This week, among all the many horrible stories in the news, two particularly stuck out ...

A disturbing video caught by surveillance cameras shows a 2-year-old girl in China laying in the street bleeding, a victim of a hit and run. Even more shocking is that the toddler was then ignored by at least 18 people. Video of the incident, which took place Oct. 13, shows pedestrians and vehicles passing by the toddler, named Yueyue, after she was run over outside her family's shop in the Chinese city of Foshan. A single person stopped to help the child as she lay bloody on the narrow street. At least 18 people passed by on bikes, in vehicles, or on foot.

... and ...

Philadelphia police showed on Monday the "dungeon" where four mentally challenged adults were held captive by three suspects accused of stealing their disability checks. The cramped, 6-foot-high, 15-foot-wide bomb shelter was hidden behind a steel door in the basement of a home in the city's Tacony section. The four adults were abused and kept in cellar since early October, where they were given only water to drink and fed just once a day by their captors, police said. Police also said that the wounds found on Beatrice Weston, the 19-year-old niece of the alleged ringleader, Linda Weston, where the worst wounds they had ever seen on a living person. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said, "I've never seen anything like this in a living person. It's remarkable that she is still alive. There is no penalty too harsh for the people that did this. The word horrific is not sufficient."

Tears are not enough. I want to scream, throw up! Sickening and heart breaking all at once!

Yet once again, the Xin Xin Ming advices us to drop opinions and judgments and "things can long long offend". Drop opinions and judgments and they will 'cease to offend'?

BUT IN THE FACE OF SUCH TRAGEDY!? WHAT!!!??!!!

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,

nothing in the world can offend ...

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.

When thought objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes,

as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject (mind);

the mind (subject) is such because of things (object).

Understand the relativity of these two

and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.

In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable

and each contains in itself the whole world.

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine

you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

SUCH THINGS NOT 'OFFEND'?

DON'T JUDGE OR HOLD OPINIONS ABOUT IT??

IS IT A JOKE!!?!!

HOW CAN THAT BE!?!

Well, far from making our hearts cold and numb to such horrors, we open our hearts wider ... so wide and spacious that it holds all the broken pieces, the ugliness and tears. Wisdom and Compassion boundless.

Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended

Please visit the forum thread here!