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Birth and Death of the Trivial Kind

There is magic in birth and death. In birth, the magic is in the enormous potential of the unknown. When you look at your newly born child, there is no way you can know what he or she will become. Later on, you might have some glimpses of their future selves, but in that very first moment, all that there is, is hope, the potential for greatness. It is very similar, and yet very different at the same time, when we look at death. On one side, it is the end; on the other it is the beginning for something new. But above all, it is an opportunity for closure. Even in the very last moment of a life, the dying person can say or do something that could change the lives of the ones present. A simple look sometimes can make us see things in a different light. I will never forget my dad’s last days. We took him to a terribly expensive and a terrible private hospital in Bulgaria. I had the feeling that the staff there only wanted to extract the maximum amount of money from us without giving much b...
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(Some thoughts from September)

Walking in the Rudding Park of Harrogate is an experience that I wish for everyone. It makes ones heart mellow and open. This is the magic of the English parks - it is like the countryside but with the ease of the city. No need for Wellies and Barbour jackets.

I had some time while waiting for Lama Jampa to come back from our Buddhist centre in Harrogate where he was giving interviews and while walking, I started thinking about those people who didn’t  have an access to green, open spaces. What is it like to be in prison? Recently I read an essay of Charles Dickens on Manhattan. It was a very unflattering piece of writing - unflattering for New York (as well as for Dickens, but that’s not the point) and there was a passage where Dickens was visiting one of the local prisons. From his questions and the answers of the wardens it came clear that the prisoners didn’t have any exercise at all. In fact many of them never even left their prison cells for the whole length of their sentence. Prisons in the States haven’t improved too much nowadays. Unlike in U.K. where, I read today, prisoners will be allowed to have mobile phones in their cells. It is believed that they will greatly benefit from it. I am sure many other people will do too!


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