Death, not a cheery subject I know, but it's been around for me a lot recently.
An acquaintance of mine died recently in an accident while taking time out in the desert.
My mother went to Spain to teach English and yesterday had a serious asthma attack and is now in intensive care. It's not the first time I've seen in there.
Then the other day I found out a woman I met on a train to San Fran who worked in adult films died from a brain aneurysm. We were the same age.
It's brought back memories for me of times I thought I might die. Any way you look at it, we're all heading there.
So what am I going to do with my time (I don't know how much time), that is really meaningful? How can I make the world a little bit better, people a little more happy, or able to deal with the harsh parts of life?
The first time I saw my Mum go into a psychiatric ward was when I was 12, the same time my step-father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I started to read books by the Dalai Lama to try and make sense of things, and found a meditation teacher at 18. I studied Psychology and Criminology at University. I was still left with a lot of questions, doubts, and fears.
So I studied more, experienced more of life, started to attend long meditation retreats, trying not to push the questions away, but allow them to ripen over time, ripen towards fruits.
And I suppose they did . . . but I'm still left with this question. What can I really do to help?
I don't think there are any easy answers, but today I have spare time, so I'm going to spend it with this question, and see what comes forward.
Hope you're all well,
Rich
An acquaintance of mine died recently in an accident while taking time out in the desert.
My mother went to Spain to teach English and yesterday had a serious asthma attack and is now in intensive care. It's not the first time I've seen in there.
Then the other day I found out a woman I met on a train to San Fran who worked in adult films died from a brain aneurysm. We were the same age.
It's brought back memories for me of times I thought I might die. Any way you look at it, we're all heading there.
So what am I going to do with my time (I don't know how much time), that is really meaningful? How can I make the world a little bit better, people a little more happy, or able to deal with the harsh parts of life?
The first time I saw my Mum go into a psychiatric ward was when I was 12, the same time my step-father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I started to read books by the Dalai Lama to try and make sense of things, and found a meditation teacher at 18. I studied Psychology and Criminology at University. I was still left with a lot of questions, doubts, and fears.
So I studied more, experienced more of life, started to attend long meditation retreats, trying not to push the questions away, but allow them to ripen over time, ripen towards fruits.
And I suppose they did . . . but I'm still left with this question. What can I really do to help?
I don't think there are any easy answers, but today I have spare time, so I'm going to spend it with this question, and see what comes forward.
Hope you're all well,
Rich
mellon:
I think that there are really only two things you can do: work to increase your ability to help others, and work to help others. The former means identifying all the mental patterns you have that bring your mind to unproductive places, and learn either how to avoid them, or how to minimize their impact. This is what "right action," meditation and wisdom are for. And then helping othersoften there isn't much you can do, but you can be kind to them, and you can help them to be happy while they are in this life by showing them how you have been able to become more happy. Sometimes there's no hope of doing this, but even so by being kind to them you at least do your best to increase their happiness and reduce their suffering. It doesn't always work; that's where wisdom comes in. You have to be happy that you tried, even if it didn't work, because that leaves you free to try again.