One of the best and friendliest places to stop and visit anywhere in the world is a Buddhist temple. In many places, it is often a simple and small Dharma Centre. There is a lovely Dharma Centre in Paia, Maui that is well worth a visit. On my recent visit to Maui, I visited the unique temple and Dharma centre in Paia many times. A key feature of the temple, in addition to the world class Lama Gyalsten, is the ever-present resident that looks after the centre. His name is Theodore (Teddy to me.)  

Teddy is a very thoughtful and wonderful man. He has helped me in so many ways. On this visit we talked openly about my daughter Emily who took her own life on January 26, 2019.  When I told Teddy about Emily, you could feel him absorb this in an incredible way. I have encountered this tremendous feeling with a few amazing souls over the last few years. You can absolutely feel them totally absorb the energy of Emily and the loss. It is very hard to explain this in words, but it is incredibly obvious when it happens. 

The average man seldom pays enough attention to his slight mystical experiences to profit or learn from them. Yet his need for them is evidenced by his incessant seeking for the thrills, sensations, uplifts, and so on, which he organizes for himself in so many ways--the religious way being only one of them. In fact, the failure of religion--in the West, at any rate--to teach true mysticism, and its overlaying of the deeply mystic nature of its teachings with a pseudo-rationalism and an unsound historicity may be the root cause for driving people to seek for things greater than they feel their individual selves to be in the many sensation-giving activities in the world today.

Well, Teddy is full of real mystical experiences and when he gets going, watch out, you will be full of bliss. About fifteen minutes after I had told Teddy about Emily, he was sure to take me for a spiritual ride. He said to me with absolute certainty and with intense eyes: "You know Sherm, the entire universe is nothing but energy, and energy cannot die, energy is everywhere and therefore, so is Emily." I closed my eyes and drifted off into reality and abided in that, and Teddy. 

This immense "Teddy Teaching" is one that we can all harvest on this day of Thanksgiving. 

Sherman Dahl 
The Emily Dahl Foundation 
October 10, 2022