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Saturday, February 12, 2011
I heart carbs
Friday, February 11, 2011
Breathe in, breathe out
Things I did before 430 today:
Put on my own chupa. Liz's roommate Kelsang taught a few of us last night. We took a video of it so as not to forget, then bought Kelsang tea at the canteen for her troubles.
Had an audience with a reincarnated lama. I forget his name right now, but he's the ninth in his lineage and pretty young, maybe 30. I didn't realize I would feel so nervous. When you walk in the room, you prostrate towards him, then walk towards him with a Kata (ritual scarf) held out. You kneel, he takes it and puts it on you as a blessing. He then said a few words on motivation and told us we were lucky to study the Dharma. Overall it was a weird experience, and he was one of the few monks we've met who hasn't seemed joyful.
Visited a preserved yogi's body. There are special monks who get picked from the monastery to meditate alone for about 20 years to become realized. Just before they die they often can meditate and appear dead without having their bodies decay. He didn't start to smell or have rigor mortus for about a week. His student decided his body should be preserved, so they use salt to drain it of fluid and then built a mandala to house his body. So we went into a house, walked to the top floor, circumambulated around what looks like a regular stupa, but when we got to the other side we could see his preserved body sitting up behind glass. They cover Ethe face with a cloth and built a beautiful red structure around it where people come to pray and meditate. We sat and had tea in front of his body! I though that was strange, but we learned a lot about the making of the mandala (it took about a year, but they don't work on it every day).
Met Ani Tenzin Palmo, a British woman who was ordained as a nun at 21. She's older now, but a firecracker, and answered some questions on her life and Buddhism generally. She had two great explanations.
The first was on our misunderstanding of the ego. Our nature is like the sky, where you can't grab on to a specific piece and say" this is mine." We're all kind of just the same thing. The second was on how to help the world. She's very much of the view that you must figure yourself out before you can help others, except the phrase she used was" breathe in, breathe out." In refers to working on yourself, out refers to helping others. She meant it as you must finish yourself before you help others, but in reality we do both all the time. You don't breathe in for 20 years and then start breathing out. I took that to mean that we should always be doing both.
Saw a temple in the process of construction. One of the weirdest things ever, because there were wires sticking out everywhere and paint splatters all over the walls. We also found out that it's always necessary to asl permission from the spirits whenever you build a house or a temple.
Sidenote: it's hard to sit crosslegged or prostrate in a chupa. But we looked great.
Put on my own chupa. Liz's roommate Kelsang taught a few of us last night. We took a video of it so as not to forget, then bought Kelsang tea at the canteen for her troubles.
Had an audience with a reincarnated lama. I forget his name right now, but he's the ninth in his lineage and pretty young, maybe 30. I didn't realize I would feel so nervous. When you walk in the room, you prostrate towards him, then walk towards him with a Kata (ritual scarf) held out. You kneel, he takes it and puts it on you as a blessing. He then said a few words on motivation and told us we were lucky to study the Dharma. Overall it was a weird experience, and he was one of the few monks we've met who hasn't seemed joyful.
Visited a preserved yogi's body. There are special monks who get picked from the monastery to meditate alone for about 20 years to become realized. Just before they die they often can meditate and appear dead without having their bodies decay. He didn't start to smell or have rigor mortus for about a week. His student decided his body should be preserved, so they use salt to drain it of fluid and then built a mandala to house his body. So we went into a house, walked to the top floor, circumambulated around what looks like a regular stupa, but when we got to the other side we could see his preserved body sitting up behind glass. They cover Ethe face with a cloth and built a beautiful red structure around it where people come to pray and meditate. We sat and had tea in front of his body! I though that was strange, but we learned a lot about the making of the mandala (it took about a year, but they don't work on it every day).
Met Ani Tenzin Palmo, a British woman who was ordained as a nun at 21. She's older now, but a firecracker, and answered some questions on her life and Buddhism generally. She had two great explanations.
The first was on our misunderstanding of the ego. Our nature is like the sky, where you can't grab on to a specific piece and say" this is mine." We're all kind of just the same thing. The second was on how to help the world. She's very much of the view that you must figure yourself out before you can help others, except the phrase she used was" breathe in, breathe out." In refers to working on yourself, out refers to helping others. She meant it as you must finish yourself before you help others, but in reality we do both all the time. You don't breathe in for 20 years and then start breathing out. I took that to mean that we should always be doing both.
Saw a temple in the process of construction. One of the weirdest things ever, because there were wires sticking out everywhere and paint splatters all over the walls. We also found out that it's always necessary to asl permission from the spirits whenever you build a house or a temple.
Sidenote: it's hard to sit crosslegged or prostrate in a chupa. But we looked great.
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Trip time
We have a weekend program trip to Bir, another Tibetan settlement east of Sarah. We're meeting the first westerner to be ordained as a nun. She spent 12 years meditating in a cave.
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Thursday, February 10, 2011
Tibetan music
A quick note on the karmapa article for my aunt Linda: nytimes did a good job of getting the sentiments of the people here, although there is less of a sense that the indian govt is hostile toward Tibetans in exile (although there is fear of that, and the organizers of the protest were extremely thankful towards indian police and govt). Everyone thinks it's ridiculous that the karmapa would be a chinese spy, because apparently when he was 11 he threw down a chinese prepared speech and walked out of a hall in Beijing. He also left footprints and handprints in rock. We may get an audience with him, which would be awesome.
Yesterday we had a guest speaker-an american who went on this program 4 years ago and is currently trying to be a Tibetan pop singer. She sang at a nightclub in Tibet, then worked as an english teacher and got deported by the chinese. We learned a lot about how Tibetan artists utilize different symbols to express displeasure with chinese rule and sadness at the Dalai lama's absence. In the past year, though, the messages have gotten less veiled and more direct, which is super interesting, and she played us some videos available online that have english subtitles. Even with my limited knowledge I could tell that the sentiments are powerful and moving, and also dangerous. She said 75 percent of pop singers get arrested, which is crazy. She was arrested and is still trying to go back to Tibet.
We went to the golden temple this past weekend, and I have too much to say about it which is why I haven't written yet. I also have sweet pics but those will have to wait for better internet.
Yesterday we had a guest speaker-an american who went on this program 4 years ago and is currently trying to be a Tibetan pop singer. She sang at a nightclub in Tibet, then worked as an english teacher and got deported by the chinese. We learned a lot about how Tibetan artists utilize different symbols to express displeasure with chinese rule and sadness at the Dalai lama's absence. In the past year, though, the messages have gotten less veiled and more direct, which is super interesting, and she played us some videos available online that have english subtitles. Even with my limited knowledge I could tell that the sentiments are powerful and moving, and also dangerous. She said 75 percent of pop singers get arrested, which is crazy. She was arrested and is still trying to go back to Tibet.
We went to the golden temple this past weekend, and I have too much to say about it which is why I haven't written yet. I also have sweet pics but those will have to wait for better internet.
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Julia got codirector!
Congratulations poolsie! She finally got the call last night after a week of talking herself down. Thus we are all unreasonably excited. Paaaaaay celebration.
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