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.