Way too busy the last few days. Last Wednesday while having lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant, Connie’s Cantina on Grand Ave. in Oakland, my truck window was smashed and my Buddhist robe and kesa and two computers were stolen, The computers were underneath the Robe/Kesa cloth bag they travel in, so they were a bonus to an otherwise useless item to the guys who took the cloth bag. Life in the big city. Karma.

Things are going to H-E Double-Hockey-Sticks; in a handbasket:)

After several days of  back and forth between destinations on crowded freeways; last night I managed to collapse from exhaustion, literally. At least I hope that’s all it was, besides unnerving, that is. I have to remember I’m no Spring chicken. Hell, I’m an Autumn chicken.

These are the times when when the gratitude for my life really kicks in. To have gotten to this point, and relatively sane and healthy, is pretty fortunate; considering how I squandered my earlier years in pursuit of a fast life. Turns out it wasn’t really fast, more like hectic and careening.

Today I have another opportunity to practice seeing life as it presents itself each day.

THIS is four days later. Things have settled down quite a bit. After a phone call to a physician friend I was able to get some perspective on collapsing. She is a great doctor and and good friend and a terrific diagnostician. She asked about twenty questions and they were logically sequential and in a way sort of daunting because they challenged short term memory and exposed squeamishness about personal details. After all, she is a friend not my doctor. Then again, I don’t really have a lot to hide. Then again (part 2) there are things in my past that I can’t/won’t talk about, because there is no inherent value in discussing them. I have a feeling, (it may be a mistake to keep it), that some things are meant to be processed internally, or held closely. The preceding sentence may come as a shock to those who know me personally, and who may have, on very rare occasion, harbored a thought along the lines of “Does he ever not say what’s running across that little brain?”

Anyway, I want to include this poem I found in my computer that I got from a Dharma talk given some years ago at Shasta Abbey.

Lord, Thou knowest better than I knowest myself that I am growing older and will someday be Old.
Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.
Release me from craving to straighten out everyones affairs, make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy—-
With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity to not use it all. But, thou knowest Lord that I want a few friends at the end.
Keep my mind free from creating of endless details—Give me wings that I may get to the point.
Seal my lips on my aches and pains—They are increasing and the love of rehearsing them grows sweeter as the years go by.
I dare not ask for Grace enough to enjoy the tales of others pains, but help me to endure them with patience—
I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memory of others.
Teach me the glorious lesson, that occassionaly I may be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet, I do not want to be a saint, some of them are so hard to live with. But, a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the Devil.
Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people, and give me, Oh Lord, the Grace to tell them so.