compassion

Coming from gun toting America, it's a little strange to me to watch all living things treated as a sentient being stuck on the wheel of life. I saw three monks gather around a bee injured by a car and use blades of grass to move it off the road as gently as possible.

You hate to laugh but I couldn't help chuckling at an older woman who had a cockroach problem. We stopped in an ashram for the night and about 5 cockroaches kept making a beeline for her sleeping mat. She kept gently pushing them away with a brush and they, in their Gregor Samsa way, kept on coming back. I sat there working for another 15 minutes or so and she never quit her gentle fight. I didn't stick around to see who lost patience first.

We have a fascinating older man named Albert who drove here from Holland in his old construction van. He has been studying Buddhism for many years now and it's patience seem to have infused him completely. Such a content man. I often enjoy walking next to him in silence (rare for me as he likes to point out jokingly but truthfully, hey, I think words equal wisdom, right guys?). Now, he's consulting on an organic farm outside Dharamsala and falling for a beautiful younger basket seller. Unfortunately, stupid lawsuits and the slow Indian court system have choked the organic farm to a standstill so he decided to join the March to Tibet. A quiet man who laughs readily and often drops pearls of wisdom.

Maryala, a Polish girl who has become the darling of the monks with her knack for languages and perpetually sunny personality, saw a butterfly hit by a car. She picked it up and as Albert
passed by, she heard him quietly say, "How many tragedies go unnoticed every day?"