When I woke up this morning, the pale rays of the dawning sun were shining through a web that a spider had spun between a thanka, a bunch of incense and the top end of a candle on the altar. In itself, that wouldn't be too curious at all- the incense "stupa", for instance, is ritual and is never lit anyway. What makes it interesting, though, is that I had lit the candle right after I had put it in the stand just before going to bed last night. Therefore, the spider must have attached the strings of his creation to an already burning candle! How is this for building your worldview on a shaky ground?
The candle has now still another couple of centimeters to burn, and the string is miraculously still intact, descending with how the candle burns. Yet, soon it will reach the stand, the flame will keep burning until there is no wax left, and the stand will be heated to an extremely high temperature. Is that what the spider counted on from the beginning? Is he so sure that his silk will stand the heat?
I'll see when I come back in the afternoon.
