People feel they need to categorize things to understand them, to poses them, to not be controlled by them; and to, in turn, be in control themselves. People feel they want to be categorized so that they might belong to something, to fit into a category is to not be alone. Categorization, the act of labeling is a mechanism of limitation, and it becomes a requirement, an obsessive requirement when you look at the differences between things before you look at the likenesses shared among them. If we were to teach ourselves, and in turn one another, that it is right to look at the commonalities we share with people before we distinctualize the differences, we would see a core bond of livingness, of feelingness, of what we refer to as the inherently HUMAN part of our nature as the initial defining characteristic of anyone we meet. We label to combat the perception of isolation.

My mom could not biologically have children, something wrong with her insides. My older brother and I were adopted. The family I was raised in as a boy, a chosen/created family, was so ideal, so full of love and warmth and care, so connected and dedicated that I never really questioned my belonging. But I knew friends who's families were anything but warm, anything but actively, outwardly loving. Those were biological families. I met my biological mother, it was surreal, and I would love to write a book about it, about the strange feeling of magnetic connection, a blood awareness...which was and is not love, and how that contrasts with what a family requires to BE a family.

When I heard about the Dalai Lama's scheduled visit to Ann Arbor (where i live), and the series of lectures he was scheduled to give, I was overfilled with joy. It has been 14 years since Tenzin Gyatso last visited Ann Arbor, I was not fortunate enough to have participated in that visit, and have been wondering for years if I would have the good fortune to ever see him speak. Especially with the recent violence and heat surrounding Buddhist monks in China. Today, that wonder was put to sleep at 10:00 am when, with pro-China protesters gathered outside, the Dalai Lama gave a lecture on Buddhist thought and values, and I was there.