On Sausal Creek

The Path Ahead

2009-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

Please click on each photo to get the full effect.

Dolpo Treats and Dangerous Icicles

2008-12-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

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

Gomde and Drive Through Tree

2008-11-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

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.

Serene Tashi Choling

2008-10-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Auspicious Dharma Place

2008-10-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

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.

To Paradise

2008-10-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Pilgrimage 2008

2008-10-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Tonight in Oakland--confrontation

2008-10-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

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.

The Blue Blanket Conundrum

2008-10-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

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?

On Tibetan Grammer, Goats, and so on

2008-10-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

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?

A Truly Civilized Funeral

2008-09-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Letter Litter

2008-09-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

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

34E Epiphany

2008-09-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

ALLA PRIMA

My job in this—my 49th—year seems to be finding joy by cutting through all my denial. Kind of waking up and seeing the whole panorama of my situation completely clearly. Part of this process is cleaning up and simplifying my material existence, body and house, facing the refuse of my past and present endeavors. This facing up, cleaning out, process will be completed on my 50th birthday, January 26, 2009—when I will leave my old life behind as Sidney and enter into my fresh life as Yudron.

Until then, this blog is dedicated to the day to day unwinding process, putting to rest my old life, denial, and assumptions.

Now, what does 34E have to do with this?

Part of my process this year has been acknowledging the fact that I have back pain most of the time, seeking really top notch experienced healers to help me, and do the work I need to do to see if relief is possible. I feel so happy to have found two wonderful healers: Karen Nugent PT (a Marin County master of unwinding the subtle layers of musculoskeletal pain), and Gloria Hesselund (a wizardly senior teacher of Rosen Work, a guide to self-discovery of mental patterns resulting in physical holding.) More about them another day.

The other day Karen noted, from just looking at me, that I have muscle spasm near my spine at the bra line—something that I was just about to tell her. I hurt there most of the time, and it seems to correspond to a feeling of an invisible hand right there in the middle of my upper back pushing me forward. Hard to walk that way, stooped forward, yet all the self talk about standing up straight and all my bodywork has not helped. I also feel my shoulders coming up around my ears, although I am not particularly stressed.

Having seen a TV segment on how 90% of women don’t have the right bra size, I’ve been thinking maybe I should look at the obvious. Could it be that my bra is causing all this pain? I opened my undergarment drawer and threw away all the bras I found uncomfortable. Then I took the two least uncomfortable ones out of the trash because I needed something to wear!

Let me back up here by saying that I was a very radical feminist when I was younger. We had many cherished beliefs, some “true” some “false.” One of these beliefs was that bras were objects of oppression of women, and it was a total myth that women’s breasts descend more over time if you wear a bra everyday. Of course, not believing in the effects of gravity doesn’t make its effect less damning, and I capitulated to the need for bras sometime in my 30’s. But, what I never learned, and my female readers may never have learned, is that there is a fine art to fitting a bra—a kind of secret wisdom to it. One really needs to be fit by a knowledgeable professional from time to time in your life—and I’m not talking about a 20 year old at Victoria’s Secret.

So, today I went to the best fitter in the Bay Area (according to Yelp) at a tiny, almost invisible, shop in North Beach. I drove in to the city at 10, and arrived at ALLA PRIMA Fine Lingerie few minutes later, finding a parking place right in front. Then I went for a nice walk by Washington Square and Coit Tower and back, so I could be there when the shop opened at 11 am.

I went into ALLA PRIMA wearing a 38C bra, and right off Maggie told me that the band was too loose and riding up two inches in the back, meaning my shoulders were doing almost all the work of supporting my “girls.” Instead 90% of the work should be done by the band, and 10% by the straps. Also, she told me my bra cup should be an E, not a C. Did you know that there are E’s and F’s? You’d never know it from shopping at Macy’s, much less Target or Walmart.

Maggie is kind, intelligent, and lovely. She told me she was bringing in a 36 to try on, and warned me it would feel tighter than I was used to. Then, after I had it on and it seemed to fit, she confessed that it was a 34E.

The bra cost $88, but the money is well spent for the education. She also taught me how to wash it so it will last three times longer. I said I would wear it for a while to see if I wanted to buy more. But by the time I was out the door of the shop I could feel my shoulders come down from around my neck and the hand pushing me forward finally release me. That is priceless!

I highly recommend this experience.

ALLA PRIMA
1420 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA
415-397-4077
415-864-8081

If driving, go in before they open and find a parking place. Wear your best fitting bra and bring 12 quarters, just in case. There is two hour parking, a quarter every 10 minutes. The visit length should be quite short if you are the first one through the door.

Incidental Findings:

Women singing in Chinese in Washington Square Park

People out Sailing in the Bay

2008-08-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

Downers

2008-08-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

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!

Seasonal Check-in

2008-07-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Auspicious or Inauspicious?

2008-04-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

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 Mani, 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

2008-04-10T08:18:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Splitting

2008-03-27T23:37:00.001-07:00

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

Live Alone and Stay Free

2008-03-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

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

Blessings

2008-03-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Another Day of Empowerments

2008-03-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

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.

Singing Nerves

2008-03-17T22:01:00.001-07:00

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.

Rain of Flowers

2008-03-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Moving Towards "Ling"

2008-03-09T23:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Oakland Dharma Bum Routine

2008-03-08T21:46:00.001-08:00

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.

Physical Support for the Dharma

2008-03-05T22:17:00.001-08:00

Oakland Stairmaster

The sad fact that meditation practice has to be balanced with exercise. Prostrations are the general exercise prescription on our lineage, but a lot 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.

Vajravarahi-Throma

2008-03-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

My new statue, from dharmatreasures.com.

2008-03-02T22:18:00.001-08:00

Pema Osel Ling today

Today was absolutely gorgeous. It was Dakini day, our bi weekly day of connection with the awakened activity--the sacred feminine. Everything coalesced around Throma, the most wrathful dakini. I decided to go to Throma tsok at Pema Osel Ling a few days ago. Then, Stacey at Dharma Treasures store at POL called to say that a shipment of statues ordered long ago had arrived, and would I like to buy a statue of Throma? I jumped at the chance, and arranged to pick it up today. Then I set up a massage appointment with Marcie, who lives near Pema Osel Ling for the same day. As I started t write this, I remembered that Marcie is a celebrated Throma practitioner. As I picked up the statue, someone in the bookstore commented to a friend that I look like the Throma statue I just bought. I said, "yes, we do look alike," but really this statue is much more sexy than I am.

Today's Sky

2008-02-26T20:43:00.000-08:00

The fingerlike tendrils of clouds
crisscross the blue range.
who builds them there, the workers of instantaneous arisings?
If we swerve to see them
they swerve out of vision just as fast,
leaving particles of white flotsom
of the white ideas they had injested.

you can click on most photos on my blog to make then bigger.

Berkeley Fish Release

2008-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

We crammed in Alana's car, trying to keep warm while waiting for the animals to arrive. Ellen and Stacey made merry.

Chimey loves handling crabs, and is fearless.

Marty gets ready for the liberation.

Over it goes!

After Anne's event a dozen of us did a life release tonight at the Berkeley pier. We bought many clams and crabs, then gathered, said a prayer and a bunch of Om Mani Peme Hungs and set them free in the Bay.

It's great to do this in Berkeley, all the bystanders on the pier think it makes perfect sense to save the lives of animals by buying them and setting them free.

Anne Klein

2008-02-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

This Afternoon at Orgyen Dorje Den, Alameda, California

Today was the last day of a weekend retreat with Prof. Anne Klein we (Osel Thegchog Ling) organized here in the Bay Area. Anne is quite close to our community. She is a 38 year practitioner and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Starting with a scholarly Gelugpa approach, Anne then became a student of Lama Gonpo Tsetan, the Nyingma Scholar Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, and was the first western student (1996) of our lama A_Rinpoche. She met Rinpoche at Samye Chimpuk in Tibet in 1996, and within a few years was instrumental in bringing him to America. She remains his heart disciple, and right hand woman in America.

So, we have been asking her for years to come teach our community, and finally she did. The topics were the Nine Yanas, coupled with some specific practices that Rinpoche asked her to promulgate. The Nine Yana topic was initiated by HH the Dalai Lama. When the Dharma center she and her husband Harvey Aronson started in Houston, Texas, Dawn Mountain, was invited to have an audience with him, he said that she should teach the nine yanas. She has been exploring how to approach the topic in a heart-centered way, by coupling the framework with reference to our Longchen Nyingthig ngondro practice, and offering additional new practices to enhance our meditation. I would say she mainly addressed the first three yanas, and how they can be experienced in light of Dzogchen this weekend.

Anne was unenthusiastic about having her picture in a blog, so I waited until Chimey went to say goodbye to her to take the above photo. Chimey first met Anne about twenty-eight years ago when they were both students of Lama Gonpo's. We have four or five active members of our group that were students on Lama Gonpo, a Longchen Nyingthig dzogchen master who passed away a number of years ago. In Tibet our lama has taken over the care of Lama Gonpo's nuns as well.

You can see the shrine room of Orgyen Dorje Den above, who were gracious enough to rent us their facility for the event. Pictured behind Anne are three large statues of Shakyamuni Buddha, Longchenpa, and Guru Rinpoche.

Moon Over Stanford

2008-02-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Thubten Jinpa with HH Dalai Lama

Moon over Stanford

Osel Thegchog Ling invited Anne Klein (you know, of "Meeting the Great Bliss Queen" fame) to come from Houston to teach this weekend in Alameda. She then arranged a double-header, speaking at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Thursday evening. The talks title was "Land and the elements in Tibet: A Story of Living Large."

I drove down to Palo Alto with a new member of our group. Anne's talk was a discussion of the word bla (pronounced la) in Tibetan, and I wish I could remember her definition. Bla has been translated as soul, kind of an energy body that inhabits various parts of a human body at different times, that can can be predicted by Tibetan astrology. But land has bla, too, that can be a palpable power. I can't do justice to her presentation.

Interestingly, we noted a Tibetan man walk in the room who looked like that guy who translates for the Dalai Lama. You know, the intellectual in the suit who translates Tibetan into English that is almost incomprehensible to us non-scholars. Then, when he spoke, with that sort of English accent I --and everyone in the room--realized that it really was his holiness' translator. He's really friendly, actually, and I can attest that doesn't wear that suit all the time. Not just a guy after all, he is a Geshe Lharampa and a Ph.D. His name is Geshe Thubten Jinpa.

What was funny is that he was asking Anne her perception about whether people in Tibet now are loosing their sense or belief in bla. He said he hadn't been there since he was one. Then, I thought, actually that's not funny. Because of his connection to HH Dalai Lama, I imagine it would be impossible to get in to China or the TAR.

The Cute Coots

2008-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

Some kids paddling, and singing on Lake Merritt today.

Coots in the lake.

Circumambulating the lake again today, I noticed children paddling a skulling boat, and kind of singing a rowing song. Cute. But birds are the movie stars of Lake Merritt, which has the oldest bird sanctuary in the U.S. I never knew that these diving birds are called American Coots. I thought I was an American Coot, but now I see I am no where near as cute as a coot.

If I had remembered my text and my mala or electronic counter, I would have "opened" my practice, reading up to the mantra part, then accumulated my mantra while walking, then "closed" the practice by finishing up the rest of the sadhana. One of my lamas allows me to count mantras accumulated while walking towards my practice goals. I am not a body-oriented person, and exercise is excruciatingly boring for me, so practicing while exercising is good for me, plus the exercise brightens up the practice for me. But I forgot the text and the mala, so I just said 21 seven line prayers, did my 3.4 miles, spent a few brief moments abiding in awareness, and called it a day.

I found Jesus in Chinatown

2008-02-19T17:52:00.001-08:00

After searching Kelly Paper store for the perfect paper for our new Shitro text late in the day, I headed to Chinatown looking for something quick to eat. After grabbing a few things from a take out store for dim sum-like items I headed to the most delicious Chinese variety store to look around. In each of these stores there is a section for confucian shrines, taoist mirrors, and the occasional Buddha. I have never seen Jesus before, but Hallelujah, there he was! Among with the Virgin Mary, etc... In the Bay Area, everything is all wrapped up together, but usually you find this style of candle in a Latino Botanica.

Later, as I walked back to my car, the plastic takeout bag broke and my dinner ended up on the Harrison Street sidewalk. I hope the birds enjoyed it.

Yes, the thing hanging in the window in the bottom photos appears to be the later half of a pig.

Circumambulating Lake Merritt

2008-02-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

I am making the intention to walk around Lake Merritt at least once a week. It's a pleasant 3.4 mile walk. Lots and lots of birds, and a fair number of humans. I tend to like the wilds of the Oakland hills more, because I am a hermit, and I encounter few humans there. However, the thing about Lake Merritt is that it is 3.4 miles around, making it a full hours walk for this old slow poke. That's good for the body! So, I walked it yesterday evening.

Today I spent the day in puja and discussion with the folks from Osel Thegchog Ling, up at Christine's house in Marin. It's looking like we are going to start borrowing Arjia Rinpoche's Mill Valley center to hold some of our practices in, we are outgrowing people's living rooms, and they have been kind enough to make it available to us. That will be a steeping stone towards our own center, someday.

This coming weekend, Anne Klein from Houston is coming in to teach some practices from A _ Rinpoche. We are renting Orgyen Dorje Den in Alameda for that.

If you don't live in the Bay Area (or New York City) you can't begin to imagine how much space rentals are.

Sausal Creek, Finally!

2008-02-15T22:29:00.000-08:00

You were probably wondering when I would get around to writing about Sausal Creek. I will start today.

I own half of a bit of an urban culverted creek. Creeks are celebrities in the Bay Area. Sausal Creek has a fairly large community non-profit fan club, called Friends of Sausal Creek. These folks are dedicated to restoring native flora and fauna to this little stream ecosystem corridor through Oakland. They tell you all about it on their website. They are wonderful people, but can rouse little enthusiasm for my part of the creek, in the low income flat part of Oakland. The original course of the creek down here is unknown, there is a lot of fill and it looks like it's course was straightened when they logged the huge first growth redwoods up in the hill in the 19th century, so they could pull logs to ships using the creek as a sluice to float the logs out to the bay for shipping. However, there is a little kink in the line near me house, so who knows.

Until the 80's I hear all the neighborhood kids played in the creek behind my house, and neighbors fought over the ill defined border between properties--our deeds say the properties extend half way across the creek. Imagine the battles when erosion or course changes occurred. Then, the creek was given high cement walls and base and a strong tall anchor style fence at the top. I have owned the house one year. There is no way for me to get to the creek (I own half of) now. But there are a lot of plusses to that for me, so I'm not complaining.

There is a Creek Ordinance in Oakland, and it has so many rules for what I can do with my property, that at times it seems I might be arrested for tossing out a glass of water in my yard... thanks to my friends at Friends of Sausal Creek. I have a lot of dreams of restoring the habitat, back to what it probably never was, but should have been! I'm share that as we go along. Meanwhile, I'll show you the BEFORE photo, the one on top.

I love living here, I'm not the only one who lives here. We have raccoons, feral cats, a hawk, a lot of hummingbirds, crickets, a Great Egret who visits on special occasions. There are fish found each year upstream, so they have to go by my house. I am determined to spot one.

Living Uncontrived

2008-02-15T00:17:00.001-08:00

Who is this woman, dressed in red?
Rolling rolling out of my head
Who is the woman, oh so clean?
She unravels what I mean.
Living, living, uncontrived:
who knows what comes up inside?

What is this fish in Sausal Creek?
Swimming, swimming out of the dead
What is this fish, oh so live?
Leaping swimmer, unbelieved.
Looking, looking, can’t be seen:
Can’t be life in this old stream.

A Room of My Yome

2008-02-14T22:06:00.000-08:00

Going to evening practice in my Yome

My meditation room is a kind of cross between a yurt, a dome, and a tent, called a Yome, in my backyard. It has been a huge success, I am really glad I chose this structure. It is hexagonal, with a high peaked rook inside, and the coolest thing about it is its translucency. There is something about being able to see the fine detailed shadows of moving trees, squirrels and cats outside that is just so sweet and lovely. Sometime I'll show you a daytime view, but I'm redoing the shrine, so I'm not quite ready for an internet open house.

I have been spending a lot of time out there lately, catching up on my projects (this week the Shitro text work, mainly) and my practices. I'm finishing up the very end of one ngondro, and because I really need some exercise, starting a new ngondro before I am done. The ngondro practice sequence typically has prostrations that are done in the beginning and not at the end. I have injured my back doing prostrations in the past, so I am starting very slow with small numbers--trying ten a day and seeing how it goes, then 20 and so on. Practitioners in the Nyingma tradition pretty much practice ngondro daily until we die.

Also, everyone in our sangha is now doing Shitro practice daily, so that's no secret. I have been very surprised how different the practice is now that I am doing it daily instead of at tsok once a month. Anyone else been kind of blown away by the power of it? My, my, what they say about the Dakini's breath still being warm. Now I don't remember why I was so resistant to getting started. Just an American who doesn't like being told what to do, I guess. Now, I'd be happy to do two sessions a day and "finish" in a year. But, I had other plans, so we will see how it all pans out.

I just feel so happy to be alive, and to be able to pursue my own quirky purpose in life full time for the time being.

Hiking and Hopping

2008-02-11T23:35:00.001-08:00

My friend, actually ex-wife, Deb and I went for a walk on Sequoia-Sunset trail in the hills today. Deb is a personal chef and fundraising consultant. Deb's the best conversationalist I know, meaning she listens very intently and it makes one feel oh-so-interesting. I am trying to do as many of my social activities as I can while on the move these days. Yes, a fitness kick is underway.

The next step of my fitness kick will be to find someplace to dance. Yes, the dharma nerd likes to dance. I was in the best condition of my adult life when I went through a time when I was swing dancing three nights a week for a year in my thirties. It is also an opportunity to touch human beings, and listen to good music.

So, I've started looking at the internet to find out where to go. It seems lesbians have a few options in the Bay Area:

"Cream"
supersexy lesbian dance party with rotating DJs spinning hip-hop, old-school, funk, Latin, and disco

(Oh my goodness no. This makes me feel very old.)

"Ladies' Night with Burnin' Bush"
w/ Ital Hi-Fi spinning dancehall, reggae, & hip-hop

(That one makes me feel very... white)

Hot to Trot Women's Dance
Beginners are welcome to learn and participate in two-step, East and West Coast swing, salsa, waltzes, nightclub two-step, some Lindy and line dances.
Price: $10-$20 sliding scale, includes lesson
Time & Date: Fridays, 7:30-11 p.m.
Glenview Performing Arts Center
1318 Glenfield Ave.
Oakland CA 94602
Oakland: Glenview
510-763-1343, hot2dance@aol.com

That sounds more up my alley. Although it's still a sexual metaphor, it a nerdy middle-aged one. Unfortunately, they have Valentine's party this weekend. Yuck. I've decided I'm allergic to relationships. I'll wait until the following week.

Leading and following are completely different in these dances, and with women I learned to lead because I am tall and look silly trying to follow those little butch women.

That's if I want to play it safe and stick to women's events. Should I dare learn to follow? If we open up the whole wide world of Bay Area swing dance, the best options I see are:

Trip the light fantastic
Allegro dancers

Then the big picture:
Lindylist

What is swing dancing you ask? Well, there are different styles, here is a video of some good Lindy-hop dancers. Lindy is most popular out here in the Bay area, but I prefer the Jitterbug,
Why? Because it's easier, I couldn't even get the basic steps down of the Lindy, last time I tried.

Now, I'm loosing my nerve before I even start!

Srid

2008-02-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had dinner with my friend Laurie, the chodpen (ritual master) for Osel Thegchog Ling. Then we went to a Tea Bar to work on Dharma text production. We have been wrestling with the Shitro terma that our lama discovered in 2002 ever since that time, trying to develop a usable version that suits the purposes of our sangha. Now we are poised on the brink, soon we will have a new text.

Since Laurie and I are basically Dharma nerds, we get all worked up over things that would seem to be minor points to anyone else. We both particularly despise Tibetan phonetics that are not, well, phonetic. I think this is because neither of us are translators, we represent the end user of a text. We each have our particular heated opinions about certain words. For example, don't even show me a text that has words like "srid" or "med" throughout as supposed phonetics. That's how we end up with 30 year American practitioners who say they are practicing chod (rhymes with odd) with their bell, drum and kangling. I'm convinced it is a plot by people fluent in Tibetan to make the rest of us sound like total idiots! (Those d's are rarely pronounced, and neither is that r in "srid"). At least get us in the ballpark, folks!

Anyway, I wanted to come back to the Shitro mantra chain discussion that I started some posts back. Remember, the Rinpoche for this sangha--we'll call him A. Rinpoche--started a mantra chain of the main mantra of the Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deity practice. The idea of this chain, which I prefer to call a garland, is to have at least one person in our world wide sangha saying this mantra twenty four hours a day seven days a week, by tag teams. We have a sister sangha in Italy who is doing nights and mornings, and we are doing afternoons and evenings, having each person take a half hour or more. I'm doing one to two pm, if you would like to chant along.

Looking at my Shitro text, I have discovered that one's personal mantra accumulation minimum is supposed to be only a million of this main mantra, as opposed to the huge number I wrote below. Also, my speed has picked up, so somehow I find it encouraging to be working towards my personal goal rather than simply continuing "until samsara is emptied" which was Rinpoche's vajra command. Clearly, I am far from the first Bodhisattva bhumi.

The wide world of feeling

2008-02-08T15:16:00.001-08:00

When the wide world of feeling
opens in your heart
There is a pressure there that feels
like it could kill.
I feel the tragedy of human life
How do people live with it
all the time
in worlds of war and hunger.
I think of them, then
notice the sensation, experienced and dissipating,
again again again.
Again.

Burn Baby Burn

2008-02-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

The final day of Gutor, there is a grand procession of warriors. Rinpoche hurls, shoots, and slings symbolic representations of our obstacles into the fire.

Gutor at Pema Osel Ling

2008-02-08T08:25:00.000-08:00

A few days after our breakup, I went to Pema Osel Ling for their Tibetan New Year Retreat. How merciful that it was happening right then! Above is a a picture of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche chatting with Lisa, and Kim outside the shrineroom. Harold is in the background.

Gutor is the final period of the old year, and we do a very fierce penetrating group practice, called Vajrakilaya, for a week at this time. There is a full tantric orchestra, and the most elaborate ritual of the year at this time. The lamas ritually enact the binding and obliteration of all of our obscurations and negativities of the new year. (Sorry, lamas, for these incompetent explanations, but I am just trying to give folks some context for my pictures).

It's times like this that I am so grateful for the Dharma. It gives you a whole toolkit for dealing with emotions, including ways at the higher levels that you can actually use them to enhance your practice. So, for those who are worried about me... don't be. I'm more than fine now. But hugs are very welcome.Here is something that none of us ever thought we would see again. This is Rinpoche doing the Black Hat dance, a swirling loping embodiment of battle with the legions of Mara. He hasn't been able to do this in about a decade, but has had a complete turnaround in his health since having a pacemaker put in last year.

AH

2008-02-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

My goodness, a lot has transpired in my life since my last post.

On January 27th, on the way to practice the ceremonial feast of The Black Wrathful Mother (Throma) at my friends' house, a discussion began with my partner, L, that lead to end of the relationship. If I recall correctly, the same thing happened to two friends of mine four or five years ago as they were driving to the same Throma tsok, eventually ending up opening the door for one of them to enter three year retreat at Pema Osel Ling. Throma apparently does not think much of relationships. In point of fact, Throma does not think.

Here we go again, down to the primordial AH.

I spent much of the following day walking and looking at the sky at my secret place. Although I have taken lots of people there, it will always be my secret place; in the words of Joni Mitchell, "it's a place no amount or of hurt or anger can depreciate."

Would you like to go there with me, dear reader?

The view from my spot

A pinkish orb that was in the sky that day. It looks like an upside-down heart, doesn't it?

My phenomena.

Water

2008-01-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

L and I went up to to top of the Oakland Hills today, near the origin of the Sausal Creek watershed. Can you see my house down there below?

It's my birthday, I've decided to start thinking of it as "one year closer to complete realization" rather than "one year closer to the grave."

Anyway, looking at the San Francisco Bay reminds my of another Bay long ago. Little known (and perhaps totally uninteresting) fact: I spent every weekend of my childhood summers on Saint Leonard's Creek, a small estuary off the Patuxant River, itself a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. We're talking Maryland in the 60's, here: humid, hot, wild, and just beginning to consider an end to segregation. My father, George, is a boat enthusiast. We had a series of motorboats, that were moored at a southern Yacht club known as White Sands. White Sands was a polynesian style development, two docks, vacation homes, jungly woodland trails, an abandoned mansion (with bats!), and horse stables. I wandered, by sea and by land, with unsupervised preadolescent redneck children--the offspring of red faced men who had gained wealth through running car lots.

The white men spent a lot of time sweating, shirtless in the bilge of their big boats, or perhaps convening together on the back of the boat, being served fried chicken and drinks by their wives. This was not an avocation for sissies.

As children we swam in the warm brown semi-translucent water with the crabs, sea turtles, perch, and jelly fish. The boys would do cannonballs off the tall houseboats, the girls would merely jump. Then afterwards we would nurse our jellyfish stings with Adolf's Meat Tenderizer--MSG in a bottle--which somehow killed the pain. And there were snakes, poisonous; copperheads on land, and cottonmouths in the water.

It seems like I read this all, and much much more, in a novel now.

Cage Rattling

2008-01-25T06:59:00.001-08:00

Remember that Zhitro accumulation I mentioned post before last? Well, Rinpoche has really rattled everyone’s cage by sending word to us that we should continue a twenty-four hour mantra accumulation “until samsara is emptied.” But, no, not just that, he set up two other simultaneous continuous accumulations—a special Vajrasattva mantra, and a prayer he wrote for these difficult times. Starting immediately, and continuing forever.

Personally, I had just sunk my talons into a new sadhana, tucked in my napkin and was starting to gobble when this happened. What do I do now? Drop it and take up that Zhitro accumulation, which I had already decided to do sometime in my 70’s, if I live that long? I love the Zhitro practice, and the accumulation is huge and the mantra long. Right now it takes me an hour to say 800, without the sadhana. If I recall correctly, think the expected accumulation for one person was 2,400,000. If one adds the sadhana, that would be about an hour and a half a day for three years. Or 45 minutes a day for six years—actually sounds more doable. Then, if I spend half the year doing other practices, that would be twelve years. Of course, it gets faster as you do it. On the other hand, now we are supposed to just keep going, so perhaps the numbers are moot.

The Zhitro is a practice related to the hundred peaceful and wrathful deities of the Bardo. It is really supposed to help bardo beings. I am especially drawn to helping bardo beings. My goal is to become a special Buddha who can swoop down and grab beings who have died and are heading to hell, and put them in my new Buddhafield, The Pureland of Remorseful Reprobates.

My friend Dennis emailed me very early this morning, “I had a dream where we formed a company and we were selling aspirin that was useful in the bardo. Our slogan was ‘don't get a headache over your bad karma.’”

Mantrika Blues

2008-01-24T21:19:00.002-08:00

Crossing the bay

in cold rain

a map is drawn in mind

from vastness bliss

through thought

around the corner of feeling

into the little box of sadness

Mantra Moonbeams

2008-01-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I was up in Marin County. In the late afternoon I drove around and looked for a place for Osel Thegchog Ling that I saw in a dream. Nothing matched the literal minded picture in the dream. I pulled in in front of a place that was very similar--near Mill Valley. Just then my cell phone rung and it was my friend C--another counsel-member for our group. One of Rinpoche's people called on his behalf from Italy. He wanted us to start taking shifts accumulating Zhitro mantra immediately. It was now my turn. So, I sat near the place I had been thinking of, and recited mantra for the better part of the hour, then continued as I drove home. Over Berkeley, I saw this beautiful moon.

Everything is in my mandala right now, the whole world is humming. Everyone and everything is an apparition--e-mail, phone calls, car rides... hum hum hum.

I love all you yogis and yoginis. I really do.

Guru Rinpoche's Mountain Home

2008-01-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

I went back down to Pema Osel Ling, because Lama Tharchin Rinpoche was teaching the Foundational Practices of Tibetan Buddhism. I was just going to stay a couple of days, but I got enthralled and stayed for five days. I've never heard Rinpoche teach this set of practices, known as the ngondro in Tibetan, in depth before. Now I understand that this is his forum for sutrayana teachings. He taught twice a day for ten days--that's four hours of teachings--just touching on some of the points in a detailed text by HH Dudjom Rinpoche. It seems strange that this has never been translated, because it could be really helpful. Perhaps it is in process. Have you been to Pema Osel Ling? It is up a narrow winding road in the redwood covered Santa Cruz Mountains. The goal here is quality, not to be a tourist destination. It is one of the few places in the U.S. that offers the whole path of practice of the Nyingma lineage, with all the supports one needs to really go into depth with it.

The stupas at Stupa Peace Park are coming along nicely. There are still chances to make a connection by offering some money towards their completion. All eight kinds of classical stupas are here (you can't see the bell-shaped on in back), plus a little averting stupa in front. Eventually there will be a mandala shaped wall surrounding them, with 108 (if I recall correctly) little stupas on the top of the wall, then landscaping. We started right after 9/11 on the recommendation of namkhai Drimed Rinpoche, who felt this would help avert future distasters, and completed the main stupa in a year. It is a really good sangha building exercise to make tsa tsas and roll mantras together--these are labor intensive works that go inside the stupas, along with hundreds of other things, such as texts, statues, Buddha relics, and so on.

Our representation of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), the first to firmly establish Buddhism in Tibet, it this impressive statue. It is the focal point of our large shrine room at Pema Osel Ling. Rinpoche always takes some time to look at the statue when he comes in the shrine room, the prostrates three times before taking his teaching seat.

I hope your practice goes well this week. I'm going to focus on having a little bit of discipline this week.

Puja A-Go-Go

2008-01-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

Once you've done tsok every night in retreat, you really don't want to stop when you get out... you want some little puja to remind you of your inherent divinity. That's where Ikea comes in.

Lost yet?

Puja is a kind of ceremony invoking immaterial wisdom deity, sometimes accompanied by a feast. As Vajrayana practitioners we do tsok on the 10th and 25th day of the lunar month. In my tradition, this can be elaborate or unelaborate.

Ikea is an overwhelming maze-like variation on the big box store. They sell various items for tsok, some of the best tea lights around, trays for making tormas (sculptural dough offerings), and most recently I became enamored with their plastic trays with legs, that one can use to give folks something to set their text on, or to make a little impromtu shrine island when everything else is in chaos.

Lately I have been feeling enthralled with Yeshe Tsogyal. The pre-eminent dakini--who brought me to the Dharma by sharing her life story with me, so many years ago. I want to practice as she did, perfecting every aspect of the path. Please Mother Tsogyal, teach me everything and enhance my capacity, devotion and bodhicitta!

My Favorite City

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

A San Francisco Child Development Center, Cook Street

At one time I worked for a couple of years doing hands-on nursing care for special needs kids in the San Francisco public schools. One of the best parts of the job was that at times--especially summers--I would be assigned to go from one school to another during the day. Being out and about one weekdays all over that city, when most other people were trapped inside building was a kind of sensual experience. San Francisco it famous for its vistas, but it also smells good, and its builders (and post-fire rebuilders) appreciated texture, pattern and color.

Above is a public building for little kids--probably the kind of center that would be in a temporary building in another town. But, by god, the above is only part of it's magnificent facade.

I took these today after a Feldenkrais lesson at a friend's house.

My Friends from Argentina

2008-01-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

One other thing that I also noticed on arriving in California was the ants. They were nothing like the ants I was used to. No, these little ants are mighty! Now I know they are Argentine Ants; indomitable.

So, what doeth the mild buddha-people, who hath vowed not to kill any sentient being? This is an evolving science. The goals are to cut off their point of ingress, remove the food or water they want, then move the remaining ants outside before they starve or die of thirst.

What I do with a major incursion is to clean the area as best I can, which is usually centered around a kitchen or bathrooms sink, then draw a line around the area to protect it. As paint, one uses cinnamon oil--a little cinnamon in some oil. Then take a little brush--like the kind you have around to make tormas-- and paint a continuous circle around the sink or whatever.As you can see in the above photo, they are completely stymied by this line. And also, find the opening they came into the room from, blow on it so that they move for a moment, then paint the opening so they clear out of this area. Then, I move the ants. Smaller quantities of ants can be moved by scooting them onto a piece of paper, or gently dragging a tissue over them (they grab on), or sucking them up with an official bug mover or--as a last resort--a little hand vac. After the general situation is controlled like that, it is time to seal up the point of ingress with sealant.

What I am calling "the official bug mover" is a vacuum device carried by Tibetan Treasures (inquire) that harmlessly sucks them up so they can be taken outside. The hand vacs kill a few, most will live and be fine.

I Like Lichen

2008-01-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

Today in Redwood Park

I had a nice relaxing day today, practicing, moving ants out of the bathroom, and corresponding with the new friends I have made on this blog. In the afternoon I slipped out and went for a walk in Redwood Park, in the hills above Oakland. The spotlight was on moss and lichen that beamed forth green light from trunks, branches and stones.

My ex, D, emailed me on New Years, reminding me that it has been 13 years since we pulled our Uhaul and my Ford Festiva off at the High Street exit, then sideswiped a parked car on our way up the hill to our new rented home. Although it didn't turn out as we'd planned, I am so happy we landed here. And I'm so glad you are still my friend.

The first year here, a few things I remember: a) being broke b) volunteering binding books at the Nyingma Institute's TAP bookmaking project (the Kangyur or the Tengyur at that time) c) answering phones at the Berkeley Shambhala Center, d) how beautiful everything looked/smelled/felt, and e) these fabulous East Bay Parks that we discovered soon after we arrived.

Buddhist Chaplaincy

2008-01-08T22:03:00.000-08:00

The above photos were taken and posted recently by Joan Halifax Roshi of Upaya Institute in Santa Fe. The top photo is the gate of Upaya, the bottem photo is a backyard a few blocks from there. How do I know? Because I posted a picture of the same windmill here, that I took on December 24. What are the chances of that?

I am part of the first class in their Buddhist Chaplaincy training program that starts this year. It will be team taught by the leading lights of the engaged Buddhism movement, Glassman, Maull, Halifax herself, etc. I, on the other hand, am a dim bulb of the disengaged Buddhism movement. However, I am also an old nurse, and old nurses are like old firehouse dogs--we always return to help people directly who are at critical junctures in their lives. Since is the only ingrained habit I have that is positive, I guess I will figure out how to channel it.

Favorite Blogs

2008-01-08T15:13:00.001-08:00

These Girls of Golok are some of the great people you can meet in the Blogosphere

I got turned on to blogs at first by reading travel blogs to Eastern Tibet; Kham, Golok and Amdo. Actually, my favorite ones are by the westerners who live there. then you get a realistic idea of the experience in these areas that spawned most of the 19th and 20th century meditation adepts who grace our lineage trees. A mostly pastoral area of nomads and monasteries, it is an area of intense contradictions. Impoverished materially, abundant spiritually; it is an area of little literacy, and yet also the matrix of the brilliant scholars of the 19th century nonsectarian movement, and the 18th century self-educated genius and meditation master Jigme Lingpa. Great female yoginis, such as Sera Khandro and Ayu Khandro (in the 20th century) emerged there in what remains a strongly patriarchal setting even today.

I like to read about Rekong--where Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's father came from. I've never heard Rinpoche express an interest in the place, but I have always been fascinated by this area, traditionally inhabited by families of Yogis, who integrate practice and retreat with worldly life, like we do. This school teacher doesn't know anything about that, but I find Toffa a good read.

When she is on the road, Wangmo keeps one heck of a great blog. I'll tell you right from the get go that her lama--Jean Kirkpatrick's son Stuart--is a controversial figure, and the office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama warns people away from his group. But he doesn't figure much in her sincere accounts of life in Golok. Particularly, a man she knows has started a program for young girls--who are just abandoned by the side of the road with some regularity.

If you want to go to Kham check this out, and for permit info check this out.

Now the best overall blog I know, actually comes out of Mongolia most of the time. It is by my favorite Western monk--who I have never me--Konchok Norbu. He actually inspired me to start my blog, and I'll tell you how. He proved that being unrelentingly positive and uplifting, and motivated solely by the impulse to help others, can be really interesting. He can even make birdwatching interesting! So, hence cometh this blog, which I will try to keep free of my mounting anxiety over chemtrails and the island of discarded plastic the size of Texas in the Pacific ocean.

In India we find Joy documenting the lives of herself, Lama Lena, and Nyondo, an intrepid lesbian trio who serve Lama Wangdor and the people in his community near Tso Pema. I will warn you ahead of time, you will end up making a donation by paypal to help them out, once you read it there is no choice, Paypal calls. Here is Nyondo's blog--she is a computer industry person. These three are from the Bay Area originally. Unfortunately my only real personal contact with them caused Lena to have an allergic reaction. Lama Wangdor Rinpoche gave an empowerment at my old shrine room, and Lena was allergic to my rug.

I removed my final blog recommendation on 1/10.

Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's Magic

2008-01-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many of you know my main root lama, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche. He was ill for many years, and not really teaching much publicly. Above is a 2006 photo I found online.

The aspect of Rinpoche's life story that has been on my mind lately is from his youth. He had completed many years of retreat under Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche in Tibet, culminating with him serving as a teaching assistant in the final group three year retreat. He realized when he was about to come home that, as the son of a respected lama, and someone who had completed extensive retreat, he would be treated with great esteem by people in his home area. He knew he had not yet defeated his ego clinging, so after reuniting with his beloved mother, he told her he needed to go wander and practice in areas where he would be a complete nobody. She said she understood, and told his father. His father said "Good boy." His father --a fierce mahasiddha who was the ancestral spiritual leader of a community of non-monastic yogis (ngakpas) in Rekong (now Tongren, Qinghai)--had left his home for similar reasons.

Anyway, soon afterwards word came that things had gotten too bad politically to remain in Tibet to stay. He escaped over the mountains to India. He always jokes that the Chinese set up exactly the kind of situation he had been seeking. He became one among many refugees, eventually settling in Orissa in Dudjom Rinpoche's refugee camp there. There he became successful--as a very effective beggar.

Rinpoche remains the most stubbornly humble high lama I have ever encountered. Without his guidance, I am sure that myself and countless others among his students would be real egomaniacs by now. It is apparently easy to fall into this trap as practitioners of teachings that are said to be exalted. Then one can undermine the whole process by wantonly engaging in the most seductive afflicted emotion there is--pride. So hard to see in oneself, so poisonous

So the best news is that Rinpoche is healthy now, and teaching a lot this year. Please see his teaching schedule at the Vajrayana Foundation website and the Jnanasukha website. He has said quite often that he doesn't need new students, doesn't have any personal need to give empowerments and so forth. All the more reason to become his student and receive as many teachings and transmissions as you can from him.

The pool of great lamas training in old Tibet is shrinking annually. If you are alive today you are among the last people alive who will have access to such masters. Please don't squander it by thinking they will always be there and you will meet them after you make some money and retire. I regret so much how I squandered my first 30 years on silly dualistic political obsessions, and could have easily met Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse, 16th Karmapa, and Trungpa Rinpoche instead.

At Pema Osel Ling

2008-01-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone.

I'm blogging from the bench next to the pond at Pema Osel Ling (Lotus land of Clear Light), it is very cold and dark. I couldn't find my camera at home on the way out the door. I can see now that the mandala does not want me to do a blow-by-blow blog of this retreat. For non-Buddhists: that's kind of like saying the "universe" doesn't want me to. If nothing else a big storm is coming in tomorrow night that will make my outdoor internet perch untenable.

I'll catch up with ya'll next week. It's really wonderful that folks are reading it. I'm having lots of fun with it.

Close of Shambhala Program

2007-12-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of our teachings in Berkeley. This was our most well-attended program with Rinpoche ever--looked like about 100 people to me. The amazing part was that they stayed until the last session, and some beyond. I think Rinpoche only covered a few pages of the massive text this time, and plans to pick up where he left off next year. Actually, you rarely get this incredibly detailed commentary on a text in our Nyingma school. Every word explicated, wow.

Once again Rinpoche proved me wrong. I thought we would loose our shirts offering a teaching-only program (no empowerment ceremonies) for two and a half days. These events are quite expensive to put on, hosting three lamas, airfare, rent and so on--the budget is mind-boggling sometimes. I didn't think the topic would attract all that many people. Boy, was I wrong on all counts. I didn't do registration, but I am certain we must have at least broken even.

Rinpoche met with us afterwards, and said we students would eventually write Dharma-related books, and he would check them for accuracy. He told us in the group that we could have a (big) center like the Shambhala Center, and reiterated this to me again in private--saying we would have a center like that. I said "Do you really think that?" and he said emphatically yes he did. Something about a turning wheel or circle would increase power more and more. He is very impressed with our lack of pride (that means humility) in our California group. He tells other groups this--it could really go to our heads!

Well, it's time to hit the sack. Guess where I am going tomorrow. Another teaching retreat? You betcha. Tomorrow I leave for the Lotus Land of Pure Light.

The Renunciates and the Mantrikas

2007-12-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

Jampa (AKA Richard D.) at Tara Mandala last week

Ani Jampal Tsomo at lunch today--that's fake fur!

The shrine room, mantrikas backs, and April's daughter

Stacey and Ellen chatting at the auction today

Teachings continued today at the Shambhala Center, plus the annual fundraising auction for charities. Christine, the doc in charge of the Tibet Humanitarian Project spoke about one twelve year old nun who needs expensive surgeries on for deformities of both legs, and these must be done before she is 13 because of something about her the growth plates. We did a good job pulling together for her, accompanied by a song by our favorite rapper Ellen S., who happened to be in town making a music video, and paid us a surprise visit.

Rinpoche always stressed that we are a sangha of both monastics and mantrikas (ngakpas), and likes all the non-monastics to wear a specific stripped shawl -- that some other lamas think indicates only a super high level practitioner. I think it is understood that the robes indicate a mere aspiration for us. It makes our lama feel uplifted to see up in robes, perhaps because he is a monk who has spent his life around people in robes--but what he says is that it increases his faith in us when we are in mantrika robes.

Between Colorado, Houston, Arizona and California, Rinpoche has at least six American nuns: Bhikshuni Kelsang Tsomo, Ani Chotso, Ani Tsomo, Ani Tsultrim (tall), Ani Tsultrim (short), and Ani Jampal Tsomo. And one monk: Jampa. The shortest time any of them has been ordained is two years. I had lunch with Ani Jampal Tsomo (Robin) today. She says she has never been happier. She works as a school teacher then just comes home and practices. She doesn't do anything else, and now she wants to tell everyone how peaceful that kind of life is.

Jampa (Richard) has really blossomed as a monastic as well. What I have observed is that each of these monastics is really drawn to the heart aspect of monasticism--they are practical, good-hearted practitioners who like to keep their lives simple. Really, I have been impressed with how taking these vows has enhanced their dignity, faith and humility.

Boy, I just lost steam! I'd better post these photos and hit the sack.

Rinpoche at Shambhala

2007-12-28T22:32:00.000-08:00

Can you find Rinpoche in this picture? I took this about an hour and a half ago,

no effects added.

Preachin' the Dharma

Jetsunma

We rented the Berkeley Shambhala for the weekend to host Rinpoche's first of a series of teachings on the Kunsang Lamai Shelung (tr. as "The Words of My Perfect Teacher") a well-loved book by Patrul Rinpoche on the foundational practices of the Dzogchen tradition. Rinpoche spoke "pandita" (scholar) style, elucidating each sentence in great detail. Anne Klein is translating.

He made a key point that it is a mistake for people to think the foundational practices are not dzogchen. He made an analogy to an airplane. First you have to build an airplane before you fly it in the sky. Ngondro is like building the plane, you have to have it built well for it to fly. But it is an airplane before it takes off as well as while it is in the sky.

I am staffing the sales table.

You will also see a picture above of Jetsunma, our tulku of Yeshe Tsogyal, and the abbess of many nuns in Tibet. She is said to be one of two women in Tibet today who give empowerment. In her previous life she was Chime' Wangmo, a Dharma Physician and the daughter of Adzom Drukpa. She is an excellent scholar, and was nearly complete her Khenpo (Doctorate-like) when forces outside of her control cut off her final year of education at the shedra she was attending. There are some predictions she will move here to North America, but Rinpoche told me recently that the faith, devotion and practice of the Dharma here are not yet strong enough to warrant it.

Interesting how the picture came out of Rinpoche leaving his throne, above.

Join us tomorrow, starting at 10:30 am.

Home Briefly

2007-12-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

After a cold Christmas eve at a hotel in Albuquerque--the heat in the room didn't work--I departed for home. On the way back I sat next to a troubled male-to-female transexual, who restlessly alternated between a kind of grunting sound, and asking the flight attendant for peanuts or "something alcoholic." After the first Jack Daniel's was consumed, the flight attendant said they were all out of Jack and had only "Woodruff" which she explained was "like that." I had a strong feeling that woodruff was a non-alcoholic drink that only tasted like liquor, and that she was preventing a drunken scene through a compassionate act of deception. Do you know?

Anyway, I silently practiced compassion, feebly, but I didn't start up a conversation.

Once home, my fabulous practitioner girlfriend L interrupted her personal retreat to pick me up and then exchange gifts. It was lovely.

Then the 26th and 27th were maintenance days, fixing and "smogging" my car, shopping, and a little meeting with Nina in preparation for seeing A Rinpoche. In 2001, Nina and I cofounded his California group Osel Thegchog Ling, and needed to talk about what we and others would say to him at our annual checkin tonight. After this meeting yesterday I went to visit Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang, who were staying with their son in Berkeley. He gave me a text (Tseringma dice divination) that I am going to get translated somehow, at my own instigation, then I helped with a few phone calls for them to help iron out some visa problems for one of their sons because they leave for Asia Sunday morning. Taiwan is a time consuming hassle to get into, India is easy, for someone with Nepali passport. This I learned.

Skillful Means

2007-12-28T09:43:00.000-08:00

A backyard in Santa Fe, Sunset, Christmas Eve 2007

One December 24, I started to drive down to New Mexico via Chama. In Chama the state of new Mexico provided a tourist stop with free internet. Fortunately I read my email there. I found that Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe had decided to throw a last minute Christmas Eve traditional dinner. I have signed up for a Buddhist Chaplaincy training program at Upaya, that starts in 2008, but I have never been there. The centers' Roshi (zen master) Joan Halifax Roshi was to make her cranberry relish, so I had to go!

Now, I have never spent more than five minutes inside a Zen center before. I came to the door and was ushered towards the Zendo, a lovely spartan glowing room with a statue of Manjushri in the center, and cushions all around the fringe. Not facing the wall as one might expect, actually.A A gnome like priest gestured me silently to come-in, come-in. Damn, I just remembered my back was toast from the previous days activities. Oh, well, I sat and tried not to squirm. They had the lights dimmed, which added an other-worldly quality to my meditation. They mercifully have periodic walking meditation, I couldn't feel my feet by then. The gnome told us to carefully follow the person in front. Being inattentive, I went astray and zig-zagged wildly throughout the shrine room.

It was then that I realized the gnomes voice sounded familiar from You Tube. As I limped out of the shrine room when I could take the pain no longer she found me--it was Roshi! Smiling, instantly remembering who I was and giving me a robust greeting, she welcomed me to dinner.

Her little talk before we ate was similar, enthusiastic and hearty she made aspirations that this little roomful of 25 people or so was exhorted to end war, poverty and suffering for all in this very life. She is short in stature and goes up on her toes with feeling at times, a clear leader, vigorous and present.

The assembly mirrored the friendly cheerfulness of their mentor. I will have a great time at my Upaya visits over the next two years, that is certain.

Enchanted Morning

2007-12-28T09:24:00.001-08:00

Finally, on December 24th, after eight hours of kick-ass empowerments, preceded by a frenzy of torma making* for yours truly, I awoke to see the rising sun and the setting full moon in the sky at the same time.

Time to say goodbye to Tara Mandala and head out to New Mexico where I plan to stay wait out the airport rush on the 24th and fly home on xmas day.

You may notice I haven't said anything much about the content of the program. It was a very magical time, but it is traditional to keep the experience "warm' inside and not disperse it by blabbing about it to people who weren't there.

*tormas are symbolic colored dough sculptures used in Tibetan Buddhist rituals.

My Friend--The residence building

2007-12-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Close Up

From across the meadow

While at TM, we were the first group to use the new Residence Hall, an addition to the place that really makes it possible to go on retreat there without being a total bitch. I have had back pain since childhood, and also I have high needs for alone time. Now, we can stay on a very comfortable mattress with only two people per room, and have a luxurious pain killing hot shower, or--get this--a bath--after a hard day of sitting. Thank you thank you, to the donors who made this possible!

Tara Mandala--a vital growing retreat cnter

2007-12-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Community Building, added a year or two ago.

The stupa, based on a series of dreams of Nyala Pema Duddul, a great adept of the Dzogchen lineage, this was put up in the late nineties.

From December 14 to the 24, I was on retreat at Tara Mandala. Rinpoche has been leading a sequential program of teachings over several years there, related to the pinnacle teachings of the Nyingma tradition known as the Great Perfection, Dzogchen in Tibetan.

Tara Mandala is a 700 acre piece of land we used to call wilderness. Now, with a stupa, two large buildings, and one on the way, I guess we could call it one of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist retreat centers in the U.S. Founded by Tsultrim Allione, an American Dharma teacher and visionary, in 1993, outside of Pagosa Springs, Colorado in the Western foothills of the Rockies--it is a stunning representation of what sticking to a clear and ambitious vision statement and pure intention can wrought. I remember in about 200- being struck by seeing the architect's diagram of what Tara Mandala would become in the small yurt bookstore near the stupa in the summer of 2000, after a night of being kept up by wolves frolicking by my tent. A community building, a temple, a three year retreat, environmentally responsible design principles. Right! My home Dharma center was in a circus tent at that point and it was headed by a Tibetan Dzogchen master, how was this woman and her crew of college students on work-study going to do that!

Actually, I could see clearly that she would. Tulku Sangngak Rinpoche later said that TM is a pure land of Tara, and she met Rinpoche a few years later who confirmed it is a "Ney" of Tara and many people will attain enlightenment in the future there. Rinpoche is now the guiding light of TM and comes annually.

Tsultrim has always emphasized mainly the practice of Chod (hint, you begin to approximate the pronunciation of this word by dropping the D, the o is pronounced as like it has those two dots over it) in her teaching. She resides at TM and travels widely, helping bring Dharma to the west, and fundraising for TM. She became well known through her book Women of Wisdom, a collection of biographies of some of the female meditation adepts of our tradition, turning on an interest in TB for western women who would not be magnetized by men in red robes sitting on thrones (which for some reason works for me, even though I have a radical feminist background).

This summer Tsultrim went to Nepal and Tibet with her large retinue, and was officially recognized by two different lamas as an "emanation" of Machig Labdron, the 11th century female meditation master who was the first native Tibetan chod practitioner.

Onward to Pagosa Springs

2007-12-27T23:40:00.000-08:00

After magnificent teachings on a practice of the most penetrating manifestation of Padmasambhava, Rinpoche concluded his short visit to Crestone. I participated in a convoy over the Wolf Creek pass towards Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in another snowstorm. In front, Machig Labdron in the form of Tsultrim Allione, driving Rinpoche and entourage. Behind, the tailgaiting son, Coz. With me, Dechen--one of Rinpoche's American attendants--keeping me company so I don't sever the steering wheel with my death grip as we descend from the pass.

It turns out Dechen is planning on going to Tibet on the same group pilrimage to Tibet that I hope to make with Lama Yeshe Wangmo in 2009. A speaker of Tibetan and experienced traveler there, she has been helping Lama Wangmo plan the spots to visit on this excursion to unravel the enigmatic Yeshe Tsogyal's sacred story.

Jnanasukha's trip to Tibet 1009. See bottom of the page.

When we arrived on the edge of Pagosa we did a pit stop at a gas station. As I have witnessed on numerous occasions with Rinpoche, a destined disciple connected with him in the gas station. This ordinary looking young man is planning to go to China to become a monk. Tsultrim invited him out to Tara Mandala, a large Tibetan Buddhist center a few miles outside of Crestone that she founded, and he did not know existed. One the last day of the retreat he received a Guru Rinpoche empowerment from Rinpoche, by candlelight, and was invited to come back to the place Rinpoche was staying, for a personal chat.

Tara Mandala

Tomorrow, I hope to bring the blog up to the present day. It is the day, Friday, that A Rinpoche arrives at Oakland Airport. Do you want to come? I hear the flight comes in at noon. Then, a public talk at the Berkeley Shambhala Center at 7 pm.

Rinpoche in the Winter Sun

2007-12-27T23:13:00.000-08:00

Just another pic of Rinpoche in the winter sun at White Jewel Mountain.

White Jewel Mountain

2007-12-27T22:48:00.000-08:00

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.

White Out

2007-12-27T22:20:00.000-08:00

On December 12 I flew into Albuquerque, New Mexico, upgraded my rental car to a four wheel drive tank, and started out for Crestone, Colorado, a unique remote community beneath snow mountains on the edge of the Rio Grande Valley. The expensive upgrade was triggered by news that Colorado had been pelted with a large amount of snow that day. I was exhausted, and had only slept an hour or so the night before--returning from another trip (to Kauai!) the night before leaving on this one. I drove a long way out of the way--thinking I should take the main highway to avoid unplowed roads. Heading up route 25 seemed to take forever. I eventually pulled off the highway, drove down a dirt road, and pulled into a dirt gully in Northern new mexico to take a nap. Just then, my cell phone--which had been working only intermittently--started to ring. my hand-eye coordination was just too impaired by fatigue, I couldn't get it out of my pocket in time. Then it rang again, who is calling me goddamn it! This time I got it. I hear a familiar accent on the other end--Tinglish they call it... it was Lama Pema Dorje.

Truly an exalted yogi trained by Dudjom Rinpoche and other greats of the Nyingma Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, yet so humble that few are aware of his qualities, Lama proceded to uncharacteristically asked me lots of detail about where exactly I was and what I was doing. By this time I was wide awake and oddly cheerful.

Soon I found myself going over some godawful icy mountain pass at 15 mph, in the dark, with blowing snow obscuring my vision so much it was hard to see more than 10 feet in front of the car. I wondered to myself what would have happened to me if I had taken an hour long nap in Colorado. Would I have been able to get through that mess, not a snowplow in sight? Did Rinpoche save my life? We will never know.

Inauguration

2007-12-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

I bought a house on an urban creek in Oakland, California, moved in with my partner, quit my job, and went into retreat in a glorified tent in the back yard--where I remained for six months. So began the story of life on Sausal Creek.

Now, with greater clarity and direction, I emerge for a while to share my stories with you. From Sausal creek to other universes, and everything in between.