It’s been three weeks since I registered my lost purse on the Vancouver Airport web site. And since doing that the purse has faded from memory. Lost, forgotten and let go of. This evening I received a phone call. “We have your purse!”, she said brightly. “I’ll mail it on Monday”.
I feel like I have been given the purse all over again; wonderful. So, a big THANK YOU to Dawn and all the staff who deal with found items in Vancouver Airport, and airports everywhere. And I will certainly ‘look up’ should an item of mine ever get lost while I’m traveling. ‘Lost’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘stolen’. There are crowds of good people in this world who find things and who then take the trouble to hand in what they pick up. And thus grateful people get their stuff back. That’s me this evening, a grateful person.
I love yard sales, car boot sales and estate sales. Flea Markets, jumble sales, auctions, charity shops, thrift stores, you name it. All wonderful places to find useful things such as things for altars, household stuff, fabric, linens, unusual tools….
Once in Berkeley, at a place called Urban Ore, a fellow monk found me an item used in ceremonies which would have cost hundreds of pounds, or millions of yen bought new in Japan. Seeing this gleaming item being held aloft and processed past beaten up old wardrobes and office furniture is a sight indelibly imprinted in my brain.
While looking around for inspiration for a posting tonight I stumbled upon this site called Jalopy Junktown. From now on it is where I will go and have a look around when I want to see neat stuff.
On Monday afternoon I drove out to Elk Island National Park to take in some open-air. The snow had mostly melted in Edmonton so I was surprised to find the trails still filled with snow and hard going. The main lake, which stretches far into the distance was white and thick with ‘mystery’. Gazing out I pictured a woman waiting for her trapping folk to return, or stuck alone in a frozen cabin miles from anywhere, longing for company, any company. Being out in the white wilderness can do strange things to ones perceptions.
So when I spotted two black specks far away in the distance I became fixated on them with excited anticipation. ‘Were they moving’? ‘Yes’! ‘Men carrying heavy packs – really big packs’? Gradually as the specks advanced, excruciatingly slowly, they developed into animals. Closer still and two male Wood Bison emerged, taking their long journey across the frozen lake, perhaps in search of grazing.
They were like two four wheel trucks in an invisible traffic queue. A couple of steps (were they testing the strength of the ice?) then a few minutes stationary. Then a few more steps. I found myself mentally willing them to move, to move faster, to get closer, so I could fill my frame with hulking great brown fuzzy beings. But the wild walks it’s own walk and my wish for ‘Bigger, faster, closer, better’ made no impression. Of course!
Getting closer. Close enough!
The person in the foreground is a photographer, ecstatic to encounter these grand creatures roaming free. As his companion and I retreated we fell into conversation. She told me about the thirty Bison due to fly next day, to Russia! Bison high in the sky, who would have thought.
There are warnings everywhere in the park not to approach the Bison since they are unpredictable and may charge for no apparent reason. They seem so heavy and ponderous however they can be light on their feet, it would seem.
Rev. Master Daizui served as the head of the O.B.C. from November 1996 until his death on 4th April, 2003. As a tribute to him, on the third anniversary his death, I have republished his teaching on ‘Mindfulness’ with bows of gratitude.
Rev. Master Daizui latter expanded on the text on mindfulness in his book ‘Buddhism From Within’ published in 2003. Here is a paragraphs from the chapter, ‘Radical Sobriety’, p 56.
“The essential ingredients of this practice (Mindfulness) are to pay very close attention to what one is doing, to be fully aware of it, and when one’s attention wanders off to something else, to bring it back again. In the practice of Mindfulness, attention and awareness are applied without inner reactions to the things one is aware of. It is a neutral sort of observation of oneself and the world, uncompleted by thoughts, feelings, judgments, and the like. The heart of this type of practice, in other words, is simply to be fully aware of what exists, with nothing added and nothing hidden from view. This way of training is bound to assit a Buddhist with what he or she is trying to do: just to be aware of things, large and small, on a daily basis cannot help but lay the groundwork for being able to view the entire universe for what it really is. Mindfulness is a type of truthfulness; it is the truthful perception of exactly what is really there”.
This afternoon I went out of town to do a House Blessing Ceremony, followed by a memorial for a young man who died four years ago. At the end of the memorial the mother read a poem by Kahlil Gibran from ‘The Prophet’. There is no way that I can reproduce the steady depth of feeling and emotion as she read the poem, On Children, for her lost son. His three siblings stood silently listening.
The father then read a verse, with equal depth of feeling.
The dew is on the lotus – Rise, Great Sun And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. Om mani padme hum, the sunrise comes. The dewdrop slips into the shining sea. The Light of Asia Sir Edwin Arnold
