"It's like the gourmet the Chink told me about who gave up everything, traveled thousands of miles and spent his last dime to get to the highest lamasery in the Himalayas to taste the dish he'd longed for his whole life, Tibetan Peach Pie. When he got there, frostbitten, exhausted and ruined, the lamas said they were all out of peach. 'Okay,' said the gourmet, 'make it apple.'" -Jellybean Bonanza

Well, I leave tomorrow and as I write this I'm realizing I'm totally unprepared. In fact, I really don't know how I feel about going. Is it nervous excitement bubbling in my belly, or anxious fear. Or is the Buddha-mind in the heart of all preparing to blossom through my physical form in a dazzling display of chanting, prayer and meditation. Regardless, the precipice is before me, and the horse can't be stopped, and whether I fly or fall, the great chasm dividing right and wrong will be breached. Some things to keep in mind:

          -"Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds."

          -"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

         -"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."
           

         -"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle              will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

Well that's it for the Buddha quotes, I'm off to American sleep for the last time for a while... Tomorrow I will research and post some fundamentals of Buddhism to enlighten you readers as well as myself. Peace!