Kathmandu for You

Dec. 09 New Orleans Food Co-op Sunday Grocery press coverage

2010-01-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

“Co-Workers: NOFC Sunday Market”

The following article by Alex Woodward originally appeared in the Gambit on Dec. 28, 2009.

The corner of St. Roch and St. Claude avenues is a food desert. The neighborhood lacks healthy and affordable foods and groceries and is pockmarked with fast-food restaurants and corner stores. But if you open the door of the former Universal Furniture megastore, with its logo still stuck to the building’s side, walk past a few art installations and through the door on your left, there’s hope.

The New Orleans Food Co-Op held its first market day on Nov. 22 inside the New Orleans Healing Center, the furniture store-turned-community center that houses an art space, workshops, the New Orleans Police Department’s 5th District, and now, a weekly buyer’s club for co-op members. The center’s across-the-street neighbor, the St. Roch Market grocery, remains closed and in disrepair. But once a week, the co-op makes boxes of fresh local produce from the Hollygrove Market & Farm and other healthy, natural foods available — to its members.

“We can’t retail to the general public right now, but our members are really excited,” says co-op board of directors president Michael Smith. “It’s something they’ve been asking, been waiting to do. It’s a long and complicated, difficult organizational and fundraising project to open and run a community-owned grocery store. Most people became active and engaged with the co-op because of interest to get healthy food now, and access to local, healthy foods in the neighborhood. This is Phase 1 … until we get the grocery store open.”

While the co-op is still planning for 2010, the Sunday market offers a temporary solution for the remainder of 2009 and the beginning of next year.

“There are two things happening,” says co-op board member John Calhoun. “We’re finding a way to offer a much-needed service now, especially in that neighborhood where there just aren’t healthy, affordable groceries — or just groceries. I hear about people doing their shopping at Walgreen’s or driving across town, and that’s affecting people’s health.

“It’s great for outreach; people get to know who we are and learn about our plans. They associate the co-op with food and not just meetings and fundraisers.”

The Healing Center, which opened this summer, reached out to the co-op to offer it a home base while the center undergoes renovations, which are expected to start by February. Plans include space for the 5,500-square-foot full-service grocery store, which Smith hopes to see in place by November. The grocery would offer “local and natural, healthy foods and products and some conventional items,” he says.

For now, the Sunday market is only open to the general public on the condition shoppers make their payment to join the co-op. Membership requires a $100 capital equity investment, which allows members to participate and give equal voice in board elections, run for positions on the board and vote on other issues. Members also can enroll in a five-month, $20-a-month plan, and low-income members can apply for a five-month, $5-a-month plan. “We’ve tried to open it up a bit and not make it too prohibitive,” Smith says.

Before the Sunday market opened, the co-op offered a once-a-month buyer’s club, where members could preorder bulk purchases via the co-op’s Web site and divvy the orders among members. “But not many people were utilizing it,” Calhoun says. “They had to drive to a location, order in bulk … but it was better than nothing. It gave people a start in what it’s like to work cooperatively.”

Members told the board a grocery was needed, and the co-op took the Healing Center’s offer.

“Having a co-op fit into (the center’s) mission as far as a ‘healing’ center,” Calhoun says. “That was a leap for us, having a real live grocery store, so we decided to go for it.”

The co-op first organized in fall 2002 through a series of community meetings and through meetings with the then-startup New Orleans Food & Farm Network. Public meetings stirred interest, followed by fundraising efforts and volunteer support. “There was a lot of excitement,” Calhoun says. “People wanted a co-op for various reasons: to support healthy food, support local food productions, or to keep money local and support the local economy, or they just wanted an alternative. People wanted a place where good food was affordable, not just to some people but to everyone.”

A co-op wouldn’t be just a neighborhood store — with each member holding a stake in the market. It literally belongs to them.

“You can shop and go, ‘This is my store, not because it’s down the street where I live,’” Calhoun says.

Organizers introduced a buyer’s club and by 2005 developed a business plan and secured enough capital to open a storefront within a couple years on Elysian Fields at Chartres Street. Hurricane Katrina disrupted the co-op’s plans and forced it to start from scratch, with members and organizers no longer in town. The co-op partnered with the Crescent City Farmers Market to offer mobile markets out of a tractor-trailer and later reintroduced the buyer’s club.

Now with a home inside the Healing Center and more than 500 members behind them, co-op organizers are working on preliminary store designs and gathering market research. Smith and Calhoun look forward to the co-op grocery’s opening, which market coordinator Elisa Miller says is now a matter of “needing more time than money.” Providing for a neighborhood with few healthy options couldn’t come soon enough.

Inside the market, a few visitors measure sunflower seeds, cornmeal and walnuts from bulk bins. Citrus from Braithwaite is in one box, and fresh baguettes are in another. There’s a debate over mustard green origins. Miller does the accounting in scrapbooks.

“We’re learning how to serve New Orleans,” she says.

____________________________________

“New Orleans Food Cooperative Begins Operating in the Marigny”

This article originally appeared Dec. 17, 2009, in New Orleans City Business, written by Emilie Bahr.

The long-in-the-planning New Orleans Food Cooperative took a significant step forward last month when it began operating a Sunday afternoon “buyers club” out of the former Universal Furniture building at 2372 St. Claude Ave., the eventual site of a planned multipurpose healing center and full-service grocery store.

Since Nov. 22, those with active co-op memberships have been able to purchase between noon and 6 p.m. each Sunday such staples as fresh produce, laundry detergent and dog food from the store, one of the few outlets where such items are available in the neighborhood.

“It’s extremely exciting,” said co-op President Michael Smith, who called the move an “intermediate step” on the road to opening a 5,500-square-foot, seven-days-a-week, full-service grocery store. Representatives anticipate opening the store by the end of 2010.

“People are in need of food in the neighborhood,” Smith said. “It’s crucial.”

Calling the recently-begun Sunday buyers club “phase one,” Smith said that as soon as January, the co-op hopes to participate in an outdoor market with local vendors and farmers and other tenants of the forthcoming healing center.

The idea behind a food cooperative is that members, rather than a company, have ownership of the for-profit venture.

“We’re basically selling the ownership of a grocery store for $100,” Smith said, referring to the membership fee. “From the point of view of the consumer, there’s very little difference” between a food cooperative and a conventional grocery store.

Smith said there are currently 180 food cooperatives in operation across the United States, but none in Louisiana.

In order to make the New Orleans project viable, the cooperative needs to continue to fill its membership ranks. Smith said the New Orleans Food Cooperative has roughly 550 members but requires 1,000 under the formula included in its business plan.

“We cannot make this work without a certain critical mass of membership,” he said. “(Membership fees represent) the capital equity that we have in hand that helps us with our business loans.”

From Dawn Mountain - Parinirvana of Venerable Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche

2009-12-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

December 8, 2008

Dear Friends-

With deep sadness at our common loss, yet grateful for all we have received, we write to let you know that Khetsun Rinpoche's passage is complete. Paranirvana of Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche from Dudjom Institute.
Harvey and I were able to see Rinpoche briefly on Full Moon Day, December 3, when he already looked ready to vanish into light. There was also a palpable outpouring of blessings pouring through his window after he entered his final meditation.

We will continue to meet for the Amitabha prayers dedicated to Khetsun Rinpoche at 6:30 each evening for the rest of the week at Dawn Mountain,

and also for weekly prayers this Monday and each Monday through the 49 days period. We will also, at Tulku Jigme's recommendation, be including

the Samanatabhadra Mon Lam "The King of Prayers". Any prayers at all you choose to do are most welcome at this time.

A revised Amitabha prayer has been posted on the Dawn Mountain website.

Amitabha Prayer

With grateful hearts,

Anne & Harvey

DAWN MOUNTAIN
1925 B Richmond Ave.
Houston, TX 77098
www.dawnmountain.org

Lho Ontul Rinpoche to teach at LHA New Orleans Dec. 11-13

2009-12-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

Lotus Lake Drikung Center
presents
LHO ONTUL RINPOCHE

Vajravidarana Purification Ceremony

Friday Dec. 11th, 7-10pm, LHA 621 N. Rendon
Suggested donation $25.00

This is a profound purification ceremony and blessing, which purifies all kinds of negativity and contamination that bring about sickness of body, mind and spirit. This is open to Buddhist and non-Buddhists.

Yangzab Amulet of the Sun and Moon Long Life
Breathing Yoga Teachings/Practice

Saturday Dec. 12th, 11am-1pm, and 2-4pm, LHA, 621 N. Rendon
Suggested donation $35.00

This is a rare opportunity to receive the secret Long Life Yoga practice of Guru Rinpoche and Mandarava. This is a profound yet not difficult Long Life Yogic practice that works with the breath and visualization. Rinpoche will give the pith instructions for this practice followed by practice sessions as well as an opportunity for questions.

Public Healing Chod

Sunday Dec. 13th, 11-2am-pm, LHA, 621 N. Rendon
Suggested donation $25.00

Rinpoche will offer a Healing Chod practice to heal mental and
physical sicknesses, and to remove karmic obstacles to spiritual growth.
This ceremony is open to both Buddhist and non-Buddhists.

Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche

2009-11-28T17:29:00.000-08:00

I hope that all of you have found yourselves warm and peaceful lately. I wanted to post this picture of Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche for you. He has lived a long life and has lately been very ill. He is likely to make his final transition soon. According to the email Anne Klein sent out, "He is comfortable, clear, and totally at ease. We are sad. We are also joyful at his amazing blessings."

Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche was the first Buddhist teacher I met or received teachings from in this life, in 2001. He has remained an deep inspiration for me since. I have had the wonderful opportunity to visit him a few times over the last couple of years. I snapped the attached photo in early September, 2007.

You can read a little more about him below, copied from www.dawnmountain.org/content/teachers.html

Please keep him and his community in your prayers and meditations.

-Love and light-

_____________________________

Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche is among the most senior Lamas and Dzogchen masters in the Ancient (Nyingma) Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and perhaps the most eminent Nyingma historian alive today.

He was born in 1920 in central Tibet and came to India in 1959. Soon thereafter he was asked by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to represent Dudjom Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma school, in Japan. Khetsun Rinpoche spent ten years in this capacity from 1960-1970, teaching in Tokyo and Kyoto Universities and becoming fluent in Japanese.

In 1971 he returned to India and founded a school to educate Tibetan monks in his tradition. Over the last twenty five years he has accepted numerous invitations to teach in Japanese and U.S. universities and to teach students in retreats in Dordogne, France.

In Tibet, Khetsun Rinpoche received teachings on the Very Essence of the Great Expanse tradition from the famous Lady Master Jetsun Shugseb Rinpoche (d.1953) of Shugseb Nunnery, Tibet's main institution for women practitioners of Dzogchen. Other teachers include Dudjom Rinpoche, Kangyur Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche.

Khetsun Rinpoche's writings feature a 13 volume history of all the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He is also the author of Tantric Practice in Nyingma, used by thousands of Western students as a guide to the foundational practices.

Zilkar Rinpoche to teach at LHA on Sundays!

2009-07-08T19:11:00.001-07:00

I am happy to announce that Zilkar Rinpoche has returned to New Orleans!

He will be giving teachings on Sunday nights 6:30 - 8pm at LHA -- starting this Sunday July 12th. The topic will be on Shantideva's main text, "Guide to the Boddhisattva Way of Life".

621 N. Rendon St.
NOLA 70119

Please call if you have any questions-- 319-5683 or 723-1317.

Jennifer

Zilkar Rinpoche to teach at LHA on Sundays!

2009-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

Lama Lakshey Zangpo to teach at LHA Center (New Orleans) Sunday, June 21

2009-06-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

On Sunday June 21st at 7pm, Lama Lakshey Zangpo will be giving a talk at the LHA Communtity Center, 623 N. Rendon Street, New Orleans, LA 70119. Lama Lakshey, a longtime friend of LHA's, as well as both Chamtrul and Khentrul Rinpoche's, is visiting us from Berkeley California. This talk is being sponsored by LHA and Katog Choling Dharma Center. Lama Lakshey's biography is included below.

Lama Lakshey will also be attending our regular Bodhicitta practice on 10am Sunday at the LHA Community Center. Please come for both the teaching and the practice, and meet Lama Lakshey!

For more information please call or email Shelley at 504.319.3895, shelleyom@rediffmail.com

Hope to see you there!

Lama Lakshey Zangpo:

Lakshey Zangpo was born in Eastern Tibet in the region called Golok, which is the home of Madro Tashi Choling Monastery. At the age of 11 he began a formal practice of the Dharma. Lama Lakshey studied and practiced under his main root Guru His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok, receiving Sutra and Tantra teachings for 10 years, from His Holiness Katog Moktsa Rinpoche he received the Katog lineage empowerments and transmissions, and from HH Bontrul Rinpoche various transmissions. He has been formally made a lama at Mardo Tashi Choling Monastery. At the age of 26 he went on pilgrimage for many months to many holy places in Tibet, India, Nepal, Thailand, and China. During this time he also received teachings from many great scholars and practitioners of the Sakya, Geluk, Kagyu, Nyingma and Jonang traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Lakshey Zangpo currently lives in North America and continues to propagate the Buddha Dharma for the benefit of all beings and study the English language.

New Orleans Healing Center Open House Preview

2009-06-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is a friendly reminder that the Healing Center Open House Preview is tomorrow, Saturday, June 13th, 2009 - 10:00am to 1pm, at the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372
St. Claude Avenue. Senator Mary Landrieu, as well as other state and
local leaders, will be making remarks. There will be a free catered
brunch, live music, spoken word, children’s activities, a crafts
bazaar, and other information and activities demonstrating the
services that will be offered at the Healing Center.

The New Orleans Healing Center is an ambitious project aimed at
promoting healing in New Orleans in a holistic, integrated and
sustainable way. It is located on the corner of St. Claude and St.
Roch avenues, where the St. Roch, St. Claude, Marigny and Bywater
neighborhoods come together. The Healing Center will include a yoga
studio, a community theatre, an organic restaurant, NOLA Solar, a
street university, spritual space, a women's center, a crafts bazaar,
art galleries, an organic garden, children's activities, parenting
support, the New Orleans Food Co-op grocery store, and more.

Ven. Zilkar Rinpoche to teach at LHA New Orleans

2009-05-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

New Orleans is honored to host Ven. Zilkar Rinpoche, who will teach at the Louisiana Himalaya Association Community Center on Tuesday May 12, 2009, from 6:30pm-8:30pm. LHA is located at 621 N. Rendon St.
(near Bayou St. John, across the street from Easton Park.)

All are welcomed to attend.

Rinpoche will be teaching on Meditation and Anger Management

**Donations will go to the new LHA building in India**

Ven. Zilkar Rinpoche is the throne holder of the Zilkar Monastery in Tibet. Rinpoche has been visiting New Orleans since 2003 to teach and share Tibetan culture. He teaches at various Buddhist centers and Dharma Drum University in Taiwan. Rinpoche has also taught at Gyurmey Tantric College and Sera Mahayana Monastic University in India.

All inquiries may be made to 504-723-1317.

Lama Wangdor Rinpoche New Orleans visit flyer

2009-04-13T22:11:00.001-07:00

Venerable Lama Wangdor Rinpoche to visit New Orleans

2009-04-06T14:23:00.001-07:00

Lama Wangdor Rinpoche, who I have had the pleasure of receiving some meditation instruction from during the summers in India, has agreed to an invitation to visit New Orleans. He is primarily a cave yogi, and wishes to teach meditation to all those who request. He is coming to New Orleans as a leg on a tour of more than forty locations in the West, and has indicated that this may be his last visit to America.

Therefore, we are very pleased to be able to host him in our fair city. His teaching schedule will be as follows:

-Thurs 4/16, 7-9pm @ Louisiana Himalaya Association (LHA) Community Center, 623 N. Rendon Street, New Orleans, LA 70119. Teaching will include Guru mantra and 7-line supplication transmission and blessings, and introduction to meditation on the nature of mind. Venue is small, please arrive early if possible.

-Fri 4/17, 7-8:30pm @ Tulane University Lavin-Bernick Center (# 29 on campus map), 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118. Public talk on altruism and introduction to meditation on the nature of mind. Light refreshments will be served.

-Sat 4/18, 10-12am, 2-4pm @ Tulane University Rogers Memorial Chapel (# 73 on campus map), 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118. Seminar on meditation on the nature of mind. Lunch will be provided.

Tulane University Campus Map: cmf or pdf.

The historic New Orleans streetcar runs from the Central Business District next to the French Quarter along St. Charles Avenue to Tulane University. It costs $1.25 to ride and takes 30-40 minutes the whole way.

The buildings will be air-conditioned so people should bring shawls or sweaters as it may be cold. Also, if people prefer to sit on cushions on the ground, they are encouraged to bring their own, as we have a limited number.

These teachings are being sponsored by the Louisiana Himalaya Association, the Tibetan Association of Tulane University, the Tulane School of Social Work Student Government Association Diversity Committee, and the Tulane Law School.

More information, including the rest of Lama Wangdor Rinpoche's teaching schedule can be found at his homepage.

Any questions may be directed to Michael Smith, kilgoresmith@gmail.com, 504.377.7642. Can't wait to see y'all there!

Lha India extends holiday greetings!

2008-12-17T09:19:00.001-08:00

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

www.lhasocialwork.org

As the festive season and the New Year draws nearer, we at Lha would like to wish you and all your loved ones a merry Christmas and hope that the day brings you joy and happiness. We would also like to wish you a very happy New Year and hope that goodwill and fortune shines on you.

Lha is thankful to you for your esteemed support and friendship through all these years. The motivation and encouragement provided by you has inspired us to achieve our goals and serve the community we work for. As you are aware that our activities are only possible with your support and generosity, we would be grateful if you could keep in touch with us and continue to help us carry on the welfare work we have been doing for the last decade.

We would also like to take this opportunity to tell you about Lha’s progress in 2008 as it bears testimony of our dedication towards serving the McLeod Ganj and Dharamsala community. Be it the increase in the number of students, the number of volunteers joining hands with us, or the increase in the number of teachers, 2008 has surpassed all the figures laid down in the previous year. In 2008:

· A total number of 590 volunteers joined hands with Lha and contributed in their own ways. An increase of 62% as compared to the total number of 365 volunteers in 2007
· Lha organized seven times culture exchange programs with U.S based universities such like Tulane, Centenary and Loyola students groups and other related NGOs.
· Lha had an enrollment of 297 students for the computer skills course, in comparison to 274 students in 2007
· Lha had 175 foreign students who learned various classes including languages, reiki, yoga, Arts and cooking
· Lha distributed 1,700 pieces of clothing to the poor and the needy, in comparison to 1,653 pieces of clothing distributed in 2007
· Through the generous donation from the Omprakash Foundation, Lha was able to distribute 30,000 books to Tibetan and local Indian schools, libraries and cultural centers

· Lha has also organized and conducted various workshops which were highly beneficial for both the participants as well as the community as a whole. Workshop topics included:
· Photography Skills
· Joomla Website Management
· Debate
· Health and Hygiene
· Massage Therapy

Lha’s facts and figures of 2008 speak for the hard work and efforts by Lha and its volunteers towards the welfare of the people. In midst of the tumultuous events and political turmoil faced by Tibetans inside Tibet this past year, Lha has still maintained its objective of serving the exile community and is motivated to go greater lengths in the upcoming year to build more sustainable futures for the local community.

The year 2008 has indeed been a year of hard work and positive results for Lha, but the good work has only begun. In 2009, Lha will be able to accommodate more students and offer a wider selection of courses and workshops at the new building which we are still in the process for fundraising for. Other initiatives for 2009 include a vocational training center aimed at empowering low-income and unemployed local Tibetans and long term and intensive computer and language courses.

Lha is thankful to all its donors, volunteers, teachers, students, supporters, friends and most importantly, to the people of McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala for believing in Lha and helping this organization carry on with all the social work activities for the benefit of the community.

This summer, Lha also acquired a large new service center. We are now searching for grants and donors for our programs and renovate the new building space and pay off the mortgage, so that we can transform the building into a high quality language, computer and job skills institute with a new computer lab, community library, and culinary classroom. Once the mortgage has been paid off, Lha will become financially fully self-sustainable.

Any donations to Lha, no matter how large or small, will help Lha to meet its deficit so that it can continue to operate and to provide its free, invaluable services to Tibetan refugees and the local Dharamsala community.
In order to ensure that our free and essential social services are able to continue and increase into the future, you can make a financial contribution by mailing a check (any nationality) made payable to “Lha Charitable Trust” to

Lha Charitable Trust
Temple Road, Mcleod Ganj
Dharamsala - 176219
District Kangra (H.P.), India

If you have any comments on our work or the website, please feel free to reply to us at office@lhasocialwork.org.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart and look forward to your visit again!

Yours truly,
Ngawang Rabgyal (Director)
Lha office
Temple Road, Mcleod Ganj
Dharamsala - 176219
District Kangra (H.P.), India
Office Tel: (91) 1892-220992
Email: office@lhasocialwork.org
http://www.lhasocialwork.org/

Lha Charitable Trust 2007 - 2008 all rights reserved

UPDATE: Chamtrul Rinpoche's September New Orleans Lecture Schedule

2008-09-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

A request was made by a student for a more "practice oriented" teaching. So, Chamtrul Rinpoche has agreed to give the following teaching Thursday, September 24:

Mantra Recitation Instruction and Transmission
LHA Center, (621 N. Rendon St.)
7:00 pm -9:00 pm

In this teaching, Chamtrul Rinpoche will give an explanation of mantra meditation and recitation practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He will also offer the community an oral transmission of some of the most common mantra practices, including the mantras of Avalokitesvara, Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava, Amitabha and Tara.

Remaining Schedule:

Sept. 21 Sun: 7:00–9:00pm
Teaching: Swan River Yoga, 2130 Magazine St.
Meditating on Selflessness

Sept. 23 Tues: 7-9:00pm
Public Talk: Loyola, Audubon Room (Danna Center)
Working with the Mind through Change: An Explanation of Impermanence

Sept. 24, Thurs: 7-9:00 PM,
Teaching: LHA Center, 621 N. Rendon St.
Mantra Recitation Instruction and Transmission

Sept. 26 Fri: 7-9:00pm
Public Talk: Loyola, St. Charles Room (Danna Center)
Altruism and the Importance of Compassion: the Buddhist Concept of Loving Kindness

Sept. 27 Sat: 6:00–8:00pm Farewell Potluck—LHA Center, 621 N. Rendon Street

Tibetan Buddhist Lama, Chamtrul Rinpoche's Louisiana Lecture Tour

2008-09-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Just some quick announcements of this week's events, rescheduled post-Gustav:

This Wednesday, Sept. 10. 6:30pm-8:30pm
A Welcome Potluck at the LHA Center. 621 N. Rendon St. (between St. Ann and Toulouse) an informal, friendly shared meal, and an opportunity for people to reconnect with each other and to meet
Chamtrul Rinpoche.

This Friday, Sept 12. 7:00-9:00pm (weather permitting)
"An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism," from 7:00-9:00 at the LHA Center.

This Saturday, Sept 13. Lafayette, Louisiana (again, weather permitting)
Katog Choling Dharma Center, Lafayette
An all day teaching on Meditation and deepening one's practice.
All are welcome. There will be more info at the potluck, or you can contact Shelley Jackson at
shelleyom@gmail.com

If you would like to help run errands, provide transportation, inquire about a private audience, or volunteer to help with Rinpoche's stay in other way, or have other questions, please contact his Attendant, Rie Yokono at (337)254-0649

Request for research leads: Indian philosophical debate CE VIII

2008-08-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

My Chilean Bufriend makes the following research request:

"I am investigating a "lost in collective memory" debate between the Advaita-Vedantas and Buddhists in late CE VIII, between Shankara and Buddhism. They say they won over, and since then, among with other circumstances Buddhism was lost in india. However my personal guess is that the debate was done over with a Cittamatra scholar and not a Madhyamika-Prasangika.

Well the only thing I could grasp on the net was a very summarized analysis by a professor from the University of Hawaii, based in a lecture before the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, November 25, 1952. This paper was called "`Sa.mkara's Arguments Against the Buddhist" by Daniel H. H. Ingalls. May be you have some other on-line resources that could help me to do more research..."

Any ideas, friends?

Dignaga, 5th Century Indian Buddhist scholar. One of the founders of the great Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition.

The New Orleans Food Cooperative

2008-08-21T03:42:00.000-07:00

The New Orleans Food Cooperative is one of the most promising upcoming progressive organizations in New Orleans. Actually, they have been in existence for over five years, but only this year began a campaign to open a storefront location. If you don't know what it is, check it out. Also if you are interested in the idea, please invest in a $100 Founding Member share. It's not a donation, it's an investment in a local business. I joined in February, and have been impressed with the organization's leadership; enough so to volunteer many hours with them. I also attended a cooperative business workshop weekend with fifteen other members of the NOFC in March. I have great faith in the prospects of the business, and am excited about their model, which seeks to truly include the community in the conception, operation, and profits of the organization. To date, over 450 people have joined the cooperative as fully paid members.

NOFC's current goal is opening a community owned affordably priced natural foods store in 2009, on the corner of St. Roch and St. Claude, which is directly in the middle of an area under-served by grocery stores. For many Post-Katrina New Orleans residents, healthy affordable food can be nearly impossible to obtain. After this store has been in operation for a few years, it is likely that the NOFC will expand to open another similar store in another part of town.

Some of you live outside of the New Orleans area but may be interested in buying in, as you would invest in any promising business. The truly unique thing about the cooperative business model is that every member has equal ownership in the business and therefore equal decision making power through the 100% democratic method of electing the leadership from the membership pool and voting on important business decisions. Another important advantage of a community owned and managed grocery store is that buying locally produced food and goods is a high priority, the profits and other benefits stay local, and the store will adapt to the needs of the community.

I lived in a housing cooperative, the Emma Goldman House in Madison Wisconsin in 2003 for two months and shopped regularly at a cooperative grocery store, the Willy St. Coop. Both are successful business enterprises that operative with high level of sensitivity for local issues, sustainability, health and the environment. However, the most impressive aspect of that experience was reflecting on the fact that I actually was partially the owner of that huge house and the grocery store! Wow!

I hope that you will at least take the time to check the website.

Find below the most recent email update from the NOFC:

Greetings all,

The co-op continues its organizing efforts but we could always use more help. If you've been wondering how you can help, please consider coming to our next Action Team Meeting, this coming Wednesday, July 16 from 7-9PM in the Community Center at 625 N. Rendon St for a report on what our various committees have been up to. Or, send an e-mail to info@nolafoodcoop.org and I (Amy George-Hirons) will get you in touch with the chair of the committee that interests you.

Our organizing committees are: Membership (outreach, membership drive), Communications (marketing and public relations), Feasibility, Planning and Implementation (the F.P.I) (just what it sounds like), Fundraising (grant-writing, member loan drive development, etc), Supply (inventory and supply chain development), Hiring/Human Resources (immediate and future).

While some of these committees have very well-defined duties and are hard at work, others are in the developmental stages. All welcome assistance. Note that while the F.P.I asks that volunteers commit to regular weekly meetings, the Communication Committee (CommComm) works primarily by e-mail and the Membership Committee often needs people for one-time tabling or flyering efforts. The Membership Committee could
also use some committed folks to spearhead the organization of the monthly potluck efforts. So: whether you have time for a regular weekly meeting or would just like to occasionally pitch in, we welcome your assistance!

In other news: June has been a slow month in terms of our membership growth but another 13 people bring our ranks to 428 people. Another 23 people have begun partial payment toward their memberships. We have an interim goal of 600 members by October 1 so it would be great if each and every one of you would encourage someone you know to join today (or, if you have not yet joined yourself, if YOU would join :) ).

Joining the co-op now is really an act of solidarity, an advanced commitment in a project that will benefit all of us. It is a fabulous thing to join a cooperative grocery store that already exists, to demonstrate one's support for the store in which one shops regularly. It is something of a leap of faith to project forward in time, to join a cooperative that exists in the future, in a bank account, in a series of meetings, in ideas.

This is what these 428 people have done and what we need more people to do. As we continue our fundraising efforts, we are using these numbers in grant proposals and while talking with cooperative developers around the country. To be able to say that 428 individuals have put forth their own money on this project is to say that these individuals are invested in the project--not just financially but emotionally as well.

So, one thing we can all do to help the co-op while we're staying in our air-conditioned houses in the heat of these slow July days is to encourage others to join (neighbors, co-workers, partners, whomever)

Benefits of membership include:
• having a store– obviously your biggest benefit!
• part ownership of the NOFC
• a vote in board member elections and on special issues
• eligibility to serve as a board member
• a member financial benefit, yet-to-be-determined, upon opening of the grocery store

We realize these benefits are primarily abstract at the moment but we hope that you will help spread the word about what we are all working toward. Anyone can join electronically at nolafoodcoop.org

Partial payments are accepted, although these need to be mailed in or delivered in person.

As always, if you have any questions or comments or if you have ideas of a way in which you could help the co-op, please don't hesitate to share these with us. You can always send an e-mail to info@nolafoodcoop.org or telephone (504) 324-6849.

In the meantime, enjoy your hot July days.

Cooperatively yours,
Amy George-Hirons
NOFC Information Facilitator

Supporting the Khari Nuns with Imports

2008-08-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

Some of the Khari nuns with their beautiful potted flowers.

As some of you know, I have been doing some side work importing Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, Incense and fabrics to New Orleans from India and Nepal in order to raise money for various social work projects in those countries. Besides over $1000 that I've been able to raise for the Louisiana Himalaya Association to support its sister organization Lha Charitable Trust in Dharamsala, India (which I will be writing an update about soon), with the help of some friends at Tibet Association of Tulane University, I was recently able to deliver $300 to to manager of the Khari Nunnery in Nepal.

The Khari Ganden Tenphel Ling Nunnery is perched above Tramo, a small Sherpa village in Khumbu, the Mt. Everest region of Nepal, two days walk from the Tibetan border. All of nunnery's thirty-five ordained Buddhist nuns, ranging from ages twelve to ninety, were born in relative poverty in Tibet. They abandoned their homeland in order to study and practice Buddhism in a safe environment free from the restrictions and fear-mongering of the Chinese Communist Party. In the last two decades the number of nuns there has doubled, and they expect many more young women to flee the recent brutality of the Chinese government to become nuns. Since 2002, the Khari nuns have been engaged in a massive effort to rebuild their nunnery in order to suit the needs of their growing community. Work on a one-hundred person capacity prayer hall is set to be finished next year, after which they will begin building a new kitchen, classroom, toilet facilities, and living quarters.

During the warm dry spring and autumn months, the able-bodied nuns work hard construction labor: breaking rocks into gravel; digging; carrying sand, concrete, and stones; sanding; packing earth; and so on. During the rainy monsoon and frigid winter months many nuns shut themselves away for solitary meditation retreats. When they are able, they make rounds through the neighboring villages begging alms to raise money for the construction and personal expenses.

Starting two years ago, the nuns have had the unique opportunity to begin regular academics for two months each winter. One Geshe (Tibetan Doctorate in Buddhist Philosophy) has been teaching the nuns Buddhist philosophy, another Geshe has been instructing them in Tibetan language and grammar, and a lay Tibetan woman educated in India has been teaching English. They intend on continuing in this way until their building projects are complete, at which time they will begin studying year-round. This is very rare, considering that the vast majority of Tibetan Buddhist nuns never study any philosophy, and most monks in high mountain areas never have the opportunity to study philosophy, either.

The Khari nuns humbly request all those who are able to support their ambitious future plans to donate whatever they are able. They continuously make prayers and aspirations for the sake of world peace and the happiness of all beings, and specifically for those that find the generosity to support their noble endeavors.

The Khari nuns during the June 2005 Nyungnay fasting retreat at the Lawudo Gompa above their nunnery.

I have also worked on a forthcoming book on the modern history of the Khari Nunnery, which has been published in an abridged form by Buddhist Himalaya last year. More information on the Khari nuns can be found at the Tibetan Nuns Project and the Mountain Institute's Sacred Sights of the Khumbu Region (page 6).

The late Sangye Thinley (at left) with his niece and great niece, both of whom are nuns at Khari.

Arrested in Kham, Tibet

2008-08-11T05:52:00.001-07:00

The following is the account of a close Taiwanese American friend of mine who was recently arrested and detained for 30 hours in Eastern Tibet. The story is quite remarkable, but if you don't have time to read it all, at least read the first few paragraphs, which describes first hand the situation on the ground in Kham as of last week. This is a report from an area that hasn't seen a foreign journalist in the past four months or so:

"As I arrived in Karze (Ch: Ganzi), I remember my eyes widening with alarm as I looked out the car window. Foreign travelers aren’t permitted to travel to this region of Kham (present day Western Sichuan) for a reason. The minibus driver took back roads to avoid the checkpoints in order for me to get to this Tibetan town which saw heavy protests this spring. I had just read an article about a Tibetan girl who was shot dead in the vegetable market here during one of the protests. Karze is the epitome of the word ‘occupation’. About every half a block, there is a squad of 10 to 15 People’s Armed Police in full battle gear. Dressed in fatigues holding rifles and shields, they sat in rows in front of convenience stores, they stood behind raised metal posts with cutout windows at the corners of the street, they camped under blue tarps in the middle of the sidewalk, they marched throughout the city looking for any signs of trouble. It looked like a war zone. Fear permeated the air. I could feel their prying eyes everywhere I walked. Was it really 2008 I kept thinking? In addition to the sea of armed police, bright red government issued banners with patriotic slogans hung in replacement of modern day advertisements everywhere. It reminded me all too much of the Cultural Revolution. There was one ideology acceptable, that of the government. For the first time in my life, I began to understand through fear, what the word ‘occupation’ actually felt like.

Soon after I arrived in Karze, I went to check my email and got a suspicious notification in broken English from Gmail warning me about the suspension of my account due to ‘unusual activities’. Knowing that Karze is at the center of a recent government purge and crackdown against ‘splittists’, I was becoming genuinely afraid. What did the Chinese Government know about me? Do they know that I helped start a group in Dharamsala that’s raised over 6,000 ‘illegal flag of the Snow Lion’? Do they know I’m collecting information for the Tibetan Government in Exile? Am I being followed like the US Embassy suggested? Paranoia grew as the possibility of being arrested for ‘inciting subversion’ was becoming more real in my mind. I wished that I had traveled on my American passport, in which case, the worst thing they could do is deport me. I wished I had known that traveling on my Taiwanese documents deprived me amnesty as an American.

When I returned to my hotel, a Tibetan was watching a government staged protest on TV. The narrator praised the People’s Armed Police for showing restraint against Tibetan protesters who were shouting “Independence for Tibet” in Chinese. The protesters on screen hurled themselves onto the shields of the Police and eventually ceased. The propaganda machine never ceases to amaze me. The Tibetan told me the government just filmed this a few kilometers away yesterday and is airing it on the local network. All the ‘protesters’ in the act were actually police themselves. I went back to my room and started filming the TV show on my camcorder and soon after, two policemen pounded on my door. I said I was changing and was trying to not shake as I was putting away my tripod. They looked around and asked what I was doing in Karze. One officer carefully studied my documents and warned me to be careful with what I do in town, that if I did anything suspicious, there would be ‘consequences’. It sounded like a threat. Little did I know that 2 days later, after he arrested me and got to know me, he would joke over a breakfast of hotpot that he tried his best to intimidate people while on duty. But after the officers left, my heart was still pounding and I couldn’t calm down even after 2 cigarettes. I rarely let fear stop me from doing what I want, but I began to seriously consider aborting mission and going back to India. I began chain smoking and after much apprehension, I bought a 600km bus ticket back to Chengdu bound to leave early next morning. I felt the suffocation of the occupation and saw the latent torture of cultural genocide and it left me in rough mental shape. I felt ashamed more than ever to be Chinese. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t help but feel defeated because I let fear win.

I thought I could ease my nerve for the time being by going to the Karze Monastery on the top of the hill. It was a steep climb up to the rooftop of the Monastery where you can get an incredible panoramic view of the entire town surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Aesthetic pleasure returned and I felt at ease. I took many photos of the valley and town, but couldn’t help myself from taking a few zoomed in shots of the military base. I didn’t realize I was playing with fire. I noticed that someone was holding his cell phone unusually high towards my direction, but I didn’t realize he was a plain clothed policeman following me. It was a beautifully serene atmosphere and having barely eaten, I didn’t comprehend what I was getting myself into. After a long rest, I began walking back down into town. All the sudden, the policeman who warned me the night before in my room, now dressed in normal clothes, told me to come with him. Fear was becoming reality – I was being arrested. I was told to sit and wait in the policeman’s office. More plain clothed police came and two of them started filming me. I asked what was going on, but no one answered my questions, they told me to “wait and see”. Before long, I was escorted by four plain clothed police to my hotel room where again, they told me to sit and wait until more police came. I said that I was an American citizen and have the right to call the US Embassy, but my demand fell on deaf ears. After about half an hour, there were more than ten police in my room. They closed the door, started filming and began searching through my things. I thought about how stupid it was of me to have taken the photos of the military base from the monastery rooftop and remembered all the photos I secretively took of the People’s Armed Police in Litang. I was so close to leaving! They soon found the photos and I knew that I was beyond screwed. My demand to call the US Embassy turned into a plea and it began to annoy them so they told me what I already knew, that I was a ‘Chinese citizen’ travelling on a ‘Chinese’ document in China, therefore, I will be prosecuted accordingly by Chinese Law. Shit, shit, shit I thought. I’m done for. Three Taiwanese Americans have been imprisoned in China in the last 2 years; I’m going be the fourth.

They began asking questions and compiled an official document for my case. I was charged with ‘illegally possessing state secrets’ by taking those photographs. I signed the papers and fingerprinted them. Then they told me to pack my things because I’ll be escorted to Kangding soon, their provincial headquarter 300km away for ‘further investigation’. I kept asking questions that they didn’t answer, so I stared at them in the eyes and tried to hold their attention through eye contact, thinking that maybe it’ll get some answers through sympathy. I wanted to win at least a human response. But all they told me was that they don’t have the power to determine my case here, that I need to Kangding where they can determine whether or not I am guilty of my crime. Sprinklings of patriotic party slogans were also regurgitated throughout the questioning. Lines about how now is the time when our glorious government needs our unyielding support quite frankly, disgusted me. They sounded excessively passionate and reminded me of brainwashed children. I asked if they were going to send me to prison, and they said if my background checks out clean and they see I have no ulterior motives, then I’ll be released. I remembered from a documentary I recently saw where one of China’s top lawyers commented that he’s lost 99% of the cases involving political ‘crimes’. Fuck I thought, it won’t take long to find out about my involvement in Dharamsala. My laptop was in storage in Chengdu and I didn’t bring anything ‘illegal’, but I made the big grand mistake of packing my 80GB external hard drive which I had everything saved on. I kept thinking about what was in that hard drive – photos of Tibetan flags, me holding Tibetan flags, me speaking on a microphone in front of a giant Tibetan flag, me distributing Tibetan flags, photos of the Dalai Lama, my name stated as the co-founder of the Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign (RTFC) in press releases and flyers, the entire RTFC website I put together, the recent application to the International Tibet Support Network I filled out with my name as the main contact – I began feeling desperately hopeless.

Before we left for the 12 hour drive to Kangding, we stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Another car full of plain clothed police joined us for a big meal around the lazy Susan. Everyone else was in a jolly mood and eating away. Their stern demeanor changed at the table as they told me to try this eggplant dish and that pork soup. What the fuck I thought. Seriously, what the fuck going on? Aren’t I arrested? Didn’t the police woman sitting next to me just follow me to the toilet and watched me pee? Didn’t they just confiscate my cell phone and refused to let me call anyone? What made things even more strange for me was hearing them talk in Tibetan. I had never met a pro-Chinese Tibetan, and now I’m with a table full. But I think seeing my long face made some of them uncomfortable, so one of the officers reassured me that everything was going to be okay, as if appeasing a pouting child. They began telling me about the great things they are doing for this ‘backwards’ region, about the hospitals, schools and roads, praising themselves for their achievements, all coming from a Tibetan speaking perfect Chinese. I sat in silence. My fate will be determined tomorrow I kept thinking, on August 1st, 2008. Is it a coincidence? Last year, on the night of August 1st, I experienced the most physical pain I ever have in my life in the hospital. The doctor had to insert a catheter because I couldn’t even move my head. Tomorrow, on August 1st, 2008, will it be mental pain I’ll be experiencing in jail? I’m not a superstitious person, but I couldn’t help but wonder about this bizarre twist in fate.

On the evening of August 1, 2007, I missed the freeway exit I was supposed to take to meet a friend for Happy Hour. I remember thinking that I had to stop daydreaming while driving as I came upon bumper to bumper traffic on the 35w Bridge and was now going to be late to meet my friend. At 6:01 pm, without any warning, the pavement underneath me began to violently rumble, shaking my car harder and harder. I saw the bridge split open where my front bumper was and within seconds, my car took a nosedive towards the Mississippi River. I had locked my elbows and grasped on to my steering wheel for dear life. I remember an intense turbulence and seeing glass flying around me as I tumbled in the air. I don’t know how many times my car flipped, but it landed upside down, jammed on the bridge tussock and on top a steel beam which cut diagonally across my car. It took 13 seconds to fall 60 feet. I was suspended upside down only by the fibers of my shoulder belt but didn’t hit my head even upon the landing. I think I was too much in shock to feel fear at this point. I saw my blood dripping, but I didn’t feel the pain. Thinking the car might explode, survival instinct kicked in and I realized that I had to get out of the car as soon as possible. I wasn’t able to open the driver side door, but managed to crawl out of the passenger side door and then onto the steel beam which my car landed on. I crawled down to the bottom where I couldn’t believe what I saw. Looking up was open air where a massive five lane bridge fell into the debris I was standing on. A woman somewhere in the distance was screaming hysterically. I rushed over to the partially submerged cars nearby and some people suddenly appeared and asked if I was ok. I was bloody but still standing. I still don’t know who they were, but they told me to cross the river and climb up the bank. I don’t know if I lost consciousness when I was hanging upside down, because rescuers were already present by the time I got out of my car and there was a big group of bystanders watching from the riverbank. 190 cars were on the bridge when it collapsed. 13 people died. Many people suffered debilitating injuries. The girl next to me at the hospital had almost everything below her waist crushed. People in cars in front of me drowned and fell to their deaths. I only had deep cuts on my hands and fingers, a few small puncture wounds and a slightly fractured sternum. Will I be just as lucky on this August 1st?

On the drive to Kangding, I was in the back seat sandwiched between two police officers. To the right of me was a female Tibetan officer who had more than a few patriotic Chinese lines to share. To the left of me was the Chinese officer who warned me the night before I was detained and also the one who arrested me. He began chatting with me in the car. He said he really wanted to improve his English and this is long drive would be a good opportunity for him to practice if that was okay with me. The guy who threatened and arrested me now wanted to learn English from me. What the fuck I thought again. But I also reminded myself that it would be a good idea to get on their good side. So he went on asking me simple but poignant questions which are common to English learners, like what I believed in, what my life goals are and if I liked China. This lasted for hours until my answers became minimal and he eventually dozed off, on my shoulder. The Tibetan officer also fell asleep on my shoulder. I watched the digital clock in the car turn as it became midnight. It was August 1st, 2008, exactly a year after the bridge collapse and now I’m in a police car, red and blue siren flashing in the dark, on my way to being interrogated with two police officers sleeping on either side of my shoulder. I felt like Alice after falling into the rabbit hole. I didn’t fall asleep at all. I was thinking about life in prison. I thought about the shit that is probably piled up in the toilets. I thought about the self tightening cuffs that are common in Chinese prisons. I thought about the Tibetan nuns who described having electric cattle prods shoved into their vaginas. I thought about China’s reform through labor schemes for political offenders. I thought about all the different torture techniques practiced in Chinese prisons. I thought about what they would do with the bod gyalo (“Victory to Tibet”) tattoo on my neck. Would they born it off or carve it off? At one point, I was debating what sentence they would have to give me for me to want to kill myself. 15 years? If they gave me 15 years, I would be 39 when released. But then I also thought about Palden Gyatso, the Tibetan monk who spent 33 years in prison, how he didn’t give up. I’ve heard countless testimonies of political prisoners, and couldn’t believe I was also going to follow their fate. Mandela and Gandhi both served long terms. In fact, maybe prison strengthens the activist soul. Maybe only after you’ve tasted the bitterness of injustice will you dedicate your life to fight it with 110 percent. I rethought suicide. I’ve always believed that whatever doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, and there’s no better time than now to embrace this creed. In 15 years, I could master Chinese and Tibetan. But 15 years is unlikely since Chinese dissidents are usually sentenced to 5 to 10 years. Thoughts and wonderings carried on in loops like this until we reached Kangding in the morning.

They took me to a hotel room on the 4th floor with a view of the valley in Kangding. The head police chief who they called ‘boss’ was going to do the interrogation. He sat across from me by the window. Two more officers sat behind him and two more were sitting on the bed filming and taking notes. No one was in a uniform. The boss held a friendly tone. It didn’t feel like an interrogation. He just kept asking one question after another, trying to find discrepancies in my answers. Maybe it was because I was so tired, maybe it was because I swallowed my fear, but I transformed into someone else. If I told the truth, I would be sending myself straight to prison and endangering others. On the drive, I also had decided on an alias personality. I was Wen, the artsy, tree hugging, new age hippie – a politically inept traveler and devout Buddhist looking for myself by exploring the world. I exaggerated the language barrier so when I was asked a question I needed more time to think about, I would either ask them to clarify the meaning of certain Chinese words or use English words in my answers so they would have to stop and look up thw word. This bought me time to produce more believable lies. I’ve always been horrible at lying since and I’m often clumsy with my words when put on the spot, but this day was a definite exception. I’m not proud of the lies I told, but I can’t say I completely regretted it either. I became an actress. I gave brilliant answers and surprised even myself with my performance. For example, when the boss asked me if I had ever been to Dharamsala, I excitedly said yes, that I took the Tushita Introduction to Buddhism course which opened many doors to Buddhism and helped quench my spiritual thirst and that I also did a Vipassana Mediation course and went into detail about the feelings and emotions I experienced during the 10 day meditation. I went on describing my spiritual connection with the Indian Himalayas and my spiritual growth in India. I gave them more than enough detail from the things other people have told me from the courses. I knew that all Chinese officials are required to be atheists since Communism is suppose to be their religion, but I went on asking about the boss’ faith, what he would think he would spiritually develop if he meditated for 10 days. This made him laugh. The interrogation had turned into a conversation. For all the questions regarding Dharamsala, I kept answering with spiritual hippie talk. When he asked about what I thought about the Tibetans wanting independence, I played politically ignorant and asked him to explain the situation and what he thought. He went ahead and quite passionately talked about how he thought it was stupid for Tibetans to want such ‘independence’. I said that it’s not nice to call people stupid, that we should all have more compassion, but that I really should learn more about the issue and went back to talking about my ‘passion’ in Tibetan Buddhism. When asked about the photos I took of the military base, I explained the theories of composition and why I took the photos aesthetically. And then I went on about why I love photography, the magic of freezing time and whatnot. When they asked about my email account, I said that a few months back, I had a horribly messy and painful breakup with my boyfriend, so I cancelled my email account and decided to take a clean break. I went on feigning the pain of a broken heart and how hard it was to even stay friends, which didn’t stray too far from the truth and made the performance much more believable. After about two hours of questioning, the boss seemed satisfied. I actually managed to convince him I was an ignorant harmless girl. He said they just need to quick look through my things, confiscate my memory card and they’ll send me back to my hotel in Chengdu. Hope grew. Now the only evidence was left on the external hard drive. If they opened the hard drive, they would know I was lying all along.

The boss told me to wait in the hotel room until they finished looking through the external hard drive. Anxiety had dissipated at this point since I was certain of my fate and there was absolutely nothing I could do at that point. The only thing I could think of was trying a human approach. I wanted the police officers to get to know me and see that I’m not a bad person, that I don’t deserve to be locked up because I have different political opinions as them. I wanted them to feel guilty for imprisoning me. So we chatted, ate breakfast and watched TV in the hotel room. The Tibetan officer told me that she envied how many countries I have gone to, that when she was 24 she was married with a child and working full time for the Public Security Bureau. She said she wants to see the world, but it seems so impossible for her. She asked me about my home in America. I told her Minnesota had 10 thousand lakes and the biggest shopping mall in the world. She told me to guess the tune as she played Britney Spears on her pink cell phone. It was ‘Oops, I did it Again’. I began to see why she would cling tightly on to the romanticism of Communist ideology. She decided to take a nap and got into bed. I sat in the other bed and began talking to the officer who threatened and arrested me, the one who wanted to practice his English on the drive over. An Olympics program was running on low volume on the TV as we talked. He was a big sports fan and was excited to see the Olympics Games, especially basketball and track. He talked about how proud he was of China, like it was his own son. He did have a son, but didn’t mention him until I asked. We talked and laughed. He was a womanizer and grinned when he said if it were up to him, he would have multiple wives and asked if people in America were allowed to do that. I talked about the divorce rate and the ins and outs of dating in the US. I chatted with these two officers for more than four hours until different officers came into the hotel room and said it was time to go. I asked if they were coming to take me back to Chengdu and they said it would be a fun road trip, but it wasn’t up to them. They asked me for my email address and I had to remind them that I ‘cancelled’ my account. I looked at them with sad puppy eyes as I was escorted into a police car where again I sat in the middle of the back seat with four new officers. I was sure they had made all the arrangements for my imprisonment. I wondered how long it would be before my trial, knowing full well that fair trials in China were virtually non-existent for political offenders.

There seemed to be confusion about what to do with me. The car drove one direction, stopped and turned back to the hotel. The new officers pretended to not hear my questions about where they were taking me. I was escorted into another car at the hotel and we drove the opposite direction. They finally said they were taking me to Chengdu, but I didn’t quite believe them. I couldn’t tell if they were lying or annoyed. I tried to ask different questions to figure out if they were really going to release me in Chengdu, but my efforts were futile. They still wouldn’t give me back my passports and cell phone. When I asked why I couldn’t get them back, the officer in the front seat said he didn’t have them, that another officer in a different car had them. This made me feel uneasy after I heard the low battery tone of my cell phone beep from his pocket. I know there is a prison for political offenders in Chengdu and was sure that was where we were headed. When we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, they seemed to be in a better mood. They began joking with me like the last group of officers I was with. They told me to eat up and the Tibetan officer referred to me as ‘zema’, the Tibetan term for beautiful, but he commented that I would be more attractive if my complexion wasn’t so dark. Another officer asked me if it was too soon to start teaching English to his two year old son. I recommended that he find English language children’s programs like Sesame Street and Blues Clues, that it was best to start young. It was beginning to feel more at ease and clung on a tiny piece of hope, thinking that they wouldn’t be this friendly if they were going to put me away, would they?

It was a 5 hour drive to Chengdu. As we approached the city, just before 6pm on August 1st, the officer in the front seat asked what street my hotel was on. I perked up and couldn’t believe my ears. He’s not taking me to prison if he’s asking me where my hotel is! I told him I needed to check in my guidebook but was still stunned they were actually going to release me. I told them about what happened last August 1st and they told me to not worry, I’m safe because I’m with the police this year. A few minutes later, he asked if I would mind writing a letter confessing my ‘crime’ just for their records. It sounded suspicious since they already had written pages and pages along with the recorded files for my case. He said they wanted a confession written by me, that it won’t take long, and then I can take a taxi to my hotel. Did I have a choice to say no?

We arrived at another fancy hotel and they took two double rooms on the second floor. I wrote about a page and a half apologizing for taking photos of the military base and the armed police explaining that I wasn’t aware I was illegally possessing state secrets. I said I would learn to abide by the law of the country in the future. After I handed in the letter, it was dinner time and they insisted that I eat with them. I was anxious to go, but they joked that after spending a whole day with them that I didn’t even want to have a nice dinner at the end of the day. Seeing that I really didn’t want to stay, one of the officers said I could go now and come back later if I wanted to because there were still a few things they needed to talk to me about. Still feeling despondent and unsure of what was really going on, I agreed to the dinner. It was my fourth meal under custody with the police at nice restaurants. Two of the officers drank four bottles of beer. They were having a great time eating and laughing, holding up their glasses and saying ‘tashi delek’. I wondered if and when I’ll actually get released and when the charade will end. At dinner, the officer next to me said after dinner, we’ll go up to the hotel room and delete the pictures I wasn’t suppose to have taken, the ones that contained ‘state secrets’. I was surprised at this since the boss in Kangding said my memory card will be confiscated. I was impressed by his consideration. Then he mentioned the external hard drive for the first time. He said they found some things and they need to delete on the hard drive, but since it’s about 50GB worth of data, they’ll bring it to a shop and have it deleted overnight. I can come back the next morning to pick it up. I was still in disbelief. They found everything, they found out about all my involvement with Dharamsala and Tibetan flags, they didn’t question me about it and now they were letting me go. After they deleted the photos, took photos of them deleting the photos, they handed me back my passports and cell phone and waived me goodbye.

I picked up my empty external hard drive the next morning and was free. I couldn’t believe it. They found everything and decided to let me go. The most logical explanation was that it was too sensitive of a time to detain me, that it would look bad for the Chinese government to imprison a Taiwanese American activist during this sensitive time for Beijing. Was it the Olympics that saved me?

Now back in Dharamsala, something is haunting me, something that many Tibetans also have to live with. When I was questioned in Kangding, I lied and I didn’t stand up for what I believe in. I knew what the authorities wanted to hear and that was what I told them. I knew the consequences if I told them what I actually believed in. People may say that China is heading towards a bright future, but how can this country of 1.3 billion, one sixth of the world be under this form of control where an individual cannot express their difference in opinion? How did the IOC decide to award its prestigious games to a country where you can’t say what you think, read what you want and worship who you choose? I’ve never fully appreciated freedom until it was taken away from me, because it was something I had from birth. I’m able to write these words today, but a sixth of the world is not able to express what’s in their hearts without the fear of persecution if what they’re expressing strays from the Chinese government’s ideology. China is using fear to silence its people. But there will be a time when fear turns into defiance. It was Mao himself who said that it only takes a spark to start a prairie fire. It’s just a matter of who’s going to light the match.

Update on Tibetan Situation

2008-08-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I write you from Dharamsala, India. As most of you know, I have spent about half of the past five years in Nepal, India and Tibet with Tibetan people of many different varieties. I returned to Dharamsala in April of this year, at which time the protests and peaceful demonstrations that began in Lhasa on March 10 and spread to every Tibetan settlement in the world had been continuing for almost a month. There was a sense of opportunity and excitement, especially amongst young Tibetans, as well as fear about what the repercussions of the events in their homeland would be.

As the Chinese Communist Party has taken an increasingly heavy hand in its supression of dissent, that atmosphere of excitement has given way to a feeling of hopelessness. Since the last members of the independent press have been evicted from Tibetan areas, reporting on the continued struggle of Tibetans in Tibet for basic human rights has waned. However, we know that the use of deadly force against peaceful demonstrators and mass arrests have only increased, in spite of the fact that anyone thought to be related in any way to any kind of dissent must live in fear of a mid-night abduction by paramilitary police. A previous Tibetan employee of the Lha Community Social Work Organization (a social work organization I volunteer with in Dharamsala, India), who now lives in Canada, wrote the following:

"...My brother, who suffers from tuberculosis,
my sister and two uncles, who have never been involved
in any type of demonstration or protest, were detained
without cause... on the grounds of what can only be assumed as
mere suspicion... My parents figure that at least a couple of
thousand innocent Tibetans from Lhasa City alone are
imprisoned, where they are maltreated, neglected and
possibly tortured. They were finally released... My brother and sister
were first taken... beaten with rifles, kicked and thrown
into a truck. They were taken out of the city to
an unknown location, and were put into a small
concrete room with 400 other Tibetans. There were no
washrooms, and they received no food nor water for two
days and nights. Hardly anyone could stand up by
themselves because of the beatings. After two days
they were transferred to another place where there
were about 6000 Tibetans. There they received a bowl
of rice or small steam cooked bread twice per day.
They received water and had a toilet in this location.
After a week in this place, they were transferred
again, where they stayed around two weeks. Here they
got blankets to sleep with, but before they had to
sleep on the concrete floor (with no blankets). At
this final location they also had first aid
assistance, which was needed as many people had broken
bones. When they released my brother and sister, they
kept my brother's watch and his rosary, which
had some semi-precious stones, and all the money they
had (they don't use banks and keep most of their money
on them)..."

Accounts of torture used on political prisoners in all parts of China are well documented, and many are not fortunate to be released so soon. For example, last Friday a Tibetan nomad was sentenced (without trial) to five years imprisonment for merely shouting 'Long Live the Dalai Lama' at an official's meeting.

I have a close American friend who has been working in eastern Tibet for the last four years, teaching English and working to build schools, clinics and water wells. Although she has never had any trouble extending her visa, in early June a group of officials came to her remote village and gave her ten days to leave China. She worries about why the Chinese government found it necessary to remove her witnessing eyes from a place to which she has dedicated so much. Satellite dishes are now banned there, making it impossible for the locals to get any international (and therefore unbiased) news. She wrote to me:

"The government is also limiting communication in particular areas. Since March they have shut down numerous cellular towers and more recently denied access even on satellite phones...

There may not be any more uprisings: There are troops in every town that has paved roads. The army marches through town streets three times a day, paralyzing the Tibetans with fear. Surveillance cameras were installed in places that don't even have running water. Many monks, nuns and students were forced to return to the area that their ID card was issued, since travel outside of their hometown is officially prohibited right now.

Foreigners are not allowed to stay in areas that have had protests. In Amdo many people remain in prison since the March uprisings- their families unable to come up with bail. Bail can range from $1,000 to $2,000. Private schools have been shut down in Amdo, and teachers and principals face threats of losing their jobs."

I spent June in Kathmandu, Nepal, where peaceful protests are also continuing. On June 19, the father of the Tibetan family I lived with for 3 months in 2003 was arrested with 700 other Tibetans at a demonstration at the Chinese Embassy. Just last Friday, 118 Tibetans were arrested. He said didn't mind the arrest, since international pressure by the UN and the US Ambassador had reduced the violence the Nepalese police were using. However, he was disheartened by the entire situation. There is a growing feeling of hopelessness in the face of the great power of the Chinese Communist government. To my Tibetan friends in Nepal and India that I work with every day, it seems that the all governments, the UN, the media, and especially multinational corporations are ignoring their basic moral obligation to stand up for human rights and democracy in Tibet and everywhere else. Most of them feel like there is little they can do for their relatives and friends back home in Tibet, except maybe pray.

Please dedicate your prayers and aspirations to those suffering in Tibet and China, and also, please make yourself informed!

Peace Love and Light from Dharamsala, India.

Why Support a Boycott of Chinese Goods?

2008-06-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

I am happy to hear that you and others have been giving this a lot of thought. My mind circles these issues often, and it can be distressing, and its definitely complicated.

I am definitely not representing anyone's opinions except my own. The Dalai Lama has stated over and over his well thought out compromise solution, which he appropriately terms "the middle way approach," (supported by the democratically elected Tibetan Exile Parlaiment - Karshag). He is not calling for independence from China. Actually, he stopped calling for Independence in 1979. The Chinese continue to pretend that they don't understand this so that they can continue to label him a 'counter revolutionary splittist' and ignore his position, a solution that is actually very favorable for China. It is an issue of face for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). By backing off any of their previous claims that HHDL (who they've called a demon in monk's robes) is trying to create a counter revolution, then they implicitly admit that they've been wrong on some level, which the hard headed bastards can't do in front of their citizens.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has not been calling for a boycott. However, HHDL is politically moderate, looking for compromise solutions. He has to: it is the only realistic approach for him as the de-facto representative of the Tibetan people. He has been pressing for a mutually beneficial solution for the Chinese and Tibetans both inside and outside of Tibet. I agree with the Dalai Lama: the Chinese people are great people (though sadly misinformed usually) and they are our friends and brothers. Our beef is with the CCP.

I am not a political moderate. We as Americans don't have to kowtow to the CCP: we don't have to depreciate our position to make the Chinese listen to us. Why? The Chinese already listen to us, because we have been making them rich, and they don't want that to stop. I personally have adopted what some would view as a radical position: calling for a 100% boycott. There are two results to taking a radical position. One is that the other side becomes radically polarized against your radical position. I don't think this will happen. The other is that you pull the opposition or third parties into a more favorable moderate position from your point of view. I call for a boycott, you look for a compromise, and then the compromise looks way better and you seem to be the level-headed one. My radical view puts the free traders (who don't give a fuck about fair trade and all its implications) into a radical position. That way, the free and fair trade position becomes the moderate position (which is the compromise solution that HHDL would be in favor of, that would be an actual solution). So while I recognize that a full boycott is unreasonable from most points of view, I'll still scream and yell about it.

China's Most Favored Nation Trade Status should be revoked.

I take a great exception to the statement that, "in general, I think our trading relationship with China has been beneficial to both our countries overall." Every month the US is cutting 30,000, 40,000, 60,000 jobs. Many of these are manufacturing based. Why can't we make shit in America and buy that shit in America, since Americans love to buy shit so much. Are we incapable?

The US government should adopt a policy of Free and FAIR Trade, ensuring that the companies that US companies do business with are sustainable environmentally, and conform to our standards of labor policies. Sure, this is idealistic, but wasn't the New Deal also idealistic? Or Reconstruction after the Civil War idealistic? Or moving from a Fossil Fuel based economy to a Renewable based economy?

I agree that the way the US has gone about appying sanctions has been largely ineffective in the past, taking Cuba, Iraq and Iran into account. However, I do believe that economic sanctions are effective in some circumstances, and I think that this is one. The CCP and especially the PLA (people's liberation army) own many of the companies that manufacture the goods that we import. They own many corporations that we do business with. They are making money through taxes and direct ownership of these organizations. Much of this money is used for military purposes.

A boycott is justified on some of these grounds:

1) The CCP's Human Rights record in mainland China and minority areas. Brutal repression of Uighers, Tibetans, Ui, Kazakhs, Inner Mongolians, East Turkestanis, Krzhgks, the FaolinGong practitioners, student activists for democracy, any activists for anything, labor advocates, mass forced moves, etc., etc., etc.
2) The CCP's direct military aid to the Sudanese goverment. They've sold planes before the UN Resolution in 2005 banning direct military aid to the brutal Sudanese gov't. Since then, they've sent PLA men to train the Sudanese pilots, in direct violation of the UN Resolution. These pilots used the Chinese jets to bomb civilian villages in Darfur. Also, they've sent Chinese army lorries (trucks) that have been mounted with Chinese anti-aircraft guns and used against civilians in Darfur. Know what happens when you shoot up a mud house with an anti-aircraft gun? This is well-documented.
3) CCP military aid to the Burmese Junta, who really showed their best face after Cyclone Nargis.
4) CCP military (including missile weapons technology) aid to North Korea.
5) CCP military aid to Iran (including missile weapons technology), Iranian military aid to terrorists organizations.
6) Secret submarine base in the Indian Ocean, upsetting the balance of naval power in the region.
7) Chinese military aid to Pakistan. Unfortunately, we do this too.
8) Chinese direct military aid to President Mugabe's brutal and undemocratic regime in Zimbabwe.
9) Nuclear silos in Tibet, threatening our close ally India and our allies in Central Asia. I like the opening line to this article, "I guess China's rise is peaceful until the day that it isn't."
10) The lack of environmental regulations or enforcement in China. They are fucking their environment to produce the goods that we buy. The earth's environment is a single system. Digging up the mountains in Tibet for Iron Ore has effects elsewhere. Chinese air pollution drifts to Alaska, Hawaii and California, bringing acid rain. Global warming. etc, etc, etc. In some ways this is improving, from the point of view of how bad it was before.
11) The lack of labor standards in China. Maybe this is getting better, in mainland China at least, but partially because of the pressure put on them from abroad.
12) The lack of public health and safety standards and enforcement for Chinese goods. Toxic toothpaste, dog food, lead paint for kids toys, generally shitty craftsmanship, etc.
13) The lack of a free press in China. Conventional wisdom tells us that liberalizing the economy and encouraging free trade should lead to more a more democratic state. This is ostensibly why Nixon and Reagan and everybody else got over their fear of Communists and gave China the MFN trade status. This hasn't happened. This only happens with a free press, encouraging accountability to the people, not just accountability to the Party. Really, we don't know what the fuck is going on in Tibet, East Turkistan, and Inner Mongolia, because there is no independent media there.
14) The fact that it seems that they lie about almost everything. They even faked a bunch of the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. The supposed 54 children from the 54 minorities were actually ALL HAN CHINESE!!!
15) Systemic Racism against the minority groups. Hard to get a job in Lhasa if you are a Tibetan, because for most good jobs you have to pass the exams in Chinese language, and all the gov't jobs the tests are in Chinese language. This would be OK if they actually invested in schools throughout the minority areas to teach kids. I've been to rural Tibet: there aren't any schools, public water facilities or health clinics. The people there are dirt poor, looking a lot worse than the folks in the rural areas of India or Nepal. In the past, the monasteries were the repositories of education, traditional Tibetan medicine (which is actually effective against many ailments), but the PLA and Red Guard destroyed 6,000 of them.
16) Pledged reform before the Olympics never happened. The CCP pledged all kinds of reforms to the IOC in order to be awarded to the games. Most of these haven't happened, and the repression in Tibet has definitely gotten worse. In fact, most Tibetans in Tibetan areas are currently confined to their home villages. Travel in many areas in Tibet for Tibetans has basically been banned. And they definitely didn't get to go to the Olympic games.
17) Decline of US manufacturing sector due to Chinese competition.

So when will the people of China stand up and demand their freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble peacefully, freedom to actively participate in a democractic political process? It may never happen if we keep enriching their rulers, and continue to buoy their economy at the expense of ours.

This is where I'm at these days. What do you think?

You Speak with Your Money: Divestment, Green Investment, and Fair Trade

2008-01-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning after the church worship service at Emmanuel Baptist Church in downtown Alexandria, Louisiana, I stayed in the chapel to visit with old church friends. One old family friend, recently retired, remarked to me that he was has been doing very well lately, as he is making more off his mutual fund investments that he ever made when he was working. That is a powerful thought, and it points to the power of money market investment.

Many people evaluate their investments in mutual funds based on one major consideration: maximizing a return on money. Investment portfolios are designed to minimize the risk of loss of funds and to fuel dividend payout and growth. It's the name of the game.

In my opinion, in our capitalist democracy, a person's decisions about where to invest capital has a much greater and immediate impact on the world than, say, voting, contacting your congressman, recycling or buying a fuel efficient car. My International Law teacher at Rice University loved to quip, "Capitalism with ethics is not capitalism." This is a poignant quote, regardless of your feelings about the merits and demerits of living in a capital based economy. Luckily, we've made leaps beyond Adam Smith's invisible hand.

A recognition of the interrelated impact of our personal investments has sparked new considerations when selecting investments. There is a growing trend of emphasis on socially responsible investment strategies, in companies that specialize in "positive forms of social investment."

Currently, the Save Darfur Coalition is running a television ad that features an older couple going over their annual stock market earnings with their financial adviser, who informs them that they are "making a killing in Darfur." They encourage viewers to find out if their mutual funds are "investing in genocide," and if so, to immediately divest their money.

According to Wikipedia, "Disinvestment, sometimes referred to as divestment, refers to the use of a concerted economic boycott, with specific emphasis on liquidating stock, to pressure a government towards policy or regime change. The term was first used in the 1980s, most commonly in the United States, to refer to the use of a concerted economic boycott designed to pressure the government of South Africa into abolishing its policy of apartheid. The term has also been applied to actions targeting Northern Ireland, Myanmar, and Israel."

A contemporary manifestation of this practice, Divestment Iran, is gaining popularity as a tool to combat terrorism by draining Iran and other sponsor states of training and armament funding. They often discuss this in the context of divesting in Islamic charities.

I actually became interested in these issues as I am currently considering investing a small sum of money saved from past work in a mutual fund. I have neglected to actually invest in a money market or a mutual fund in the past on principle, due to a latent concern that my money was going to support actions that I believe are ethically unacceptable. In my research, I have come across the concept and practice of Green Investment, which has given rise to this post.

What is Green Investment? It is the environmentalist's free enterprise tool. Not to be confused with the Green Investment Scheme (which is the Kyoto Protocol's plan to reduce environmental harms through trading 'hot air' on the world market. On a different note, Australia has announced its support of the Kyoto Protocol, making the USA the only country not to have pledged commitment), Green Investment generally refers to the practice of investing in companies that work towards environmental solutions. In the past this has been ignored by many investors with the belief that you cannot make money investing in alternative energy companies that abide by strict sustainability guidelines, but that is no longer the case in the modern market.

The New Alternatives Fund (NALFX), is a Green Investment Portfolio that says their goal is a Long-term growth of capital through environmental investment. They claim to be the "first environmental mutual fund," founded in 1982. They have a long list of companies excluded from their investment scheme, namely those involved with:

Oil
Coal
Nuclear Energy
Weapons Manufacturers
Tobacco
Gambling
Socially Irresponsible Business Practices
Unfair/discriminatory labor practices
Employment of children
Poor treatment of people in developing countries
Damaging environmental policies
Animal testing practices
Discrimination of any sort, including religious or non religious choice, women, gays, ethnic groups, the handicapped

There are even websites that have been set up as a testament to interest in this, as a practical an offshoot of the environmental movement, that attempt to promote the very idea of green investment. For example, GreenInvestments.com presents articles that encourage investor confidence in alternative energy markets.

Kiplinger.com, an online consultant giving "timely, trusted personal finance advice and business forecasts," researched a sound article on green investment options. They used the traditional approach in their evaluation, outlining the fund's capability for profit maximization, and discovered that you can actually maintain a competitive mutual fund or IRA while holding on to your social or ethical values. They focus on the Winslow Green Growth Fund, which is a high performing small cap fund. It is unfortunate, however, that they only wrote about top performing funds, because they lost out on the whole point of the movement to socially conscious or environmentally friendly investing: where you place your money doesn't just affect you, it directly affects everyone and everything that they companies that you support come into contact with.

Like I mentioned above, all this idealism doesn't have to compromise the profitability of your investments. According to the article, "In Robinson's [Winslow Green Lead Investor] mind, green is good when it comes to investing. Natural and organic food companies are becoming increasingly popular with consumers, and alternative and renewable energy stocks "are going wild" because of rising energy prices. "The technology keeps getting better," Robinson says."

Many Green Investment firms realize the internet's power of universal accessibility of the Internet, and do most of their business online. One can open a fund with them in the matter of minutes from their cyber office locations. Winslow's investment company's webpage features a regular update via email, except that their updates focus on environmental themes that emphasize a capital market approach solution for the problems. An environmental economist's dream.

There is a consensus that Global Climate Change is a reality and many countries and state governments are mandating reductions in greenhouse gas production, driving a huge increase in demand for renewable energy production. There is also an emerging market for carbon trading, which assigns a market value to units of carbon released into the atmosphere and allows international trading of those permitted units. This is a potential multi-billion dollar emerging market. This is a commodity freely traded like any other, and established brokerage firms like CantorCO2e are cashing in.

Some Investment Companies, like Wachovia Corporation, which is one of the largest diversified Investment groups, are making efforts to reduced the carbon-impact of their operations by both building new administrative and branch offices according to strict LEED standards for sustainable building practices and purchasing carbon credits to offset the emissions that their activities produce. In an October 26, 2006 Press Release, Wachovia announced a comprehensive strategy addressing environmental protection, in which they adopt the Equator Principles.

I'm not ready to advocate investing with Wachovia, however, because I have not researched their actual investing practices. They don't seem to offer a specifically "green" package, such as a mutual fund that specialized in alternative energy or sustainable solutions technologies, for example. These are offered by some of their competitors, mentioned above. Wachovia could be engaging in a practice referred to as "green washing" by some environmentalists, which refers specifically to companies that spend a lot of energy marketing themselves as having a strong commitment to environmental sustainability in order to boost sales, but don't actually change a significant amount of their operations. However, it is a step in the right direction that I applaud.

Another high performing green mutual fund portfolio worth looking in to is the SpectraFund. The Spectra Fund has a number of different portfolios, and are well established.

In a small circle in the business world, especially those involved in import, a movement to counteract the perceived negative impacts of globalization on disadvantaged communities is growing. This has generally been referred to "Fair Trade," and is best known (indeed has a greatest impact) in coffee. The movement attempts to redefine what the responsibility of a company is. Rather than merely being expected to turn a profit in order to maximize returns for shareholders while following applicable laws, according to the Fair Trade Federation, Fair Trade company is expected to be committed to Paying fair wages in local context;
* Supporting participatory workplaces;
* Ensuring environmental sustainability;
* Supplying financial and technical support;
* Respecting cultural identity;
* Offering public accountability; and,
* Educating consumers.

They explain that "Fair Trade means an equitable and fair partnership between businesses and organizations in the developed world and producers in the developing world. Fair trade businesses foster long-term and direct relationships with producers, because they know these connections are a highly effective way to help producers help themselves."

Although Fair Trade currently makes up only a fraction of total imports, its popularity is increasing. There is a belief that because they are taking an ethical high ground, eventually their raised standards will affect other companies after it breaks into the mainstream consumer consciousness. The Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO International), an independent Fair Trade certification company, states that they are working with 569 Fairtrade Certified Producer Organisations, representing over 1,4 million farmers and workers, in 57 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and that last year consumers worldwide bought 1,6 billion Euros worth of Fairtrade Certified Products, 42 % more than the year before. A number of older labeling organizations have adopted this logo for certified Fair Trade products (not legally binding).

It looks like all those closet capitalist anarchists can finally save the world and make money too.

Tibet House Fundraising Auction

2007-11-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

Tibet House is holding its annual auction at Christie's on Wednesday,
December 5th from 6:30 to 8pm. The event is a key fund raising effort benefiting Tibet House U.S., which is an educational institution dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture in the Untied States. Tibet House U.S. was
established in 1987 under the auspices of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Christie's is located at 20 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY. I hear it is a nice place, I've never even been to New York, but hey!

Apparently some rich and famous people will also be there.

How to attend:
Tickets are $175, (junior) $225, (individual) and $500.00 for
VIP tickets. Tickets are available for purchase by calling:
212-581-1400. If you can't afford it (like me), then at least say some prayers for the success of the program.

OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG

VOTE AGAINST BOBBY JINDAL! aka The Governor's Race in Louisiana

2007-10-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently gotten interested again in the politics of Louisiana, mainly because we are having an extremely important election on Saturday, October 20. I am returning to New Orleans on Thursday so that I will be able to vote in the district that I'm registered for.

The elections are important for many reasons, and on Saturday Louisianians will choose a new Governor to lead their state through a crucial period of reconstruction and redirection after the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Completely revitalizing Education and Health Care are hot topics of debate that are important to most Louisiana residents. The future of our state is in our hands, let's be responsible for a moment. This is extremely important.

As a responsible citizen of Louisiana, I have taken the time to watch the Governor's race public forums and inform myself about the leading four candidates. They each have strong credentials, and provide a variety of options. It has been difficult for me to make a decision on who I support, but at the beginning it became clear to me who I did not support. At this point in the race, I believe that the only responsible vote is a VOTE AGAINST BOBBY JINDAL.

Bobby Jindal is a Washington D.C. insider, which makes him a Louisiana outsider, and is also a neo-conservative hack who's personal ambition is what is driving his pursuit of the Governor's Mansion, rather than a sincere desire to help Louisiana's health and education system. He's had his opportunity in the past to push positive policy in Louisiana and FAILED. He is ranked as one of the least effective (432 of 439) Representatives in the House.

His campaign is based on ethics, but he has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Tobacco, and developers in Baton Rouge looking for sweet deals. Please see CenLamar for a thorough synopsis on why JINDAL IS BAD FOR LOUISIANA.

At this point, it is important to force a runoff for Jindal with any of the opposition candidates, in order to do due diligence and find out why he doesn't answer questions directly.

I am voting for FOSTER CAMPBELL for Governor of Louisiana, because he has a good plan, and seems to care about Louisiana. More importantly, I AM VOTING AGAINST BOBBY JINDAL, and I suggest you do the same.

Camping in Middle America

2007-10-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

I have returned to Louisiana after a two week camping trip through the American Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. We were also able to visit Devils Tower, known as Bear Lodge and so forth by various Native American tribes. It was an a amazing power-place, giving out the magnetizing rays that go by as many complicated or simple names. It was beautiful.

The three of us took turns driving from Louisiana through Texas, north into the Great Plains of Oklahama (night 1), Kansas, Nebraska (night 2), South Dakota (nights 3,4,5), and North Dakota (night 6). Then we headed west through Montana, and down south through the Rocky Mountains, into Wyoming (night 7,8), Colorado (night 9,10,11), and New Mexico (night 12). On day 13, we drove east, arriving back home to Louisiana at 2am, Friday morning (day 14). I am grateful to my father for inviting me on the trip.

My Experience at the Rally in Jena

2007-09-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

The Rally in Jena, Louisiana, September 20, 2007.

(This piece is cross-posted in the blog CenLamar.wordpress.com.)

Over the past few weeks, the story of the “Jena Six” has exploded into the mainstream media and has rekindled conversations about the quality of our justice system. Justice no longer seems so blind in America. Although unequal treatment under the law has been removed from the books, inequality remains institutionalized in practice. Since Hurricane Katrina, national attention on the State of Louisiana has provoked a lot of difficult questioning about race and class, reminding many Americans about realities they would much rather leave forgotten.

My name is Michael D. Smith. I am a native of the city of Alexandria, Louisiana, and I am white. Alexandria is the only city in Central Louisiana, with its own Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is rather progressive, especially when compared with surrounding parishes. My parents abhor racist sentiments and brought me up accordingly. Unfortunately, not all families in our community have such an open heart to all people.

I am writing this because I have been asked by a few people to put down my own experience of attending the massive September 20th Civil Rights Rally in Jena, Louisiana. Two Hispanic friends of mine from New Orleans and I drove up to Alexandria the previous night to go to the rally the following day, in order to show solidarity with everyone who is dealt injustice. Although some reports have given numbers of up to 60,000 persons participating in the movement in Central Louisiana that day, I would say that, by the time we showed up, there were up to 20,000 people marching in the streets of Jena last Thursday, a great number indeed.

It was a mostly out of town scene. I met people from all over the country and talked to people from Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, the East Coast and Southern Louisiana, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The racial makeup of those attending was about 95% Black, and 5% White, though over half of the white folks that came down to Jena were media persons. Although there were some people from Alexandria, it seemed that the majority of the locals had left town. There were hardly any cars in the garages, or white people on the roads. No businesses were open.

Although DA Reed Walters has stated that it was only by the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ in Jena last Thursday that there was no disaster, I think it had more to do with the attitude of those who came down to protest injustice. It was, by nature, a non-violent rally. Almost everyone there was from places outside of Central Louisiana, and most people wore smiles as they walked around introducing themselves to each other, finding out where they were from and if they represented an organization or came as individuals. Most people drove or came in buses, although some flew down and rented cars to get into the small town, and were happy to socialize and shout for a good cause. No one seemed like they came down for a fight, even the Black Panthers, new or old.

Besides the park in Jena and the LaSalle Parish Courthouse, Jena High School became filled with people, assembled out front or in the lawn where the infamous tree (where the nooses were hung) used to stand. Many gave speeches, others just networked in the crowd. I was impressed to see many people collecting dirt or roots from where the tree was, just as pious pilgrims in Tibet or India take bits of sand from holy places in order to enshrine back at home. There must be some universal human impulse to possess a physical piece of the mythology that informs our deepest experiences, and carry it home next to our hearts. After all, the rally in Jena is the most significant event for some civil rights activists in decades.

Some people commented to me about the quality of Jena High School. They seemed amazed by how poorly maintained it seemed, remarking to me about the tin roofs, poor paint job, lack of adjoining facilities and small area that makes up the school. Although a wing of the school had been burned down last year, the existing facilities still seemed in disrepair. When asked about it, I replied that it resembled most other rural Louisiana schools I’ve seen. These people, even ones from other states in the South, don’t realize the pitiful state of public education in Louisiana.

In my opinion, the people involved in the injustice dealt towards the Jena Six are all victims as well: victims of poor education and the poverty of an isolated community.

There were members of dozens of different social justice and civil rights organizations present at the rally, including the New Black Panther Party. Some of these younger Black Panthers made racially divisive statements in heated speeches at Jena High or in front of the courthouse, but many people in the crowd expressed their disgust at those sentiments. It was a day about unity, with each other and with the imprisoned teenagers. However, it didn’t seem like it was a day about unity with the locals, as I heard a lot of negativity about the residents of Jena. I was encouraged by a number of individuals to not buy anything in Jena, in order to not support local business. There seemed to be little interest in bringing small out of touch rural communities, where racism and intolerance thrive, into the dialogue.

Unfortunately, it is this very distance between the mainstream developments of the country and rural towns like Jena, Louisiana, that perpetuate the antiquated and ignorant worldviews that are the very root causes of prejudice. They have been left behind socially and economically, and only by investing more resources in these communities, namely through education and digital infrastructure, can we begin to address the deeper issues of socio-economic inequality in America.

(Photo credit: Eric Martinez, New Orleans, Louisiana.)

Back in America

2007-09-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for letting a few weeks go by without a post on this blog. I returned to the United States about two weeks ago, and have been spending most of my time with family and friends, catching up. It has been a nice transition. Everyone is very supportive. I have been impressed by the amount of work that has been done in New Orleans since I left, although the Hurricane recovery has taken a lot longer than most people would like. There are millions of relief dollars that remain hung up in bureaucratic red tape.

This is an exciting time to be back in Louisiana. In three weeks the people of Louisiana vote for a new governor. Central Louisiana has been thrown into the international media's scrutiny because of the injustice dealt to the "Jena Six."

Also, the weather in October here is amazing.

My heart, as always, is still half in the marshland of Louisiana and half in the ridges and valleys of the Himalaya...

Five Weeks in India

2007-09-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

I had the invaluable opportunity to accompany an undergraduate study/travel group from Loyola University and another from the Graduate School of Social Work Tulane University (both located in New Orleans, Louisiana) on their adventures of discovery in northern India the past five weeks. I was able to assist in a number of ways, and look forward to continuing to work with them, and the community social work organization that arranged their tours (the Louisiana Himalayan Association).

This is a shot of Rewalsar Lake (known to the Tibetans as Tso Pema, the Lotus Lake), a holy site for Hindus, Himalayan Buddhists and Sikhs. It is one of the most important holy places associated with Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. He was burned at the stake here for seven days after being caught doing secret esoteric Buddhist rituals with the King of Mandi's daughter in a cave at this location. He was unharmed, however, and after seven days remained above a lake on a lotus. Everyone was pretty shocked, and immediately converted to Buddhism. This was in the eighth century; nowadays the locals are Hindu, mostly practicing devotion to the Mother Goddess in her various forms.

I took this picture of Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche (author of Tantric Practice in Nyingma and a seven volume work on Tibetan Buddhist History in Tibetan) at his monastery in Sudarijal in the hills northeast of Kathmandu. I first met him when he came to Houston to lecture at Rice University and to teach and give empowerments at Dawn Mountain Dharma Center in Houston. He is one of the sweetest people I've ever met, and basically spends his days praying and relaxing in the natural state, as he's getting kinda old now.

This is a view from a car on the road out to his monastery. As I flew into Kathmandu from Delhi on some clouds, I was struck by how green and clear the landscape is at the end of the monsoon. A truly beautiful sight. There have been a good amount of forest in my life this past month.

Here Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god that protects Lord Rama, is hanging out in the forest in Himachal Pradesh, in the hills above Tso Pema.

While in McLeod Ganj (upper Dharamsala), where His Holiness the Dalai Lama resides with about 10,000 exile Tibetans live, I had a good bit of free time. A friend graciously let me stay in his house in the forest behind the Dalai Lama's temple, and I used that time to do a little retreat. On the last day of the retreat, the sunset was amazing, so I took a break to enjoy that. The sunset was also beautiful last night as was leaving Dharamsala on the bus for Delhi. I take it as an auspicious sign if there is a really fantastic colored light show in the sky as I complete something.

Tragic Day in Kathmandu

2007-09-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

I am both angry and sad right now, as I have just read some terrible news. Today four bombs went off simultaneously inside the city of Kathmandu, killing two (a woman and a highschool girl), and injuring over two dozen. This is the first attack in the capital since the signing of the peace agreement between the Maoists insurgents and the government last summer. The Maoists definately did not do this, it was most likely one of the extremist groups agitating within the southern part of Nepal, known as the Terai. You can read about this at the best site for Nepali news, www.nepalnews.com. This is truly a great tragedy for a peaceful people far too accustomed to turmoil.

On a brighter note, I will be attending teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj India, over the next three days. He is giving an explanation to a text by the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, the Commentary on the Awakening Mind (byang chub sems 'bral). I am attending with a student group I have been assisting in Northern India, from the Tulane School of Social Work (New Orleans).

I have also been volunteering with LHA, a community social work organization that works with Tibetan refugees. I like the organization a lot, and will continue to work with them in the future.

May you be having peace and experiencing harmony today.

to the golden temple and back

2007-08-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I departed the fun group of young people from Loyola University New Orleans that I had been traveling with in India. I had been helping them with some translating and contextualizing their experiences, and had the opportunity to give them some lectures, which I hope weren't too boring. I also was trying to help out with some of the little things like carrying bags and running menial errands. I think the menial tasks are important, too. As Paul Farmer says in Mountains Beyond Mountains, many social projects fail and most of his peers in medicine quit social medicine because of an unwillingness to "do scrut work." As for me, give me a shovel and I'll dig the ditch.

I left the group in Amritsar, taking the local train three hours to Pathankot, where I caught a bus back to Dharamsala. Amritsar was well worth the visit. The sheer immensity and the beauty of the workmanship at the Golden Temple blew me away. There were thousands of devout Sikhs in a mood of intense devotion all over the place, which was infectious. I'd like to have the opportunity to go back there a few days and do meditation and prayer in some of the open prayer halls there. One can get a great boost from the collective energy of divine communion, if you are into that sort of thing...

The Harmandir Sahib, known as the "Golden Temple" in Amritsar, the pilgrimage center for the Sikh faithful, located a few miles from the Pakastani border in Punjab state, India. this photo from voobie on flckr.com.

I'll be here a week until meeting back up with the LHA people in Delhi to help get the Tulane University School of Social Work Master's students going. I have decided not to remain with the group on thier entire course of study and travel in Himachal Pradesh next month. Like the Loyola group and I did, they will be going to some of my favorite amazing places, like Bir, Tso Pema (Rewalsar) and Mandi. There are true blessings of Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava all over this land. I will sit for three days of public teachings that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be giving in the beginning of September, and then return to Nepal for a week to wrap up some business and say goodbye to loved ones.

My grandfather has fallen ill, and I will be returning to the Land of the Supersize to spend time with my family. My plane touches down at Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans on September 14.

I am excited to go home, back to Louisiana with its warmth, food and music, where funkiness makes no excuse for itself, and the balmy heat wraps its fat sweaty arms around you in such a way as you think it'll never let go.

A Case of Spirit Possession in Tibet

2007-08-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

View of Old Delhi from Jama Masjid, courtesy of www.romanvirdi.com

The day before yesterday I took the train/bus combo away from the megalopolis Delhi, northwest into the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh. Upon arrival in Dharamsala, I discovered a non-discovery: my passport was missing. I had left it in the tiny sweaty Internet Cafe in Pahar Ganj, the budget tourist area of Delhi. In an attempt to retrieve it, I took a night bus from Dharamsala (11 hours) to Delhi last night, and was returned my little blue book of such great importance this morning. Back with the internet at a decent speed, and plenty of free time, I'll update a post I'd been mulling over for the last two weeks:

While leading the Passage Summer Tibet program through South/Central Tibet this summer, I brought my students to the ancient Samye Monastery. Samye was the first proper monastery erected in Tibet, in the 8th Century, by the Tibetan Dharma King Trisrong Deutsen, the Bengali Scholar-monk Shantirakshita, and the Pakistani/Afghani Tantric master, Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. Although the mandala structured temple complex suffered heavy damage during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it is still a sight of great historical and religious significance.

Nestled in a steep valley a few miles above the temple complex rests a large group of meditation caves, the Samye Chimphug Cave Complex. Great masters in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism (most notably associated with the Nyingthig cycles of practice literature), meditated in such caves, including the Tantric founder Guru Rinpoche, his realized consort Khandro Yeshe Tshogyal, the visionary Kunkyen Longchen Rabjam, and the Treasure Revealer Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa. While exploring the mountainside with the students, which is currently home to about two hundred monks, nuns and layfolk in meditation retreat, I got in a conversation with a nun about A.dz.m Pay.lo Rinpoche, one of the current heads of the Nyingthig lineage. I had previously met him at Rice University, where he came to 'teach a class' on the invitation of Professor Anne Klein. The nun informed me that he was concurrently in Lhasa, and that I should try to meet him. I agreed, but wondered how I'd manage to get the time, much less find out where he was staying.

The ancient monastery shaped as a mandala: Samye Gompa, courtesy www.china-hiking.com.

The next day we took a day trip to the politically notable nunnery, Shugsep Ani Gompa. The nuns there are quite charming (and daring in the face of Chinese occupation), and after a few of the students and I made a spectacular trek up to the ancient meditation caves above the nunnery (where Kunkyen Longchen Rabjam wrote his masterwork of poetry, the Seven Treasures), one of the nuns requested a ride back to Lhasa City with us. We agreed, and on the return journey she explained to me that she was going to Lhasa to meet her Guru, A.dz.m Rinpoche. She invited me to come along, and I heartily agreed.

The confusion of the modern Chinese city of Lhasa, courtesy http://p.vtourist.com.

Back in Lhasa, I gave the students the evening off, and at about 7pm set out into Lhasa with my new nun friend, to try to find Lama A.dz.m Rinpoche's residence. After some confusion with the locals and the taxi driver, we found his compound in northeast Lhasa. He wasn't there; he'd taken a day trip to the holy sites of Trigung Til, a few hours west of Lhasa. The nuns there explained that he'd be back in a few hours, wouldn't we stay awhile and wait for him? I agreed, and proceed to pass the evening drinking buttery salty Tibetan tea. At some point a group of nuns and monks began chanting in a sort of main sitting room. I asked if it was alright if I joined to observe, and they invited me in.

Tibetan Buddhists are practitioners of the Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle, an offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism that gradually developed in the middle of the first millinium, in northern India and neighboring areas. Among many other things, Vajrayana Buddhists negotiate with the spirit-world on behalf their parishioners and rely on protection and guidance from benevolent deities, through the means of (often elaborate) offering rituals. If the particular deity is of wrathful character, they will not be satisfied with mere offerings of food, light, incense, water and music: they require at least some meat (not in the form of blood sacrifice like what is practiced by Tantric Hindus in ritual offerings to the wrathful forms of Shiva and the Mother Goddess, but rather ideally a bit of meat that comes from an animal that died a natural death) and alcohol.

The wrathful Buddhist Dharma protector Palden Lhamo (Shri Devi), courtesy www.thangka.ru.

If they don't have a special temple and practitioner designated specifically for the task, certain members of most Tibetan Buddhist communities generally gather in the evenings for offering rituals to the protector deities of their lineage, monastery and location. It is believed that these deities have power over the mundane world, and can prevent calamity or clear obstacles for the community. The gathering of about forty nuns and ten monks at A.dz.m Pay.lo Rinpoche's residence was at first no different at first from any of the dozens of protector rituals that I've observed in India, Nepal or Tibet.

The room in the modern building was quite spacious, with nice wooden floors, and sparsely furnished. The nuns sat on the floor in a tight group in the middle of the room on the side of the door, with most of the monks separated on the far wall, while five senior monks sat on cushions in the front of the room. One played the cymbals while another beat a portable ritual drum. No one, not even the head lama (a sagely looking man of about sixty, with a classic kung-fu style wispy mustache, that grew and came down only in the sides of his mouth), made any indication about my presence. I was the only layperson, and sat down next to the door a few feet behind the nuns.

After about forty-five minutes of continuous chanting, one of the nuns in the front of their group began rocking back and forth and wheezing with increased intensity. I thought she was possibly hyperventilating or having some kind of seizure, perhaps set off by the how tightly close the nuns were sitting or from chanting constantly for the better part of an hour, and wondered why no one made an attempt to bring her outside. After a few minutes of heavier gasping and more intense jerks, she suddenly stood up, both the middle and ring fingers of her hands seemed to be locked to her palms with the other fingers outstretched. One of her knees was bent, and her other leg and foot were rigidly extended. One nun and one monk took off their upper robe and tied it around her torso, in order to support her and to control her. Her face displayed an extremely angry countenance, and her eyes were glaring around wildly. She began to spin and jump around the center of the room.

At this point, another nun stood up in the back, who I hadn't noticed. She was shaking irregularly, and seemed to be on the verge of tears. Her hands were also locked in the same gesture, and a nun next to her also bound her by the waist with her robe for support. She gradually moved into the center of the room. Someone got up and closed and locked the door.

I must admit I was quite frightened at this time. I felt an extremely cold sensation briefly a few times, and although I didn't actually think anything was going to happen to me, I noticed a great amount of apprehension rising in my stomach. A.dz.m Rinpoche's sister, who is a teacher in her own right and lovingly referred to as Jetsun-ma, came to me and said in Tibetan, "Our protectors (srungma) have decended!" I said that I understood, and she nodded reassuringly. The head monk then addressed the room, towards a group of younger nuns who seemed as shocked as I felt. He said matter-of-factly in Tibetan, "Don't be afraid, our protectors have come to tell us our obstacles."

The first nun that stood up began yelling exasperatedly to the crowd of nuns. I couldn't understand her very well, but she seemed to be warning the group about the importance of practicing the Dharma well, and of upholding their particular lineages well. After a few minutes of this, the head monk said loudly and clearly to the inhabited nuns, "If you are truly our protector deities, then you will identify yourselves and tell us our future obstacles." The first nun said that she was Palden Lhamo, and the second, although talking very softly, identified herself as Dorje Yudronma. The monks and nuns continued chanting the protector offering ritual prayers. The translator Richard Barron, in a footnote to the book Delog: Journey to Realms Beyond Death (the amazing autobiographical account of the notable visionary Delog Dawa Drolma), writes: "Dorje Yundronma is one of the twelve tanma goddesses who have sworn to protect the Buddhist religion and the Tibetan nation."

After dancing and twirling around the center of the room a bit, they began making prophesies to the head monk. It was difficult for me to understand what they were saying, but I could make out some phrases like, "I and obstacle, I see something red, something large and red, in the road..." and so forth. At one point Dorje Yudronma began talking quickly in a low voice, and the head monk got up, putting his head beside hers, listening intently to what she had to say. This continued for about ten minutes, as everyone else sat in silent observation. After they had been inhabited for about twenty-minutes, the head monk began telling the deities that it was time to go, by saying things like, "be careful on your journey ahead," and "thank you, go slowly." He hung a long white ceremonial scarf around each of the nuns's necks, which symbolizes a positive connection, and sat back down. The protector deities, in the bodies of the nuns, made three long slow prostrations to the head monk, re-offering their allegience and taking refuge in the Three Jewels (the Buddha, his teachings, and his community of practitioners). They then gave the scarves back to the head lama, and continued to shout and dance sporatically.

After a few more minutes, the head monk abruptly told everyone to leave. People seemed confused. He had decided the obstacle-prediction and clearing ritual was over. The monks and nuns filed out the front door, and they took Dorje Yundroma away out the front. Some Tibetans that had been waiting outside bowed reverently to the embodied protector deity. Some other nuns brought Palden Lhamo upstairs to retire.

I was struck how most of the older nuns and monks were totally unsurprised by this whole affair, as if it were a rather common thing.

I ate a hurried dinner, and left the compound to meet some of the students at a local Tibetan stage show bar. I didn't want to leave, but they begged me to accompany them (these places can be quite seedy). I found them after some time, but couldn't get that interested in the show. After an hour and a half, I left them at the show, as they seemed quite comfortable and were only about a five minute walk from our hotel. I returned to A.dz.m Rinpoche's compound to wait for his arrival.

His car finally arrived in Lhasa after 2am that night. I was allowed in his room to meet him personally at about 2.30am, since I was a foreigner. The nun I came with probably waited much longer to see him. I experienced the typical fear and apprehension I have when going to meet realized masters, but after a few moments of introducing myself I calmed down, and allowed myself to relax into his amazingly powerful presence. When he realized my Tibetan was good, and that I'd been a student of meditation for a few years, he sent everyone else out of the room and we had a very intimate and affectionate conversation for about ten minutes. He kept telling me how happy he was to meet me, and I almost started crying a few times. He gave me some advice about prayer and meditation, and a new name, and we exchanged some small gifts a few times. He had an incredible amount of youthful energy, for such a large middle-aged man in the middle of the night.

A.dz.m Pay.lo Tulku Rinpoche, from Kham, Tibet. Photo courtesy of Dawn Mountain, the Buddhist Center in Houston Texas.

I was tired, but very sad to have to finally leave him. I wanted to sit in his room all night, just catching his vibe, but he had to leave at 6am the next day, and still had a long line of Tibetan nuns, monks and layfolk to meet before maybe catching an hour or two of sleep. I felt guilty about taking so much of his time, so excused myself, finally.

It was a day filled with great adventure, on a trip that was not altogether easy or hassle-free. I look forward to having the great blessing of meeting A.dz.m Pay.lo Rinpoche again in the future, and perhaps even to meet the very real and powerful benevolent protector spirits. I'm also grateful to my first teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, Anne C. Klein, for initially allowing this blossoming connection to arise.

The Wisdom of the Guru Continually Presents Itself to the Willing

2007-08-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

i am humbled to count this amazing young man, Phagchog Tulku Rinpoche, as my Teacher (with a capital 'T'). He lives in Kathmandu as well, and I have been a student of meditation and prayer under him for 3 and a half years now. He has meant the world to me, and i pray that all of you with interest will have an opportunity to meet him some day.

so it has been some time since i updated this self-absorbed neo-colonialist narrative (without an ending: the worst kind) that entertains the fantasy of authentic participation, my apologies. i have two things to blame, the first is a certain attitude of procrastination which infects all but the best of us at times (see 'mountains beyond mountains' about Paul Farmer for an exception), and the second is the friendly Party i went to visit: the communist one of china. the blog was firewalled or something in the people's republic.

my uncle thinks my syntactical and grammatical styles hint that i am the reincarnation of e.e. cummings. today i will try to cultivate this latent karmic tendency.

as the
words
of other blogs
fell
across the p a g e,

i took the Passage summer tibetan studies students on a two week busy tour of Lhasa roundabouts, and a roadtrip back over the central plateau to Kathmandu. we visited many big monasteries, and some smaller nunneries, and some Relatively insignificant historical Chapels which caused some of my students to ask me questions about the strange buzzing non-sound which came into their bodies through their foreheads or erupted in their chest (some of you know what i'm talking about), to which i could only reply things like, "isn't the yellow of the mustard seed fields in the distance a lovely contrast to the deep blue of the low hanging sky and the reds splattered on the cliffsides?" to be honest i am no such poet in personal conversation, but secretly that is how i felt: after all, such experience with proprioception of the movement of subtle wind energy through the yogic channels, catalyzed by the residual power of great meditation masters in holy places of pilgrimage and devotion, can't really be expressed so easily.

the students have now for the most part left asia, but i have taken my leave of them and my beloved second hometown of Kathmandu. although today quite Smith/Rosene styley missed my morning flight to delhi and had to catch a different afternoon one to keep my plan on track.
FUCK THE PLAN AND THE TRACK ITS ON! excuse me, last week i read the charles BuKOwskI novel 'women' and it has gotten into my writing too. well, minus the alcoholism part, considering the

one year anniversary of me being totally sober is coming up in a few days!

i feel like there should be some kind of wild drunken sex party to celebrate this, but rather, i'm meeting the New Orleanian group of Loyola University students with the LHA in mcleod ganj (dharamsala, himachal pradesh, india india india) tomorrow and i guess that will be as close as i get to my old friend Bacchus for now, since i'm going continue with the sobriety for a few more months.

today as was sitting in a traffic jam on the ring road around kathmandu, which had been caused by the very minor collision of a 'microbus' (gutted van filled with benches and self-pitying pukey Nepalis) and a bus, next to the Great Temple of Lord Shiva Pashupatinath, something caught my eye. it was a rather unattractive grizzled dark face. i had been admiring the organizational skill of Indians, who often travel in Tibet and Nepal in huge fleets of rented buses or SUV's, in groups of well over one hundred, as there was about 8 big tourist buses of chatty dark skinned plains-folk aiding in the general mayhem and confusion of motor vehicles (which in the end was the secondary cause which caused me to miss my flight, the primary being overconfidence given to a young man who has been reading too much BuKowSKi). i glanced up at the window, our car was slowly passing the bus, when an Indian Man of middle age looked at me. he was wearing an orange cloth wrapped around his upper body (all that i could see), and was certainly on a Holy Shaivite Pilgrimage to the Holy Temple of Lord Shiva Pashupatinath on the Holy Bagmati River that runs through the unique and, naturally Holy Mandala of the Kathmandu Valley.

for a long moment

we both made no expression, and i smiled a little, and he did too, but we didn't smile in a big idiotic way. but the "i'm filled with devotion to the Guru while stuck in this traffic jam and i can see that you are also filled with devotion to the Guru while you are stuck in this traffic jam too, smile," Bhakti devotion love smile style. the cool little known secret about devotion is that is is a doorway to Non-conceptual wisdom, which can be shared for a few minutes (it was a real jam) with a total stranger, because non-duality lacks all boundaries, being formless.

it was like TRUE LOVE on a dusty road.

anyway, on a different note i visited our monks in chapagaon yesterday to give them some gifts of 50 pounds of roasted barley flour from tibet, and dried cheese, and candy, and yak meat sweets. we played a little bit, and i said goodbye to Vajravarahi, because it will be at least two months before i see her, and i'm grateful to my protectors.
that may sound like a strange statement to make, but my respect and belief in protector spirits has changed a lot since i saw my first 'spirit possession' while in Tibet last week, and it was POWERFUL and SCARY AS SHIT and TOTALLY REAL.

so i don't mean to brag but Paul Farmer (via the book mountains beyond mountains) inspired me to let you know that
i've been working this last month and am in India to do some more work, and have saved some money with the fulbright, and so i gave ALL THE MONEY i made from my job to monks and nuns in Nepal to support them in their efforts to do meditation retreats, and to the passage program, which is deserving.

i've got my laptop with me on this trip so will be updating some pretty pictures and details in a few days.

om ah hung vajra guru padma siddhi hung!

Around the Wet Kathmandu Valley with the Passage Students

2007-07-09T03:58:00.000-07:00

In Boudhanath, Kathmandu:

Rice transplanting underway in my neighborhood Boudha on the east side of Kathmandu. Before the monsoon, rice is planting in tight bunches in a small section of the field, and when they reach about 10 inches are transplanted into rows in the flooded field. As you can see, new residential construction is rapidly replacing the rice paddy in the Kathmandu Valley.

Local women carrying hay from the community-owned forest in the hills north of Kathmandu. This is the method that 95% of Nepalis transport goods, and usually women collect fodder to bring back for the animals.

Nyungnay (Simple Living) Retreat at Nagi Gompa:

A nun walking around the inside of the lhakhang (chapel) at Nagi Gompa during the Nyungnay fasting retreat in May. I attended two sets of two-day fasting retreats, which include one meal only on the first day. During the retreat, the practitioners begin chanting prayers and making prostrations at 4am, until 6pm. In this fasting practice, no one is allowed to speak, drink water or even swallow their spit, as well as observing the 8 vows (no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sex, no intoxicants, no purfume/jewelry, no eating while fasting, and no sitting on high seats).

Here Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is ordaining two Nepali young women (one Tamang, one Newar) to be novice nuns, at Nagi Gompa, on May 31, 2007.

My friend the Newari (Maharjan) monk, Lama Monlam. Lama Monlam has been a monk since he was 14 (56 years ago) at Nagi Gompa, on the northern slope of the Kathmandu Valley rim. He has spent many years in solitary meditation retreat, and now has his own small gompa (monastery) near Swayambhu on the west side of Kathmandu.

Passage Project for International Education, Summer tour:

I brought our Passage students to see Lama Tsering Wangdu, a realized master of meditation and ritual. He threw dice to divine the most karmically appropriate Tibetan name for each student. Lama Wangdu will be traveling to the United States in about a month for a few months, see if you can catch him in New York, Boston, Portland, Seattle or one of the other cities he'll visit!

A semi-traditional Newari wedding scene, with each the bride's and bridegroom's families' brahmin priests standing by to conduct their parts of the ritual union. Our Passage students attended this wedding (and I think a few may have gone to the after party...) as a culturally enriching experience.

The very beautiful Newari bride (Yanik Srestha's cousin for those who know him) in all her finery, trying not to cry. I've noticed that many South Asian brides shed tears at their weddings. I don't think it's an indictment of the men, but rather the sadness of moving away from the joint-family home of their parents into that of their husbands.

A traditional folk band at the wedding.

An amazing collection of traditional wooden Newari hookha. Newar men have been fond of the sheesha for many generations.

Chapgaon Monastery:

One of the many beautiful trees that grow in Nepal, next to the unpainted gateway of the monastery in Chapagaon.

Some village women chanting prayers together in the monastery in Chapagaon. They meet every morning, and nowadays since the weather is pleasant there are about fifteen that assemble. It is interesting to me that they they chant devotional prayers in Tibetan (Guru Rinpoche, Amitabha), some dharani and mantra in Sanskrit, and then sing devotional hymns in Newari language.

July's Cute Monk Photo:

Our Newar monk Ngedun Gyatsho (Ocean of True Meaning) playing a game on one of our youngest, Rangjung Dorje (Naturally Arisen Diamond).

Exporting with a Cause

2007-07-04T01:14:00.000-07:00

Next week I will be sending a few cubic meters of manufactured items from Kathmandu to New Orleans via Sea Cargo. It should take about two months for the boxes to be driven to the coast in India, and slowly make a journey halfway circumnavigating the earth to our favorite dirty port city.

It will mostly be prayerflags of various sizes, and I'm including some scarves, clothes, wallhangs, doorhangs, prayerbeads, Nepali paper, soap and incense as sample items (to feel out the future market potential) and as gifts.

In the future I hope to set up regular shipments of certain items to raise awareness and money for the education of monks and nuns in Nepal. I have worked closely with both the Khari nuns in Tramo village, Khumbu Nepal, and the monks at the Vajravarahi monastery in Chapagaon, Nepal. We have already begun to teach higher Buddhist philosophy to the nuns in the mountains. It is rare for nuns to study philosophy here. I am also already sponsoring one lama to complete a traditional three year mediation retreat, and hope to continue doing so. We are also hoping to turn the monastery in Chapagaon into a training center for monk translators of Tibetan to French, German, Chinese, English, Spanish, Nepali and Newari.

Otherwise, I've been spending my time helping out our six summer Passage students and working on a Tibetan translation for some Nepali Dharma friends.

Translations and Red Beans

2007-06-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

I have been busy lately with an ongoing translation project from the Tibetan (an explanation of the four main festivals of the Buddhist calendar that are associated with the Buddha's life), assisting six students from North America as a co-coordinator for the Passage Project , and some personal study, contemplation and meditation.

Last night the students and some other friends came over to my apartment for dinner, I cooked red beans (with some black beans and blackeyed peas) with okra and rice for them, a spicy taste of southern Louisiana in Kathmandu. More people ended up eating than I expected, I think 16 people enjoyed rice with us together. A big family!

Thanks to the Passage Blog for this photo!

Last weekend we organized a two day meditation course for our Passage students at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Boudhanath. Khenpo Sherab Dorje was kind enough to teach Shamatha (cultivating concentration calmly) in the mornings, and I sat next to him as the translator. It was my first experience translating from Tibetan in a formal teaching. I felt like I did an OK job, not so many glaring errors and it seemed quite natural and comfortable. Besides being a great learning experience, my drive to study Tibetan has increased.

For the sake of all beings!

Summer Tibetan Passage Program

2007-06-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

So our six summer Tibetan Passage Program students have arrived in Kathmandu, and I've been busy helping them with an orientation program in the town of Bhaktapur and moving them into their homestay families today in Boudha. They are enthusaistic and open; I think the six weeks we will be together will be a fun learning experience for them, as well as myself. Although my job title is coordinator, I honestly consider myself a student on the program as well.

In a month I will have the distinct pleasure of escorting the group on a two week trip through central Tibet (U Tsang).

In the meantime I am busy living in Boudha, working for the program as a co-coordinator and assistant Tibetan teacher. I am also deep into another side project, translating a short text about the four main ritual festivals in the Tibetan calendar year. I hope to have it finished before we leave for Lhasa Tibet on July 13. A group of Nepali (Newar Buddhists) have requested me to translate it from the Tibetan for them so that they can translate it into Nepali to make a book for general distribution this summer.

I'm also still working on improving the education at our monastery in Chapagaon. I've been charged with introducing basic instruction in international languages to select groups of monks. We are looking desperately for teachers and volunteers in Nepal for English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese languages. We also need a variety of language study materials like easy to read books, magazines, comic books, CD's, DVD's, kids books, etc. New or Used is fine. Actually, if you have any of this kind of old lanugage study stuff lying around or want to help out and purchase something, you can send it to the following adress, and we would all be extremely grateful:

VajraVarahi Gompa
PO Box 12212
Chapagaon, Lalitpur, Nepal
00977 1 5570037
00977 1 2334837
00977 9851003819

please include the phone numbers on the address. Thanks!

Urgyen Tulku Rinpoche

2007-06-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

Haven't had much time for posting as I am working on a public presentation that I will give tomorrow (June 6) from 5pm to 6.30. It will be at the Fulbright Commission Auditorium in Ganeshwor, in Kathmandu. The topic of the forum will be "The Influence of Himalayan Buddhism on the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley: Is There a Newar Buddhist Revival?" and I will be basically giving a slideshow of many of the pictures I took over the past 9 months doing research in Kathmandu. It will mainly cover the various case study sites I have been visiting, some history and a few observations (the Cultural Buddhist Anthropology part). The photo below is one (that I didn't take) that I will be putting in the slideshow. I think it is touching.

A picture of Urgyen Tulku Rinpoche at Nagi Gompa, probably taken in the early nineties. Besides his humility and unassuming personality, his special quality was that he spent up to half of his life in retreat doing intense personal meditation practice.

Holy Places, Farms, and Tiny Balls of Shit

2007-05-27T01:39:00.002-07:00

Bandipur Travel Program Development Trip:

The town of Bandipur. Tina and Yanik, the other two summer Passage Program coordinators, and I went on a two day program development trip here this week. We are going to bring our students there for four days this summer. The town is charming, and the locals have even made their main bazaar pedestrian only, which has transformed the place from another dusty loud market area to a quiet evening playground for children. I will have more on this place in July, when we go with the students.

I climbed up the big hill north of Bandipur on our last day there for sunrise. I actually made it up there before the sun. It was very peaceful. This is a bell hanging next to the Tanimai temple on top of the hill, taken in the pre-dawn light.

The Spring of Enlightenment:

The trail from the road up to the Chumig Changchup (Spring of Enlightenment). I spontaneously decided to go for a short little pilgrimage up to this very holy meditation place of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), on our way back from Bandipur. I had to wait awhile for a bus, and ended up hitching a 3 hour ride on the top of a Nepal Oil Corporation Tanker truck up to Daman. I got up before sunrise to make the 30 minute hike to the spring from the lodge. The place is known as Rikeshwar to the Hindus, who associate any figure holding a trisul (trident), like Padmasambhava does, with Siva.

The lower side of the small Chumig Changchup gompa (monastery). I had some better photos but I deleted them, which really irritated me for about 3 seconds, but I let it go, realizing that I'd have to just go back and take more photos later. After all, it's only about 4 hours from Kathmandu.

The face of Padmasambhava in the rock face above the holy spring, which is said to have spontaneously emanated by itself. It is in this little indention that he is said to have spent some time in meditation retreat as he was on his way up to Parphing in the Kathmandu Valley. The story I was told is that after attaining a meditative realization, he took his purba (ritual dagger) and jabbed it down into the cliff. From that spot a spring spontaneously began to flow. He then climbed up on top of the hill and ritually subjugated the local female spirits, binding them by oath to protect the Buddhadharma (teachings of the Buddha) and all that uphold it in that place. It then became a sacred spot ideal for meditation retreat.

A self portrait, taken on top of the oil tanker on the way up to Chumig Changchup.

Farm Life:

Typical terraced farming in the hills of rural Nepal. The Nepalis have been experts at hand-carved terraced farms for centuries.

Here some resourceful Nepali hill farmers have taken bamboo staves and made a vast latticework over their terraced fields. Cucumbers, which grow very quickly and take over a large amount of land (and rot on the ground if you don't pick them in time), will climb up to the top of the lattice and spread over it in a few weeks. At that time, the farmer can just walk under the lattice and pick the vegetables as they hang down.

While staying in Bandipur we took a day hike to a local Magar village, Ramkot. It is famous for its traditional round houses with thatched roofs. In the village, which was quite dry, there was a good bit of intentionally cultivated ganja (cannabis, marijuana, hemp) growing nearby animal pens. I have been to a number of small farms in this country, and many of them harvest the mature buds off of the ganja plants. They take these buds and grind them up, and then...
they mix it up with hay and leaves as a medicinal food for their water buffalo, cows, goats and sheep when they are having stomach problems (apparently it cures indigestion, appetite problems, constipation and loose motion). It is technically illegal to grow it in Nepal, but it is overlooked for the small farmers.

On the way back from Ramkot, I noticed these little guys having a rolling good time in a pile of cowshit on the trail. These are dung beetles (scarab beetles) preparing some sweet evening snacks to bring home.

Some Things May Last a Long Time

2007-05-21T04:14:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Lee and Chokey!

Lee and Chokey Rostosky, friends who were married last week. Lee is from Philadelphia, Chokey is from a Tibetan family in Nepal. Congratulations, Tashi Delek Bumsumtsok!

Me with local activist Sakya Suren and the historian/retired politician Bhuwan Lal Pradhan. I have sponsored a translation of Bhuwan Lal Pradhan's history of the Vajravarahi temple in Chapagaon, which we will edit and publish in English this summer, for the sake of the local tourists, volunteer workers and researchers who cannot read Nepali easily (like me!)

Some Tibetan Art:

One of two similar thangkas (Tibetan scroll paintings) that I had commissioned recently from a family of Tibetan artists I know. The central figure is Samantabhadra/Kuntu Sangpo (All Excellent One), who represents the Dharmakaya Buddha, the truth body of the Buddha. The bottom left image is of Vajrasatva/Dorje Sempa (Adamantine One), who represents the Sambhogakaya Buddha, the psycho-cosmic body of the Buddha. The bottom right image is of Padmasambhava/Guru Rinpoche, who represents the Nirmanakaya Buddha, the emanation body of the Buddha that is physically born on earth to help people. All three images are in "playful union," representing the inseparability of wisdom and compassion, or wisdom and method, or emptiness and appearance.

The monk Rabjam Sangpo holding up the veil curtain to the thangka painting. The thangka is typically matted in stylized silk, with a veil to cover it if desired. I usually keep the thangka veiled, since it is esoteric in subject.

There is a beautiful simplicity to the beginning stage of the thangka painting, basic line drawing.

View from the roof of the monastery in Chapagaon of the himalayan mountains to the north, shrouded in clouds.

Burnt Offerings of Various Sorts:

Here Lama Wangdu and the monks and ngagpas (lay Buddhist tantric adepts) are circumambulating the fire where a great variety of various substances were ritually offered to the peaceful and wrathful deities on behalf of the deceased.

Lama Wangdu wearing a black bird hat. I think this has something to do with a death ritual where there were symbolic offerings made of the ego of all present to the birds, but I'm not sure at all on that point, I'd have to do a little research.

A particularly nice burnt offering chimney at the Norling Resort, where Lee and Chokey were married. On many occasions (before rituals, on holy days, at high places like passes, on the roof, etc.) various fragrant herbs and auspicious substances like white flour will be offered to the buddhas, bodhisatvas, protectors and local spirits who either enjoy the flavour or can gain sustanance from the fumes, oftentimes to placate beings who could possibly have malicious intentions.

Lee Rotosky, the groom, offering fragrant herbs (like juniper) to the burnt offering fire.

Some Work, Some Play:

Me on my Royal Enfield Indian Bullet 350cc motorcycle in my suit after Lee and Chokey's wedding.

A few days ago one of the older monks arranged a football (soccer) match against a local team in Chapagaon. We drove about 4 kilometers down to Sunakothi town, where there was this fantastic field (large flat open spaces with grass are quite rare in Kathmandu), with a beautiful panorama of the Kathmandu Valley rim mountains. I played sweeper, because in Nepal I am the huge guy with the strong kick, compared to the skinny short Nepalis. It was fun, we tied 2-2.

Cute Monk Photo of the Week:

Oh how we misunderstand!

2007-05-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

This blog of a fellow traveler in Asia, Chad Mast's World Race for Jesus demonstrates how some people can still go to a new place distant in culture and space, filled with beauty and an ancient spiritual tradition, completely misunderstand it and attempt to destroy it.

This activity has been labeled as "religious terrorism" by a friend of a friend.

Unfortunately, his view is one that is shared by millions of Americans...

The Monsoon is Coming, Namaste!

2007-05-11T03:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to you from one of the five monks that joined our monastery last week from Ilam district in eastern Nepal!

Monsoon is pretty much upon us here in South Asia, it has been raining a bit each afternoon (raining right now in Kathmandu), and I'm happy as soon we will have cleaner air, real heat, and the bright green of the new growth all over the valley.

Hello! This kid is my friend's nephew. He was at the groundbreaking ceremony I attended yesterday at the site of the future home of the Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods, a Buddhist Studies research institution that I am affiliated with. An short version of the biography of the Khari Lama Lozang Tsultrim that I have been working on will be published in their forthcoming issue of one of their journals, Buddhist Himalaya. The groundbreaking mainly consisted of two Buddhist monks performing an offering ritual to local spirits that could possibly cause obstacles to the success of the construction work, and a feast (typical Newar style, delicious!).

Our youngest, at the tender age of four, who is currently recovering from a mysterious accumulation of fluid in his brain which nearly caused him to die a few weeks ago. He is alive only because of the dedication of some friends, who brought him to a number of different hospitals and dealt with the headache of the Nepali medical infrastructure, which is as disorganized as it is underdeveloped.

This personally demonstrates some of the difficulties of healthcare in the developing world. There is good work being done, like at the local Health Post in Chapagaon.

THE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE AND RESOURCE CENTER IN CHAPAGAON:

The view of the health post, across the road from our monastery in Chapagaon, taken from our roof. Photo courtesy of PHCRC.

The Health Post serves a large community with a variety of basic services. Here a local baby is gettin' shots. Photo courtesy of PHCRC.

Weighing a baby at the current well-baby clinic. The health post is currently involved in an ambitious fund raising campaign to built a new 10 bed birthing center (big for this area). Nepal has the second highest incidence of maternal fatality during birth. My aunt and uncle from Houston visited the clinic on their whirlwind tour of Kathmandu in December, and were touched by the good work (with such limited resources), so generously donated some money. Photo courtesy of PHCRC.

Some of the lovely nursing staff at a nutrition education clinic.

GIVING BACK THROUGH ENGLISH LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION:

Yours truly engaged in a morning power-English session.

My bright young students ready to absorb the fascinating nuances of English grammar and pronunciation. They are progressing well.

STUPA PHOTO OF THE WEEK:

A photo of the great stupa Boudhanath on Buddha Jayanti festival, the previous full moon day. Nearby this holy site is where I will make my home for the summer as I work with the non-profit Passage Project for International Education.

CUTE MONK PHOTOS OF THE WEEK:

An exciting burlap sack race at yesterday's picnic with our 52 monks, at the beautiful Godavari Botanical Gardens, south of Kathmandu.

Some of the young ones.

One of our eight-year old twins, Jigme Sherab (Fearless Wisdom), brother of Jigme Nyingje (Fearless Compassion). From one source they become two!

Here one of the five-year-olds is looking clueless about pretty much everything. One day, with a little effort, he will come to understand so much...

A young one with our only monk from India, a Tamang from Darjeeling.

As if I haven't put up enough pictures of monks oozing with cute...

Goodnight!Last night's sunset from the roof of our monastery.

The Biography of the Khari Lama

2007-05-03T03:16:00.000-07:00

The great Tibetan Buddhist yogi Khari Lama Lozang Tsultrim

I've posted the most recent version of a research project that I worked on in the spring of 2004 and summer of 2005 while in Boudha, Kathmandu and Khumbu district Nepal (Everest region). I hope to one day make a proper book of the biography, but for now am happy to make it available to the online community at www.livejournal/users/kilgoresmith.

Feel free to check it out, and leave a suggestion!

Happy Buddha Jayanti!

2007-05-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

Today is the full moon of the month of Vaisakh in the Buddhist Lunar Calendar, and is celebrated as the anniversary of the Buddha Shakyamuni's birth, death and enlightenment. As such, it is considered to be the most holy day in the annual Buddhist ritual calendar. Although the Tibetans consider this day (Saga Dawa'i Tsewa Jo Nga) to be next month, let us not split hairs and yell out a hearty Buddha Saranam Gacchami (I go for refuge in the Buddha) if we feel so inclined, like the marching school kids have been this afternoon:

This morning for the full moon, we performed a feast offering ceremony at the monastery in Chapagaon. It was the first time many of the young monks participated in this particular ceremony, or even attended it. They requested me to sponsor it, and I heartily agreed, $60USD well spent, if you ask me, as I have a connection with the ritual: the Lama's Heartpractice Which Dispels All Obstacles, the Essence of Enlightened Activity (bla ma tugs sgrub bar che kun gsal sphrin las snying po gshugs), a short version of an offering feast to the protectors and dakinis combined with an essential tantric practice involving the meditation and recitation of Guru Rinpoche, Avalokitesvara (Compassion) and Amitayus (Long-life).

Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche (The Precious Master), was the historical Tantric super-adept who is credited with bringing the esoteric form of Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th Century. Many rituals in the school of the Earlier Translations (Nyingma) involve visualizations of him, who is considered to be inseparable with the Buddha and one's own teacher.

One of our twelve year olds, Jigme, reading prayers this morning in assembly.

A local Chapagaoni sitting calmly in meditation during this morning's rituals.

IN OTHER CHAPAGAON GOMPA NEWS, last week His Eminence Phagchog Rinpoche spent the night at the monastery. He had a nice opportunity to interact with the monks: Rinpoche gave some teaching, made offerings to the assembly, and had time to watch some evening futbol matches.
Phagchog Rinpoche meeting with the monks.

Phagchog Rinpoche chatting with the monks.

We also developed plans to give specialized language training to monks that show promise as translators for the future. We have selected two for Newari and Nepali language, two for Chinese, two for English, two for French, two for Spanish and two for German. It will be a challenge to find suitable teachers that can come to Chapagaon for the monks, but we will work hard now to plant the seed of these languages in their young minds, so that in the future they can become expert translators. That said, if anyone wants to come and live out in Chapagaon Nepal for a while as a specialized language instructor you are most welcome!

In Celebration of New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival: Parades!

2007-04-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Dustin' off the mitts after a bit of climbin'.

Oh I am missing my Jazzfest these days!

Although my experience of parades and religious processions of various sorts in Nepal cannot compare to what I've witnessed (and done) on the streets of New Orleans during the magnificent celebration of the pre-Lent carnival anticipating Mardi Gras, two parades last week reminded me of the fun of getting out in the street, maybe a little drunk, to beat some drums and yell and throw things at God for whatever reason, in whatever form, may it be Bacchus or Rato Macchendranath or the Buddha.

MERIT BUILDING PROCESSION BY THE BARAGAON VILLAGERS:

Shot taken from my balcony looking north towards the Kathmandu Valley. A line of about five hundred Newari villagers from nearby Baregaon coming to make offerings to the images of the Buddha in our monastery. The villagers have recently erected a new stupa (reliquary mound built as a basis for worship for future practitioners), and to commemorate the great even they walked on an all-day long procession to all of the surrounding villages to have darshan (holy vision) of the images of the Buddhas and other dieties and to make offerings to gain merit.

The local lovelies: Newar women wearing their traditional black saris.

Beat them drums! The wicker tray on the ground is the pile of offered rice, coins, food, candy, candles, incense, etc. given by the villagers in circuit.

THE FESTIVAL OF THE BODHISATVA KARUNAMAYA/ RATO MACCHENDRANATH:

The chariot of the red Karunamaya (popularly known as Rato Macchendranath).

The wheels of the chariot go round and round... slowly, some days not at all. When Karunamaya comes to your neighborhood, it is important for your family to provide a feast for all visitors (friends and relatives from other places), and to generally party. I dropped by the large family of some Newar Dharma friends of mine, and was forced to eat a plate of 6 kinds of blessed food from a ritual and then a 10 course feast tray. If I hadn't been vegetarian, it would have been a 14 course meal!

Ganesh, the obstacle clearer, is probably the most ubiquitous deity dwelling in the Kathmandu Valley, and here he is (as is common) enshrined on the streetside in the form of a rock that resembles an elephant head.

A local village low-caste girl (who I mistook as a boy at first) waiting by the pile of offered food as the offering procession goes by. She patiently sat there until the monks gave her some of the food, and she happily skipped away. A beautiful but hardened face for the young age.

Here the great chariot has run amok into the neighborhood homes, and a crane is pulling it loose from the roof. The locals won't fix the chariot until it falls completely over (which is as dangerous as it sounds, people die in this festival all the time), so it is still marooned in Jyatha Bahal as far as I know, inching along as the locals heave on the massive ropes, taking windows and watertanks with it.

A lovely stupa in pastel colors, near the Sundhara (Golden Waterspout) in Jyatha Bahal, Patan.

Every festival has its vendor of gaudy Chinese toys! This guy is probably wearing all white as he is in mourning for one of his parents.

CUTE MONKS PHOTOS OF THE WEEK:

Living in the monastery has truly tested my personal boundaries. I thought living with my brothers in a New Orleans Mid-city shotgun house was bad. I no longer have any privacy at all. The little monks come in my room whenever they like (I can't lock it as they have to come through to gain access to the roof). They take small things as they like (vitamins, incense, lighters, matches, water bottles, candles, clippers, razors, etc., which can be aggravating at times. I can't blame them, though. They share everything and don't realize that everyone doesn't always share everything. Anyway, a few of the monks found my camera and had some fun, about which I didn't discover until uploading the photos on the computer. Luckily for us, they took a couple of good ones, including this glamour photo of Rabjam, age 14.

The monk Ratna Mangalam, one of my best English students, teaching one of the new monks from Ilam, Nepal, how to read the Tibetan script.

The Illustrious Lama Tsering Wangdu Norbu Rinpoche of Langkor

2007-04-25T20:34:00.001-07:00

In honor of today being the tenth day of the Lunar Calendar, ie. ten days after the new moon (tsewa gye, dasami), I am offering today's post to one of my gurus, Lama Wangdu.

Lama Wangdu's biography has been collected by Dharma brother Joshua Waldman, a fellow University of Wisconsin Year Abroad in Nepal alum, and can be uploaded for free at LamaWangdu.org.

I took this photo the day before yesterday at an obstacle clearing/ purification ritual performed at the director of the Passage Project's house (the non-profit experiential education program that I work for), to drive out negative forces from the area.

He is from Langkor in South Central Tibet, although he now lives near the great stupa Boudhanath. He is one of the very few lineage holders of the teachings of Phadampa Sangye, the Pacification of Suffering Lineage. As on other important days in the Lunar Calendar (10th, 15th, 25th, etc.) he holds chod offering rituals at his monastery. Being from nearby the birthplace of Macig Lapdron, and having received and accomplished the expansive and profound lineage of chod with the illustrious master Naptra Rinpoche, his performance of chod is well known as very powerful and effective.

We are happy that his lineage continues to spread with ease around Nepal and the rest of the world, as he is associated with centers all over the globe, especially in the USA, at Nityananda in Portland Oregon (which I had the pleasure of visiting last year) and with Rudra Press, which offers some awesome audio/visual media of Lama Wangdu teaching and performing chod.

Excerpts from my translation work

2007-04-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

When I have some free time in the afternoons (which seems seldom) I pick up a Tibetan text that I have been slowly translating for the last 2 years. It is ahttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif commentary by a nineteenth century Khampa Nyingma Lama nicknamed Chokyi Dragpa, on the Preliminary Practices of the , a set of progressive meditation techniques designed to prepare and acquaint the mind for future Tantric meditation practice. The Longchen Nyingthig is a treasure revealed by the All Knowing Jigme Lingpa, whose portrait is below.

Sections of the prose and poetic inserts are very beautiful and profound in the original Tibetan. Unfortunately I don't have the facility in English to render it in as compelling a way as the author does, but I thought it could be of some interest. Most of what I'm working on is already in English in a translation of a different commentary by Paltrul Rinpoche, the Kunsang Lama'i Shelung, popularly known as the Words of My Perfect Teacher.

from section one of the General Preliminaries, The Difficulty of Finding the Freedoms and Advantages:

There is a technique for protecting your mind from afflictive emotions. As stated in Entering the Conduct:

"With the rope of continuous mindfulness,
If you bind the elephant of mind,
All fears will become nonexistent,
And all virtues will come into your hands."

Your mind is like an elephant or a horse laden with goods, and that mindfulness which observes the virtuous mind of faith and so forth, is like a rope and a post stake. The introspection, which is that which analyzes whether or not you are abiding in the state of that virtuous mind, functions like a shepherd and maintains constant mindful conscientiousness without distraction. Thus, even from holy gurus on down, in order to not be distracted by anything other than their own virtuous mind, having established the body of compassion out of the dharmakaya, they say "I supplicate, look upon me with your wisdom eyes!"

From section two of the General Preliminaries, Mediation on Impermanence:

There are many conditions for death: death through meeting epilepsy, death from being chronically bed-ridden, death by food-poisoning, falling into an abyss, being killed with weapons, and so forth. The time of death cannot be ascertained, like a butter-lamp flickering in the wind, or like baby birds on a tree branch. Thus, after you lay down at night you cannot measure whether or not you will have the causes for waking up the next day. Although you are here this year, there is no certainty about whether or not you will be here next year. Sooner or later, without exception, having abandoned this life you will arrive in the very next world.

From section four of the General Preliminaries, the Faults of Cyclic Existence:

Even in the abodes of the higher realms of gods and men there is not happiness. As said in the Sutra on the Application of Mindfulness,

"Even the very peak of cyclic existence,
Is not a time of happiness."

And also by the Protector Maitreya,

"There is no happiness in the five migrations,
As there is no pleasant smells in an unclean house."

People have the three great root sufferings; the four great rivers of suffering of birth, old-age, sickness and death; the suffering of the apprehension about meeting with enemies; the suffering of apprehension about being separated from loving friends; the suffering of coming down upon the undesirable; and the suffering of not coming right down on top of what is desired.

As it says in the Treasury of Oral Instructions (by Longchen Rabjam),

"Attachment to land and mansions is the iron house of hell,
Children and spouses are a thicket of leaves of swords,
Ornaments and fancy clothing are like blazing tongues of flame,
Food and drink are hammers of burning iron,
Slaves and such are wagers of hell,
Violent anger and fights are like hailstorms of glowing embers,
Act to know the places that destroy virtue and goodness."

From section five of the General Preliminaries, the Way of Relying on a Teacher:

Also, when you rely upon a lama qualified in the meaning and gain experience according to the scriptural explanations on each of the restraints of individual liberation, the enlightenment mind, or mantra; the blessings of the guru and your faith, combined with perseverance, will come together like the meeting of an iron hook and a ring. It will deliver you to the far shore of cyclic existence.
On the other hand, there does not exist a method of deliverance (like being delivered to the far side of a river by a boat or like being not killed by weapons and spared) by the guru to the far shore of cyclic existence that does not necessitate abandoning negative deeds and practicing virtue. If it were that way, since the buddhas look upon all sentient beings with love as their children, they would simultaneously liberate all sentient beings equal to the sky in amount, and would not leave any in the situation of cyclic existence. Since it is said that even the Buddha Shakyamuni did not have a hairs worth of difference regarding his thoughts of compassion and love towards both Devadatta and Rahula, and if compassionate blessings alone could cause liberation, then it would not have been possible for Devadatta to go to the hells. Since that is the case, it is important to gain experience in the way that the Buddha, the guru and the virtuous spiritual friend says. Our Teacher [the Buddha] said, "I have shown you the path of liberation, liberation depends on you; be diligent."

Basically he's saying that your guru will not (cannot) liberate you. You have to work to attain enlightenment yourself. So train train train!

For those interested in the wonderful world of Tibetan translations and translating, check the rich House of the Lotsawa

A Reminder: Death and Impermanence

2007-04-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

This has been a week of death. I heard that today was a national day of mourning at home. My heart and prayers go out to all those affected at VT this week, and to the Nepali families of the four Nepali UN contractors killed in Afganistan. Everything that is born must die. Although that sounds obvious and trite, how much a difference if we pay attention and remember!

Childhood friend and fellow Troop 10 Eagle Scout, Tommy Robinson, should be emerging from the intermediate state between death and rebirth these days. Traditional theories of reincarnation teach that most normal beings spend about 49 days in the intermediate state. He will be missed.

But, with death, comes birth...

And after winter, spring has come to Chapagaon!

...which gives us roses, as well.

Props to Shyam Karki for his photos of Chapagaon, the red rose, and the soaking wet Nepali baby.

Happy Nepali New Year! Nepalko Nayabarsha Subhakamana!

2007-04-19T00:41:00.000-07:00

I've been in Chapagaon at the monastery there for most of the last two weeks. My schedule has been pretty ideal, except that I sleep a little too much I guess. I've been teaching English every morning to the 3rd grade monks, and attending the 2nd grade Tibetan class with them as a student. I'm thinking I can skip up to the 3rd grade class after a few weeks. Back into Kathmandu for the day, for the internet, some lemonade and a few international phone calls, all luxuries unavailable in the village.

Last week brought us the Nepali New Year, welcome to year 2064 of the Bikram Samvat Calandar! I saw it in with some Patan friends with a short pilgrimage:

Actual New Year was spent in Patan, hanging out with some monks friends:

An old temple, in the Shikara style (I think) on a busy street corner. Children play all over it, the motorcycles zip by, and every morning early, before we're out for school or work, neighborhood devotees will come by for some quiet puja to greet the day.

Even in the middle of a city, busy and crowded, dusty and noisy, sometimes if you remember you can look up and catch an awesome display of cloud psychedelia over the skyline.

From the City to the Cheap Showiness of Nature:

After getting up at 5:30am at the Gompa in Patan (south of Kathmandu) to make ritual offerings (ganacakra) to the liberator-ess Arya Tara Bodhisattva, we caught a bus to the base of Shivapuri, the forested mountain north of Kathmandu and hiked up to Nagi Gompa, a nunnery I have blogged about before. The next morning we rose at 4am (not my idea) to head up the mountain to try to again make ritual offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisatvas in the holy site Baghdwar.

At the peak of the Shivapuri mountain, one of the 4 holy mountains that surround the Nepal Mandala (the Kathmandu Valley perceived as a abode of the Bodhisatva...), with a monk from Nangchen, who now lives at the White Monastery in Boudha. For an amazing glimpse into the land of Nangchen in Kham, Tibet, one of the strongholds of the BuddhaDharma in Tibet for hundreds of years, the birthplace of Tulku Orgyen Rinpoche, one of many realized masters of the last century from Nangchen, check out the book Blazing Splendor. This is the best book about Buddhism I've read this year.

BAGDWAR, THE SOURCE OF THE HOLY BAGMATI:

The source of the Bagmati river, after the New Year festival which saw thousands of pilgrims and holiday pleasure seekers (what's the difference, sometimes?).

Offering light to the water spout at Bagdwar.

A local Buddhist tantric practitioner (ngagpa) cleaning out the accumulated offerings of flowers, rice, incense and candles from the Bagdwar spout, the source of the holy Bagmati river in Kathmandu. In South Asia, rivers are very holy for their function of purification, so their sources are even holier, often conceived of as the actual abodes of gods, goddesses and Bodhisatvas.

Second ritual feast offering in two days performed with the Newar friends from Patan, Jyatha Bahal, the sangha at the Padmavarna Mahayana Mahabihar. This group is one of the focuses of my research, because they have completely integrated Tibetan teachings into their traditional style of Newari Buddhism, and they are dedicated practitioners, especially of the SIX PERFECTIONS in daily life.

The main image of the historical Buddha of our age, the Buddha Sakyamuni, in the old hermitage at Bagdwar, near the Shivapuri peak.

Typical offerings to the above statue of Buddha Sakyamuni. Obviously devotees don't actually believe that the statue is going to spend the money or eat the food in a physical sense, but some things are considered auspicious to offer (because they are useful to us, they please the five senses, they are valuable), so by giving them up to the representation of enlightenment it both creates an enormous amount of merit and plants the future seed of enlightenment in our mindstream. The money will be used for the benefit of the hermitage.

THE SELF ARISEN TARA:

We took a side hike from the Bagdwar hermitage near the peak of Shivapuri mountain to have darshan (holy viewing) of Tara. The Newar Dharma brothers and sisters are here straining to see the image of Tara that is naturally emergent from the rock. This site, the confluence of two streams, is the site where Tara first revealed herself and her practice in Kathmandu. See Todd Lewis' Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal for the story.

A photo from below of the "rangjung drolma" or "swayambhu tara," which means "self-arisen Tara." According to tradition, there is an image of Tara on this face of this rock overhang which emerged naturally.

Can you see her now that I've circled the head? Tara is the female Buddha, whose compassionate action is liberation from negative circumstances. For this reason her practice is associated with removing obstacles, specifically those to long-life.

A more traditional portrait of the Bodhisatva the Noble Tara.

A more modern, sexy version of Tara... yeah...

MONKS:

My close monk friend Sakya trying one of the many suitable meditation caves on the Shivapuri mountainside out for a minute.

And finally, your cute monk picture of the week! Oh, the age old game of grab-ass is certainly universal.

Dentistry Revisted in Bungmati

2007-04-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the old Nepal, open the door to Bungmati dental fun, below!

THE VILLAGE BUNGMATI:

The famous (in the Kathmandu Valley) village of Bungmati, home of the compassionate Karunamaya (Rato Matsyendranath, a form of Lokeshwar or Avalokitesvara) who brought rain to Kathmandu back in the day. Still honored with the largest and most important festival here, which marks the beginning of the monsoon every year. This festival is in Patan next week, where I hope to hang out with some local friends to check it out.

A typical Newar style chaitya (more generally known as stupa, a reliquary mound) in Bungamati village.

Above chaitya from a different view, funny how much different everything is from a new perspective. I wonder if our consciousness stream works that way too? Whaddya say, Dignaga?

THE LOCALS:

A local Newar i Bungmati getting his teeth looked at by Alice from Singapore.

I gave my camera to some cute local kids to play with, like I do sometimes with the monks in Chapagaon. My Olympus is made extra durable, so I'm not afraid of it getting broken. I myself have dropped it on rocks in Tibet from about 4 feet up and not a (big) scratch. I've learned that although a lot of the shots are worthless that they take (fingers over the lens, etc), many of them are great and uninhibited, and reflect a great amount of fun.

This local peasant farmer has the most badass Mardi Gras party skirt ever.

One of the very few non-Newari locals that came to the dental camp.

The annual Ngagso Drupchen at the White Gompa

2007-04-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

The great boudhanath stupa on the fullmoon night last week.

On the run as usual, not much time for a post, but here's some shots from the annual Ngagso (Mending of Broken Tantric Committments) Drupchen at the White Gompa (Monastery) in Boudhanath. A Drupchen is a nine day 24-hour puja (prayer ritual), and carries great blessings.

THE LAMAS:

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, the abbot of the White Gompa, giving out ngondrup (blessed substances) to the crowd at the end of the drupchen.

Phagchog Rinpoche and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche amidst the crowd.

Phagchog Rinpoche giving blessings and looking cool.

His Eminence the Tsikye Chokling Rinpoche.

The Vajra Master Chokling Rinpoche giving out blessings to the assembled crowd at the last day of the nine day ceremonies.

A monk from the white monastery in ritual costume, performing a small puja on the last day of the drupchen.

THE CROWD OF LAYFOLK:

The crowd of thousands at the White Monastery receiving blessings at the end of the Drupchen.

Another shot of the crowd with the White Gompa in the background. Those in attendance consisted of many Tibetans, Nepalis (Newars, Tamangs, Manangis, Nupripas, Yolmopas, Mugumpas, and many more people of the Himalayan border region with Tibet), and Westerners of all flavours.

2007-03-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay in updating. I have been busy with a group of 11 Singaporean dentists who flew into Kathmandu a week ago. I've been volunteering with them, and I feel like I haven't had a break since I met them at the airport. Besides showing them around Kathmandu, I've been helping organize the 6 days of free dental clinics we are conducting around the villages of the Kathmandu valley. My job during the clinic has been to organize our volunteers, register our patients and do crowd control, which has been exhausting, but very rewarding. We have seen about 800 patients in four days.

The entire group of dentists (11 Singaporean, 2 Nepali) and volunteers at the Shenpen Dental Clinic 2007.

I also escorted the dentists to the Shivapuri National Forest north of Kathmandu on a holiday between our clinics in Boudha and Chapgaon. It was nice to get into nature in a vast forest filled with the blessings of previous Buddhas and years of meditating yogis.

The view from a meditation cave in the Shivapuri forest. Oh, the virtue of the happy life of the hermit!

Rhododendrons in full bloom in Shivapuri forest.

A tree-dwelling near the peak of Shivapuri, used by those looking for solitude in the forest.

SHOTS OF THE 2007 SHENPEN DENTAL CLINIC, CHAPAGAON:

A Nepali (Newari) villager in traditional dress getting his teeth cleaned.

A Nepali woman having minor dental surgery done behind our monastery in the village.

Another Nepali villager having her teeth worked on.

Dan Bahadur, the gate keeper at our Chapagaon monastery, smiling after getting a teeth cleaning.

Dan Bahadur's beautiful wife.

A beautiful village girl who came from her home nearby the monastery in Chapagaon for a teeth cleaning.

The beautiful village girl with her beautiful friend.

A local schoolgirl crying as she gets two of her heavily decayed lower molars extracted. Dentistry is pain!

Our smallest monk at the Chapagaon monastery getting his teeth checked by one of the Singaporean dentists, Cheung.

Elderly village men, in traditional attire, waiting for a checkup.

HIMACHAL PRADESH, INDIA, MARCH 2007:

A few images from my trip to India in the first two weeks of March, where I attended teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and visited the reincarnation of Tulku Orgyen Rinpoche in Bir.

An abandoned bike rickshaw at the bus station in Paharganj, Punjab, India.

OM AH HUNG VAJRAGURU PADME SIDDHI HUNG! A mantra written on a stone at the Chokling Monastery in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, India. Homage to Guru Rinpoche!

His Eminence the Neten Chokling Rinpoche conducting the Tsegar Drupchen, associated with Amitayus, the Buddha of Long Life, in his monastery in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, India. He is the lama that made the milarepa movie.

SHOTS OF CHAPAGAON MONKS:

My monk friend Tsultrim, who at the age of 17 pretty much runs the daily operations of the monastery in Chapagaon where I live.

Some Chapagaon monks smiling.

Some of the younger monks in Chapagaon in assembly for afternoon prayers.

Some advice from the Dalai Lama on death and enemies.

2007-03-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

A new very amazing movie that i suggest everyone see when they get the opportunity is called Milarepa, and opens this summer. You can check out a preview on the MilarepaMovie website. You'll probably have to order a DVD though, because I think it will be playing at pretty limited locations. Check their blog, it's beautiful!

Today was the final day of the 10 day teachings His Holiness the Dalai Lama has offered to the public here. He taught from the 2nd Dalai Lama's short LamRim (stages on the path) text, the Essence of Refine Gold; and the Bodhisatvacaryavatara (Entering into the Conduct of an Awakening Being). He also offered everyone an empowerment into the self visualization practice of Avalokitesvara, a long-life empowerment of the White Tara, and the opportunity to take lay Buddhist vows and Bodhisatva vows with him. Quite a large spread of teaching and empowerment; he taught 6 hours every day, and remained energetic and lively through the entirety.

Today when he gave the Bodhisatva vow to a few thousand people bearing the cold rain and hail, he actually started crying a bit, it touched his heart so deeply. The Bodhisatva vow is basically a pledge to work for all beings to be happy and have the causes of happiness, to be divorced from suffering and the causes of suffering, and to be completely enlightened in the state beyond happiness and suffering; until you yourself are completely enlightened. It is the highest aspiration a human can make.

The Dalai Lama: currently the most amazing being on Planet Earth.

The day after I made a prayer request to the Dalai Lama on behalf of Tommy Robinson, His Holiness said this (so this applies directly for us):
"I have been receiving requests for prayers for dead persons the last few days. When hearing of the deaths of people we know, we should take it as an opportunity to reflect on our own death and impermanence. When hearing of the deaths of so many people, if we do not think of our own death, then we are weaker and dumber than sheep."
That is pretty straightforward. Gaining a real sense of our own mortality is an essential step on the bodhisatva path (the wide trail to enlightenment, where you are helping everyone else along the way). It basically helps us to get off our asses and stop thinking so much about just ourselves.

Regarding our true enemies, some of HHDL's commentary on the Bodhisatvacaryavatara:
"Attachment appears to you like your best friend, bringing you desirable and conducive things and situations. Anger appears to you as your bodyguard, keeping unpleasant experiences away. THEY ARE TRULY YOUR ENEMY!" (4.28) They are what brings us suffering in the end.

"Even though you actually get hit by a stick, you get angry at the wielder of that stick, because you perceive the stick as a secondary cause and the wielder as the primary cause of you getting hit. In the same way, we should be angry with anger itself, because the wielder is the secondary cause and the motivating cause of anger is the primary cause of you getting hit. Therefore BE ANGRY WITH HATRED." (6.41)

"We should be happy and thrilled to have enemies in our daily lives. Without enemies, we have no chance to practice patience. In fact, our perceived enemies are the very cause of patience, which is also essential to the path of awakening." (6.107-08). It is just like Jetsun Milarepa's Aunt and Uncle. They truly showed him the kindest gift of being so extremely terrible to him that he was compelled to follow a course of events that lead him to practicing meditation so diligently that he attained perfect enlightenment in that very life.

The great Tibetan yogi poet Milarepa

Remembering Tommy Robinson

2007-03-10T06:06:00.000-08:00

Last week, a friend I had known since childhood, with whom I had shared many formative experiences in the Boy Scouts, passed away. His death is not only sad because he was so young, well loved, and yet had much to give to us all. It is also tragic because he decided to take his own life, wrapped up in the torment of his own experience.

I had the special opportunity through a friend here in Mcleod Ganj, India, where I am attending 10 day teachings on the attitude of awakening beings, being given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I was able to make a donation and prayer request directly to the Dalai Lama, who personally made prayers on Wednesday for Tommy.

When I return to Kathmandu I will sponsor a death ritual for Tommy at a local monastery. It will be designed to help recognize the natural state of his mind (his Buddha nature) while he is between rebirths, and to influence his next rebirth in a positive way.

My next post will include some teachings His Holiness has given this week...

Lamrim and the motivation for spiritual practice.

2007-03-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Dalai Lama's annual spring teachings are based on two texts: The classic Bodhisatvacaryavatara (Entering the Conduct of an Awakening Being) and the 3rd Dalai Lama's short Lamrim text, "The Essence of Superfine Gold." Tomorrow is day 3 of 10; it has been great so far.

Lamrim means "the graded path," which implies "the stages of the path to enlightenment." It is a classic way of presenting the Mahayana Buddhist teachings in a progressive way, as a preliminary for the practice of Tantric Buddhism. It is organized into three successive explanations, the first for the student of "lesser" capacity, the second for the "middling" capacity, and the final for the "greater" capacity. Capacity is both refers to intellectual power and depth of the motivation.

It is explained that there are a variety of motivations for spiritual practice, ordered into lesser, middling, and greater as well, with two levels each:

1)The Lesser:
A)The lesser of the lesser is the motivation to practice religion or virtue in order to gain something later in this life (ie. "Cadillac Christians," getting connections, gaining freedom from fear of death, gaining wealth or prestige for self, family or friends). This is the motivation for many.

B)The greater of the lesser is the motivation to practice religion in order to escape negative rebirths in the future, either in a hellrealm, as a wandering spirit, or as an animal. Note that this is the motivation for the vast majority of Christians and Muslims (and maybe Jews).

2)The Middling:
A)The lesser of the middling motivation for spiritual practice is to be reborn in a higher realm, either as a human, a demigod or a god in heaven. This is generally the highest motivation for religion in Christianity, believing in God and praciticing good deeds according to His plan in order to be with Him in Heaven in eternity.

B)The higher of the middling motivation is practicing religion with the genuine intention of escaping suffering forever, which is the attainment of nirvana. Note that attaining nirvana for oneself is not the highest goal.

3)The Greater: Generally speaking, the Greater motivation for practicing virtue is to help all other beings attain Buddhahood as well as yourself. This is where the juice of Lamrim and the Mahayana Buddhist path is: Developing the correct motivation for practicing Dharma (for the sake of everyone) and then training in that path. That is why Santideva's classic text, the Bodhisatvacaryavatara, is so important and prolific.

I'll update sometime this week on something interesting from the Bodhisatvacaryavatara...

Homage to Rechungpa!

2007-03-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday grabbed a bus out of Dharamsala with my two other Nepal Fulbrighter friends, and made our way over to TashiJong, a Tibetan settlement of about 100 families up the side of a mountain. We visited the mummified body of a deceased old yogi, who had apparently lived the majority of his life in the hollowed out part of a tree practicing the "Six Yogas of Naropa" (Naro Chodrug). On the way down the hill we were randomly granted an audience with the Khamtrul reincarnate lama of the local monastery, a shy softspoken 26 year old intellect.

My intention on going to Tashijong was to find a difficult to locate manuscript, the biography of the great Kargyudpa master Rechung Dorje Drag (Rechungpa'i rNamthar). The librarian said they were all out (there was a printing done in town in 1972), but gave me his number...

We spent the night in Bir, and were excited to learn that at the Chokling Gompa they were performing the Tsegar Drupchen, a 9-day ritual devoted to the mandala of the Buddha of Long Life (Tsepagme, Amitayus). The Chogling Rinpoche (who I have met a few times before), recognized me, and invited my friends and I to his house for dinner. We had an amazing feast of rice, redbeans, okra, etc., and I felt like they knew we were coming, having cooked so much Louisiana food. Dinner conversation was lively and I am once again beyond impressed by the Neten Chokling Rinpoche and his wife Tenzin's hospitality and good humor.

Today I went back to TashiJong and the librarian found an old copy of the Biography, so I bought it for 500 Indian rupees ($11). It is 696 folios short and includes his songs of spiritual realization. Years of fruitful translation awaits!

Back in Dharamsala and looking forward to the beginning of His Holiness' teachings tomorrow.

Back in India!

2007-03-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

I have arrived with ease back in McLeod Ganj (Upper Dharamsala), Himachal Pradesh state, India, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama has made his home in exile. I will attend his March 4 to 14 public teachings on the classic 8th Century Mahayana Buddhist text by Santideva: Bodhisatvacaryavatara (Entering into the Conduct of an Awakening Being). I will return to Kathmandu on March 15 by air from Delhi.

I have travelled here with two other Nepal Fulbright scholars, we had to walk to the Kathmandu airport because of a general strike in the capital on Wednesday, but had no trouble upon arrival in Delhi, where we hitched a cab to the amazingly clean new light rail metro, which we rode to the budget tourist hippy district for shopping and food. After a great cheap Indian meal, we took the metro to the Old Delhi Train Station, and caught the 9:15pm overnight sleeper train to Paratganj. We arrived refreshed from a gentle train ride sleep at 7.30am in Paratjanj and took a bus to Dharamsala, and I am very excited that I have met up with my two old roomates from Kathmandu, Dan and Amber, who are both working as TA's for Emory University's Semester Tibetan Studies program in Dharamsala.

My birthday was on Feb. 24, and I celebrated it in a new way. Instead of having a party with booze and cake for me and my friends, I wanted to do something for the monks at the Chapagaon monastery. Therefore, I sponsored a Tara (female buddha) offering ritual in the morning. For the ritual, I had to distribute blesed food and money to all the monks (tradition of generosity). We then had a vegetarian feast, about ten friends came to dine with me and the 45 monks at Vajravarahi. I then went on a long walk around the countryside and played futbol with the monks in the evening. There were enough leftovers from the feast to feed all 50 of us again at night! It was one of the greatest birthdays I've had, inspired by Newari tradition of giving.

Hair, Lunar New Year, and Temples

2007-02-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

I am headed back up to Chapagaon today after a few days in Boudhanath visiting friends and attending the Lunar NewYear festivities. Today should be a slow day of reflection and meditation, as it is Ash Wednesday, after all, the first day of the Spring fasting and planting season.

My birthday is on Saturday, and I plan on celebrating it with a Tara offering ritual (Female Compassionate Buddha of Liberation, who clears obstacles and grants long-life), and a feast with all the monks at the Chapagaon monastery. It is a nice way for me to give them a party. After the feast and some digestion, we will have a soccer tournament!

SEVERING HAIR, SEVERING ATTACHMENT:

As all things, my dreadlocked hair is definately impermanent. Phagchog Rinpoche decided to demonstrate this to me in a direct way last week with a quick haircut, my first in almost six years.

After my hair cutting blessing by His Eminence Phagchog Rinpoche. I have been offering my obscuration and defilement saturated locks to power places in the Kathmandu Valley with a prayer for purification.

Self portrait as of new haircut today.

But at least I didn't shave my head and become a monk, like this little guy, our youngest addition to the sangha in Chapagaon. Now there are 45 monks at the monastery!

Cute monks playing on a tree, photo taken by other cute young monks. They are pretty good photographers, sometimes.

More cute monks in front of a doorhang, taken by other cute young monks when I wasn't around.

LUNAR NEW YEAR PHOTOS:

May the New Fire Hog year 2007-2008 be auspicious for all, may our obstacles for selfless action be dispelled for the sake of all beings!

A charming little Tibetan girl eating some ice cream her own way. Since its Tibetan New Years, her parents have her all dressed up in a brand new red chupa (Tibetan ladies dress).

The great stupa Boudhanath, in the neighborhood I have lived in for part of the last three and a half years. A Nepali guy has shimmied up the pole in the foreground to hang some new prayerflags, as it was Tibetan Lunar New Year (Losar).

Some of the young monks I am working with in Chapagaon all dressed up in the ceremonial yellow robe at the Lunar New Year festivities in Boudha. Some of them have only been monks for about a week, at the tender age of six...

A monk dancing at the White Monastery in Boudha for the pre-Lunar New Year festivities.

The great Chokling Rinpoche, the incarnation of the last of the 108 major treasure revealers of Tibet Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa, presiding over the Cham Lama dancing last week at the White Monastery.

The protector dieties dispelling obstacles for the coming Lunar year.

Monks chanting in assembly at the rituals for anniversary of the death of Orgyen Tulku Rinpoche at the White Monastery.

RANDOM SHOTS AT TEMPLES AROUND KATHMANDU:

A bell in a traditional Newari Buddhist courtyard (Bahal). Before the 15th Century these courtyards were inhabited by ordained monks, but now they are used for lay rituals done by lay preists. There are a number of beautiful old chaityas (Buddhist devotional monument) in the background.

A nighttime shot of a Krishna temple in Hadigaon, east Kathmandu.

This statue of Nagarjuna (Phagpa Ludrup) in an old Bahal in Kimdol, is said to be about 400 years old, and is also said to be the only one of its kind in the Kathmandu Valley. The great 2nd Century Indian Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna developed the tenets of the Madhyamika (Middle Way) philosophical system, treasured by most Himalayan Buddhists as the highest and most subtle explanation of reality possible.

Happy Losar, Happy Mardi Gras!

2007-02-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

Feb. 18 was the first day of the Fire Hog year, the Lunar New Year for the Tibetans and Chinese. Therefore I have been hanging around the Boudha area to visit old Tibetan friends, meet with some lamas to make offerings for an auspicious connection in the coming year, and attend some teachings on the BuddhaDharma by His Eminence Phagchog Rinpoche.

Today was also MardiGras, so I am missing my home in louisiana a bit and wishing that everyone has a fantastic time wherever they are, getting in the correct frame of mind to give up hard drinking for at least a little while. I went around and gave the mardi gras beads Chris sent me in the mail to my Nepali and Tibetan friends here, they all thought the shiny prayer beads were quite a novelty.

I am traveling to Dharamsala from Nepal from Feb. 28 til March 15. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is giving public teachings on the Bodhisatvacaryavatara by Santideva for ten days. It should be pretty rad, I'll also get to visit old friends who work for the Emory University Program, Dan and Amber. I'm stoked.

Research has started rolling, a few local Newaris have taken interest in what I'm doing and are helping me out a good deal.

Also working on a journal submission for the Buddhist Himalaya magazine. It will be an historical sketch of the great nonsectarian master Khari Rinpoche of Phadrug, South Tibet. I have until the India trip to finish, which should be a race. Of course.

Hoping all the best for all of you, whatever festival you are celebrating right now!

More nuns: Khari Gompa and Nagi Gompa

2007-02-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

A photo of the Khari nuns at the Lawudo Gompa (Lama Zopa Rinpoche's previous' meditation cave, for the Nyungnay Avalokiteshvara fasting retreat in Saka Dawa May/June 2005. These are some of the nuns I'm sponsoring and raising some money for. The Khari Rinpoche, the reincarnated lama who runs the nunnery, is seated in the center of the photo.

Some more Khari Gompa nuns with flowers they grew. I took this photo in March 2004.

Three generations of practiotioners at the Khari Ani Gompa (nunnery) in Khumbu, Nepal (Everest Region). Sangye Thinlay, the older monk, passed away last year. His grandneice in the center of the photo has since taken robes there as a nun and lives and studies with her aunt, the nun on the left.

Below Nagi Gompa there is a Tamang village that the trail from Boudha winds through. The monument is a Buddhist stupa, a type of reliquary built to give people something to make offerings to, among many other things. Some older Tamangs are taking a break from walking next to the small tea shop on the left.

Some cute goats I spied while walking from Boudha up to Nagi Gompa for the drupchen and some retreat about two weeks ago. I took this about fifteen minutes climb from the stupa in the previous photo.

My seat at the Ngagso (confession and mending of samaya) drupchen, with the pecha (tibetan text) I borrowed in front of me. I got the opportunity to read along with the monks and nuns for a few days, and even mananged to lend an English translation from a friend, so I could better understand what was meant in the prayers. Very powerful stuff!

Prayerflags in the wind above where I set my tent at Nagi Gompa for the drupchen ceremony.

Kathmandu for You featured on Blogmandu Buddhist Metablog

2007-02-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

Blogmandu has picked up the twin photo from a few posts ago has nominated this site as a "blogisattva." Check it out, http://zenunbound.com/2007/02/double-pleasure-double-fun.html.

The blogisattva awards are for "honoring excellence in English-language Buddhist blogging: blogisattva.blogspot.com.

Nice to know a few people are glancing at the photos!

back from the nagi gompa

2007-02-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

Today I walked quickly back down to Kathmandu, on a dusty limestone path that follows a pine ridge south from the Shivapuri National Forest. It took me two hours to get back to a hot shower and the internet, it takes over three to walk up the hill, a climb of about four thousand feet. I spent the last ten days at the nunnery. I managed to attend the last five days of the Ngagso Puja Drubchen (a nine day continuous ceremony for mending breaks in committments to the Dharma). The past five days were spent actually doing some practice, as I have been fantasizing about for some time.

Wake up with the horns announcing the morning chanting session for the nuns, which starts at 5:30. Prostrate, chant, meditation until 7:30. Breakfast with some nuns and an American, three Canadians and a Swede. Back on the cushion before 8:30, until 11:30 for a lunch of lentils, rice, vegetables and fresh yogurt, cow and water buffalo. Afternoon session was difficult for the legs and back, it varied for me, but usually from 1:00 to 7:00 with an hour break in between for some physical yoga stretches to loosen up my legs and back. Dinner and then reading a Dharma book for awhile, and finally an hour of practice before passing out, exhausted into a swirl of dream fantasy and peace.

There are around 90 nuns at Nagi Gompa, 32 of which have completed a 3year 3 month intense meditation retreat. There are ten who are in retreat right now, and after 2 years that number will increase to 42. Its quite impressive, the nuns are more dedicated to actual recitation and meditation than most monks I've met, but part of that comes from their lack of other opportunities. They have no formal education, and do not get to participate in the courses of study in philosophy or language like their male counterparts.

Related to this, I have sponsored the purchase of a text on basic philosophy for the nuns at the Khari Gompa in Khumbu Nepal (Everest Region), where I spent 2 months on three different occasions over the last few years. I bought 31 copies of the introduction to LamRim, which cost about $170 in total, but it was well worth it, because I believe strongly in the equal education of monks and nuns, and have had a wonderful experience with these nuns. I hope to spend a longer period of time with them in the future, at least for some retreat at their beautiful mountain hermitage.

After my short retreat this week, I am even more committed and excited about doing longer silent solitary meditation retreats. I am praying for long life, if only to be able to take advantage of this opportunity for plodding the path.

I snagged this photo of the Khari Nuns from the Tibetan Nuns Project website.

calling nepal easily

2007-01-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

recently some very farsighted and friendly folks brought out some new software that allows easy and cheap international phone calls. please visit www.skype.com to download free software that lets you call anywhere you want.

if one of those places you want is my cellular phone, give me a shout at 977 985 100 3829. if you 'skype' someone with skype, then the call is totally free.

three cheers for technology!

research report submission

2007-01-26T06:14:00.000-08:00

Today I submitted a short report regarding my research in Nepal to be published in a forthcoming issue of Himalaya Journal, a publication by the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies. It is only about 450 words, so here it is:

The Newars, considered to be the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley, have a long history of contact with the spread of Buddhism. Although Newar culture has been heavily influenced by Hindu social structure, many Newars continue to practice their traditional form of Vajrayana Buddhism. While Tibetans also practice Vajrayana, hundreds of years of isolated development led to the emergence of two very unique Buddhist systems.
There is an opinion amongst many Newar Buddhists that what remains of their highly ritualized system is aberrant and flawed. They point out that although Buddhist doctrine shuns caste discrimination, idealizes the role of celibate monks, and emphasizes personal study and meditation; the Buddhism of the Kathmandu Valley remains bound by a hierarchy of purity, where the tradition of fully ordained monks and nuns is a distant historical memory and the ritual priests are no longer able to expound philosophy and the practical path of meditation to the public. Due to this, Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhism have been embraced by many Newars, displaying a range of attitudes, from the profoundly ecumenical to fiercely competitive.
In the past half-century, many Tibetan lamas have made the Kathmandu Valley their new home. Many local Nepalis, especially Newar Buddhists, found an authentic and open teacher in one such lama, Tulku Orgyen Rinpoche. Tulku Orgyen was a prolific teacher, and his legacy includes a number of highly qualified teachers and monasteries in the Kathmandu Valley. Their connection with Newar Buddhists has continued to develop in a modern context, as both Tibetan and Newari understanding about what it means to be an active Buddhist practitioner evolves. Traditional roles are changing; Newar Buddhist scholars are trained both in the monastery and the modern university context, Newar monks come from farmer and trader castes, rather than just the priestly, and lay Newars take Tantric initiation from Tibetan gurus alongside Nepalis from Hindu backgrounds and Western students.
My research in the Kathmandu Valley aims to record my observations of and discussions with those Newar Buddhists who have accepted Tibetan lamas as their teachers, paying particular attention to new synthesis in Buddhist practice and ritual. The small Newar town of Chapagaon serves as an ideal case study site for my research. A few years ago, a Newar family, who were devotees of Orgyen Tulku Rinpoche, built and offered him a small Tibetan style monastery near the locally important Vajravarahi temple. The Chapagaon monastery's main prayer hall is an important site for local women to hold communal morning prayer (in both Tibetan and Newari), and the monks perform rituals for devoted sponsors. I am also visiting a variety of Newar bahals (traditional Newar Buddhist monasteries) and Tibetan monasteries in the valley that involve community Newars, often times to observe teachings, rituals and prayer.

Books I've been reading

2007-01-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

I recently finished reading a translation of the Sanskrit masterpiece Jatakamala, a chronicle of 37 lives of the Buddha Shakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama before the birth in which he attained the immutable state of complete enlightenment. The stories detail various difficulties that he encountered and the ways in which he avoided negative deeds and cultivated virtue continuously for many lifetimes before enlightenment.

Yesterday I completed Ajaya Kranti Shakya's text on the Shakya caste of the Newars, aptly titled, "The Shakyas." I found it informative, but his facility in English style is lacking, like most Nepali scholars.

I have also been reading Heart of Compassion a commentary translated from the Tibetan on Gyalse Thogme's classic 37 practices of a Bodhisatva, by the renowned master, the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. His quality of mind was remarkable, and his explanations on how to pick up various difficulties on the path is the best I have encountered for a long while. To quote an example:

"To meet someone who really hurts you is to meet a rare and precious treasure. Hold that person in high esteem, and make full use of the opportunity to eradicate your defects and make progress on the path. If you cannot yet feel love and compassion for those who treat you badly, it is a sign that your mind has not been fully transformed and that you need to keep working on it with increased application.
A true bodhisattva never hopes for a reward. He responds to the needs of others spontaneously, out of his natural compassion… But if someone who has done him harm later changes his behavior, is set on the path and achieves liberation, that is something that will make a bodhisattva rejoice wholeheartedly and be totally satisfied." (The Heart of Compassion,116)

The text is full of such advice to those who sincerely desire to purify their minds of all negative tendencies for the sake of everyone. It may be ironic to some, but this kind of self-sacrifice brings a deep and sincere happiness to the practitioner, a kind of selflessness that has been actually achieved in our world by great masters like Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and that we all have the absolute potential to emulate.

twins, water taps, trash and hermitages

2007-01-26T04:58:00.000-08:00

Twin bro Dan flies back to Chengdu tomorrow, I'll be giving him a lift on my hog in the morning to the airport. I am sad to see him go, he is the last of a garland of visitors I have had the past 10 weeks. Mixed feelings, however, as his departure will also allow me to refocus on my research program; moving ahead with my translation, reading and interviews. I will start a daily English class with the monks in Chapagaon, and get some time to clear my head.

Dan (www.khamabiding.blogspot.com) and I with the set of 8 year old twins at the Chapagaon monastery where I have been residing. Their names are Jigme Sherab (Fearless Wisdom) and Jigme Nyingje (Fearless Compassion). It is for monks like these that I wish to raise money when I travel back to the United States.

A few weeks ago I was involved volunteering with an NGO (non-governmental organization) here, Terre Des Hommes, helping them put on their Children in the Shadows film festival (www.childrenintheshadows.com), which screened freely for the public films about courageous children in the most adverse of situations. We set up a screen in the historic palace and temple area in Patan, and a few hundred local Nepalis came to see Salaam Bombay on that cold evening.

A nice example of a traditional water spout in Patan, with a small Buddhist stupa at the top, a Buddha image below that, and a sea monster on the stone tap itself.

Next to one of the cleanest and well flowing old taps on the road out of Patan city in the Kathmandu Valley is another tap, which is traditionally for the untouchable/unclean/outcaste members of the locality. It is difficult to see in the photo, but it is separated from the trash pile by the brick wall in the background. Behind it is an old and typical resting place for travellers. Together with the resting place and tap is should be a Ganesh temple nearby, to make obstacle clearing offerings for your journey.
The woman is tending a slow burning fire of trash, mostly paper and plastic. Most people throw their trash on the ground, which gets swept into piles that get burned. Tons of plastic are burned on the street daily in Kathmandu, a significant health hazard.

Rather than throwing this trash on the ground and burning it, the people around this area have been stuffing it on top of their brick wall.

Yesterday Dan, Ian (another Nepal Fulbright Scholar), Josh and Jessica (an India Fulbright Scholar and his wife) spent three beautiful hours walking from our apartment up to Nagi Ani Gompa (nunnery) in the Shivapuri National Forest. At this point on the trail, we came over a hill and could clearly see Nagi Gompa, our destination, perched on the ridge in the distance in front of us.

Some monks and nuns at Nagi Gompa, relaxing during a break from the prayers and rituals.

After Dan leaves tomorrow, I am planning on walking up to Nagi and camping until Thursday, in order to participate in the 9 day long continuous prayers and rituals. It will be a good opportunity for me to meet and converse with Newar Buddhist nuns there, who are amazing practitioners, many of whom have spent years in solitary meditation retreat.

Bhandipur and beyond!

2007-01-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

The nighttime view of Kathmandu from the northern ridge of the valley. This photo was taken at the beginning of December 2006 while I was attending a 3 day meditation seminar at Nagi Gompa, a hermitage for Buddhist nuns. I am planning on walking back up there sometime this week to attend a 9 day continuous ceremony there (drupchen). Of the many nuns there, a few are Newar, and they have a great tradition of meditation retreat. Many nuns have done 3 year solitary retreats on more than one occasion.

Some children at a tradition water spout in Patan, the municipality south of Kathmandu. It is estimated that there are around 1000 such taps in the Valley, using very simple technology, some have been functioning for as long as 1600 years, if not longer!

Rhesus Macaq monkeys at the Swayambhu Stupa complex in west Kathmandu.

Mustard growing in Lelegaon, a village at the southern edge of the Kathmandu Valley. These mustard seeds will be pressed at a communal mill in the village to make oil.

Some young women making offerings of incense, water, rice, flowers and light to a small Buddhist stupa this morning in Lelegaon. There is a famous Saraswati (Hindu goddess of Education and Music) temple above the village, and since today is Saraswati puja day, many people from the southern part of the Kathmandu valley came for a blessing.

Pictures from last week's trip to Bhandipur, an old Newar/Magar village 3 hours west of Kathmandu:
Vote for Tree! The symbol for one of the political parties here, campaigning to target the illiterate.

Brothers Daniel, Chris and an acquaintance named Leif sitting under a large sacred Peepal (Bodhi) tree south of Bhandipur.

Sunset looking west (of course!) from Bhandipur village. We hiked up to the top of the hill in the background to watch the solar disk fade into the cloudy horizon. You can catch great views of the might Himalaya from town, but unfortunately it was overcast the whole time we were there.

View from the top of the bus we rode back to Kathmandu from Bhandipur on. Yes, we actually rode on the top most of the way, and it was cold as a bitch! But better than sitting in the tin box of B.O. that many Nepali long distance buses become.

And one from the vault:
A picture of me, taken by Mike Neidermeyer in late May, 2004, on our trip from Kathmandu through southern Tibet to Lhasa. I am walking south through the Dingri plain back to the village. The mountains behind me are called Cho Oyo, part of the Everest Massif. Everest was visible just to the left, but not in this photo. Point of advice: when traveling in Tibet, don't wear shorts, or the bottoms of your legs will get hellaciously sunburned like mine did!

quick brainstorm

2007-01-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

when i return to louisiana i want to share some of my experiences. i also have encountered an innumerable amount of genuine people who need a bit of help.

i am going to prepare a presentation (some powerpoint, some video, mostly pictures) about my travels, studies and research in nepal, india and tibet over the last 3 years. i am also going to select about 25 of my favorite photos and make nice matted copies. i want to try to sell/auction some of these photos for a reasonable price in order to raise money for the monastery in chapagaon, to pay for study materials, medicine, food, etc. for the young monks there.

i hope to be able to make my presentation interesting and accessible to a large audience. i have thought of some possible locations, like emmanuel baptist church and some other churches in alexandria, lha compound in nola, coffee shops or bars in downtown alex or new orleans, etc.

any thoughts?

stars, fires and mountains

2007-01-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

This six pointed star, which in our tradition is the sign of the cults that worship on Saturdays (cult of Saturn), in South Asia represents Saraswati, the goddess of learning and music. The Swastik sign represents continuity (among many other things), and is embedded within it. A rising sun of energetic rays emanate from the Swastik. CULTURAL RELATIVITY if I've ever seen a perfect example.

A waterspout from a spring that is flowing pure, direct from the mouth of Shankar, an incarnation of the Lord of Yogis, Shiva.

A trail in the Shivapuri National Park, where I went walking for a few days last week with the relations and my buddy Ian. The path snaked through an old wash, the sides of which hung onto tree roots, hanging above our heads at some points.

An old Buddhist stupa at the peak of Shivapuri hill (2,700 meters, about 8,000 feet), which marks the highest point of the northern rim of the Kathmandu Valley. While enjoying the sunshine, we met a young hindu yogi, in his early twenties, who had completed one month of meditation in the forest. He is scheduled to spend the next three years living in a cave near the peak, engaged in the pure life. He won't even touch anyone else for the duration.

A Himalayan mountain view to the north from the northern rim of the Kathmandu Valley, where I went trekking with the relations last week.

Our group, rambling through the mountains. Check www.khamabiding.blogspot.com for a brief description of our trip.

Older brother Chris, cousin Will, twin brother Daniel and I, standing in front of the impressive dome of the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill in western Kathmandu.

These two little kids asked me to take their photo as we were wandering around the historic part of Patan city last week. Right as I was snapping the photo, one of them quickly shot me the bird. I would have scolded him, but I was laughing way to hard.

A street in Bhaktapur, the well preserved town in the eastern part of the Kathmandu Valley. The local government heavily subsidizes building the facades of buildings in the old Newari style of intricate brick and woodwork.

Down by the river in Bhaktapur.

The Shreegha stupa, in the middle of a very unique courtyard in Kathmandu, which has a Tibetan monastery, a Theravada (Burmese/Thai) monastery and nunnery, and a few traditional Newar Buddhist temples, and some Hindu temples, all together in the same place, sharing the old sacred space.

A tree, draped heavily with prayer flags, on the hill at Swayambhu.

A delicate local bushy reed made and sold all over Nepal as a hand held broom. The rusty roof of this village home is made of old vegetable oil tins, flattened out and nailed together.

My friend sold the clay heavy dirt from her rice field in front of her house in Lelegoan to the local brick factory, in the distance. There was a failed campaign and protest programme to block the brick factory from being built. The air, once totally pristine, has slowly become more hazy due to the coal burning kilns. It has, however, brought some jobs and money into the rural economy.

My cousin arrived in Kathmandu last week, and since he had slept a night in Delhi wasn't feeling very jetlagged. Therefore I took him for a walk around the western part of Kathmandu, and after crossing a bridge I realized I had never entered the little temple complex on the banks of that small river. We walked in and were suprised to see a large fire on a platform at the edge of the courtyard, dominated by a goddess temple. There were feet sticking out of the fire, it was a cremation of an old woman.

Five young Nepali girls singing and dancing in Lelegaon village, perched on the southern edge of the Kathmandu Valley. The girls walk around to each house in the village belting local folk tunes in exchange for money and sweets.

anger

2007-01-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

sometimes a little thing makes us a bit annoyed, and we don't think to go splash our face with some water and take deep breaths, or apply any other antidote to anger that we may know. another small thing may happen, like we could drop a glass, leave our bag at the office, or someone we are with could be unhelpful, and suddenly these situations compound. typically they don't add, but multiply in a way that comes upon us unexpectedly. we have a certain bowl we like to use in the morning but our roommate didn't wash it since they made spaghetti the night before. we are walking down the road and someone looks at us in a way we don't like. someone won't stop honking their horn outside (a particular annoyance in Nepal). A friend needs a favor from us, it seems like we are always helping them without any reciprocity, and we wonder why we have become friends with this lost simpleton in the first place. We read the newspaper, and the politicians continue to ignore the facts about the world and more people are dying and there are new airstrikes and you wonder when it will be your turn to do some striking of your own to all the fuckers who are constantly trying to get your money or your time or at least make sure you have no peace of mind.

these are the times to look into our thoughts and try to find what it is that we are protecting.

Some Perspectives on the Hanging of Saddam

2007-01-02T05:50:00.000-08:00

Saddam's hanging has elicited a few interesting conversations with some Nepali and Tibetans in the last few days, and I would like to briefly share some of their feelings about it.

Dorje, the Tibetan man that I lived with for 3 months in 2003/2004, who has remained a close friend of mine, has often explained to me why he thinks that G.W. Bush and the Dalai Lama together are the great forces in the world making it a safer and better place. He listens to radio news and watches it on TV, both in Nepali and Tibetan, and loves to argue politics like most Asian men. We sometimes have lively discussions. Although I have often explained to him the many objections I have to Bush's foreign and domestic policy, until yesterday I have never really heard him raise doubt about Bush's actions. He said that although Saddam was really bad, he wasn't sure if killing him was the best option. He wondered if it would actually relieve Iraqis of the fear of one day coming again under Saddam's wrath or whether it would just result in more violence. He is generally pretty sensitive with me when talking about violence in Iraq, because he knows that I lost a childhood friend there this past year. He also expressed the sentiment that most everyone I've talked to about this with has raised: killing is wrong (sinful/creates negative karma/etc), and creates more suffering.

A Nepal taxi driver I was riding with, upon hearing that I was American, timidly asked if it was OK if he asked me a question. I replied "of course," and he asked me what I thought of Saddam's execution. I said it was a difficult question, because although he did a lot of terrible things, I am not sure that one can ever justify the death penalty. I believe that everyone is capable of rehabilitation, and agree with the maxim that if you want to judge a society, you should judge it by the way it treats its prisoners. The taxi driver agreed with me when I said that if you kill, it creates sin, regardless. He thought that it was a bad idea in the end to kill Saddam, but also didn't seem very sure of his opinion.

Today brothers Chris, Daniel and I visited a close Tibetan lama friend of mine, Phagchog Tulku Rinpoche. We joked a lot (he's quite young) and he gave Chris a beautiful Tibetan carpet wall hanging of the Kalacakra mantra as a gift. He has been my meditation teacher for 3 years and therefore I have a great amount of respect for him. He has also many times also argued with me about why Bush is such a great leader, and had a definate opinion about Saddam's hanging. He said that in Tibetan culture (and I imagine it is the same for many Asians), once you or your land has been captured by the enemy, you have already suffered the greatest defeat. Being imprisoned is the greatest shame for the warrior, not to mention the agony of having seen your two beloved sons, brought up by your own hand, brutally killed and displayed mangled all over international news. He said that it would have been a greater punishment for him to live out his days in jail, knowing that he had lost to the enemy, that he was defamed, forgotten and powerless. The final reason that he disagreed with the execution, of course very Buddhist, is that killing begets killing that begets more killing, etc.

Finally, I also should mention that there have been a number of street protests in Nepal by both some Muslim organizations and also so other activists denouncing the execution. The Dalai Lama made a request that his life be spared, and both the Prime Ministers of India and Nepal, where capital punishment has been eliminated, requested that the Iraqi government not execute Saddam in order to maintain stability in the region. The Prime Minister of Nepal, Koirala, gave a statement wishing that all the civilized nations of the world would abandon the use of capital punishment, and prayed the "message of Sai Baba" of peace and love to all people be spread throughout the world.

winding down

2006-12-29T03:27:00.000-08:00

I escorted Uncle Bill and Aunt Merrilee back to the Kathmandu airport after a hasty sighteeing trip to the vast Pashupati Hindu Temple complex this morning. They will be happily back in Houston in a few days, and wondering if what they saw on the exact other side of the world actually was real, or they suffered from a collective dream orchestrated by one of their more essentric nephews, the one who seems to walk to a different beat regarding practically everything (commerce, education, religion, diet, hygiene) and has the gall to sometimes even act like everyone else is crazy.

Around three years ago, while living without friends or family or orientation in the orient, in kathmandu, I did feel like I was going crazy, and finally I think around the New Year 2004 came to terms with that insanity, and decided that it wasn't so bad after all. OM MANI PADME HUM HRI! Actually quite empowering, and fun...

I will be back at the airport tomorrow morning to fetch the twin brother on this boss hog, my purple Royal Enfield Indian Bullet 350cc beater.

Last month I gave a speech on International Philosophy Day to the Nepal Philosophy Forum. I was asked to talk about the importance of spirituality, but I mainly discussed the necessity to act upon our words, rather than just talk about what would be nice. I also told a few humorous stories, and being the only westerner in the room, I think I was well recieved.

The sunset from the path north from Boudha to Nagi Hermitage, where I attended a short meditation seminar. The veiw is obviously to the west.

Chris with the venerable Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, posing for a group photo after the 2006 Seminar on Vajrayana Buddhist Meditation at the White Monastery.

about marijuana fields

2006-12-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

this photo was sent to me by my twin brother (khamabiding.blogspot.com), and the link below is an article about this meditating 17year old. he asked me to say a few words about him.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/nepals-mystery-buddha-boy-reappears/20061225202609990007?cid=2194

this is the famous "Buddha Boy" that has reemerged from hiding yesterday, this time with a sword. Apparently, he has been meditating constantly for many months without eating anything but wild herbs. Some say he is a reincarnation of the Buddha, which makes no sense, because according to Buddhist cosmology BUDDHAS DO NOT REINCARNATE as the media and also the Chinese government likes to think. Buddhas are no longer ruled by the law of the cause and effect of actions (karma), and therefore are out of cyclic existence and do not take rebirth in one of the six realms of existence. Although all beings take rebirth, only very highly advanced meditation practitioners can purposely direct their consciousness to its next birth, like the Dalai Lama. Maybe this kid is a reincarnation of a great spiritual master, but not the Buddha. This is basic stuff.

As I'm living in Kathmandu I haven't gotten out to the remote location he has been meditating, nor do I feel compelled at all to, because as a meditation practitioner I realize that he probably wants nothing more than just to be left alone until he is finished doing what he has set out to do, which seems to be silent quiet solitary retreat for many years. My advice to people who are interested or want to meet him is not to, rather they should go learn some meditation practice themselves from a teacher who is willing to actually talk right now to students, and leave the poor kid alone. That is the reason he disappeared in the first place, and also may be the reason he's carrying a sword now.

a photo of three of the other fulbright scholars with me at the Fulbright South Asia Conference on study abroad last week, held in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Merrilee are in Nepal for 4 days visiting over the holidays, a hop skip and a jump away from Kuala Lampur in Malaysia where my Uncle has been teaching piping design for 6 weeks. Its been fun, and it looks like they are getting a lot out of the new experience and perspective of one of the least developed nations in asia. We've gone for a day trip to the town Bhaktapur in the eastern part of the Kathmandu Valley and today visited Chapagaon, the town where I have been staying in a monastery and also went to Lelegaon, a village at the southern edge of the Kathmandu Valley, because they wanted to see how average Nepalis really lived, and that requires going to the farming villages.

Uncle Bill informed me that there had been some whispers around the family about a picture I have posted of myself standing in front of some very large marijuana plants (gasp!). It is a real photo of me with the real devil weed, clutching the branches of the menace of society in my arms with a great big grin. I have a few things to say about this.
a)marijuana and hemp grow wild all over south asia and other parts of the world, and used to grow wild all over north america as well. for this reason one often encounters it while walking around the hills of Nepal, where the particular photo in question was taken.
b)the marijuana plants in the photo were definately cultivated intentionally, because the buds of the marijuana plant are mixed with grain and other herbs as a particularly affective medicine for goats and cows with stomach illness and indigestion. it is quite common to find some growing or drying around the villages of Nepal.
c)posing in front of large patches of marijuana is funny.
d)even if it were a forest of pot that was being grown to smoke, why is that a big deal? although it is illegal in most countries due to the misinformation of mr. anslinger, medical science has taught us that marijuana when smoked is usually nothing more than a mild high that is nontoxic and has never been fatal, and is much less destructive than alcohol and much less lethal than cigarettes, both of which are abused by millions and kill thousands daily. i personally consider cigarettes to be the most dangerous and personally destructive of all substances that can be consumed, next to poisons.
e)regardless of people's opinions, i have been completely clean of any drugs, or marijuana, or any other smoke, or even a drop of alcohol for the past 5 months, and will continue in this lifestyle for the next 5 months, as i have taken a strict vow for the said period.

lets move beyond the stigma and demonization of marijuana, there are much more important things to think about and waste our breath on.

a question from a friend

2006-12-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

recently a good friend asked me in email whether or not altruism is an appropriate desire.

i think this represents a misunderstanding of Buddhism, coming out of the simplistic way the Dharma is often presented. This is not confined to westerners, but i do think that an emphasis on a very old Pali textual tradition of Buddhism that likes to present itself as the original teachings of the Buddha, without historical change or "corruption," that has been overemphasized by those that write on "pure Buddhist philosophy" without the degradation of guru worship/Buddha image worship/belief in spirits/etc.

Therefore, we often hear the classical maxim, a restatement of the 4 Noble Truths uttered by the Buddha in Sarnath that "since suffering comes from desire, by eliminating desire we eliminate suffering, which leads to nirvana." this summer a Chicago man I met in Dharamsala at my hotel replied that he wasn't going to attend the teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama that were going on a short walk away because he found that if you had heard one teaching on Buddhism you had heard them all, since Buddhism is really just telling us to give up all pleasures.

What, really?

No.

"the roads of excess lead to the palaces of wisdom" -william blake

from an orthodox vajrayana buddhist point of view (a historical and philosophical development, emphasizing the effectiveness of ritual, that is most commonly represented by Tibetan Buddhism), it is absolutely
essential to have many different kinds of desire to quickly reach
enlightenment. these include the desire [the tibetan word 'dod pa
means wish/want/desire, the word for the negative kind of desire is
'dod chags, which connotates a clinging or attachment to that which is
desired] that all beings may have happiness and its causes, the desire
that all beings may be divorced from suffering and its causes, the
desire for enlightenment, the desire to make your own mind like that
of the enlightened guru's, etc.

"How can we repay the kindness of the sentient beings? Through showing them immaculate love and compassion. Immaculate love is the thought, 'May they have happiness and its causes.' Compassion is the wish, 'May they be free of suffering and its causes.' Because to obtain happiness and to avoid suffering are the two most primordial, inborn instincts of all that live, to give love and compassion is the supreme gift." - His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from "The Path to Enlightenment."

in this way, desire is part of the raft that carries us over to the
other shore beyond the oceanlike suffering of our neurotic mind, and
that raft should be abandoned once we land the raft.

however, we're still on the raft.

there is a misperception that all desire is bad. some desire can be a
shortcut to understanding. especially if you can look into your mind
on the occasions when you are really attached to something or having
lots of desirous feelings. examine where they come from and where
they go, whether they remain and what they are based on. you may see
that they are really just a composition of thoughts and feelings, many
of which are irrational or baseless and that there is nothing substantial to really
point at.

Calm Abiding meditation helps with this. I am saddened to see people that engage in meditation beating themselves up over their negative emotions, lack of clarity, and inability to concentrate, all of which become more apparent when sitting back and examining the mind. These things naturally come up, over and over again. However, they will gradually subside, and we may not even notice that we are less attached to getting our own preferences, and less inclined to react angrily. We may even have the occasional genuine thought like "Well, he's a nice guy, and although I like this girl that we've both been dancing with, if she decides to go out with him, that's alright," or something similar.

it is said that wisdom and the altruistic desire for all beings
to be enlightened (bodhicitta) are like the opposite sides of the same
coin, or two wings of a bird. wisdom, being the realization that
there is no intrinsically real self, is expressed spontaneously through altruistic
activity. although suffering may ultimately be an illusion, since we
interact with it as if it were real, it is real to our minds, and
therefore important to adress. and those who act with a great amount
of altruism will naturally begin to understand what selflessness is
all about. in our culture, we call this "wise."

in a nutshell, some desires are good, and all desires can be skillfully used with the correct training to understand the wisdom of selflessness. so don't feel bad if you find yourself desiring in a destructive way, you are a person afterall, and you aren't a monk, so relax and take some breaths, and see what happens.

mail?

2006-12-08T03:35:00.000-08:00

so i don't know if i ever update this, but if anyone is feeling like sending a letter or package (christmas is on the way, my birthday is in february, i am a pisces, by the way, ladies):

Michael Smith
Fulbright Commission
P.O. Box 380
Gyaneshwar, Kathmandu, Nepal, Asia

if anyone wants anything cool sent them from asia, i have a good shipping connection, so email me kilgoresmith@gmail.com for tibetan/indian/nepali goods.

monk photos

2006-12-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

A younger monk at the Chapagaon monastery named Sangye (Buddha), emptying water offering bowls during the evening protector diety offering ceremony. He is in front of a statue of Vajrasatva, the Bodhisattva of purification. His practice also heals illness and amends negative deeds.

I let some of the younger monks play with my digital camera (i have a shock resistant olympus) and a few pictures turned out quite amazing, like this one, taken looking into one of the upstairs prayer rooms.

also taken by one of the younger monks at the monastery, this picture is very charming. i think they had a lot of fun with the camera. i am inspired by the New Orleans Kids Camera Project.

A spider in her web next to her dinner, taken on the hike south over the Kathmandu Valley rim from Lelegaon. The view looks north towards Kathmandu.

some more pictures, finally. since i've been in boudha, even though there are many options for internet, unfortunately i've found myself too busy to get online for very long in the afternoons (the mornings are reserved for mental cultivation, unless something very important is up).

tonight ram and santoshi are making a feast for a friend's birthday, and it looks like we'll go out to the tourist area of kathmandu for some reggae music and juice (other people will be enjoying beer, etc., i am still in the midsts of a one year detox...), and tomorrow night chris and i have been told to go to a punk/reggae show in town which should be pretty cool. the music scene is slightly looking up these days in kdu.

today i began meeting with my old tibetan language professor, Thinlay Dhondrup, for a daily class. we are reading the text i have been translating together, from the beginning, in order for me to put together a mistake free translation. i have translated the first 45 pages of the 60 pages with many mistakes and questions, we can go fast, though, because i've already put a lot of work into it. our class is held in tibetan, no english if possible. the text is a commentary by Chokyi Dragpa of the Preliminary Practices for Jigme Lingpa's treasure, the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse.

on the way up the hill

2006-11-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

this afternoon i will walk north from our east kathmandu neighborhood into the hills. it won't take but about twenty minutes to be outside of the madness of town, into a village along the road that winds north east up the valley sides. gentle hills give way to mountainside, and after a few hours i will be happily sitting at the Nagi Gompa, a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery for a three day meditation retreat with some of the practitioners from the seminar chris and i attended over the last two weeks, led by the presiding lama, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.

i'll be crashing in a tent on the lawn of the monastery, and should have a great view of kathmandu in the valley below. carrying my little tripod so maybe i can get a decent sunset shot of the city, or nighttime lights.

chris is staying in town to continue his tibetan drawing and painting classes, which seem to be giogn well, although i think it is difficult for him to sit cross legged all day the way asians do.

yesterday as i was walking to a shiatsu massage appointment, i met Lama Tsering Wangdu on the circumambulation path around the Boudhanath stupa (by met I mean saw him and stalked him down), said hello, and he replied that I should go to his monastery. After the massage, I walked across the neighborhood down the Boudha road to Tusal, and upon arrival at the gompa (monastery) discovered that he was about to commence a long life empowerment, requested and sponsored by a group of twenty or so Newari women, mostly middle aged and elderly. They have a close connection to Lama Wangdu because he used to live in Jawalakhel at a Tibetan refugee camp near Patan, where many Newar Buddhists live.

The long life empowerment is technically a ritual empowerment or permission to practice the mantra and visualization meditation of Amitayus (Tsepagme), the Buddha of Infinite Life. Once done with the ceremony, the thirty or so local students of Lama Wangdu finished their chod feast offering, and after two plates of delicious rice and lentils with curry vegetables, i walked home to meet chris and watched a cheesy Korean sword action movie.

Off to the hills!