Quantas Airlinesjust announced that from now on, any musical instrument that fits their specs is allowed on board any of their flights! What do you know? How about it, Stateside airlines?http://bit.ly/hlwaur
So what is durian and why do restaurants ban it? Okay, in response to the inquiring minds who have never ventured to Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, or Singapore to try it, durian is a sulphorous, nutritious spiny tree-fruit that inspires love or hate in its eaters. Durian smells like ripe old tennis shoes; it smells like the stinkiest of European cheeses, like limburger, or liederkranz, and therein lies its appeal or its notoriety. Personally, I don't eat durian, and the sign in my last post came from a vegetarian restaurant in Singapore, that bans durian from its premises because it only takes one to stink up the premises and cause durian-hating patrons to complain. Some folks love it and can't get enough of it. Durian addiction is not uncommon. Oh, does it smell! All you've wanted to know about durian!
Here is Mr. Tru Chung beating the monkeys and the wild pigs to some windfall durian on our property in Malaysia. In fact these fruit fell before they were ripe, otherwise the feral pigs, wild monkeys, rats and local dogs would have gobbled them down already. When durian season rolls around the smell of the ripe fruit covers the hills.
You're invited this Tuesday, evening, Dec. 28, 2010, 7:30 PM to Teance Tea Shop on 4th St. in Berkeley for December's Tea & Dharma evening with Rev. Heng Sure.
Our topic will be: "Gratitude At Year's End." We will share stories of events that lightened our hearts in 2010 and inspired us to feel grateful. As we approach the New Year, the media is full of Top Ten lists that take us back over the preceding 12 months. Let's follow the trend and recall the things that taught us the infinite value of human kindness in our daily lives.
Stories, songs and puppets galore! Bring a story to share!
Buddhist monks and nuns, laity and scholars are building a Buddhist University in Northern California. Find out more about "Higher Education in the Buddhist Tradition" right here: Dharma Realm Buddhist University.Check out the YouTube Channel.
Readers may recall a story I posted last month about a new "Double O"- size Alberico guitar named Mary Rose. It's time to give that story its beating heart. One month ago during a phone call from Victoria, British Columbia, Fabrizio Alberico, (a Karma Kitchen volunteer and long-time friend of Charity Focus) told me that I should drive over to a guitar shop in Tiburon, a North Bay Marin County town, and pick up Mary Rose, a hand-made guitar built by his own hands. Fab said, "I would like you to have this guitar full time, so that the music you make with it will bring people joy and inspiration. I hope that it will make sounds that will inspire people to goodness and to awakening." I had to ask him to repeat, to be sure I had heard correctly. I actually felt my heart beat pick up. Okay, so how is your meditation working?
To appreciate the dimensions of this statement one needs to understand that Fabrizio is a guitar luthier of the first rank; he hand-crafts each of his guitars over six to eight weeks and his instruments are known and played by musicians world-wide. He builds only a dozen or so per year, and they are respected for their incredible balance, tone and responsiveness by people with very discerning ears. I have been listening to his guitars for nearly ten years and have played eight or more of them, including some of the very first guitars he's built.
Mary Rose, (Fab gives his recent guitars women's names,) the guitar in question, is a OO size, a smaller body, and the appointments on it are monk-like, subdued and modest; given that once a builder commits to adding pearl or colors, a guitar can be dressed out and flashy as a matron at the opera. Mary Rose's decorations are all natural wood, rosewood, mahogany, spruce; she is beautiful and refined. Her musical tone and sustain are sublime.
The size of the gift is considerable but the spirit of the gift is even bigger. Musical instruments are living sound sculptures that only improve with age - - some guitars last a century and more. To launch a tool into the world that can give such joy is already a big gift but to send a guitar on its musical journey with the light-filled generosity of Mary Rose takes the giving process to another dimension. Giving a gift that will enable giving and all for the sake of goodness, joy and inspiration, that is pointing us humans in the right direction!