What is: "The Leisure to Practice?"

It is realizing that you can have a positive effect on your own life and others lives beyond what you previously imagined.

I first realized this around age 31. I had had a very tumultuous life from 18 to 30 and things were finally settling down inside me because I was a single father. So, I couldn't just be a selfish bachelor trying to survive in a very mean and unforgiving world. I had to be more than that for my son and it didn't really matter what my selfish needs were at that time.

So, I was able to meld in my mind my fantasies for being both a Priest of some kind and a scientist of some kind. I could envision a world where I could help design both my world and a better world for others.

So, I began to pray for "The Leisure to Practice" which basically means that you financial and health needs are provided for so you have the time to pray and to literally help yourself and anyone you meet ongoing the rest of your life.

In some cultures like in Thailand for example, when men and women are young they spend time being Buddhist monks, then they are husbands, wives and parents until they are 50 or so and then they become monks once again after their children have grown up.

When I went to Dharamshala, India at about 6000 feet into the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh state in India, I met Thubten who had been a Tibetan monk until his parents needed to be physically and financially cared for (because there was no social welfare system where they were). So, he gave his monks robes (Tibetan Buddhist Monk's robes) to Geshe Lobsang Gyatso to hold for him and he became a Mountain Climbing Guide which is what he still was when I met him. He also met an American Lady in her late 30s there in Dharamshala and eventually married her and moved to Minnesota with her.

So, the Leisure to Practice takes on many forms. It could be said that all Priests, Ministers, Lamas and monks have already embarked upon "The Leisure to Practice" which is the opportunity to make life better for everyone around them ongoing.

In my own case since I was a single father and then married again by age 32 to a lady with two kids within 2 to 3 years of age from my own son, I began to pray for "The Leisure to Practice".

IT came in my late 40s when I had just divorced my 2nd wife and started a relationship with what became my 3rd wife and new baby daughter when I had to realize I might be dying.

One morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and noticed my lips were blue in the bathroom mirror and I couldn't feel my arms much because they were tingling and numb. I realized I might be dying so I called my son to come get me. I didn't call an ambulance because I knew the shock of dealing with that likely would kill me.

After this, I had an amazing experience which heralded the beginning of my "Leisure to Practice". The signs when I look back now were unmistakable.

I walked into my living room and was greeted by many angels surrounding me. I realized I likely was going to die and that they had come to get me. So, I sat down on the couch and prepared for my coming death. However, then the angels who were all white light surrounded me and began to chant in unison, "You aren't going to die! Your life will get better now!" They kept repeating this and I felt the sounds of their angelic voices beaming into all the cells of my body. My cells heard the truth of the angel's statements. My mind was split on the truth of all this but I had learned in my life "Always listen to angels. They are always right."

So, I realized this was a life or death situation and I needed to honor what the angels told me. So, I did.

My son came and took me to the hospital to the emergency room. There I began to talk to doctors and nurses about my "near death" experience. They told me that people who have had near death experiences often have experience like this and tell the doctors and nurses about them.

Somehow I was reassured by this.

Over time I was forced to retire within the next month because if I kept working I would surely die. Then a month or so later I had an angiogram at Stanford Medical near Stanford University. I was pretty impressed that they could take me in in the morning shove a scope up an artery in my leg up to my heart and show me the inside of my heart on TV. However, this wasn't as bad as electrical heart stimulation to try to find out what was wrong with my heart. This was really awful to deal with because I begged them not to give me anymore drugs. Then they gave me more. The drugs made it so I would forget everything but be able to talk to the doctors and nurses.

Then after all that I had to deal with passing out a lot from not being able to oxygenate my blood no matter how fast I breathed. Most people die from heart viruses because they panic when this happens which causes their deaths. I knew not to panic as I passed out each time so I meditated to prevent panic since I had already studied with Tibetan Lamas who are meditation masters in the U.S. and India and Nepal. So, after about 8 months of this in May 1999 I was told by my Heart specialist, "We finally figured out by the process of elimination that you had a heart virus which tends to kill most people. You are one of the lucky ones who survived somehow. You could now live a normal lifespan if you are very careful in your life.

So, I have. At first, I found being retired difficult so I started my first Blogsite (they didn't call them blogs then) at geocities.com .

Later I started this site in 2007 at intuitivefred888 through Google and Blogger and Blogspot and closed off my geocities site and bought dragonofcompassion.com from yahoo business.

My "Leisure to Practice" God had provided as he had designed for me. I was finally free to help people as well as myself in any way I could think of. By God's Grace. It was 1999 and I was 51 years old. And somehow by God's Grace I'm still alive today all these years later and still traveling the world helping everyone I can and my prayer had been answered for "The Leisure to Practice".

If you realize that you too could help both yourself and the world through the "Leisure to Practice" then maybe you should work and pray for this outcome.

However, I must caution you, this will completely change your life like it did mine. Nothing is ever the same again. But, you will be able to help yourself and others in ways unimaginable which is truly a gift from God both for you and for them.