Every damage done in the past can be healed if you know how to touch deeply the present moment. —Thich Nhat Hanh

Thank you for damage from my past healing through greater presence.

Thank you for love from neighbors at the Vision Zero meeting.

Thank you for SB welcoming me at her gathering. Thank you for serious bear hugs and for the promise of blossoming friendships. Thank you for Seminole sisters.

Thank you for a free fake snickers bar at Joi Cafe with GC. Thank you for bike rides to Joi.

Thank you for catching up with SL (aka Stishey) over turmeric oatmilk concoctions. Thank you for her acceptance. Thank you for pals from the La Reina days.

Thank you for TNT sharing solid, detailed advice on how to interview contractors based on her years of experience with that sort of thing.

Thank you for the salty crunch of potato chips. 

Thank you for habits to increase wellbeing in the mind.

Thank you for the power of communication to enhance intimacy.

Thank you for ribbons in the sky.

Thank you for a stranger’s tube and time on Malibu Canyon.

Thank you for impromptu dinners with roomies. Thank you for shared laughs. Thank you for the smell of their wine with the taste of my pasta.

Thank you for letting it be alive. 

Thank you for dissolvable stitches.

Thank you for nippy walks.

Thank you for Verizon service reps.

Thank you for NM’s enthusiasm and gratitude making it a pleasure to work with her. Thank you for her vulnerability. Thank you for her healing.

Thank you for the YMCA with DS.

Thank you for cultivating love and forgiveness so close relationships actually are close. Some family and friends used to feel like famemies and frenemies. From giving and getting space, by setting boundaries, with intentional efforts, animosity morphed into loving kindness (mostly).

Thank you for drinking water all day long.

Thank you for a new dessert to try for the roomies.

Thank you if my living with them adds any little bit to their wellness and happiness.

Thank you for the chance to experiment with a different life, even if it’s not easy. This sort of thing can be fun. Thank you for new people to know and learn from. Thank you for each phase strengthening the next one. 

Thank you for changes to look forward to in the coming year.

Thank you for the beauty in every single living creature and the lessons in each experience.

Thank you for crossing paths with genuinely kind folks.

Thank you for mindfulness of daily stress and ease helping to free enjoyment.

Thank you for SM making it on the lung transplant list.

Thank you for GC becoming a U.S. citizen.

Thank you for Moms’ friends to fill their lives with meaning.

Thank you for DS’s son visiting three weekends in a row.

Thank you for a trip to ABQ over Christmas and a dog to love on there.

Thank you for Mondays chopping vegetables at RP’s.

Thank you for weekday bike rides on canyon roads (less traffic).

Thank you for humble pals and neighbors.

Thank you for Sister Joyful Insight. Thank you for the contagion of her positivity.

Thank you for dog moms.

Thank you for Meyer lemon cakes.

Thank you for a roomie repairing the handle to my hatchback.

Thank you for the REI guys who serviced my bike.

Thank you for a heron near miss on the way to the shop.

Thank you for kindness in return for basic human decency. 

Thank you for hope that despite evidence to the contrary, we and our world are healing.

Thank you for appreciation of apples as snacks.

Thank you for lighthearted jokes in the vegan community about that one question we all are asked sooner or later.

Thank you for corny pea humor.

Thank you for moms and the bird lady rescuing a little one with clipped wings in the cold.

Thank you for choices that seemed like sacrifices (for the environment, animals…). Later, their selfish benefits brought home the reality of interbeing.

Thank you for what appears to be the young woman who asked Thay a question in 2013 then becoming ordained at Deer Park Monastery in 2023. Thank you for genuine seekers.

Thank you for days of mindfulness at Deer Park.

Thank you for a few fun quotes from a latest read, Being Peace:

So we are friends, and our happiness depends on each other. According to that teaching I have to take care of myself, and you take care of yourself. That way we help each other. . . .  If I only say, “Don’t do this, you have to do that,” and I don’t take care of myself, I can do many wrong things, and that does not help. I have to take care of myself, knowing that I am responsible for your happiness, and if you do the same, everything will be alright. This is the Buddha’s teaching about perception, based on the principle of dependent co-arising.

Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we help more than if we do a lot. We call that nonaction. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, just to be himself and the situation can change. That is also an aspect of Dharmakaya: not talking, not teaching, just being.

Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. You have to be able to transcend your knowledge the way people climb a ladder. If you are on the fifth step of a ladder and think that you are very high, there is no hope for you to climb to the sixth. The technique is to release. The Buddhist way of understanding is always letting go of our views and knowledge in order to transcend. This is the most important teaching. That is why I use the image of water to talk about understanding. Knowledge is solid; it blocks the way of understanding. Water can flow, can penetrate.

Thank you for awareness that I’ve been too serious lately. And life feels harder than it should, or at least more constrained. Could it be instability from the last year or two? It’s getting better.

Thank you for what inspires us and keeps us well.

Thank you for beings who uplift us.

Thank you for freedom to travel our higher path.

Thank you for courage to dwell in truth.

Thank you for faith to shed what doesn’t serve us opening space to move toward what does. 

Thank you for appreciation that we have limited energy, so it matters what we spend it on. 

Thank you for energy devoted to caring for our selves. 

Thank you for reverence we have for our inner callings.

Thank you for deep, honest, care lasting and expanding what’s real. It brightens our light. Maybe, too, if we keep ourselves transparent—if we clear what’s opaque in us—then more of that inner light radiates.

Thank you for the light in you. <3