My youngest niece (I have a bouquet of wonderful nieces :)) walked away this morning from her mother’s totalled Honda. Anne was wearing her seatbelt. So this my BIG thank-you today: Anne and her seatbelt.

Buddhism, as the Buddhist writer & thinker Stephen Batchelor notes,teaches that life is impermanent. And it doesn’t necessarily include an afterlife. Many secular Buddhists believe that one trip is all we get, while religious Buddhists talk about an almost Hindu concept of Nirvana, and reincarnation. The Buddha pretty much dismisses the question, noting that this life is hard enough. Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the suffering here & now?

My day would have been very different today had Anne not been wearing her seatbelt. Full of suffering, and w/out the consolation many Christians have of afterlife. I have no clue what comes next — if something created everything, my feeble human life is probably not capable of understanding it… As it is? Anne has a mild concussion and no car. A very small exchange for her life.

Let’s each try to remember that every day is a gift. Every breath full of life, every moment possibly beautiful. Sitting at my nara wood desk, typing on a keyboard at a flat screen monitor unimaginable only one son’s lifetime ago, I am so very thankful for this day. And the fact that Anne is still in it…