July 23rd: Colorado, Utah and Navada

Western Colorado

To my eye, there is something spectacularly beautiful about this scenery as I move west, away from the lushness surrounding Denver, away from the high mountains and steep gorges of Central Colorado, and into the open spaces and stark mountains of the dessert landscape of Western Colorado. I try to think about what this means - why this landscape touches my heart, and realize that it is in my blood. I am of the desert. It is where I was born. It is my nature, my joy, and a blessing to be connected to it in this way. It is my birth rite.

The road to Moab, Eastern Utah:

The road is one of my favorite places in the world. I drove through here on my first road trip with my sons, Noah and Natan, in the summer of 2005

Moab is also the site of one of my favorite Torah stories from Rabbi ted Falcon:

After leaving Egypt, Moses and the Israelites were wandering in the desert for 40 years. They came upon the land of Moab. Balak, the king of the Moabites, was afraid of this huge tribe of wandering Israelites, so he hired Balaam, a professional curser, to curse the Israelites. Balaam prayed to get a really good curse, but when he saw the Israelites, he could not curse them. He said, “How fair are your tents, o Jacob, your dwellings O Israel.” Balaam was commanded to curse, but he chose to bless. At every moment, in every interaction, one has a choice – to curse or to bless.

I used the story of Moab as a meditation for my students in Vietnam this year, when we were visiting Thien Mu Pagoda in Hue, Central Vietnam, the Pagoda of Thich Quang Duc (the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who lit himself on fire in 1963 to protest the mistreatment of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government):

The Dalai Lama, the exiled King and religious leader of Tibet and considered the reincarnation of the God of Compassion, once said, in response to a question about his 50-year exile from Tibet at the hands of the Chinese, (I paraphrase) "The Chinese government has been a great teacher. It is easy to feel compassion for those that are like you - your family, your people. How much harder has it been for me to feel compassion for the Chinese government."

Anger, jealousy, pain, frustration, hate - they are all feelings inside of us.

No one else is responsible.

Each one of us is responsible for our own thoughts and feelings.

This doesn't mean that bad things don't happen.

Or when they do happen, it doesn't mean that they are an illusion.

They are real.

But there are many realities that exist side by side.

Some people feel that the only true power each of us has is how we respond to the things that happen to us.

Thich Quang Duc chose how he lived is life, and he chose how he ended his life.

The land mine victims which we will meet tomorrow did not choose what happened to them.

But each of them has chosen how they will live their life.

I hear students say to me all the time, "But this is who I am."

And I cringe inside, for at each moment we have a choice.

I am not denying the power of conditioning, or that we each have propensities and limitations.

But we each have a choice.

Each moment is new.

Each one of us must choose how we will live our life.

Central Utah:

Nevada:

After 14 hours on the road, I entered the state of Nevada, the state of my birth. When I entered from Utah, I was in the high desert. After half an hour, I made it to Ely, a town I had heard of but had never been to. I drove around, wondering if I should stop for the day, but decided to drive on. One minute after leaving the town, I saw the lights of a police car behind me. Apparently I was driving 45 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. After looking at my driver's license and registration, and asking me questions about the painting in the back of my car, where I was coming from, and what was my line of work, the police man let me go without giving me a ticket. A mile up the road I passed a sign that read, "Next gas in 184 miles" (about 300 kilometers), so I turned around, went back to Ely, and filled up my gas tank. I drove west, winding my way through the high desert, over a pass of 7000 feet (about 2100 meters), then down into the flat desert. The mountains in the background, the road a straight line as far as I could see in either direction. I stopped for half an hour, admiring the beauty of the place. It was totally silent, except for the sound of a few flies. A small rodent scurried across the road. In the half hour that I sat, only two cars passed, one stopping to see if I was okay. That was it. The few flies. Every so often the feel of a slight breeze. Stillness. It was disarming. "Beautiful" does not do it justice. There is a power in it - indescribable.