Courage comes in many sizes...

A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind of a wise man is not disturbed by either honor or abuse. Dalai Lama

I got an e-mail today. A short, nice thoughtful e-mail. It goes a-somefing likka dis....

Hi FBT

I’m Brian and I’m a 58 year old fat Buddhist – there aren’t many of these around. I was actually looking for some Buddhist magic to do the dieting for me when I stumbled across your site.

It’s great and I’m 100% behind you and will even try to lose weight myself. I’m starting from a sylph like 256 lbs.

Most of my Buddhist friends are thin veggies and I tend to stand out on photos, weighing twice as much as most of them, so some serious weight loss is long overdue.

I will follow your progress with great interest and hope that it will provide me with inspiration.

Good on you FBT lets see your smiling face in Dharamsala ( pies permitting ).

Kind Regards & Metta

Brian

Leaving aside that my progress is minimal, this is still a nice thing to receive. I am not too churlish to appreciate some encouragement, however random it's arrival. Thanks Brian, and good luck to you too!

This is not the first one I've received and it's not the first time I have considered blogging about their arrival/contents. Sometimes I feel it is not very 'Buddhist' to bang on about these sorts of things. Think less - do more! Resolution for 2008....

Anyway, thank you to those of you that continue to take time to contact me via e-mail. I do appreciate the thought and I feel I should really start living up to your image of FBT.

Slowly but surely I am dealing with the other things in my life that are mentally dragging me down and stopping me getting on with the single most important thing I will ever do - get fit and healthy for my son.

I love him in a way I can't really explain - sound stoopid? Who cares!

Dharamsala fells a VERY long way away at them moment but I have not given up and I have not lost the notion of where I want to be - I may have put the map down somewhere and forgotten where I put it but sooner or later I will lift an old copy of Private Eye and find it lying there waiting to show me the way.

I dare not weigh myself but I am building up to it. I have not exercised in the gym for weeks and my diet is fairly abysmal....but on the bright side, life can always be worse.

We are coming up to Remembrance day in the UK - a time to reflect and give thanks for the sacrifice of others. A sobering time for all of us fretting about sub-prime debt and the price of the latest Jimmy Choo's or whatever! Real courage, real hardship, real fear.

A strange day for a Buddhist, but then I'm not your average Buddhist......

Thanks for your comments everyone - when I'm back in the loop I'll come and sit on all your porch's and have a chat - that's a promise. Tea, milk no sugar and don't show me a biscuit unless it's got chocolate on it! Got it?

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. Bernard-Paul Heroux