The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life

Is There a Buddha in the White House?

In A Path with a Heart by Jack Kornfield shares a Buddhist exercise in which you are to imagine that everyone around you, from your friends, family and coworkers to the person next in line at the grocery story, is an enlightened Buddha and they are all trying to teach you something. The game is to imagine that you are the only one who doesn't "get it" and your task is to learn the lesson the Buddhas are trying to teach you.

This is easy to do when someone performs a random act of kindness. Some stranger pays your toll on the highway and you think, "Oh, what a sweet Buddha, teaching me about kindness. How nice. Come here, little Buddha, let me rub your belly, you crazy kid."

But what about selfish and irresponsible people? What about those who abuse power?

Struggling with Issues of Forgiveness?

Here is a resource that may help: With Forgiveness

WITH Forgiveness is an international multi-media project designed to illuminate the path of compassion and unconditional love. There is no cost involved. Several interesting links including Spiritual Cinema Circle, book and movie recommendations, discussion forum.

More on Stress and Locus of Control. Could it ALL be internal?

No sooner did I sink my teeth into comments by Peter and Diana on my article at Blogcritics Managing Stress: It’s Not Just How You Look At It in which we debate where the lines exist between internal and external locus of control than I read an article highlighted by Steve Pavlina about Dr. Joe Vitale and a Hawaiian therapist, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, in which they set out to blow the whole distinction out of the water.

Dr. Len practices Ho'Oponopono. Here is an excerpt of his description of his work in a ward for the criminally insane:

You Have to Show Up: On Ephemeral Miracles, One Year After A Suicide

I hadn't intended to go to my cousin's funeral.

That sounds terrible, I know. And if I had chosen to focus on the 18 year estrangement of various factions of my family from each other and my own 15 year estrangement from my uncles (Hey, Greeks are a war-like people, what can I say?), I could have patted myself on the back for the fact that I had gone to the wake and let it go at that.

But if you know the littlest thing about me, you know that I recognize a dragon when I see one. And, once I see one, I have to slay it. It's just the way I roll.