AMERICAN HOMES INVESTMENTS

These prayer flags are from Mahakala, the cave I visited during my LEAPYear travels where Siddhartha, aka Buddha, meditated for 5 years in solitude before achieving Enlightenment (NB: capital E). Five years of solitude and meditation, living in a cave that I couldn't stretch out in, let alone stand up.

To summarize, dude was intense.

The whole idea of prayer flags is in fact a lesson in impermanence, a notion that doesn't sit real well with Westerners (generally speaking, that is). We get very caught up in the humdrum of materialism that is our everyday life. A man's worth is measured by his possessions and power. Who the hell came up with that idea, anyway? But a prayer flag is in fact worthless to possess; their value is the goodwill they 'release' as they tatter. That's why monasteries and mountain paths are covered in tattered remnants of prayer flags: they're like an offering, or, well, a prayer, for harmony and peace in the world. Energy is invested in them via the ritualistic creation process (we got to see that, too) and is released as the cloth gets destroyed. So to simply stock them up is kind of worthless.

An interesting notion, especially as this all came out of my incredible amount of satisfaction with my own new toy, my Canon 50D. Irony ftw?

By the way, if you haven't heard or taken the time, please take the next 10 seconds to spare a thought or a prayer for those suffering in Mumbai today.

Rekha Bai, an enterprising young women from rural Madhya Pradesh who sells saris from her modest home. She buys them and sells them door-to-door to her neighbours in her village of Utavad, who otherwise have to travel many kilometres to the nearest town. She hopes to save enough money and take a larger microfinance loan to invest in a proper shop and more stock.