weight ticker

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Backpack

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you are carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. I want you to pack it with all the stuff you have in your life. Lets start with the little things. The shelves and drawers and nick knacks, collectibles. Feel the weight as that adds up. You start adding larger stuff. Clothes, table-top appliances, lamps, linens, your T.V. I can imagine that's getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, bed, your kitchen table. Stuff it all in there. Your car. Get it in there. Your home. Whether it's a studio apartment or a two story house. I want you to stuff it all in to that backpack. Now try to walk. It's kind of hard isn't it? This is what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we cannot even move and make no mistake moving is living. Now I'm going to set that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can't remember. Drink some Ginko. Let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It's kind of exhilarating isn't it?

The Essence of Buddhism...

The essence of Buddhism is no more than living in harmony with the changing circumstances of one's life, without strain or compulsion.

Words To Live By

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace - that where there is hatred, I may bring love - that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness - that where there is discord, I may bring harmony - that where there is error, I may bring truth - that where there is doubt, I may bring faith - that where there is despair, I may bring hope - that where there are shadows, I may bring light - that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted - to understand, than to be understood - to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life, Amen.

-by St. Francis of Assisi