We are now back in Dharamsala, Mcleod Ganj to be specific. We are only going to be here for a few nights, tying up some loose ends and enjoying this little town we've come to know pretty well. We've been attending Geshe Sonam Rinchen's teachings again at the Tibetan Library of Works & Archives. This time the text is the famous Nagarjuna's MulaMadyamika (Treatise on the Middle Way). We think Geshe Sonam is a brilliant teacher. And his translator, Ruth Sonam, is equally remarkable. They are a wonderful team and anyone who has seen them likens them to an old married couple (they have been "together" as teacher/translator for some 25 years!). You can find books by them at the Snow Lion Publisher's website.
From here we are intending to go either back to Delhi, to meet up with Mary's mother (I'll let her tell the story) or first to Dehradun to stay/work at Navdanya's Bija Vidyapeeth, the Seed University, a place founded to perserve biodiversity and help fund support for basic rights in food and water issues in India. This place was co-founded by Vandana Shiva who has written many books on these issues and who is in Italy, I believe, right now where my former WWOOFing host Mom from Seattle is also, at the Terra Madre conference for the International Slow Food Movement. Exciting!
Well..
Right now Mary is in a 2&1/2 hour yoga class that I wasn't feeling up to, so I've come in here to write you all but now I think I'll go for a walk!
Bye for now...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Bir - Deer Park Institute
We have settled down into a nice little community in Bir, about 3 hours from Dharamsala, and another settled "colony" for the exiled Tibetans...
Our first night we stayed in a monastery guesthouse. Much to our chagrin is was quite uncomfortable. The only two places we haven't enjoyed staying in are in a Temple and a Monastery's guesthouses! Our second night we were offered a very cozy beautiful little room by the mother-in-law of a woman we met while eating breakfast (the establishment's owner)...It was almost perfect... we had her roof to ourselves, a large room, and separate bathroom, all basic but to us, very nice. One problem, no mattress! After one nearly sleepless night we decided to move to the plush posh Deer Park Institute which has become a rather pleasant enclave for us! We eat, study, do yoga, and sleep there. www.deerpark.in - From the website you can get a feel for the kind of place it is and the courses offered. I hope this place can grow in what it offers and the resources available to it. It has the potential to be a really powerful learning centre. So we have now moved into our nicest room in India to date! The food is fresh clean and delicious, especially lunch, and the rooms available for yoga, study, and prayer/worship/sitting are all very nice.
There are bells that chime according to the wind's direction on the corners of the roof of the main temple.
That is one of the views from our window.
We took a lovely, peaceful walk through the fields, past the farmhouses of families in the area, and up the forested hill which para gliders use as a base launching point (there are many many para gliders here right now as there is some kind of competition going on). Don't worry I am very content with staying close to the ground!
We feel as if we are seeing a part of India that was fabled, that was only a stroy to get us to come here. The children laugh and try talking with us or smile shyly. The women work hard in the fields yet always offer a smile as we walk past. The work looks very very demanding. It is their sole livelihood. But generally people are kind and relaxed (the older men seem to just hang out mostly). This is the "endangered" perhaps near-extinct quality or jewel of India, of the world, (I've often said to others how striking it was how brightly this jewel shone in Syria). It is too quickly being swallowed up by tricksters, desperation, lack, the powerfull. No time for simple enjoyment. It is sad what we have encountered in other places. But this contact comes in a place and time when we are in a place remarkably different from the so-called "typical India." In this small Tibetan colony many aspects of the sights, sounds, and culture are distinctly Tibetan. Older folks gathering at the new temple to hang out and pray together. All of them with spinning prayerwheels, and cushions, and mala (rosary) in hand. Lines of prayer flags hanging from the buildings, from the trees...and the most dramatic: the deep beating drums and intense swelling long trumpet calls of ritual and prayer coming from the areas magnificent monasteries. The sound contains the feeling of some arrival, some new apprehension...It enters one deeply, especially at 4:30 in the morning!
Will you believe us if I say that pictures are soon to follow?
Love to you all,
maybe some moment today you could offer up a smile to someone, anyone.
Our first night we stayed in a monastery guesthouse. Much to our chagrin is was quite uncomfortable. The only two places we haven't enjoyed staying in are in a Temple and a Monastery's guesthouses! Our second night we were offered a very cozy beautiful little room by the mother-in-law of a woman we met while eating breakfast (the establishment's owner)...It was almost perfect... we had her roof to ourselves, a large room, and separate bathroom, all basic but to us, very nice. One problem, no mattress! After one nearly sleepless night we decided to move to the plush posh Deer Park Institute which has become a rather pleasant enclave for us! We eat, study, do yoga, and sleep there. www.deerpark.in - From the website you can get a feel for the kind of place it is and the courses offered. I hope this place can grow in what it offers and the resources available to it. It has the potential to be a really powerful learning centre. So we have now moved into our nicest room in India to date! The food is fresh clean and delicious, especially lunch, and the rooms available for yoga, study, and prayer/worship/sitting are all very nice.
There are bells that chime according to the wind's direction on the corners of the roof of the main temple.
That is one of the views from our window.
We took a lovely, peaceful walk through the fields, past the farmhouses of families in the area, and up the forested hill which para gliders use as a base launching point (there are many many para gliders here right now as there is some kind of competition going on). Don't worry I am very content with staying close to the ground!
We feel as if we are seeing a part of India that was fabled, that was only a stroy to get us to come here. The children laugh and try talking with us or smile shyly. The women work hard in the fields yet always offer a smile as we walk past. The work looks very very demanding. It is their sole livelihood. But generally people are kind and relaxed (the older men seem to just hang out mostly). This is the "endangered" perhaps near-extinct quality or jewel of India, of the world, (I've often said to others how striking it was how brightly this jewel shone in Syria). It is too quickly being swallowed up by tricksters, desperation, lack, the powerfull. No time for simple enjoyment. It is sad what we have encountered in other places. But this contact comes in a place and time when we are in a place remarkably different from the so-called "typical India." In this small Tibetan colony many aspects of the sights, sounds, and culture are distinctly Tibetan. Older folks gathering at the new temple to hang out and pray together. All of them with spinning prayerwheels, and cushions, and mala (rosary) in hand. Lines of prayer flags hanging from the buildings, from the trees...and the most dramatic: the deep beating drums and intense swelling long trumpet calls of ritual and prayer coming from the areas magnificent monasteries. The sound contains the feeling of some arrival, some new apprehension...It enters one deeply, especially at 4:30 in the morning!
Will you believe us if I say that pictures are soon to follow?
Love to you all,
maybe some moment today you could offer up a smile to someone, anyone.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Tomorrow
"Who knows which will come first, tomorrow or the next life?"
-Tibetan proverb
Tomorrow, we leave behind our beloved place in the hills and go further towards the Himlayas, a prospect we are very excited about. We are also intending to attend a small public audience with H.H. the 17th Karmapa (picture with The Dalai Lama attached) who is the third highest in the Tibetan religio-political scheme. He has a powerful presence in his photographs alone so we are honored for a up close and personal blessing.
After that we hope to travel to Bir which we intend to make our home for the next week and a half or so. We plan on attending the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras & Hatha Yoga Class at the Deer Park Institute and perhaps we'll discover more when we arrive. Of course there will be pictures to follow... we promise!
We have had a very special time here. Right now a good friend from Virginia happens to be here with us and we've been having great fun together. We attended the end of Geshe Sonam Rinchen's teaching on the "37 Practices of the Bodhisattva" text, went to The famed/acclaimed doctor Dr. Yeshe Donden, lay in the sun while clouds came billowing over the mountains (the Himalays to me are like 'cloud factories'!), ate momos (lovely dumplings), and went for kora (circumabulation around HH The Dalai Lama's residence) at sunset. All in all in was a very usual day for us in Mcleod Ganj.
There is always so much one must leave out in these descriptions.
We'll just hope we come close and we'll post pictures soon...
We'll finish this one
in the spirit of the 37th practice:
May any happiness we have experienced
and any little virtue we may have gained
from all our time here:
May it be dedicated to
all living beings,
throughout limitless space,
that they may all be completely free from suffering
and come to know
perfect peace
and highest awakening.
-Tibetan proverb
Tomorrow, we leave behind our beloved place in the hills and go further towards the Himlayas, a prospect we are very excited about. We are also intending to attend a small public audience with H.H. the 17th Karmapa (picture with The Dalai Lama attached) who is the third highest in the Tibetan religio-political scheme. He has a powerful presence in his photographs alone so we are honored for a up close and personal blessing.
After that we hope to travel to Bir which we intend to make our home for the next week and a half or so. We plan on attending the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras & Hatha Yoga Class at the Deer Park Institute and perhaps we'll discover more when we arrive. Of course there will be pictures to follow... we promise!
We have had a very special time here. Right now a good friend from Virginia happens to be here with us and we've been having great fun together. We attended the end of Geshe Sonam Rinchen's teaching on the "37 Practices of the Bodhisattva" text, went to The famed/acclaimed doctor Dr. Yeshe Donden, lay in the sun while clouds came billowing over the mountains (the Himalays to me are like 'cloud factories'!), ate momos (lovely dumplings), and went for kora (circumabulation around HH The Dalai Lama's residence) at sunset. All in all in was a very usual day for us in Mcleod Ganj.
There is always so much one must leave out in these descriptions.
We'll just hope we come close and we'll post pictures soon...
We'll finish this one
in the spirit of the 37th practice:
May any happiness we have experienced
and any little virtue we may have gained
from all our time here:
May it be dedicated to
all living beings,
throughout limitless space,
that they may all be completely free from suffering
and come to know
perfect peace
and highest awakening.
The Rhythm of the Teachings Part 2
We settle in, cross our legs on our little cushions, tune the radio to 92.2FM and listen to the slight breathing coming through the English translator's microphone. There were two sets of teachings this past week. First, for a group from Singapore a teaching was given on the most famous of Tibetan scholar's, Tsong-Ka-Pa's Stages of the Path. Then another five day teaching was given on Kamalashila's Middling Stages of Meditation and Arya Nagarjuna's Bodhicitta Commentary. I will have to come back to the keyboard with Mary by my side as she took copious notes. Together we will try to distill some of what was being talked about. But beyond that I can say....
The first day, much to everyones surprise, HH The Dalai Lama decided to begin the teaching in English. This was very reasonable as the group that requested the teaching, from Singapore, mainly understand English over Tibetan. This was a very crowded talk, with the biggest turn out of young travellers we saw throughout the teachings. In part it is this turnout that I am guessing also precipitated the talk to be very good introduction. The Dalai Lama, more than any other speaker I have ever heard, is supremely reasonable. It nearly spills out of him. His approach to solving the world's major crisis seems like something to be quickly and efficiently taken care of after tea rather than a series of hopeless and endless tragic encounters. The many many Tibetans that were there (and did not understand English) just sat and patiently waited through the whole talk. One of the many things I remember him saying repeatedly was that non-violence was not the mere absence of violence but the active manifestation of compassion.
He went into more philosophical matters too bringing three fundamental religious questions to the forefront. Does the self have a beginning? What is the self? and Does the self have an end?
It is beyond me to go into his explanations here but I can say that it was a very clear introduction to religion in general and Buddhism in specific.
At one point Tibetan bread is distributed (think fat large but slightly old english muffins) and then Tibetan butter tea (essentially hot water, butter and salt) which much to my own surprise I actually liked.
Then in the afternoon we continue to listen more and more intently as the lecture begin to deepen...
The first day, much to everyones surprise, HH The Dalai Lama decided to begin the teaching in English. This was very reasonable as the group that requested the teaching, from Singapore, mainly understand English over Tibetan. This was a very crowded talk, with the biggest turn out of young travellers we saw throughout the teachings. In part it is this turnout that I am guessing also precipitated the talk to be very good introduction. The Dalai Lama, more than any other speaker I have ever heard, is supremely reasonable. It nearly spills out of him. His approach to solving the world's major crisis seems like something to be quickly and efficiently taken care of after tea rather than a series of hopeless and endless tragic encounters. The many many Tibetans that were there (and did not understand English) just sat and patiently waited through the whole talk. One of the many things I remember him saying repeatedly was that non-violence was not the mere absence of violence but the active manifestation of compassion.
He went into more philosophical matters too bringing three fundamental religious questions to the forefront. Does the self have a beginning? What is the self? and Does the self have an end?
It is beyond me to go into his explanations here but I can say that it was a very clear introduction to religion in general and Buddhism in specific.
At one point Tibetan bread is distributed (think fat large but slightly old english muffins) and then Tibetan butter tea (essentially hot water, butter and salt) which much to my own surprise I actually liked.
Then in the afternoon we continue to listen more and more intently as the lecture begin to deepen...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Rhythm of the Teachings - Part 1
Last week we would wake up to a man calling out into the night.
Singing.
He was calling the Muslim faithful to prayer, to goodness, to eat and then to fast for the day. I have always wanted to hear a 'call to prayer' without a microphone/speaker and who would have thought that it would be in McLeod Ganj, home to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama?
After waking up slowly, sometimes falling back to sleep, we do our morning preparations which now include crushing or chewing our individualized Tibetan medicines and chasing that bitter aromatic taste with some warm water (to save plastic we now boil our own). But we are usually up and out the door by 6:50 or 7:00am. Most of the time we find ourselves sitting at our favorite breakfast spot, Lhamo's (Lhamo was the Dalai Lama's name as a child before being discovered and becoming a monk and being thus named Tenzin Gyatso). Beautiful sunrise over the Himalayas, cool breeze and a quiet red room with red and black Tibetan tables. Mary gets Muesli which our friend/Uncle calls "the bucket of fruit." It's huge. I often get the American Breakfast which comes with toast, eggs, a pot of tea, corn flakes, and a glass of fresh juice (carrot/apple). This decadence costs less than 3 dollars which is a decadent price for one person to pay for a meal in India.
Then we walk down to the main temple with many people, maybe half or three quarters of them monks and in dark red robes. And going past security we settle into our place in the back among a veritable crowd of Tibetans and some "Westerners." We chat and relax until the air changes and you look up and see everyones head turning in the same direction, hands folded together, under the mouth or by the heart, following with their eyes a moving entourage. This is how the Dalai Lama arrives almost anywhere. As he walks he waves a blessing from side to side with quick seemingly precise movements of his head and right hand, always genuinely smiling. Sometimes he stops and talks to someone, accepts a gift, or simply looks into the crowds eyes. And I have watched their eyes. How filled with hope, aspiration, and as HH said himself of some Tibetans "with unrealistic expectations," so many are! Many are simply happy to see him. My own mouth does tend to relax into a smile.
Then after a little settling in, and after the chants, the teachings begin...
Singing.
He was calling the Muslim faithful to prayer, to goodness, to eat and then to fast for the day. I have always wanted to hear a 'call to prayer' without a microphone/speaker and who would have thought that it would be in McLeod Ganj, home to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama?
After waking up slowly, sometimes falling back to sleep, we do our morning preparations which now include crushing or chewing our individualized Tibetan medicines and chasing that bitter aromatic taste with some warm water (to save plastic we now boil our own). But we are usually up and out the door by 6:50 or 7:00am. Most of the time we find ourselves sitting at our favorite breakfast spot, Lhamo's (Lhamo was the Dalai Lama's name as a child before being discovered and becoming a monk and being thus named Tenzin Gyatso). Beautiful sunrise over the Himalayas, cool breeze and a quiet red room with red and black Tibetan tables. Mary gets Muesli which our friend/Uncle calls "the bucket of fruit." It's huge. I often get the American Breakfast which comes with toast, eggs, a pot of tea, corn flakes, and a glass of fresh juice (carrot/apple). This decadence costs less than 3 dollars which is a decadent price for one person to pay for a meal in India.
Then we walk down to the main temple with many people, maybe half or three quarters of them monks and in dark red robes. And going past security we settle into our place in the back among a veritable crowd of Tibetans and some "Westerners." We chat and relax until the air changes and you look up and see everyones head turning in the same direction, hands folded together, under the mouth or by the heart, following with their eyes a moving entourage. This is how the Dalai Lama arrives almost anywhere. As he walks he waves a blessing from side to side with quick seemingly precise movements of his head and right hand, always genuinely smiling. Sometimes he stops and talks to someone, accepts a gift, or simply looks into the crowds eyes. And I have watched their eyes. How filled with hope, aspiration, and as HH said himself of some Tibetans "with unrealistic expectations," so many are! Many are simply happy to see him. My own mouth does tend to relax into a smile.
Then after a little settling in, and after the chants, the teachings begin...
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