Live to Love

For the last few ‘Live to Love’ days, Jigme Norbu Dawa and I were involved with the beloved UK Sangha, but this time I was back in France. I looked around in the surroundings of my village to see what people need, what sort of suffering is going on here. As Jigme Päldrön from Germany said, it is not that easy to help in the West, it takes time to organise. I saw a few homeless people in the nearest town, Apt, so on the 3rd Sunday, after completing a translation for the UK Sangha, I went down town under a pouring rain with a bag of clothes and a few Euros. I walked around in many streets, looked under the arches of shops etc..nobody! On one hand I felt relieved for them, assuming that they must have shelter somewhere, but felt a bit hopeless in terms of helping! So I continued my practices and prayed that we could all help beings more and more and that Live to love activities would expand beautifully.

The next Sunday (last Sunday), my time to help arrived spontaneously!! At 3am, I woke up with the sound of broken glass in the street. By then my partner, Jigme Norbu Dawa had joined me in Provence. We looked out of our window and discovered that our neighbour’s ground floor window had been smashed and opened. I knew they were inside the house and they are elderly so we were quite concerned for them. We called the police and while waiting for them, kept watch on their house to make sure they were safe. When the police came the neighbours were very reassured because they heard the noise but they were so scared that they couldn’t come downstairs to telephone for help. I later helped the neighbours with clearing the broken glass from the street, and listened to them for a long time as they were still shaken by the event. They were happy to receive some help and support. I also searched all the streets, looking for her stolen bag, in case the burglar had thrown it away as they often do after taking the money and cards. However all I found were their three pairs of glasses. After retuning the glasses we exchanged phone numbers in case they need any further help.
That morning they were due to return to Switzerland. Before they left, she cut a little branch of yellow flowers from her garden to thank us. This joyous yellow reminded me of the orange in the Live to Love logo, ‘the sun of hope’; it was like an encouragement from Buddha! I offered the flowers to the three jewels on our shrine on their behalf, and prayed for their safe journey. In the evening they called to thank us and to say they arrived safely, which is what people do within a family, it showed that a few hours of genuine concern and love to people whom we didn’t know, was powerful enough to create a loving family; I just imagined how it would be if everybody started the Live to Love, we could easily and quickly become one big family!
Norbu Dawa and I were so inspired and happy to have helped them that the next day we drove for 3 hours return, to visit my grandmother in her elderly home, just to share our love!
I am very grateful for the Live to love project, it transforms our practice so deeply and makes me so happy to learn how to help others.

(Ps: If you leave near Apt or Avignon, please feel free to connect with us for the next Live to Love! We are trying to organise visits in hospitals)

Jigme Pelmo and Jigme Norbu Dawa.