

During a recent visit to a department store, I stopped by the men’s bathroom for a quick pee. As I stood at the urinal, I felt a small creature crawling along my neck.

After the initial cringe, I swatted at the crawly thing and a ladybug dropped onto the porcelain below, vivid red against brilliant white.

Moved by the creature's predicament, I folded the ladybug into a paper towel and put it in my pocket. A couple of hours later I arrived home and unfolded the towel. The ladybug proceeded to whir its wings and helicopter into a nearby shrub, surely a better home than Nordstrom's basement bathroom.

That night I thought about the fragile threads that bind every relationship.

The ladybug "happened" to choose a Buddhist neck. I "happened" to have a moment of awareness and chose to act on behalf of the ladybug.

But either of us might have chosen differently.

Each moment contains a pivot between loss and gain. Or, better, each moment contains both loss and gain. Or, maybe even better, each moment contains neither loss nor gain.

But while the mind screws around with ideas about the world, the world patiently requests our action. And, with loss always at hand, everything depends on how we respond.