Another satisfying morning at Starbucks.  Often do I fail to notice how good life can be, just how lucky (another way of putting it) to be seated here with a cup of coffee in hand, conversing with a friend?  Friendship is inestimable, a practice of presence, the exchange of words which reciprocally enlighten…  The time is well spent because we require sustenance for the work that remains.

Our task is to nurture the elements of the world around us into a more ordered arrangement…  Order which is the result of a light touch.  How to understand the relationships around us, all linked to us, to cultivate additional beauty, a more agreeable habitation, with nothing and no one excluded…

That is my vision, what I am willing to stand by.  It’s not different than Michelangelo, tools in hand, contemplating the block of raw marble that was to become David.

This, from the morning edition of the New York Times:

Gun Violence

* An 84-year-old man was charged with shooting Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who mistakenly came to his door in Kansas City, Mo.

* A man shot a 20-year-old white woman, Kaylin Gillis, after she accidentally pulled into his driveway in upstate New York, the police said. He was charged with murder.

* A grand jury in Ohio decided not to charge the police officers who shot to death Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, after an attempted traffic stop.

More detail on these stories is unnecessary.  The gun fetishism, the cult-like veneration of weapons continues unabated.  The consequences press upon us, in relentless concatenation.  The families of victim and victimizer are drawn into the malevolent vortex.

So, now what?

I do not know.  I think this ancient 5th century BCE admonition of the Buddha would help…  Can we step away from the violence?

The Noble Eightfold Path

1. Right understanding
2. Right thought
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration