This blog is written to provide information and support to persons who are providing care for someone with dementia. A first indicator of dementia is when someone has trouble doing a task once familiar and easy for them. If you have begun to be concerned about someone's memory or cognitive processing, help the person receive a physical exam, to include lab work, and an appointment with a neuropsychologist for an evaluation of memory and cognitive processing.
Oct 15, 2009
Cultivating virtue
If cultivating virtue is the first step in the guidelines for living suggested by Buddha, then what is virtue? American Heritage Dictionary defines virtue as moral excellence, righteous, goodness, chastity. How does one know if one is cultivating virtue? One way is to see if one's words and behaviors match. When people's words and actions do not match, I have found the more reliable quality to go by is their actions. It seems that the more unconscious people are, the more their words and actions may not match; and conversely, the more conscious one is, the more words and actions are congruent. Author Karen Armstrong, in A History of God, says that the authentic test for religion (let's substitute virtue), is not what people believe, but what they do. I would say that unless one practices compassion and lovingkindness to all living things, including oneself, then one has not cultivated virtue.
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Yes, and when someone tells me they're religious (virtuous), I always wonder why it is they feel the need to TELL people. Usually because it doesn't show. We're seeing that on a huge scale with the far right fundamentalist politicians.
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