There is often little time for reflection though the hours never cease to pile up. Much is thought of, many things are remembered, but little is reflected upon. There is a difference between thinking and reflecting; one of them presents a plan or an image, which is transformed according to feeling, or exterior phenomena that seeks an end, or a means to an end; the other is the transformation of thought without end, it simply looks, it watches the worry come and go, plans arise and finish. When you step back from a wall, you can see how high it is, but when you are very close, you must grasp onto something because there is no way to see where you are. So reflecting is a way to stand back and see how far the thought goes, while thinking holds to the thought as long as it wants. Reflection shows that thoughts do not control you, while thinking always seeks a thought to control. Douglas Thornton
September 20th, 2014 Dharamsala 4460m. Clouds and rain; cold and rough all day. Life is very rudimentary here, the lodgings as well. The Budi Gadanki, the river that we have followed for a week and a half now, passes us by as a small stream in the far-off expanse, something one would not easily recognize, nor give any importance to, had they not seen it swirling past them in Arughat. Though we could see it become smaller and more rapid each day, it did not seem that it would actually disappear into the ground, or begin falling from a glacier, apart of the glacier itself even, and of the snow last night--but that's what seems to be the source of all things: there but not there. It is hard enough to rectify this sentiment throughout the long chain of events we live, and whether it is because of the high opinion of ourselves or the low opinion we have of the things around us, the movement is never really close to what we expect its nature to be. Now that the river is but a