If a picture is worth a thousand words, one thousand words are worth...99 dollars.

I take a lot of pictures. I mean, a lot of pictures. There are two reasons for that. The first is that, since I started a journey on a spiritual path that includes meditation, I've become much more aware of my surroundings. As a result, it seems as if I'm always seeing something in a new light that strikes my fancy. A single blue hydrangea among November's flowers otherwise void of vivid color. A lonely dandy lion. A field full of cheery, yellow dandy lions. A woolly worm racing down a country road. Things I might never have noticed in a previous life not as rich as this one I'm now living have a life of their own, drawing my attention, and my camera lens, to them.

The second reason that I take so many pictures, an average of 75 on a day when I may only ride my bike a mile, is because my camera's LCD screen is broke and it doesn't have an optical viewfinder. I can tell neither that a shot is framed properly nor the setting at which I'm using to take the picture is appropriate. To be safe, I try and capture five shots: high, low, left, right, and centered. This way, I figure I'm bound to get a decent image. There have been days when I've been out on an extraordinarily beautiful day, snapping photos right and left, appreciating all that I see and enjoying myself immensely while also looking forward to being home later, having a lovely cuppa and going through my pics of the day.

And then, if I were the type to allow disappointment to set in, it probably would; I'm often lucky to get a couple of decent images out of the 75 I take. I'm not a professional photographer, and don't even have "the eye for photography" that some do. I realize, too, that no photo can capture the beauty one sees through one's peepers. However comma...when I only get half of a beautiful German Shepherd (even if the shot looks intentional) or an image of absolutely nothing but blue, cloudless sky (may as well be a wall painted robin's-egg blue), or the fuzzy white cone of what I think is a mountain, or half a mountain...well, it's a bit disheartening, especially when I look forward to sharing my day with my sons, my friends, my family. Not in a "Nanny nanny boo boo" way...but to show them how much meaning life has for me now. How precious every day has become to me.

What to do, what to do? The bald eagles have made their nests, but I can't get a decent shot of those, let alone the eagles which will soon be in the area in droves. And the snowline is falling, meaning those first snowflakes will be dancing my way very soon. And there's my lovely girly-pink bicycle, my flaky OCD cat, Tetley, and the birds that have decided they like the restaurant right outside my window, all posing for portraits that I keep missing.

I needed a new camera. And, while I really can't afford one, I bought one today with plastic money. I know that things will work out...they always do. I believe it's because I try to follow the Noble Eightfold Path in the Buddhist philosophy: right understanding, right thoughts, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. By staying on my path, I've been able to shelf the worry that used to plague me, like, where is the money going to come from? My finances look pretty bleak right now; the "old" me would be wringing her hands, crying "woe is me". That me certainly wouldn't buy a new camera.

This new me, however, worries about very little, actually. It's an insightful feeling to know that worrying about the outcome of a situation accomplishes absolutely nothing other than compound the negativity one is already feeling. Just keep on, keeping on, doing the right thing, and things fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle solving itself. It was in that frame of mind that the new me found a great deal on a very nice camera. TopChoiceDigital.com is selling the Canon A590 for $99.00, averaging a cool $30 less than many stores, both online and brick-and-mortar. This is the camera I've been looking at for a few months now, primarily because it's one of the few models of digital cameras that still has an optical viewfinder. With my current camera, a Nikon Coolpix L11, the LCD screen is the viewfinder, and the menu options can only be seen on the screen. I haven't been able to change the flash, macro, or any exposure settings since the screen broke. The A590 has a manual dial for its settings, too, which means that, even if the LCD screen bites the dust, I'll still have a camera I can use. A camera I can capture some of the magic and majesty I see while out and about on my bicycle.

A hundred dollars may not sound like much to some of you (Hello? Is there anybody out there?) but for someone who shops at resale establishments out of necessity (though I love the treasure hunting feeling of the experience, too), a hundred bucks is a great deal of money. But, ya know what? 'Tis the season...Merry Christmas to me. Why, thank you! It's just what I wanted!

"I"

Brad Warner is a Zen Master, a punk rocker, and works for the Japanese producers of "Ultraman". He is also the author of "Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality". I like the way he defines who "I"...well...is.

"Your desires are not what you really are. Not even close.

Your thoughts aren't the real you, either. They're just electrical energy bouncing around in your brain. If you do lots of zazen you often end up going for longer and longer periods where very few thoughts occur. The brain goes quiet and Descartes' old axiom "I think therefore I am" makes no sense anymore because you're not thinking, yet existence still is. (But be patient with this: most folks have to do zazen many years before anything like this happens.)

What is existence then? Sit zazen and see for yourself.

Your opinions and preferences are not you, either. A famous Zen poem called "Faith in Mind" begins, "It's easy to follow the Buddhist way, just avoid picking and choosing." Opinions, preferences, and other such mental crap are just thoughts that have been reinforced so often they've become unconscious and nearly unavoidable habits.

Your personality isn't you, either. It's just a collection of very deeply embedded opinions and preferences. Again, if you do enough selfzazen there will come times when even your personality ceases to function - at least in the old familiar way. Things you'd taken for granted as unique to you are seen as facets common throughout the universe.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Everyone has a self-image, an ego. You have one, I have one, Nishijima has one, Dogen, Nagarjuna, and Guatama Buddha had one, too. The difference is the way a Buddhist views his or her self-image. When a person who understands Buddhism uses the word "I", the word is just a convenient way of locating something. The word I is used by Buddhists in the same way people use any other designating phrase, the phrase "Les Paul guitar" for instance. You don't have any really strong attachments to the guitar (well, if it's a Les Paul, you may - but that's not what I'm talking about). You know it's just a bunch of wood held together with screws, and that the wood had its origins as parts of trees, and that the tuning keys, frets, and screws were once parts of rocks in the ground. The guitar will come apart eventually (and it'll come apart really quick if you take it to a hardcore gig at a redneck bar in Dover, Ohio). But none of its components will ever really disappear. They just change form. And though they don't disappear, there comes a time when they can no longer be called a guitar. After this point you can never reassemble that Les Paul guitar no matter how hard you try. The thing that the word "I" refers to is just like that.

It's very difficult to reach this kind of understanding when it comes to your sense of self. We've been taught implicitly since birth that our "self" is something fundamental and important and real. But our self-image is nothing other than the sum total of those particular things about universal human nature we've chosen to emphasize in our own lives. Some teachings like to differentiate between "self" spelled with a little "s" and "Self" with a big "S", but this just obscures the problem with unnecessary complications. No matter how you spell it, self is an illusion."