These pictures are of two dear friends who seem to be able to endure whatever comes their way. One is our big granite Temple Buddha, who sits smiling, on the day of his arrival, at the packing strap that lifted his two and a half ton body from the delivery truck to the stone garden where he now rests comfortably. He sits through rain, sun, daylight and starlight, with the same lovely smile. The other picture is of my friend Anne, who is in her late 80's, and has recently had a couple of hospitalizations based on the usual endlessly long list of the side-effects of aging. On this particular visit, she had to wear an EEG monitor on her head for 24 hours. You may have seen the picture of the Tibetan monk, Matthieu Ricard, after enduring a functional MRI, his head covered with a network of sensors, smiling beatifically. Anne, not a long-time meditator, but surely a Buddha, went up and down in mood during her ordeal, but here she is smiling. She has always made the best of things in her long life. I bow to her cheerful endurance, as I bow to the Buddha. May we all smile to our suffering, knowing we are more than our suffering.
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