Everyday is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.
Class motto of the graduating class at Columbine High School, Colorado. A number of students from this class were killed April 20th 1999 in the Columbine High School massacre.
“I was really touched with what the students chose as their class motto. Pretty amazing for seventeen and eighteen year olds.” Thanks to Jack for bringing this massive tragedy into the light.
It is Memorial Day here in the US. We held a ceremony in which we remembered those killed in wars, we sang scriptures and invocations and offered merit.
Let us remember those killed at Columbine, in peace time.
Without the liver there is no life! Therefore: love your liver and treat it well. Source.
First published in the May edition of HepCBC Newsletter
It was inspired by the following poem.
Ode to the liver
There, inside, you filter and apportion
you separate and divide,
you multiply and lubricate
you raise and gather
the threads and the grams of life…
from you I hope for justice:
I love life: Do not betray me! Work on!
Do not arrest my song.
Pablo Neruda
May is Hepatitis C awareness month. Let us not forget.
“We live in the world and we live in the sky,
Just as the Lotus is not wetted by the water that surrounds it,
Pure and beyond the world
is the Mind of the trainee, oh holy Buddha we take Refuge in Thee”
I’ve replaced the as if with, and in the first line of this blessing verse which is sometimes used at the end of ceremonies. Such verses are a statement of spiritual certainty. This one points to the non-dual nature of existence and our functioning within it. The sky, symbolic of that which is without bound, is not separate from the world of work and activity.
What is the cause of topsy-turvy views?
Pictures taken in and around Edmonton Alberta, known as Wide Sky Country. All in all I’d call it Wide Heart Country.
Would it be good conversation over breakfast and the company of fellow monastics or the gift of that breakfast cooked by our host? All.
Would it be purchasing two meditation robes at a knock down price, the chance to make bows before an array of Buddhist statues in a hall or the company of a like minded trainee to shop and bow with? All.
Would it be the click clack of knitting needles, the hum of a spinning wheel or the silent communion embedded in shared moments? All, for sure.
For my good hosts in Vancouver and all merit to them in the coming weeks.
Spiritual Merit.
The Buddha taught that the offering of merit is the power of ‘good’,
which helps a persons karma find liberation
and helps in the alleviation of suffering.
May 17th is the anniversary of my monastic ordination. That date also marks the anniversary of a lay ordination ceremony held in Edmonton two years ago. I’m shown signing the register of ceremonies. Congratulations to Mike, who can be seen to the right side of the photograph. Also very many thanks to the Edmonton Meditation Group members for their kindness and generosity.
Be it lay or monastic ordination the Sixteen Buddhist Precepts are taken to heart at that time and then again each morning by reciting The Kesa Verse while holding the hands palm to palm. I see this as holding up the flower.
The Kesa Verse
How great and wondrous are the clothes of Enlightenment,
Formless and embracing every treasure.
I wish to unfold the Buddha’s Teaching,
That I may help all living things.
Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives
