Have we met...?

today i met the most interesting couple. they have lived in my neighborhood over 40 years and even had their last name designed into an architectural detail on the exterior of their home. myrtle, the lady i met said that was her husband's doing. over the 5 years that i have lived in their neighborhood, i have always noticed that detail on that perfectly weathered home on the main avenue. funny, i imagined that those originals who had their house engraved must be long gone from here.

But they are not gone at all in fact very much here.

we met today because we found ourselves on the same corner near both of our houses to see what the brought two firetrucks to the neighborhood. she was standing alone when i arrived, and her husband had walked closer to the action to find out what was really happening.

so myrtle and i talked and immediately i found myself in a conversation about fences, bachelors, marrying, remarrying,obesity, sweet people, and living alone. When her husband returned the conversation turned to hindu religions, sanskrit, what in life is divine and universal, digital filmmaking, dvd dubs, historic paint and digits.

digits? i never had that one before. it had to with supposed historic paint colors and whoever came up with that concept - she said she was sure it was 'justsome digit came in here and decided." i we both laughed outloud. she later said she sounded like a yankee talking like that. i told her that was why i could understand her. we laughed some more.

i have never had so much in common with two complete strangers. for that matter i haven't had that much in common lately even with most of the people that i know very well. especially these days. let alone a in-their-late 60's southern couple who have lived in stelmo for 40 years.

what occured to me after leaving them was that in so many and so unlikely ways you shed your skin and new things appear and other things continually fall away. relationships change along with everything else in the world. why then are we always so shocked and disappointed when it happens again. While i have been bummed and distracted about feeling like i don't seem to connect the same with alot of my closest friends, like we have little in common now - i am made aware today that there are always new and unlikely connections to be made. in fact, perhaps i should stop trying to look for those connections in the same obvious familiar places. afterall, they do seem to be turning up elsewhere now.

these days i'm picking up everything that is placed right in front of me. it always takes me exactly where i'm supposed to be. and that always means leaving things behind.

Absolute Truth

...Sogyal Rinpoche suggests that seeing someone in pain, in person or on the news, could inspire us to meditate on compassion.

"Any one of these sights could open the eyes of your heart to the fact of vast suffering in the world.

Let it.

Don't waste the love and grief it arouses; in the moment you feel compassion welling up in you, don't brush it aside, don't shrug it off and try quickly to return to 'normal,' don't be afraid of your feeling or embarrassed by it, or allow yourself to be distracted from it or let it run aground in apathy.

Be vulnerable; use that quick, bright uprush of compassion; focus on it, go deep in your heart and meditate on it, develop it, enhance, and deepen it.

By doing this you will realize how blind you have been to suffering, how the pain that you are experiencing or seeing now is only a tiny fraction of the pain of the world.

'All beings, everywhere, suffer; let your heart go out to them all in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion, and direct that compassion, along with the blessing of all the elders and wise, to the alleviation of suffering everywhere.

'Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity.

Pity has its roots in fear, and a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of 'I'm glad it's not me.' As Stephen Levine says: 'When your fear touches someone's pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone's pain, it becomes compassion.'

To train in compassion, then, is to know all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone."

What Now Then

Thinking alot these days about meaning and medicine and universal truths.

a friend of mine and his family are suffering deeply now as their 17 year old son lies in a coma for day number 17 after a 5-story fall while filming with friends in an abandoned building. i know the building. i work next to it; and i live next to the family. i am utterly conscious of them at all times. i am thankful for being conscious at all.

at first, after the accident, i took an alternate route because i just did not want to see the place and imagine that fall. my building is actually on the opposite end of the block - but the abandoned blighted building is on the corner where i turn to get onto that street on my way in every morning. so, i went around a different way for many days. then i decided that was defeatest and fueling the negatives at play trying to gain ground. plus that big ol thing wasn't stronger than a. or his family or the prayer warriors or me or the titanium rod that was placed along his spine today.

believe me i feel like an asshole when i think about and now here write about what i am going thru as a result of this event. because i am not going "thru" anything - but it all causes pause and reflection and my path once more has been put before me in the light.

i struggled with how and where to put my feelings/energy/prayers for them. my path is my own and not in sync with theirs as far as the narrative and cast of charactors go, anyway.

but what has been revealed...again to me... are some universal truths about compassion, service and intention.

my struggle was some confused but deep respect for the family and their overwhelming love and faith in jesus. i was raised catholic and am familiar with the church thing - so there was a part of me - out of respect for what was the strongest support system for them not me - wanting to direct my meditations/prayers in their house of worship and put mine in the wagon with all the christian prayer warriors crying out for them around the world (literally). I thought it shouldn't be about my comfort level it should be about getting out the plea for them in their way. its their son. their broken hearts. this isn't about me. so i prayed to jesus and the Creator every day and night and every time i thought about them. Prayed specifically intelligently, but in my way - kinda conversational, no bible, no references to similar historical burdons and miracles - just straight up "PLEASE!" - but i couldn't put myself in church. that seemed fake no matter how present and earnest i was.

what i went thru was somewhat distraught because, for days i wasn't connecting to my prayers the way i wanted to. i wasn't pleading my actual hardest for these loved ones because i felt disconnected. i was unhappy. days and nights were passing and i knew i wasn't doing all i could and that made me upset frustrated and confused. in an effort to give them the most within their system i ended up giving less because it wasn't meaningful to me.

so i started to look things up on line about the buddhist path i've embraced and the medicine buddha. i read all afternoon. followed every link. loved learning and loved all the information and images. i was looking for the basis and focus to put my mind and heart for the most benefit.

while looking around and reading i found a writing on the idea that if you are being drawn in to suffering to let that arise in you more compassion and to really go with and stay with that feeling for who might be suffering and for the millions more who suffer all the time. my friend, the father of the boy inthe coma, had just written at length about this very thing from the christian persepective on the new family blog set up as a vehicle to update everyone on his condition. at the time i was moved by his ability to so immediataly put his own crushing pain into such a selfless open hearted reminder: if it is the suffering of his family that has drawn me in then also i must be drawn in to the suffering of people everywhere and cry out for their relief too. in this desire for our friend's son to please wake up, we must all gain consciousness.

reading this beautiful and essential concept again, from the buddhist perspective, i am now moved by how much we have in common, and i get how he was able to so immediately reflect on this. it isnt separate. we are interdependant. this is undeniable.

but reading isn't practice. it was sunday afternoon and i knew the local sangha had their group meetings and meditation on sunday evenings. i decided i'd return to this sangha today ( i had only been intermittently since they formed) and see if i could ask some questions at an appropriate time.

when the student is ready the teacher appears.

it is a small group and tonight's program includes a beginning meditation and recitation ritual and then a discussion about a particular subject. it is good to sit. it is good to be in a peaceful place and i'm glad i;m there just for that refreshment. it is good.

then it is time for the discussion and the woman leading tonight is president of the center and she's brought some books that are relative to tonight's topic.

Medicine Buddha.

I am amazed. really wide open. listening now. at one point i tell everyone a very short version of this amazing thing and she says "oh you'll get used that."

she ends up lending me a great book that is a tremendous and foundational help when dealing with illness, trauma, death.

More seaching and i learned about the medicine buddha's physical charactoristics so i can work art into my mediations:

"Medicine Buddha is an enlightened being who has unbiased compassion for all living beings. He protects living beings from physical and mental sickness and other dangers and obstacles, and helps them to eradicate the three poisons-attachment, hatred and ignorance-which are the source of all sickness and danger. He is the Buddha Doctor".

"The Medicine Buddha or 'great king with the radiance of a lapis jewel' is the embodiment of all the Buddha's healing qualities. his right hand holds the myrobalan plant, containing all the best medicines. his right palm is outward, hand extended, over his right knee in the gesture called Supreme Generosity. "

"his left hand rests in his lap, palm upward, in the gesture of meditative stability or mediation, represents the eradication of sickness and suffering - samsara - through the realization of absolute truth. He holds a begging bowl - need for contentment - thofilled with medicinal fruit and nectars symbolizing his power to conquer diseases and delusions. "


his right hand is extended, palm outward, over his right knee in the gesture called supreme generosity.



I learned the Medicine Buddha Mantra.

Tayata *OM * bhekandzyai * bhekandzyai * maha * bhekandzyi * rondza * samugate * soha!


praise thus.

...and we ended the evening with this most important and powerful mantra for healing. on that night six people sat in a circle and said it 151 times.

Something connected with me and I connected with it and so it is how i discovered the strongest most powerful thing i can do for my friends in so much pain.

tayata om bhekandzyai bhekandzyai maha bhekandzyai rondza samugate soha!

and if by virtue of this meritorious act anything arises because i am doing this mantra may it also simply be my doing so having a multitudes effect for all sentient beings who suffer and need healing.

and so it was how i had the experience of absolute truth. of the universal that connects everything.
me to this truth.
to this buddha.
to this mantra the first i've ever learned.
to everything.
here there is continuity.

here there is so much pain,
but far more love.

welcome

please enjoy your time here.

be kind and sincere.

be joyful and unattached.