On a list of tips for increasing your happiness instantly by 10%–visiting a farmers’ market. Sounds shallow, completely absurd, defeated in advance by ‘gaining mind’, but the notion is that it makes us happy to be doing healthy and wholesome things with other people. After biking to our very own local farmers’ market at Union Square in Somerville today I must give resounding support to the suggestion. Sunny and bright, fall light. Live music and fresh vegetables, people and dogs, babies playing on a giant green tractor parked in the middle of the square. David and I ran into his friend Signe Porteshawver, and we had a heart to heart talk. Came home safely with organic green beans and a free radish which had fallen on the ground.

Afterwards I was standing in our driveway, trying to isolate the relevant key to unlock the garage and put my bike away, when a moment of awareness descended upon me. Nothing other than what was there, the green garage door and black asphalt. I’d found the true key and secret to living (I was convinced, with a certain amount of proselytizing energy). An ordinary instant went from zero to amazing. Life out of time in an equanimous intensity.

Awareness feels thick today, thanks to the students, fellow teachers and staff at the two meditation retreats that I just taught in a row. (One at Southern Dharma Retreat Center in NC and the other at Cloud Mountain in WA). Every nudge that has kept me on the path and the (figurative) meditation cushion and shown me how to live in the heart. Kilung Rinpoche, all friends, David who lets me out of the house. It all goes back and back to the Big Bang I suppose.