Corey Couch Sethi

Corey and Justin married this past weekend. I sit here, tears coming down my face this Monday morning. Susie is taking Racheo back into town after we capped off the weekend with an Indian ceremony at Justin's mother's house in Fairfax.

And it's all hitting home right now. I'm remembering so many sweet moments of unutterable beauty about my girls, Susie, Corey, and Rachel growing and loving here in Wolftown, but I weep inside an enveloping sadness about times gone by. Perhaps its elusiveness is beauty itself. We can grasp just a piece of it as it flies by and experience not so much its essence but its passing; that it is forever out of reach but we can, at times, ensnare it inside an amber moment of our own creation.

The wedding itself generated magnificent energy, with about 140 different and wonderful people joining together in a spectacular celebration. We held it outside, the weather crisp, colorful, and smooth as velvet. My aging parents did finally make it and we were all so happy they did. They sat in the front row with us and my bro officiated. He was his usual loving, funny, serene voice of authority delivering beautiful words that fit the occasion perfectly. The breeze blew across the couple, lifting Corey's veil over her right shoulder; Rachel tucked it into her dress. The Blue Ridge behind them glistened in the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, their colors hightened by rain the day before (during our golf match with Sunny, me, and the rest Justin's friends and groomsmen, 13 total). It couldn't have been more beautiful.

My main job was to welcome everyone, as I did happily but with the usual nervous anticipation. I wanted to get it just right. I wanted to do my very best for Corey's sake. As it happened, it was a transitional moment for me, and I felt it to the very core of my being. I had thought about it a great deal, thinking of some phrases but it was only in a mid-conscious dream a few weeks before that the phrase came to me, "a moment when all things that have ever been come together with all things that will ever be" which then launched the perfect follow-through, "just as Corey and Justin have come together today to become one, to become a singularity." The rest, the lead-in and summation, hung on that concept. And this is what I said:

Welcome, friends and family. Welcome

It's always good to cherish each moment for what it is, its own truth, its own beauty. But some moments carry more meaning and memory than others.

This is one of those moments.

I can remember our little Canarybird, our little tow-headed Coreycouch, traipsing out into the front yard shepherding her imaginary pupils into their imaginary seats inside her imaginary classroom. A big, summery Wolftown sky above and the Blue Ridge in the distance, while Susie and I sat on the front porch watching her and chuckling about how cute she was.

And then, in what seemed to be just one existential moment, she blossomed into this extraordinary young woman with the kind of skill and passion for teaching young children the world sorely needs. Quite literally, Coreycouch was born to teach.

I am so proud of her. Her mother, Susie, is proud of her. Her mother, Jackie, would have been so very proud of her.

But it gets even better.

On the way, she meets Justin and together they fall in love.... Justin, as fine, and honorable, and smart...and funny...a young man as I have ever had the good fortune to meet, to get to know, and finally, to love.

I've also learned over the past couple of days that he needs some work on his golf game, but who am I to talk?

And Corey becomes part of Justin's family, and he becomes part of hers.

So we are here, now, at this moment when all that has ever been comes together with all that will ever be.

Just as Corey and Justin have come together today, in front of all of us, to become one, to become a singularity.

So thank you for being here, and let's celebrate together Corey and Justin's moment, the first they will experience as husband and wife. And what a great joy, and a a deep honor, it is for you to be here with us to witness it.

Now I sit here alone as the memories flow by. Wedding boxes and ribbons sit on the dining room table; the porcelain couple that adorned the cake at our own wedding, a framed invite to Corey's wedding, a photo montage of our Brownsburg marriage. It shows Reverend Tom Biggs gazing at Susie and me holding our flower girl, Coreycouch, who many years later would wear Jackie's pearl necklace at her own wedding. All represent a beginning begetting new beginnings, the cycle of life getting ever more profound with each passing moment.

Letter to Mary

When we were in Nepal, sitting around a fireplace on chilly night, Stephen Batchelor said something I've never forgotten: "Buddhism is something you do, not something you believe in." It follows then that he doesn't even call himself a "Buddhist." Nor do I. It's a meaningless label. As are all the different schools of Buddhism, or the eight-fold this, or the three precious that. Much like Christians could rely on the Beatitudes alone to understand the meaning of their own religion, "Buddhists" can read the heart sutra, contemplate its profound meaning, and have all they need to understand the Buddha's teachings. Read it. Think about it.

And certainly don't worry about being "wrong." What can be wrong with having compassion for all sentient beings, even your enemies? Or being kind, giving, nurturing? Or taking care that your acts don't cause harm to the environment or others? Do that, and the rest takes care of itself. Even if the hereafter, whatever that may be, rewards only Christians (which is really too ludicrous to even write but I do so for the sake of argument), would it be because of their label or of their good works? If just the label, then the hereafter is hell, not heaven, and no place I want to be. Can you imagine spending the rest of eternity with the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell? Jesus, take me somewhere else.

So forget the labels! If somebody asks you what you are, use the label you're wearing. "I'm a...let's see here. I'm a Nike." Maybe then they'll get the message.

And you can't worry about your family. If they worry that your path is leading you away from their own belief system, be kind and understanding but firm. You might even relate to them what the Dalai Lama told the National Council of Churches when he addressed them. He said in his own humorous way that Buddhism was not trying to take "market share" from them; rather, Buddhist thought and practices can make someone a better Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Protestant, whatever. One can practice Buddhism within the context of any faith because, in fact, it's not a faith. It's a way of life.

Returning to Batchelor, it's what you do, not what you believe. And "doing" compassion is how you get there. It is good in and of its own. It is also the effective tool used to peel away the self to find the true nature of reality. And that's the deep irony of Buddhism; being selfless is ultimately a form of selfishness, too.

Be purposeful, but without hurry. There is no "answer" to find, only an emptiness full of no obstacles. A path never trod before, a lit darkness, a night bright as the first day of summer. The seeking and the awareness you develop to do that is life itself. Enjoy.

WSJ. Lame-o.

The Wall Street Journal news operation is the best in the business (well, for now , anyway, what with Rupert about to give it his inimitable beating), but their op-ed, certainly editorial, is a joke. Case in point is this piece from Ion Pacepa, former KGB operative and now U.S. citizen (beware the zealotry of former smokers).

With this subhed, you get an idea:

"Propaganda Redux - Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America's enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush."

At this point in our political dialog, those who no longer support Bush are, prima facie, leftists. Doesn't matter if you are a Republican, a conservative (whatever that means today), libertarian, evangelical, whatever...you are now a leftist. Criticism of Bush is a scurrilous leftist campaign to undermine America. So let's ask you leftists once more: Why do you hate America?

Back to the article. Aside from so many other things I could say, I'm not sure that Pacepa realizes the profound difference between the propaganda spouted by European lefties in the thrall of their commie overseers and the loud, boisterous, and freely expressed opinions held by the American people. I ask, if millions of us, and I count myself one of them, have on our own come to the conclusion based on abundant facts that our president is indeed a "liar," a "deceiver," and a "fraud," are we just supposed to shut up? I don't think so. If we are, then this isn't the America I remember. If our publicly expressed distaste for our president causes the rest of the world to think that we're weak, or headless, or smelly, then so be it.

The WSJ didn't run any such op-eds during the Clinton administration when we had troops in Bosnia. In fact, I recall quite the contrary: their intemperate attacks on Clinton. But I must be wrong. That would be abetting America's enemies, and if the WSJ isn't always consistent in their principles, they are always patriotic.

Dems and taxes

Now that Rupert has sealed the deal with the WSJ, watch it go south in the next few years.

But even before that happens, Republicans will claim that lower taxes are spurring economic growth and we need them for the sake of the Republic. But the prescription for economic growth is far more complex than the tired mantra about lower taxes being the cure-all for everything. What actually IS our economy? Does it include the intangibles, like the actual costs of gasoline, health care, energy use, national security, education, cigarettes, obesity, or the myriad other things that cost real dollars? Or is it simply the balance sheets of raw numbers that make up the GNP? And what is "strong economic growth" (does that include the deficit we are handing down to our children?). Do lower taxes have any effect at all on those intangibles that Republican propagandists ignore?

As the country now faces new enemies who defy easy definition and targeting, I hope the country has finally shaken itself free from the juvenile either-or analysis of life that has become the legacy of the Bush Republican party (and which has hopefully sunk its electoral chances for a generation).

I am profoundly suspect of ANY single issue politics and the inane tactics they create. They have weakened us profoundly. The way we are all woven together resists our undoing by the unraveling of any single string. Yet, for some reason, the Republicans have tried, and in many ways succeeded in doing that. We need new leadership and new ideas desperately to restore our strength. Bring on the Dems. Please. Anything but these idiots now in charge.

Service calls

Repairmen sit around the company store until about oh, say, 10:30 every morning before they set out on their service calls. Of course, their company says they will arrive sometime between 8 and 5. Never happened for me. Show up first thing in the morning to do the job? You kiddin' me, bub?

I've taken a day off work to wait for the satellite tv guy and the phone guy, both of whom need to fix damage from yet another line of thunderstorms that struck the house two days ago. It's now 10:30 am, so they're just now getting up from their chairs, taking a last sip of coffee, stubbing out their smokes, and ambling off to the trucks chuckling amiably with their pals. "All those fools have been cooling their heels now, for what, the last few hours, thinking -- hee hee -- that maybe, just maybe, we would show up ON-TIME!? Gawd-damn, but ain't that the stupidest thing you ever did hear?"

On the other hand, chilling for a day at home ain't so bad, either.

Bittersweet

Life. Bittersweet. I first experienced it when my brother moved away to college. I wasn't aware of the bargain that I had made, but I soon learned what it was. In return for his daily brotherly love and companionship, I had to pay for it with its inevitable absence. I was bereft. I thought my world had ended. Our house was utterly empty without him there. But eventually, I rebounded and moved on, chastened by the experience.

I didn't know it at the time, but such life changes add bark to the soul, both sustaining it and walling it off. And that''s the trick: to accept the sustaining quality of the experience while preventing it from walling us off from new ones. That is wisdom, to learn from past experience and use it to live more fully in the present moment, the only one that matters.

Buddhism calls dwelling on or living in the past (or worrying about the future) a delusion, an unhealthy attachment to illusory things. Everything changes. Nothing is permanent. Attaching oneself to such impermanence, depending upon it for happiness and contentment, can only cause suffering. It's not a matter of "if," but of "when." We must not forget the wonderful moments (or the not-so-wonderful ones) or deny their reality. But we should let them go, or put another way, let them inform but not discolor the full wonder and majesty of the present.

Melancholy shades the moments behind us. Their increasing distance brings nostalgia for what can never be again. But it shouldn't be that way. Indeed, those moments shaped us into the sentient being that we are now; our perceptions of this moment are in many ways guided by them. They will both always be with us and will never happen again. That's life.

Because I can

Since blogs are the electronic form of ego, I thought it most appropriate that I post these comments from my two daughters on the occasion of Father's Day. They represent the thoughts of two young, beautiful women who are on the cusp of a new direction in their lives, and are good life markers to remember. Both are from the cards they gave me.

From Corey, who will be marrying Justin this coming October:

Happy Fathers Day, Dad-O! You deserve this day and 100 thousand more for all you've done for me. A girl couldn't ask for a better, more supportive (and, of course, more handsome and cool) father than you. I so appreciate you and all you've done and I'm very happy to have you. In short, you are awesome. I am lucky, and I enjoy living in every moment with you. Thank you for being you.

From Rachel, who will be entering her first year at UVA this fall:

Dear Daddy,
As I've always told you, you're my favorite father! Seriously though, I feels so incredibly lucky to have you. Some of my personality is due to my independent thought, but it is impossible to imagine that I would have been 100% the same person had it not been for you. You've taught me so many things over the past 17 (almost 18) years of my life. I've learned how to think critically, be self-aware, be honest, be curious, and not afraid to think about things that challenge what I believe. I've come to appreciate these things (lessons) even more, two months before I head off to college, because they will be challenged like never before. I really feel confident about the person you've helped shape me to be, even if I have my moments [grin], and I could not be more proud to have you as my father. I love you.

I'm as lucky a father as they come.

Hitch on His Holiness

Here's Christopher Hitchens on Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama (my emphasis):

The Dalai Lama claims to be a hereditary god and a hereditary king. I don't think any decent person can assent to that proposition. You should take a look at what Tibet was like when it was run by the lamas. Buddhism has some of the same problems as Western religion. Zen was the official ideology of Hirohito's fascism that was used to conquer and reduce the rest of Asia to subservience. The current dictatorship in Burma is officially Buddhist. The Buddhist forces in Sri Lanka are the ones who began the horrific civil war there with their pogroms against the Tamils in the 1950s and 1960s. Lon Nol's army in Cambodia was officially Buddhist.

In all fairness to Hitchens, the inertial imperative he creates in his book God is Not Great simply sweeps him into a reckless indictment of Buddhism. Certainly Buddhism is a religion to the monastics who practice and live its rituals. But for everyone else, it's a way of life, a perspective on reality that clearly distinguishes it from the classic world religions. It's existence isn't invested in some dogma that it must protect at all costs. In fact, it is quite willing to discard any teachings if shown to be clearly in error. A case in point is its cosmology. The Dalai Lama has said many times it doesn't hold up in the face of modern discoveries. Further, what some dictatorships do in the name of Buddhism shouldn't reflect on Buddhism itself. If someone were to murder another in my name, I shouldn't be held accountable for that.

Worse though, Hitchens here simply misstates what the Dalai Lama claims. He does not claim to be a hereditary god or a hereditary king. His only claim is to be a humble Buddhist monk. True, he is also the Dalai Lama and the de facto head of state for the people of Tibet. It is a role he had to accept as a young child, and one that has been a huge burden on him his whole life. Certainly, millions of Buddhists treat him as a god or as a king, but he has never claimed to be either. That they do so is more a recognition of what a truly remarkable human being he is. Anyone who has spent time with His Holiness knows that there is no more humble person on the planet. He is a world treasure.

Pittsburgh Airport

Trying to pull from life.
Still trying to sketch in lines
peace.
Seeing glass holding air;
Will I know I was there?

The trickle of life

Mom and Dad managed to make Rachel's high school graduation; a truly supreme effort on their part and for which we are truly grateful. It meant a great deal to all of us. Poor Mom is really struggling. Dad talks quite a bit about how much weaker she has become and how life has lost its allure (well, I'm paraphrasing here). The slightest effort tires her out. The one thing that she still does is paint, though not as often as I would like. It gives her focus and meaning. It requires little physical effort. It takes her mind off her infirmities. When she's not painting, she is often in bed. It's not at all unusual for me to arrive on Tuesday's lunch with her there, either asleep or too weak to get up. I live in perpetual unease about another pratfall by either of them. That alone could end it. They have both had close calls. Dad is getting better about using his cane, but he remains cavalier about it.

Life trickles out of the elderly in spite of all the patches we use to stop the leaks. Death by old age is inexorable and utterly predictable. It is devoid of the red-hot anguish that turns the death of younger people into occasions of such abject grief. Instead, we just sit with our aging parents, hold their hand, and wait for the Bus. Meanwhile, I question how I will grieve when they're gone. I'm doing that now in the occasional melancholy I feel when I visit them inside their slowing orbit. But I know only the red-hot version of grief, so it's hard for me to tell what the cooler one feels like. Is this it?

Brain dead

I think the last six years have revealed two things. First, that the American definition of "conservative" has little, if anything, to do with classical political theory (probably because Americans don't accept classical conservative theory; look at the Libertarian party). Second, that in defining their philosophy as "conservative," the Republicans have ensured that "conservative" principles as understood by Americans have lost their sheen for at least a generation of voters.

We have all watched the Republican party implode, Over the years, I have learned just how far they have strayed from ALL notions of conservative principles. Moreover, a true conservative can be wary of government without actively undermining its basic functions. But not this "conservative" administration, helped along with the active and public cooperation of the entire party apparatus.

So, Peggy Noonan's attempt to separate Bush from Republicans doesn't wash with me. I need not list all the forks in the road the Noonan Republicans could have taken where they could have claimed that Bush had left them and not the other way around. He and Cheney ARE the Republican party, however much their enablers want to claim otherwise. When Rudy McRomney gets some of their loudest cheers pledging to "double Gitmo" and leave wide latitude for "enhanced interrogation techniques," you know how far down the totalitarian abyss the Republican base has plunged.

Frankly, I think the Republican movement is brain dead. In fact, it's deeply ironic that Terri Schiavo became their cause ignomie. The party's Manichean view of foreign policy and military strategy is positively juvenile. How anyone could think we should entrust them with the reins of power again is beyond me.

Unlikely Couples

Quote of the day (from a review in Slate) about the movie "Crazy Love:"

Seven months later, with some help from creepily enabling friends, the couple were married in a Queens courtroom, and 33 years later, they're still together and as happy as any other squabbling, chain-smoking pair of certifiable lunatics.

Life speed

I have tried to instill in my daughters an understanding of just how fast life goes by. As my perspective has morphed from fatalism into Buddhism, what I meant about that hasn't really changed. It only deepened from a simple "enjoy the moment" to "live the moment in all of its miraculous intensity and beauty." I'm not sure if that deeper awareness came solely from age/wisdom or the happy coincidence of my brother introducing me to Buddhist teachings. It is important to know. If the former, Corey and Rachel will just have to wait until they "get it." If the latter, then they can learn it right now and live a fuller life. Judging from what they have told me, I think they have begun to feel it. That makes a father happy.

India on the march?

That's the meme these days. Meanwhile stories like this get lost in the scramble to proclaim India and China the new giants of commerce and technology. I just returned from Gurgaon where my new in-law Dr. Buxi and his family live. I know firsthand that the NYT article is quite true. Dr. Buxi and all of his neighbors simply couldn't function without their generators. They lose power every day. Similarly, the new malls and gleaming office buildings endure multiple daily power outages. In fact, only half the population of India is connected to the power grid, and within that half the grid can supply only 80 percent of demand. Meanwhile, diesel smoke blackens the sky as generators try to make up the shortfall. I'm not sure that planners ever heard of the cart-before-the-horse syndrome.

Memorial Day 07

A beautiful weekend in the mountains close to West Virginia.

Fascism in America

I know. It's a tired phrase. It brings back memories of overblown rhetoric from the '60s. But I don't think it's just rhetoric now. America is in danger, and the Republican party is a threat to the ideals of our nation. This is from Andrew Sullivan, a reader response to one of his comments about the second Republican debate leading up to the '08 presidential election.

You wrote:

"What matters is faith in a leader and unremitting violence in accomplishing goals. Whatever else this is, it isn't conservatism as I have come to understand it."

What American 'conservatism' has become fits closely within the definition of fascism: an intensely nationalist movement intent on defining membership in the 'nation' on linguistic, religious, and (increasingly) ethnic/racial criteria, accompanied by an unquestioning loyalty to (male) authority, enshrined in family leaders, business leaders, religious leaders, and especially, the leader of the nation, who is seen as embodying the Nation. Loyalty to the Party or Movement and its ideology is of great importance. Violence is the preferred means of accomplishing goals. Diplomacy, compromise, negotiation, are all identified with (feminine) weakness. The rule of law is also despised, because it lacks the immediacy of (violent) action, and its emphasis on balance and its concern with proper procedure is also seen as a sign of (feminine) weakness.

This is the outcome of the bargain the GOP made with the Devil back when it decided to go for the Wallace voters after the '68 and '72 elections.  Kevin Phillips has repented a hundred times over for counseling the Southern Strategy, but too late. The GOP has discovered that when you sell your soul to the Devil, the only question is when does the Devil come to collect? Well, he's come.

And he's brought the waterboard.

Obama Rising

Now, for some relief from the disgust and despair so many of us have for the administration's policies. read Obama's speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The contrast with the present administration is startling in its level of cogency, power, and understanding of what and how America can recover from the deep hole in which we find ourselves. The man is real, he's developing even better chops, and he could very well be the face and substance this country needs to recover the ground we have lost. Our conservative friends may think otherwise, but I don't view Obama so much as a liberal as I do a pragmatic internationalist with a far better understanding of the world than BushCheney (and, yes, I know that's a rather low threshold, but Obama nevertheless soars above it).

Retribution, Buddha style

Retribution is a concept not only completely alien to Buddhists, but a prime example of the "delusions" that cause human suffering. In a nutshell, they see "reality" as nothing more than a series of causes and effects called "dependant origination." Nothing exists in and of itself. Take any object, say, a baseball. The baseball is really a core of rubber surrounded by string and all held together by strips of stitched leather. But the string is individual strands, the leather is the skin of a cow, and the rubber is some combination of chemicals that bind together molecularly. Taken down further, we get to atoms and sub-atomic particles that, in quantum theory, don't really exist until an observer measures them. And even then, the nature of their existence depends on who or what is the observer, the purpose of the observation, and other variables. It is this sub-atomic world, confirmed empirically by scientific research, that Buddhist precepts take on such great coherence.

You can see why Buddhists have such trouble with the notion of "blame." If our concepts of "self" are essentially illusory, or simply an evolutionary shortcut for an organism to survive in the macro-world, then there is no one person extant to "blame." Again, according to Buddhist theory, the "Thunderstick" who began this note has already changed into something else, and wouldn't you know it, science actually confirms that. But in the macro-world, I pretend that "I" am writing this note and Barry Bonds will determine that a "baseball" is about to bean him so he better duck out of the way. As Wolf Singer, the director of the Max Planck Institute and one of the presenters at Mind-Life meeting said, the "human brain doesn't need to know ultimate reality, but it does need to know that it must run from a lion." That statement led to a long discussion about the nature of "mind" and where "consciousness" resides, but that's another topic.

Buddhism and "blame"

I just returned as an observer of the Mind-Life XIV conference held over five days at the residence of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Essentially, these conferences assemble the top philosophers and scientists in such fields as quantum physics, astrophysics, biology, evolution, psychology, and neuroscience to discuss with His Holiness and other Tibetan scholars (geshes) their empirical research in "contemplative neuroscience."

To get right to the point, on the last day Mathieu Ricard led a discussion about the Buddhist view of "blame" and "responsibility" and how it diverges dramatically from the views of western civil and criminal traditions. Specifically, Buddhism's theory of causality and the illusory nature of "self" rules out any logical understanding of "blame" or "responsibility." To Buddhists, assigning blame, and resulting criminal punishment, is nothing short of vengeance and, as such, counterproductive in that it continues the "cycle of hate."

As I listened, I felt something missing: the deterrence potential of criminal punishment (aside from capital punishment, which most agree has nothing to do with that). Buddhists are nothing if not logical. Their ultimate goal is the cessation of suffering of all sentient beings. If one could show them that assigning blame and exacting the requisite punishment serves to ultimately reduce the rate of crime -- and the suffering it creates for both perpetrator (karmic cause and effects) and victim -- then that part of our western tradition might inform theirs in interesting ways. Do we know empirically if the fear of criminal punishment deters any categories of criminal behavior? If so, are there studies that one can cite as evidence of that?

Mind-Life XIV Conference in Dharamsala

First, the Dalai Lama is the most wonderful person on the planet. His humility, boundless good humor, and charismatic presence is simply beyond compare. We were all assembled (I'm in the second row, just behind Richard Gere who sits in front of me on my right. we're no more than 15 feet from HH) in the big room, thangkas draped on the wall and up to the cavernous ceiling, monks sitting in obeisant attendance at his approach, when he enters with a HUGE smile on his face, bowed with hands clasped and gesturing a welcome to crowd. He kneels down and touches his head on a prayer mat several times while we all remain standing bowing in response, and he takes his sit motioning us all to sit down. From that point, as each scientist presents his research, his facial expressions dance like a diva, from utter penetration on the speaker to uproarious laughter in a deep bass, his eyes tearing up with mirth. At times, the whole room is laughing, and he engages with the monks as though he weren't their leader, and they inch forward as a group to get nearer to him. Their love and respect for him is as strong as his selflessness.

The actual science presented is astounding. We heard about quantum computers, now in development, that will produce solutions about past, present, and future not only with the speed it takes me to write "wow!" but solutions that our present computers could never produce if they had infinity to try. They use Qubits, not bits, and briefly described, that means that instead of using just "0s" and "1s" as do standard computers, they will used "0s" and "1s" that will allow infinite possiblities within each Qubit. Put a few million of those in an entangled grid, create a measuring program that yields a chain reaction of response to reduce infinite probability to a mathematical certainty, and voila, we change the world as we know it and the very definition of interconnectedness and universality.

Next day, we went large. The Big Bang, the meaning of reality, and a lively discussion among the monks, the DL, and the scientists about the various understandings of reality, causation, dependant origination, and the purposes each groups pursue in trying to find the answers; the scientists (pure knowledge) and Buddhism (the cessation of suffering). There was so much more, and I won't bore you with the details, but this particular conference, and the effects it will produce, will likely go down as one of the seminal moments in both human development and the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Scholars will look back at this week a hundred years from now as the moment when human development made a, err, quantum leap. In fact, HH said that some day his tradition will look back at the "blond science masters" as a group who turned Buddhism in a new direction.

I also hand-delivered to HH a letter beautifully written to him by Rachel as they were taking me to the airport. She sat in the back seat and hand wrote it in the time it took us to get to the airport. I wouldn't have changed a word. In about four paragraphs she recalled her trip to NY when we saw him in Central Park and at the concert. She told him briefly about her background in a small county in Virginia where fundamentalist Christianity has shaped her friends in some strange ways and how her visit opened her eyes to the beauty of his vision and that it changed her life. When I handed him the letter, he clasped my hands warmly and then took it. I don't know if he will ever read it, if it gets lost between where he was sitting and his private quarter, or what, but the experience of transmitting her message, if only verbally, is all that matters.

Overall, Dharamsala seems so different than the rest of India, certainly Bihar where we were two years ago. Sure, it has its beggars and some of the other problems of the country, but the Tibetans here are as sweet and charming as anyone on Earth. When you pass them, they look you in the eye and wish you "good luck" in their language, and shake your hand. Too bad the rest of the world doesn't learn from their model.

After the meeting, we took a taxi up to the Tibetan Children Village, a 40-acre site draped at the top of another ridge where Tibetan children, some orphans and others who escape surreptiously from Tibet and leave their parents for 10-15 years, receive a first-class education. They live together as "families" of 30-40 children in each house and led by a house mother who cares for them. They take class all day, then join in extra-curricular activities after class. Sports, art and crafts, music lessons, etc. The ages range from infant up to about 20, and a happier, more grounded group of kids you will never see. Certainly not in America. These kids have nothing except their books, their meals, a roof over their head, a dedicated group of teachers, and their adopted "family." Their radiant smiles, friendly greetings, and exuberance put everything in perspective. Nothing matters in life except attitude. Surround a human with love and possibility, and the rest takes care of itself. They will find success and happiness in whatever they do, whatever it may be.

The conference has also talked about brain chemistry, the meta-representational ability of our brains to understand images and concepts, and the evolutionary principle of randomness that multiplies the power of our DNA to produce all the billion of antibodies that keep us alive (and much more). We also went to the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts and watched a traditional Tibetan opera; an ensemble of charming and beautiful men and women dressed in traditional garb and dancing and singing their hearts out. It is to describe the poignancy of the Tibetan effort to cling tenaciously to these traditions and keep alive their national identity. They sing their songs, they dance their folk dances, they smile, and they maintain a grace that no amount of persecution can destroy. The world can and must learn from them. If simple morality and ethics isn't enough reason to help Tibet, the example they set for humanity should.

Also, the board of Mind/Life met with His Holiness privately for about 45 minutes and I was there as my bro's representative. We talked about the future of Mind/Life and one thing became abundantly clear: HH looks at this organization and its efforts to promote the benefits of a contemplative approach to every day life as one of his most important secular initiatives. And further, he insists that it not appear as a Buddhist effort but one that transcends, indeed ignores, religious traditions to avoid the trouble and confusion that can (and likely would) cause. His sole interest is to alleviate suffering and he feels that however Buddhist techniques can help modern science do that, he is willing and eager to make the effort. In fact, he expects that within the next 2-3 years, the Tibetan monastic tradition will adopt the study of western science into its curriculum so that they can do an even better job helping the secular world achieve that objective. He is very engaged with this, more so than perhaps any other secular endeavor, and Mind/Life is worthy of his backing.

We closed today. It has been an incredibly deep and learning experience. I can't stress enough the pure joy I experience watching this man. It's hard to explain, but I can't help but get a lump in my throat as I watch him sit on his haunches, shoulders bobbing up and down with mirth, laughing silently and scanning the room with tears in his eyes to make sure that everyone sees and feels the same humor he is experiencing. Can you imagine the paradise this world would be if we had more world leaders like him? Anyway, we had pictures with him, he held my hand and looked deeply into my eyes as he does every person he meets, and then we finished the conference. I'm now at Kashmir Cottage where I have been the last week, filled with emotion and and a sense of timelessness I have never felt before. Leaving tomorrow at 7am for Delhi and Dr. Buxi. Please send my best to everyone who asks and take care. I'll have pix and movies (crazy taxi drives in this community perilously perched on the side of mountains at the foot of the snowy Himalayas).