The day started off like most days, dragging myself out of bed, one eye still closed. I called in to work and told them I had to take care of something and wouldn't be coming in. I had a driving without insurance fine that was hounding me. I decided to finally pay it all off.

My girlfriend had previously agreed to drive me to the courthouse. I usually wouldn't ask her to taxi me around but this was semi-important, but when it came time to go she backed out. Flaked on me.

I was initially pissed but I didn't have time to dwell on it. I caught the next train and went to the courthouse. The process took a long time and I had to take a few cabs, but I got there and gave them my money.

I stayed in Alhambra for a while and took another cab back to the train station. The station was also near a school campus, so while I was waiting for my train I went to the school library and began looking at their books.

I came across a rack where all the books were for sale for 50 cents.

This is where I found "Handbook for Humankind". This book is lean and mean. It contains 99% less fat than most other Buddhist books. It doesn't prescribe to some astral body that governs buddhism.. "Oh great Buddha's ghost!". Thoughts like that are a mockery of Buddhism.

The book was simple. The thoughts were very foreign to me at the time. I couldn't understand how I was supposed to abandon the thought of "I"... by the time I had completed reading the book the entire world had slowed down around me.

My fears of death and the pain of my brother's death slipped away. My anger and resentment towards my girlfriend were gone too. I realized that I cared too much about those things, if that makes any sense. I stopped paying so much attention to those emotions... to use a very American analogy, they were now the emotions of a character on a movie screen.

It's just simple.