I've been recently looking at my choice in tattoos, My Megadeth tattoo on my upper right Arm, my Sephiroth Tattoo on my left shoulderblade and now my tattoo on the left side of my stomach.  I Got that one on a whim when I was in military school, when I turned 18, but never stood back and looked at the meaning. At the time, I was into Marilyn Manson, my parents hated him and blamed him for everything I did...when in reality it was me, he was just a voice that made me feel like I wasn't alone.  The more I learn about Buddhism, the more I realize how much that tattoo's meaning really is.  The tatoo is a Shock symbol you find on the back of all electrical devices, with the phrase "I am nothing I am forever" going around the circle around the lightning bolt.

I didn't know at the time but I was putting an ancient Buddhist belief on me.  The idea that we are nothing, we make ourselves and are judged by our deeds in life and also by our misdeeds.  We are forever, we are in charge of our own destiny.  We can choose who we want to be.  We  can choose like I did to live in hell or to rise above it.  we can choose to live in agony or live a life of charity and helping those less fortunate.  I said in a chatroom that despite the fact I'm poor, I would probably volunteer this holiday season and was told not to, that I needed to be paid.  It really made me think....Where is the honor in that?.  The idea of Karma is to do good in life, to help others and not demand anything in return. 

The idea that life is suffering in some way is central to the Buddhist Sutra, It is us to decide if we are going to sit back like goths and say "oh I'm so tragic, I don't desere to live" or if we are going to fight against it and "tell them, I know they were doing it to you, but don't try doin it to me".  Will we give in and lay around waiting for death, or will we make something for ourselves and have something that people will remember us when death comes?

It's up to all of us to decide.