Tensa Situación

This morning I woke up and meditated for 15 minutes and then I walked over to the on-site gym. I unlocked the door to an empty room. Good, I could control the environment something I especially needed this morning since my head was pounding and my hands shaking from too much wine, beer, and vodka the day before.

I stuck my IPOD buds in my ears and turned on some lively jazz tunes. I clicked on the overhead TV and turned the noise down to zero. I jumped on the treadmill and began to sweat.

I clicked the remote until I found VH1 channel. Each morning they usually run the same stream of popular music videos and my favorite is a band that does a choreographed exercise routine on 6 treadmills. The song is On the Go. The 5 musicians look like the Beatles in their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. These musician’s humor and bravery are evident as they leap from treadmill to treadmill while singing. How on earth do they know when the treadmills reverse themselves so that the musicians must walk backwards in synchronicity instead of being hurled into space? It’s probably a digital trick.

Next follows America’s new black diva -- move over Whitney drugged-out and abused Houston -- here comes Beyoncé! Buxom, gorgeous, and healthy weight Beyoncé!

A Latina woman enters the gym. I feel selfish watching a silent TV to the sound of my IPOD (which she of course cannot hear). Since she is IPOD-less I offer her the remote. She turns the channel to a Mexican news station and amps up the sound (way too high in my humble opinion).

I watch as a parade of horrors unfolds. Tensa Situación, Tragedia en Tluacán, Trágico Accidente en Ecuador. The first scenario – the tense situation – is shot with ahand-held camera at crazy angles ecording people running amok through the streets of some southeast Asian metropolis. In Tluacan people on the banks of a fast-flowing river were fishing out the body of a child from the water, and in Ecuador it appeared that a slope had slid onto a road and buried some hapless commuters. These news were followed by slightly more cheerful views of thousands of the faithful crowding the central Mosque of Mecca for the start of Ramadan in Arabia Saudita which, coincidentally (or by Revelatory design?) coincides with the Jewish High Holy Days this year. This image was followed by one of the Pope in the Vatican announcing that he plans to meet with top Muslim leaders to work on religious tolerance.

I know why we are tense now, why we have problems with anxiety. We are tense because we wake up and watch the damn news every morning! I turn away from the TV and glance at the sign on the wall, “Be considerate. No music, please.” We can’t play music in our gym but we can introduce this visual carnage to get our hearts pumping! And what is it with these Spanish news bites where they put the adjectives before the noun, as if in English? (e.g. Tensa situación replaces situación tensa? )

Tomorrow morning I’m going to hide the remote.

Letting Go of Rigid Mind

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun in Nova Scotia, spoke with Bill Moyers about 9/11. She said that in Buddhism, the path to serenity is to accept that we are groundless. We spend so much emotional energy craving security and no-change and become very upset and depressed when we cannot reach this untenable goal. She says that if we focus on accepting the groundless nature of life then we can be happy. Developing our sea legs will bring us inner peace and then we can work towards outer peace.

The days after 9/11 we were groundless; they were times of fear and times of great hope. We stood on the brink of change. Which way would we go? Five years later we are enmeshed in two wars and the foreign nations that played our national anthem and said, "We are Americans too!" now hate us.

Three thousand or more Americans died in 9/11. How many Afghan and Iraq civilians have died in the past 5 years?

It is time for us to stop fearing death. Death will come to all of us. Let us instead focus on the legacy our generation is leaving for future generations. Let us focus on peace and compassion.

Dalai Lama in Canada

The Dalai Lama, currently in Vancouver, B.C. met with 2800 teenagers. They were spellbound by his message of compassion.

Three students shared their own stories with the Dalai Lama, who listened intently to each, particularly the tale recounted by 17-year-old Lucy Wang of Point Grey Secondary School.

Ms. Wang told of her summer visit to a poor village in China where her cousin Ting lived.

Each day, under a broiling sun, Ting, the same age as Ms. Wang, sold ice cream, raising money for new shoes, a better umbrella and school supplies for her young sister.

Then an old woman in the village became sick, needing an operation she could not afford. Without a second thought, Ms. Wang's cousin turned over her entire summer's savings -- $70 -- to the village's fundraising drive.

Ms. Wang asked Ting how she could give up what she had worked so hard for. Ting replied, "Those things can wait, but sickness cannot."

Ms. Wang was deeply moved and inspired by her cousin's unselfish decision. She said she is now working "every day" to meet her new goal of helping others.

The Dalai Lama was moved, too.

"Wonderful, wonderful," he told Ms. Wang, as her short video account ended. "I admire your way of thinking, and also your cousin's. Sometimes I think compassion is greater among poor people and the uneducated."

Seated on stage beside the Dalai Lama, the earnest high-school student blinked back tears.

(cut and pasted from the Globe and Mail)

Jesus told His disciples, "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Mat. 19:24)

The Seventh Treasure of the West

We kayaked the Channel Islands last weekend. The ferry-catamaran out of Ventura Harbor took an hour. It was foggy leaving the California coast but the sun broke through in the middle of the ocean and what a feast for the eyes were these Islands!
Anacapa is a rookery for Pelicans. Santa Cruz, the island to which we were headed, is the largest in the chain.

Arriving at the island, one had this feeling that nature dominated here not man. No electricity, no phones. In the first picture, the boat is towing the kayaks into the water to load them in the hold. In the second picture, my sister is exiting a narrow cave pushing her kayak away from the wall where the surge had pushed her. The third picture is of Elephant cave.