Full time Lupie

If you have not yet delved into the far reaching depths and or earlier updates of this blog, you may not know that whilst having Lupus, I also work full time.  As many of us familiar with the disease know, it comes in all shapes and sizes (a bit like my waistline over the past 5 years) as well as severity.  To work full time for anyone is demanding, the relief of the approaching weekend and Saturday morning lie ins to recuperate, is notable if not from the sighs of my husband (the lovely and hardworking SuperMark) on a Friday morning, then the literary cheers, whoops of glee and photos with glasses of wine in hand on my Facebook feed on a Friday evening.  But for anyone working full time with a condition like mine, the reward of making it through a working week is far more of a celebration than the usual Friday night 'Beer 'o' clock' festivities.   To make it through to 5.30pm on a Friday when you suffer with chronic pain, fatigue, nausea, sore joints and a belly full of toxic medication is a rewarding and honourable achievement, because there was at one point in your life, when you thought you may never work again.

Karma Influence?

"We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate." - Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw

The other day I knocked over the glass of water sat on my bedside table, swiftly and in clean slow motion, it toppled perfectly to one side, pouring its contents as skilfully as a running tap into my bulging and grubby makeup bag on the floor nearby, before rolling itself with a dull thud into the same flooded mess.  The same makeup i've been procrastinating about cleaning out for weeks,  divine intervention from the universe for being a lazy cow? Or just an ironic coincidence.

As long as I can remember I have been a great believer in fate, destiny and more notably the value of and concept of Karma. As we know,  Karma is a fundamental doctrine in the faith's of Hinduism, Taoism and is commonly recognised and taught throughout Buddhism.  The basic understanding of it being what you give it out to the world, you will get back in return.  When studied, it runs far deeper, delving into the theory of past lives and describes the philosophy as the 'law of moral causation', to understand the inequality of mankind, that our life as we know it is not merely coincidental or by accident, but the result of our past deeds and the actions we undertake in the present.