Contemplating Disease – Part 3a – Balance, Harmony, and Whack – August 23, 2018

To have physical form is to have disease.  Why you might ask?  Beside an obvious answer that a physical body is subject to decay and change another response is because of the natural imbalance of physical life forms.  Our bodies are comprised of the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire.  That may sound a tad bit ancient or even suspiciously superstitious and certainly not the language of modern medicine.  Remember though we are…

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Part II – Disease Two Meanings – August 22, 2018

Disease is a fact of existence.  Chih-I considered disease to be of two types.  One is real and the other is tentative.  We must not be misled by the use of tentative however as being something that only is of short duration or that will simply go a way.  Another way of considering tentative is they are diseases of instruction.  A disease of instruction or tentative would be like the illness of Vimalakirti the famous…

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Moving Along – Environmental Causes – Nyoze En – August 21, 2018

Having a perfect day, nothing going wrong, and nothing foreseeable to go wrong, you joyfully live your life.  Bam, all of a sudden something happens and everything changes.  In a heartbeat or the blink of an eye your life is turned upside down and inside out or worse.  You have now been hit by an environmental cause, that is something that arises outside of your direct action.  This could be a rain shower, car accident,…

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Contemplating Disease – New Book – Part I – Aug 20, 2018

  (Contemplating Disease will be the working title I will use for posts relating to my next book dealing with Disease, our Buddhist practice, and the Lotus Sutra.)  For the majority of my life I have in one way or another engaged in the caring for people suffering from various diseases and illnesses.  First, as many of you know by now, taking care of boys dying from AIDS.  In fact most of the years were…

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