For those who haven't been following, the Karmapa has recently been accused of stealing money and being a chinese spy by the Indian government. He is also really important in Tibetan Buddhism, second to the Dalai Lama, and is being talked about as the new political leader of Tibet when the Dalai Lama no longer is.
Julia and I went to prayers with Sonam, and Nellie joined us for breakfast and dressing up (we may be in india and refuse to shower in cold water, but we all still do makeup when we meet important people). We all got dressed in our chupas (Sonam even lent me her Tibetan flag pin to wear) and went over to his monastery. For some reason i was nervous the whole morning. After waiting and going through security, we walked up some flights of stairs to an incense filled landing. Then we walked into the Karmapa's quarters. The first people started prostrations, but the aids told us not to, so we lined up and offered him katas (white scarves) which he then placed back around our necks. Then he offered us envelopes with blessed strings and special pills in them. We were seated on the floor and he sat on a couch.
We asked him about the differences between our lives and his life. He said he had a lot of restrictions, but it was for the sake of tradition so he seemed to accept them. Anna asked a great question about reconciling Buddhist thought on emptiness with the Judeo-Christian idea of God. His response sounded like he meant that they were two strands of the same idea, which I'm not sure is really true. The answer was kind of confusing and hard to follow, though. He also talked a lot about non violence and particularly internal non violence, which I like because it pretty much emphasizes not being too hard on yourself.
The karmapa also gave a ted talk at tedindia, which is not the best ted talk I've ever seen but is informative on his life and also really cool because now I've met him in person.
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