"Time is running."

A few days ago, during his dharma talk, Rinpoche looked down at the candle on the altar before him. The flame flickered in his glasses as he said, "Life is like candle... always running down. Time is running." In these bodies, Rinpoche said, we are continuously travelers and guests. In the end we always part from everything we meet, and this separation is necessarily painful.

This dharma tidbit struck a cord with me. I cannot believe that there are only TWO MORE WEEKS before classes in Bodh Gaya end and we all leave for our independent study projects. I love it here, I've made wonderful friends, and, although I'm bad at meditating, I've found some semblance of peace. And time is running. This fact doesn't seem to bother Rinpoche, but he is a highly realized being. I am not a highly realized being. Sometimes I argue that I like being unenlightened, that the slings and arrows of human desire are beautiful and wonderful and well worth experiencing. But in moments of preemptive nostalgia--like now--I wander if that jolly Tibetan Guru isn't perfectly right about everything. It's a good thing I have an infinite number of reincarnations to figure things out, I guess.

I will conclude with an entry I wrote in my journal that pretty much sums things up:

Time, where are you going? Stop for a moment, please, and look at that blackbird perched perfectly in the tree outside my window. Stop breathing down my neck! I know I'm going to be old in a heartbeat, with wrinkles around my eyes and an immanent awareness of my own mortality. But can't I forget that, just for a moment? I'm in India right now, and there's a blackbird outside my window. He's preening his feathers. He doesn't look concerned.