Tag Archive: Buddhism


See Any Typos?

Filed under: Faith & Doubt, Life Lessons, Technology
September 26, 2014

Screen Shot 2014-09-24 at 3.07.05 PMOne can watch television and experience nothing more than an hour’s worth of entertainment while others, like me, find wisdom to face adversities that life tends to bring. Thus, I was mesmerized watching Person of Interest, Season 4, Episode 1, Panopticon. Panopticon presented several valuable lessons.

First, if you’re going to go to war against whatever that prevails, be realistic. Find a purpose or something worth living for. Regardless of the odds, the world doesn’t call you to sit on the sideline, as Root (Amy Acker) so eloquently states:

“… and the thing we’re up against has virtually unlimited resources … You know how many we have? Five. Six, if you count the dog. Now is not the time to be precious, Harold. You don’t get to sit this one out … Every life matters, you taught me that … You got your friends into this mess, the least you can do is get them out.”

Second, just when you feel defeated, look for God’s typo’s. Just as irrelevant people of the world matter, God may send you messages via the most strangest methodologies. Just as those of Christian faith clearly claim God inspires through the written word, Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) finds an encoded message in a “thesis” written by the Machine containing deliberate typos. These ‘typos’ lead Finch to information about a possible new base of operations.

Third, find ways to make enemies allies. Just as Root becomes a key team member and assistant moral compass, recognize you and your enemies may not always be so polar opposite. Some are, many aren’t. As Reese (Jim Caviezel) says to Elias:

“Which brings me to the other reason why I am here. I’d like to hire you.”

Fourth, sometimes doing the right thing means getting out of your name tag and high-heels. Simply put, you must become engaged. And regardless of the odds, you must make a stand.

Most people I’ve met live opposite of those four points. Even I lived opposedly for far too many years. This is how people are. But you … you can look closely, look at yourselves.

The Buddha taught about having recollection and self-awareness in all situations. So I ask, did you bring your actions, speech and thoughts with you today? Or have you left them at home? This is where you must look, right here. You don’t have to look very far away. Look at your actions, speech and thoughts.

Do you see any typos?

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Transcendence: Don’t Lose Your Humanity

Filed under: Life Lessons, Technology
September 24, 2014

transcendence-teaser-trailerAt its root, Transcendence is about a guy who gets turned into a computer. In essence, it’s the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and how AI impacts our culture, our lives, our relationships, ourselves.

I could rally around similar thoughts presented in the movie Her, but from a personal thought, the story arcs around the subtle, often little explored ‘personal intent.’ As Wayne Dyer often quotes, everything begins with a thought (i.e., intent). From a Buddhist perspective, it means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with consequences.

Buddhist masters claim even a little poison can cause death while a tiny seed can become a huge tree. Quoting Buddha, “Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.” Thus, while Transcendence focuses upon human migration to technology, I was fascinated by an unexplored subplot: the intention to destroy.

In Transcendence, a radical fringe group headed by an intense, brow-furrowed Bree (played by Kate Mara) coordinates deadly attacks on computer labs around the country. In essence Bree feels the research is ethically/morally wrong and ‘intends’ to destroy everything associated with it. Moving from intention to action, Bree coordinates progressive simultaneous attacks, involving large numbers of death and destruction.

“Don’t lose yourself,” are the dying words of Will Caster (played Johnny Depp) to his wife, Evelyn (played by Rebecca Hall). The pivotal question is how much humanity would we lose if any one of us transcended? Accordingly, resistance against change offers positive and negative lessons.

What most fail to see is that no matter how positive the intention, bad things happen. Bree killed a lot of people. And with complete worldwide power grid and technological failure, along with resulting economic collapse, a wave of tremendous death and pain ensued. More than likely, hospital patients died, planes crashed, nuclear facilities overheated, damns burst, medical and various other maladies had to occur. Yet Bree’s intentions were never addressed.

So, the single most important lesson from the movie: Don’t lose your humanity. But everyone did … in fact … lose himself or herself. Even Bree.

Inherent in every intention and desire lay the mechanics for fulfillment. All of us have infinite organizing power. Thus, when introduce an intention on fertile ground of pure potentiality; we can put this infinite organizing power to work for us.

Just don’t lose yourself.

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NFL Misery Continues

Filed under: Do No Harm
September 12, 2014

PetersonAccording to Sports Illustrated, from Jan. 1, 2012, to Sept. 11, 2014, 31 NFL players were arrested on charges involving domestic violence, battery, assault and murder. In the last two calendar years, at least 14 of those players were arrested for violence against women. Minus Baltimore’s Rice, the following arrests occurred in 2014.

1. Philadelphia Eagles safety Keelan Johnson was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

2. San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald was arrested on domestic violence.

3. Carolina Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy was arrested for threats and assaulting his former girlfriend. While convicted, Hardy was placed on probation.

4. Chicago Bears wide receiver Josh Morgan was arrested on simple assault.

5. Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Jah Reid was arrested on misdemeanor battery outside a strip club.

All of the players listed remain unpunished by the National Football League.

Late today, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was indicted in Houston, Texas. News outlets reported Peterson was indicted in Montgomery County for reckless or negligent injury to a child. The incident in question reportedly stems from “disciplining of a son with a switch.” Accordingly, the Montgomery County, Texas, grand jury issued a warrant for Peterson’s arrest. The team deactivated him for Sunday’s home game against the Patriots.

As a result of the above, one blogger wrote, “I have to change the name of my fantasy team to ‘Convicts.’“

Seriously, there are two types of suffering: suffering of the physical body, and suffering of the mind. Physical suffering may include a lack of basic necessities, or natural disasters, or injury to the body from weapons, diseases, burns, abuse, or poisons. We all experience this bodily pain no matter what our status is in life.

However, all of us must be very aware of tension and stress, for they create significant problems in many marriages. If a proper analysis is made into the root causes of such social problems as pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancies, unhappy marriages and divorces, child-abuse and wife-battering, we inevitably discover that it is due mainly to selfishness and lack of patience, tolerance and mutual understanding.

If we can share the pain and pleasure of our day-to-day life, we can console each other and minimize grievances. Doing so reduces our burdens and misunderstandings. Discussing mutual problems will give us confidence to live together with better understanding. That’s a truer love of life and God.

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Do No Harm and Traffic Protest

Filed under: Life Lessons, Social Justice
September 1, 2014

TrafficActivists on Saturday called for mass civil disobedience on the highways in and around this Saint Louis to protest the killing of an unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. Organizers called upon demonstrators to drive on area highways at 4:30 pm Monday, turn their hazard lights on and stop their vehicles for 4 1/2 minutes, symbolizing the 4 1/2 hours Brown’s body lay in the street.

Lead organizer Anthony Shahid told supporters, “I want the highways shut down. I know it’s a holiday, but it won’t be no good holiday.” If protesters effectively implement the plan, the action would actually mirror Ferguson’s police officer meeting with Michael Brown, who was walking in the middle of street.

Toeing with the ‘do no harm thingy’ of Buddhism, blocking traffic presents serious consequences, with the main being injury. Stopping traffic on I270 is no easy task. Traffic cruising from sixty-miles per hour to zero could cause multiple vehicle crashes, especially since Saint Louis driver education courses teach little, if any, about the brake pedal. In fact, most St. Louisans are instructed that STOP signs are only suggestions. So word to the wise, should 89 year-old Ms. Netzincrass, get caught in traffic, whether black or white, she’s going get out of her black 1978 Oldsmobile and bop someone’s arse’ with her cane. Repeatedly.

Of course if one wanted to make a statement, there are beneficial motives in hindering some traffic. For instance, will someone please stop the cargo of crap following Keeping Up with The Kardashians? Someone block San Francisco 49’er Ray McDonald or Baltimore Raven Ray Rice from leaving their respective practice facility and beating the crap out of a loved one? Will someone stop and block Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay from driving?

Though mentioned in parody, the above represent a better use of time and energy. But many get lost when symbolism and action mix. For instance, Shahid can be found calling for direct action that was both funeral procession and a slowdown – a warning showing the movement’s power to slow down traffic and business. Thus is the nature for The Disciplines of Justice envoy, a group which emerged during the Ferguson riot.

There is problem with youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across multicultural societies. For people like Shahid, there is no justice without an associated level of terrorism. There are no ideas and narratives and leaders and symbols advocating the democratic culture on the ground. They desire justice yet produce division and destruction.

As a Buddhist, we must start building equality on a civilizational level, rather than merely on a political level. This movement creates civilized demand for democratic culture. There is a chance that some form of democratic culture can start and spread across to the remaining communities. But that will require all of us helping in the transition, from having merely political coalitions to building genuinely grassroots-based social movements advocating for the democratic culture.

That my friends is very Buddhist, very Christ like.

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Precept 5 – Drinking to Excess

Filed under: Faith & Doubt, Religion
August 29, 2014

Buddha BeerSince leaving the hospital, I’ve had nary a drink. Strange, attempting to sip whiskey made me crawl in pain while partaking beer has produced negligible issues. This leads me to precept 5 – abstention from fermented drink that causes heedlessness.

Of the five great gifts — those original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, principles — the last one has been tough to nip in the bud. Oftentimes, I theoretically banter, “Can I partake of a beer or two if my drink does not cause heedlessness? Or must one abstain completely?”

From a true Buddhist perspective, by abandoning the use of intoxicants, one receives freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings. So yeah, I get all that. However, if Christ turned water into wine, are we to presume Christ accepted liquor? Or did Christ simply perform the miracle, but abstained? Tough call. Still, as a Buddhist living a simple life, there are many times when I concur with Chesterton, “Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer’s day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.” Additionally, beer is a required accruement for any Cubs fan, for one couldn’t survive a game without symbolically leaping from Wrigley’s upper deck.

Having lived in Alabama, I remember passing through Clay County, infamously known for being the last ‘dry county.’ Technically, it’s illegal to have any form of alcohol within county borders … period. I thought you couldn’t be a real county unless you have at least beer. One could have a minor-league baseball team, maybe some hidden ICBM nuclear weapon launch sites or the world’s largest annual county fair. But at the very least, you need beer. Clay County affords none. But the point being, many residents, religious or otherwise, bootleg alcohol weekly. And amazingly, the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west.

From another perspective, there are ten Demeritorious Deeds (Dasa Akusala Kamma). All of them occur through some form of bodily action:

  1. Killing
  2. Stealing
  3. Sexual Misconduct
  4. Lying
  5. Slandering
  6. Harsh Speech
  7. Frivolous Talk
  8. Coverousness
  9. Ill-Will (hatred)
  10. Wrong Views

On a comedic note, a fellow blogger noted that by violating Precept 5, he violated almost every Demeritorious Deed noted.

But for a person living on borrowed time, I try not getting into guilt trips. Living in precepts and vows is part of a long journey of purification and clearing the mind. Thich Nhat Hahn mades an interesting comment in For a Future to Be Possible: Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life, in that if one lives fully in one precept, they actually live fully in all five. If one takes only 1 precept but they live fully in it, according to Hanh, they’ll eventually keep all five.

Hahn may be right. Basically, going to the extreme either way is awful. Drinking to excess and trying to drive, play sports or negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract would be unwise. So be wise. Be respectful.

And all wisdom aside, if I’m close to death’s door, I’m requesting a shot of Blanton’s Bourbon.

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The Power of Intention

Filed under: Life Lessons
August 12, 2014

IntentionFrom a Buddhist perspective, there are many interrelated, interconnected scenarios rarely thought. On a prima fascia value, one wouldn’t presume any interconnection between Tony Stewart, Kevin Ward, the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and ISIS, but one thing connects us all: the power of intention.

Everything that happens in the universe begins with intention. The world’s destiny is ultimately shaped by our deepest intentions and desires. The Upanishads declares, “You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.” The book of Proverbs states, “… as he thinketh in his heart, so is he …“

Race car driver Kevin Ward’s death may have been avoided if Mr. Ward simply decided not to exit his vehicle, walk onto an active race car track and attempt to confront another driver. This statement is not a defense of Mr. Stewart, but if Ward’s personal intention didn’t lean toward confrontation, he’d probably be alive. But Ward appeared not to have such an intention.

Similarly, would ISIS purposely summarily execute so many people if their own heart had not been filled with such hatred? Would the Israeli’s, Palestinian’s or Ferguson, Missouri rioters? Each leader and fraction expounds aggression while appearing to bestow being the victim. As a result, aggressors appear to receive validation while acknowledging their own internal dialogue of hatred. Aggression always has a chaotic and primitive aspect: it leads down the proverbial rabbit hole and ceases only when wrath fizzles.

During World War II, Hitler accused the Jews of many things and attempted to project societal defects onto Jews. Thus, the intention begat a false need to eliminate the threat. Like the Nazi’s, like Mr. Ward, like all rioters, we shield ourselves in rage while simultaneously claiming a false defense. Then we have the gall to “tell” the world of our victimization, do exactly what we accuse of the other and protract our own fear of terror unto another while beating the shit out of anyone daring to disagree.

The same intention of fear and hatred not only linked Tony Stewart, Kevin Ward, the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and ISIS, but it permeates society as a whole.

A basic tenet of Zen practice is to do no harm to self or others. But to accomplish this, we must understand our personal nature and how we’re projecting intention. As a society, do any of us really intend not to harm another with actions and personal prejudices? When you look at others through a microscope of compassion, are you able to see humanity and internal love?

“We are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither Buddha nor Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness.” 

~ Jean-Yves Leloup ~

Imagine the historical societal accomplishments should we change our intention? How about curing cancer or solving universal poverty? … etc., etc., etc. We have the power to answer every question and solve every problem. However, we cannot solve much, if anything, if our solution leads us only to the intention of hatred.

What is the power of your intention?

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Ferguson, Missouri Riots

Filed under: Life Lessons
August 11, 2014

Riot 2For a period of time, I lived in both Los Angeles, CA and Saint Louis, MO.

I lived through the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Those riots were a series of uprisings, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident.

I’m reminded of LA while watching riots in Ferguson, Missouri.  A vigil on Sunday for Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot and killed by a police officer, was followed by protesters taking to the streets, looting stores, vandalizing cars and confronting the police.

There’s an eerie similarity between the 1992 LA Riots and the riot in Saint Louis. Images, videos captured on cellphones and posted on social media, as well as local media reports showed people spray-painting and looting a number of stores. One Saint Louis television report captured video showing looters running away from stores with their arms full of shoes. Another demonstrated rioters carrying two cases of Budweiser Beer.

The looter pictured in this blog with baggy rapper style pants and no shirt did nothing to honor Mr. Brown or his legacy. In fact, all he did was become the ‘poster-child’ of repugnant.

Rioting does little to remember the victim. Having lived through LA’s Riots, the aftermath will bring a series ‘commissions’ designed to defuse tension; initiatives will be announced, programs launched. News personalities such as Al Sharpton will arrive and protest the insanity, cruelty and abuse. Melissa Harris-Perry may shed a few more tears and we’ll view these feints with suspicious eyes, for such performances marginally advance public interest.

I do not celebrate any of these events. I simply acknowledge they happen. Yet riots themselves tell us something important: that grievances long ignored have to be accounted for; that there is a new boldness found within those no longer content to suffer in silence.

It would tear apart any person who is humane to see what riot victims suffer. What makes all of this even more punitive is the endless wait for justice by the families of those who’ve died in the mindless violence perpetrated by one of their own. Both the Brown family and business victims will experience a seemingly endless wait for justice. It will be years before anyone gets a sense of legal closure.

Buddhism is about love, both personal and communal. Immediately after the 2011 riots, Vancouver residents began erasing the bad memories from the streets by cleaning them up. The citizens started to write words on the wooden boards that momentarily replaced shop windows. These messages included apologies, messages of love addressed to the Canucks hockey team, to the city of Vancouver, or simply to other people.

Why? Because this is how you act when you feel like you’re part of a community. This is the true soul of community. This is the beauty of America.

May all of us find such a community.

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Violence Ended By Only Nonviolence

Filed under: Do No Harm, Faith & Doubt, Religion
August 8, 2014

Dying for faithOne of the latest videos from Iraq shows a Christian man forced to his knees, surrounded by masked ISIS militants. They force the man at gunpoint to ‘convert’ to Islam before beheading him. It was an awful act of cowardice filled from hell’s hatred.

Another believer, Meriam Ibrahim, is a Sudanese Christian and mother was arrested on charges of apostatizing. While she was in prison awaiting trial was formally sentenced to a major ass wupp’n and death. In an attempt to force renunciation of faith, the court threatened her many times. Still, Ibrahim held firm to her Christian belief and whether by power of the media, power of God or otherwise, she was released.

I’ve been thinking about both of these Christians for hours. If one takes Christianity seriously, it leaves you unsettled. Were these Christians simply caught in a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ moment? Was the Christian man so shaken, so willing to cling to life, he attempted to convert to Islam? Would we look upon either as weak and repudiated by God or courageous? One lived, met the Pope and relocated back to America … the other died. Surely, moments such as these are amongst the hardest to digest. For this reason alone, I condemn neither the Christian man nor Ms. Ibrahim.

Many recent stories arising from the Mideast are horrendous. Labeling one group or the other of the Israel–Palestine conflict as terrorists is fruitless, for the Angel of Death has touched both sides over abundantly. Transparency and dialogue, even in the face of injustice is perennially missing. At the end of the day, one wonders if either group is religiously better than ISIS? Each claims to march to the tune of a different drummer, but is either group any better?

For the Christian who lost his life to an ISIS sword, should the world respond in kind, via violence? Christ was violated, yet forgave. Should we do likewise? To families who’ve lost children or relatives in Gaza, how does one respond? With vengeance? Vengeance won’t bring redemption.

Is it possible to sheath the sword of vengeance? If so, how does one faithfully walk when loved ones are violated, rapped, killed or beheaded? How would you follow Christ should terrorists place a steel cutlass against thy own throat? Then again, how much trust do we afford God when laid bare to modern crucifixion? Would you turn the other cheek as rockets propel back and forth over our homes?

These are tough questions. And sadly, I have no answers.

Terrorism is born from no religion, for it’s not written in any scripture. As a Buddhist, I try to avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. I’ll admit, the middle–path is awfully challenging. While I understand that taking any life, be it one’s own, is not sanctioned by any religion, society as a whole must continue to emphasize that self-mortification must be avoided. But will education ever be enough?

There’s a legend of two Kings on the brink of war. Each claimed the right to irrigate lands from the river flowing between.

Buddha asked, “What is the water worth?“

“Very little.”

“And what is a life worth?” Buddha continued.

“Priceless,” each responded.

“Then why would you trade something priceless for something of little worth?“

All I know is that we’re at our strongest when society dismantles their weapons and sheds violence. That path is never easy, but then again, revenge produces nothing valued as priceless.

Be not shortsighted.

Be not longsighted.

Not by violence is violence ended.

Violence is ended by nonviolence.

 

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A Pirate At Forty

Filed under: Life Lessons
August 5, 2014

Pirate At FortyIn case you’ve lived under a rock for the last couple of days, Cincinnati Quarterback Andy Dalton received a huge contract extension.  As sports commentators analyzed:

“Dalton receives a signing bonus of $12 million and a roster bonus in three days of $5 million. That’s a total of $17 million out of the gates. Coupled with his $986,000 base salary (which isn’t guaranteed as a legal matter but it is as a practical matter), Dalton will make $18 million in the first year of the deal.

Then, on the third day of the 2015 league year in March, Dalton earns a $4 million roster bonus. He also has a $3 million non-guaranteed base salary in 2015. That’s $25 million over two years.”

If the football statistics are correct, Andy Dalton participated in 1119 offensive plays last year. Average those 1119 plays for the next two seasons, Mr. Dalton will participate in over 2,200 plays. Divide into $25 million and one finds Dalton will be paid a little over $11,000 per play.

Let me repeat that, Mr. Dalton will be paid a little over $11,000, per play, for the next several years. Ya’ gotta love it!

Bengals management is hoping Dalton will take the team to the promised land of playoff contenders. Reggie Jackson was Mr. October. Jackson was nicknamed Mr. October for his clutch hitting in the postseason with the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees. Being diplomatic, Dalton has not been Mr. January. In fact, Dalton’s post-season effort can be categorized in the one-and-done club.

From a Buddhist perspective, I concur everyone has a unique mission that only they can fulfill. Sports is littered with overpriced players. Golfer Sergio Garcia has made second place a permanent home, Chicago Bulls Derek Rose has been a bust and NFL Quarterback Tony Romo, whose paid big bucks, can’t find the love either. So is anyone actually worth $11,000 per play.

Additionally, CEO pay is never far from the headlines, and Americans are well aware that CEOs are paid several hundred times what the average front-line worker gets. One of the most striking statistics is that the average CEO makes 380 times what the average worker makes. Across the board, the more CEOs get paid, the worse their companies do over the next three years, according to extensive new research. This is true whether they’re CEOs at the highest end of the pay spectrum or the lowest.

The kind of cash Dalton is making just begs the question, “Is anyone really worth that kind of cash?”

In Buddhism, rather than pursing material things, we talk about searching for refuge in people you want to emulate. Most have to connect with what’s most important: a stable mind. The mind is the true compass of the soul. Spend your time searching within often proves more valuable than anything else.

What’s taken me so many years fail to understand is that the role of money is a form of energy. It comes from a lot of effort and hard work, but I squandered a lot of it. Jimmy Buffet’s song A Pirate At Forty Looks at Forty summarizes my last ten years:

“I made enough money to buy Miami,

But I pissed it away so fast,

Never meant to last, never meant to last.”

Lesson learned, respect money, but none of us have to be so attached to it. In truth, all of us live in a house of mirrors. We see the patterns we’ve stuck ourselves but we find it hard to leave.

I wish Dalton all the best. But personally, all I believe he’s done is purchase a hell of a lot of pressure.

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Nasser Ali Khan Is Me

Filed under: About Love, Life Lessons
August 3, 2014

chicken-with-plumsSome have queried about what ‘drives’ me and why one ‘feels’ distant around me. Further, how’s it possible to be in the moment, yet not be in the moment? Having traveled the world, these are seemingly difficult questions.

So here’s my insight, Chicken With Plums. If you watch Chicken With Plums, you’re likely to find my secret. If the sounds emanating from within appear empty, maybe they are. It’s not that I don’t excel at my work. I do. In fact I am pretty darn well known. But maybe what others see is the mechanical. For if life is breath, then I’ve yet to seize the sigh.

When I watched Chicken With Plums I came to understand more of life’s of frustrations, cyclical ups and downs, and the outpouring of my soul into prose. I empathized with the main character, Nasser Ali Khan. And while I didn’t foresee myself in the ending … I cried. It was beautiful. The love! The passion! The pain! Life’s artwork … so romantically beautiful.

I found a personal ‘Satori’ and explored my own love, life, creativity and what pushes me to be the best. Just like Nasser Ali Khan, if one removed my instrument to write, I’d never be able to perform again. Thus, I would pass.

Chicken With Plums demonstrates how influential one person can become. For me, Ms. K’s time in my own personal movie is brief, but her influence of sundered romance touches every aspect of my life. Similar to the main character Nasser Ali Khan, I cannot seem to find another that recreates this divine music and love. Just as Nasser’s music teacher eloquently states, “The love that you feel for this woman will translate into your music. She will be in every note that you play.” So is Ms. K. for me.

The late singer Harry Chapin wrote similarly in, Stranger With The Melodies:

“I gave her the music son,
She gave me the words.
Together we’d write the kind of songs
The angels must have heard.
Of course we’d fight like cats and dogs,
But life ain’t no rosebud dream.
Still whatever we’d do everybody knew
We truly were a team.
I can’t remember now if I done her wrong
Or if she done wrong to me
But all I know that when I let her go
That it did not set me free”

I have met people who claim they’ve married their soul mate. And I’ve seen no reason to doubt otherwise. What all of us need to do is marry at the deepest level of God, i.e., the deepest level of love.

The key is to find romantic love so intense you feel as though you’ve found a part of you.  In his novel The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks describes the main character of the novel as feeling he had been searching for his other half through many lifetimes.  He was so glad to find his soul mate, that this love could sustain him through the trials of her Alzheimer’s disease in which she rarely recognized him.

Chicken With Plums switches between past and present and many will never quite understand how the story will end, until its last moments. So if you find genuine young love, filled with enough passion, tenderness and adoration to overcome anything, then you’ve got to go for it.

Most of will be like Nasser Ali Khan and pass this world loving another. Some will claim they can’t love as such. But if you search your heart of hearts, you probably have a good idea.

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