When Things “Fell” Apart

Eight years ago I officially signed off from Precious Metal. It was bittersweet to put it lightly. I didn’t really want to walk away, I was really enjoying what the online sangha at the time was building. The universe had its own plan though and I walked away.

Here I am after nearly a decade and the landscape of the online sangha has changed dramatically. I can’t seem to find many of my old pals, but that’s ok; it’s all impermanent right? I’m about to get wordy so those that have hung on and want to play catch up here it goes; I will try to be as brief as possible.

Little Monk and Modernity

Saw this short animated video and wanted to share it. Pretty valuable, and simple lesson here done in a creative way. Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.bodhitv.com/view/83/little-monk-n-modernity/

Yes, it is a link, as BodhiTV does not repost the video on Youtube and they can’t be embedded on WordPress, sorry…. but it’s worth it, go ahead… click the link…. you know you want to… it’s ok… try it

Kisagotami: A Lesson On Impermanence

Story found on web

Kisagotami, a young woman, was married to the only son of a rich man and they had a male child. The child died when he was two years old. Kisagotami had intense attachment for the child. She clasped the dead child to her bossom, refused to part with it, and went from house to house, to her friends and relatives, asking them to give some medicine to bring the child back to life.

A Buddhist monk said to her: “O good girl! I have no medicine. But go to Lord Buddha. He can surely give you a very good medicine. He is an ocean of mercy and love. The child will come back to life. Be not troubled”.

Organ Donation and (Im)Permanence?

Was reading some news articles this morning and stumbled on one via the Associated Press about Japan allowing more organ transplanting to take place. I never knew it was such an issue, especially to the Buddhist community in Japan.

From what the article says, the Buddhist community in Japan “consider the body sacred and reject its desecration.” This threw me for a loop, as I’ve been trying to grasp the idea of impermanence.

Tibetan Buddhist Thubten Chodron says on her website:

Two factors to consider when making this decision are 1) will organ donation harm the dying person? 2) what is the role of compassion in making this decision?

More and more chaplains comforting dying patients are not clergy members

From The St. Petersburg Times

Some of the hospice patients talk about their impending deaths, or about God. Most just talk about what people always talk about — unfinished business and unanswered questions: regrets over firing an employee 50 years ago; the pet no one has yet promised to adopt; feeling sick to death of being sick yet not ready to die. About Bach. “How did he dream up that music?” one woman asks.

Listening to final inquiries like these has long been the domain of a family priest or rabbi. But for a growing number of Americans who do not know a member of the clergy, that bedside auditor is increasingly likely to belong to an emerging professional class known in the hospice world as a pastoral counselor or chaplain, who may or may not be a clergy member.