Oliver's newest painting 'Be IN the world but not OF the world' has been chosen by KBS TV in Japan for a special award after featuring in an exhibition at Kyoto National Museum of Art. The watercolour, pen and collage painting was two years in the making and inspired by a line from a Ram Dass talk on spiritual awakening.

The picture is available in large colour poster size and deliverable worldwide.

I READ WITH INTEREST AND A LITTLE SHAME a list titled '100 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE' in a national newspaper today. In amongst (no.22) 'Running with the bulls in the Spanish town of Pamplona', (no.47) 'Cruising the famous gay 'Love Parade' in Berlin', (no.63) 'Attending the world's largest religious pilgrimage in northern India 'The Kumbh Mela', or (no.99) 'Witnessing the great migration of wildebeeste and zebra across the great plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania', I couldn't see a great deal of things I had personally experienced, or even planned to do but never had the money nor the time to see it through. In fact, the only thing I had come close to doing - (no.25) 'Nude night surfing off Bondi Beach, Sydney' - was only half-achieved because it had in fact been a beach off Adelaide, South Australia where I had performed the act of brazon (and utterly enjoyable) nudity. The gentleman who initiated the 100 strong list had himself seen, witnessed, visited, experienced or achieved 60 of the magnificent things he declares are must-do and must-see events if a life is to be lived to its utmost before he himself popped his clogs, undoubtedly with a whiff of pride and a whole full heart. I wonder if you yourself were to run down his dizzying list of the extreme, the bizarre and the spectacular how many you could in fact tick off. And by inference how exciting and fulfilled has your life been?

For the more sedentary and less daring of us I'd like to propose a different list of things to achieve before you die. I'd like the list to be equally as daring as running with bulls or flashing Bondi Beach your botty. I'd like the list to be humane and kind and rooted in everyday stuff. Perhaps you can think of your own list. I'll start mine here...

100 LOVELY THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE (PART ONE)

1. Help someone through a problem without relating it to you or your problems.

2. Leave a packet of seeds with a house near you that's clearly made an effort with their garden.

3. Pat more dogs, horses, sprogs.

4. Write to an old teacher who may have helped you more than you realize.

5. Every time you drink tea 'drink slowly, reverently, as if the axis of the entire world revolved on the turning of the cup in the saucer' (Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn)

6. Work on your seriousness and turn it off occasionally. Nothing was ever helped by being serious about it. In fact it probably made it a little bit worse.

7. Let more things BE.

8. Give more compliments. When you applaud someone you make two people happy.

9. Fill your pockets with lollipops and dish them out during the course of your day to people who appear to deserve or need a lollipop at the moment. For extra irony give a lollipop to a lollipop lady (in the UK lollipop ladies wear shiny yellow coats, hold placards saying 'STOP' for kids to cross streets outside schools in the mornings) (I use chuppa-chupps)

10. Expect less from people. I find that the less I want to get out of a relationship the more that person gives. Perhaps because they can relax more.

And so the list begins with things in our every day, and every moment of every day. If the challenge is to be fulfilled or die with a sense of fulfillment, then follow your bliss by either dodging horns in Pamplona or listening more sympathetically to friends. Either way you are bringing mindfulness to what is in existence. Someone once asked a Buddhist monk - What is Buddhism. He said, "Buddhism is 2 words...practice mindfulness".

Have a splendid day. You look lovely today, by the way.

Ciao a tutti!

A very warm 'hello' to you on a crisp and keen Kyoto day dashed with the promise of an early spring and a few weeks away from the dizzy pink confetti of the cherry blossoms in bloom. I trust you are already rousing your sensibilities from their winter hibernation and looking forward to a lovely change in the seasons.

You might have noticed a series called 'Random Acts Of Kindness' in the 'blast' portion of this page and I hope one or two of them have inspired you to spread the love and brighten up another creature's day along the way. My signature one is loading my pockets with lollipops on my day off and giving them out to shop clerks, train passengers, till operators or passersby who look a bit down on their luck or who I've had knowledge of going through a bit of a rough patch. One little lady at my local Starbucks was so overwhelmed she burst into tears. Unbeknownst to me she had been dumped by her partner that morning but still struggled into work and tried to hold it all in. You see, you never know how the simplest gesture might affect someone.

It is true that even the simplest gesture can be vast in human kindness.

I am inspired to write about this because I received a delightful little email message on this page via Wendy, who also blogs in this dizzy, mercurial, nourishing little medium. This be it:

Dear Oliver

I started giving out umbrellas to people at bus stops without one. The look on their face when you hand them a brand new umbrella when it is pouring buckets! I just ask that they find their own way to help people out. If only everyone knew that to give IS so much better than to receive.

Have a great day
Wendy

And have a lovely fizzy day yourself.....remember your brolly!

See you in two minutes.....

Oli

http:oliverkinghorn.blogspot.com/

(title photo of Kyoto temple during the new year's celebrations where neighbourhood citizens give gestures to the shrine in the form of delightful little silk baubels, dolls, and toys)