Welcome to wholehearted.blog!
Nothing gives me greater joy than inspiring and encouraging people. Hence my blog!
I wanted to create an online oasis, a space to come to revive your heart and soul with life-affirming articles, quotes, poems, comments and musings, all of which accord with the Buddhist philosophy of respecting the dignity of all life.
I particularly have women in mind, to help us come together to strengthen ourselves. I believe that our voices are called for at this time in human history to help bring about a new ethos on our planet. An ethos that respects and supports life, instead of exploiting and destroying it. But of course, like-minded gentlemen are also most welcome!
As Pam Montgomery points out in her wonderful book, Plant Spirit Healing, one of the basic tenets of nature (a.k.a. life) is that of interconnected and and interdependent relationships.
She says, “When we try to do it all ourselves, we often fall short because this is not how nature is designed. Everything in nature is interdependent; nothing stands alone.”
I hope you enjoy the content you find here.
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FeaturedIt’s Different for Girls – Or Is It?
True Buddhism as taught by Nichiren Daishonin reveals that females and males are equally endowed with the potential to manifest Buddhahood.
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FeaturedStop Shoulding on Yourself
Dropping “should” from your thought pattern creates a completely different mindset, and therefore a completely different outcome.
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FeaturedWhat David Bowie and I Had in Common…
Buddhist practice has a way of bringing you answers or messages that you need in sometimes very surprising ways!
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FeaturedWhat A Difference A Week Makes
More often than not, the problems we meet with are opportunities in disguise. Opportunities to help us learn and grow and expand our capacities.
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FeaturedA Date with Destiny
A thought popped into my mind as I prepared to leave home Saturday afternoon to go downtown: “I have a date with destiny.”
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FeaturedCavorting With The Crowd
O poets, who ceaselessly, constantly write, sitting there, tireless, far into the night addressing your poems to god knows who (and she/he ain’t telling). When will you desist? Give up? Renounce the fight? Take the first flight out of here. Get away, take a break; a change of air is what you need. Just the… Read more
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FeaturedLet Hope In
Without hope, we really can’t have happiness.
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FeaturedDo You Believe in Angels?
I had a recent run-in with a real, honest-to-goodness angel…
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FeaturedWrite on
This morning Universe spoke directly to me, succinctly and clearly.
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FeaturedGimme 5!
It’s not the easiest thing to set and keep a new positive habit, so here are some sage words to help you get back on track when you fall off the wagon.
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FeaturedGod Rest The Queen
In the last ten days I’ve done a lot of learning, a lot of realising and a lot of growing. And I feel very grateful for it.
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FeaturedThe Creation of Value
We all have the urge to create, however buried it might be at the moment…
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FeaturedLive and Let Love
I’d like to tell you a few stories…
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FeaturedIt’s about Time!
I bought a book of magic yesterday.
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FeaturedR-E-S-P-E-C-T
Respect is the absolute, bottom line, fundamental attitude I need in my relationship with myself.
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FeaturedLet It In
Appreciate whatever comes up in you; it’s in your life for you to transform it into “some new delight.”
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FeaturedThe Facts and Fiction of Life
Each person’s life is a mixture of what happens (fact) and the stories we tell ourselves about what has happened (fiction).
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FeaturedCourage, My Love
Courage comes in many shapes and forms, but always from the heart…
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FeaturedLife Is Worth Fighting For
The other week something happened that filled me with delight. For a while…
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FeaturedHello, Critical Voice
I’ve been slipping in and out of depression recently. And my Critical Voice has worked overtime at spewing out negativity in my mind. But not forever!
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FeaturedToday Is My Last Day
Since actor Ray Liotta’s unexpected death – to him and everyone else – I’ve given serious thought to how I would spend my day if I knew it was my last…
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FeaturedSinking Like A Stone
the dreadful the dreaded
loneliness
tugging and tearing
at the fabric of lifeheartlessly
shredding every vestige
of hopeinviting
darkness to invade
every inner nook and cranny -
FeaturedThe Truth Shall Set You Free
We have long accepted the biblical quote “the truth shall set you free” as a truism. But I wonder how often we think about its opposite: Lies shall imprison you.
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FeaturedPay Attention!
It can be said that life is a balancing act. Where you focus your attention makes a significant difference to keeping your balance.
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FeaturedWe Live in Two Worlds
Perhaps because our eyes are directed outwards, we human beings usually look to our environment as the source of our happiness or unhappiness…
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FeaturedGetting Lost in That Hopeless Little Screen
The tendency to believe that only large, grandiose actions lead to change can kill the incentive to make those small changes, little tweaks, that add up over time to something really big.
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FeaturedLost and Found
I was 36 years old, flat broke, two months behind with the rent, I couldn’t get a job to save my life, and Welfare (Social Security) had turned me down…
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FeaturedDo The Work
Where there is resolution, there will also be resistance.
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FeaturedFrom Spiritual Worrier to Spiritual Warrior!
We’re spiritual warriors. But I was far more accustomed to being a spiritual worrier, because my mind’s default programming was fear and dread.
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FeaturedA Ship to Cross The Sea of Suffering
An inner calm is essential in order to realise our dreams. But calmness and I were not very well acquainted.
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FeaturedIt Will Change
In the midst of the horror and the heartbreak in Ukraine, something very good is happening…
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FeaturedSmile please!
Just as the body can follow the mind (I feel happy, so I smile) the mind can equally well follow the body.
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FeaturedOne Step at A Time
I was exhausted last Friday. It felt like torture. After teasing us with a spring-like temperature, melting ice and glimpses of green grass on Wednesday, Mother Nature changed her mind on Thursday and delivered a snowstorm – during the evening rush hour. I watched in horror as my car did a slow-mo, relentless slide into… Read more
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FeaturedMe Too
When I arrived in Montreal in 1974 I believed that my new country would treat me well. Less than a month later, I found out otherwise. (Please don’t read this poem if you are easily triggered.)
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FeaturedListen, I’ll Tell You Something
One of the things I love about my Buddhist practice is that it puts my life in rhythm. I’m not just a little microcosmic cog in a big, unfeeling machine.
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FeaturedBring Back The F Word!
How do you bear with emotional pain in a way that nourishes and nurtures your inner growth?
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FeaturedWeapons of Mass Distraction
Do you ever feel that Life is lining you up for something? Stacking the deck for, or against, you? I do!
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FeaturedOne Thing Leads to Another
A seemingly tiny improvement in how you feel about yourself can make a big difference over time.
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FeaturedAre You Haunted by Your Past?
We breathe a kind of radioactive half-life into our past experiences by re-membering them, and reliving how awful they were, effectively creating zombie memories, phantom memories, which we use to haunt and frighten ourselves.
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FeaturedTeachers and Trees and Healing Trauma
Trauma. PTSD. Nothing warm and fuzzy there. Or is there?
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FeaturedThe Day that Changed My Life
I thought I had no choice but to suffer the effects of all the bad causes I had made. Fortunately for me, I was wrong…
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FeaturedDevilish Fear Be Gone!
Interestingly, our English word “devil” comes from the Greek DIABOLOS meaning that which splits, or divides, us.
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