Should I be a Buddhist? I ask the question from time to time. I have two statues of Buddha within the landscaping of our backyard. I am drawn to the physical statuary: a representation of a life Buddha lived, the Indian Prince who rejected the luxurious life which being well born would have afforded. …
The truths of humanism,the confidence in mankind and all the rest,still possess only the vigor of fictions,only a prosperity of shadows.The West was these truths;it is no more than these fictions, these shadows.as helpless as they,it has not been given to the West to verify them. It drags them along, exposes them,but no longer…
Friday, a beautiful Fall day, with frost and full sunlight. Today is my grand daughter’s 2nd birthday. Watching her grow day to day has been a rare delight. She is the advancing edge of the new world that is born with each generation. And what of that “new world?” Upon her adulthood some twenty…
I saw it! In the blink of an eye I witnessed a “miracle” of language. Seated at the table for the evening meal, my grand daughter was in a fickle mood in relation to the food on her plate. Children are often uncertain about whether to consume the food selections made for them by…
III – We have all had a taste for the West’s disease: Art, Love, Religion, War – We know too much about them all to believe in them now; then too, so many centuries have worn them down… The epoch of the finite in plenitude is past; the substance of poems? Exhausted. — To…
Viewing this photo journalism project reminded me of a tune from 1985, We Are The World. The lyrics are composed by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. I recall the 45 person choir of celebrities singing and swaying in unison as they performed the song. I thought the lyric, while well meaning was saccharine sweet,…
The sun rose this morning like a god. The air was tinged with frost. The first frost is late in the season. I felt relief at this awaited sign of seasonal change. Is not frost, the cold an ascetic exercise in paring of life, a reduction to the essence of things? And what does…
To return home, subsequent to an interlude of extensive travel (three weeks) prompts me to reflect upon my life. I would like to think I do not take on the role of a tourist, a dabbler, one who passes through anonymously, with diffident attention to anything or anyone. Boredom can be chosen without leaving…
Here I am again, in the corner by the wall on a rainy morning at Starbucks. The return home feels right, the feeling of completion. What did I accomplish in the last three weeks on the road, a composite of time and places in my memory? Did I accomplish much, or nothing? “Nothing” sounds…
Our last evening at a Holiday Inn. The straight lines, white surfaces and turquoise of Holiday Inn decor palate have become familiar. We laughed yesterday after checking into our room here at Lexington Kentucky. The bathroom was adequately spacious, the white sink countertop and the backlit big mirror similar to the other four or…
