March 4th, 2015 There was a swoop in the air and, thinking it the wind, noticed a flock of song-birds passing over. It is strange to wonder then, how many times we may say something with one intention in mind, but provide suitable ground for other unconscious actions. When the birds pass, they do not think they are the wind, nor even birds. Douglas Thornton
September 16th, 2014 Lho 3180m. Arrived in the buffer zone of Tibet. The landscape has gone from jungle to high plateau in the matter of a week. Aside from all this though, there is something more pervasive, it is as if we have crossed an invisible barrier and now the opposites that seemed so far apart--good and bad, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, all those things perhaps which define our lives--have been gathered into one original intention, the place where all things start. Maybe it was that the first breath, the first thought, or the first idea, came down from such high mountains. It is difficult not to fall in to the feeling that something sacred is at work, but the contradictory nature of all things at this level of altitude, perhaps even at this level of moral judgment, is of far greater importance and exceeds any majority. Temples have appeared out of the clouds; people come back from the higher altitudes looking dazed and enter in and out of the tea-house