Change Your Mind Day 2005

Reno, Nevada

This year's Change Your Mind Day was much different than last year's. Less wind, less heat, fewer weekers, and mellower energy made for a day that was so very intimate. For this lone dharma bum Change Your Mind Day is a day to reconnect with various parts of the Sangha I seem never to find the time for. But this year the day connected the dots between those of us practicing.

The space was transformed upon the first reverberation of the bell—from inauspicious beginnings (I has forgotten several essential pieces for the shelter) to the wonderful energies of all our friends (new and old) to the merit gained by all the help in cleaning and packing everything away. The day was marked by an ease and harmony rarely achieved except when one lets go.

There was a man who wandered upon us and sat. Drawn by our energy, or the activity he came and sat. And watched. We walked, we chanted, gave incense offerings, and he sat. And watched.

During a break in the action he came upon me and said, "I have been sitting and watching. And I want more information about this thing you are doing. The energy is so clean." And that moment changed my mind. Changed my mind about who he was and what we were doing there. It is enough to walk, prostrate, chant and sit. The doing and the being are one. Doing and being the change I want to see in the world.

John Mariotti