RYI STUDENT BLOG

Generally, when we go into a kitchen, we are concerned primarily with making great foods. We don’t typically think about how to make a fire or whether there is sufficient fuel to start a fire, because getting fuel has always been available -- it’s a basic commodity. Therefore, as a person who grew up in a developed country, I simply went into the kitchen and turned on the gas. Living in Nepal, however, has totally changed my mind and I now understood how even basics commodities can be difficult to obtain for some people in other countries.  After the major earthquake in April, the people of Nepal have experienced severe hardships, but the fuel shortage has added to their suffering.  The supply of fuel from India completely stopped from September until  Feburary 2016. It has been difficult or impossible for people to get any cooking gas from the supply sites or any gasoline from gas stations. Because of the gas shortage, most of the restaurants have had to close. Some people w

I am beginning to appreciate that progress comes in its own time. It seems, any result arises naturally, but only by following the effort that aspires for those results. The painting as a finished picture ripens through the efforts of brushstrokes and mixing, but the product is shaped and perfected as a fruition of time, blinking into completion. The good qualities we aspire to cultivate – knowledge, insight, perspicuity, eloquence – arise out of the not-so-easy-bake ovens of our efforts and patience. We are good to aspire and wish for fruition in the moments we want them most, but wanting and receiving rarely come in parallel time or provide us with the gratification of sought after reward without, first, the ache of waiting. “May you bless us with the courage to study and learn.” To Manjushri, archetype of innate wisdom, we ask each class to be blessed with courage of all things. So that we may not be shy or feeble in the face of reality’s jarring truths, to have the