3/8/2010
I am struck by the fact that while this world that I am witnessing obliquely, and for the first time in my twenty-seven years, is how most of the world lives. It is my world and not this one that is different, and both continue on all the time. As does life in every corner of the world, and this fact is somewhat unfathomable. Where a sidewalk needed to be torn up, a job left to the agile mass of a Bobcat in the first world, was being literally picked away at by one man with a chisel. As the busy, touristy streets of Thamel darkened, a pair of young boys no older than twelve snuck into a nearby alley to sniff paint from a plastic bag. Earlier, we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of the very few undisputed Dzogchen masters, Chadral Rinpoche, riding in a car. And this morning, the two young daughters of one of the many families visiting the house, one who was no older than five, the other no older than three, both prostrated at the feet of the Sakyong. All these images fuse together, creating an emotional scenery that is complex and beautiful.

life is movement
is sound is
music is
life–
subtle syncretism
sending currents
thickly through the
smoky afternoon.
Strange music–
sounds not synched
rather ricocheting
violently as the
smog soot and
smoke of the day
seep and tumble
into the seedy
dusk as daylight
fades.