July 2009
6 posts
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is Amnesty International’s... →
“But in reality phenomena are impermanent, and devoid of any true substantial...”
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.”
– Bertrand Russell
May 2009
1 post
“If you’re determined to think of yourself as limited, vulnerable, or scarred by...”
– Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
April 2009
5 posts
Success is irrelevant when speaking of torture. Civilized people do not torture. End of argument.
“A genuine sense of humour is having a light touch: not beating reality into the...”
– Chogyam Trungpa
April is Genocide Prevention Month
The tragedies of Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, the Holocaust and Armenia all have anniversaries this month and so April is Genocide Prevention Month. You can take the Pledge to Observe Genocide Prevention Month, which states:
Remarkably, six genocides have major anniversaries in the month of April – a tragic testament to the international community’s inexcusable failure to stop inhuman and...
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
Living a Carfree Life
Like many North Americans I grew up in a suburban neighbourhood where the automobile is treated like a pampered pet. A few weeks before my family moved to Okinawa, not long after my 16th birthday, I received a driver’s licence and spent the next three years driving on the left hand side of the road. Returning to the United States I thought nothing of purchasing a car for commuting to...
“BUDDHISTS DON’T CON YOU
Student: You often criticize a film by saying...”
– Chogyam Trungpa
March 2009
7 posts
“Walking takes longer, for example, than any other form of locomotion except...”
– Edward Abbey
Mindful Walking
Walking is a basic human activity and although few of us recall, taking our first steps is one of the most celebrated moments in our lives. A majority of the world’s six billion people rely on walking as their primary mode of transport and nearly every one of those daily footsteps is for no other purpose than getting from point A to point B. While walking our minds are usually elsewhere and...
“If you amass intellectual learning just so that you will be influential and...”
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Traveling with Less
As kids we were told to pack, “whatever you think you might need,” for the family vacation and many of us still follow that advice. When traveling I would pack a large bag full of clothes and other things only to realize upon return that about a third of what I’d taken had stayed in the suitcase. Why do we travel with more than we need?
With this in mind I decided to try packing less. First...
Lora
My Aunt Lora passed yesterday. For as long as I can remember she was always there when I needed her, like a third parent. Always cheerful and willing to lend a hand she could also face adversity with love, kindness and humour. Lora exemplified the ideal of the Bodhisattva. For those unfamiliar with the term, in taking the Bodhisattva vow one makes a committment to work tirelessly for the...
February 2009
2 posts
Why I Stopped Reading the News
For most of my adult life I was a new junkie. Spent a lot of time watching CNN and other new shows, but was eventually disappointed with the lack of depth inherent in the television news format. So I started reading news on the CBC and BBC websites, and later Google News Canada, as my primary news sources. My appetite reached the point where I was squandering two or more hours per day on the...
Email Simplification Update
Last month I started simplifying my email workflow and it’s been going very well. Been keeping to the four sentences guideline and still love dumping all processed messages into a single archive folder, relying on search when I need to refer to an old message.
This month I chose to focus on checking personal email accounts only twice per day Monday through Saturday (Sunday has been an...