Long Walks On Leafy Streets

9/8/2014 Near Skyline drive, Shenandoah Mountains, VA
Last Friday was a good day. In the morning I talked to a couple of Sierra Club people about how we can work with labor unions on environmental issues. I feel that while we try to get people transition to a new sustainable economy, we need to help the workers from the old economy find new jobs. There is a lot of resistance and I don’t know how well it can be done but I hope they would try their best.
After that I walked to Takoma Park for an errand. It was quite warm. Nice to have a last hurrah spell of heat from the summer that is on its way out. It has been a rather cool summer here in Washington, DC. I then performed my afternoon sandhyavandanam (prayer / meditation) because I got up too late to do it in the morning. Doing this at least three times a week has had a very salutary effect. I feel calmer in general and my thinking is better and I am interacting with people better.
I got to enjoy the heat again as I walked very slowly to the bus stop on my way to campus. After I got to Howard I met with a few colleagues to discuss some math problems. The highlight of the day was meeting with a student who had just returned from a trip to China under a scholarship from the Congressional Black Caucus. I really enjoyed talking to her about life in China and her developing interest in renewable energy. Knowing that students are doing well or that they learned something from class is certainly the best reward for a teacher.
This was followed by a wonderful lecture about Ramanujan’s lost notebook by the famous mathematician George Andrews. I had listened to his lectures as a student at I.I.T Madras (now Chennai) in 1987! He was attending a conference celebrating Ramanujan’s centenary there. The genius of Ramanujan in finding all those beautiful relations is simply astonishing. There has been no one quite like him, except perhaps Euler and a few others, in the history of mathematics.
I walked home after getting off the 79 bus near the Wal-Mart at Missouri and Georgia Ave. They have planted some rain gardens and trees around their store. Wal-Mart has been trying to make a pitch as a company with more sustainable practices. If that is so then it is wonderful. I still don’t plan to shop there not only because of their terrible labor practices but also because if you look at their overall effect on the society and the environment it is quite negative. Anyway, I hope things will change.
I enjoyed walking slowly on Nicholson Street. It is always pleasant walking home on Friday evening after a busy week. The street was peaceful and well lined with broad shady trees. I spotted some plastic bottles and beverage cans but was too tired to pick them up. But then I saw a plastic bag and couldn’t resist picking it up. I then started filling it up with the plastic bottles and aluminum cans that were lying along the streets. It is easier to carry them if you have a bag. By the time I ended my two-mile walk home the bag was bursting with cans and bottles. Just as it gives me great satisfaction when I feel that I have helped a student learn something I also feel particularly happy upon removing these from the street. Not only am I saving energy by recycling I am also preventing plastics from washing into the sewers and on to the rivers and oceans where they might kill fish and birds.
On Sunday late afternoon Nicole and I walked the two miles or so from our home to the SriLankan Buddhist Vihara on 16th street. We go there for Sunday evening meditation gathering of the Washington Mindfulness Community, about which I have written before on these pages. On this evening Sister Jewel, a nun from Thich Nhat Hanh’s order, was to speak after the meditation. As I sat down to meditate I felt fatigue from the week’s exertions as well as a little despair about the world. I wanted some sort of peace within my mind, some reassurance that the world is headed to a better place. But the Buddha as well as most teachers speak about being detached from the world, not to seek happiness in the affairs of the world. This created a momentary feeling of dissatisfaction. A prayer arose in my heart, addressed to the Buddha sitting in the back of the hall in sublime blissfulness, asking for an answer. As I contemplated the Buddha’s life and teachings the answer came to me quickly. After all, the Buddha told us to show as much love to every being in the Universe as a mother shows to her only child. If that is not a way to make a better world, what is? Moreover, all Prophets tell us that God lives within each one of us. So then everything that happens in the world is an act of God. The world is perfect as it is, if we look at it that way. There is a beauty and a purpose to everything. It is our ego that wants the world to be in a certain way. This realization brought tears to my eyes and I was able to meditate peacefully, as joyful as ever. The fatigue went away. Later during her Dharma talk Sister Jewel reminded us that happiness is in the here and now. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us to realize that we have arrived, we are home, right at this moment. This was certainly a moment of awakening and clarity in my life.

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