Friday, January 9, 2009

Reality Check in a County Hospital



Today I spent 14 hours at Parkland Hospital to get medicines for my asthma. I am exhausted to say the least. I had planned to write about other more "intellectual subjects" but my experience was a reality check at a grand scale. The hospital had hundreds if not thousands of people waiting to be helped. I saw a great deal of suffering as might be expected in such circumstances. Is not every day that I go to the Hospital for anything. In my case, it has being over two or three years since I have been in one. But the long wait made me observe the coming and going of people in a more detailed and focused way. I just took a very long hot shower when I got home at night as to cleanse my mind and body of the exposure to such suffering. The images of all those people I saw in pain and despair haunt me. I offered a silent prayer for them taught to me by a Tibetan lama. May all sentient beings be liberated from suffering and the CAUSE of their suffering. We are seconds away from becoming them, we are not excluded. I am grateful for all the blessings in my life, today more than ever.