Back online

Greetings-Been offline for a long time. WIll be connected next week. Things are moving along. The job at the restaurant is great, busy busy . Max my Rottie is not doing well, don't yet have a definitive diagnosis, soon hopefully, if not, am facing the inevitable sad decision, I'll keep you posted.
Looking forward to chatting with everyone again and hope all is well. Sorry for not having been able to maintain the tribes I started but hopefully can pick them up again shortly.
Many blessings. Greg

Still Offline

Greetings All,
I still have no internet connection and won't for awhile. Am borrowing roomates pc for a few minutes.
I decided to go ahead and take the plunge and go to work full time for the restaurant, great decision, loving it.
I will be in touch as soon as I can get back online. It'll be awhile. I hope you are all well and miss chatting with you.
Greg

OFFLINE FOR AWHILE

Hey All,
I will be offline for a couple of weeks at the most, until I get internet connection at home. Just in case anyone sends something and I don't respond. Blessings-Greg

Here and Now

The essence of our being is love

Health is inner peace. Healing is letting go of fear

Giving and receiving are the same

We can let go of the past and of the future

Now is the only time there is, and each instant is for giving and forgiving

We can become love finders rather than fault finders

We can choose and direct ourselves to be peaceful inside, regardless of what is happening outside

We are students and teachers to each other

We can focus on the whole rather than the fragments

Since love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful

We can always perceive others as either extending love or giving a call for help

Major Life Change

I have been working in various aspects of social services for 20 years. I've done case management, supervision of residential treatment centers, clinical treatment plans and assistant director of child crisis shelter. I am currently the program manager of a non-medical in home health agency. Prior to taking this job in January I worked for a similar agency for 6 years.
For a long time I have had the desire to do something totally different, but with thoughts of many things I never knew what it was. I've been bored with social services for a long while now, several years.
I also work at a restaurant one day a weekend in Jerome. I've been there since last November. When I started there I needed the money, now with my full time job, I don't but I have stayed because I love working there. I love the co-workers, the atmosphere, the owners and the general work that I do which is now bartending and serving one day a week.
The owners love me and love what I do at the restaurant. They want me to go to work full time for them.
This is a huge decision for me to leave the job security I have for a job with great money but no guarantees.
The social service job is a guaranteed salary, same money every week, holidays off, accumulated leave time. I work 6 hours a day and get paid for 8. Pretty good huh?
The restaurant job would be 4 days a week, 10 hours shifts with 3 days off, no money guarantees except for the server wages which are about $300. a month.
I would however have prime shfts that are busy. The restaurant I work at is in a high tourist area and we are cranking the business.
I've already made my decision and am going to give notice to my regular job on Thursday to make this huge life change but I think it will be great.
I need to let go of my security fear and know that when I do, that things will be great for me in this other job. I'm almost there, mentally.
When I work from 11a-6p on Saturdays at the restaurant I generally bring home more than I do at my regular job in one day, sometimes twice as much.
So I thought I'd share this. I'm actually pretty excited about it. I'm going for it now!!!

Captive Marine Mammals

Every year thousands of marine mammals are captured and sold to marine aquariums for public dislay and amusement. Some captive marine mammals include species of dolphins, orcas, beluga whales, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sharks and manatees. Many of these marine mammals are brutally killed or suffer and drown when they are entangled in nets during capture while frantically trying to escape. Many captures involve captors screaming, yelling, pounding steel and wood on boats and bombs similar to M80's being launched into the water to scare the mammals into pens and nets, where the struggle for escape and survival ensues.
The parents are separated from their young never to be reunited. Many species of marine mammals mate for life and as their families grow they develop into large herds or pods. Many species live their entire lives together as a family unit and it continues to gorw and expand.
These animals are captured and sold to aquariums in the name of 'Public Education'. The public display industry has asserted for many years that the display of marine mammals serves as a necessary educational purpose and that the animals' welfare need not necessarily be compromised to achieve this. Mostly, this assertion has gone unchallenged. But as news gets out about traumatic captures, barren concrete tanks, high mortality rates. and aberrant-even dangerous animal behavior, people are changing the way they "see" animals in captivity.
Many facilities promote themselves as conservation enterprises; however, few such facilities are involved in substantial conservation efforts. Rather than enhancing wild populations, facilities engaged in captive breeding tend merely to create a surplus of animals who may never be released into the wild and are therefore only used to propogate the industry.
People react on an emotional level when they go to marine parks and see captive marine mammals. They are endeared and fascinated. They are presented with carefully orchestrated presentations on marine mammals behavior and their life in the wild. However the public is not educated with the "behind the scenes" truth about wild captures and the devestating loss of countless lives during herd drives and captures. Not to mention the loss in marine parks on an annual basis that is hidden from the public. Nor is the public educated on the trauma involved in not only being captured, but being separated from family units never to be reunited. Families that attend and support marine parks are able to go home with and enjoy their families. Marine mammals aren't. They are locked in barren concrete tanks to live out their lives performing tricks for public amusement until they die from old age or complications caused by various illnesses. There are many documented reports of whales bashing their heads against tank walls until they develop aneurisms and die. This is caused from stress related to capture and boredom.
Orca's(killer whales) swim an average of 80-100 miles per day. In captivity, natural feeding and foraging patterns are completely lost. Other natural behaviors such as those associated with dominance, mating and maternal care, are altered in captivity, which can have a substantial impact on the animal.
Lolita, an Orca who has been in captivity in Florida's Seaquarium since 1970, is now 22 feet long and weighs 8000 pounds. Her tank measures 80 feet x 73 feet.
Lolita's pod started out at 100 when she was captured. The ones that survived the horrendous captures were sold to parks all over the world. Most dies within an average of 5 years. Lolita is the only surviving member of her pod and has been in captivity for 36 years. She is 36 years old. Imagine life in a concrete tankf ro 36 years. People say she is the lucky one because she has had adequate care and survived. The lucky one. Is she?
The public display industry maintains that it enhances the lives of marine mammals in captivity by protecting them from the rigors of the natural environment. The truth is that marine mammals have evolved physically and behaviorally to survive these rigors.
Captive marine mammals are not afforded the luxury of acting as they would in their natural habitat. In the wild, marine mammals are not hand fed, food is not witheld if they refuse to do tricks, they have room to go as far as they wish, to build families, lives, mate, play and do what they do.
Check out this link for the story of Lolita before and after her capture. When you read it, you will ask yourself, "How could they and why would they?" You decide if this is right or wrong.
www.orcanetwork.org/captivit...ture.html

American Buddhism on the rise(Yahoo News)

By Jane Lampman, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - That genial face has become familiar across the globe - almost as recognizable when it comes to religious leaders, perhaps, as Pope John Paul II. When in America, the Dalai Lama is a sought-after speaker, sharing his compassionate message and engaging aura well beyond the Buddhist community.

After inaugurating a new Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, B.C., the Tibetan leader this week begins a visit to several US cities for public talks, sessions with young peacemakers, scientists, university faculty, corporate executives, and a California women's conference. But he'll also sit down for teach-ins among the burgeoning American faithful.

Buddhism is growing apace in the United States, and an identifiably American Buddhism is emerging. Teaching centers and sanghas (communities of people who practice together) are spreading here as American-born leaders reframe ancient principles in contemporary Western terms.

Though the religion born in India has been in the US since the 19th century, the number of adherents rose by 170 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the American Religious Identity Survey. An ARIS estimate puts the total in 2004 at 1.5 million, while others have estimated twice that. "The 1.5 million is a low reasonable number," says Richard Seager, author of "Buddhism in America."

That makes Buddhism the country's fourth-largest religion, after Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Immigrants from Asia probably account for two-thirds of the total, and converts about one-third, says Dr. Seager, a professor of religious studies at Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y.

What is drawing people (after that fascination with Zen Buddhism in the '50s and '60s)? The Dalai Lama himself has played a role, some say, and Buddhism's nonmissionizing approach fits well with Americans' search for meaningful spiritual paths.

"People feel that Buddhist figures like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam are contributing something, not trying to convert people," says Lama Surya Das, a highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition. "They are not building big temples, but offering wisdom and ways of reconciliation and peacemaking, which are so much needed."

Even a larger factor, he suggests, is that Buddhism offers spiritual practices that Western religions haven't emphasized.

"People are looking for experiential practices, not just a new belief system or a new set of ethical rules which we already have, and are much the same in all religions," Surya Das says. "It's the transformative practices like meditation which people are really attracted to."

At a sangha "sitting" in Cambridge, Mass., last week, some 20 devotees sat cross-legged on four rows of large burgundy-colored cushions before a small candlelit altar. A practice leader led a quiet hour of meditation interspersed with the chanting of prayers and mantras. The group then gathered in a circle for a half hour of discussion.

Carol Marsh, an architect who served as practice leader for the evening, had an interest in finding a spiritual path for years, but was "resistant to anything nonrationalist," she says afterward in an interview. "Then I read 'Awakening the Buddha Within,' [Surya Das's first book on 'Tibetan wisdom for the Western world'], and it spoke to me directly.... My ultimate aim is liberation."

After eight years of practicing, "I am happier, more grateful, more able to roll with whatever punches or moments of annoyance may present themselves," Ms. Marsh says.

What's so valuable to Jane Moss, who's been practicing 15 years, is learning how "to be in the present moment." And also to accept that reality involves perfection and "to view the world as good and people as basically loving." Each month, the group holds a meditation focused on love and compassion.

The sangha has been meeting since 1991, when Surya Das opened the Dzogchen Center here after decades of training with Tibetan teachers. Before becoming a lama, he was Jeffrey Miller, raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Brooklyn. An anti-Vietnam-War activist while at the University of Buffalo (N.Y.), he was stunned when his good friend Allison Krause was shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970.

"When I graduated in 1972, I was disillusioned with radical politics - I realized fighting for peace was a contradiction in terms, and I wanted to find inner peace," he explains. Instead of graduate school, the young Miller headed off on a search that ended up in the Himalayas, where he spent the rest of the '70s and '80s learning from Buddhist teachers while teaching some of them English.

There were plenty of struggles and moments of doubt, but also illumination, he says. Following a centuries-old path to cultivate awareness, his training included two three-year retreats of intensely focused practice.

"One of the great lessons of that monastic brotherhood was learning to love even those people I didn't like," he says, speaking by phone from a retreat in Texas where he's training others.

There are many schools of Buddhism, but "everyone agrees that the purpose is the individual and collective realization of Enlightenment," Surya Das continues. "That is defined as nirvanic peace, wisdom, and selfless love. It involves a practice path that depends on meditation, ethical behavior, and developing insight and active love."

Buddha means "awakened" in Sanskrit, a language of ancient India, where Siddhartha Gautama founded the faith and an Eightfold Path some 2,500 years ago. Buddhists believe that through that path one awakens to what already is - "the natural great perfection." They do not speak of God, but of the human or ego mind with a small "m," and the Buddha (awakened) Mind with a big "m."

"Healing energy takes place through an agency far greater than, yet immanent in each of us," Surya Das has written. "We are all Buddhas."

One doesn't have to subscribe to a catechism or creed, or be a vegetarian. Nor do people have to give up their religion. That's why some Americans speak of being Jewish Buddhists, for instance.

The Dalai Lama, in fact, often encourages people to stay with the faith of their cultural upbringing, to avoid the confusion that can sometimes result from a mixing of Eastern and Western perspectives.

Yet others are going more fully into Buddhist study, particularly as the writings and training by American-born teachers increase its accessibility.

The Dzogchen Center (Dzogchen means "the innate great completeness"), which has sanghas in several states, teaches an advanced Tibetan practice; annually, it offers numerous retreats, from one-day to two-week gatherings. Surya Das - whose Tibetan teacher gave him his name, which means "follower or disciple of the light" - is the spiritual director.

Thirty devotees are currently cloistered in a 100-day retreat for advanced students at the Dzogchen retreat center outside Austin, Texas. They are in the third of a 12-year cycle of silent retreats - which will likely produce new teachers.

Several Tibetan teachers helped introduce Buddhism in the US, and one, Chogyam Trungpa, founded Naropa University in Boulder, Colo. But the teacher succumbed to excesses that tempt clergy of various faiths - alcoholism and sexual misconduct.

The Dalai Lama has warned, too, of some teachers who seek leadership for financial rather than spiritual reasons. The issue of students and teachers is today one of the most controversial in transmission of teaching from East to West, says Surya Das.

Still, a healthy American Buddhism with its own characteristics is emerging. It is less doctrinal and ritualistic than in the East and more meditation oriented, less hierarchical and more democratic and egalitarian. It is more lay-oriented than monastic, and more socially and ecologically engaged.

Perhaps most noticeably, "the role of women as leaders and teachers is very significant here," Seager says.

The Dalai Lama speaks of Buddhism naturally taking new forms in each culture. As he travels the globe, he also emphasizes building bridges between faiths, as well as finding nonviolent means for resolving differences. This weekend, the Nobel Peace Laureate will spend time with youths in Denver engaged in conflict-resolution projects. He'll bless the Great Stupa, the largest example of Buddhist sacred architecture in the US, located at Colorado's Shambhala Mountain Center.

Next week he'll speak to 20,000 at a football stadium in Buffalo, and at the alma mater of Surya Das, who was one of his attendants for several years. The American lama will also speak.

"Buddhism made me a mensch and brought me happiness," Surya Das concludes contentedly, "and helped me find my place in life and the universe."

What is Old?

How did we become so conditioned to think that age is something to be scared of?
I was listening to a co-worker today saying she was mortified to be turning 30 two days ago. A friend of ours had a talk with her and it seemed to set in and she was okay when she turned 30. I thought, 'geez, your going to have a nervous breakdown when you turn 40.'
So many people have told us that getting old is scary, something to be wigged out about, something to fear, because of the way you will look or the fact that you are drawing closer to the end of life on this plane.
We have had years and years of conditioning. Newspaper, magazines and the tv telling us how to stay younger, look younger, feel younger. Things we can buy, things we can ingest, surgeries available to us. All to prolong the inevitable.
All of these companies that sell the endless brands and name products that reduce wriinkles, make them disappear, make you look younger. These companies, the press, tv, radio, papers, magazines, loreal, revlon, mabelline. All of them making billions, selling to peoples fears of growing old and dying. And I'm sure that so many of them do not realize it in this light. It is okay to want to look younger if you can surpass the thought that you will be ugly if you get wrinkles.
I am okay with aging. I can't remember a birthday that bothered me where age was concerned. I will be 43 in October. I look in the mirror and see little lines here and there. More lines when I smile. I was told it adds character. I suppose. I did kind of have a several minute freak out last year when I realized that one ear sticks out a tiny bit further than the other one. No one else has ever mentioned it. I discovered it when I was 41. I laughed about it later, no big deal and has nothing to do with aging.
I think gorwing older is okay. Just like the rest of your life, it's what you make it.
People are scared of death, many terrified of it. I know that I used to scared of death to various degrees but have pretty much resolved it. Way too long to explain. It is what it is. We all have different beliefs on where we go when we leave this plane and that scares people too. There is a good chance that any one of us could die at anytime, at any age and not have to worry about growing old and dying. Where did we go? We'll know when we get there.
Sort of off-topic, or veering off, but related:
People ask how old I am. When I tell them I am 42, quite often, people will say, "wow, you don't look 42". What does 42 look like. There are people that are over 50 that look like they may be in their 30's. People who are 30 that look 50. It really doesn't matter. Age is a number. Growing old is nothing to fear. If people take care of themselves and their body the aging process is easier and you look better and feel better. It has to be because you want it, not what anyone else thinks.
Again, I think that many of us need to resolve our concerns about death and then hopefully growing old won't be so scary. We will be at peace with it.
Last week I got a new client who recently had her leg amputated and most likely the other one will come off.
My co-worker said "Gosh, she lost her leg and she's only 44." Uhm, what's age limit? I'll check into that one and get back to you.
Peace-Greg