Considering the subject of my BLOG writing today, you'll see why there is deliberate irony in my choice of photographs to begin this post.

O.K... I admit it.  I'm putting off finishing the rant for at least another day. When I finish it and post it, you'll see why I'm having trouble. The subject is religion... not spirituality, but religion... there’s a definite difference, and that difference is why I’m eager not to be misunderstood.  

The Dalai Lama, one of the most spiritual persons I've ever met, doesn't put great emphasis on religion.  When I met him almost thirty years ago, he was a guest at a retreat center a mile down the road from the school where I was headmaster.  Although he and I are the same age, both born in 1935, he seemed to me to be ageless when we were both forty-something.  When I met him, I entered a room with thirty to forty people, and he seemed to know that I had come.  He was on the other side of the room from where I had entered alone; and he looked up and continued to look at me as I walked toward him.  He was the only person in the room wearing a saffron robe, so I knew he was the special guest. Halfway across the room he lifted his hands in the traditional Buddhist greeting, and I didn't have to think about it...  I did the same back to him. It would have been unthinkable, actually impossible, for me to look at anyone else in the room.  His English wasn't quite as fluent then as it is these days, but we had no problem greeting each other.  The greeting was as natural as breathing. I felt as if I were getting together with an old friend. It was incredible.

     

I'm writing this as preface to the difficult discussion I am having with myself about religion.  I've called some of my BLOG writings rants.  I'm quite sure the Dalai Lama doesn't rant.  On my bike ride today around the San Diego Bay, I thought about him.  I thought about his not ranting... about his healing presence in a troubled world... how he confronts troubles and comforts the troubled world without ranting.  I’m going to try to rant less and comfort more. We’ll see how it goes.  

In the meantime, take a look at my photographs for today.  I got the photographs on a ride around the Bay. I went down on my bicycle to the ferry terminal this morning.  I hitched a ride across San Diego Bay on the ferry and then made my way around the South Bay all the way down to Imperial Beach, past the South Bay Salt Works, and then back home again through South Bay communities by noon.  I tried to imagine the Dalai Lama riding with me in his saffron robes, but that image didn’t become clear.  Even less clear was the image of him wearing bicycle gear. As my students used to say, “Whatever.”