White Jewel Mountain

I woke up at the Silver Star B & B in Crestone. I recommend it--$52 a night, warm, caring, clean and pretty.  I dragged my sorry ass over to the home of Hanna Strong.  To make a long story short, Hanna and her husband Maurice, were told by the 16th Karmapa in the 70's that many people would attain great realization in this place that they owned.  A foundation was set up to make land grants to representative legitimate groups from all the worlds contemplative traditions.  And so, the most unusual place in Colorado was born.

The foundation has made a land grant to A. Rinpoche, who is one of my main teachers, to build a cremation stupa there, and a place for monastics to live, and serious yogis to do retreat, maybe more.  There are several other centers for Tibetan lamas already there.

Above is Rinpoche with Prof. Anne Klein (of Rice University) on the land, clarifying where the stupa and residence will go.  There are several of his nuns already living in Crestone waiting to move onto the land.  He was in loafers, and asked my to tromp a path through the snow with my big Sorrel boots to make a path.  I had fun doing that with others.

Here is the website for Rinpoche's group in Crestone.