The Path Ahead

These are photos of the winding hillside path that my room mate Orgyen and I built on my backyard hillside.  It leads down to a flat patch of sand I call "Dzogchen Beach" for its seclusion and nice view of the sky.  At various point along the path I have planted a Bay Area native shrub.  I hope they live through the drought!

Perhaps this is a kind of symbol of my own journey, gradually descending to the depths of my natural condition through the path of meditation and cultivation of "the view," the perspective of the timeless purity of our natural state.

As I put the last few shovels of DG granite--the clay-like path surfacing material on the path the day before yesterday, a little dog mysteriously arrived, trailing Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang who arrived on foot from the store.  The young dog wanted to pay and pounced on the earth and dug beside me as I worked, and one point wrestling a bag of landscaping bark out of my hand as I tried to pour it around some plants.  Later that day I looked up my Tibetan astrology sign, just to make sure.  Ah, the Earth Dog!

So, this old earth dog is going to do to the mountains and turn off the internet for a good long time, to settle into my practice and attend to the here and now.  My dear readers, please be well and happy, and perhaps I will "see" you again when I emerge.

From Kathy's Balcony Tonight

Please click on each photo to get the full effect.

Dolpo Treats and Dangerous Icicles

Just now, since Lama Pema Dorje and his wife Kunsang had already eaten breakfast in my kitchen when I got up, I made myself some tsampa (roast barley four)--my style. Hot rice milk over tsampa, butter, dried cranberries, and walnuts. Flavored with stevia. Kunsang immediately decided she wanted to try it that way next time. They both thought it looked delicious.

I told them about Stevia, a sweet leafed plant that one can make a non-caloric sweetener out of. I try to explain in simple English, “Like sugar, but not make fat. Natural” Rinpoche got it, because where he came from in Dolpo, Nepal there was a thumbed-sized root--like a potato, but hard--that children loved because it was very sweet.

I also had a little beef this morning with breakfast, since I have haven’t had any protein to speak of for a few days. We talked about how they stored meat at his childhood home. This morphed into a discussion of the design of that house, which was built into the side of a mountain, ingeniously using a rock over hang as a roof. The coolest part what that in the summer there was a waterfall right next to the house. It almost sounded like it went over the house, it seemed that close. In the winter, it froze into a beautiful ice column the width of my house here in Oakland. In the spring you could hear the rushing sounds of the water as it melted. Beautiful Huge icicles did actually dangle from the rock slab above their house, and in the spring these would crash down dangerously and the kids needed to be warned to stay away from the patio, so they would not be hurt.

In became clear in the conversation that Rinpoche as the eldest son was given one of the nicest, if not the nicest, room in the house. Normally, he will avoid the slightest comment that would indicate that he ever, in the course of his life, had a status that was elevated one millimeter above anyone else.

Over the Cascades

I took these on a recent flight from Oakland to Seattle.

Gomde and Drive Through Tree

My Aunt Volinda at the Drive Through Tree, Leggett, CA August, 1968.  She died of hereditary breast cancer soon thereafter in her 50's.  I have the same gene and and will be 50 in January.

Me, August, 1968.  I think was in the same little private park, different tree.

Me, forty years later.

I swang by Eureka, California to visit my cousin Lewis on Halloween eve, who (in keeping with my theme) is a key member of the Arcata-Eureka Nyingma group associated with Rigdzin Ling.  They have a weekly Red Tara practice group that has been going at least 7 years.  I inquired about what has made that successful.  1) Concise practice with no tsok  3) Goes from 6 pm to 8:15 (which works in a small city, but would be impossible in the Bay Area because of commutes).  4) Happens same time every week, so the core group just knows where they are going to be every Wednesday night.  5)  The home owner of the shrine room they use sets up the water bowls and lights, so all they have to do is light a stick of incense and they are off and running.

The next day I took off for Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in Leggett, in the pouring rain.  This center belongs to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, a Kagyu-Nyingma lama, and was established 10 years ago.  It's a big beautiful piece of land, that--amazingly--has a pretty big river running through it, with a swimming hole.  Rinpoche's senior students from Nepal, such as Marcia and Graham, along with Bay Area students must have worked their butts off getting things to this point, where there a many functional buildings, and two shrine rooms.  Their lama, as per usual, has giant plans for a Shedra, etc.  Good thing they got the land while they could.

I rented River House, a manufactured home with a view of the River and hunkered down in the rain for a couple of days, making my little attempts at practice, and visiting a bit with my friend Lauren, who is the new manager there.

As I left we went to the Drive Through Tree, which is very close to them.  When I was 9 my Mom and I came out to California to visit my Aunt and Uncle, I think because my Aunt knew she she had metastatic cancer.  We drove up to Arcata to see the new rock band, Clover (which became a Bay Area fixture), play.  My cousin Alex Call was in that band for decades.  On the way, we visited the Drive Through Tree, which I thought was really cool.  

Now, it turns out that Tibetan lamas think it is really cool, too.  They always go to visit it when at Gomde.  A key reason is that this huge tree was alive when the Buddha was alive.  So, for the faithful and romantic, one could think one is receiving the blessings of all these lamas, e.g. Trulshik Rinpoche, when driving through the tree.  And yes, it is still alive, the hole did not kill it!

From there, I headed off home to Oakland in the rain.

The Place of the Awareness-holders

The main building at Rigdzin Ling, Junction City, Ca--Tara House

I arrived at Rigdzin Ling on the 30th, checked into my room and rested, then circumambulated the stupas for a while. I made positive wishes, and reflected on the amazing work that has been done here.

This place was an open mine, and Chagdud Tulku saw the potential in it some 30 years ago. From a moonscape, they made a flat area. They have dorms, a store, offices, houses and a multi-use building called Tara house that includes the shrine room, the kitchen, the dining hall and more.

A Stupa

I think the roww of stupas on the edges of the flattened area of the center is the most striking thing on the land. You really get a walk in when you migrate clockwise in the traditional way, reciting mantras, generating the intent that everyone will be free of suffering, and happy.

Many stupas, and a distant Guru Rinpoche statue

Electric prayer wheels

I hadn't noticed the electric prayer wheels the last time I was here. I am sure those cannisters contain billions of mantras, that are believed to radiate blessings to the area as they turn. Being a venter organizer myself, I tend to think about the work that goes in to making even one of those. Wow, these people are really meritorious.

Later in the evening I went to help the staff and neigbours paint and butter tormas for a retreat that was starting soon for them. A torma is a ritual offering cone shaped food offering, made of dough. The dough is skillfully sculpted into various symbolic representations and placed on the shrine during a group practice. When the system is working well, as it was this evening at Rigdzin Ling, making elaborate tormas can bring the artists closer together--in my observation--fostering harmony in sangha. The Rigdzin Ling people really go all out--making the flower ornaments out of butter in a traditional fashion, using their iced fingertips. There were about 7 people working on this continuously, and they were very warm to me, and kind to each other.

It rained all night, and let up only briefly as I departed on Halloween morning.

Dakinis and Goodbye

Tiny Tiny little Oak

As I packed to leave I received an unexpected visit from my sangha sister, who fortuitously was between sections of her retreat and could hang out for while. This is a real yogini, who completed three year retreat more than a decade ago, and really lives as a planless mendicant.
We walked the land again, and she showed me the place HH Penor Rinpoche gave an extensive series of empowerments long ago. The cement throne remains, and you can imagine that this might have happened yesterday.

Then she gave me advice, both practical and sublime for retreat, should such an opportunity arise. We arrived at her recently built womb-like strawbale house, and I sat with her drinking African tea and the lifestyle of the modern yogini, the in-depth practitioner of the mantrayana and Great Perfection.

Now, is it just me, or does this peak to the east of Tashi Choling look like a... bhaga?

Wondering that, I departed for Rigdzin Ling.