Please Help!!!

Commit to sit

My girlfriend Lacey and I will commit to sit and try to balance our lives by taking the challenge, it is hard with our very busy lives, with school, work, pets, and everything else in life that disconnects us from attainning peace. with so much negativity in this world some times the best place to find peace is with in ourselves so on monday I will commit to sit and become the peacuful warrior that I should be and tackle life in a more peaceful manner. Big smiles to everyone and love.

Take this 28-day meditation challenge and go on retreat without leaving home.

We don’t have to remind you how toxic our lives can be. Stress at work, arguments with loved ones, poor diets, and too many hectic weekends conjure daydreams of Himalayan caves -- guaranteed not to have cell phone reception. But in reality, even that retreat you’ve been planning for years feels like an impossible commitment.

Balancing a commitment to becoming more compassionate and wise with the responsibilities of a family, a career, and a checking account is a near-constant dilemma for many practitioners. To help, we’ve teamed up with one of the West’s foremost Buddhist teachers, Sharon Salzberg, to create an intensive meditation program designed for your busy schedule. No steep retreat fees, no putting newspaper delivery on hold, no out-of-office replies required.

Our twenty-eight-day Commit to Sit challenge puts that daydream of an intense daily practice to the test. How different will you feel when you meditate every day for a month? What happens when you commit to the five traditional Buddhist vows for laypeople, including refraining from intoxicants and minding your speech? The meditation instructions provided here come out of the Vipassana tradition, which can be traced directly to the way the Buddha himself practiced. The program schedule is based on Vipassana retreats popular in the West and has been constructed to encourage and support your practice.

Whether you have months of retreat under your belt or have never been able to keep up a regular meditation practice, the simple structure of the program and accompanying instructions will help you to deepen and reinforce your practice. We have combined introductory teachings with guided meditations and a simple practice schedule so that anyone can participate in the challenge. However, people with an extensive daily regimen already in place may want to practice for longer periods than recommended, or include elements from their regular practice.

Begin whenever you want. Everything you need to experience this at-home retreat is contained in the Spring 2007 issue of Tricycle, but here we offer further teachings and resources to aid those of you who take this challenge. The links below will take you to inspiring dharma talks, meditation instructions, and discussion forums allowing you to communicate with fellow Commit to Sit participants -- including members of the Tricycle staff -- about your hurdles and successes. And in March, Sharon Salzberg will answer five questions from Tricycle readers online. You can post a question right now!

Good luck, and remember: This is a challenge. It is a structured four-week program intended to give you a taste of the benefits of intensive meditation training. Everyone will struggle to follow the program perfectly. Do not let missed meditation sessions or broken vows discourage you. Just return to the practice. As Sharon Salzberg often tells her students, it’s the coming back that deepens our practice.

I love this movie, it's been a long time since a good war epic movie. Is agreat action movie go and see it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

My boys love playing in the snow, they are so freaking cute and my babe she is the best too. =)

I recomend this movie to anybody who want's to learn more about life and how to become better people in this world. Loved it.

Our new additions name is Leon,  because he is a Leonberger. Lacey and I love our dogs and they love the snow that we have now =)

I started training  for my first Triatholon two weeks ago and it feels great. I got  inspired one day after seeing this special on CNN  at the gym, and on april 22 I will do my first triatholon (small one just to start). My ultimate goal is in 2 years from now to complete  the Ironman competition. I'm so exited. I love training and working out so this will be a great test.


 

Father-son duo are world class competitors, despite odds

Dick Hoyt pushes himself physically because it allows him to have a special relationship with his son, Rick, says Rick's brother, Russell 137K/22 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

November 29, 1999
Web posted at: 10:11 a.m. EST (1511 GMT)

In this story: 'Every Boston Marathon since 1981' 'The biggest smile you ever saw in your life' 'The only place where truly I feel as an equal' RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOSTON (CNN) -- When Rick Hoyt was 15, he communicated something to his father that changed both their lives. "Dad," the mute quadriplegic wrote in his computer after his father pushed him in a wheelchair in a five-kilometer race, "I felt like I wasn't handicapped."

Rick, now 37, has had cerebral palsy since birth. But he has always been treated simply as one of the family, included by his now-divorced parents in almost everything brothers Rob and Russell did.

"They told us to put Rick away, in an institution, (because) he's going to be nothing but a vegetable for the rest of his life," his father remembers.

"We said, 'No, we're not going to do that. We're going to bring Rick home and bring him up like any other child,'" says Dick Hoyt, 59, a retired lieutenant colonel with the Air National Guard. "And this is what we have done."

And how.

Dick Hoyt says his son is the true competitor 72K/06 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

'Every Boston Marathon since 1981'

For more than 20 years, Dick has either towed, pushed or carried Rick in a string of athletic challenges including every Boston Marathon since 1981 and, most recently, last month's Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii.

For that event, competitors have to swim 2 1/2 miles through the ocean and then peddle a bicycle 112 miles before running a hilly, 26.2-mile marathon.

In the triathlon swim, Rick lies on his back in a rubber raft attached by rope to a wetsuit vest worn by his father. In the bike portion, Rick sits in a chair attached to the front of Dick's bike, and on the run, Dick pushes Rick in the race chair.

This year, it took them 16 hours and 14 minutes to finish the 140-mile day of reckoning -- about two hours slower than their first try, in 1989. But time isn't the point. Teamwork is. The Hoyts are the only tandem ever to complete the Ironman Triathlon World Championships together.

'The biggest smile you ever saw in your life'

The spark for this lifetime of patience and devotion was ignited in 1977.

The teen-age Rick asked his father if he could participate in a five-kilometer (3.1 mile) race to benefit an athlete paralyzed in an accident. Dick agreed and pushed his son the entire distance in a jerry-rigged chair that now resides in the Massachusetts Sports Hall of Fame.

As they crossed the finish line that day, Rick flashed "the biggest smile you ever saw in your life," his father told CNN. When they got home, Rick went to a specially built computer that allowed him to communicate using a head switch to select letters and spell out words.

The message Rick typed, expressing his joy of feeling "like I wasn't handicapped," began an odyssey of love that continues to this day, taking father and son to competitions around the world. It even inspired Dick to learn how to swim.

"He's the one who has motivated me because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be out there competing," says Dick. "What I'm doing is loaning Rick my arms and legs so he can be out there competing like everybody else."

Dick Hoyt says he is most proud of Rick's graduation from Boston University 131K/11 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

The competitor completes college

And yet, for all of their athletic achievement, the Hoyt family's greatest pride came in 1993 when Rick, a young man with no use of his legs or arms or of his tongue got his Bachelor of Science degree from Boston University.

"It just gives me a great feeling that he's been able to accomplish all of these things (when) they said he was going to be nothing but a vegetable," his proud father says.

While Rick made the grades, much of the credit for making that possible goes to his mother. It was Judy Hoyt who battled to have a state law changed so that her son could attend public school.

'The only place where truly I feel as an equal'

Rick now lives in his own apartment near the B.U. campus with the assistance of personal care attendants, and works at the university developing computers to aid disabled people. He and Dick travel the country giving motivational speeches and, of course, they battle the road, as a unit -- participating in upwards of 50 races a year, touching everyone with whom they come in contact.

Rick: "When I am running, my disability seems to disappear"

After coming this far against the odds, it's understandable to hear Dick say, "There is nothing in the world that the both of us can't conquer together."

But mental determination and physical stamina tell only part of the Hoyt story. A message of independence and acceptance typed by Rick typed on his computer complete the picture:

"When I am running, my disability seems to disappear. It is the only place where truly I feel as an equal. Due to all the positive feedback, I do not feel handicapped at all. Rather, I feel that I am the intelligent person that I am with no limits. I have a message for the world which is this: To take time to get to know people with disabilities for the individuals they are."

Correspondent Jim Huber contributed to this report

I just got done reading Night, and is a really good book. It's a sad book that reminds us of the dark side of human nature, and that we should appreciate our lives because when  our time comes thats all we have. ( Man's search for meaning,  another great book).

I love my new dog, he is the best. I can't wait to play with him in the snow. 

Four weeks ago Lacey and I just got a Great Prenees puppy, and we love this dog. He is 14 weeks old puppy with a great personality, playfull, sweet, caring, but not very obidient, oh well. I can't wait to get home to play with him when I'm at school, or at work and we take everywhere with us.. I fell like a proud parent because he is such a good dog, he is nice to people and other dogs including my brothes pain in the ass bulldog xavior.
I love my new puppy. haha =) his name is Riely.