Mornings (the noon hour and occasional early evenings, too) play out like this sometimes --- while writing, reading, thinking deep thoughts (or taking a nap), the telephone rings. "Uh, did you forget ....?"
My ability to forget meetings is near-legendary.
To launch 2017, returning to a practice of the olden days, I ordered up a daily engagement calendar. This used to be an annual rite, generally futile, because if you have an engagement calendar it's necessary to write stuff in it, then remember to look at it.
I've resolved to do better. Just wrote in a 9 a.m. meeting for Tuesday, January 31st. That morning is officially full now.
Considering the likely chaos of 2017, it seemed like a good idea to acquire a little inspiration along with the calendar pages. Thus, the annual Thich Nhat Hanh daybook issued by the Unified Buddhist Church, Inc., which represents Thay and his Sangha in the United States.
Thay himself, exiled from his native Vietnam for peace-making efforts during the late war and colleague of such luminaries as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton, turns 90 this year and is handicapped by a 2014 stroke. Although well enough to travel during December from Plum Village in France to a satellite center in Thailand, his writing has ceased.
But his words remain, including these --- the thought for January accompanied by Nicholas Kirsten-Honshin's artwork:
"Our true happiness comes
from being fully conscious
in the present moment,
aware of our connection
to everything in the universe."
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