I’m asking for Ratnasambhava’s help in becoming a good fundraiser. Then it starts to dawn. Hadn’t I realized that he’s been with me all the time, guiding me straight to the doors of people who are just waiting for the opportunity to be generous?
My precept for the evening is to talk to myself as if I was my own best friend. I tell this to the young couple who have invited me into their house, swept away piles of papers covering the table and chair, and given me a mug of tea. They’re delighted. ‘That’s just the kind of thing we talk about all the time’, they say, ‘we love discussing all the various responses we have when things go wrong’. He’s an atheist and is fascinated to discover that Buddhism is an atheistic religion. ‘Who is the Buddha then, if he’s not God?’, she asks. We talk about human potential and about the freedom and the challenge of having no external authority telling you what to do. When I go outside into the autumn night I don’t feel cold anymore; I’m warmed through.
