When you give in to aversion and anger, it’s as though, having decided to kill someone by throwing him into a river, you wrap your arms around his neck, jump into the water with him, and you both drown. In destroying your enemy, you destroy yourself as well.
“
| — |
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Putting Down the Arrow” (via tricycle-tumbles) So True |
Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
“
| — | (via lifesvisualjourney) |
I am so impressed with Dr. Eben Alexander, the neurosurgeon who changed his entire perspective after his amazing NDE. Baby I’m amazed!
Jessica and The Train Wreck —- Something To Think About
I’ve got two really interesting stories to share. They are both related to my daughter and the train wreck.
On May 17, 2013 my daughter Jessica, (20 years old) was travelling by herself from New York City to Conn. to visit her boyfriend. She was about 2 hours into her journey when the train collided with another train that had derailed on its way from Conn. to N.Y. She said that she felt a jolt and then as she was being tossed around she somehow got herself curled into a little ball, somehow protecting her vital organs from damage. An Xray revealed that she was only an inch away from liver and kidney damage.
Now what’s interesting is that she doesn’t know how she knew what to do, or how she even maneuvered it, but somehow she followed her instinct and protected herself. Of course I know there were other factors in her favor, as a seat could have hit her in the head, but as she was explaining to me how she didn’t know how she knew what to do, but somehow knew, it brought to mind something fascinating that I read in the preface of Dr. Eben Alexander’s book, “Proof of Heaven.”
He explains that as a young man he used to love to skydive and would take part in group coordinated dives where the divers would form star-like formations and parachute down together, a very precise and complicated thing to do. (You’d never catch me jumping out of an airplane!) Anyway, on one such jump he tells of a new diver (Chuck) who made a mistake which threatened the lives of all the divers, certainly his own. In his own words he says:
From the instant I saw Chuck’s pilot chute emerge, I had a fraction of a second to react. For it would take less than a second to tumble through his deploying main parachute, and —-quite likely—-right into Chuck himself. At that speed, if I hit his arm or his leg I would take it right off, dealing myself a fatal blow in the process. If I hit him directly, both our bodies would essentially explode.
People say things move more slowly in situations like this, and they’re right. My mind watched the action in the microseconds that followed as if it were watching a movie in slow motion.
The instant I saw the pilot chute, my arms flew to my sides and I straightened my body into a head dive, bending ever so slightly at the hips. The verticality gave me increased speed, and the bend allowed my body to add first a little, then a blast of horizontal motion as my body became an efficient wing, sending me zipping past Chuc,k just in front of his colorful blossoming Para-Commander parachute.
I passed him going at over 150 miles per hour, or 220 feet per second. Given that speed, I doubt he saw the expression on my face. But if he had, he would have seen a look of sheer astonishment. Somehow I had reacted in microseconds to a situation that, had I actually had time to think about it, would have been much too complex for me to deal with.
And yet…I had dealt with it, and we both landed safely. It was as if, presented with a situation that required more than it’s usual ability to respond, my brain had become, for a moment, superpowered.
How had I done it? Over the course of my twenty-plus-year career in academic neurosurgery—-of studying the brain, observing how it works and operating on it—-I have had plenty of opportunities to ponder this very question. I finally chalked it up to the fact that the brain is truly an extraordinary device: more extraordinary that we can ever guess.
I realize now that the real answer to the question is much more profound. But I had to go through a complete metamorphosis of my life and worldview to glimpse that answer. This book is about the events that changed my mind on that matter. They convinced me that, as marvelous a mechanism as the brain is, it was not my brain that saved my life that day at all. What sprang into action the second Chuck’s chute started to open was another, much deeper part of me. A part that could move so fast because it was not stuck in time at all, the way the brain and body are.
The second story is about a dream I had this morning before arising:
I was looking into what appeared to be a room with many beds, all made up with white sheets. The beds looked empty and the room looked white and sterile.
I was holding some kind of jar, shaped like a tennis ball can but made of some kind of stone. I opened it and out came Jess’s sweet little voice. I don’t recall what she said, but as soon as I heard her voice, Danny came out from under the covers of the bed and came forward to help her. The room filled with kids coming out from under the covers and became very colorful. Then I woke up!
I feel that Danny was showing me that he will always hear his sister’s voice, at every instance of need, and that although we may think they are sleeping, they are alive and active and right here with us, just obstructed from our view, as if tucked away under the covers.
So, any ideas about these stories? Pretty cool dream!
