Appreciating what you don't have

On the way from a lecture about meditation, on the way to a yoga class, we passed through Central Department store. On this Sunday afternoon the displays of clothing, cosmetics and designer food were teeming with chattering people searching, inspecting, weighing, evaluating, hungry to fulfill cravings for beautiful things, to hold, to own, to possess, to smell, to taste, to be attractive, satisfied, satiated, that for a moment fear of impermanence, of decay and death, may be put aside.

Nepalis are only human and would not behave any differently if raised under the same conditions and given the same opportunities. Circumstances, though, have presented them with a different reality and at that moment I missed their simple ways, their ability to live free of modern marketing, the tyranny of over-abundance and the need to choose.

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