Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour

The Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour is coming to Burlington, Ontario, Canada, October 9-11, 2009.

Hosted by the Centre for Compassion and Wisdom and the Holy Cross Lutheran Church, this display of the Buddha's relics is awe-inspiring and magical. Make sure to take the time this busy Thanksgiving weekend and bring your family to see this treasure. Pet Blessings will be available on Saturday afternoon.

The hours are:

• Friday: 8:00-9:00 p.m.
• Saturday: 10:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. Pet Blessings 2:00-4:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 1:00-7:00 p.m.

The following information is borrowed from the Maitreya Project Website

Introduction to the Heart Shrine Relic Tour:

"A unique and precious collection of more than 1,000 sacred Buddhist relics will be permanently displayed in the Heart Shrine of the completed Maitreya Buddha statue in Kushinagar. Meanwhile, it is the wish of the Spiritual Director of the Maitreya Project, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, that the collection should travel throughout the world to bring the blessings of the relics and the message of loving-kindness to people everywhere.

Most of the relics — those found among the cremation ashes of Buddhist masters — resemble beautiful pearl-like crystals. Buddhists believe these relics are produced as a result of the master's spiritual qualities of compassion and wisdom. Since we can all develop these qualities, the relics are a reminder of our own essential nature of purity and our inner potential to manifest that.

The collection includes relics of the historical Buddha and the Buddha’s closest disciples as well as many other well-known Buddhist masters from different Buddhist traditions.

Visitors often report experiences of inspiration and healing when in the presence of the relics. While some are inspired to pray for world peace and to develop their inner wisdom, others are overcome by emotion as the powerful effects of the relics open their hearts to compassion and loving-kindness."

An Overview of the Project:

"The Project intends to bring as much benefit as possible — spiritually, in education and healthcare, and economically, through the direct and indirect creation of employment opportunities in northern India.

Maitreya Project’s social services will include extensive education programmes and healthcare of international standard.

In both the long and short term, Maitreya Project will contribute significantly to the well-being of the region and aims to become a model of socially responsible development — environmentally sustainable and built to last at least 1,000 years."

Who is Maitreya?:

“Maitreya Buddha is the embodiment of loving-kindness. Throughout the entire universe, peace comes from the good heart, from loving-kindness.
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Spiritual Director of Maitreya Project

Maitreya's name is derived from the Sanskrit 'maitri' meaning 'universal loving-kindness'. Infinitely compassionate and all-knowing, buddhas teach by their words and example in order to guide us along the path to our own spiritual maturity.

"Everyone can make a connection with Maitreya Buddha, so that even if one does not become enlightened during this life time, when Maitreya Buddha teaches one is able to become Maitreya Buddha's disciple and to become enlightened at that time."
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Spiritual Director of Maitreya Project

I Quit!

Smoking, that is!

This is probably not news to those of you who read my blog. I did quietly slip my stats in at the end of a post written a couple of months ago. Eagle-eye fellow blogger, Miwise, from Window On Smith Street (and other great blogs, check out her complete profile to see the rest) spotted it and asked how my quit was going, so I'm here to tell you about it.

I have had previous attempts that have lasted: 3 months, 6 months, 7 months, and 1.5 years. This time I'm hoping it's the last time.

What has changed on this latest journey down the path to quitdom? My attitude for one. I have learned from my past quits that I need to really believe I am a non-smoker and work toward being one. It has had it's difficult days, minutes, and moments, but I have persevered and am winning the battle.

N.O.P.E. -- Not One Puff Ever -- is the motto of many quit forums and I've taken it to heart. I know I can't have "just one", otherwise I will be right back where I started. The number of previous quits have shown me that. I also take to heart the wise words of Yoda who said, "Do, or do not, there is no try".

This journey seems so much easier than past journies. Perhaps it's because I've done it before. Perhaps it's because I have changed my attitude. One of the ways I worked on an attitude adjustment was by reading Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I will admit, I read it a few times in order for the message to sink in. Once I was ready to assimilate the message, then the actual quitting became so much easier.

Of course I couldn't have done it without support and statistics prove that people with support are way more successful than people without. I chose to join an on-line forum for help and it has worked out very well. There are many to choose from, but I find the people at About.com's Quit Smoking Support Forum to be amazing. I also like QuitNet.com, which is very similar.

As of this particular moment I have been Free and Healing for Three Months, Five Days, 20 Hours and 2 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 3 Days and 17 Hours, by avoiding the use of 1076 cigarettes that would have cost me $432.21. My quit date: March 24, 2008 9:20 p.m.

Yea, me!

Yet Another Be Careful What You Wish For Moment

I have started a new job where the people are nice and my boss is a really great guy with a wicked sense of humour. It's still a temp situation, but it's a good paying job.

So far this fulfilled my wishes for my next job to be with kind, compassionate co-workers, an awesome boss, a location close to home and the exact pay I wanted. Not only was the pay meeting the number in my head, I was given $1,500 more than I expected. Result!

Here's where my "wishes" get a little out of whack...

My last job moved at a snail's pace and I often found myself bored and lethargic. So, like a good little manifester, I added to the above wish list and put it out there that I needed to be busier and needed to feel "needed".

Now I'm busier than I can handle, the phone rings constantly, the e-mails pour in and I have a department with 85 staff who all need something at any given moment. It's a good thing my boss is self sufficient and doesn't need me as much as our staff does.

For the last 4 weeks, I've been feeling the stress of trying to learn a new job, dig out from the previous person's leftovers and keep on top of the daily flow. It wasn't until I sat down to write this entry that I realized I got exactly what I asked for.

I can no longer complain about the number of people clamoring for my attention and the insane pace of the job. I special ordered it from the Universe and they happily obliged.

I guess one of the lessons I'm learning is my perennial favourite: Be careful what you wish for!

I really need to learn to be more specific when I put things "out there".

Maybe that's the whole point.

Are We There Yet?

Over the past two years I have been struggling to find my place. Where I live, in my "career" and in my life. I had hoped to be grounded, connected and moving along my life's path by now. In fact I hoped for a lot of things that haven't happened. Not one person I have talked to could honestly say that they are in life where they expected they would be by now. I guess that saying "life is what happens when you make other plans" is so true.

Perhaps I'm in one of those phases in life where there is nothing but blind faith. Patience is yet again, the life lesson. I do have some sense of following a path, but I'm not sure where it is leading. Having said that, when have I ever known where the path was leading me?

I'm not complaining, just questioning. Sometimes I feel like the impatient kid in the back seat of the car relentlessly asking "Are we there yet?"

Maybe I don't want to know if I am 'there yet', that could just be the end. The reality is I will be happy to take the ride as long as it lasts.

On the plus side I am: Free and Healing for One Month, Two Days, 2 Hours and 43 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 1 Day and 6 Hours, by avoiding the use of 364 cigarettes that would have cost me $145.90. My quit date: March 24, 2008 9:20 p.m.

Loss Is Not An Ending

Fifty posts have gone by in the last 17 months. Not much by most bloggers standards, but enough for me. As a child my mother always said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Granted, it's not because I have nothing nice to say that I don't write often, it's because I've learned that lessons take time to integrate. Changes need time to settle in. One needs time and distance to see clearly and connect the dots before writing about the lessons one has learned.

So what have I learned? It has been a year since I got my new home, new job and new life. How has it gone? Not bad at all. There have been moments of fear (like when in the last few months my doctor was worried I might have ovarian cancer, which, thankfully, it turns out I don't) and moments of frustration and stress (dealing with my boss' dramas and need for constant attention), but there have been moments of great joy and blessings.

In the last couple of months there have been 4 deaths around me: a 93-year-old aunt, a 24-year old co-worker and a couple of others I don't know personally, but have affected the lives of people I am involved with daily. Though there is loss, there is gain, too. My cousin and his wife had a beautiful baby girl. I found my Godson who I haven't seen in 15 years (what a wonderful young man he has turned out to be), I have reunited with a couple of dear old friends I never thought I would see or hear from again and I had a couple of old high-school friends find me and get in touch. I've reconnected with cousins I lost touch with and my reflexology practice had a run of new clients. I've also been invited to teach a few classes in meditation, energy work and my Self-help with Reflexology workshop come the fall (time to plan the curriculum!). WHEW!

So you see, life has been busy with me. I have learned that loss is not the ending. For everything you "lose", be it a home, job, friends, family, or whatever, there is something, or someone, new and wonderful waiting to fill the gap. Never fear loss, instead, look forward to what grows in it's place. I am fond of saying, "if you don't weed the garden, you have no room for new flowers."

Some of us are so afraid of losing the weeds and thinking we will have nothing left but bare, empty patches that we don't realize that it's because of the weeds we don't have a full and beautiful garden of flowers. Watch what happens when you let go of the weeds and have patience as you wait for the bare patches to fill with beautiful flowers. No longer choked out by noxious weeds, they can bloom and spread.

Life is like that.

Car Dreams

Back in November I wrote about dreams where I was going back to school and climbing stairs. This time the dreams are about my car. Dreams are the brains way of sort, filtering and making sense of all the stimuli received in the day. The brain also uses dreams to find answers to problems. How many times have you woken up with the solution to a problem you couldn't find when you were awake and over-analyzing?

In dream symbology the car represents the self and what is happening to you while you are in the car gives you clues to what is happening to you in your daily life. For example, whether or not you are driving indicates who is in control of your life, or a particular current situation. If you are not driving, then someone else is in control. It won't necessarily be the person you see driving your car in your dream, but qualities of that person, that will give you clues to their identity.

In my first dream I missed a turn I was to take and had to put my car in reverse to get back to the turn in the road. In my next dream (some weeks later) I was looking for my car, but couldn't find it. I became confused and concerned, I could have sworn I had left it in a parking lot across the street...3 months ago! I called the police and they told me it wasn't stolen or towed away. In the most recent dream I had finally turned my car around and felt content that I was finally going in the right direction.

Let's take a look at what this means to me:

• In the first dream I could interpret it to mean that in my daily life I was going along without paying attention and I missed an opportunity, or a direction, I could have gone in with a situation in my life.
• In the second dream I think it was telling me that I abandoned a part of myself and ignored it until I was ready to reconnect with it. Since this dream occurred at the end of March I should look back to December to try to recall what I was avoiding, or ignoring back then.
• In the third dream, I finally was back on track and going in the right direction.

Since dreams don't always tell a full story, we need to look at a number of dreams over time to get the picture. As you can see by these 3 dreams over a period of a month I was able to piece together the story. I was headed on the right track, missed an opportunity due to not paying attention and then just stopped and abandoned myself, just shut down or gave up on finding my direction. Finally, I manage to get back to where I need to be.

When I look at my life, I know that in the fall I was doing very well with using my intuition to guide me and remaining connected almost all the time. By December, I stopped doing that and just entered a day-to-day existence, being very disconnected to my true self. Why I did that, I don't know. However, in the last little while I have come back to myself and am trying to remain more grounded and aware.

Other car symbology you might be interested in is:

• not being in control of your vehicle: something in your life is out of control.
• having an accident: if you crash into something you are being warned that something is going to come to a head, or come crashing down around you, and it won't be pleasant.
• your car breaks down: you are not taking care of yourself and might be about to get sick.
• you are driving someone else's car and they are in the passenger seat: you are trying to control another persons life, or situation in their life.

And so on. Once you know the car represents the self, and the direction you are taking, you can then try to figure out what it all means to you and how it relates to what's happening in your life.

If you are someone who doesn't remember their dreams, try lying in bed without opening your eyes once you wake up and replay what you can remember. Once you think you have all you can remember, open your eyes and immediately write it down. Over time, you will be able to read back over your notes and learn something about yourself.

You can find many web pages on dream symbology, some good, and some not so good. Here is a link to a web page that links to a number of dream symbology sites. Happy surfing!

Namaste