more stories to share

+the missing brick
once, when i and my wife were travelling, i received a fax from my secretary.
'there's one glass brick missing for the work on the kitchen renovation' she said. 'i'm sending you the original plan as well as the plan the builder has come up with to compensate for it'
on the one hand, there was the design my wife had made: harmonious lines of bricks with an opening for ventilation. on the other, there was the plan drawn up to resolve the problem of the missing brick: a real jigsaw puzzle in which the glass squares were arranged in a higgledy- piggledy fashion that defied aesthetics.
'just buy another brick' wrote my wife. and so they did, and thus stuck to the original design.
that afternoon, i thought for a long time about what had happened; how often , for the lack of one brick, we completely distort the original plan of our lives.

+destroying and rebuilding
i am invited to go to guncan- gima, the site of a zen buddhist temple. when i get there, i'm suprised to see that the extraordinarily beautiful building, which is situated in the middle of a vast forest, is right next to a huge piece of waste ground.
i asked what the waste ground is for and the man in charge explains:
'that is where we will build the next temple. every twenty years, we destroy the temple you see before you now and rebuild it again on the site next to it. this means that the monks who have trained as carpenters, stonemasons and architects are always using their practical skills and passing them on to their apprentices. it also shows them that nothing in this life is eternal, and that even temples are in need of constant improvement'

+rome: isabella returns from nepal
i met isabella in a restaurant where we usually go because it's always empty, even though the food is excellent. she tells me that, during her trip to nepal, she spent some weeks in a monastery. one afternoon, she was walking near the monastery with one of the monks, when he opened the bag he was carrying and stood for a long time studying its contents. then he said to isabella:
' did you know that bananas can teach you the meaning of life?'
he took out a rotten banana from the bag and threw it away.
'that is the life that has been and gone, and which was not used to the full and for which it is now too late'
then he drew out another banana, which was still green. he showed it to her and put it back in the bag
'this is the life that has yet to happen, and for which we need to wait until the moment is right'
finally, he took out a ripe banana, peeled it, and shared it with isabella
'this is the present moment. learn how to gobble it up without fear or guilt'

+the tea ceremony
in japan, i took part in a tea ceremony. you go into a small room, tea is served, and that's it really, except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony that a banal daily event is transformed into a moment of communion with the universe
the tea master, okakura kakuzo, explains what happens:
'tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. all one's efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. if a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us'

+norma and the good things
in madrid lives norma, a very special brazilian lady. the spanish call her 'the rocking grandma'. she is over sixty and works in various places, organizing promotions, parties, and concerts.
once, at about four in the morning, when i was so tired i could barely stand, i asked norma where she got all her energy from
'i have a magic calendar. i you like, i can show it to you'
the following day, i went to her house. she picked up an old, much scribbled- upon calendar.
'right, today is the day they discovered a vaccine against polio' she said. 'we must celebrate that, because life is beautiful'
on each day of the year, norma had written down something good that had happened on that date. for her, life was always a reason to be happy.

+the funny thing about human beings
a man asked my friend jaime cohen: 'what is the human being's funniest characteristic?'
cohen said: 'our contradictoriness. we are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our long lost childhood. we make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. we think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. we live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived'

+who would like this twenty- dollar bill?
cassan said amer tells the story of a lecturer who began a seminar by holding up a twenty- dollar bill and asking: 'who would like this twenty- dollar bill?'
several hands went up, but the lecturer said: 'before i give it to you, i have to do something'
he screwed it up into a ball and said: 'who still wants this bill?'
the hands went up again
'and what if i do this to it?'
he threw the crumpled bill at the wall, dropped it on the floor, insulted it, trampled on it, and once more showed them the bill- now all creased and dirty.he repeated the question, and the hands stayed up
'never forget this scene' he said. 'it doesn't matter what i do to this money. it is still a twenty- dollar bill. so often in our lives, we are crumpled, trampled, ill- treated, insulted, and yet, despite all that, we are still worth the same'

all taken from like the flowing river by paulo coelho. for more thoughts and reflections go get it. a must- buy!