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'THE GOOD YOU DO, COMES BACK TO YOU' - THAT'S KARMA!

7/21/2018

The good you do comes back to you!
What goes around comes around!
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The three above observations refer to the universal law of giving and receiving. The more we give, the more we receive. Here's an inspiring true story which verifies that wisdom. Several years ago, a man felt compelled to pull over and help an unfortunate woman stuck in the rain.

At the time, Tun De Hector had $5 to her name when her car broke down in the pouring rain. As she trudged down the road towards a gas station, Chris Wright was driving his family to church when he saw Hector and wanted to help her. After dropping his family off at the church, he turned around, picked Hector up in his car, drove her to a convenience station, paid for her gas, and gave her all the money in his wallet. Though Hector was overwhelmingly grateful for the stranger’s kindness, they parted ways expecting to never see each other again.

Three year's later, Wright's mother Judy fell ill with Parkinson’s disease. As her health started to decline, her family hired a team of nursing aides to take care of her. One nurse aid in particular was especially attentive of Judy, and the Wrights began to call her the family “guardian angel”.

One day when the nursing aid was chatting with the Wrights about her past, she told a story about how she once got stuck in the rain with only $5 in her pocket when a compassionate stranger pulled over and helped her out. Wright then realized that the nursing aid was Tun De Hector – the woman he had helped three years earlier.

The day this became clear to both Wright and Tun De Hector, both began to weep with joy over help given and now, help being returned. When Judy Wright passed away, on Hector’s birthday, the nursing aide rushed over, still clothed in her birthday attire so she could be there for the Wrights.

Then, as a means of repaying Hector for her many kindnesses, the Wrights set up an online fund raising page to help pay off the aide’s nursing school tuition. Their initial goal of $1,000 was quickly shattered as word of the inspiring story spread. The Wrights raised $35,000 for Tun De Hector.

Karma: what goes around, comes around!

PROVINCE OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND APPROVES THE BUILDING OF A BUDDHIST MONASTERY FOR 1,400 NUNS

7/21/2018

The provincial government of Prince Edward Island (PEI) in Canada has approved plans for the construction of a 120-hectare monastery in PEI municapilty of Brudenell. The monastery complex, which will be able to house up to 1,400 nuns, is a project of the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI), led by Master Zhen-Ru and focused on nurturing the study and practice of Buddhist nuns.

The nuns are excited about the project and grateful for the support and the positive feedback from the local community. “This is our lifetime dream of living in a traditional monastery that we can study and practice about peace and about harmony, and we really feel grateful that the community gave us the chance,” said Venerable Yvonne.

The monastery complex will cover 120 hectares of land, with 200,000 square feet of buildings and multiple green spaces, including gardens, a green house, and walking trails—some of which will be open to the public. The campus will include a few clusters of buildings that will comprise residences, lectures halls, spaces of worship, and recreational facilities.

According to the project masterplan, the monastery also aims to contribute to local businesses, both during and after construction. GWBI stated that during construction, it will use island services and products as much as possible to help boost the local economy. After construction, GWBI intends to engage in many charitable initiatives involving the local community, including island clean-up days, working with seniors, and making bread for the underprivileged.

(source:www.buddhistdoor.net)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

7/21/2018

Wisdom is the power of seeing things as they truly are, and how to act rightly when the problems of life come before us. The seeds of wisdom lie latent in us, and when our hearts are soft and warm with love they grow into their powers. - U. Ṭhittila

WORDS OF WISDOM FROM BRUCE LEE: RIP 7/20/73

7/20/2018

Martial artist and actor, Bruce Lee, died on this date 45 years ago (July 20, 1973). He was not only an amazing martial artist but a Zen philosopher as well. Here are some words of wisdom from Bruce Lee:

The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.

Simplicity is the last step of art and the beginning of nature.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

‎The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.

I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.

Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.

(feel free to re-post and/or link to your social media)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

7/20/2018

Faith opens us to what is beyond our usual, limited, self-centered concerns. In the Buddhist psychology, it is called the gateway to all good things, because faith sparks our initial inspiration to practice meditation, and also sustains our ongoing efforts. - Sharon Salzberg

WORLD'S OLDEST BREAD FOUND IN JORDAN

7/19/2018

Reuters news agency reports that the charred remains of a flatbread baked about 14,500 years ago in a stone fireplace in northeastern Jordan have given researchers a surprise: People began making bread millenniums before they developed agriculture.

The discovery shows that hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Mediterranean achieved the cultural milestone of bread-making far earlier than previously known, more than 4,000 years before plant cultivation took root.

The flatbread, likely unleavened and somewhat resembling pita bread, was fashioned from wild cereals such as barley or oats, as well as from tubers from an aquatic relative of papyrus, all of which had been ground into flour.

It was made by a culture called the Natufians, who had begun to embrace a sedentary rather than nomadic lifestyle, and was found at a Black Desert archaeological site.

YOU CAN AGE BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET OLD

7/19/2018

Deepak Chopra, MD., has been saying, for years, that aging and getting old are just not the same. In terms of Yoga and Ahyurveda, he is on solid ground. Many yogis live into their 90s but think, speak, act and live as though they have bodies of 50 year old people. Here are some of Dr. Chopra's insights about aging from Brotherhood, a book he co-authored with his brother Dr. Sanjiv Chopra:

"Although everyone ages, no dies of old age per say. It's not a disease. At the moment of death, more than 99 percent of a person's genes are intact."
Dr. Chopra says that people "get old" because they believe it supposed to happen and quit directing their bodies into a healthy direction. "It's good for ninety-year-olds to go to the gym to keep their muscles from wasting away. This fact has always been true. What has kept ninety-year-olds from (the gym) is psychological: The whole thing was unthinkable, risky or just not done."
"Reinventing the body comes down to inserting yourself as the body's leader, the force that issues orders based on life-supporting beliefs. "
"Cherished beliefs need to roll into the gutter.. The belief that aging is a curse, that the individual has no control over it, that dementia and memory loss are a roll of the dice, that cancer is looming in your future and cannot be stopped - all these outworn beliefs...need to roll into the gutter once and for all."

MILLENNIALS ARE DYING OF LIVER DISEASE DUE TO HIGH ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

7/19/2018

I've noticed, and been alarmed, by images of millennials (ages 25-34) consuming alcohol everywhere: by pools, at meals, sporting events and even yoga classes (alcohol should be off limits in any yoga setting). Now, research reveals their death rate from alcohol liver damage is higher than ever. Here's one news source:

Deaths from liver disease have increased sharply in recent years in the United States, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. Cirrhosis-related deaths increased by 65 percent from 1999 to 2016, and deaths from liver cancer doubled, the study said. The rise in death rates was driven predominantly by alcohol-induced disease, the report said.Over the past decade, people ages 25 to 34 had the highest increase in cirrhosis deaths - an average of 10.5 percent per year - of the demographic groups examined, researchers reported.

The study suggests that a new generation of Americans is being afflicted "by alcohol misuse and its complications," said lead author Elliot Tapper, a liver specialist at the University of Michigan.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

7/19/2018

Faith means total surrender to what is, without a single shadow of ‘could be’, ‘should be’ or ‘would be’. Faith means total surrender. - Vasant Lad

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN CHRISTIANS ARRIVED IN INDIA

7/18/2018

This from Ram Swarup writing in Hinduism Today magazine:

India's first major contact began when Vasco de Gama landed with gunboat and priests (1498). The newcomers were not only pirates and merchants but also believing Christians. They had the pope's mandate to convert heathens in the lands they conquered. They found that the natives had a flourishing religion of their own. They took to destroying their temples in earnest. Within decades of their occupation of small coastal parts, they had destroyed, according to their own records, 601 temples in 131 villages--all important Christian Orders taking part in this pious work. Franciscan friars destroyed 300 Hindu temples in Bardez, Jesuits 280 in Salsete.

St. Francis Xavier, who participated in this meritorious work, wrote back home: "As soon as I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken to pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done."

(www.hinduismtoday.com)