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Skillful farmers don’t throw away their manure.
They use it. - Buddha in Lakavatara Sutra
They use it. - Buddha in Lakavatara Sutra
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Writing in Oprah Magazine, spiritual teacher and medical doctor Deepak Chopra responded to a parent asking how to deal with her adult child addict. Here's Dr. Dhopra's wisdom:
In spiritual terms, this is an issue about attachment. Attachment makes you feel obsessed about your children's lives. It makes their pain feel like yours. You all but lose the boundary between you and them.
You can get beyond such attachments through a process that involves the following steps:
(source:http://www.oprah.com/spirit/how-to-deal-with-your-childs-drug-addiction-ask-deepak )
In spiritual terms, this is an issue about attachment. Attachment makes you feel obsessed about your children's lives. It makes their pain feel like yours. You all but lose the boundary between you and them.
You can get beyond such attachments through a process that involves the following steps:
- See that attachment isn't positive. It helps no one. The most effective therapists tend to be unattached, even detached. It gives them clarity and objectivity. It allows their skills to be used most effectively.
- See that your attachment is harming you. As close as you feel toward your children, the life that is closest to you is your own. Sacrificing a good part of it to suffering is destructive. You must value yourself enough to want a good life for yourself. From this goodness, you will offer more help to those in need, not less.
- Reject false hope, wishful thinking and the constant recurrence of "solutions" that never work and which your children reject anyway. If they say no, be an adult and accept that no means no.
- Heal your wounds. Most addicts have lost the ability to care about those around them. They are in the habit of hurting, rejecting, betraying, keeping secrets and breaking faith. The disease works that way. But all that negative behavior has hurt you. Don't let parental guilt turn you into a punching bag or a rug to trample over. Heal yourself where you hurt.
- Fulfill your primary relationship. You don't mention your husband, but if you are still married, repair your bridges with him. This is not a path to walk alone. Realize your children are not your primary relationship. If they are all you have, that still doesn't make it your primary relationship, because they aren't relating to you at all. Find someone to relate to who cares for you. They certainly don't.
- Find a vision to follow. Right now, your vision is an illusion. It is fixed on the false notion that if you found just the right key, you would solve your children's lives. Please see that no parent solves any grown child's life, which means you haven't failed. It's impossible to fail at what was unachievable to begin with. The mind abhors a vacuum, and you need a purposeful goal in life to fill the place where anxiety and guilt now reside.
(source:http://www.oprah.com/spirit/how-to-deal-with-your-childs-drug-addiction-ask-deepak )
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- You can brag about pardoning a turkey
- You will stay awake for your entire favorite football game.
- Your sensible vegetarian kid won't have to boycott the family dinner.
- Plant-based holiday roasts don’t have to carry government warning labels.
- You won’t have to call poultry hotline to keep your family out of the hospital.
- Your body will appreciate a holiday from the fat, cholesterol, and hormones.
- You won’t sweat the environment and food resources devastation guilt trip.
- You won’t spend a sleepless night wondering how the turkey lived and died.
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Florida State University President John Thrasher and the board of trustees Friday committed $30,000 of their personal money to cover law school costs for Joshua Quick.
Quick, a second-year law student at FSU, has been hailed as a hero for his efforts in attacking the shooter who opened fire Nov. 2 at the Hot Yoga studio in Tallahassee.
Two people, Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, an internist and medical director for Capital Health Plan, and Maura Binkley, a 21-year-old student majoring in German and English at FSU, were killed in the shooting.
Five other people were wounded.
Quick, in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” said after shooter Scott Beierle fired shots inside the Midtown studio, he confronted him with a vacuum cleaner, hitting him over the head when the shooter’s weapon stopped firing. Quick was pistol-whipped and bloodied, but went after Beirle again, hitting him with a broom. The exchange allowed others to escape the studio.
Quick, a second-year law student at FSU, has been hailed as a hero for his efforts in attacking the shooter who opened fire Nov. 2 at the Hot Yoga studio in Tallahassee.
Two people, Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, an internist and medical director for Capital Health Plan, and Maura Binkley, a 21-year-old student majoring in German and English at FSU, were killed in the shooting.
Five other people were wounded.
Quick, in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” said after shooter Scott Beierle fired shots inside the Midtown studio, he confronted him with a vacuum cleaner, hitting him over the head when the shooter’s weapon stopped firing. Quick was pistol-whipped and bloodied, but went after Beirle again, hitting him with a broom. The exchange allowed others to escape the studio.
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Some time ago I read a New York Times obituary which lead with this headline "Bob Fletcher Dies at 101 Saved Farms Of Japanese Americans". Normally obituaries in the Times are mainly about the wealthy, powerful and influential. I'd never heard of Bob Fletcher so I read with increasing amazement.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the American government forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast out of their homes and businesses into internment camps. One of those affected by this bleak moment in American history was Al Tsukamoto, whose parents arrived in the United States in 1904. Tsukamoto owned and operated the family fruit farm in California. Rather than simply abandon the farm and see the business destroyed, Tsukamoto looked for a compassionate American he could ask to help him. This was not easy to do as Pearl Harbor had just been bombed by the Japanese placing anger toward those of Japanese ancestry at an all time high.
Tsukamoto approached Bob Fletcher, a young man in his early 30s who worked as a farm inspector for the State of California. Tsukamoto asked Fletcher to consider this business proposal: would he be willing to operate the family farm, pay the taxes and the mortgage while the Tsukamoto family were confined. In return, Tsukamoto told Fletcher he could keep all the profits. Fletcher agreed, quit his job and for the next three years worked 18 hour days operating a fruit farm. Faithfully, he paid the taxes and kept up with the mortgage payments. Fletcher kept only half the profits as his 'salary'. Though Tsukamoto told him to live in his family home, Fletcher stayed in the bunkhouse Tsukamoto had built for migrant workers. Each week, he cleaned and maintained the Tsukamoto residence while waiting for their return.
Whereas most Japanese-American families lost their property and businesses while they were in camps, Tsukamoto came back in 1945 to discover he still had his family farm and that he had money in a bank . . . all because one compassionate American was willing to help.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the American government forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast out of their homes and businesses into internment camps. One of those affected by this bleak moment in American history was Al Tsukamoto, whose parents arrived in the United States in 1904. Tsukamoto owned and operated the family fruit farm in California. Rather than simply abandon the farm and see the business destroyed, Tsukamoto looked for a compassionate American he could ask to help him. This was not easy to do as Pearl Harbor had just been bombed by the Japanese placing anger toward those of Japanese ancestry at an all time high.
Tsukamoto approached Bob Fletcher, a young man in his early 30s who worked as a farm inspector for the State of California. Tsukamoto asked Fletcher to consider this business proposal: would he be willing to operate the family farm, pay the taxes and the mortgage while the Tsukamoto family were confined. In return, Tsukamoto told Fletcher he could keep all the profits. Fletcher agreed, quit his job and for the next three years worked 18 hour days operating a fruit farm. Faithfully, he paid the taxes and kept up with the mortgage payments. Fletcher kept only half the profits as his 'salary'. Though Tsukamoto told him to live in his family home, Fletcher stayed in the bunkhouse Tsukamoto had built for migrant workers. Each week, he cleaned and maintained the Tsukamoto residence while waiting for their return.
Whereas most Japanese-American families lost their property and businesses while they were in camps, Tsukamoto came back in 1945 to discover he still had his family farm and that he had money in a bank . . . all because one compassionate American was willing to help.
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Whereas disappointment can be the first step to wisdom, resentment brings only disaster. - Jampa Thaye
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Most religions in the world fall under the categorical umbrella of monotheism or polytheism due to their unchangeable doctrine and the super natural beings who created the cosmos or harbor the might to save their souls. Buddhism falls under neither. Instead, it illuminates the mysteries of our existence through the law of karma as well as pratityasamutpada or interdependent origination. It is certainly not an ethnocentric tradition and cannot be used as a basis of class or cast, consecrated by the words of the highest Devine. It is an egalitarian spiritual system that regards all human beings as equal to each other, all have Buddha nature. It also should not be rendered as the building blocks for cultural and national identity. Those who practice Buddhism are Buddhist regardless of their race, gender, or location; be it in little hut community in the Amazonian jungle or tent in Sahara desert. - Anam Thubten Rinpoche
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Not creating delusions is enlightenment. Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.
- Bodhidharma
- Bodhidharma
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Singer Tony Bennett was ten years old when his father died. Though he has few memories of John Benedetto, one stands out and has influenced Bennett all his life. His father, an Italian immigrant to America, operated a small grocery store in New York City. The family lived above the business.
One evening they heard noise downstairs. A man had gotten drunk and was attempting to break in but having a hard time doing it due to the alcohol. Benedetto crept downstairs and discovered the man unconscious. Evidently he had tripped over some egg crates. The police were called and they explained that if Benedetto pressed charges, he man would be arrested and jailed. Letting out a sigh, Benedetto walked over to the man asking:
“Do you have a job?”
The man shook his head no, too embarrassed to speak.
Then Benedetto told him: “Well, you have one now. You can work for me if you want to.”
The man accepted the offer of employment immediately.
Thinking about that incident, Tony Bennett realized “my father didn’t do it out of pity. He truly felt we had been blessed in America and were obliged to share our blessings with those who were less fortunate.”
One evening they heard noise downstairs. A man had gotten drunk and was attempting to break in but having a hard time doing it due to the alcohol. Benedetto crept downstairs and discovered the man unconscious. Evidently he had tripped over some egg crates. The police were called and they explained that if Benedetto pressed charges, he man would be arrested and jailed. Letting out a sigh, Benedetto walked over to the man asking:
“Do you have a job?”
The man shook his head no, too embarrassed to speak.
Then Benedetto told him: “Well, you have one now. You can work for me if you want to.”
The man accepted the offer of employment immediately.
Thinking about that incident, Tony Bennett realized “my father didn’t do it out of pity. He truly felt we had been blessed in America and were obliged to share our blessings with those who were less fortunate.”
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If we [Western practitioners] be indeed worthy of the name of followers of the Buddha, it behooves us, first and foremost, to understand the full meaning that that title has for us; and, not less essentially, to consider what course of action we must follow, if we are to make the most of the great opportunity that our Karma now has brought to us. - Allan Bennett