Tal's note to his students - how to live, as shown by Dalia

HEy everybody,

I am learning some lessons from Dalia, ne Hu Dong Ling.

We walk through Shamian Park under the giant Banyan trees and she is enthralled by every living and non-living thing. She may hug a lamp post, run her finger on a rusty wrought iron rail. She lifts the leaves of a giant talk of bamboo and murmurs, "ya ya." See, trees, green living things, are new to her. She walks toward and touches each flower petal she sees. A group of men and women are excitedly playing a game of hacky sack in the park, and she runs toward them to join, no matter that she can barely keep her balance for her flailing, clapping hands. She strains her body over the Yellow River as if she were ready to swim. She has watched an old woman pray at the the Six banyan Tree Temple, and then she has brought her own small hands together and bowed emphatically towards the giant bronze Buddha which sits passively, palm up, in the gloom of the hall. She crouches down to touch grass, maybe for the first time, while a lone man plays an ancient song on a bamboo flute. She throws her head back to try hot chicken broth from a bowl of Thai noodles. She breathes with content as she lays her head on Dina's shoulder. She swings her head back and forth when she hears music. She sits in a stroller, alerts and kicking, as we walk narrow dark neighborhood streets at night, past noodle shops and bicycle repair shops and tailors, past fruit stands where the florescent lights illuminate her face and there is nothing on that face but wide eyes, smiles, shouts of laughter (and a slight sheen of drool on her chin).

A man in the park has been leading a group of women in the singing of traditional songs. The words are written in Chinese characters on large sheets of paper which he has hung under an elevated road. The singing class occurs in the park, under the road, where the sound echoes favorably. The women sing spiritedly and then then finish the last song. I have been listening while assisting Dalia in her fearless climbing up and down a nearby set of of stairs. Dalia walks to the man, calling out "ya ya" and and saying "by by" and waving. I think she means to help him pack up. He is storing away his sheets of music and stacking his plastic stools. She gently drums on a stool, looking up at him, smiling widely, calling out, clapping, then banging the chairs. He lifts her up and sets her down on a stack of stairs. They both clap and he smiles and his old brown teeth all show beautifully. There seems to be more life in just one his teeth than than in a hundred museum paintings.

She runs to hide behind a giant urn. She touches the woven designs on our guide Connie's sweater. She raises her eye brows and growls at one ton marble sculptures of lions. In every way she is pure, free, and benevolent. In everything she does there is the character of curiosity and delight, which is the mind and body in love, the intellect feeling love for the world and all the people in it. She does nothing to wound another, suppress another, limit another, wall off another reject another. She knows nothing of harming others, of conscious selfishness, or rejecting someone or something. She only knows giving and receiving and the pleasure of being alive.Everything for her is invitation, openness, freedom, the in-flow and out-flow of matter and sound and sight and voice.

I am reminded by her that the world is a beautiful place. We damage the world the more we get older. I don't know why this is. We say things and we don't even know why we are saying them. We say things that wound others. We become closed in, locked in our tuneless habitual patterns of speech. We forget that our actions or words chafe others, or diminish us. Our vision becomes narrow, we only look for the familiar. We become so locked down to our habitual motions that we forget that the world around us is alive and burning with life; that the streets are filled with wonder; that in everything we touch there is something spectacular to be known and perceived.

All of this occurs to me now as I know of certain issues that you guys are trying to figure out at school. From the other side of the world (okay, from the fourth corner of the world) I can only say: what you are saying and doing—would it please a small child? Would the words you say to each other be also sayable in the presence of an old woman in a temple, or a child gently rubbing her fingers over the bark of a tree in a park? It is a good standard to use, I think; it may cause you think about whether your words and actions, or to pay due reverence to the world, to the sacred things all around, to pay homage to others. It is not difficult to be holy, to know holiness, everyday, in every moment, and, as far as I can tell, even in a rusty lamppost and flower petal or stack of plastic benches.

That is what I am seeing while I trail behind the little panther.

So do right, be good, and be help the people around you, and make the room be a happy place to be for everyone.