Tibetan Buddhist monk, Geshe Pema Dorjee also known as the traveling lama is the "real deal"
Deeply spiritual and unable to say no to those in need, he temporally and spiritually heals those who are fortunate to encounter him whether in Dharmsala or in NYC.
To find out more information about him and his work, please visit a website about him such as
about pema
pema-dorjee.org
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
some morning thoughts on belief
A friend called to tell me her aged mom had been admitted to the hospital in heart failure. She added that a decision had been made by her mom that nothing heroic would be done. A little medicine here and there. If that worked, fine. If not, that was fine too. The family was good with that decision and was together on the journey.
Another friend posted on FB asking for prayers for her aged mom - from all who proclaim the Lord - also admitted to the hospital in cardiorespiratory failure. Mom was admitted to the ICU where all the stops had been pulled and it was a full tilt medical biotechnopharmacological assault to "save her." Each patient and family claims to believe in one they call on as Lord. Each patient and family claims a belief in an afterlife that is better than anything here.
Which do you believe?
Our actions speak louder than words.
Another friend posted on FB asking for prayers for her aged mom - from all who proclaim the Lord - also admitted to the hospital in cardiorespiratory failure. Mom was admitted to the ICU where all the stops had been pulled and it was a full tilt medical biotechnopharmacological assault to "save her." Each patient and family claims to believe in one they call on as Lord. Each patient and family claims a belief in an afterlife that is better than anything here.
Which do you believe?
Our actions speak louder than words.
Monday, August 22, 2011
the problem in a nutshell
I'm a parent of a child.
I, like most other parents I know, would never consciously or deliberately hurt their child and, further, endeavor to do whatever is possible to shield the child from harm. The Hebrew bible would see to support that in a text where Yahweh first demands child sacrifice and who then tells Abraham....leave the boy alone. (Too bad, the ram was stuck and ended up on the table.) The message to a society in which child sacrifice was a practice was to lay off, love your kids and let them live.
Ezekial, through the power of god, restores a widow's son to life from the dead.
Life is important. Life of Jewish people...the chosen is particularly important.
Christian era texts recall....this is my son, my beloved....on a couple of separate occasions.
The Son, the beloved, a proclaimed innocent, now believes he must offer himself in holocaust to expiate sin that he has not committed in order to appease an apparently blood thirsty God, his father, who requires sacrifice and homage, his son's, in order to be placated.
This god then lets his son suffer one of the most heinous deaths in recorded history.
This is where my problem with god as presented to me my entire life truly began.
Some argue about easter and resurrection. That's irrlevant to this observation.
That's another topic for another time.
Let's for now, just think on this one that I have outlined above.
It simply does not make sense either psychologically or even in the context of "salvation history" in which god is described as a lover, nurturer etc. and as one who abhors blood sacrifice to turn around, change the rules and act in such a fashion.
Besides, what kind of an all powerful god is ever going to be placated by a fallible creation endowed with free will that he's fashioned in his own image and likeness in the first place?
I, like most other parents I know, would never consciously or deliberately hurt their child and, further, endeavor to do whatever is possible to shield the child from harm. The Hebrew bible would see to support that in a text where Yahweh first demands child sacrifice and who then tells Abraham....leave the boy alone. (Too bad, the ram was stuck and ended up on the table.) The message to a society in which child sacrifice was a practice was to lay off, love your kids and let them live.
Ezekial, through the power of god, restores a widow's son to life from the dead.
Life is important. Life of Jewish people...the chosen is particularly important.
Christian era texts recall....this is my son, my beloved....on a couple of separate occasions.
The Son, the beloved, a proclaimed innocent, now believes he must offer himself in holocaust to expiate sin that he has not committed in order to appease an apparently blood thirsty God, his father, who requires sacrifice and homage, his son's, in order to be placated.
This god then lets his son suffer one of the most heinous deaths in recorded history.
This is where my problem with god as presented to me my entire life truly began.
Some argue about easter and resurrection. That's irrlevant to this observation.
That's another topic for another time.
Let's for now, just think on this one that I have outlined above.
It simply does not make sense either psychologically or even in the context of "salvation history" in which god is described as a lover, nurturer etc. and as one who abhors blood sacrifice to turn around, change the rules and act in such a fashion.
Besides, what kind of an all powerful god is ever going to be placated by a fallible creation endowed with free will that he's fashioned in his own image and likeness in the first place?
Sunday, August 21, 2011
God amnesia
The Bishop of Rome, while recently in Spain, called upon gathered people to remember God because it seems to him that we've all forgotten the Diety. Presumalbly this insight is predicated by empty churches, church coffers, and increasing demands for accountability and transparancy of the institution he leads and of himself from all quarters of the world. Amnesia indeed. Time for a look in the mirror.
However, this blog is not about Catholic bashing. Or Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Pantheist, Agnostic, or Athiest bashing for that matter. It is, perhaps, a good place and a good question with which to launch this blog:
A Diety: the entire question, issue, perceived and interpreted reality thereof.
A Diety for many is "something/someone...out there" and for others a/the Diety is not only transcendent but also immanent - even tangible. And everything or nothing in between. If there is such a belief spectrum in the perception of a Diety, a truly personal and properly subjective insight no different from or less important than one's core concept of "ego" and successful transition to adulthood, then is it not only proper and fitting that we are able to ask such a fundamental question: who/what are you, God?
I don't claim to have an anwer. I only realize that I can no longer accept the Diety I was brought up to believe in or, yes...construe or fashion into my own image and likeness, for most of my life. Any kind of betrayal is cruel but it can also be liberating for those willing to stand up, dust themselves off and move on. Perhaps the Deity too.
Perhaps the Diety that has been forgotten is the very one fabricated and evangelized by religious clergypeople and designated religious representatives and institutions/traditions from around the world that turn out, en masse, to have eschewed the core needs that brought people to them in the first place and to have then exploited those needs into the self-aggrandising, fairly warpped views of the world, people, the environment etc. that we've recently come to see. We've all seen that institutions, traditions and personnel are not what one might objectively consider "trustworthy" or ethical by any commonly used measuring indicia.
The veil in the temple has indeed been torn asunder and, like the Wizard of Oz, the magnum voce emanating from behind it has been found to be little better than a voiceover.
Take away the rituals, smoke, mirrors, chants, trances, human need to belong someplace, self-appointed hierarchies of the elect, the chosen, the saved, the people of the book and infidels (ya gotta have infidels in order to make the self-sacrifice pay off), the need to feel good and valued by someone/something when you can't get it anywhere else and ask yourself....who is this god that has been contrived by me, us, larger religious denominations, or whose visage has been shaken by those we call prophets?
However, this blog is not about Catholic bashing. Or Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Pantheist, Agnostic, or Athiest bashing for that matter. It is, perhaps, a good place and a good question with which to launch this blog:
A Diety: the entire question, issue, perceived and interpreted reality thereof.
A Diety for many is "something/someone...out there" and for others a/the Diety is not only transcendent but also immanent - even tangible. And everything or nothing in between. If there is such a belief spectrum in the perception of a Diety, a truly personal and properly subjective insight no different from or less important than one's core concept of "ego" and successful transition to adulthood, then is it not only proper and fitting that we are able to ask such a fundamental question: who/what are you, God?
I don't claim to have an anwer. I only realize that I can no longer accept the Diety I was brought up to believe in or, yes...construe or fashion into my own image and likeness, for most of my life. Any kind of betrayal is cruel but it can also be liberating for those willing to stand up, dust themselves off and move on. Perhaps the Deity too.
Perhaps the Diety that has been forgotten is the very one fabricated and evangelized by religious clergypeople and designated religious representatives and institutions/traditions from around the world that turn out, en masse, to have eschewed the core needs that brought people to them in the first place and to have then exploited those needs into the self-aggrandising, fairly warpped views of the world, people, the environment etc. that we've recently come to see. We've all seen that institutions, traditions and personnel are not what one might objectively consider "trustworthy" or ethical by any commonly used measuring indicia.
The veil in the temple has indeed been torn asunder and, like the Wizard of Oz, the magnum voce emanating from behind it has been found to be little better than a voiceover.
Take away the rituals, smoke, mirrors, chants, trances, human need to belong someplace, self-appointed hierarchies of the elect, the chosen, the saved, the people of the book and infidels (ya gotta have infidels in order to make the self-sacrifice pay off), the need to feel good and valued by someone/something when you can't get it anywhere else and ask yourself....who is this god that has been contrived by me, us, larger religious denominations, or whose visage has been shaken by those we call prophets?
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