I’m at Meher Prabu this morning to buy Himalaya face lotion. It’s a small shop, set off by itself near several dirt lanes. Jalu is the owner. We met four years ago when he carried only a few products for westerners. Now he has the same products I see at Winn Dixie in Florida.
Today, there’s an unfamiliar red and green office chair looking out-of-place. Jalu tells me about a new medical condition of his left knee, and a thin layer of sadness rises in me like fog, shifting my vision. He’s in his thirties. I’m quiet and thoughtful. The chair is his first action. I tell him he’ll be earning money with his mind and not his physical strength. We smile. He shops in the bazaar bringing products on his motorcycle, but he’s made a change. A three-wheel tempo now goes to the stores he’s been to and picks up his purchases.
His wife, son, and daughter help run the store, and his nephew’s joined as Jalu’s new assistant. The counter’s going to be lowered so he can sit to do business. We smile again as he says he’s going to make more shelf labels—something I’ve wanted for years. I leave, mulling over the major change in his life. Later I return with an elasticized knee support that Jalu tells me feels good.
Reading of Tibetan Buddhism in Journey in Ladakh,* a rimpoche, a holy man, speaks of being sad but not too sad—and of not becoming absorbed by grief.
My realization is, “Appropriate sadness softens us so what we understand and say to a person can be caring, supportive of change, and open dreams of possibility.”
*Journey in Ladakh, Andrew Harvey