crisis.

“The way this crisis will be solved will effect the future of democratic elections in Africa.”

-Ivorian Official (unnamed, Time Magazine)

Africa's hope for a democratic future lies on the tightrope of West Africa, a region so fragile, that something so innocuous as a stolen election (innocious as a well-trodden path to the village well, in this part of the world) could shatter the fragile illusion, the delicate veneer, of stability that has quietly blanketed the most volatile of political regions for the last 5 years. The list of regional tragedies is long; Sierra Leone; Liberia; Guinea; the lives disrupted, the countless flows of refugees across the man made borders, the collectively tortured consciousness of waves upon waves of landless refugee, forcibly migrating at the whims of brutal military dictatorships and even more brutal rebel armies.

While democracy and democratic elections are certainly not a collective fix all for the regions ills, the freedom of democratic voice, the pluralistic opening of societies so long under the strong arm of repressive governments, represents a strong, positive current in the struggle for human rights and the struggle for human decency that must be guaranteed to all citizens of this world. And while democratic elections are focused on the bloodless transfer of power, they have often simply rolled out the red carpet for brutal military uprisings and prolonged power struggles.

The troubling aspects of the current scenario playing out in Cote D'Voire are two-fold; the first being the fact that this was once the crown jewel in the Francophone West African Empire; a shining example of post-colonial development, now reduced to ashes by ethnic and tribal divisions and a protracted civil war, due to be settled by this very democratic process, which has instead exacerbated the widening rifts. The second aspect is that in a region so fragile, the struggle threatens to draw in fighters and ethnic sympathies of neighbors, threatening a regional-destabilization in the process. Rampant unemployment and slow reconstructions in previously war-ravaged Liberia and Sierra Leone will not help this process.

African political leaders have not shied away from heavy reliance on ethnic sympathies when fanning the flames of conflict. The case of Cote D'Voire is no different. The leadership curse of Africa must be vanquished once and for all.

Ivory Coast

I have been glued to the press reports from the West African nation of the Ivory Coast,
or Cote d'Viore; it seems the bad old days of African strongmen, belligerent of world opinion
and democratic freedoms, using the gun to project their power and secure their graft, has
returned to this once shining pearl of West Africa. Reports of mass abductions, of the military
firing indiscriminately on unarmed protesters, of an entrenched leader, still claiming to represent the people, but increasingly representing only the dying vestiges of strongman rule. Streams of refugees, unbelievably, fleeing to Liberia, which only a few years back was embroiled in its own terrible civil war. World opinion and condemnation has been strong; however, an example needs to be made of Laurent Gbagbo and his military; a multinational force, under the guises of the UN, but with strong western (read: French and American) backing needs to be given the mandate to disarm Gbangbo and his loyal militia, prepare war crimes trials against them in The Hague, and protect and implement the rule of the winner of this month's elections, Mr. Alassane Quattara.
An example needs to be made for both the recent past, and the near future; these acts of aggression towards human rights and democratic principals of freedom will not be tolerated in West Africa, or elsewhere. The jewel of West Africa can soon ride up and shine again. Once again, a stark reminder; how much easier it is to destroy than to build, in the most fragile of regions.

Izumi Shikibu

"Although the wind blows fiercely here,
the moonlight also shines
through the roof planks
of this ruined house."

"Watching the moon,
at dawn,
solitary,
midsky,
i knew myself completely,
no part left out."

A Master's Words on the Nature of Mind.

“These trains of thoughts and states of mind are constantly changing, like the shapes of clouds in the wind, but we attach great importance to them. An old man watching children at play knows very well that their games are of little consequence. He feels neither elated nor upset at what happens in their game, while the children take it all very seriously. We are just exactly them.”

“Maintain a state of simplicity. If you encounter happiness, success, prosperity, or other favorable conditions, consider them as dreams or illusions, and do not get attached to them. If you are stricken by illness, calamity, deprivation, or other physical or mental trials, do not let yourself get discouraged, but rekindle your compassion and generate the wish that through your suffering all beings' sufferings may be exhausted. Whatever circumstances arise, do not plunge into either elation or misery, but stay free and comfortable, in unshakable serenity.”

“However deluded your thoughts may be, they are but products of your own intellect.

If you set your thoughts free, where nothing arises, remains, or ends,

they will vanish into emptiness.”

Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche

Everest Journal. Thame

Thame Village, December 1st.

A flock of white birds, sun catching their feathers and lighting them on fire, against the dark granite spires and pale cloudless sky, streaking past my view.
The old stone walls, ancient corrals, allow only abstract shapes of light to pass with the sounds of the flowing stream hidden from view.
Life comes quickly and brilliantly, complete silence framed by rocks, earth, sky;
the laughter of a band of brightly colored school children running down a mountain trail from an unknown village above, countless stories, dreams, sorrows, happiness, reflected in the crystal air;
a flutter of worn prayer flags in the bitter wind;
the sun warms my face as I sit, admiring the simple, beautiful, rugged perseverance of this high land.
It is now December; another fascinating month has passed all too quickly; all is fleeting.




"To become one with whatever one does is a true realization of The Way."
-Peter Mattheisson

Everest Journal Outtakes

Khumjung, Nepal. Thanksgiving Day.

The dirty Tibetan trader, sack filled with market wares slung over his shoulder,
red braid weaved into beautiful long black hair, makes his way up the ancient
stone pathway. Both his origin and his destination are unknown to me as i stand in
the frigid early morning air, observing the high peaks surrounding this narrow valley
illuminated in the low morning sun. The brilliant whites of the towering snowfields;
the jagged, angular manifestations of this earth's crust, thrusting to the heavens, surround
my simple presence.
Last evening, watching the same sun make its way into the high horizons, it was flaming oranges that rang the day into night.
The Tibetan smiles a wide, white smile; and i return my own, no words, he is gone.

basho

Days and months are the travelers of eternity.
So are the years that pass by.
I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud moving wind-
filled with a strong desire to wander...I walked through mists and clouds,
breathing the thin air of high altitudes and stepping on slippery ice snow,
till at last through a gateway of clouds,
as it seemed,
to the very paths of the sun and the moon,
I reached the summit, completely out of breath and nearly frozen to death.
Presently the sun went down and the moon rose glistening in the sky.
-Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

borges

Boast of Quietness

by Jorge Luis Borges

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.

The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.

Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to

understand them.

Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.

Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.

They speak of humanity.

My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.

They speak of homeland.

My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,

the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.

Time is living me.

More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.

They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.

My name is someone and anyone.

I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive

Lumbini. Pilgrimage

Walking the dusty paths, the same strides taken by pilgrims from all Buddhist faiths, the countriesas diverse as the skin tones, as scattered as the tongues, as varied as the hues of the clothes that drape; Cambodians and Thais in bright orange temple robes; Sri Lankans and Vietnamese in the deep browns of the monsoon season earth; Tibetans in maroon and crimson.

Millenia ago, on these same dusty paths, the same ancient rice paddies dotting the fading horizon, the same crickets greeting the flaming orange horizon, the same primal screams of roving bands of jackals under the starry sky, walked the Buddha himself, a simple man, a simple message.

The chanting of the Korean monks reverberated off the cavernous confines of the unfinished, concrete gray temple; the sound waves collided with my silent mind and stirred my soul.

I smiled deeply and bowed to the moment. What an astonishing adventure this has been, all these years.

“The Tibetans liken the mind to a great clear sky, a cloudless sky. All the phenomena of the mind and body are happenings in this clear sky. They are not the sky itself. The sky is clear and unaffected by what is happening. The clouds come and go, the winds come and go, the rain and sunlight all come and go, but the sky remains clear. Make the mind like a big clear sky and let everything arise and vanish on its own.”

-Joseph Goldstein

words.

"Many people pass through life driven by greed, fear, aggression, or endless grasping after
security, affection, power, sex wealth, pleasure and fame. This endless cycle of seeking is what Buddhism calls Samsara. Its rare that we take the time to understand this life that we are given to work with. We're born, we grow older, and eventually we die; we enjoy, we suffer, we wake, we sleep-how quickly it all slips away. Awareness of the suffering involved in this process of life-of being born, growing old, and dying, led the Buddha to question deeply how it comes about and how we can find freedom. That was the Buddha's question. That was where he began his practice. To understand ourselves and our lives is the point of meditation; to understand and to be free."
-Jack Kornfield