All in a day's work

What an eventful day... It's about 6:15pm right now as I write this and my mind is a bit jumbled with what has happened today. Not sure where to begin... hmmm...

Anyways I'll start by today's SGIA Melbourne Centre Spring Cleaning. Rocked up in the morning to help out in clearing our old junk that has been accumulating at our Culture Centre. Kind of reminds me of the junk that I have at home... hehehe... gotta have to clean those up before I move...

Turn out of people helping was good... quite a lot of hands to do the cleaning. There were a few heavy, hard waste that needed carting off to the portable tip that was hired so the first thing that one of the Men's Division member (MD) did was get all the Young Men's Division members (YMD's) to get cracking on that... lol... wasn't long until we got everything into the tip except this gigantic, solid wood flat crate thingy (for lack of better description). It was about 2 metres by 3 metres and about 20-30cm thick solid wood bordering it. I think it was used to transport some type of panel or painting or whatever... but it was heavy. Took about 4-6 of us to lift it (although with that many people it wasn't that heavy).

Anyways, with this bulky crate-thingy we had to go around the garden at the back of the centre, through the sidegate to the tip in front of the centre. At first we leant it on the side of the tip, but one of the MD told us that we can't have things sticking out of the tip - it has to be flat. So a bunch of us started shifting things out of the way. And oh ya... the insects!! ewww... I hate creepy crawlies... the cockroaches and multicolored insects that set up residents in the hard waste made the hairs on my body stand. I started to feel as if they were crawling all over me... *shudder*... but I digress...

So we were moving stuff to lay the humongous crate-thingy down and when we finally got some space we let it lay down. As we did one of the YMD's let out a sound... it wasn't a yell but just an audible 'oh'... I looked up and I thought he crushed his foot... but he was alright. He was standing there and looked a bit dazed. So I thought he was ok. But I felt something was a bit wrong in the back of my mind. I was distracted by the MD who was explaining the proper use of the tip (lol... very informative lecture) when suddenly I saw the YMD from the corner of my eye a bit frozen and almost sitting on the side of the tip. Then suddenly I heard another YMD who was weeding nearby start screaming for another to help that YMD out.

At that moment I could see what was happening and I don't know why I didn't rush to his aide immediately. Maybe because there was already a few people who were on the way to his aide - but immediately the first thing that pop in my mind was "call an ambulance"... anyways I rushed to his side, by then a few YMD were already supporting him and he had gone into a seizure. One of the other YMD was fumbling for something to put into his mouth and eventually found his handkerchief that he rolled up and shoved into his mouth. I turned to the MD nearby and started yelling out loud, "Call an Ambulance" etc, etc, a few times.

Luckily a few members who were nurses were around and they took care of the YMD pretty quickly. He recovered soon afterwards and the ambulance came, maybe about 10-15 minutes later.

My point for relating this event is that I realized a few thoughts; maybe weaknesses in myself or processes in an emergency.

1. From the point of few as a VCT member (basically a Sokahan/Byakuren group - SGI members who dedicate themselves in the background to make sure events run smoothly and everything is safe for members to enjoy the activity/event/meeting)... are we prepared enough to deal with any emergency. I'm not asking for all of us to have a paramedics certification, but do we have, ingrained within us a formal process that in any emergency we can deal with it very calmly. Today we were fumbling along; well I was fumbling along - instead of just calling out for someone to call the ambulance, maybe I should have went and called or should have said "[Name], go call an ambulance".
2. How sensitive are we to others. I noticed some 'signs' prior to his fit and I didn't do anything about it. Maybe I should have been more concerned or at least verbally ask if he was alright. Am I not receptive enough? Does it mean I'm not as compassionate enough??
3. In terms of our practice/Buddhism, things happen for a reason; I'm pretty sure that as a result of his chanting, this incident has happened. Now, I mean this in a good way; we learn in Buddhism that we polish our karma or reform our 'bad' karma as we chant. This means that we are able to manifest the 'bad' things earlier in a lesser form; by doing so we avoid worst things. Not sure if I explained this properly... hmmm... lemme go back and read up some more about this to give a better explanation. I know for a fact that this YMD has lots of challenges and stress lately and he's been chanting lots and lots and lots... so in a way what has happened to him is a good thing, in a sense.

However, when people are taking care of him, I went off to do something else. I felt like I was being insensitive or uncompassionate. Afterall, my friend and fellow member has suffered a fit and all I do is go and clean up the centre!!!??? Well, I see that he was very well taken care of, and I didn't want to stand around feeling helpless... was it wrong of me to go off and do something else? Should I have stayed by his side like another YMD did...

I'm not good at stuff regarding human-to-human interaction... in fact I'm a straight-forward no-nonsense type of person (well, that's how I see myself, but I bet my gf begs to differ... lol...) One thing for sure I have to chant more for myself and for those around me - that the shoten zenjin/protective forces around us do protect us. I'm sure that YMD today was looked after by the shoten zenjin's because he had the seizure in front of us, at a location with about 3-5 nurses, surrounded by friends and members; afterall he could have suffered the attack isolated at home without anybody knowing.

I guess I'm a bit shaken - in a sense, of how fragile human life is... we take so much for granted and don't truly appreciate being alive as much as we are suppose to be until such incidents happen. I pretty much waste my time daily with lazing around and doing nothing. I guess this is a kick start for my 'human revolution' engine. I feel more determined now to re-strengthen my practice.