Gratitude Wakes Up

I was ready to just sleep, with all my clothes on… when gratitude came to mind. I emailed the man helping with a new brain therapy(new to US, not Europe) to ask him if would like lunch tomorrow, since he would again treat me for two hours right about lunch time. This therapy is complex on how it works and I don’t have enough energy to lay it all out for you. So, I got up made him a fresh pearl tomatoes and string bean salad. It will cut my much needed sleep, but you and I know it will be one less thing to harp on before you doze off.

I do remember to make gestures to show my gratitude for using me as a test case for him. I will gladly show other patients how well it worked for me. It is important that one doesn’t just use Thank you and walk out. To come up other ways to show how significant others good will does for us. It is funny to find myself excited about feeling more and talking better for my partner, because I am so used to it.

I will be very sporadic posting, as I am getting ready to leave the country and fixing my house at the same time I am busy with therapy. Hopefully, I can get everything I want to get done before I leave.

Yoga Saved My Life

Surely, Yoga has played an important role in augmenting my meditation and integrating the body with the mind. It actually helped to balance my body, since I am completely numb on my left side. I have some motor nerves, but no sensory nerves. I may not have any regeneration of nerves, but I appear whole to the outside world, no longer favoring one side over the other. This is an interesting interview in three parts that reflects a similar view. Be sure to click through to next upload and enjoy.

Behind The Egyptian Revolution

EGYPT: the Story Behind the Revolution (Campaign) from Khaled Sayed on Vimeo.

Real interviews, Real stories. Contribute on site below:

http://www.indiegogo.com/EGYPT-the-Story-Behind-the-Revolution

Some Faint Perfume of That Enjoyment

What if you experience this moment as the ultimate love affair? Or feel like you have experienced the appearance of the beloved? Some faint perfume of that enjoyment.

Instead of putting up with what's here until something better comes along. Maybe it's gets better later... we often think. There is not a full savoring of what we really have. Waiting for a better experience. If you just enjoy this moment, right now for no reason, at a cellular level. Just notice how this sits in the body...this awareness. How could your body be, in the flow of this?

— Issac Shapiro

Special Moments

I was walking across the street outside the Hall of Justice, after getting my ticket dismissed, purely on a logical issue. Looking at tow of a black corvette, police and meter maids, all around, "I exclaimed, OH! MY CAR!" Beside me walking, was a parking maid who said, "Honey, that's not your car... you are too logical." She said, I would never date a man who had that car, too vain. Walking further, I pointed to my bicycle...My ride! And she said, "See, I knew you were smart." We just laughed and said our good byes.

A Quiet Day at the Monastery

We can learn Dhamma from nature, from trees for example. A tree is born due to causes and it grows following the course of nature. Right here the tree is teaching us Dhamma, but we don't understand this. In due course, it grows and grows until it buds, flowers and fruit appear. All we see is the appearance of the flowers and fruit; we're unable to bring this within and contemplate it. Thus we don't know that the tree is teaching us Dhamma. The fruit appears and we merely eat it without investigating: sweet, sour or salty, it's the nature of the fruit. And this is Dhamma, the teaching of the fruit. Following on, the leaves grow old. They wither, die and then fall from the tree. All we see is that the leaves have fallen down. We step on them, we sweep them up, that's all. We don't investigate thoroughly, so we don't know that nature is teaching us. Later on the new leaves sprout, and we merely see that, without taking it further. We don't bring these things into our minds to contemplate. —Ajahn Chah "Tree Dhamma"

Ajahn Chah, Root profile shrine

A Healthy Set of Questions

Today, a man at the gym unloaded on me, starting first at what he thought I had. He was wrong, guessing heart attack, but I have spoken to him a few times and it must have never sunk in. His guess was based on his own fears of causing a heart attack to himself, worrying about various things. He knows I meditate, but he is not anywhere close to wanting to change the way he has been doing things. I tried to ease his mind, to learning to just stop all thoughts 2-5 seconds as Bentinho Massaro suggests...again and again. I said just rest in your body when you know you are living in your head. Being an ear, was therapeutic to me to just relax and show someone else I care. His problems are what most of us encounter in life, doubt. Yet, he is far better position financially than myself, enabling me to relax my own fears in the process.