Karuna

It's one of Buddha's words, Pali for compassion, for the immanence of all living things in each other, for the attraction of life for its likeness.

Teak is a relative of mint, tectona grandis, born of the same genus of flowering plant, but of a distaff branch presided over by that most soothing of herbs, verbena. It counts among its close kin many other fragrant and familiar herbs - sage, savour, thyme, lavender, rosemary and most remarkably holy basil, with its many descendants, green and purple, smooth - leaved and coarse, pungent and fragrant, bitter and sweet.

But nothing seems to have any shape for me. It's something you don't see until it's gone - the shapes that things have and the ways in which the people around you mould those shapes. I don't mean the big things - just the little ones. What you do when get up in the morning - the hundreds of thoughts that run through your head while you're brushing your teeth: "I have to tell you about the dream I had" - that sort of thing. Over the last few years I had someone to share these thoughts. Now, when I wake up in the morning those things still come back to me in just that way - I have to do this or that, for someone. Then I remember, No, I don't have to do any of those things; there's no reason to. And in an odd way, what you feel at those moments is not exactly sadness but a kind of disappointment. And that's awful too, for you say to yourself - is this the best I can do? No: this isn't good enough. I should cry - everyone says it's good to cry. But the feeling inside doesn't have an easy name: it's not exactly pain or sorrow - not right then. It feels more like the sensation you have when you sit down very heavily in a chair; the breath rushes out of your body and you find yourself gagging. It's hard to make sense of it - any of it. You want the pain to be simple, straightforward - you don't want it to ambush you in these roundabout ways, each morning, when you're getting up to do something else - brush your teeth or eat your breakfast...

I have known a lot of people in the short span of life. What comes back to haunt me, is the fact that someone told me that I will end up all alone, bitter and lonely. Am I on my way there...the march to existence with no purpose. The men or boys I have known as mates, colleagues, buddies, figure only as abstractions today. A faceless collectivity imprisoned in a permanent childhood - moody, unpredictable, fantastically brave, desperately loyal, prone to extraordinary excesses of emotion. Yet, I know it's all in the past. Watched a movie this afternoon which had a quote, "Salvation lies within." People of completely different background, existence, personality, come together - share experiences, create and destroy things and part ways. I suppose this is what life is supposed to be, a collection of an individuals experiences. Will I ever become a better person, or the dog is just waiting for its opportunity to strike. Shutting my eyes, am running hard and fast towards the unknown. Because, one thing which is known for a fact is that the one thing am not capable of is to return compassion. So many people in my life have been wonderfully kind to me, and in return I have been selfish, cruel, foolish and stupid. Teak - different yet useful, big yet protective, fruitless yet charitable.

I always wanted to be an elusive, unfathomable creature, a whipsmart Yale graduate and polymath who would speak fluent French and Japanese, would be conversant in politicial history and social anthropology, fly planes, direct charities, write music, play guitar and date power babes. Today, I present a defiantly reluctant front. I might be the essence of quiet civility, speaking in precisely meditated sentences about my craft with focused eyes and a furrowed brow. But what am I, and above all why am I? It's not about what who you are, but about what you can do or give to the society. Karuna is what I want to give...something I myself don't have.