“What is most important, in the words of the Diamond Sutra, is to ‘develop a mind that clings to nothing.’ Only then will we be able to see things as they actually are and respond with the full range of our emotional capacity and our wisdom.”—Jon Kabit-Zinn

I think my mind is pretty good at “clinging to nothing.” However, it may be more a result of my aging than about the mindfulness meditation in his book: “Wherever You Go, There You Are.” There is a certain truth in those words.

These past days there seems to be multiple variations of truth depending on which side you listen to. Sunday night I watched a panel respond to a crowd of political elders listening to and asking questions regarding the merit of William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan.

I never really listened to Reagan but I tried to listen to Buckley on his Sunday show years ago when he was always armed with a pencil and flickering eyebrows. I don’t think I ever understood what he was saying. There was a crowd in the audience, many of them much further along in years than I, asking questions with good panel responses.

There were two elderly panelists and one young panelist, younger than everyone there who I thought made the most sense. And thinking back I never regarded President Reagan as being that full of wisdom. Of course that was the case at times with the “other party.”  This group had gathered before the election of Obama. I wondered what they would be saying about Obama today.

Still there is Cheney maintaining his argument against being in any association of the “evil doers.” However, it’s my understanding that our current vice-president melted down some of the hostility that was created in the last administration with Russia.

Placing missile systems on the border of the Czech Republic to protect the United States from Iran seemed a little off target to me. I thought it was designed to increase the sting we perpetrated against the Soviets.

Later that same night I randomly read some of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden. I became interested in this book when it first came out, mainly because I new so little of who Osama Bin Laden was other than his strong desire to remove American Troops from Saudi Arabia following our first war with Iraq and how quickly we obliged them.

I remember feeling uncomfortable searching for the book at the bookstore at Borders in the Burnsville Mall. Fortunately there was a clerk there I knew originally from Austin who checked and said they didn’t have it.

She sent me to the Barnes and Nobles across the road. There a clerk led me to their last copy. This was two or three years ago. Fortunately I had enough cash on hand that I didn’t have to write out a check. I had this eerie feeling if I wrote a check or used a credit card my name would be entered on an “Un-American watch list.”

A question posed to Osama Bin Laden in the book asks: So what is your opinion on what you have been able to follow of news concerning the Islamic world’s reaction to the network that you own or run all around the world?

Obama bin Laden: I say that the events have proved very clearly the magnitude of the terrorism America inflicts in the world. Bush admitted that there can be only be two kinds of people: one kind being Bush and his followers; and any nation that doesn’t follow the Bush government, or the World Crusade, is guaranteed to be included with the terrorists.

On Nov. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush stated there is no room for neutrality in the “war against terrorism”: “Over time it’s going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity,” he said. “Your either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”

Once home it took me awhile to get around to it. And now I am back looking at it again. I might be better off to stay out of the way of books; something I accomplished for many years. These last years, however, I’ve been curious about “other sides.”

On the other hand the sidewalks have resurfaced, most of the ice has turned to water and much of that has evaporated.

Loren was seen clinging to the warm sun of the fake spring Sunday.