Noa asked, or rather mused over how I must have looked to Sogyal Rinpoche when we first met in 1986. I’m not sure she really expected to find out, but this morning I dug out a snap from my first ever summer retreat in 1986.
It was a grueling affair. The organizers had done a cheap deal with a ski lodge in the French Pyrenees and we dined on tinned green beans and a tasteless sludge, the name of which I never learned to pronounce.
It was also my first experience of a multi-national shrineroom and the daily scrummage for front seats that invariably resulted in passonate and sometimes violent contratemps. What the hell had I got myself into?
I didn’t go the next year. Oh, balmy days of courageous rebellion…
Oiling a Rusty Mind 
I expected full compliance and am duly sated. What a gorgeous snapshot. You have barely changed at all.
Thankyou, but it’s really quite easy to look gorgeous when most of your face is in darkness and you’re 26.
yes, gorgeous~
bella