The following was posted in support of Spaw and Karen, after Spaw wrote about a horrible situation, in the TFTD thread of the 17th Oct. 1999. I think it bears repeating, but didn't want to bring up either of the whole threads from back then, so...here's to PeterT and his wise ways and a special thought for Karen and Spaw on their 25th anniversary:

Subject: RE: October 18th Thought For The Day
From: Peter T. - PM
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 10:52 AM

Alternative thought for the day, for reasons cited at the bottom:

"I want to speak today of a certain kind of bodhisattva. As you know, in our Buddhist tradition, there are bodhisattvas, figures who refuse to go into Heaven unless all other beings go first down to the lowliest blade of grass. They toil through endless aeons, working compassionately through the vast web of life. Of all these, none are so revered and so unknown as the "mirrorless bodhisattvas" -- bodhisattvas who do not know they are Buddha, and who if you told them they were, would laugh at you. We say of them that they do not carry around a mirror to see how wonderfully they are doing: they just keep doing. You have all glimpsed them, perhaps: often poor, sometimes seemingly crazy, rude, foolish, twisting in convoluted patterns to untangle an entangled world. How many spills they mop up; how many late nights they work; how little thanks they get; how often drained of belief, hope, energy they are. And yet it is these mirrorless bodhisattvas that bring a smile to our face when we think of them -- a mother, a friend, or, who knows, a stranger met once on a street who helped you for no obvious reason -- it is they who bring compassionate awakening to worlds plunged in suffering." -- Pasanchon (Korean Buddhist)

for (about) Catspaw, yesterday.
yours, Peter T.

luvyakat