Spiders are Not Your Biggest Fear

Exactly two years ago, my sister gave birth to twins in the middle of the night. They arrived a couple of weeks early. When I got to the ICU ward in the hospital, my sister’s vital signs were high and she asked me to lead a meditation to help her calm down. I stood in corner of the tiny space, partitioned by a curtain, and gave my brother-in-law the only chair while my sister lay in bed. Five minutes into the meditation, I suggested rising above the hospital and imagining looking down to give all the souls in the hospital  who are suffering the light of peace. That’s the last thing I remember standing. The next scene was a lot of doctors surrounding me, checking to see if my neck was broken. I was put on a stretcher and the cut eyelid was stitched up in the emergency room. I had a broken sternum, which the doctor could not much about expect recommending rest till it healed. Apparently I fainted and fell upright, like a tree chopped from the bottom, with the chest landing on the floor and my head on the bottom of the IV stand. My brother-in-law, bless his heart, was now running between the newborns in the nursery, the ICU and the emergency room.

The Three Things You Should Know About Karma

Several years ago, I bought a motorcycle to get around San Francisco. It was the best decision I made as I could zip through choked streets. One afternoon, I cut through the middle of two lanes of vehicles stopped at a traffic signal. When I was almost at the very front, my handle bar touched a car stopped on the left. I thought it was a mild touch and continued forward to the white line. Shortly thereafter that car started honking. As it was a mild contact, I thought the driver was looking to pick a fight for nothing. As soon as the light turned green, I sped away. A mile down the street, I noticed the driver was still following me and honking.

Lucid Planet Radio Podcast: Bringing Peace to the Park and Finding Calm in a Chaotic World with Jay Chodagam