Saturday, December 26, 2015

Being grateful, thanking footpath

The afternoon wore on bright with the sun. Still yet, it was frosty and brutal cold outside. Exactly when, I found a way to thank a footpath. Grabbing a sack from my home, I ran towards it. I was happy that I would be doing it eventually.
As soon as I reached the half a mile long footpath, I started collecting all kinds of waste littered around path. It surprised me, as there were a lot of non-degradable trashes such as plastics, pet bottles and rubbers thrown by the walkers.  

Why did I choose to clean this particular footpath? And why at this particular time? You must be wondering. Don’t you?

So to say, I had walked this footpath for the past five years. It is a route that had connected me between my home at Motithang and my previous office (Department of Youth and Sports) every day. However, since my transfer to MoIC last November, I knew that I won’t be setting my foot here anymore.

The humble path had served as a special place for me and it became a part of me. It had always embraced me with its beautiful colours of nature, fragrance and serenity. No matter how bad day I had in the office, walking through this path would always sooth my heart.

In fact, it had offered me an important small space and time to reflect on my life’s sojourn and renew my spirit. Every morning. Every evening. Walking here, I had learned to emphasize the importance of walking, to focus on the positive and seek out beauty in everyday life.  

In the past five years I had walked this footpath alone and accompanied, sad and happy, drunk and sober, adrift and purposeful. I had walked under the warm suns, in the darkness, under the torrential rains and in the snows.
Changangkha Lhakhang (Picture taken in autumn 2014)
This path reached me to the God. Every time I walked here the magnificent Changangkha lhakhang would greet me. At times I would drop by the monastery to pray. I felt more blessing avalanche poured in. I felt more holiness.   

To show my gratitude and to give back to the path which had offered me so much, I decided to clean it. I have collected a sack full of waste and dumped it in a safe place. Definitely I made the path very clean, beautiful.

Being grateful is all that matters. In fact, this is how I want to end this year and embrace 2016.  

6 comments:

  1. wish ...everyone felt same gratitude like you and refrain from littering. keep up the spirit of thankfulness and keep writing.

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    1. Thanks lots for the comment. Enjoy your time in pleasant Pling.

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  2. This is such a beautiful and meaningful post. You actually just shared your path to enlightenment. You had the self duty and compassion to clean the paths you have walked on faithfully for years. That shows you clearly made a good self reflects of your past journey and cleared the cords & karma too. Well done dude.

    I love the hilarious way you expressed - sad and happy, drunk and sober, adrift and purposeful.... It sounded like me.

    Now that you have cleared your paths, I am confident that the paths and journey ahead would be clean and blessed with abundance of happiness & luck!


    Wishing you a Healthier and Happier New Year 2016.

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    1. As always, thank you so much for this generous comment. And also enjoy you New Year; I hope the new beginning would bring lots of happiness and love to you

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  3. Hi Riku, this is another very insightful post. I truly appreciate your such a great initiative. I am really impressed by your sense of gratitude and social responsibility. Keep up the good work and wish you a very prosperous New Year 2016.

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  4. Great job and what a thought. This is how it always should be. If all Bhutanese have same kind of attitude, we would have a much better society to live in.

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