Video posted on YouTube by mofreedom
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others
All the misery the world contains
Has come though wanting pleasure for oneself”
Shatideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva
Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group
My roommate often reminds me that growing old isn’t for sissies. I think that perhaps it takes more courage to be young than to grow old. Many of our young will not survive long enough to be able to complain about the aches in their joints, or whether or not they will be able to retire, or how they can no longer eat this or that because of stomach problems and lost teeth.
- 2007, 9.2 million children died before their fifth birthday. (UNICEF)
- 2.2 million children die each year from diseases caused by lack of clean water for consumption and sanitation, including such diseases as diarrhoea,trachoma, schistosomiasis, cholera, and intestinal worms. (childinfo.org)
- 862 million people suffer from “food deficit,” while world wide expenditures on arms in U.S. dollars in 2006 was $200 billion dollars; the excess consumption of the worlds obese is estimated at $20 billion dollars; and, a single country can waste as much as $100 billion dollars worth of food; subsidies to turn cereal grains into fuel were $11-12 billion dollars and involved the diversion of 100 tons of grain into fuel. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO).
- Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans. (Worldwide HIV/AIDS Statistics)
Getting involved:
May all our children be cherished.
May their tables be laden with food
and their hearts be light with joy.
