This is a copy of a comment I left on a previous posting titled Landfill Fodder.

I’ve given away books a number of times, only to regret it later. I’ve lost a whole box of my basic Buddhist reference books and then found them again four years later in an attic. I was really glad to be reunited with them too. So there is a shifting population and a shifting relationship to books for me.

When I went to the US to be a monk in 1980 my belongings were in a backpack, which I could lift and carry. There was also a box of books, which came via mail. That’s all I had in the world and it felt good to be traveling light. Very soon however I found out the greater weight was what I carried in my mind!

If I had talked to somebody about this drastic shedding of my belongings before entering the monastery I’d probably have kept more stuff. Some of it would have come in handy later on in my monastic life. So, if you are thinking of following up on a monastic vocation, the physical stuff doesn’t need to all go. Just the clinging to it.

Here is a young chap writing about his journey with accumulation, and his journey with letting it go.

It is so easy to lose perspective and forget where ‘up’ actually is. So the little chap in the middle of this cartoon is pointing to a really helpful life tool. And I am not talking about the rainbow!

A woman who I hold in high regard told me about the mental and emotional benefits of raising ones arm and pointing UP. When I first did this in her presence she said that’s not up. Indeed it wasn’t, it was up’ish!
Sometimes when all is misery me or earth earth, as one of our scriptures says, I take a moment and point up and mentally follow where my hand is pointing.
Does wonders, try it why not. This is a private practice incidentally.

Note: This image is a scan of a card sent me by an old sangha friend and blog reader. Very many thanks.

I just don’t want to end the journey so I’m stuck in Bangladesh with just a few more pages to go. I’ve been reading Michael Palin’s Himalaya for a month and a half at least and it is time to move on. But before I do I was stuck by this business woman, Naila Chowdhury who has gone boldly forth, and made a difference.

Day 121 In early afternoon Ishraq takes me to meet Naila Chowdhury, a director of Grameen Phone, one of the great success stories to come out of Bangladesh. Naila, impressively built, with a strong handsome face, is, like Rubana, charming, accommodating and, I suspect, pretty ruthless when necessary.

It’s quite an eye opener to realise the practical impact just one mobile phone can have on all of the people, in just one village.

Yes, I will be sorry to end my journey with Michael Palin, but our association is not over quite yet. A fellow monk is sending me a DVD of his journey Pole to Pole which was a give-away with a Sunday paper the other week. She found it on the train.

Alston, where the second hand bookshop was having a turn out. There in front of the shop was a skip full of books! I felt like doing a funeral or something, instead I picked over them. Opening, having a sniff at that only-old-books-can-smell-like-that smell, then closing again. And this is somebody who doesn’t really like books that much!

Rural Rides, by William Cobbett is an English classic and Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais is funny and violent and quite free from any prudishness according to the Wikipedia entry. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, another skip casualty, can be downloaded free from the Internet.

Farewell books, it’s to the landfill for you lot. I did the best I could by spending a few moments cherishing and respecting them. Still, it was hard to let them go.

The photographs were taken on a mobile phone. Not great quality, yet they have a quality all of their own. Just like the skip full of books.