One Mystical Monkey

Q: How do you describe a schizophrenic Zen Buddhist?
A: A man who is at two with the universe

Ok, so I just couldn’t resist …and the world needs the unexpected, corny joke to pop up once in a while! … or in this case, TWO!

HOW ENLIGHTENED ARE YOU?

IF….

If you can live without caffeine,

If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him or her,

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,

If you can face the world without lies and deceit,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics,

–Then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog!

Namaste
-OMM

Well, since one of my widgets recently broke the site background, it seemed an opportune time to refresh the look and feel of the Mystical One’s blog! *g* Ya just gotta go with that Tao flow - especially when it hits you over the head (it’s rather hard to ignore when that happens)! *wink*

I’ll be back soon with another article - on something hopefully a bit more lighthearted and non-political (if avoiding the news is at all possible in the next couple days)! In the meantime, enjoy the updated look!

… cartoon by Michael Ramirez, from TownHall.com

Obama’s speech last night was little other than lies and misinformation, artificial connections of “data points” with no basis in reality, used to push his agenda to push Universal Healthcare through. He basically said that if you’re not willing to talk to him about forwarding this agenda, that he’s not going to talk to you; The plan is going to go through… whether we want it to or not - don’t bother voicing your valid concerns about it to him - he’ll turn a deaf ear!

Was this supposed to be an introduction to a new healthcare plan? It didn’t seem to be the case to my ear! Obama still plans on forcing everybody into a plan - whether you want one or not. If you don’t want a plan, you’ll be taxed (up to $3,800 annually) and he’s still insisting on a Public Option (which despite his protests will lead employers to drop private insurance for their workers, and actually limits the Health care choices available instead of expanding them).

Instead of calling for tort reform, he announced plans to investigate it on an “experimental basis”. This (Tort reform) is a measure we can implement right now; something that will cost us Nothing and which would have an immediate impact on the overall cost of health care by giving the doctors a chance to actually practice medicine for the benefit of their patients instead of requiring all sorts of medical procedures to be performed in an attempt to cover themselves legally from malpractice suits. How many unnecessary tests have you had to take just so that your doctor can say “he did all the tests” and “there was nothing more he could have done” for any given diagnosis? When was the last time you went in with a mere cold, and ended up with a prescription - just to make you feel like the doctor did something and so you can’t sue him later?

Much of Obama’s speech was empty words and empty promises made - things we are expected to just take his word on, with nothing to back it up. Illegal immigrants won’t be covered under this insurance plan, he says. Although that may be the case on the surface, it wouldn’t take much legislation to make all those illegal immigrants legal residents or even citizens… who would then be eligible for the Universal Health Plan he has in mind.

Obama’s call of Moral Responsibility, while discussing his “close friendship” with Ted Kennedy was nothing more than an attempt to elicit emotion for the now-dead Senator and guilt among the masses for not supporting the Universal Healthcare idea that Senator Kennedy supported. Ted Kennedy… the murdering, philandering senator held up by Obama as a moral role model and reason to push Universal Healthcare through? What a joke!! Much like this plan… if it weren’t such a serious threat to our Freedoms and Rights and sense of personal, moral responsibility to ourselves and future generations.

… borrowed from the Shambhala newsletter (Shambhala.org):

“If we plant peaches, we’re always going to get peaches. If we plant pears, we’re always going to get pears. Karma works in just this way. If you plant nonvirtue- migewa- you get suffering. If you plant virtue- gewa- you get happiness. If we’re using strong negative emotions to get what we want, and what we want is happiness, it’s never going to work. Therefore we need to contemplate our intentions and actions. Contemplating samsara and karma strengthens our intention to point our life away from suffering and toward true happiness.”

- from Turning the Mind Into an Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche