Another Perspective

Ben is enthusing about Tibetan Buddhist tradition of creating sand mandalas. A gang of monks will take several days or even weeks to create an intricate pattern using grains of coloured sand. No sooner is this beautiful wheel complete than the monks immediately destroy it. 
Life is transitory.

Bus travel gives me a chance to see London from different angle. Looking down from the top deck of the No. 23 I notice that someone has taken the trouble to fold a flock of small origami swans and blue-tack them to the roof of a bus stop on Ladbroke Grove.

Justin has been very kind and helpful lately, driving me to Sainsbury’s, pushing the trolley around and carrying my shopping up the stairs for me. I tell him about the delightful bus stop birds. “But what will happen to them when it rains?” asks Justin. “Well,” I muse, “I guess it’s about the impermanence of beauty.”

“Of course,” says Ben, “if you look at it another way, everything is beautiful. But nothing lasts. So the real secret is to appreciate the beauty of impermanence.”