Take Chris Brower of Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Last fall Brower became the first foreigner to play professional basketball in Russia. In the process, he became America's unofficial basketball ambassador to Russia. And because he develops his language skills, he understands our life. A Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh uses the metaphor of water to talk about understanding.
Water can flow and penetrate.
Or in the words of mythologist Joseph Campbell, what matters is not the search for the meaning of life, but the experience of being alive. I have no answers to the Russian riddle. Better to just let it be. In letting it be, answers reveal themselves. At the door, Aleksandra Dmitrievna greeted me with a radiant smile.