shoes

days are going by, fast.
The bump offered me brand new shoes today, they are a little large but very nice. So I have to wear shoes now. He gave me stomach medicine, too. someone had told him that I had stomach problems the other day. They are gone and forgotten since long ...
the fun of the day happens in the morning, on alms round, the rest is like meditating and learning Dhamma everywhere else in the world. Except that here are no construction sites in the temple and no Thaipop music behind walls. It,s much less noisy in the city of Los Angeles close to a 4 way drive tahn in a small Thai village. As a result I hear the tinnitus more often and louder. but it doesn't bother me anymore, it's the sound of silence. (It first appeared during my first vipassana retreat 2007 when some drunken Thai villagers fired a bengal firework next to the kuti I was meditating in.) but back to the fun: on alms round the monks do get a little bit more of everything, more food more cake, generally more sweets. Twice in the past week I could observe how a slight greed and feeling of unfairness arouse in my mind for a second. Imagine that, I'm carrying a bowl full with food to feed 2 or 3 people more and a bag full with drinks and sweets and then the thought arises: "booah, the monk got a yogurt, and a cake, ..." What a shame!
I thought of my brother and me as children, we observed carefully what the other one got and it's kind of borne right to me to get the same as the brother and to feel injustice whenever it was different. Time to grow up Phalañanī.
Life is not fair without a caring mother around. It is like that and we only have one option to choose, if we want to find peace at heart, freedom from suffering - and that is: acceptance.