The Bodhisattva Is Us
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is the Hearer of the Cries of the World. And one of the characteristics of Avalokiteshvara is that she manifests herself in accord with the circumstances. So she always presents herself in a form that’s appropriate to what’s going on. In the Bowery, she manifests as a bum. Tonight, in barrooms across the country, she’ll manifest as a drunk. Or as a motorist on the highway, or as a fireman, or a physician. Always responding in accord with the circumstances, in a form appropriate to the circumstances. How is that?
Every time there’s a stranded vehicle on the side of the road and a motorist stops to help Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva has manifested herself. Those characteristics of wisdom and compassion are the characteristics of all beings. All Buddhas. We all have that potential. It’s just a matter of awakening it. You awaken it by realizing there’s no separation between self and other.
~ John Daido Loori
It’s Friday the 13th…
Keep calm, don’t fall for any of these horror movie tropes, and you’ll make it out alive.
Raquel Welch on Life in Hollywood, Myra Breckinridge, and One Million Years B.C.
In December, 2011, Raquel Welch came in at #2 in Men’s Health magazine’s Hottest 100 Women of All Time list. As a follow up, Eric Spitznagel interviewed Ms. Welch for the March 2012 edition.
Among other recollections is a delightful description of a day’s shooting on the B-movie classic, One Million Years B.C., in which our heroine utters only three lines while wearing the infamous fur bikini:
“I thought, okay, that in a nutshell is what it’s all about. They don’t want to hear anything from me. Just show up in the costume and take orders. He said, “See that rock over there? That’s rock A. When I say action, you run from rock A and when you get to the middle of the frame, you look up at the sky like there’s a giant turtle growling down at you. You scream, run to rock B and we break for lunch.”
Check out the entire interview at Men’s Health online.
How to Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site (billed as “your online source for credible health information”) shares a few tips about preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Oh, and for “real” emergencies too.
Are you prepared?
Reflections on “My Sister, My Grief”
I didn’t expect the death of Osama bin Laden to bring up so many feelings, bring back so many memories, of my sister’s death. After all, there was little to connect them. My sister did not die on 9/11/2001. But the feelings came, and the reflections on her death and my grief.
Reading Robert Klitzman’s “My Sister, My Grief,” an op-ed piece in The New York Times, brought those feelings into even deeper focus.
Klitzman’s sister Karen was killed while working at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Like Klitzman, my experience of grief was, in part, deeply physical, something that surprised me as well as my physician. And like Klitzman and his family, my family and I have spent more time together since her death, remembering Jenny and enjoying and appreciating each other. Yes, life goes on, and the palpable absence of a loved one becomes a part of one’s daily life.
Life goes on. But where does healing begin? What does it take to move on, to “get over,” to have closure?
Klitzman writes:
…out of the blue, we learned that Osama bin Laden had died. We were surprised at the large numbers of phone calls and e-mails we received, asking how we felt. We phoned one another. How did we feel?
Decidedly mixed. “It’s anti-climactic,” one of my two surviving sisters said.
Anti-climactic. Yes. I remember the day the man who killed my sister was sentenced. There was such anticipation leading up to the day. And then, the day came, he was sentenced, and I felt…. What did I feel? I expected to feel something. Something like closure. But the experience was anti-climactic. Nothing happened. Except that he was sentenced. And the knowledge that he was going to jail.
I was glad, on some level, that he would have to face what he had done. That he would have to pay some consequence for his action.
Was I happy? No, I can’t say that I was. Relieved, perhaps, and glad to have a momentary respite from the anguish. But not happy. And reminded, once again, that nothing will bring my sister back.
Musings & Meditations 
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