Accessible Gardening: #20 Practical Matters for Physically Challenged Gardeners, 1 by Agavegirl1

Agavegirl1 wrote:
Good Morning,
Susan,

It does seem you have a gift. Have you thought about working as an occupational therapist or some kind of counselor for these people? You could probably bring much joy to them. I'm curious if I fit your bill so to speak. Allow me to explain more about myself and my beliefs. I'm just doing so to determine if you work would be applicable to me. Your work seems very religious oriented. Only natural since you are a pastor's wife. :D

I'm not experiencing any physical disability (except when I'm laid out from a seizure, recovering from it, or injured myself unknowingly during one). My body is 'fine' for all intents and purposes. What they suspect is the issue with me is a small lesion or scar tissue that is on the right front temporal lobe of my brain. They can't find it on an M.R. I. even when they did a 45 minute one. They wanted to do exploratory brain surgery! Uhm....no thanks and not in this life. I'll stay the way I am. I'm sorry but brain surgery just scares the crap out of me. Spiders and brain surgery. That's about all I'm afraid of. And Karma!

I am a pragmatist. I am a realist. I am a Buddhist. We are self directed persons. There are no right-wrong; good-bad; thou shall-shall not. There is only the consequences of our actions be they negative, neutral or positive based on how live because we inherently know as humans this IS how one functions and where the moral compass was meant to point (not where we 'think' it should or where we bend it). This is Karma.

It is erroneous thinking to assume Karma is a closed loop system of justice that boils down to "What you sew you reap." This is why you do not come back as a cockroach if you are "bad" or Madonna if you are "good". One can reap the rewards and punishments of lives past as well as from their future to be.

This is necessary to develop the skills to live ones present life. It is needed to become enlightened. It is the forces both within us and our outside circumstances that propels us towards more positive type of living and to effect and affect the necessary Karmas of those around us.

When something bad happens to us it isn't a 'punishment' it simply "is". It is Karma. When we reach full enlightenment and no longer need to come back here we will know why these things were necessary, what their purpose served in our lives and how it was applicable in our spiritual and worldly development. The same applies to our blessings. We do not ask, "Why me?" or say, "It's so unfair." if we hit the lotto. It is simply Karma. We, if we are wise, take the same attitude about the less than pleasant things also. It is simply Karma.

Karma is a verb not a thing. It literally means 'to do'. You self direct it via the choices you make or not. God does not factor into the equation. Buddhist teachings are not God centered. Buddha said, "I am not concerned with your God or Gods. Your piousness is personal. I am concerned with human suffering and the alleviation of it.". Karma serves to direct this in our lives. Who and what we worship spiritually and what we choose to believe in that regards personally is another thing altogether and unrelated. It is completely separate.

We do not see a Heaven and a Hell in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word. We believe every human spends time in both. You spend a period of time in Heaven enjoying the benefits of your good Karma. Based upon the level of enlightenment you have achieved you are reincarnated and spend time in Hell. Earth is Hell. Hell is only a place designed to continue you along your Karmic path to enlightenment. Since we self direct our selves Hell is more a mental state of mind because we do have some choice over what we want to experience in our life.

When met with someone's opposition or condemnation to my beliefs, I always chuckle when told , "You're going to go to Hell". My response is, "I've been residing there for quite awhile now. It has some good school districts and a really great Mall."

You go back based on what you did the last time and to correct the errors of you past life (former reincarnated self). You may 'pay' for something you could do in the future in another reincarnation you have not had yet in attempts to teach you to avoid it this time and avoid generating negative Karma. Of course you are here to simply repeat most of your shortcomings and failures in one way or another until you get your head unstuck and learn how to deal with them in a positive way where they--and you-- are no longer a liability to your self.

You may also do things that help store up good Karma for the next time. SINCERE charity work, donations, leading a spiritual life, helping others, etc. This paying back and collecting rewards is the side effect of Karma. It is NOT Karma. It is also not guaranteed. Karma is not an ATM machine that allows you to make good behavior deposits to cover your morally questionable withdrawals and shortcomings.

It is a rare person that can get through life so enlightened they do not need endless reincarnations. I guess your concept would be the perfect "Christ like" Christian. When you reincarnate, "You" do not come back as "you" and as how you know yourself to be right now (Susan, Carrie, Jim, etc.)

You are placed in the exact body, country, place, space and time as the person regardless of gender that you need to be in order to balance and work your Karma. You will have all the people and things necessary around you to continue experiencing life for your needed spiritual growth and enlightenment. You have no knowledge of your former self or life.

Transmigration, however, does occur. There will always be some part of 'Susan' in your next life although you may not be aware of it. "Susan's" experiences, lessons, and accumulated life Karma has now transmigrated over into your present life (along with whomever else from the past) to help direct you on your way presently in this life. It is like holding one candle to another to light it. Although one candle gets blown out (extinguished) a "part" of that candle..the flame..gets transmigrated to the new one. But the new candle is the new candle not the old one that was blown out. It has no knowledge of the old candle. Make sense?

Our belief centers on 4 basic things we call the Four Noble Truths:
1. All life is dissatisfaction and impermanence
-------the trauma of birth; pathology of sickness; morbidity of decrepitude, phobia of death, to be tied to what one dislikes in life and to be separated from what one loves.

2. The cause of suffering is desire and clinging to things impermanent
------body, sensations, perceptions, dispositional tendencies, consciousness, our environment and our wanting more, being tied to or not wanting to let go of these things.

3. There is a cure for suffering and dissatisfaction.

4. The cure is the Eight Fold Noble Path.
-----These are: right views; right intent; right speech; right conduct (of which there are 5 precepts: do not kill; do not take what is not given; do not say what is not so; do not be promiscuous/unchaste; do not take intoxicants) ;
right livelihood/occupation; right effort(doing your utmost); right mindfulness(being 'aware' and 'conscientious') and right meditation.
Now, our "Right" means "right" as in what is correct and appropriate under the terms, time, conditions and circumstances. It is not 'right' as in thou shall-shall not, right-wrong; black-white.

So in terms of myself I see my Epilepsy as simple Karma. My I.Q. went up, I developed talents I did not possess before with no thought or effort or desire on my part. Perhaps I was meant to use them. Perhaps that is the reason I can neither work nor drive now. I am meant to be doing something with these things; these gifts. I have been given the time to use them.

Epilepsy may not be a punishment. Maybe it was a reward? Maybe it was just a neutral Karmic experience in that both good and bad come from it and it is up to me to self direct it where I want it to go or allow it to take me.

Either way it is my Karma. It is part of me. Until it 'goes away' the same sudden way it came I do not feel inclined to believe that I am to be relieved of it any time soon. If I could make it go away I don't know if that is wise. It alters the course of my life. It alters my Karma. The only bad thing about Karma is we never know what direction it is going to take us until we get there! It is also incredibly frustrating and leads to temper tantrums about ones life and conditions. (eye roll, sigh)

So I thought I'd give you a little background on myself and my belief system and wonder if that makes your work applicable or doable in terms of my situation.

For everyone thanks for tolerating the Buddhism 101 lesson. Outside of this explanation I'm not big on talking religion as I believe all religions should be respected regardless of individual beliefs or personal convictions. Not everyone can be wrong.

O.K. now I'm caught up with everyone. Hope you have a good day. Let me know what you think of this plant. I have one but thought about getting another. Not sure if I want two. The one in the photo isn't mine but it is the exact same plant. I'll take a photo of mine later.