Lekshe at the Groundbreaking

Well, I've learned recently that I'm soft, so maybe the fact that Lekshe's speech for the groundbreaking for our long retreat center made me weep doesn't mean that much -- but it's the best short description I've ever read of what Buddhist practice is for. What we're doing, why we're doing it.

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of looking at a series of photographs which are all perfectly recognizable, except for one bizarre image that everyone else seems to agree is you...? There's a series of prose portraits over there at Lekshe's, and one of them is supposed to be me. The rest of them are brilliantly accurate, so I suppose the presumption has to be that the portrait of me is too. The difference is that the photographs usually make me look like a doofus, whereas this portrait is absurdly flattering, so I want everyone to read it. By all means keep the "tall thin tea-drinking" image in mind as you read, too.