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Human beings are sense-making beings who create rituals and cultural norms as a way to function individually and with others in every day life.

Have you ever watched something on TV that you know your housemates (parents, siblings, spouse, partner) would disapprove of? Did you keep the remote-control handy, just in case you needed to change the channel quickly to a program that wouldn鈥檛 get

Last Saturday, I declared Spiritual Disability as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, challenge facing mankind today. Its causes, from the Hindu perspective, are the taamasik or dark qualities of man.

If I were to ask you to name a well-known endeavor where disability is a requirement, what would your reply be? The first thing that jumps to mind is probably Paralympics.

Probably most people have heard about the quality the Buddhists call 'suchness' or 'thusness' (Sanskrit, tathata). It refers to a sense of an absolute reality which is untainted by judgement, opinion or preferences.

Zen stories and parables about enlightenment often involve a monk sweeping. It is a common motif. Of the dozens of domestic chores which monks must perform only sweeping has risen to the level of an archetype.

In a consumer society, we wait for the big sale days 鈥� Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and eventually Boxing Day. We wait for great deals. We save up our money or ensure there is room on our credit cards.

I鈥檝e been hard-wired to wallow in my weaknesses. I get manic about my mistakes far too often for far too long. These patterns mute and, at times, silence my flourishing. But I鈥檝e discovered a way to change that. I鈥檓 currently practicing it.

I鈥檓 always amazed 鈥� and dismayed 鈥� at how quickly I fall out of being present to what Richard Rohr would call the 鈥渞eally real鈥� or the 鈥渘aked now.鈥� This is especially hard to bear as it takes so much work to get to such a state in the first place.

I recently moved. It wasn鈥檛 a very big move distance wise; just from the Westshore to downtown Victoria. In terms of how it felt, though, I may as well have been moving to another continent.