That is how my first journal entry began at 2am in the International Hostel of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka in 1998. After a frightening ride from the Katanayake airport through darker and darker Colombo, my arrival at the gates of Sarvodaya headquarters in Moratuwa had taken almost two hours.  The security guard was not sure what to do with me and the woman who unlocked the hostel door frightened me, too.  She chewed betel nut and was groggy from no sleep in the heat. 

Air pollution was thick, permeating the heat that had dissipated only temporatily before transforming the morning to come into a heat that would be like almost every other day after day  Mosquitos were poised and ready for me, despite the offer of bed nets in the spartan hostel room.  I lay down on the hard, hard bed and wondered how in the world sustainability, Buddhism and grassroots development and people helping people intertwined here.  Time and space merged.  One has to yield to the moment, I mused. 

Life.  Intense, audible, full of grace. Unstoppable in its totality. This will continue. It will be an adventure to be awash in the unending moment among so many creatures and growing things that sustainability will seem like a construct created as an afterthought.  This will continue.  This continues.  This has continued.