The Pocket Dalai Lama Sunday 11-22-09

Before I went to France with my family in October, we went to the East Coast earlier in they Summer for a wedding in North Carolina and then to Washington DC for the Smithsonian museums and then to Salem via Boston. In an Art museum there I found a copy of "The Pocket Dalai Lama" which is a Shambala Pocket Classic and easily fits in a shirt or jacket pocket. Carrying it over my heart helped me to deal with the anger and sadness in the Northeast over the severe recession. Though we are having a bad time in California too, I tend to experience it differently when I'm in California. The recession seemed to always be in my face while in the Northeast. So, buying the pocket Dalai Lama allowed me to more easily center and stay on task.

Here are some of the quotes that helped me starting on page 1:

The Dalai Lama's words:"I come from the east, most of you(here) are westerners(from the western societies and world). If I look superficially we are different, and if I put my emphasis on that level, we grow more distant. If I look at you as my own kind, as a human being like myself, with one nose, two eyes and so forth, then automatically the distance is gone. We are the same human flesh. I want happiness; you also want happiness. From that mutual recognition, we can build respect and real trusts for each other. From that can come co-operation and harmony.

Generally speaking, even if money brings us happiness, it tends to be the kind that money can buy: material things and sensory experiences. And these we discover, become a source of suffering themselves. As far as actual possessions are concerned, we often must admit that they often cause us more not less difficulty in life. The car breaks down, we lose our money, our most precious belongings are stolen, our house is damageed by fire.OR we worry about these things happening.
end quotes for now.

So often money increases problems and truth seekers and bodisattvas often avoid a lot of money until they sence they can be a caretaker of wealth for all beings in the universe.

ordinarily, money follows enlightenment,discipline, kindness and wisdom. one must be compaasionate and wise before becoming a custodian of wealth for all beings. Also, it is my personal experience that all wealth that stays and grows is spirit in basis and material wealth
is only really a physical echo of spiritual wealth manifesting into the physical.