13:58 Nov 03 2009
Times Read: 826
I have been a little over whelmed with crew the past 5 days, because of this and 12hr days of coaching, I have not completed full workouts- but have been more on the go.
Granted, today I will get back to the gym and tomorrow I have boot camp again! With getting back into this routine, I'm noticing that I have several aspects of person that I must continue to grow with, from, to.
Transformation is not just an internal struggle, for me it is also an external one. For most women, I think how we appear on the outer is a reflection of what we are or are not able to work with at the moment. Just like a bookshelf that gathers dust- we can allow our bodies to do the same by accepting what has happened as what should be.
Today I woke with the song "Always something there to remind me" in my mind. Now I grew up to the Naked Eyes version, but a little looking around You Tube and I found the Sandy Shaw version. Being from the US, I am not familiar with Ms. Shaw previously and am sorry that I wasn't. What I have found is an artist that is a true example of what women should look for- not in being like her- but her individualism and her strength in her feminity without compromising it.
The following is taken from her website, and it speaks on many levels to journey I'm currently following- for that reason I thought I would post it here:
Buddha World
This is from a New York member of SGI who had a one on one meeting with Mr Yokota, the head of the Boston Research Centre. He had given a lecture in NY city at the culture centre and one of the things he talked about was overcoming attachments – which happens to be one of the Seven Jewels we "polish" to illuminate the Treasure Tower. This member of SGI wanted to understand what he meant by that, as many people automatically assume that we have to "give up" our material possessions, our dreams, or whatever. Mr Yokoda explained this so beautifully. He said:
To overcome attachments in Nichiren’s Buddhism simply means to overcome our attachment to our fears, our mistrust, our incorrect beliefs, our past etc. We suffer because we have an attachment to our pain and suffering and if we chant to understand the origin of the pain and suffering, the cause, and then "let it go", we will quite quickly overcome our need to perpetuate it, and begin to attach ourselves to our Buddhahood and the Mystic Law and then our lives will open in a huge way fulfilling all desires and dreams. He said that we attach ourselves to our suffering because "the effect is what we are familiar with", so he encouraged this person (as you are now being encouraged) to place their trust in the Mystic Law, to place our trust in our Buddhahood. Mr Yokota continued:
Nichiren Daishonin wrote in ‘On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime’ - "If you think the Mystic Law is outside yourself, you are embracing not the Mystic Law but an inferior teaching." How we can interpret that is – an inferior teaching is anything or anyone (parents, friends, lovers, you name it) who has made us believe that we weren’t good enough, or loveable, or worthy, or deserving, There are also some of us for whom any amount of love, encouragement and acceptance we have had from those around us, we still don’t feel we deserve it. Now is the time to discard that belief, give up that attachment, and place our trust in the power and truth of our own lives.
One last thing he said was that when we are chanting for our dreams and desires – and we get negative feedback from our environment, or it seems that something just isn’t happening, or we are told "this will never happen", or "cant happen" – he said that this is our cue, our opportunity to transform the karma. We have two choices, one is to give up, the other is to chant with complete conviction that we will transform the doubt and lack of self worth we have about ourselves. The environment reflects both our positive and negative tendencies and most of the time the negative ones are how we feel about ourselves. He said that although Nichiren’s Buddhism was the Buddhism of Cause we still keep trying to change/manipulate the Effect in the environment. He said we must focus on the Cause, on our own lives and eradicate our lack of self worth. Then the environment will respond to our treasuring and valuing our lives accordingly.
To read more about Sandy Shaw: Her website
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