Get a Lifetime Dot Com

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

You can’t sprinkle the perfume of happiness on others without getting a few drops on yourself. <source: Anon>

There are so many expressions we use around the heart, e.g. “from the bottom of my heart,” “heartfelt,” “broken-hearted,” “heart of stone,” “won your heart,” “wear your heart on your sleeve,” “pour out your heart,” “lose your heart,” “a heart of gold,” “straight from the heart,” “the heart of the matter,” to name just a few.

It became important for me, during the past year of dangerous living, to keep a record, so that I wouldn’t have to experience it again. I offer “the heart of the matter” in this “Heart Day” webpost.

While my dream <please click here for details of dream> of February 03, 2012 sounds like a piece of erotica from a “cheap” romantic novel, I discovered during my year of dangerous living that there were two levels of meaning:

• The outer meaning seemed to be that I had issues around romance [the heart] that I had to resolve; and
  
• The inner meaning was that, unbeknowns to me, I had become somewhat numb, keeping feelings at bay. I was nesting in a cozy cocoon. A cocoon where I was not aware that I had been experiencing memories of feelings, not actual feelings themselves. A cocoon where I felt settled and happy. I had come to certain conclusions about my life. I had “made my peace” with them.

I needed a shock to wake me up.This dream, with its sexual content, provided that shock.

So the stage was set for some sort of revolution within my being.

General Level:

The most important thing I learned in my year of dangerous living was this:

Feeling is part of being human. In our aggressive and speedy society, we seem to have forgotten that. But while we neither have to indulge in nor repress our feelings — both of which can be dangerous — a courageous person touches in with them. Touch in with their energetic quality at the pre-thought level. (Click here for more information on this subject.)

…the intelligent way of working with emotions [that “is different from and in contrast to the usual approach of suppressing them or acting them out”] is to try to relate with their basic substance, the abstract quality of the emotions, so to speak. The basic “isness” quality of the emotions, the fundamental nature of the emotions, is just energy. And if one is able to relate with energy, then the energies have no conflict with you.They become a natural process. <source: Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche: The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation; publ. Shambhala Dragon Editions; 1976; Chapter IV, section 1>

To keep in touch with some basic sanity I bracketed the year of February 03, 2012 to February 02, 2013 with a collection of webposts that I called my Relationship Series. They provide a record of what I was learning, week-by-week, month-by-month:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it. <source:  poet Rumi>

We have a choice: we can either hang onto our habitual patterns. Or we can step into freshness. (Please click here for more on this subject.)

Specifics:

To repeat, the record I kept through my webposts helped me to review this past year of crisis so that I wouldn’t have to experience it again. I offer some specifics. May they benefit someone besides myself: Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

(Please note: the words in a different colour are hyperlinks. Please click on them for more information.)

It is Sunday, February 03, 2013. The first-year anniversary of a dream of February 03, 2012 that was so dramatic that it triggered a year-long crisis. On the outer level, the dream appears erotic. Had it not appeared erotic, I believe that it would not have had the intense impact that it was to have on my life.(For further discussion on this topic please see webpost Is Sexual Attraction a Cosmic Joke?)

February 03, 2012 – I and a man called Alex are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. He asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.”  I lean down and kiss him. He doesn’t move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

In future posts I will talk about “living dangerously” in the sense that I went beyond my own ego on several occasions and experienced feelings to which I was unaccustomed, and an itsby, bitsy, teeny, weeny, taste of  “a perspective of freshness and innocence that provides practitioners a means of discovering delight in the challenges of daily existence.” Very frightening. Very joyful.

In this post I will describe the “anniversary dream” that I had today in the early morning of February 03, 2013, one year after the original dream described above that ushered in my year of living dangerously. (The numbers in brackets relate to the Notes on the Dream that follow the outline of the dream itself.)

Anniversary Dream: I am standing in front of a (1) fireplace mantel. (2) The room is in semi-darkness. There are many objects on the mantel. The objects are unusual, innovative, not things you can buy in a store.

(3) The one directly in front of me is a small, wooden object. I study it. What is it for? I think that I could use it as a (4) cardholder to hold the 5” x 3” cards that I have on my kitchen shrine, each one inscribed with one of Atisha’s slogans.

On my right is an object that stood out by its transcendent beauty: a collection of small, perfectly round (5) crystal objects like the marbles that children play with. They are stacked side-by-side and one atop the other such that the whole ensemble is in the shape of a circle. (6) Even though the room is in semi darkness, this crystal object shines on its own.

(7) There is some sense that I have to make a choice between the cardholder and the multi-layered crystal ball. I am leaning towards the cardholder in front of me, but keep glancing at the crystal object on my right. I do not actually make a choice. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

What warning did Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche never tire of repeating? It’s this: the more senior we become in practice and study of the Shambhala Buddhist teachings, the more subtle ego gets.

First, here’s how I’m using the word “ego”:

Ego is the absence of true knowledge of who we really are, together with its result: a doomed clutching on, at all costs, to a cobbled together and makeshift image of ourselves, an inevitably chameleon charlatan self that keeps changing, and has to, to keep alive the fiction of its existence.

In Tibetan, ego is called dakdzin , which means “grasping to a self.” Ego is then defined as incessant movements of grasping at a delusory notion of  “I” and “mine,” self and other, and all the concepts, ideas, desires, and activities that will sustain that false construction.

Such grasping is futile from the start and condemned to frustration, for there is no basis or truth in it, and what we are grasping at is by its very nature ungraspable. The fact that we need to grasp at all and to go on grasping shows that in the depths of our being we know that the self doesn’t inherently exist. From this secret, unnerving knowledge spring all our fundamental insecurities and fears. (Italics are mine.)

(source: Rigpa Glimpse of the Day February 10, 2011)

So what is it that has become more subtle as we advance and become senior students? 

Its  [the Sadhana of Mahamudra] essential teaching is that the nature of the practice itself undercuts any ideas of spiritual materialism. The practice addresses the subtle corruption that can take place when our spiritual practice makes us feel superior to others and we become engaged in rebuilding the fortress of ego. <emphasis mine>

Senior students and practitioners have done years of work on understanding ego. We have experienced, to some extent, what I call the Humpty-Dumpty syndrome. 

But the danger lies in going into GUT mode:

1. Grasping onto this understanding;
   
2. Using advanced knowledge to feel superior to others;  and,
   
3. Turning it into just one more way to build ego back up again.

OK. That’s the summary of the webpost. Now let’s examine a little more. Read the rest of this entry »

(Please note: the words in a different colour from the main text are hyperlinks. Please move your cursor over them and then click to get connected to the information.)

Just before starting the New Year’s Weekthun (a week-long urban meditation retreat) at the Shambhala Meditation Centre of Toronto  lead by Gaylon Ferguson of Shambhala International, I had come to two conclusions:

• My heart friend  is not a friend to me. It’s a one-way street. I’m his friend. He is not mine. How he manifests towards me does not align with my core values, namely, basic human friendliness, concern and support — some of the attributes that are the hallmark of (relative) basic goodness;  and
  

•  While I honour whatever his own truth is at any given time, and understand from where he is coming,  it does not mean that I choose to live with the situation.

So on Day One of the New Year’s Weekthun, I enter the shrineroom in a state of profound sadness. Like James Bond’s martinis, I am shaken, not stirred. Being stirred comes during the weekthun itself.

This sadness, as it turns out, is a perfect starting point for me where Peaceful Abiding and care for others can be practiced. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

Today is January 01, 2013. Many of us will have made, or will be in the process of making, New Year’s resolutions. For example:

• to be more emotionally generous in sharing our feelings and experience
  
• to communicate in a genuine way, i.e. communication that goes beyond ego, that isn’t defensive, e.g. “You’re putting words in my mouth.” “That’s just your projection.”
  
• to appreciate the support that others give us, rather than taking it for granted or thinking that it is somehow our “due”
• to be kinder, less aggressive
• to get fit
• etc. etc. etc.

My New Year’s resolution is NOT to try, or make any effort, to improve myself.

Why?

As long as you’re wanting to be thinner, smarter, more enlightened, less uptight, or whatever it might be, somehow you’re always going to be approaching your problem with the very same logic that created it to begin with: you’re not good enough. That’s why the habitual pattern never unwinds itself when you’re trying to improve, because you go about it in exactly the same habitual style that caused all the pain to start. (source: Pema Chodron: Start Where You Are)

I want to unwind my habitual “self,” not improve it!

Let’s be clear. I’m not taking about the self as who we actually are. I’m using the term “self” here as it pertains to our manufactured self, ego. (Please click here for definition of ego.)

Our usual resolutions revolve around tweaking this manufactured self that we cherish so much.

What’s wrong with being kinder? Nothing. It’s trying to be kinder that presents a problem, as Pema Chodron’s quotation above demonstrates. 

I myself like to use what I call “the royal road” to fulfil my intention.

And that royal road is mindfulness and awareness. (Please click here for definitions of these terms.) By practicing mindfulness and awareness, we aren’t admonishing ourselves with commands like “don’t be unkind”  in an effort to be kind. Instead, we notice again and again and again when we are being unkind.

By practicing small increments of awareness — over and over again — of our thoughts and emotions, a quiet yet powerful revolution takes place: the thoughts, emotions and actions that underlie our habitual patterns (please click here for definition and descriptionof term) of aggression and laziness , for example, are eventually undercut.

Atisha (please click here for more information about this great teacher) summed it up very well: Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end. (Please click here for more information about the slogans.)

In the morning when you wake up, you reflect on the day ahead and aspire to use it to keep a wide-open heart and mind. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, you think over what you have done. If you fulfilled your aspiration, rejoice in that. If you went against your aspiration, rejoice that you are able to see what you did and are no longer living in ignorance. This way you will be inspired to go forward with increasing clarity, confidence, and compassion in the days that follow.    (Please click here for source of Pema Chodron’s quotation.)

At the same time, we are undercutting our tendency to maintain our karma and create fresh karma.

Not bad! Especially for someone who refuses to “improve.”

Please click here for sources on how to practice mindfulness and awareness.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog by clicking on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and following one of three sets of simple instructions. Thank you.

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I usually buy my perfume in a shop where a profusion of bottles are stored in lighted, sparkling glass cabinets.

But on December 23, 1997, exactly 15 years ago today, I have a rather unusal experience around perfume.

It’s a day like any other day, except that I’m starting a new job. Get up. Get dressed. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Put on winter things. Lock door. Go down the wooden stairs and walk north.

About half-way up the block, I notice a bottle of perfume. It’s sitting atop a garbage bag.

Being a lover of perfume, I am immediately attracted to that bottle, especially when I read the name of the perfume. Devachan. It means dwelling of the gods. (Please click here for fuller explanation.)

I am drawn by the juxtaposition of the perfume and the garbage. From ego’s point of view, it’s sort of like beauty and the beast! Nice and not nice. Attractive and ugly. Pleasant and unpleasant. Sensual and tacky. Sweet and smelly.

Contemplating this, I realize that perfume and garbage are not really opposites as we conventionally think of them. Nor are they separate from each other. Both these phenomena arise from the same primordial ground, ultimate basic goodness. (Please click here for explanation of term.)

Seems that some entrepreneurs are discovering the same thing: one company is making perfume from garbage. (Please click here for more details.) Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to remind us that whatever comes up is a workable situation. We don’t throw anything out.

After September 11, 2001, the Smithsonian discovered that there is the perfume of garbage. (Please click here for more details.)

I have renamed December 23 Devachan Day. It reminds me that it is I who have created a dualistic world. And that world is reflected back to me everytime I fixate on so-called opposites. It is this fixation that creates karma.

I have never been able to find a bottle of this lovely perfume in any store or garbage bag since 1997.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

In high school back in the late 1950’s, a pupil used the word “need” when answering our teacher’s question.

I’ll never forget the teacher’s answer: “What do you need it for?”

We were stumped! I mean, we all use the word “need” and expect that everyone knows what we mean.

It’s “common sense,” isn’t it?

Apparently not.

In my last webpost (please click here for that post) I said

I must confess that there is one area where I do not have a lot of experience: romance. A long time ago, I had decided that it was not part of my karmic path in this lifetime. I was dismissive of the idea that one “needs” a partner.

I had to question that view after a clear and vivid dream— a dream that triggered a personal crisis.

Let me clarify: I simply have become less dismissive of the idea that one “needs” a partner. Whether we actually need a partner is the subject of this webpost.

Two points here:

• I don’t believe that we “need” much. I think that most “needs” are manufactured by our culture; and
• The notion of romance is also a manufactured one — propped up by a huge music industry of “love songs;” movies; massive fashion industry, online dating services, books, etc. etc. In short our whole culture not only supports this notion, but promotes it. However, there is no such phrase as “falling in love” in the Tibetan language.
  

[For a fabulous presentation of this subject please watch this video by Dzongsar Khenyste Rinpoche on Love and Relationship, director of the award-winning movie The Cup. It takes a few minutes for Rinpoche’s presentation to begin. But it’s well worth the wait. At some points, it was a laugh every five seconds.]

I believe that we are primordially, inherently complete and whole in ourselves. We are not “half a person” waiting for someone to “complete” us.

But we are relational beings. Or “social animals,” as some would have it. That  seems to be very much part of our DNA.

So while it can be wonderful to share your life with a partner — and simultaneously practice the six paramitas (perfections) — I don’t believe that having a partner is necessary in order to live a “good” life. We can practice the six perfections everyday in any situation. Having said that:

1. Please click here to read about the role of the paramitas in the relationship of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and his wife Khandro Tseyang. The article offers a helpful perspective. But if you just want to read about the paramitas, go to the last three paragraphs of the article.
2. If you want to read a more expansive description of the six perfections, please click here.
   

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

When I was fourteen years-old, my father used to call me “Ann Landers,” the late advice columnist. He remarked that it was amazing that I passed my school exams because of all the telephone calls I’d get everyday. (Please click here for information about Ann Landers.)

We all have particular “best ways”  that we help people. Mine is in the area of crisis support. Any kind of crisis.

Of course, my own lifetime crises help me to help others. I don’t have to have had exactly the same experience myself to be able to help others with theirs. A crisis is a crisis. Pain is pain. Suffering is suffering.

That’s the general level.

On the specific level, as I just noted, while I don’t have to have experienced the exact, same type of crisis as those who come to me for help and support, it can add depth and richness to that support.

So, before I continue, I must confess that there is one area where I do not have a lot of experience: romance. A long time ago, I had decided that it was not part of my karmic path in this lifetime. I was dismissive of the idea that one “needs” a partner.

That changed with a clear and vivid dream— a dream that triggered a personal crisis. (Please click here for the dream and the shock waves I experienced.)

Rather than adopt the usual tactics and remedies to ease my pain, I decided that I had to make good use of this crisis rather than waste it by sliding back into habitual patterns that return me back into my comfort zone, my cocoon.

In my generation (the cusp of wartime and “baby boomers”), we were taught to view feelings with suspicion. I found that I had become somewhat numb, another version of falling asleep.

When I had a game-changing dream, I made a game-changing move: I tried to ride the sh0ck waves I experienced by continuously acknowledging my feelings without indulging in or rejecting them.

……
The everyday practice is simply to
develop a complete acceptance and
openness to all situations and emotions.
……
……
source: The Vidyadhara, Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, excerpt from Maha-Ati text

How to do that?

1. In seems to involve aligning myself with the energetic quality of the feeling, rather than just identifying the feeling itself, e.g. depression, joy, fear, panic etc., itself. To me, it’s like lighting firecrackers — we not only see the full-blown display of the firecracker (feeling) in the sky, but we catch the sizzle (energetic quality) too.
2. Also, I used my own personal identity crisis to get in touch on a continual basis with my own basic goodness. (Please click here for description of the term basic goodness.)

The Ace of Cups from the Motherpeace Tarot card deck gives us a graphic illustration of these ideas:

The Ace of Cups is the gift of love — a dive into one’s deepest feelings, which are spilling over in abundance like a fountain…good [ultimate basically good] feelings are assured. The soft blues and greens [of the card] signify that peace and purity [unfabricated nature of mind] dwell here…This Ace represents a surrender [acceptance, not fighting, stuggling, rejecting] to emotions….The silver cup is the vessel, the chalice, the grail [that symbolizes the womb] — the archetypal feminine receptive mode. It promises ….[an] experience of letting go into unconditional [ultimate, primordial] love [basic goodness], the spaciousness of the open heart.

 Please note: the words in [   ] are my own.

The result of aligning myself with the energetic quality of whatever I was feeling, and getting in touch with my own basic goodness, is that I have more opportunity to live in the NOW rather than in my concept of what is happening. (Please click here for description of NOW.)

If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.

If we can communicate our own basic goodness (BG) (click here for definition) between each other, there is a greater likelihood of being kind and compassionate. This is turn creates an incredibly strong bond.{Author’s note: It’s a kind of cascading transmission: you acknowledge your own and others basic goodness, and society’s basic goodness, and transmit this awareness to others. They in turn transmit their new-found awareness to others. And so on……..} …In this (Tibetan oracular) tradition of transmission, there is great power and blessings. In this way, we are creating enlightened society, being brave, raising energy and shifting the paradigm of human existence….in this way we are able to help the world. <source: taken from my notes of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s address to international sangha on the occasion of the Harvest of Peace, Saturday, September 22, 2012>

September 22, 2012 – 13h45 EST …. It’s that time again…. the Harvest of Peace, a celebration that Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s (SMR) intrernational sangha (group of practitioners) hold every Autumn in their respective centres.

Harvest of Peace, held around the time of the autumn equinox, is an opportunity for local communities to gather, hear teachings by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and celebrate the riches of our local cultures and heritage. The Sakyong addresses the international community through a live broadcast delivered through a telephone link with Shambhala Centers around the world. <source:  http://www.shambhala.org/community/events.php>

Here is a summary of the Sakyong’s address. The theme is the creation of Enlightened Society (ES). During his retreat of 2010 in Nepal, SMR reflected on the question: Can we create good human society?

[Please note: these are my notes only. You will have to check against delivery for the complete presentation. Click here.]

• Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Sakyong’s father, coined the phrase “enlightened society (ES).”
• There are two core principles upon which an enlightened society is created and based: (1) all individuals have basic goodness; and (2) society is basically good.
• SMR describes his mandate as that of creating enlightened society. For him, it’s been a personal journey around what ES means.
• the notion of ES is at the heart of  Shambhala altogether. Is this a literal place? Or a metaphor?
  • In Shambhalian terms, society has awoken and has acknowledged BG as the binding principle.
    
  • In geographical terms, ES is at the most western part of the east and the most eastern part of the west
• When we see the level of suffering and tragedies, we might doubt that BG is inherent
• (At this point in history,) we are at our most difficult moment. That’s why Shambhala teaching — with its binding principle of BG — is being introduced now.
• We are not talking about a utopian or ultimate society. But a society based on humanity’s most inherent trait, i.e. BG.
  • BG is not a superficial trait. Not goodness against badness. We as individuals are complete and worthy at our deepest levels. BG is at the essence of our own heart and mind
• We are entering a time when humanity doubts its own worthiness, completeness.
  • One of the components of the word “enlightened” is “complete.”
  • So we are aware of the situation we are in today, both the good and the bad.
  • We are aware of the totality of the human condition.
  • Another component of the notion of enlightenment is that we are awake, not asleep!
• The Shambhala notion of society here means the network and inter-connectedness between human beings.
  • It is the invisible pathways between all beings.
  • Innately, we all want to communicate, share and express
  • We are constantly trying to understand who we are
  • The Shambhala notion of society is not necessarily simply rules and etiquette. But it is the notion of wishing to communicate.
    • The principle of communication is at its strongest at birth, when there was a wish to communicate with our parents.
    • How we as individuals relate to each other is at the core of society.
    • If we can communicate our own BG between each other, there is a greater likelihood of being kind and compassionate. This in turn creates and “incredibly strong bond.” {Author’s note: It’s a kind of cascading transmission: you acknowledge your own and others basic goodness, and society’s basic goodness, and transmit this awareness to others. They in turn transmit their new-found awareness to others. And so on……..}
  • So I hope everyone can reflect on this notion of society.
    • In some ways, society is one big being.
    • The nature of this giant being is goodness.
    • It is precisely at this moment that we must raise our windhorse (click here for definition) and be brave (click here for description of term).
    • We must acknowledge moments of goodness, strength.
    • We are here to uplift the word, not find endless fault.
    • At the same time, we are not overwhelmed by the challenges. We can ride them! (Author’s note: Or they will ride us.)
    • We must acknowledge that we live life for a deeper purpose (Author’s note: deeper than simply taking care of ourselves).
    • Our joys and difficulties are based on our relationship to society.
  • The principles of society are constantly being forged.
    • If we let fear and aggression taint the social consciousness, then the notion of society as being awake and founded on BG will recede and seem unrealistic.
    • As we reflect on this, we aren’t passively standing by. We manifest these principles. We believe in their inherent value.

If you like this post, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog by clicking on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar. Just follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

Years ago I dreamt that I was riding bare-back on a palamino horse on a large plain in Mongolia. Many of our dreams do not “come true.” But this is one dream I want to fulfil.

However, I went vicariously through my friend “Red” (Carell Doerrbecker) who, with her husband Konrad, flew to Asia (including Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) this July and returned with some fabulous stories that she shared with me, Ted and Merrily Spearin, Paul Persofsky and Jen Janes over breakfast in Toronto, Canada in early August.

Turns out she almost didn’t make it to Mongolia because she flirted with the wrong guy in Hong Kong.

Here’s “Red” recounting what happened.

Konrad’s team has just won gold, silver and bronze at the World Championship of Dragon Boaters in Hong Kong, (July 04-05, 2012). Before flying to Beijing, we go to see the 112-foot majestic, slate-grey statue of the Buddha which is surrounded by statues of bodhisattvas. In the distance stands the Po Lin Monastery. Joining the tourists are cows and bulls! I pat the cows. No problem. They are docile.

Now, back home in Toronto, whenever a dog comes to me to get groomed, I start the ceremony with “Who’s the handsome boy?” accompanied by a wink.

So I saunter up to a Brahmin bull and extend my hand to pat him, saying “Who’s the handsome boy?” I don’t remember if I winked or not. But what I can tell you for certain is that that’s the last time I’ll flirt with a bull. His head goes down. His horns hit my legs. I fly threw the air. I land in a square where people wait for buses……My initial evaluation of this guy so far? He plays rough.

Konrad, startled but not surprised — my red hair, like Anne of Green Gable’s, gets me into these kinds of situations every once in a while — runs over to help me. “What was the very last thing you said to that bull?” he demands?…Oh don’t tell me, I know…Who’s the handsome boy?” I nod numbly. My face is now as red as my hair. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” says Konrad. “He could have. He chose not to.”

Maybe with my red hair the bull mistakes me for a Spanish matador with his red flag. Or perhaps my flirtatiousness — “Who’s the handsome boy?” — encourages him to get overly-familiar with me, even though it was our first date. Or maybe that is just his way of showing friendliness! At any rate, Konrad laughed for the rest of the two-week trip.

Here are five pics to accompany the story above. Read the rest of this entry »