifeblood Of Your Online Success (danlew.com)
• SEO success for your blog in 10 easy steps (businessesgrow.com)
• Why Johnny Can't Get Traffic (aaronsbuyersguide.com)
• 5 Tips to Make a Successful Blog (shoutmeloud.com)

A Great Bodhi Day (Rohatsu) Message.

One of the reasons that I refer to the month of December as, "the holidays" in America is because it's so much more than Christmas. The Jews celebrate Chanukkah, the Muslims Ashura and many African-Americans celebrate Kwanzaa. And, for Buddhists we celebrate the enlightenment of Buddha on this day, December 8th. In honor of his endeavor, many Buddhists spend the day or month in meditation and honor his memory through acts of kindness. Often meat eating Buddhists will buy and release an animal that was in captivity--usually fish.

For this year, I found a great little piece by Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara. It is a great angle on how modern day, average Buddhists can take a moment to celebrate/honor the day despite a hectic schedule and life:

The legend says that as he gazed at the morning star, he said, "How marvelous, I, the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened." This phrase teaches us the great lesson of interdependence, that we are not separate from all that is, but rather we are interconnected, a piece of the grand whole of the universe. And at the same time, this very piece, this "I" sitting here is an integral and vital component of the whole. When we take care of this "I", we can take care of the whole universe. So, even if we cannot devote a week or a full night but are only able to meditate for a few minutes on Bodhi Day, it can be a reminder of the wisdom that is naturally available to us, the wisdom of cultivating our minds and recognizing our relation to the whole.

James: Each year, on Bodhi day, I sit and picture all the Buddhists in the world and imagine us all together in one place, sitting united to awaken to peace in oneself, and peace in the world as Thich Nhat Hanh says. Then I broaden that picture to include the world and imagine people seeing us all sitting. Then watching them gravitate toward that peaceful energy to just sit with us, regardless of religion; to simply enjoy that moment--together, as a world, as a species, as a planet. It always makes me smile and recharges me for the new year. So, to you, dear reader; I wish you a peaceful Bodhi day and Happy New Year.

~Peace to all beings~

The Buddhist Blog Honored with Award Nominations.

Wow. The 2010 Blogisattva Award nominations have been announced and The Buddhist Blog has been honored. The blog was nominated in three categories: Best Engage-the-World Blog, Best Achievement in Kind and Compassionate Blogging and Best "Life" Blog. The blog also received honorable mentions in other, categories: Best Achievement Blogging Opinion Pieces or Political Issues, Best Blogging on Matters Philosophical, Psychological or Scientific and Best Blog of the Year!!

I know that some of you nominated the blog for these nominations and I am humbled by your appreciation. You, and the Blogisattva Awards committee honor the blog greatly and I will use this positive energy toward keeping the voice of the reclusive Buddhist alive. Perhaps the boring side of the blog is that I write mainly because it aids my practice but it also is a labor of love in honor of the Dharma. It is a testament of how amazingly beneficial Buddha's teachings are to humanity. I credit the Dharma in being the catalyst to helping me emerge from a very dark, angry and self-destructive life-pattern that I was on before.

It is fitting perhaps that these honors come on a day when we recognize the enlightenment of Buddha (Bodhi Day) and the priceless gift that he bestowed upon all humanity. None of us would be benefiting from the Dharma without his self-sacrifice. After his great awakening (or, enlightenment), he could have wandered off into the mountains to live out the rest of his last incarnation before merging into parinirvana. Instead he chose to share the path he realized with the world and we are his heirs.

But I digress. Buddhism has been a great help in reducing the symptoms of my psychiatric condition and that is another reason that I write. To show others that Buddhism can be of great benefit to the restless mind wrapped up in psychiatric turmoil. The Dharma has been like another medication but one without negative side effects. So, any recognition that I am honored with must be given back to Buddha and those who honored me with these nominations. I cherish my readers as friends and family. It is my hope that this new year will bring greater acceptance of online interaction in the Buddhism community at-large.

Whether the blog actually "wins" any awards is secondary to what I have gained through interacting with all of you. You have truly enriched my life and I look forward to our interactions each day. May this next year be a wonderful year for Buddhist blogging. There are a lot of great blogs out there that keep the online Buddhist community going and I am forever honored to be mentioned alongside them all. Be sure to check them out!! Thank-you, again for the humbling honor that you have shown. Here's to a new year!!

P.S. - It's hard to sound honored without coming across as cliche but I really, really mean what I wrote. Every word. Thanks again to the judges and everyone else at The Blogisattva Awards.

~Peace to all beings~

International Bloggers Day for Burma 2007

If you are thinking about buying rubies, may I suggest you refrain. Ninety percent of the world's rubies come from the junta led government in Burma.

$750 million dollars a year worth and it all goes to the generals. However that statistic is probably low. The red color of the rubies is a horrible symbol of the blood shed to obtain them. They are quite literally, "Blood Rubies."

~Peace to Burma~