“You’re quite the bon vivant for a Buddhist” Rebecca observed.Somehow I often understood these French usages by guess work and so I was able to reply without seeming too gauche “I'm maybe not quite the species of Buddhist you might imagine. I don’t belong to a monastic tradition you see...”
“Ah...that’s...a very welcome idea.”
“Yes...I thought so...” I grinned “...my teachers are all family people...”
“Really...?” Meryl queried. “So...it’s not about austerity and abjuring pleasure?”
“No...especially not pleasure – it’s more geared to maximising pleasure through appreciation of the widest possible spectrum of phenomena – and, encouraging that in everyone and everything everywhere...”
p110, An Odd Boy Volume 4, Doc Togden, Aro Books Worldwide, 2017, ISBN 978-1-898185-42-0