I just recently learned about the illness of Rabbi, Ronnie Cahana, who married my wife and I and has suffered a devastating stroke completely paralyzing him except for his eyes. His mind is completely lucid yet his body completely unusable. For me, he is one of the touch stones of spiritual light in my life. He is the kind of person you meet and you think, wow ... with all of the useless, destructive famous people in the world, why is not this beautiful, poetic man graced to be known by all.
He has made some substantial recovery, able to breathe, eat and speak softly and has regained some movement. But I believe he will make a full recovery, because he has the spirit of miracle around him. I read he shared a teaching on prayer whereby when we ask of G-d, we should ask for the maximum, to ask for anything less, would diminish our concept of the supreme divine.
Rabbi Cahana, said of his circumstances, shortly after its occurrence, "I live in a broken world, and there is much holy work to do." This is how all of us must live, living to bring love and healing and compassion to the world, to make it whole, to make ourselves whole. We each each need to make the big ask of G-d, for ourselves and the world each day.
Here is a photo him, in his tallit, in the hospital healing the world, with his love and poetry and his beautiful soul. Learn more about him at www.ronniecahana.com
Virtue vs Heart
It's been a bit of a sojourn, life seems to have gotten in the way of my blog, but time and space is all relative. So why not pick up where I left off ?
Often in constructed religion with think of aspiring towards virtue. We fabricate all kinds of rules and laws to keep us in check. Rules of morality, rules about prayer or practice. In some aspect these religious laws are there to preserve our human virtue.
But I heard it said that relying on human virtue is a very frail thing. What we need to rely on is the human heart. When we truly connect with each other at the level of the heart, we see the soul of our fellow beings. When we are at the heart level, we don't need any extrenal structures to guide us and keep us from doing wrong. The heart knows intuitively what is right and wrong and is free from conflicts that laws and rules often bring us.
Trust your heart , not your virtue and all will be well.
Posted at 09:43 PM in buddhist comments, reflections | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)