Testament to the Truth of Jesus

I am a follower and, to some extent a practitioner, of the truth. There are physical approaches to truth such as science and metaphysical approaches to it through the spiritual teaching of the great ones. The scientific method has a history of about 400 years  and specific scientific truths generally have a shelf life of about 20. The truth spoken by The Buddha, my Lord Jesus Christ, The Prophet Mohamed (P.B.U.H.) and The Lord Shiva have lasted, respectively, 2500, 2000, 1500 and 1000 years. Therefore, I doubt the truths of science more (they just don't last) and doubt the truths of the beings mentioned above less (their truths are resilient).

OK. Now, what did I just do? As a mathematician, a socio-anthropologist and a computer geek I conveniently, quickly and easily kicked into the dustbin of irrelevance and irreverence, science and the religion associated with it where people blindly believe in it out of faith and the evidence of a few buildings and machines.

The problem here is simple: Blind faith is precisely that - blind. Science of course, does not have a monopoly on such forms of faith. The most populous religions on earth also insist on blindness as an intrinsic part of faith. Like a chain born out of a smelter in Hades, blindness is the cord that ties the devotees to the religion and keeps these appropriately fearful people substantially faithful. Faithful to the religion that is. Not, to the truth. Hoping against hope that some unseen, unknown power-that-be would take pity on them or at the very least not smite them down while alleviating their  fear through some magical means and solving their energy crisis, their climate crisis, their financial crisis and their matrimonial crisis.

However, and I cannot stress this too much, Faith, untrammeled, clear sighted, lit up with the incandescence and iridescence of truth - is never blind. Rather, it is born out of the company of great beings such as those mentioned here, out of a desire to open one's eyes and see what they saw, out of a practice in accordance with their instructions and out of an affirmation within oneself of the truth of what they said subsequent to that practice.

Now, my parents called themselves Buddhist so I was called a Buddhist as well. So, it was some time before I was introduced to my Lord Jesus Christ. I think I was about 10 when I picked up a Bible slotted into the many bookshelves in my reading-mad family's digs. Since no faith-blind pastor or astigmatic school mam put the fear of God in me (heaven forbid), or taught me utter bunkum about Jesus or forced me to do rote-prayers or write exams on his life, I was in a privileged and highly advantageous position to let what he said light up my life at its own slow-radiating pace.

He was a complex being and I was a stupid boy. Therefore, I didn't attempt to second-guess what he said and kept my reading of him and my practice of what he taught very simple, very  stupid, very true. I needed to know two things only: What must I do? What must I pray?

There was a lot of rhubarb in the Old Testament that went right over my head and, for all that I care, can continue its journey out of the solar system and into deep space but I liked the commandments. Don't kill, don't steal, don't covet, don't lie. They were completely human, completely earthbound, completely right, completely wholesome, completely doable. What's more, they were the same key commandments of the Buddha and the other beings mentioned here as well so there was a congruence and cross-denominational affirmation of them (given, of course, the base understanding that the words of such teachers were all denominations of truth).

I thought they would be good to practice. I practiced. Umbly-bumbly practice of course and who at the age of twelve know of neighbor's wives? A few years later, reading further, in Matthew 5:17 I found affirmation that Jesus was thrilled by the commandments himself. He says there, that he has come to fulfill the commandments - not to change them. mmm...? Interesting. What does this great, great being mean by this? The commandments were valid but either he had not fulfilled them yet or human beings had not fulfilled them yet.

Or both.

Knowing his conduct, I understood he fulfilled them first. His life is a testament to that fact. Through his words, it is also clear he exhorted us to do the same. Now, one cannot fulfill "don't kill/steal/covet/lie" by talking about it, parabalizing it or rote-repeating it. One can only fulfill those by acting in accordance with them. That was the key clue.

He, through his own conduct in fulfilling the commandments was asking us to do the same. Not, repeat not, pray that somehow that would happen through some magical intervention. The ball was, is and always will be in our court. It was up to us. Not to him, not to God. Thrilled me. It was enough for me to chew on and practice on for the rest of my life. What did I need of the ritualistic aspects of Christianity? Here, was pure gold. He was the image of God. He wanted us to be an image of him. That's it. How? By conducting our lives in accordance with him. By practicing what he preached, by practicing what he practiced. If he healed, let us heal. Not, oh puh-leez, pray for healing. That, in essence, was the whole nine yards. And what an amazingly simple, beautiful and true nine yards these were. As my friend Mike Marcelamani pointed out to me, there was more to Jesus than the fulfillment of the commandments and I fully agree. Just that, just fulfillment of those would, I knew, take me a personal lifetime. I am probably dumber than most, but I cannot imagine me being able to do much else if I took on the task of practicing simplicity, care, honesty, unreflecting love and empathy through a spiritually mandated approach based on peace.

On to prayer. I needed only one. The Lord's Prayer. This is one of the two most powerful prayers known to man - the other being the Gaythri Mantram used by the followers of Lord Shiva.I used both during my wedding ceremony a few years back. During that ceremony, just as I had always done in my life, I used an unconventional phrasing of the forth, fifth and six lines of The Lord's Prayer.

Thy kingdom come on earth, 

Thy will be done on earth, 

As it is in heaven. 

This made sense to me because this is what my Lord Jesus Christ wished for us. That we bring God's will and his kingdom down to earth.

How? Well, most certainly not by asking someone to bring something down like a ton of bricks on to planet earth. That, we can safely leave to meteorites and sky labs.

Then how? By practicing in accordance with what he spoke and, being, such as he is, so too, us. Within each of us then, God's will be done. Within each of us then, his kingdom come.  Amen.

Why? Certainly not because  we want to purchase a piece of his heaven.

Then why? Because that way we can have heaven on earth. Amen.  

My Lord Jesus Christ was too gentle, too compassionate, too caring, too self-sacrificing to have ever wanted to have visited some evil, vengeful, jealous, angry and vindictive God on us regardless of what the church seems to tell us. He was far too loving to have wanted to make us obey through fear of some unknown entity or shiver in our shoes at the mere mention of the name. He was far too insightful to tell us that the way to God was through mumbling incoherent nonsense or getting involved in church committees organizing nativity plays or choir practice.

I subscribed to none of those. In fact, I categorically reject all of them. Faith-blinded I never was so there was absolutely no reason for me to compromise the reason for my faith nor the results of it.

Instead, I practiced Jesus. Therefore, I saw him. Therefore, I felt him. Therefore, I do not suffer much nor do I enjoy too much. Therefore I am not praised too much nor am I blamed too much. Therefore I am not famed too much nor shamed too much. Therefore I don't gain too much nor do I lose too much. Content am I. Peacefully sleeping am I. In my little pocket of heaven am I. Thanks be to my Lord Jesus. Thanks be to God.

The politics of giving

In the previous post, I reflected on what giving should be. In this, I will reflect on what giving has become. Both I think should be read in tandem. Enjoy...*winks*

The conventional meanings assigned to the term aid are a) help, assist, or support (someone or something) in the achievement of something, b) assisting a person or persons overcome their own stated problems and minimize the their own stated  threats and c) support for acts on the part of a person or persons to overcome their own stated problems and minimize their own stated threats.

The term does not imply the following: a) assistance in overcoming problems perceived to be so on the part of the Samaritan regardless of whether or not the person or persons being assisted think them to be so, b) assistance in overcoming problems real or imagined that are fashionable to address and c) assistance that provides the Samaritan with a return on his investment of time, resources and effort. These types of assistance can be rightly called disgusting,dangerous and dumb.

And yet, over the last 70 years or so, current global understanding of the word "aid" has systematically distanced itself from its natural meaning and become increasingly aligned with the disgusting, the dangerous and the dumb. In that process of transmogrification from a human good that is both just and natural into a human failing that is vicious and manipulative, there has evolved an interesting lexicon and phraseology that has both shocked and amused me by its semantic incongruity, its basic idiocy and its inherent indecency.

Here are a few:

• Aid effectiveness: Holy freaking cow! Have we so far lost our heads as to believe that giving should only be done if that giving is effective? Asinine. 
• Aid market: Eh? You gotta be kidding me here man. Giving as a business? With people competing with each other to give and people competing with each other to get? Blah! 
• Aid industry: Yeow! you mean, there are actually a buncha people around who earn a living by industriously engaging in the giving and receiving of help? oh..help! 
• Aid chain: A full 40% of the "aid" never reaches the people that it is supposed to assist. Instead, it gets pocketed by tiered ranks of middle men and  women. Read, bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, civil society organizations in rich countries, facilitating civil organizations in poor countries, corrupt governments, enforcement agencies and line agencies. Whoa! 
• Conditional aid: mmm? Giving that is based on the receivers fulfilling the givers conditions means that the givers are more interested in achieving their perceived outcomes than responding to the real requirements of the people that they are helping. Disgusting. 
• Tied aid: Tied, eh? If its tied to the giver it was never given. Period. 

So, here we are, inconveniently living life in a world full of imbalance where the attempts at rectifying it seem, in fact to be more selfish than selfless. More self-serving than self-giving. Dramatically so. Geometrically so. Almost, almost, completely so. So bought into these ideas of giving are the affluent members of the human race that they have almost completely forgotten why human beings give. Therefore, one can safely assume that they are either becoming rapidly dehumanized or, are already inhuman.

Conclusion? The affluent are better off keeping their money and their materials and their technologies and their various other what-have-you's than engage in this nonsense that any reasonable man will have little trouble labeling as nonsense. But they don't keep their moolah in their pockets and have done with this whole misbegotten mess.

Apart from a few exemplary exceptions, they Won't. They, importantly ... can't. Why?

Because, in this day and age of cheap communications, they are terrified that at some point, the yawning disparity between those who have and those who have not would reach catastrophic proportions, resulting in a spontaneous combustion of social forces and desperation fuels that will..um... basically...explode in their faces...in various Tiananmenish or Tahriristic squares across the world with a rather messy, inconvenient loss of both affluence and power for the super-heeled of the world.

So, one part of their thinking goes something like this: A few  handouts tossed at the mangy scavenging dogs around the world, framed within conditions, insured through tying, facilitated by industry, auctioned through the market and encouraged by effectiveness  would keep these mongrels relatively not unhappy, relatively not unfed, relatively not undeveloped so that they can't really make  much of their situations but, more importantly, they don't reach that critical mass of desperation required to threaten our situations.

The other part of their thinking goes something like this: We got the dough so, what sort of ways are there for us to use it to gain something more than money.. such as say... political bargaining space...capture of strategic geographies...votes in the UN...expansion of our businesses...jobs for are hundreds of thousands of NGO workers, laborers, consultants, researchers, technicians.

For some of these people I feel sorry. The ones I feel sorry for are those slotted in at the middle level inside aid agencies and civil organizations. They are, for most part, pleasant and gentle human beings who actually believe that they are doing some good in the world. I just wish that they had managed to revisit the basics of what constitutes a human being before they embarked on their various crusades across the planet.

For some of these people I do not feel sorry. The ones I do not feel sorry for are the manipulatively affluent at every level of the "aid chain" raking and skimming so that each lower level gets a "handout" that keeps them relatively not unhappy.

What is the upshot of this insanity? Obviously, nothing wholesome. Poverty production in the name of poverty reduction. Conflict escalation in the name of conflict mitigation. Marginalization in the name of empowerment. Destruction in the name of construction. A planet destabilized in the name of stabilization. This, none can escape. Not the affluent. Not the middle-makers. Not the iffy governments. Not the corrupt rulers.

The people at the lower end of the spectrum already know this is true. It is time that those at the upper end realize this. For when there is a personal agenda driving anything couched within the broad term "giving", that's what one will get. And I mean get.

The spirit of giving

A view according to the truth of the Buddha goes like this: "දාන ප්‍රධානියා දාන ලාබියා එම දානය කෙසේ පරිහරණය කරයිද යන්න නොසිතිය යුතුය" (A giver should never attempt to determine how a receiver uses that gift). Similar sentiments were expressed by  Lord Jesus Christ, the Prophet Mohamed (P.B.U.H.) and Lord Shiva. Indeed! If something is truly to be a gift, then the owner's ties to it should be severed the moment it is released from his or her  hand. If it doesn't, then, to all intents and purposes, that gift was never given.

Sri Lankans may have have many faults but in this aspect of giving, we show two traits that are, simultaneously and paradoxically, both gorgeously real and beautifully transcendental in nature.

The first is that whoever has, if the need arise, gives. And gives and gives. Regardless of who wants what or what the exact need is. We, um... care not a whit. This is not something unique to Sri Lanka but common to Asia in general. Call them beggars at your doorstep, panhandlers on a street corner, addicts with a convincing lie, a friends in distress... all of these have one common denominator. They are all, without exception, called "gifts". The minute their need become cognized in the mind, in goes the hand into the pocket and out comes the smiles on the face of the beneficiary of that delving exercise. Obviously, these are never considered "handouts to the needy" but rather, as a chance, an opportunity presented to the giver to give and the ones in need are "received" with great reverence and gratitude by the giver. Khalil Gibran makes a clear statement on the importance of this mindset in giving. In most parts of Asia, If a group of people meet for dinner, one of them, most enabled among the group, would pay. If they meet the next day, she will do so again. And again and again. In many parts of the western world, this type of passivity on the part of the rest of such a group would be seen as "taking unfair advantage" of the well-heeled. In the east, offering to "contribute" or "split" when one of the party picks up a bill would be considered an unforgivable insult. The reason is simple: in the east, every opportunity that is presented to a human being to give is taken, nay, grabbed, with alacrity. In this giving, there are no strings attached. There is no "deal" of any sort either stated or implied. There is no "I will pay for you today, but you should pay for me tomorrow". There is only the overall satisfaction that the balance of need, necessity, ownership and possession was restored in the act of giving generously, giving without denigration, giving without condition, receiving gratefully, receiving without subservience, receiving without guilt. Beautiful. Natural. Wholesome. Satisfying.

Watch this small clip I made of an excerpt of Kahlil's beautiful message to mankind:

The second is almost uniquely Sri Lankan. To not give is to perish. This is why, any excuse to give on a large scale to completely unknown people is anticipated with the same licking of chops as when the greedy lick their chops at the chance to gain on a large scale from completely unknown people. Two days ago, the country celebrated the birth, enlightenment and the passing of the Buddha on Vesak day and hundreds of thousands of people put up little shacks on the roadside to serve everything from tea to sherbet to noodles to rice to any and all who wanted a drink to slake their thirst or a meal to fill their stomachs. "Dansal" we call it in Sinhala, "Dhana Shala" in Sanscrit, "Place of giving" in English. They are also much more than that. Places of entertainment too you might rightly call them, or gatherings of conviviality, or watering holes of camaraderie, or wells of happiness and contentment...satiating all souls who partake of its ethos at a level far more long-lasting and self-sustaining than a thousand visits to a bar, a football match or a musical extravaganza.

Those who give, do so with great generosity, in some cases, literally forcing passersby to sample their home made lemonade or marmite or whatever else they had to give. And what about those that got? Why do they, year in and year out, turn up in their hundreds and hundreds of thousands?  Because they didn't have food on their table? Because they were hungry? Thirsty? Not really. That demographic is but a small percentage of those who flock to these places in droves. The majority come because they wanted to give the giver an opportunity to give. They come because they are thrilled that they could watch the giver being thrilled by giving. This is important folks. "The thrill of giving and receiving as acts that only serve the acts themselves" is rare indeed in this world we live in. In fact, most would think that these types of givers and receivers were smoking something serious. This is tragic. Such thinkers would have no recourse but to earn, steal or plunder everything they feed their bodies and souls with. Those who can't? In such societies, those who can't will die.

In Sri Lanka, awash in grinding poverty, mowed down by corrupt political systems, smashed to bits by insane conflicts, not one single human being in our rural communities ever dies from hunger or thirst. No one has to seek thither for a roof over their heads, for a bed to sleep on, for medicine to cure their physical ills, for sound counsel to cure their mental ills, for a smile for their souls. Such things are theirs  - not for the taking - but for the asking. And ask they do, of anyone and everyone.  And, give they do, to anyone and everyone.

Why?

Because we are nation of spontaneous givers and receivers. Because we give and receive merely for the purpose of adorning and ennobling our minds. Because we do not ask what was done to our gifts. Because we are not looking to receive something in return. Because we are content, as Gibran says "to give as yonder myrtle breathes its fragrance into space and breathe in that soul suffusing sweetness for it is as much our scent as it were the myrtle's ".

Meet Mr. Narayanan Krishnan - a man who epitomizes the spirit of giving from this region:

Do schools kill creativity?

Here is an interesting tidbit. Each year more than 50,000 mathematical papers are published and currently there are more than 1,000,000 of them out there. Most have a viewership of around 12 (friends and family) and a readership of about 6 (the faculty that sits at the researcher’s defense of his work).  

Mathematically at least, the rediscovery rate is probably greater than 50% - maybe even 80%. That, good people, is a humungous waste of human effort and world resources.  

This gives me a definite feeling of unease about exactly what this whole system of education is all about and where it is taking its practitioners, proponents and participants.  This means of course, that I am very worried about where 85% of all people in this world are going.*chuckles*.  Apparently I am not the only one who is peeing his pants over this issue. Below is a brief paraphrase from a talk given by one such bloke with some of my own observations thrown in.  The text is a hybrid of his thoughts and mine so don’t castigate the guy for my issues – heh. Enjoy *winks*

Liked that? Apparently so did 4,754,332 others. The world is not that bad eh? *chuckles* 

The children who are starting school this year will be retiring in 2066. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise out there, what the world will look like in five years’ time let alone 50 years time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it. The unpredictability is … um… extraordinary. 

Add to that the fact that through a targeted process, we are systematically suppressing the creative skills of children through our “one-size-fits-all” method of education and the ways in which we recognize the achievements of that process. Many children who are incredibly enabled and innovative are systematically weeded out by an education science and education process that mostly recognizes excellence if it is academic and if it falls within the framework of “the skills that are most in demand”.  As a result of this process of segregation and stratification our world is rapidly losing some stout human beings  who are not yaysayers to a system, who are not afraid to make mistakes and who are not afraid to be creative and innovative in their thinking while blowing up the school lab in the process. Most who thumb their nose at the existing guidelines for measuring intelligence are shut out, ignored, disenfranchised and marginalized. This goes against the very definition of intelligence which is clearly known to be diverse, dynamic, interactive and creative. 

This, despite the fact that we live in a world where the sum total of human cerebral effort is mostly to naught, where supposedly intelligent people who have worked their way “to the top” through academic excellence are now working equally hard to bring about its destruction. This, in a reality where endless rhetoric takes precedence over action. This, in a farce where a person who goes to a discotheque to lap dance is frowned on while an academic who goes there in order to write a paper on someone else lap dancing is smiled on. This, in a global situation where there is little creativity and no solutions to a world beset by multiple threats that can each, on its own, bring about Armageddon.  We have created, supported and lauded an education system where those who have the best chance of solving the world’s ills are shut out of having a go at it at all.  

Ken Robinson speaks from the heart about how precious, unique and beautiful our creativity is and how tenderly it should be nurtured. We are born creative, and are educated out of it. Funny... ... ...

Fear corrupts, absolute fear corrupts absolutely...Power humbles, absolute power humbles absolutely

The great spiritual leaders of the world lived lives of piety and engaged the world with clarity, compassion and a desire to succor those in pain. Their lives were epitomized by a complete lack of fear and a confidence in the belief that what they thought, said and did was not only right but mutually consistent. They wielded (and still wield) an enormous power to inspire human effort and give people confidence in themselves and their fellow beings. The same can be said albeit to a lesser degree of the Lincolns, Kings, Ghandis and Mandelas of this world. They never sought power, yet, their lack of fear and their compassion vested power in them and that power made them ever humbler, ever more compassionate. 

Unfortunately, it is not possible to say that about our current crop of leaders.  From cradle to grave, fear seems to drive their lives.  Every milestone of their careers, every stance, every ideology is driven by the necessity to minimize the impact of that fear on themselves while leveraging the fear of others to push themselves to the top.  The higher they go, the greater becomes that fear. At the top – in government or business or any other human endeavor, in their vanity, they call themselves the most powerful but in reality, they are the most fearful. At the top, they wield that fear ruthlessly, believing that as long as they remain at the top, scything everyone and everything in their path with an aggression born of absolute terror, other, equally frightened people cannot touch them. They believe that they can neutralize real or imagined danger from external entities by using fear to command and wield the weapons and the people at their disposal against such threats. 

It is time to re-write the old adage: 

Vesak 2013

In a world awash in intolerance, bigotry, misguided religious zeal and the manipulation of  the truths spoken by the great teachers of yore for personal advantage, on this day, 2600 years after his passing, let us re-visit the truth spoken by the Buddha - the one who acquired knowledge of the four truths of the noble ones, the Thathaagatha - the one thus gone, the Lokawidu - the seer of the world.

This, the Vijjacharana Sampanno - the one endowed with supreme knowledge and conduct - instructed us to understand for ourselves as suffering: being born, aging, death, sickness, enforced company of the unloved, enforced parting from the loved and the inability to acquire things that we want. Let us reflect on this for awhile. Is this true? Are there other avenues of suffering that exist outside of these seven roots? I have examined carefully, thoughtfully, impartially, and have found none.

This, Saththa Deva Manussanam - the teach of Gods and Men - instructed us to understand for ourselves this as the cause of suffering: craving arising from a desire for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming. Let us reflect on this for awhile. Is this true? Are there other avenues that cause or grow suffering? I have examined carefully, thoughtfully, impartially, and have found none.

This, the Buddha - the one who realized Nibbana independently - instructed us to understand for ourselves as the cessation of suffering: the remainderless stopping of that very craving. Let us reflect on this for awhile. If craving causes suffering, does it not follow that the cessation of craving ceases suffering? It does.

This, the Bhagavatha - the blessed one - instructed us to understand for

ourselves as the means to achieving this cessation: Simply this - the eight fold path practiced by the wise. Right vision, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This, is up to each of us to practice and realize for ourselves. One can be instructed on ways and means but one must acquire the vision, the thought, the speech, the action, the livelihood, the effort, the mindfulness and the concentration that yields the result of cessation.

The Buddha's message is simple: I practiced this, I achieved this. If you practice this, you too shall achieve the same. The question is, do we want to? The eight fold path practiced by the wise is based on giving, on virtue, on renouncing, on insight, on diligence, on patience and tolerance, on truth and honesty, on determination, on loving-kindness and on equanimity. A quick glance at the world shows us how unfashionable such human traits have become.

In Sri Lanka, the Buddha has been subsumed. Instead, Buddhism had risen. In other parts of the world, Christ is no longer relevant, Christianity is, the Prophet Mohamed (Peace Be Upon Him) is relegated to the sidelines and Islam has taken him over, Lord Shiva might as well have never spoken formidable truths to Sankarachariya because Hinduism has trundled over him. The great teachers spoke the truth and walked that talk. Fallible men and women made religions out of them and merely talked their non-existent walk. The resultant disaster is all too evident.

Today, a man in robes emulated himself in front of the Dalada Maligawa. For what? According to him, to stop the slaughter of cows, to stop religious conversions. I feel sorry for this man because he is both ignorant and foolish. The Buddha never made any distinction between animals but simply stated, as Christ did 500 years later, "though shalt not kill, cause the death of another living creature or live by killing another living creature". So why does this man talk like a cow about cows? Not because it is part of the truth spoken by the Buddha but because it is something that Muslims do that he seems to be against.

In the first, he does himself harm on two fronts. On the one side, he has, while in robes, modified and changed what the Buddha spake - for this, he is guilty of one of the five heinous crimes (Ananthariya - no time lapse between crime and its result), namely, of causing schism amongst the Bhikkus and the result for changing just one of the word spoken by the knower of all truths is an eon in a woeful state in hell. On the other, paradoxically, he attempts to destroy life (his own) while asking for the sparing of other lives (those of cows) and a person who destroys a human life will find it hard to regain such a human form in later lives.

In the second, he violates one of the principles of monkhood - that of patience and tolerance (kanthi). It is not his to worry in the slightest about what the world does or does not do. Whether they convert from science to religion or religion to atheism or atheism to agnosticism, those are activities indulged in by human beings caught in the thrall of lust, desire, self-servitude, anger and belligerence.These are not conducive to the cessation of craving but rather for the grown and exacerbation of it.  If he is a monk, he is, by the disciplinary rules for monks (Uposatha and Pathimokka), preempted from this. If he does this, despite his supposed vows, he is once again guilty of the same Ananthariya sin.

Poor man. I am astonished at the level of self-inflicted suffering that a person, supposedly of the cloth, can inflict upon himself. I can only wish him peace at some point in his journey through Samsara. For now, I know where he is and where he is going and it washes me with sadness and shocks me into silence.

Here below is a small video I made for my wife to show her students. Unlike fire, impatience and intolerance, it is cooling. Enjoy...