A Room of My Yome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.