Smiles

Enigmatic?

My mind has turned to smiles. 

First the smiles seen by Thomas Merton while walking barefoot in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka, a site of many statues of the Buddha. Merton, on his Asian pilgrimage, spoke of the statues, their "great smiles, huge and yet subtle, filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of sunyata". 

For most, possibly just enigmatic; certainly revealing nothing. 

The poet Billy Collins, in his poem "Shovelling Snow With Buddha", also mentions the smile of the Buddha, "so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe." 

Leaving such thoughts behind and becoming more mundane, my very own smiles. During my couple of years of severe depression, when with a consultant who was dealing with my "case", he once said that others often found it difficult to understand exactly what those with depression were going through and added, "especially people like you", which I asked him to explain. "Because you are always smiling". This was the first I knew about it. A default expression, meaning nothing, and certainly not representing any form of peace or contentment, let alone sunyata. But now this old memory makes me think of what so many speak of and mention on Facebook, as it relates to depression, anxiety and mental illness in general. "Don't be fooled by appearances". 

Don't be fooled

It really is terrible sometimes when reading some news item of yet another youngster, seemingly with everything to live for, taking their own life. To see their photo beside the story, a face alive and smiling. Smiling, but only putting on a brave face. 

During all the years that  covered my own period of depression and other worries, my General Practitioner was a reasonably young man, always friendly, helpful, sympathetic; not one of those "just go home and pull yourself together" types of the old school. He always had photos on his desk, of his two young children. Over the years I noted the pictures changing as they grew up. Yes, my GP was always smiling. Entering the surgery one day for an appointment, there was a notice on the wall. My doctor had taken his own life. I had never suspected it, but reading the story as related in the local paper, his life had been a long battle against depression, ending in the breakup of his marriage and a lonely death. 

I continue to find the whole thing shocking. Had there been any signs I had missed, withdrawn inside my own problems? I really do not think so - all I remember is his smile each time I entered his office, always a friendly greeting. 

So perhaps every smile is enigmatic, difficult to interpret or understand. With the Buddha, alongside the enigmatic smile is the enigmatic silence, his refusal to answer certain questions. Fundamentally, it seems to have to do with a pragmatic approach to the "path". Any "answer", of this or that, either/or, and off we go into a wilderness, finally ending up just going around in circles. Whereas the Middle Way is in fact no "way" at all, not even a position between any two extremes, but more a "no position" that always transcends - yet embraces - both. Which all seems fairly obscure but once the Buddha, running out of words, just held up a flower, and someone just "got it". Frustrating to think upon this in some ways, yet encouraging in others. 

"And a little child shall lead them".

 

Getting back to autobiographical stuff, I am reminded of my very first visit to our local Mind Centre. Deep in anxiety and depression, I entered the building with a degree of trepidation, though no doubt sporting a smile of some description. A lady walked across the room to greet me, just saying "good afternoon, would you like a cup of tea?" Very easy going, and we had chatted pleasantly for quite a few minutes before she asked who had recommended the centre to me; and why I was there. It all put me at ease and created an ambience for all my future visits. I grew to love the place. 

Just to finish with a story that made me smile (which seems appropriate) from a biography of James Joyce. The author was writing of the relatively rare acts of kindness that Joyce exhibited during his life. Once, when Joyce himself was hard-up, he was accosted by a beggar in a Dublin street. "Can you spare a copper?" he was asked. Joyce stopped and said, "may I ask why you want it?" "To be honest sir I am dying for a drink". Joyce immediately gave the man his very last penny. As he walked away, he said to his companion, "If he had said he wanted a cup of tea I would have hit him."

If you see this man, be honest

Related Quote:- 

"The door without wish.......undesired.......unplanned.........never expected......there is no key........there is no use asking for it. Yet you must ask. Who? For what?.................It is neither this world nor another.......such is the door that ends all doors.......This one door is the door of the Palace of Nowhere.........Come with me now to the Palace of Nowhere where all the many things are one." 

(James Finley, excerpts from "Merton's Palace of Nowhere")

High Windows

Recently my daughter asked her own daughter, just turned five, to draw her a Robin. The result is here.......

I think it is a fine picture but must admit to a degree of bias. Enquiries as to whether the plant on the left is a tree or a carrot has drawn no definitive answer. No one dares ask the little mite herself as she can be pretty feisty at times. Once, going on a trip to town and waiting for the bus I spotted a small red house beside the bus-stop. "I wonder who lives in that little house" I said to her. "That's not a house, it's a postbox!" she cried loudly, putting grandad firmly in his place.

Anyone at home?

But getting back to carrots or trees. I think of the zen master who pointed at a clump of bamboos, "See that bamboo, how short it is. See that bamboo, how long it is. That is their nature," and thus, just maybe, it is a case of "see that plant, how like a carrot it is, see that plant, how like a tree it is". Maybe not. But I must move on. 

Sometimes, in my quieter moments, I think of the world that children today are being born into. It can be heartbreaking. My own mind tends to fly off at tangents, into often seemingly random associations, drawn from yesteryear. Poems, quotes, memories of my own past. There is a poem I often think of, one I would call a "slow burner", that passed me by almost unnoticed upon first reading but remains in mind, popping up now and again. It is "High Windows" by Philip Larkin:-

When I see a couple of kids

And guess he’s fucking her and she’s   

Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,   

I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—   

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side

Like an outdated combine harvester,

And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if   

Anyone looked at me, forty years back,   

And thought, That’ll be the life;

No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide   

What you think of the priest. He

And his lot will all go down the long slide   

Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:   

The sun-comprehending glass,

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Philip Larkin - not yet an Old Fool

The world moves on yet much remains the same. I think I am losing the plot here, but first thing this morning the thought of "The Dice Man" came to mind, a book by Luke Rhinehart (aka George Cockcroft) where a psychiatrist begins making life decisions based upon the throw of the dice. 

Seemingly a random thing to come to mind and yet maybe not. It seems to link with other ideas recently concerning the apparent randomness of the cultural milieu each is born into and the subsequent expression of the resulting "self" in time space history. Such can be viewed as randomness, and the idea of depending upon the throw of the dice to determine choice just randomness within randomness - though possibly we would have to consider exactly where the options came from. 

But then, the thought of high windows........and determinism and free will.

For my own sanity I need to move on yet again. Yesterday a mate of mine joined me in visiting another old mate who now sees out his existence in a care home. An old mate whose mind now wanders. I never find visiting such homes a pleasant experience, reminding me as they do of my own mother, who ended her own days in one. She too had a mind that wandered, another way of saying - but more pleasantly - that she had dementia. Care homes now conjure up for me the past and memories that, like thinking of the future of grandchildren, can break my heart. 

Dementia

As a break from my own musings, here is another poem by Philip Larkin on this theme, his own take, his own musings. The Poem is called "The Old Fools":- 

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there’s really been no change,
And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange:
Why aren’t they screaming?

At death, you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend
There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines –
How can they ignore it?

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head, and people in them, acting.
People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun’s
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous, inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.

"What do they think has happened......"

Pretty grim and do we actually have to "find out" ourselves? Many lives end better than this. Then again, in the great scheme of things - if there is one - just maybe we all have to know and share all things eventually. Nevertheless, my memories of the demise of my own mother can be thought of as grim. 

Once she went out and got herself knocked down by a car, resulting in a broken leg, an operation, anaesthetic. This last did her no good at all, wiping away even more of her capacity to think clearly. She seemed to regress to childhood in many ways and often spoke as if a six year old; I was often her little "sister". One evening I got a call from the hospital she was in, recovering. Mum had suffered a relapse, possible a minor stroke, I was told that she might not see out the week. I hurried to the hospital and found her lying in bed wearing this silly little wool hat she always chose to wear. She actually seemed quite "with it", but she took my hand and asked me in her little girl voice, "Why is this happening to me?" and then added, "I've been a good girl." Heartbreaking. Yes, she had indeed been a "good girl", to me and my brother. We had been born wanted, born loved. No one can ask for more. As far as her question, who has an answer? 

No answer

Well, as I was saying, yesterday we visited our old friend - or as Philip Larkin would have it - an Old Fool. But he was in good spirits. He is well looked after by people paid far too little. But let me not go there. 

Thinking of dice and such, it obviously does relate to another question that has never received any definitive answer, that of free will versus determinism. A good back-ground to this debate is a short passage from the writings of Thomas Merton, a passage I first found on an Inter-faith Forum. It was called "The Gift of Freedom":-

The mere ability to choose between good and evil is the lowest limit of freedom, and the only thing that is free about it is the fact that we can still choose good.

To the extent that you are free to choose evil, you are not free. An evil choice destroys freedom.

We can never choose evil as evil: only as an apparent good. But when we decide to do something that seems to us to be good when it is not really so, we are doing something that we do not really want to do, and therefore we are not really free.

Perfect spiritual freedom is a total inability to make any evil choice. When everything you desire is truly good and every choice not only aspires to that good but attains it, then you are free because you do everything that you want, every act of your will ends in perfect fulfilment.

Freedom therefore does not consist in an equal balance between good and evil choices but in the perfect love and acceptance of what is really good and the perfect hatred and rejection of what is evil, so that everything you do is good and makes you happy, and you refuse and deny and ignore every possibility that might lead to unhappiness and self-deception and grief. Only the person who has rejected all evil so completely that they are unable to desire it at all, is truly free. God, in whom there is absolutely no shadow or possibility of evil or of sin, is infinitely free. In fact, he is Freedom.

Seeking the gift of freedom

I think this a fine passage and at the time of first reading it I was jogged into recalling some other words by the zen master Caoshan which until then had always seemed - at least to me - difficult to interpret.......

When studying in this way, evils are manifest as a continuum of being ever not done. Inspired by this manifestation, seeing through to the fact that evils are not done, one settles it finally. At precisely such a time, as the beginning, middle, and end manifest as evils not done, evils are not born from conditions, they are only not done; evils do not perish through conditions, they are only not done.

Do no evil

Caoshan's words seemed to point towards the very same idea. That it is much about touching down, acceptance of what is, of sharing the freedom of Reality-as-is, the only true freedom. St Augustine said "love God and do as you will", which seems much the same. Let go of "self" and, as Eckhart would say, God must enter in. It is not a matter of then having all the answers, or even of having any particular knowledge at all. But it is to then be ready for wherever it takes us. 

Just to finish, and perhaps to provide a contrast to the musings of Philip Larkin, a poem written by a Pure Lander who found herself caring for someone with dementia:-

Assumptions and expectations

Of what I can and should do

Must be erased from my mind.

An inner voice reminds me,

"Be more sensitive and understanding."

His trousers, T-shirt and long-sleeved flannel shirt

Are placed side by side on top of the bed.

He turns them around and around,

Examining them closely.

Not knowing the difference

Between front and back,

He wears his T-shirt reversed,

And inside out at times.

When buttoning his flannel shirt

The buttons are not in alignment

With the button holes.

While cooking breakfast,

I look towards the hallway.

He has walked out of the bedroom

Through the hallway to the dining room.

He is standing beside the chair

Wearing the shirts and boxer shorts only,

Thinking he is properly dressed

To sit at the table to eat his meal.

He looks like a little boy.

His innocence is so revealing

It warms my heart.

I smile and tell him

What he has forgotten to wear;

He looks at my face and chuckles

As a glimmer of awareness dawns.

Together, we put on his khaki trousers,

Embraced in the centreless circle

Of Boundless Life.

Related Quotes:- 

Thin, I think, that fabric between realities. Maybe minds aren't lost. Maybe they just slip through and find a different place to wander. 

(C J Tudor, The Chalk Man)

I am daily learning to be the reluctant guardian of your memories. There was light in those eyes; I miss that. 

(Richard L Ratliff)

Dementia does not rob someone of their dignity, it's our reaction to them that does.

(Teepa Snow)

Picking and choosing

Picking and choosing

I tend to like "picking and choosing". This in inverted commas as often it is a phrase thrown as an accusation against those who stray happily from a path deemed the way. Or perhaps better, THE way. 

To pick and choose, rather than place oneself within a straight-jacket of a particular path, is seen as indulging the "self" and allowing it free reign, thus not curbing it, not applying discipline, in fact not following a path at all, but meandering uselessly, directionless.

Yes, it has been thrown at me, often in my early days on Buddhist Forums, by ardent advocates of spending hours upon the zafu. I do remember one such critic also waxing lyrically on the merits of the keisaku, the "awakening stick" used by some zen masters when a student slumped or dozed. 

Beware.......

Well, maybe I should have taken such criticism to heart. Perhaps I would now have been enlightened rather than stumbling along, hoping for a helping hand from Amida. Who knows? 

Anyway, be that as it may, one line from a song concerning the American Civil War, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", written by one of Bob Dylan's one time bandmates, Robbie Robertson,  is one I have always loved, and goes:-

You take what you need and you leave the rest.  

Robbie Robertson

Good stuff! Just what the doctor ordered as we say in the UK. Just my cup of tea. Of course, the problem is actually knowing what you need, especially if you tend to drift about, "picking and choosing".

Thinking back, what drew the ire of the orthodox was a tendency I had to quote with admiration various verses from texts drawn from a whole diversity of Faiths. A post on the Forum  testifying to my being inspired by the Buddha saying that he taught "one thing and one thing only, the path to the end of suffering" (and yes, it did inspire me, every time I read the phrase as it appeared in the Theravada Majjhima Nikaya, or in the essays of Nyanaponika Thera) was followed by quoting with equal admiration that the earth brings forth fruits of herself; this last still remaining my all-time favorite Bible verse.

Seeking the end of suffering

Possible that Bible verse, drawn from St Mark, suggests Grace, and those who have taken to heart the Buddha's dictum that "Buddhas  only point the way, each has to walk the path themselves" considered all such thought of Other Power a non starter. At this time I knew nothing of the intricate interplay of self power (Japanese jiriki) and Other Power (tariki) in Pure Land Buddhism, but I did, if I remember rightly, ask just who is actually walking the path, this in the light of the fundamental and central Buddhist doctrine of anatta (not-self) 

If I understand correctly, the Theravada answer to this (if not the answer received on the Forum) would be found in the "two truths" teaching, of conventional and ultimate truth. In fact, this distinction runs through all forms of the Dharma, Mahayana and Theravada, in various permutations and guises. But, picking and choosing, I chose then only what I considered the best, what appealed. Profound intuition or pandering to a lascivious and salivating self!? The definitive answer must remain hidden. 

Two truths - various guises

But moving on, a close companion of "picking and choosing" is the mixing of apples and oranges. Not actually the same, but certainly a stable mate. I think mixing apples and oranges effects the workings of logic, which I am not particularly strong on. From the perspective of Buddhism, the Dharma, I would hazard a guess that such mixing muddies the waters somewhat with respect to the Two Truths. All I can say is that if nirvana and samsara are "one", as claimed, then the two would certainly be muddied, if not muddled. Where are we at any one time? In the Pure Land all there is is the Great Acceptance ONLY and all is left in Amida's hands. 

Acceptance

I was just trying to get back to the actual intent of starting this blog, which was not actually "picking and choosing" at all, or "apples and oranges", but was in fact to present a small selection of quotes from one or two Christian Mystics. Thinking back I got a tiny intimation of maybe some wondering why I would do such a thing, given my love of the Pure Land. I therefore began to waffle, seeking, I suppose, to justify myself. Even though that is not my business at all. 

Waffles

Let it pass, please, and here are a few selections, ones I see as relevant, if relevance is any criteria at all in the context of this blog:-

First from Meister Eckhart, where he speaks of "True Obedience" in his "Talks of Instruction".

.........when we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself.......in true obedience there should be no 'I want this or that to happen' or 'I want this or that thing'.......'give me this particular virtue or way of devotion'.......but rather 'Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will'.......but just as true obedience should have no 'I want this', neither should it ever hear 'I don't want', for 'I don't want' is pure poison for all true obedience'.

Obedience - but is it true?

Perhaps mixing apples and oranges, I can relate this to the zen dictum of "no preferences" ("if we wish to know the truth") and to the Pure Land verse of leaving the direction of our path, towards heaven or hell, in Amida's hands. In my own world of no calculation, reciting the nembutsu - in effect a simple cry of gratitude - in each and every situation, no matter what, is the way of deep hearing beyond all comprehension; and is therefore much the same. (Eckhart also speaks of "True Poverty" in equally startling language, as well as "True Obedience", but maybe enough for now)

Gratitude

Here is another quote, from St John of the Cross, from "The Dark Night":- 

This guided me 

more surely than the light of noon 

to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared.....

.....I abandoned and forgot myself, 

laying my face on my Beloved; 

all things ceased; I went out of myself, 

leaving my cares

forgotten among the lilies.

Among the lilies

I really think I should leave it there for now. I have things to do and places to go.

Related Quotes:-

In giving us His love God has given us the Holy Spirit so that we can love Him with the love wherewith He loves Himself. 

(Meister Eckhart)

(Dogen's)......approach to awakening as a function of the nature of reality, intimately connected with the dynamic support of the earth, space itself, and a multidimensional view of the movements of time..............contrary to present conventions, Zen Buddhism developed and cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, ephemeral agent of awareness and healing. 

(From "Visions of Awakening, Space and Time", sub-titled "Dogen and the Lotus Sutra" by Taigen Dan Leighton)

There exists only the present instant.....a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence 

(Meister Eckhart, again)

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences........if you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything.

(From the "Hsin Hsin Ming" by Seng-T'san)

The Great Way

Maya

Maya, the Hindu Goddess of Illusion

In my last blog I half threatened another on Maya - aka "illusion" - and looking back I see that I have already headlined it in a Blog titled "Maya and the Book of Revelation". 

In that I see that I wrote the following, "Maya is not that this world is illusion but, as far as the Dharma is concerned, the claim that to see and know this world falsely is to suffer." (Suffering, Pali dukkha)

Trying to see truly

Which is quite an optimistic thought, if true, with the consequence being that if we see and know rightly our Cosmos can itself be a true home. As I see it, more optimistic, more assuring, than any thought that this world is not our true home, that it is in fact more a preparation for a better one; which often goes together with implying that any creed or belief is more a lifeboat to escape from this world - and heaven help those who are not on board. This in contrast with the Dharma, in its Mahayana manifestation, that samsara and nirvana are "one"and therefore never a betrayal of this world for some imaginary "other".

All aboard

 It remains to actually realise the true way of seeing and so to know the end of suffering.

 "I teach this and this alone, suffering and the ending of suffering" said the Buddha; many times according to the texts. 

Yet here we are, and we suffer, and suffering is all around us. In what sense does it ever end? In what sense could it ever end?

"Old Man in Sorrow", Vincent Van Gogh (who knew his own)

This was a question I asked many moons ago on a Buddhist Forum and as I remember, there were many replies but nothing resolved, nothing definitive. But the point I would insist upon making is that all these questions are not academic, or merely a way of passing time, as meanwhile true life drifts by around us. For me, if the Dharma is the path to the end of suffering, nothing could be more relevant, more concrete. more significant; nothing can give life more purpose than to seek to walk that path. 

Just look around, look inside, see the suffering. Look back through history and see more - often suffering that appears to be pointless, with no "answer" in sight but to appeal and hope for another world where all the answers will be found - usually by the chosen few. Compensation. For some.

"Guernica" Picasso

Maya, illusion, can be understood in many ways. This is where interpretation comes into play, and maybe where the illusion of understanding is the greatest temptation. Here are a few relevant passages from various texts:- 

See it (the world) as a bubble, see it as a mirage; one who regards the world this way, the King of Death does not see. 

(Dhammapada)

So you should see this fleeting world - A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. 

(Diamond Sutra)

Know all things to be like this; a mirage, a cloud castle, a dream, an apparition, without essence, but with qualities that can be seen

(Samadhi Raja Sutra)

The aggregate of discrimination is like a mirage because it is mistakenly apprehended by the thirst of attachment

(The Aksayamatinirdesa Sutra) 

To sum up, possibly, the world is not a dream, but is dream-like. 

The world is a bubble

Moving on. T S Eliot begins Four Quartets with these words:-

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps in time future, 

And time future contained in time past. 

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable. 

Unredeemable. Fixed. But what is "time" and what part does it play in all this? Eliot ends his own musings with the solution in a "condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything, where the fire and the rose are one". 

"The fire and the rose are one"

My own musings lead me towards not falling into the temptation of thinking that I have understanding. (Often I muse also upon the words of the old hymn, will your anchor hold?)

Rather I see and hear the call of simplicity, I see and hear the call of selflessness; and seek to hear more deeply - and know this can or should be only be for the sake of all others, who suffer as I do, and many so much more than myself. In Christianity I would say this is to share the cross of Christ. Or, at least, to seek to do so. Surrendering all things to the "Father", this for the sake of others.

Sharing, cross or not

The Buddhist way is the way of the Bodhisattva, a word for one who has generated bodhicitta,  a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. As the end of the Bodhicaryavatara (Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life) has it......and now so long as space endures, as long as there are beings to be found, may I continue likewise to remain to drive away the sorrows of the world. 

A Bodhisattva

Well, I'm not really sure I have got very far here. Aspiration always seems to exceed reality. Perhaps not.

Related Quotes:-

In the course of time one does not feel even the existence of God. After attaining enlightenment one sees that gods and deities are all Maya.

(Sarada Devi)

Speaking of the Buddhist Touching the Earth Mudra:-  the Buddha's right hand points downward to touch the earth, the other supports a begging bowl - symbolising acceptance of the gift - grace. In these two gestures the whole programme of our spiritual exigencies is summed up.......an active attitude toward the world and a passive attitude toward heaven......this opposed to the attitude of the "ignorant man" who passively accepts the world and resists grace, gift, and heaven.

(Marco Pallis, "Is There Room for Grace in Buddhism?")

Remember: the grass is never greener. You don't need any presents for Christmas. Presence in the moment - whether it's a dukkha (suffering) moment or a sukha (happiness) moment - is the greatest gift of all. 

(Words found on the Elephant Journal website)