When people develop respect for life in childhood, they are most unlikely, when they grow up, to harm things. And they will be even less likely to commit suicide or jeopardize the lives of others. - Daiskau Ikeda
Addiction is sadly common in our culture. I have attended the funerals of too many young adults who died as a result of their addiction. So it was with a focused interest that I came across some wisdom offered to Kirk Douglas when his 46 year old son, Eric, was found dead, the result of a drug overdose. His son had struggled with addiction issues for decades.
Of course, the actor and his wife, Anne, were devastated by the unnecessary death of their son and looked inward to see "what, if anything, we did wrong." Though nothing could relieve their immense pain, one counselor reminded the Douglas' of the three Cs concerning family addicts:
Benefit from the glow of others. Light your small candle at their flame. - Victor M. Parachin
When you are a very greedy or a person with a lot of attachment, it will be difficult to have satisfaction in your life because what you have will never be enough. There will always be subtle complaining. You are not going to be so happy. You’re always missing something. You want to have more. So you need to learn to be satisfied. You need to learn to remind yourself that you’re very happy with what you have. Remind yourself that you need to respect and be satisfied with things in your life. - Phakchok Rinpoche
The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. - Bodhidharma
Ajahn Chah (1918-1992) was Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition. Highly revered and loved, he was instrumental in bringing Buddhist teachings to the West. When an aging student was approaching her death, she asked for his advice on how to die. Here are five of his insights:
1. Don't be surprised by death. "You should understand that even the Buddha himself, with his great store of accumulated virtue, could not avoid physical death." 2. Let go of the body and be satisfied. Just like the Buddha released his body and the burden it had become, "now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years you’ve already depended on your body. You should feel that it’s enough." 3. The body deteriorates, the mind does not. This is something very important to remember at the time of death. " The Buddha taught that we should ensure that it is only the body that is locked up in jail, and not let the mind be imprisoned along with it. Now as your body begins to run down and deteriorate with age, don’t resist that, but don’t let your mind deteriorate with it. Keep the mind separate. Give energy to the mind by realizing the truth of the way things are." 4. Don't blame your body. Our physical self is subject to change and decay. That's just way it is. "Actually there’s nothing wrong with the way the body is. It’s not the body that causes you suffering, it’s your wrong thinking. When you see the right wrongly, there’s bound to be confusion." Be at peace with the way things are. This too, is very important. 5. Let go of all externals. Use your end time for meditation to bring peace and relieve any struggle. "Don’t go grasping at thoughts of your children and relatives, don’t grasp at anything whatsoever. Let go. Let the mind unite in a single point and let that composed mind dwell with the breath. Let the breath be its sole object of knowledge...... look on the breath as if it were a relative come to visit you. When a relative leaves, we follow him out and see him off. We watch until he’s walked or driven out of sight and then we go back indoors. We watch the breath in the same way. If the breath is coarse, we know that it’s coarse; if it’s subtle, we know that it’s subtle. As it becomes increasingly fine, we keep following it, while simultaneously awakening the mind. Eventually the breath disappears altogether and all that remains is the feeling of wakefulness. This is called meeting the Buddha." Silence is God’s first language. Everything else is a poor translation. - Thomas Keating
First there was hot yoga. Then came . . . . cat yoga, goat yoga, naked yoga, beer yoga, etc, etc, etc. Now, a New York studio is offering "cold" yoga with the room temperatures set between 42 and 64 (60 and over is considered "hot") . Here's the theory behind cold yoga according to Johnny Adamic, co-founder of cold yoga.
"Heat gets in the way of your workout performance, In cooler temperatures—anywhere from 40 to 64 degrees—your perceived rate of exertion is lower, which means you can work out harder and sustain your maximal best performance for longer." Commenting on cold yoga, writer Emily Abbate states: "When you're cold, your body has to use more energy and work harder to maintain your core body temperature (shivering indeed burns calories). Cool environments could help better your sleep quality and can help your alertness—if you've ever tried to sleep without air conditioning in July, you know this is true. Some studies have suggested that exposure to colder temperatures be used as an alternative strategy for exercise, while others go so far as to claim that a lack of cold exposure is a contributing cause of obesity." For yoga, however, there's a huge downside: when a room is too cold the body is cold and muscles tighten. There can be an enormous risk for injury. My opinion: traditional yoga is ideal, has passed the test of time, and doesn't need all this contemporary "tinkering". There's too much novelty becoming attached to yoga making it no longer yoga. 1. Identify the best ways to deal with the issue . . . such as joining a grief support group, seeking out information for managing life through a crisis.
2. Accept support . . . from those you know to be kind comforters and encouraging supporters. Avoid those who just "don't get you". They'll hold you back. 3. Be realistic about "getting over it" . . . This means practicing patience with yourself because recovery from the unpleasant is unpredictable and often takes longer that one expects. 4. Care for yourself . . . Avoid the temptation to become careless. Even though you may not feel like, be sure to exercise regularly, eat nutritious meals, balance your desire to be alone with time to be with others. Stay engaged in life. Don't give up on yourself. Yet another survey reveals that yoga and meditation practices are rising rapidly in the United States and includes a growing number of children under 17 who are taking up the practices.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), conducts a large survey every five years to determine health issues and practices of Americans. After evaluating nearly 30,000 responses, the NCCIH reported:
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Victor M. Parachin ...is aVedic educator, yoga instructor, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of a dozen books. Buy his books at amazon or your local bookstore. Archives
July 2024
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