Friends, Good and Bad

To be surrounded by friends is fortunate, to be surrounded by friends who are religious or spiritual and open minded is of even greater fortune. To be secure in ones faith I believe allows one to be open to the faith of others. When I see people who are closed minded or intolerant of other people’s beliefs I always think that they are very insecure in their belief. They seem as frightened of other ideas…

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VA Healthcare

Other than the GPS not knowing where this place is the morning is going good. So far the experience has been positive. I am impressed by the facility and the staff so far. I am not sure what I expected, perhaps not something as nice as this. Maybe I was expecting something on the order of a delapidated wooden building with antique equipment. My last experience with large scale government medicine was at Tripler Army…

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Living with them

Frequently in life we find ourselves living or working or engaging in commerce with people who don’t believe, think, or act like us; and it can be most frustrating.  In almost all things the thing we find most uncomfortable is to be exposed to people different from ourselves.  We find comfort in sameness and likeness. As Buddhist, or any other minority belief, it can be especially challenging when faced with very dogmatic and strident believers…

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Cause and Effect – False Causes

In Buddhism the terms ‘Cause & Effect’ are constantly tossed around.  People even of non-Buddhist religions ascribe to certain interpretations of the concept of cause and effect.  I was re-reading a book titled Basic Buddhist Concepts by Kogen Mizuno in which he talks about views of cause and effect that were prevalent during the time of the Buddha and for which Buddhists at the time found many faults. One false interpretation of cause and effect…

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