Journey

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Everyone once and a while (and with a greater degree of frequency it would appear) I get on these "kicks" during which I'll invest a lot of energy into immersing myself in a writer, theme or concept. This exercise is often precipitated by events in my life, or the world in general. Of late I have (once again) found myself reading and re-reading a number of different commentators on Eastern theology, in particular Buddhism and even more specifically, Tibetan Buddhism and even more specifically, the Kagyu tradition.

These little mental and spiritual jaunts often take me to "new" and "unique" places which are not as "new" or "unique" as one might imagine.

For example, I have been recently reading a new collection of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's writings entitled In My Own Words: An Introduction to My Teachings and Philosophy. This is the fourth book of his that I have read and my eye was drawn to his explanation of different schools of Tibetan Buddhism when it dawned on me that there exists here in my upstate New York city a number of different Buddhist temples which are "dedicated to the transmission of Buddha's teachings and realization to America and is committed to the support of those who seek to walk the Path together," the White Lotus Society.

My running and cycling frequently take me by this unassuming house and though I consider stopping in, have to this point been too nervous... but reading and studying do not seem enough sometimes, leaving me feeling like a visitor to "the rag and bone shop of the heart" or "culture vulture." Maybe I should just stop in...