Not that it is wrong; we tend to take everyday activities for granted.
Few of us can remember when we learned to walk, but if something happens to prevent us from walking most will likely remember vividly the event and time.
I do.
At 2:00 in the afternoon on August 27th of 2004 while attending IWF2004 in Atlanta my left arch collapsed. I was not able to walk.
This was particularly scary for a number of reasons. I was over 800 miles from home. My car was parked 4 flights of stairs and 3 blocks away. I had to get back to my hotel, to the airport and then home. How I accomplished that I do not have a clue and today it really doesn’t matter.
Three surgeries and several braces later I am walking again. Although I am a bit slow, my balance has improved and I am getting around pretty well.
Although I am done with PT as I have reached the insurance limit, my PT Julie gave me a home exercise program that I do continuing to build strength. I will need to do this on a regular basis in order for balance and strength to continue to improve.
I am in the shop daily now, but will continue to find it necessary to take rest periods to control swelling in my foot and minimize fatigue.
Thanks to everyone for your support.
We just had a comment from our spiritual Director to all the centers. I’m here as staff at The Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel, CA. I just ordered a 20 minute hourglass as a sample for beginning meditation classes.
>NEW Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
How to Use an Hourglass for Dharma Practice
Centers can sell hour glasses and say…
This is to check how life is finishing so fast. The life that you have has a certain number of hours, minutes, seconds, split seconds; it is finishing so fast. During this time how much of one’s life has been used to practice Dharma? How much has been used for the cause of the lower realms, with the heaviest suffering and the longest time, unimaginable time, longer than the duration of suffering in the human realm or the deva realms? How much is virtue and how is much non-virtue? It is good to reflect like this.
It is very good to use [an hourglass] for realization of impermanence and death. It makes you do something worthwhile during this time, during this one hour, while the sand grains are dropping.
When half the sand grains have dropped, are almost gone, then it is good to reflect how much virtue has been done and how much non-virtue. How much life has been wasted and how much life has been made meaningful.
When all the sand grains have dropped, when it is finished, you think, how much of life has been wasted and how much of life has been made meaningful.
Colophon:
Dictated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in NYC, April 15, 2009, scribed by Ven. Lobsang Yangchen.
Rinpoche suggested that it would be good to attach this commentary to hourglasses and sell them at the centers. R
By: Regis McCann on September 9, 2009
at 1:17 pm