Reflections of Hope
A Daily Practice
These six perfections are presented from the teachings of His Holiness Amchok Rinpoche who is an enlightened Buddhist Master. We are made up of so many thoughts and desires. These influence our lives and what we do with these thoughts and desires decides who we will be.
Applying the Six Perfections
As we begin to apply the six perfections, we will find that this leads to special insights and increases our skill and experience in relating to ourselves and other people with kindness. If you can choose one of these and practice them for at least a day, you will make a change for yourself and ultimately the world.
- Compassion and Wisdom
Always approach everyone in your life with this. Consciously attempt to do the best you can and be the kindest person.
- Moral Discipline and Conduct
We should not ever violate any relationship with another. We should always act with integrity and kindness.
- Extend a helping hand from a kind heart.
We should try not to have agendas in helping people. This often results in expectations that the person may be unaware of. Whenever there are expectations, we should recognize that we have helped them for a purpose and not out of kindness.
- Ultimate Patience
This is important. We tend to rush people or expect things to be done at our pace rather than theirs. We should always listen to them at the pace that they can present to us.
- Single Pointed Concentration
Whenever we work or relate to people, we must focus our attention in the present and totally to that person as we communicate with them.
- Unlimited Enthusiasm and Perseverance
Never give up. Whenever we participate, we should try to do it joyfully and persist in achieving our goals.
 What is healing, and Who is the Healer?
Under Saturn's Shadow The Wounding and Healing of Men
By James Hollis
Published by: Inner City Press
Pages 110-112 :
Before we can realistically address the healing of [people], we must first examine what healing means and where in our time healing agencies may be found.
Franz Kafka wrote a prophetic story at the beginning of this century titled "The Country Doctor." A physician is called out in the middle of a raging snowstorm to attend a patient. When he arrives, the villagers are all crowded around a young man. The youth says to the physician, "Save me, save me." The doctor examines his patient and proclaims that he can find nothing wrong; no apparent wound or diseased condition. Again, "Save me, save me," the youth cries. The doctor looks again and sees a gaping sore in the patient's side, with multiple rose-red layers. Worms as thick and as long as his finger wriggle to the light. After a further examination, the doctor explains that he cannot save him. The villagers are incensed and engage in a ritual divesting the doctor of his powers. They chant, circle him, strip off his vestments and throw him out into the wild. Struggling to find his way back through the darkness, the physician thinks:
That is what people are like in my district. Always expecting the impossible from the doctor. They have lost their ancient beliefs; the parson sits at home and unravels his vestments, one after another; but the doctor is supposed to be omnipotent with his merciful surgeon's hand. Well, as it pleases them.
Kafka's story has metaphoric and prophetic meaning. The power of the clergy has waned, supplanted by a new superstition and a new priest, in a white coat instead of black. But the new religion, medical science, cannot save either. Only upon closer examination does the symbolic rose-red wound become visible. Science, with all its marvelous powers, is powerless to heal such a wound. Thus the physician becomes another dismantled servant of a discredited divinity. Kafka warns us against placing our faith precisely where the twentieth century has placed it-in the external, quantifiable world. Our wounds are to the soul, and only that which reaches it can heal.
The physician is a servant of Physis (nature). The physician does not heal; nature heals. (Form Latin we get medicus, "healer," mederi, "to heal" and docere, "to lead.") When the body is broken the physician may promote conditions that facilitate healing, but cannot heal wounds to the soul.
Decades ago D. H. Lawrence realized this:
I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self And the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help And patience, and a certain difficult repentance, Long, difficult repentance, realization of life's mistake, and the freeing of oneself From the endless repetition of the mistake Which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
Each Love
Each
act
of love
is
the heart
remembering
the
sacred
fire in
whom
we were
forged,
the
burning
mercy
in
whom
we are
bonded,
the
radiant
wisdom
through
whom
our destiny
is fulfilled.
Robert Pynn
For Reflection:
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters [by Portia Nelson, in Sark (Ed.). Inspiration sandwich: Stories to inspire our creative freedom (p. 120). Berkley, CA: Celestial Arts.]
I. I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V. I walk down another street.
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