Monday, December 29, 2008

From Kathy's Balcony Tonight



Please click on each photo to get the full effect.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Over the Cascades

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

Monday, November 3, 2008

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.

Friday, October 31, 2008

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.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

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.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Serene Tashi Choling

The stupa, on a hilltop nearby
The temple from above, click to enlarge
Near Vajrasattva, Prayer Wheels, the old fashioned kind.


I spent the day walking all over the land, seeing what 30 years of hard work and hard fund-raising can create. Alot. Most meaningful to me was knowing that HH Dudjom Rinpoche had been here at the beginning. He was delivered by helicopter to a high point on the land, and planted a cedar tree up there. He made positive predictions about the benefits of practicing here. And, boy, I can see why!

Pristine Tashi Choling

The land is packed with deer so tame I hear they can eat out of your hand.

Dudjom Rinpoche planted this Cedar Tree. For real!

The crown jewel has to be this huge Vajrasattva Statue.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Auspicious Dharma Place

Sun over the valley, Near Weed, CA

After retracing my steps, I resumed my journey up Route 5 to Tashi Choling, just over the Oregon Border. You should click on the pic above to blow it up, really pretty.

The Temple at Tashi Choling

Miraculously, I made it to Tashi Choling with an hour to spare before Throma tsok started. The approach to the place was devastatingly beautiful, the air crisp and clear, with cute little Oak trees (wearing attractive brown coats for fall) studding the rolling hills.

I also swear that you can feel this place 50 miles away. A blissful pure feeling started to overtake me as a came up I-5, getting into the hills that follow the flattish chapparal north of Mount Shasta. Until then, I remained a little blue.

Gyatrul Rinpoche, a Tibetan Lama in the Nyingma lineage, founded this place some 30 years ago. It is a small piece of land 80 acres or so, surrounded by properties owned by sangha members. When I arrived, the staff was very friendly and had my really nice room ready, and some texts I had ordered from them waiting for me in my room. The accomodations in the East Wing of the temple rival Tara Mandala in luxury.

Also when I walked in, an acquaintance from my own sangha unexpectedly greeted me. I had heard she was in retreat up here, but did not know I would see her. I went down to tsok, and Ani Baba (the resident nun) put out the texts I had bought on HH Dudjom Rinpoche's throne table for blessing during the tsok. So sweet. Every inch of their temple is ornamented, and to my surprize I found I liked that.

This center uses the exact same text for their feast of the Black Wrathful Mother, so I felt right at home as I sat with these 30 year sadhana experts. As I feel asleep I felt I had truly arrived at a pure land, or at least a good approximation.

Monday, October 27, 2008

To Paradise

The entrance to Wilbur Hot Springs

I left Douglas's house and checked out Wilbur Hot Springs, a quaint old sulphur springs where people go to "take the waters." I took the waters, soaking in deep troughs called flumes, and having a massage. This place fairly faithfully maintained 19th century style. I personally am nat a great fan 19th century, other than the flowering of homeopathy, and the founding of our first national parks, that century does not to much for me.

Paradise, CA

Going across the central valley, through Chico I felt more and more depressed. Perhaps it was the right wing radio, the after effects of the wine the previous night. Or it could have been an inner knowing that... yes, I left my medicine and my cell phone in Lakeport and would need to go allll the way back the next day. I spent the night in Paradise, because I know it has good views of the Sutter Buttes--which are a personal obsession of mine. But I barely glaced at the Buttes as I raced back across the state the following morning.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pilgrimage 2008

Gull above Lakeport, California

Fall Foliage in Cobb, CA

I just got back from a pilgrimage to several places of significance to the Nyingma Buddhist lineage in California and Oregon, along with some other fun along the way.

I left Oakland on Oct. 26th, and wound my way up through Calistoga and Cobb, where I landed at Douglas' house in Lakeport on Clear Lake. Douglas and I drank wine and discussed the integration of the view of Dzogchen with daily life, late into the night.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Tonight in Oakland--confrontation






Hearing that some women were called "faggot" yesterday at an intersection near my house by supporters of California Prop. 8 (the referendum to make an amendment to the California constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage), I headed out to see if I could help tonight. I spent two and a half hours at that intersection today, but the bigots did not show up. Instead, a small group of us waved signs against Prop. 8. All different kinds of people supported us. I felt like a I should run for Congress.

Then we headed down to MacArthur and High, where it was another story. The Pro Prop 8 people were there, as were many anti. I'm so curious about who the anti-gay people are, that I took pictures of them. They could be identified as the same people who were verbally abusive yesterday. Most look to be Samoan or Tongan, perhaps one big clan. Then there were a few African American people tonight.

The lesbians were particularly adorable tonight. I will keep those pics for my personal enjoyment.

P.S. Yes, I bought a new camera.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Blue Blanket Conundrum

Well, the fancy canon digital camera my Dad gave me just announced it was a dead with a blood curdling buzz. Since I’m not about to buy another one in the near future, I guess that’s the end of the photography part of this blog for the time being.

This death is in keeping with my theme: impermanence. My afternoons are spent going through all the boxes of my accumulated stuff. First, I scanned all the photos, then I scanned all the correspondence I could, now I am taking apart and shredding all the medical charts I have accumulated.

That’s right, medical charts. For about 18 years I practiced homeopathy, and then quit for financial reasons. Medical charts can’t be destroyed for 7 years, so I’ve been holding on to them. I had hundreds of clients over the years, and the faces of most of them pop into my mind as I shred their charts. I think there are companies who do this for you, but being a cheapskate, I am doing it myself. It is unclear if the $85 shredder will survive the whole job. Sometimes it seems unclear if I will survive the whole job! These charts have clasps and staples, and these need to be undone by hand. I suppose I could throw away the file folder part, but I am too much of a tree-hugger to waste all that cardboard. So, I cut or pry the clasps off. The shredding part seems to generate a some kind of electrical field that does not make me feel well. Fortunately, I have moved beyond the moldy files now—I am no longer vaporizing mould into the atmosphere. But there is a charge to all that violent churning of the machine, and I am a sensitive little flower.

The boxes of non-paper stuff are a delight to dispense with after dealing with files. I just threw out yards of rainbow colored cloth from an ill-conceived curtain project in Greenfield, MA. I just found my faded corsage from my wedding there—I am happily friends with my ex, but don’t need to keep dead flowers to remember her. Yellow vinyl men’s rain pants. A worn out ill-fitting Tibetan skirt. A dirty down coat with a broken zipper and duct tape patches. These items post no obstacle to disposal.

Tonight, though, I face two of my own baby blankets. The pink one that I never favored, and MY BLUE BLANKET. I was as inseparable from my blue blanket as Linus was from his. The blanket use persisted, and did the pacifier, long beyond the appropriate age of obsolescence. In fact, the fact that I still have it bespeaks of it’s symbolism.

The qualities of my blue blanket that made it so lovable were three-fold. First, I think in the back of my mind I knew my Mom knitted it during while she was pregnant with me. Second, it is a nice soothing color, a light greenish blue. Third, the yarn is fabulously soft, perhaps cashmere. But the most satisfying thing about this blanket was it’s smell.

Now, the little faded blanket smells mostly like basement. But, if I bury my face in it like I once did, I do believe I can perceive a faint hint of its old aroma. I think the old smell must have been the smell of the wool itself. Family systems being what they are, I could always seek solace from my blue blanket, plunging face into it’s comforting folds and being transported to some other place of warmth, softness, soothingness: unconditional love.

I would like to thank the goat who’s wool became my alternate universe.

But, what to do with the blanket?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

On Tibetan Grammer, Goats, and so on

I started a class with David Curtis or the Tibetan Language Institute tonight, mainly on Tibetan grammar. He started to discuss the poem the Divine Tree (ljon pai dbangpo) tonight by teleconference. When I got off the line, I asked Lama Pema Dorje about it. Rinpoche is not a scholar, has little formal education, yet has an incredible wealth of knowledge--and a great memory for detail--based on extensive reading of Dharma texts and receiving oral teachings. We had an off-the-cuff conversation with various members of the family chiming in periodically with their memorized (sung!) renditions of this poem--all learned in different times and places.

He said the name of the author of our text Yangchen Drupei Dorje, is a name he was awarded based on his mastery of the first two of the five outer knowledges. He could not remember the other name the author is known by. To the best of his memory, and he is not sure of this without looking it up, these five are (phonetically, via my tin ear)
Sum da--grammer
Yeng Nga--poems, songs
Nyon Ju--many names
Do Kar--drama
Kat-di--astrology

When Sum da and Yeng nga are accomplished, one is given a lovely name related to Manjushri or Saraswati. Yangchen in this particular author’s name refers to Saraswati. Saraswati is a knowledge-language--music related female Buddha.

Rinpoche was in school for two years as a child in the 1940’s, before that he was home schooled by his father. His father was a Tibetan lama who settled in Dolpo, Nepal. The family followed their lama Golok Serthar Rinpoche for a couple of years when he taught throughout Nepal. This nomadic community of practitioners arranged a group teachings for the children each day with an old lama named Dorje. These were considered to be Dharma teachings, but they were learning the language at the same time. Rinpoche did not come in contact with Divine Tree text until he was older. First, the kids learned the alphabet by reciting it out loud for several years. Then, I think they did some spelling out loud. What they did during this two years in this little school was recite texts out load, both alone and in groups, starting slow and gaining speed. They traced the letters as they recited, because otherwise they would be reciting from memory and not learning how to read and write. If they looked up they were reprimanded.

The texts they learned from were:

Dorje Chopa (Diamond Cutter Sutra)--Lay households had a shrine at home and at minimum it always had a Dorje Chopa text--if they could afford more they had a whole collection of texts including many mantras and sutras, called sung du. As a young person, Rinpoche would copy out the Dorje Chopa for friends (for free), or for nomad people (for goats). He knew how to make the paper, the ink and the brushes--remember there was no industrial revolution there. Once the supplies were made, the process of copying took several days.

The other texts that were recited were the Seven Supplications to Guru Rinpoche, the long sutra level Twenty one Taras, and the Manjushri supplication.

If you are curious what happened to the goats: The females were milked, the males were saved from slaughter.

Sitting here after our conversation it sparked a few thoughts for me. I am always thinking about the drop-out rate of Americans who are dropped right into the foundational practices (ngondro), and read the Words of My Perfect Teacher, when they get inspired by a Nyingmapa lama to start practicing and studying the Dharma. Our Nyingmapa lamas often see how educated we are (and how old we are) in America and want us to move ahead very quickly. This is perhaps more true of us than of other schools of Tibetan Buddhism. But we see here that classic Nyingma ngakpas started studying and practicing the Mahayana--albeit by rote--in childhood.

I wonder if it wouldn't be good for many of us to start by studying the Dorje Chopa, and these Guru Rinpoche and Tara supplications, in a cultural appropriate way, as a pre-ngondro. The great unifying master of the 20th century Nyingmapas, HH Dudjom Rinpoche made his own daily practice compilation (chos spyod) of these Mahayana teacings, practices and supplications, plus some mantrayana practices, which can be found in volume Tsa (18) of his collected works. As I understand it, all his people used this daily practice book. Yet, no one has translated this. Not sexy enough?

Monday, September 29, 2008

A Truly Civilized Funeral


Tibetan vultures waiting to eat

Today I picked Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang up at SFO after he had spent the weekend teaching in Olympia, Washington. We all did our own thing when we got back to the house. At dinner, I went in to the kitchen to show them a photo of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in a funny green fright wig that symbolizes his commitment to the environment, and talked with them about the pollution and global warming.

Then, they brought up an art project I am anticipating that will involve needing a few vulture feathers. Vulture feathers are illegal to sell in this country, so I have been planning to visit my high haunts in the Oakland hills to see if I can find any. But Rinpoche and Kunsang have been looking for them for me too, which I find very sweet.

The subject of vultures now having been broached, I asked Rinpoche if they did Sky Burials where he grew up. He was raised in the 1940’s in the ethnically Tibetan borderlands of Nepal and Tibet, called Dolpo. He said yes, he had seen many sky burials as a boy, because his father--a well-respected lama of the region--performed them. Actually, the people in the region generally buried people, but his father encouraged sky burial practice.

The night before the sky burial was to take place, the lama would do a chod practice--playing his chod drum, blowing his kangling, and singing the sadhana--at the house where the corpse was. This was a standard Throma Chod practice, with just a few words changed. Kunsang says, this is like calling up the vultures, believed to embody the dakini principle, and inviting them to lunch the next day. Rinpoche describes the Tibetan vultures as much larger than the ones here, or those in Nepal proper. They are about the size of a sheep, he said, as he described the beauty of each part of their body with great appreciation; he gestured with his hands to illustrate the white feathers here, the black feathers here.  Particularly wonderful were the fluffy white feathers under the wings that were like fur.

So, the next day, the assistant lama would carry the body to the charnel ground on his back, then put it down and cut it up. There is a special name for this assistant, one of the main lama’s students, and the role seems to have a pretty clear job description. Then, his father would start performing the chod practice.  There is a special cemetery liturgy in this collection of practices.  The vultures would come and eat the body completely within 20 minutes. It took a certain number of vultures to eat a large person's body, and a smaller number to eat a child’s body.

As it happens, one time a 16 year old boy died, and another lama in a different area performed the chod for him in the winter. When the body was offered, no vultures came. The lama buried the body under stones. The family was very upset, and there was a belief among the locals that the dakinis had not come for the boy because he must of been very un-virtuous. So, when Rinpoche’s father came through the area in the spring he was asked to remedy the situation. The night before he did the practice, called “shaking the nest,” to let the vultures know to come the following day. He was kind of joking around saying something like, “actually we need 11 vultures for this size man.”

Then they went out and dismantled the impromptu cairn on the body with the help of the local lama, who was a student of Rinpoche’s father. The corpse now looked like a partially frozen pile of blackened meat, not really recognizable as human. They spread it out on a area the size of a blanket. As soon as his father started to perform the chod ceremony the vultures arrived in group numbering exactly 11. Rinpoche said some of the vultures landed the normal way, on their open feet, and others came it very fast at an angle and fell over when they landed. The way he described it, it appeared as though they had been hurled there, or as though a powerful magnet had drawn them there.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Letter Litter

Dear Reader,

I am mulling over the idea that all denial is fundamentally denial about impermanence. So, I guess you could say my primary interest and practice right now is completely facing up to the natural beginnings and endings of things.

I spent the day continuing tackling a big box of filed letters people wrote me in the 1980’s. I was in my 20’s in the 80’s, a young revolutionary of the radical feminist kind. In the early part of the decade the internet was mearely a glimmer in it’s creator’s eyes. We had no fax machines, no scanners, no he copy machines. Calling long-distance was quite expensive, so we rarely did that. A good typewriter—an IBM Selectric—was completely out of reach cost-wise for young people, particularly countercultural types like my band of Midwestern lesbian-feminists.

So, what did we do? We wrote, and we wrote, and we wrote. We wrote on yellow legal pads, we wrote on spiral notebook pages, we wrote on a the continuous green paper that came out of computer printers, on construction paper, greeting cards, and quite often, the backs of extra posters from women’s cultural and political events we organized.

I have literally thousands of pages of these letters. Now that people don’t write letters anymore, and few people know there even was such a network as the earnest Amazons of the 70’s and 80’s U.S., I find it difficult to throw them out. So, instead, I am making pdfs of most of them. The criteria for keeping-versus-tossing is “Will this fit through my Scanner?” I am taking them by the handful, not reading them, just trying to get the pages right side up and roughly in order, and the coaxing them through the feeder. Big batches of them, hundreds of full color letters in one pdf marked with the approximate year received.

I’m trying not to read them, just plow ahead and get one grocery bag after another into the recycling bin. But, of course, the memories come back just seeing the handwriting. The stirs up many thoughts, like:
• where did we find the time to do all that writing!
• how romantic we were, about politics, culture, friendship and love
• how kind and nurturing to each other—since we didn’t have babies in those days, could it be we were lavishing that unspent nurturing on each other/
• how passionate about everything, we spared none of the emotions
• brave really, but overly proud of it
• how interwoven art, poetry, song and politics were with our lives

I thought I was tremendously important in those days. At that time one could just put out a newsletter or two, organize a few events, write a long article about one’s half baked ideas, and one could view oneself as an influential woman. I wrote everyone in our community, blowing off my mouth, no matter how old or highly regarded they were. And, what’s amazing to me is that they wrote back. I have letters from the lesbian glitterati of the day: Adrienne Rich, Holly Near, Alix Dobkin, and the leaders of virtually every women’s publication in the U.S.

I also kept unbelievable weird letters. A 1983 forty page critique of everything about me from my lover at the time, a letter from a masochistic man who wanted to be my slave, and a letter from a radical lesbian woman of color Dianic Wicca practitioner who wrote a raging diatribe to me in purple ink, enclosing in it a small swath of cotton carrying dried lavender flowers. Of the later, I remember having the feeling when I had received it 25 years ago that a curse was contained within it. When I think about that young woman now, I feel so much concern for her. She was from Oakland, and very troubled. Did she live or kill herself? Poor honey. I remember that even among the uber-radicals out here in Oakland she was viewed as distressed, but too defended to help.

After scanning that last batch, I felt dizzy and weak and needed to get some fresh air the lie down. Was there still potency in the hex-laden lavender?

With that I will close, dear reader, and write again another day.

Sincerely,

Yudron

Saturday, August 9, 2008


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Downers


I'll admit it, I'm in a negative mood today. I found making a list of icky things I have to do now, and it made me feel better.

Things that drag me down:
  • Paying a tax accountant to do my taxes, after admitting defeat and filing for an extension.
  • Rewrapping and returning a very large heavy item, paying UPS and at restocking fee, because it appeared identical to me to the actual item I should have ordered.
  • Putting an assortment of pages, taken from various sadhanas to photocopy, back in the right place.
  • Telling my good friend that I found a check I had promised him I would offer to great lama on his behalf, long after the lama has returned to Tibet.
  • Having a Targus Chill Mat—a device that keeps one’s Macbook from frying ones thighs-- break one month after I bought it, and reading the warrantee: which covers “defects” but does not cover “wear and tear” or “consequential or incidental damage.” Should I bother trying to return it?
  • Calling Brinks about discontinuing my alarm service and finding I signed a three-year contract that I am obligated to pay no matter what.
  • Being able to sit cross legged on a cushion for three hours one day, and not being able to do it the next day.
  • Filing.
  • Having my dishwasher break about one year one month after purchase, and coming to terms with the fact that having any repair person do anything to it costs just about as much as buying a new one.
  • Having Christians make elaborate devotional prayers to God and Jesus out loud on behalf of everyone in a group I am apart of. (silent is fine).
  • Having to explain to Jehovah’s witnesses at the door that, no, I don’t believe in God, nor in “creation,” nor that the universe is so ingenious that it must have been made by someone really smart.
  • That I can’t cut and paste things from Word into my Blogger blog using safari—while I can using Firefox.

Thank you for listening!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Seasonal Check-in

All important me, school photo, 1964, Age 5

Soon after my last post a Tibetan family moved in with me unexpectedly.  You know, Tibetan dharma people have a keen sense of modesty, and it felt plain wrong to go on reporting on my life for the world to see because I have been so closely intertwined with them.

I had a related conversation with a lama I encountered this morning.  I recently volunteered to scan a group of old photos he carries with him into my computer.  They have unique pictures of some of the great Nyingma masters of the 20th century, and I was sad to think they might be lost.  Of course, I haven't shown them to anyone.  I offered to make CD's of them, so the lama could give them away as gifts.  In a conversation this morning I found that idea was not warmly received.  The lama was concerned that the photos would end up in the internet, posted in association with his own name.  It might then be perceived that he was trying to increase his own status by linking himself publicly to these high lamas or siddhas.

Certainly, there are a lot of examples of this on the internet.  Sometimes it seems from lama's websites that the most poorly regarded lamas have the best teachers, because they have pics of all the great lamas with themselves.  

This, of course, makes me nervous about my blog--and also a personal journal I am keeping of my life in the Vajrayana--like a Carlos Castenada or Lynn Andrews adventure, except true.  Since I was about 16 years old I have written for publication, and I was an early heavy utilizer of the internet even before the WWW--so writing and sharing like this is an enjoyable habit for me.  But how often am I simply boosting my ego, versus writing for the benefit of others?

Egotism is the hardest emotional affliction to see in ourselves.  It seems that many of us are finely perched on a razor thin fulcrum between excessive pride and low-self esteem.  It is as though this is a see-saw for us merely because we only experience these two dimensions--positive versus negative self esteem.  Or is that one dimension? The dimension of Buddha nature--the indwelling potency of sentient beings that can neither be enhanced or diminished, merely revealed or obscured--is unknown to us.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Auspicious or Inauspicious?

The day before yesterday my car suddenly started making a terrible noise while I was cruising around the farmland of the Valley.  I made it into a small town--what was the name of that place?--after hours, and some kind people helped me hook up with a mechanic.  I was surprized to find that my 99 Chevy Tracker with 75,000 miles on it was given a terminal diagnosis.  I limped back to my hotel, and started home the next day, hoping to make it to Oakland on prayer power.

I didn't.  But I did almost make it to auto dealership row in Vacaville.  My old car found a lovely place to die, with plenty of helpful people, and lots of wildflowers.  I got a ride to the local Honda dealership and they agreed to take me out to get all my stuff out of the old car, tow it in at their convenience, in exchange for me buying a new one on the spot.  That's right, I bought a new car that way!  A powder blue Honda 2008 CRV.  Put all my stuff in it, and off I went!

When I got back home, I found I was needed here. Lama Pema Dorje Rinpoche and his family are coming back from Asia on Friday, and I need a bigger car and time to get ready.

So, was this all auspicious or inauspicious?  I would say the later.

South Butte



Two views of South Butte

I stayed an extra couple of days at the Hampton Inn in Yuba City, just to enjoy my solitude, quiet, and air conditioning--which gave me some relief from the awful allergy season we've been having.  Later in the day, when the pollen had subsided, and leisurely morning practices were done, I circumambulated the Buttes by car.

The Maidu people of the central valley called the Buttes Histum Yani, and believed that people's spirits (I guess we would say bardo being in Buddha-speak) come to the tallest mountain in the Buttes when they die, as a layover spot.  I can believe it.  If there are any Maidu people reading this blog, I would love to talk with you about that. According to modern calculations, I suppose this would be South Butte.  I feel it is appropriate now, that this is a telecommunications place for antennae and dishes--invisible links from great distances.  Apparently, Homeland Security has some interest in the top of South Butte also.  That's good, keep that place secure!  It's on a private ranch anyway, that doesn't allow visitors.

Just give me a ride up there one day, please.  One way or another.

Shaeffer Ranch

The general landscape
View of North Butte

The Shaeffer Ranch tour took us into the interior of an old family ranch in the Buttes, a rolling landscape studded with Blue Oak Trees and and volcanic rocks.

The interpretive guide from the Middle Mountain Foundation, and Mr. Shaeffer himself, shared lots of information about the history of the ranch, and the geology and spring wildflowers there.  I noticed how much I have changed.  I used to love that stuff, history and labeling objects.  Now, I am more interested in keeping to myself and watching what comes up internally and externally in the present moment.  There is always plenty of that!

It was a lovely day, with goodhearted people.

Sutter Buttes


If you are a regular reader, you may be wondering where I've been.  I've been turning inward for a while, exploring what relative solitude would feel like.  You would think that would be easy for single person with her own house and retreat hut, but actually not.
The first week since my last post I did a little practice intensive here at home, while a band of industrious men replaced the roof on my house.  During breaks between sessions I would go out and look, as well as continuing working with Laurie editing our Shitro text.  It's starting to look good!

Then, I got a spot on a hike at Sutter Buttes, through the Middle Mountain Foundation, and went for it.  The Buttes are a geologic formation of volcanic origin that rise up from the middle of the California's central valley.  They look like an island volcano, and actually they are.  The flat floor of the valley, now the home of industrial agriculture, was once thousands of feet deep and filled with water.  The fertile valley we see now is the result of sediment and debris building up until ot flooded only seasonally, then finally the human system of levees that eliminate even seasonal flooding.

The day long hike took us into a local ranch, which I will write about in the next post.



Thursday, March 27, 2008

Splitting

Every thing is split in two
there is no deceiving it
Every thing is lost to us
that falls beyond this precipice

Monday, March 24, 2008

Live Alone and Stay Free

Whoever you see isn't human, but a fraud;
Whatever people say isn't right, but just lies.
So, since these days there's no one you can trust,
you'd better live alone and stay free.

If your actions conform with the Dharma, you'll antagonize everyone;
If you're words are truthful, most people will get angry;
If your mind is truly good and pure, they will judge it as a defect;
Now is time to keep your own way hidden.

Patrul Rinpoche
Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones
Verses 15, 16

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Blessings



I remember hearing from classmates in high school that the first couple of times smoking marijuana one did not get high, then suddenly the third time or so, the drug would take effect. It seems that way with Vajrayana empowerments for me. The blessings of these Dudjom Lingpa wangs get more and more powerful with each passing day, seemingly a cumulative effect. I never understood why people wanted to receive these big cycles of empowerments, until I revieve the Dudjom (Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje) Wangs last year, and now this group.

I won't describe the sensation, for fear of disapating it, but it is palpable.

Today, after the wangs, I went out to lunch with a friend, then up to the Oakland Hills to walk as the sun went down. When I got up to the top of the MacDonald trail hill I found several wildflowers in full bloom, including groupings of the pink flowers above, with the fern-like foliage. They looked a bit like me--I had actually worn pink lip gloss today for the first time in my life. So, pink was the theme, I guess. Spring, flowering, fresh, clean, pristine.

On the way down the hill, this beautiful golden light.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Another Day of Empowerments


The Dudjom Lingps Wangs continue at Orgyen Dorje Den.  So far, the lamas start on time at 1pm and end promptly at 3pm.  Very full with blessings.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Singing Nerves

Mixing wangs with practice, circum-ambulation, and yoga, my nerves are like little juicy fishes. Little fishes who exclaim "madness is as madness does." Frank little fishes, contorting themselves and unfurling with regularity. They toil and list from side to side. Screaming one minute "Olay!," whispering the next "olay," they are uncharacteristically feminine. Vibrating strongly in the pocket of their own doom, and protecting themselves, like a big furnace with a turban on it's head. How can we express this in English?

A little boy wanders in a deserted kingdom. Its alabaster brightness shines evenly. His kindred are folks of the upper region. His lonely legs see things as though they were hollow tubes. The brass envelope has a stretch mark on it, like it was polished up to a certain point and then forgot what it was doing. It is courteous to me , and yet has an endearing quality--like plums careening through space. Where is the fortress that hums it's own tune? It is in the majestic regency of space. A thumbtack extends into the brightness of the sky, beaconing the outer reaches of existence to inculcate themselves into the heart of living things, the heart of absolute madness, the prank they call "earth" and "fire" and so on.

This is the solution the atomic question. Life and the aftermath of death drone on. There is no ending here, just more and more solutions insinuating themselves forward.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Rain of Flowers


Flower petals continue to rain in anticipation of Tulku Theglo Rinpoche's conferral of the Dudjom Lingpa empowerments at Orgyen Dorje Den in Alameda starting Sunday. I learned this evening that, in additions to his other connections to Dudjom Lingpa, he is his great grandson. Anyway, I am getting my life in order and cleaning up, and am expecting a house guest to stay here and attend the wangs. I'm also planning to pop down to Pema Osel Ling Saturday for Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's "Heart Teachings."

But first, I have to clean the bathtub.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Moving Towards "Ling"

Today in Mill Valley, California

Today was the first time in our six years of existence that Osel Thegchog Ling has held routine practice/discussion/instruction gathering in a public space.  Until now, we have always met in folks homes.   A  Mill Valley Buddhist center has been kind enough to offer us space for this.  Eventually we will have our own "ling," meaning place or land.  Nina (left) and Christine (right) and I have been working together to assist Rinpoche in shepherding group practices for a bunch of years.  We each have different approaches to the task, that complement each other.

Even now that I have delegated most of my former tasks of the group to others and mostly focus on big picture thing, it still touches my life in some way every day when I am not in retreat.  It's a responsibility, and one that I care about--when I care too much I get into trouble with it, so these days I take a light touch with it as much as I can. Eventually, it will be a great center for Dzogchen teachings, and probably nothing like any of us (but Rinpoche) imagine.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Oakland Dharma Bum Routine

Friday walk with Ellen in the Oakland Hills
Tonight at the Lake (and some iphoto fiddling)


I've developed a daily rhythm of breakfast ngondro and housekeeping until noon, then lunch and whatever project I have, then my time on the Shitro mantra garland from three to four. Next I walk, hike or climb for an hour(with or without company), then snack. Sometimes socialize, sometimes projects in the evening, then a tiny bit of practice again, then sleep. That's quite a life! Soon I will start getting up earlier so I am a bit more productive.

So, you can see why I haven't been posting. Not much excitement until the Dudjom Lingpa Empowerments March 16 - 27 at Orgyen Dorje Den. No, it's not on their website, but you can sign up for their email list there, and they send out frequent updates. Scott from ODD allowed me to develop some materials for him about Dudjom Lingpa, the great terton of the 19th century--so that he could condense it for a paragraph description on their forthcoming publicity.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Physical Support for the Dharma

Oakland Stairmaster

The sad fact that meditation practice has to be balanced with exercise. Prostrations are the general exercise prescription of our lineage, but a lot of middle aged sedentary people who start doing prostrations can lack the core muscle strength to protect the spine from the impact of prostrations (especially done on a prostration board) and can injure their backs that way. Then we stop doing prostrations and do nothing but sit sit sit. The abdominal muscles that support the spine become deconditioned, and one develops back, leg, and even abdominal pain. Pretty soon we have to lie down to practice.

So, in my own case I have started to reverse the process. Starting with one hour of walking a day for general conditioning, along with specific core muscle strengthening exercises, and stretches. I can't tell you how much better I feel. I can sit on a cushion straight up for two hours, what a relief.

Today I progressed to stairs, using the above stairs (that go way beyond what you can see in the above photo). Up and down and up and down.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Vajravarahi-Throma

My new statue, from dharmatreasures.com.