My son meets his uncle Lee.

There are a few things that can bring you down and set your emotions on warp drive in the course of a day and today my twin brother wrote on face book telling my son Karim to stop being a retard and grow up tob e a somebody and this from a picture of Karim acting like a hoodlum with his Chinese college friend. The picture was taken after their performance where both played the role of thugs in a short video clip, as school project. Karim apologized to my twin brother and explained the story behind the picture. if I were my twin i would feel like a fool for making such negative judgement towards my nephew especially on Face Book where everyone reads that is connected or related to Karim and I. I replied asking him to apologize so that the respect Karim has for him is not jeopardized. He also failed to realize that Karim is an adult now and calling him boy is an insult to him even if it is from me his father.

Love comes from the heart and the heart is forgiving.

In good times and in bad, you still are my brother.

Now I am convinced of how my twin feels about me and my children, he has a very low opinion of us and is ever ready to pass harsh judgement to tear us down, which kind of reminds me of the letter I received when I was having a great time in Bali of which is still contained in this blogging as a reminder of those who have a tough time giving compliments and most happy when you are at their mercy and in need. Ironic that we came into this world half and hour apart from each other , that we looked so much alike that even his children could not make the difference at one time. I abide by the Islamic tenets that i cannot break the bonds between me and my blood brothers and sisters no matter how bad things get between us. My children are still looking for themselves where they stand as far as religions goes and this incident of calling one of them a retard where the rest cannot avoid but read is a very un-Muslim like, and what did the Prophet of Allah had to say about this in his hadith about this?.

"If you consider mindfulness as a means of having a lot of money, then you have not touched its true purpose... It may look like the practise of mindfulness but inside there's no peace, no joy, no happiness produced. It's just an imitation." - Thay in his latest interview with The Guardian

And this too will pass...I hope we learn as we move along this treacherous path we call our lives each of us carrying our own shit loads. We believe what we will and have our own opinions, our own conditioned way of looking at life,; perhaps a little sensitivity, a little 'more towards the positive than adding to the already murky waters' kind of sharing ourselves with others. When we wish to look for the ugly side of the person we can rise hell itself, but to find the goodness in a man all you have to do is feel good in yourself for him. A  brother at the Zen center in San Francisco once said to me, "Sham, compassion is the ability to allow for someone else to exist in your heart, create the space." Thank you David L. All it is is the 'Return to Innocence' of who we truly are, a 'tabula rasa' or empty page, letting it all become a lesson in life, what is living? How do avoid living in constant conflict, how do we avoid hurting each other and learn to accept and love one another unconditionally like a mother loving her child from the day he or she was born till the day she dies. I read the Dalai Lama in one of his teaching was said to have said that "All santient beings are our mothers in the this evolution of life called incarnation." or some thing like that, read it quite sometime ago while standing in a book section aisle and reading while waiting for my daughter does her shopping. It could have been a book on the works of Nagarjuna, or it have been a dissertation on the works of Shantideva, or was it , well one of those works which talked about the Bodhisatva's vows.

I believe in servitude as my prayer, as my way of saying thank you Lord for allowing me to be awakened to this life among my fellow men and allowing me till this moment able to share my thoughts and feelings about what I see, feel and experiences. I serve my children, I serve my relatives and friends, Serve my community and state, I serve my country in the best way I know how and so will my children if they understand me. I have brought them into this world  knowing that it is full of suffering, I am their father and it is upon me to make as much sense out of life in order that it will ease their burden as they walk through their lives, by my sharing of who or what I am I hope in some small way they will understand better why there is so much pain in their lives and hopefully they too will become servants of my Lord. Ram Dass, the servant of God, the ultimate sacrifice of servitude in serving the Lord of Hanuman for Ram and Sita.
"La kum di nu kum, wali adin", you have your way i have mine, we will never be the samebut along the way we can share our burden and attain the mindfulness of enlightenment.

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