Meanderings of a Snowy June Morning

It’s evening now, but this morning, after sleeping in a good bit, I lazily rose and peaked out my window only to see – SNOW! It’s June 10th for heaven’s sake – Snow? Ha! I stood motionless for minutes watching it come down in big wet flakes, melting as it hit the ground. “What a fine way to start the day,” I thought, smiling, and made my way on foot to work two blocks away.

Work is coming together beautifully, even though it is not quite teaching, which I know is my true love. I spend my days with professors and help them think their big thoughts and try to sneak in a few of my own (as an empath, their energy draws out my own creative juices).

And, I know if I ever really needed money, I could always get an accounting job. In our accounting software training we were given a ‘worksheet’ were we had to fill in random requested financial information using the new software. I finished it in about 5 minutes, 15 minutes before the next person. In the meantime I got a drink of water, used the restroom, and began checking my answers. Three wrong. Hmm… So I got the instructor to go over them with me. On the first one she had mis-counted and found seven items where there were really eight. That was my answer. Then we looked up the next one, my answer again (her data was right yesterday when she created the sheet but wrong today). And the last one was worded clumbsily, leading her to grab the wrong information, so again mine was right. Ok, none wrong.

It reminded me a bit of high school when I took accounting with a handful of the smart kids in our class. We raced to get our assignments done, our books balanced, and on to the solitaire or mine-sweeper! It was all fun then, and to some extent fun now (whoopee, I got the right answer!), but after a year and a half of business school in college, I could see the lifeless existence this was leading me down. Not that all accountants are dull and shallow, nor all accounting students, but for some reason the ones I found all seemed to be. No quirky ‘think-for-yourself’ types in my class to be found. Then I took a class in Buddhism… and one in Ethics… and, well, the rest is history. (News story here)

After work I prepared for the first week back at leading a sangha on campus. A year ago I helped lead it and we dedicated a couple months to the metta sutta (.pdf); now I think we’ll spend the summer deepening our practice of metta (loving-kindness). For those who are interested and in the Missoula area, we’ll be meeting Tuesdays at the Center for Ethics at 7pm. All are welcome, young and old, just show up. (for some background on the metta bhavana practice, see wildmind, the website of my old teacher and friend Bodhipaksa)

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Oh, and I guess I will soon be a bit more famous (ha! I think this ego needs as little fame as possible). About a year ago I created a vision board of sorts – a desktop really – but it works. On it are photos of me (age 6) learning pool with my father, a historical photo of the Edmund Burke statue in Bristol, one of my forever favorite cities, and my then girlfriend Ana (and me) in Granada, Spain (representing family, education, and love respectively).

Other items include British money (representing the wealth – of information, or money, or friends, etc) I hoped to gain in my upcoming journeys there, a Buddha and Pu-tai icon to remind me of diligence on the path and the joy of simplicity and giving, paper-clips that I had accumulated at a recent relay-for-life event to represent charity and community, a piece of paper saying “Learn Only To Be Content” – a phrase I hold to have two separate and equally important meanings, and a candle to represent my gratitude for the light all of these have brought to my life.

Oh, yea, the famous part! Ha. I was contacted by an author not long ago, a woman that will be creating a book about the vision board, and she’d like to use mine in it. Anyhow, I had half-forgotten about it when I got the paperwork from HarperCollins yesterday. There’s no money in it for me, and in truth the fame will be mainly negligible, but to me it is a nice nudge saying, simply, “put good things into the world.” Maybe they’ll be appreciated, maybe they wont. That’s not really what matters in the end anyhow. But (a-ha!) sometimes it takes a receiving a little fame or appreciation to realize that!

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Such is life, this wonderful play of mystery and change. The weather report calls for heavy snow warnings tonight: SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURING… WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. So while I delight in this spontaneity of nature, I do wish safety for those traveling tonight and those who do not have the luxury of a warm home (furry friends included!).

May all beings be Safe, May all beings be Happy, May all beings be Free from Suffering.