The Dalai Lama

mmmmm. Nice. Not ground breaking enlightening, but peaceful. One of the monks did some chanting, which always speaks deeply to my soul. The Dalai Lama is very human and has a wonderful presence. I went to both sessions today and will attend the morning session tomorrow. The afternoon session is the free one on sustainability and I was unable to snag a ticket to that one. Probably a good thing as I really do need to study! Richard Gere sat in the front row and did prostrations at the end (he may have done them at the beginning, but I wasn't paying attention, I was busy doing my own bowing. I just thought it was very cool that he is who he is, and he was doing prostrations.

I am writing my Philosophy exam tonight (I hope I can complete it tonight) then tomorrow is concentrated study time for my data analysis final on Monday.

I have so much more to say, and simply no time to say it. More tomorrow night.


I bow to each of you my friends, for wading through all of this with me. I know that since I moved to Ann Arbor last July, I have had a lot of drama and crisis and even chaos. One thing that is very apparent to me. The life transition that it was to move here was huge and that has been discussed here already, but what I didn't pay a lot of attention to was the fact that I had intention to change more than where I lived and what I did professionally, I had intention to change ME, my life. In order to really effect change in our lives, sometimes it takes tearing down the old life and creating a more solid foundation then was there previously. That is a painful process, and a frightening one. I think it should be no surprise that this is the place I find myself at the moment. One thing that Richard Gere said last night, was that doing what we are called to do, is not an easy thing. It takes MUCH effort. He said, "to say that I could become the Dalai Lama by thinking about it every once in a while is absurd" That spoke volumes to me. I never thought that getting a PhD was going to be easy, particularly at the University of Michigan, however I don't think I knew exactly what the cost was going to be, and the reality of it is, I need to put forth more effort. Because my true goal here is to help decrease suffering for those who are dying in our country. Getting a PhD will give me the tools to be able to work towards that goal. Richard Gere said that something that he keeps near his meditation place is a statement, (I might not remember it exactly, but it is something like this) Everything hangs on the tip of motivation. I need to dig deep and find my motivation........

Again, I bow to each of you, thank you for caring about me and coming to read all of this.......it is so nice to know that there are people who care enough to read me, even when I am flopping around like a fish out of water :o)