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I spent the last year in semi retreat. I am looking forward to much the same next year. I will, however, be more up to date on posting.

You will notice I've done some housekeeping today. I've updated the blog and removed blogs that no longer serve me.

I look forward to being up and around more this year, blog wise, and sharing my Dharma adventure with each of you in the future.

Sincerely, Patricia

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Feeling Pushy???

Do your remember bop bags?

You know, those funny clown shaped toys that you could push over

and they’d swing right back up?

Once when I was a kid I hit my bop bag

it struck the floor and bounced  back

hitting me in the face with the same force

as I had struck it.

Talk about karma in action!

You see, your emotions are a lot like that toy.

The harder you try to push your feelings away,

the quicker they rebound

It makes much more sense to work with what we’re

feeling rather than pushing our feelings aside.

Couldn’t it be wiser instead, to take the rage,

fear and hatred, that has driven us down onto the floor

and use that energy instead to bounce back,

to arise fully,

with

• greater peace,
• devotion,
• compassion and
• wisdom?

Your next opportunity to be trained in those techniques is coming this March     .

May you all benefit.

OM MANI PADME HUM

Avoiding the Endless Wheel of Nilhilism

There are those who do not believe

in anything greater than themselves.

They live solely to consume.

They will tell you that we are born,

 consume and die,

and afterwards wink out of existence.

And worse, they want you to think the same way as well. 

They’ll even go so far as to try and ‘educate’

you and deride you if you refuse.

{You know, like intellectual date rape

without the courtesy of a dinner and a movie}

This pseudo-intellectual concept of nihilism

could degrade the human spirit.

How?

It could put humanity on par with microbes,

who do nothing but eat, poop, sleep, and breed.

After which they die and, you guessed it,

 blink out of existence.

End of story.

“But take heart,” the nihilist will tell you;

“your prodigy will live on to carry out the endless wheel

of eating, pooping, sleeping, breeding, and dying.”

Sounds perfectly abysmal to me.

How about you?

Come let us NOT get on the insane hamster wheel

of perpetual consumerism.

Let us make the most out of this precious opportunity

to become far more than mere microbes.

Let us leave this world, {no less humanity}

better then we found it.

Like Neo in “The Matrix”

lets become the spiritual superheroes that we were born to be.

Let us put effort in not only learning Buddha’s teachings

but putting them into practice and fully enlightening ourselves,

not in ten lifetimes, not in ten decades, not even in ten years

but in THIS year; without even abandoning:

spouse, work, home, kids or pets.

What are some of the reasons you could yearn

to start the journey from

from microbe to Buddha?

Dog Bullies

Human bullies are relatively easy to deal with.
Either you stand up to them, or you contact law enforcement to deal with them.
If bullying persists, there are laws and courts to deal with it.
But what if the bully is a lesser being? Yes, I'm referring to my neighbor's dog.

The dog is quite violent. He gets out of his fence and charges me and my dog while I'm taking her out for a walk.
Yesterday the dog got out and charged my husband while he was getting into the car.
The owner knows about this problem. He's tried patching up his fence, but the dog can crawl out.
When the neighbor is home he'll stand on the porch and threaten the dog.
But on those days when the neighbor isn't home, the dog gets out and terrorizes the neighborhood.

I love dogs. And for the most part, they love me back.
But this one threatens me with a mauling every time I leave the house.
So.
I called animal control. I hate doing it.
But when it comes to my and my family's safety as well as the safety and well being of the neighborhood--there are small children here and the thought of one of them getting mauled to death by this dog keeps me awake at night--I seem to have little recourse.
The problem is, is that animal control doesn't seem to be interested in dealing with this problem.
I called yesterday after getting chased into my house.
They never came.
I'll have to go outside to get the mail. I know the dog will get out and come after me.
But the shelter is closed for the holidays so calling would be an exercise in futility.
Calling the city police will only send me to a voice mail at the shelter.

This caused me to consider the unthinkable; to borrow my brother's pellet gun and shoot the dog.
I loathe that idea, but  I also have no desire to spend the weekend in the hospital after being viciously mauled, either.
I'll call animal control again on Monday, in hopes that someone will come out and restrain the animal before anyone gets hurt. If that doesn't work, I'll contact the DA's office and see what can legally be done.
It's ludicrous to think I can't leave my own house because I'm being terrorized by a dog.
A big dog--but still--a dog.
May this issue be resolved quickly and easily without harm to anyone.

Om Mani Padme Hum

A New Diet for Autism?: Finding Alternatives to the GFCF Diet

A New Diet for Autism?: Finding Alternatives to the GFCF Diet

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Beware of the windmill tipping Lamas!

Some Dharma teachers {be they lay or ordained} are on a mission.
That mission doesn’t involve ending the tyranny of suffering,
thereby enlightening themselves and others.

Instead, they’re on a quest to end what they perceive to be as
a ‘degeneration of the Dharma.’

The sad thing is, this is as foolish and useless a task as
Don Quixote’s crusade in the film Man of La Mancha.

Have you seen Man of La Mancha?
It’s one of my favorite films
The book is pretty good too.

Don Quixote is a man who dreams of a fairy tale past
where gallant knights in shining armor fought giants and dragons,
and rescued fair damsels in distress.



Don Quixote is so enamored of these stories that
he dons his grandfather’s rusted suit of armor,
grabs an antiquated lance and treks across the
Spanish countryside looking for giants and dragons to slay.



He doesn’t find any, of course, because there aren’t any.
However, Don Hidalgo Quixote is not concerned with the truth.
He’s fixated on the myth.



And when he comes upon a neighboring windmill,
he conveniently mistakes it for a dragon, and charges it.
And as we know, charging windmills never ends well.







“What does the story of Man from La Mancha have to do
with degeneration the Dharma?” you may ask.


Because there are teachers, for whatever reason of their own,
who have embarked on a similar quest to
rid Buddhism of teachers or teachings that they deem unworthy,
in the guise of ‘preserving the Dharma.’



Hmmmm smell of self-importance!

They, like poor Don Quixote, are lost in the myths and legends of
their own making.

They don’t see a windmill as a windmill.
They see ogres, giants and damsels in distress
when there are NONE.



And like Don Quioxte, who abandons his responsibilities to those who
depend on him, these teachers abandon their students in
a self aggrandizing desire to seek out and destroy what they
consider to be fake or unworthy Lamas.

Thus, the teacher becomes something akin to a Buddhist Joseph McCarthy or
a contemplative Kenneth Starr by putting up nonsense websites and
railing against others on his own web forums.

It’s especially sad whenever those who are in the position of teaching
forget one of the core tenants that the Buddha himself taught.

What is that one tenant?

There is only ONE criteria for determining whether or not a teacher or a teaching is
worthy of reliance… it’s effectiveness.



In other words:

#1 suspend judgment and give a teacher the benefit of the doubt

#2 receive his teachings

#3 apply his teachings twice a day, every day, for no less then 6 consecutive days

#4 and THEN ask yourself, “Have I grown, stagnated or degenerated?”

Not only did Buddha state that the effects of teachings were the ONLY test of a teacher,
BUT he insisted that logic, intuition, fame, reputation, prestige and convention
{such as resume, credentials and letters of recommendation}
would only lead you astray.

Gentle beings, if a crusader wearing rusted armor,
and carrying a crooked lance knocks on your door,
under the misguided idea that you need salvation,
yet knows so little of Buddha’s teachings that he
{in the name of protecting the teachings}
ignores the teachings,
then he is just another Don Quixote wannabe and for the sake of yourself and others,
you should run, not walk to the nearest exit.

May these words benefit you and all beings.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Update

The Dharma Adventure will be up and buzzing shortly.  I apologize for the lengthy delay, but as a wise man once said, "life happens when you're busy making other plans."

On that note, I'd like to add that my lama has given me permission to teach. If you're interested, contact me at valhall13 at yahoo dot com

Thanks again for your patience.
Patricia