(no subject)

This week we were treated to a break in the rain for a few days. The hot sunshine gave our drunk garden a much-needed boost, and the trees behind me have finally burst into their full green bloom. Now I can't quite make out the lake from my 2nd-floor study window because the leaves are so thick. That's okay though, because this time last week it was looking like March out there.

I'm staying home from work today because Z is really sick and grumpy. Slight fever, wracking cough, and a very runny nose. Only 13 months old, she has trouble expressing herself clearly; all she can tell me is that she feels rotten, and this she does through a frequent mid-range whine. She finally went back to sleep a little while ago, and after a brief meditation I sat down here to plug back into the web.

Being here, and writing here, is a meditation for me. Scanning my friends pages and catching up with people is my reconnection with the world. I live in the world, yes, and interact with people in real life, yes, but the people in this group here are more closely related to me than the regular folks I encounter most of the time. Precious times with my family come in the morning and in the evening, but during the day, I sustain myself through this place.

Breathing in, breathing out.

on measuring success in meditation

Swami Veda's getting better in his old age, I think. This is a good one:

People say, "Swamiji, I am not making progress." Or, "Swamiji, will you do some magic?" And they think that one morning they will wake up enlightened?

It doesn't work that way. What matters is not what are the marks of success in meditation, but what are the marks of spiritual progress in life. The marks of spiritual progress in daily life are the marks of success in meditation."

--Swami Veda Bharati, from the lecture series "Spirituality as Longevity" (2003)

Latest Spiritual Chicks newsletter

I really dig these women. They have a way with words which allows them to express very esoteric concepts in regular language, and I believe in language which is largely bereft of an objective stance "one way or the other" that could alienate anyone. Their most recent newsletter, which sits on the front page of their website whenever updated, is concerned with what we should do when we perceive that there are problems in the world. Anyone such as myself who has been caught up in the injustice of this or that situation might benefit from their description of "divine indifference." Further context is set through the excellent insight of how the One is manifest through the Many, and how every manifestation that we see (good or bad) has an equal right to exist by sheer virtue of the fact that it does exist. Anyway, it's a great article:

Subject: If everything is from the divine, does that mean I have to accept what I feel is wrong?

To most of us spiritual seekers, the idea that there is one underlying essence in the universe that permeates everything is extremely comforting. When things don't go our way, we say to ourselves, I'm not running the world, and the earth needs rain just as much as it needs sunshine. From this vantage point life's rainy days are a lot easier to accept, and perhaps even become enjoyable.

But somewhere along our path of "loving what is" (as Byron Katie puts it), we come across something so miserable, so objectionable that it's very existence makes us feel criticism, anger, condemnation, fear--all those things that separate us from our source. Our source, this One Life essence, is all powerful and all knowing, so how can we criticize how it expresses itself? Yet, at the same time, it doesn't feel very spiritual to ignore all the problems of the world or those around us. The trick to perfecting this balancing act between acceptance and right action is what many spiritual teachers, including Dr. Thurman Fleet, the founder of Concept-Therapy, call "divine indifference." While this term might seem a bit of a contradiction in itself, it's actually a beautifully succinct description of what it is to know the ONE as it expresses itself through the MANY. Here's how it works.

( Read more... )

I am little brother

Someone from Halifax who is working in Hanoi, Vietnam recently wrote an e-mail to a local CBC Radio show to describe his experiences. They read a portion of it on the air, and a really interesting bit was concerned with how the concept of "I" is expressed in Vietnamese.

Apparently there is no word for "I" or "you" in the language. Instead, one refers to oneself in relation to whomever they're speaking with, so that if you were a man and you were speaking to a woman a bit older than you, you might say, "Hello, and how is older sister today? Little brother (referring to yourself) is doing well." An older woman speaking with a young girl might refer to her as "little niece," and so on. Nobody ever refers to themselves as "me" and "you"; rather, they use a descriptive expression of the space in which they occupy in relation to the subject.

Not super profound, but interesting nonetheless. If how language is used might connote an understanding of the self in relation to the other, perhaps the Vietnamese culture is more inherently grounded in the notion that we all come from the same source.

PS: Just came across nobody_ after she was referenced in a recent NDHighlights. Very hip journal from a bright young woman in CA.

(no subject)

wandertheearth posted a link to this site today that I found interesting, albeit too deep for a cursory glance. A different translation with commentary of Patanjali's yoga sutras is also included here.

B's on call at the ICU again tonight and she has a full ward (11 patients total) of very sick people. One of them is close to dying but lucid and alert, which is rare for the ICU and somewhat off-putting. While walking past her bed with Z tonight, the patient asked to see the baby. B's not used to hearing patients in the unit speak out loud, since they're usually unconscious or at least intubated. She was also supposed to have a clerk on call with her tonight (clerks are 3rd-year med students), but it didn't pan out and so she's on as the sole resident all night. That's usually not a big deal, but with that many patients who are all very sick, she probably won't get much sleep tonight.

Did I already mention that I stayed at home from work with Z today? She's been sick for a couple days, and after vomiting at least once a day since Monday as well as having progressively worse diarrhea, we've switched her back to the old chicken-based formula temporarily to help settle her stomach and rehydrate her. The milk is probably not the cause of her illness, but she's so sick and uncomfortable that we hope this will help her a bit. Poor thing. She's been quite off for two days now, and literally wouldn't let me put her down for the entire day today.

I have to admit to a certain amount of frustration that she has to be in daycare. She never caught this many bugs before going, and I think she gets sick about twice a month now. Hopefully we can just avoid that whole escapade with our next one. I'm happy to think of some creative ideas for socialization that don't involve daycare. I think it's just too hard for the two teachers there who take care of eight infants to keep them and their environments clean enough not to transmit germs to each other. I base that conclusion in no small part on the state of Z's face, hands and clothes when I pick her up each day: she's always a sticky mess.