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....Buddha under the Bodhi Tree



..…When the Buddha was seeking ways to avoid the suffering all humans experience, he saw greed and desire as obstacles to human experiencing joy and reaching enlightenment. He believed there was a way to overcome these realities and he set off to find answers. He tried to find enlightenment through depriving his body of food and comfort. He even practiced self-mortification.



After nearly starving himself to death he reconsidered his path. He decided that the middle ground between over indulgence of worldly gifts and deprivation held the answer. That joy was the answer…but in order to achieve this joy one must look inside oneself.



One day he sat himself down under the Bodhi tree and vowed he would not rise until he found a way around human suffering....and he began the journey within.



Well, he wasn’t sitting for very long when Mara, The Lord of Desire noticed what he was doing…




Mara became concerned that if people learned how to overcome desire his game would be over. So Mara sent his daughters to Buddha to try and tempt him from his path. When this didn’t work he gathered his Demons for a full out attack against Buddha…….




Mara said that the seat of enlightenment belonged to him, not a mortal….

Mara’s horrible demon soldiers cried out that they were Mara‘s witnesses to the throne.
Then Mara asked Buddha,
“Who will witness for you?“
Buddha reached down his hand and touched the earth.
The earth shook and answered, “I am his witness’.
The shaking of the Earth scared off both Mara and his Demons...
Mara realized the power of the Earth.




Buddha continued to sit through the night…and as the morning light came Buddha opened his eyes and looked to the morning star and once again he touched the Earth and said,




“as the Earth is my witness all beings and I will awaken together.”




The point of this abbreviated story of how Buddha became enlightened is that he recognized that the Earth was a powerful life force, and a powerful giving force.

She gives us everything we need to experience joy.



It feels to me like we have forgotten this.

We are not treating Her so very well.
And because we aren’t we are poisoning Her gifts.
And the OCEAN, the poor ocean…
we seem to view it as either something we can dump stuff in or take things from....
not as though our life depends on a healthy ocean.



I went to my studio this morning and when I turned on the radio a woman was discussing various cancers and how they are related to pollution….Later I came up to the house, turned on the TV to see if it was still going to rain today and a woman was talking about the direct link in children with ADHD and pesticides in their food.





I look at the horrendous oil spill in the gulf and I wonder what we humans are possibly thinking that allows something like this to happen?…

and why there weren’t already plans put in place to clean up the oil, stop the leak.

We knew this would happen someday.




I was talking with a friend the other day about the oil spill and I asked the age old question, “what kind of future are we leaving our grandchildren”….and she said to me, “through history, I believe the same thoughts have been there, and some how we all survive…“ So maybe it doesn’t really matter…we’ve been heading in this direction for so long, maybe surviving is good enough….

we don’t need to worry about the quality of life?



I know that we all do things to lighten our footprint on this planet….but maybe what is needed now is our joined voices loudly demanding that the people in power clean up their acts….


Honor Earth the way she should be honored.

6 comments:

Healing Woman said...

I agree an am so disheartened by this careless act..careless..

pinkglitterfae said...

this is a lovely post, and I so agree with you. I'm afraid the only thing that would help us right now is radical action. We need to use our pocketbooks to force change, to let the big corporations know we will not support those who destroy our earth, and pollute the air, and yes, end up giving us diseases. Way too many people are sick, and medicated for life. There's something very wrong with this picture.

Keep on doing what you can, we can only hope more people take notice
xoxo
betty

julie said...

Healing & Pink, I'm so glad you commented...I know I'm not, but sometimes it feels like I'm alone in my concerns...There is so little press, and for the most part people aren't saying much about the mess the world is in...Between the environment, war, and debt, it's looking pretty bleak...but I hold on to hope...hug, hug

Sue said...

The oil rig disaster is so disheartening as it was so unnecessary. It is frightening to see the scope of this carelessness.

I do believe that people in the general population are becoming more aware and appreciative of our earth and environment. It is the big business and corporate 'suits' that we have to work on. While there has been some positive change, obviously, as the oil rig 'mishap' shows, it is not nearly enough.

Great post Julie!

Sue

Anonymous said...

Loved the picture and the post... Thank you for writing this..

julie said...

Thank you..xo

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