Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Wow! I got seriously tagged with an act of anonymous kindness last week. Actually, its more like seriously pummeled with kindness. I spent 26 days at a meditation retreat, mainly to begin the process of self purification through self discovery...I guess you could call it a renovation of the interior walls of my mind. As I walked back into my studio home on Sunday, WOW, a few folks had decided that they would self-purify my home and renovate its interior walls as well. The place has been tiled, every corner has been painted, fridge has been stocked, light switches have been replaced, new furniture has been added, and an infinite amount of love has been poured into every inch of that space. On the table in the middle of my room was a flower pot with one smile card attached to the stem. The coolest thing I found was one forgotten pink piece of paper in the cabinet that had the handwritten words: kitchen: yellow and orange trim. That piece of paper provides the only evidence of the magnitude of planning that went into this gift (and the fact that this was actually conducted by human beings J ).

The walls reverberate generosity. Every moment I spend in there, I feel is a moment my heart spends in meditation, a moment spent in making myself and the world a better place. The place is now a Temple and I return back to feeling speechless again. The process of self purification continues, but now its the walls that do the work.

I'm not sure how I ever became capable of witnessing so much love in my life. I hope that I can live my life with as much integrity as possible to make myself worthy of this gift. I hope I can stop staring at the walls soon so that I can get to rippling this generosity to others.

I'm not exactly sure whose hearts were in this process, but I bow my head at these teachers. If something like this could happen in my life, then I have no choice but to keep on serving, to keep on paying it forward. My neighbor who got to witness this effort on a daily basis was also blown away. Her husband shook his head every night, he couldn't believe that people like this exist in this world. They invited their daughters, son-in-laws, even relatives from Sacramento to witness the product of this miracle. I can't imagine how this is affecting them, I can't even imagine how it is affecting me right now. On the day that I arrived, my neighbor came in and leaned against the wall of the new kitchen, with her eyes closed she just shook her head in disbelief. I asked her, What if I spent the rest of my life serving others? She said, even that won't be enough for all the love that you have received. Wise words, even serving for the rest of my life won't be enough to make up for all the love that I have received.

... and there's more: A few days later, after I invited some friends to share in my home, I opened up my blanket and 40 photographs fell out. The pictures were taken by the folks who had renovated the home, and documented the entire process of renovation. None of the photographs contained any faces or other unique characteristics that would give the anonymity away. There are photographs of hands holding paint brushes, of furniture piled up, of hands doing tiling work, of legs standing next to paint buckets but no faces. Not only did time and energy go into beautifying the home, but a lot of thought went into keeping it anonymous (and to dupe me in this way).

Now it becomes apparent that the food I eat, the car I drive, the place where I live, the clothes I wear, all exist only because of the gifts of another. It seems as if my entire life is a donation. I have no choice, but to give myself away to this love that surrounds me. Thank you, isn't really thank you anymore.

To my friends, there is something that connects us beyond friendship, beyond service, beyond even Love. There is something even deeper than we know that exists here. Now, it exists in the paint on my walls.