Rewalsar Lake

Rewalsar Lake

The fearless librarian hit the road, on the 23rd of April, for a short trip to Rewalsar, India. A short trip involved getting to the bus station in Dharamsala, finding the local bus to Mandi for a six hour ride and then from Mandi to Rewalsar another local bus for an hour. We’re talking about the buses where all the seats are taken and so many people pile on that the inside of the bus seems dark. Noone is passed by on the road – they just keep stuffing in. The roads are up and down s curves all the way so many people get sick. The Indians quickly cover their noses with their scarves (maybe that’s why they wear them!) and the monks cover their noses with their shawls. They also all try to move to the opposite side of the bus – seems precarious to me as the buses are about a foot from the sheer dropoff. Anyway it’s quite exciting. Also there is a thrill at not hitting anything on the road – people, cows and donkeys are roaming in the middle of the roads and dogs are curled up sleeping and don’t move. I’ve finally figured out the dog’s gig – they curl up and sleep all day on the roadways and then bark all night long.

Why would anyone want to go to Rewalsar? It is also called Lake Rewalsar but it seems like it is a small pond upon which are several Tibetan Monasteries (Nyingmapa sect), 3 Hindu Temples and a Sikh Temple. For the Tibetans it is known for the 8th century monk Padmasambhava who departed from Rewalsar to spread Buddhism to Tibet. He is also known as Guru Rinpoche and a huge monument is in the making with his statue at least 10 stories high and probably more. The workmanship is incredible. To give an idea of the size Guru Rinpoche’s fingers are each larger than a man.












A major highlight of Rewalsar is at the top of the mountain (another bus ride or a steep walk) where there is a Hindu Temple and slightly down from that are a series of caves on a steep slope. Some caves have been turned into homes by Buddhist Nuns and some house artifacts, statues, meditation centers and a huge statue of Guru Rinpoche in a deep cool cave. I can see why the nuns like living there as the views are breathtaking, the caves are cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They maintain the various caves for tourists and pilgrims and thus earn enough donation money to by food and necessities.

While I was looking into a Gompa where a Puja ceremony was taking place the monks motioned me to come in and sit so I ended up spending the afternoon with them. During every part of the ceremony they included me: butter tea, tsampa, a bag of offerings, 10 Rs., water offering and a few other things. At the end I had a bag of goodies (cookies, candy, etc.) which I decided to give to the beggars. As I walked to the beggars encampment some children literally attacked me, before I even got near their camp. They grabbed the bag, which I tried to hang onto, and were all over me. As you can imagine I lost that battle. There were between 5 and 7 of them ranging in age. I continued walking and went right up into their camp and tried to talk with one of the women explaining that I was coming to give her the bag of food to disperse among the children when they grabbed me & the bag. I also made it clear that it was unacceptable for the children to touch people. Meanwhile the men were beating the children with cane and the children were fighting each other for some of the contents of the bag. The Tibetans watching were in sympathy with me and word got around pretty quickly what had happened. As I continued my Kora (a traditional Buddhist pilgrimage walk) around the lake they would point to me and relate the story. Amazingly the next day the beggars were packed up and gone. Probably coincidence.

Hindu images from a temple on the lake:
(notice the monkey & elephant theme)

Drigung Kagyud Gompa,close-up portions of Tibetan wall paintings. The detail is quite amazing.

Signage of the Week: (Dedicated to GAHS English Dept.)

Monkey of the Week:
(Hanuman)

Abstract Art of the Week







Picture of the Week: (Dedicated to Amber Dostie!) Cleaning the ears of young monks at Drigung Kagyud.

Short Quiz:
1. What is a Gompa?
2. Define Puja.
3. If you were attacked by a group of beggar children what would you do?
4. In your opinion how can most American people be so blind to the suffering of people in Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, Pakistan, India, and Iraq to name a few. Wealthy individuals (e.g. Oprah, Richard Gere) foundations and corporations are trying to attack the illiteracy problems but the need is so vast. Is there something you can do? Please explain.
5. Find three official sites on the Internet that address hunger, genocide, or illiteracy around the world.

The Story of Nikki:

I met Nikki at the Tushita Centre workshop on Peaceful Living and Dying. She is from Canada and is a psychologist. She is here volunteering for an organization called Lha. The specific program she works with was started by a Tibetan man to give back to the Indian community. Nikki is working with the beggars from lower Dharamsala with a focus on encouraging women to get health care for themselves and their children. She goes right with them to the doctors having gained their trust. The organization has selected about 25 children to be educated with the goal of ending the cycle of begging for them and also for them to serve as role models. Because of the Caste system and family behavior a beggar comes from hundreds of generations of beggars. Lha has a lending library, kitchen for cooking classes, computer training center, free English & French classes, clothes distribution, etc.
"The primary goal of Lha is to facilitate an easy transition for the Tibetan community in exile and provide a long-term rehabilitation resource centre that provides an educational, cultural and social service bridge to the refugees in North India." from http://www.lhaindia.org/ retrieved 5/01/07

Tushita Again & Other Experiences

Tushita Meditation Centre: Peaceful Living and Dying (a three-day workshop with Ven. Rita and Gregg Ruskusky)
In the West we have a saying “you can’t take it with you”, referring to your wealth & material things. A crystallization of the course was basically as you are dying the money, the things, the people close to you all fall away – they are of no help to you. Having a reliable refuge or spiritual path (any belief system) that has supported you in times of suffering becomes more important.
Pema Chodron, a Buddhist Nun who runs Gampo Abbey, in Nova Scotia, says “by considering our death we step more fully into life.”

An Indian saying “moment to moment, be happy be kind.”

Some really poignant poems about living, death, and dying:
Mary Oliver: “When Death Comes”
Rumi: “The Guest House”
Derek Walcott: “Love After Love”
Pablo Neruda: “Keeping Quiet”
Naomi Nye: “Kindness”

Tibetan Universal Massage: (http://www.tibetanmassage.com/index.htm)
I spent two weeks (30 hours) studying Tibetan massage from Professor Dhondup. What I learned includes postural assessment; reflexology; pressure points, fascia, muscles and tendons remedial release; techniques to treat injuries of the extremities, back and neck; traction and stretching; cupping; kidney massage; fluid balance and lymphatic drainage; and general relaxation techniques including effleurage, petrissage, kneading and wind balancing. I plan to go through the course again before I leave as there are no books or pictures to refer to. It’s really incredible how the body releases toxins & emotions through some of the techniques.
This, coupled with my Reiki practice, should be a very powerful offering to my clients. As many of you know I do Reiki work for tax deductible donations to The Siddhartha School and also to support the education of a young Tibetan woman who wants to become a Tibetan medical practitioner.

Tibetan Medicine:
I went last week to Dr. Yeshi Donden to have a check-up and work on balancing my system. He took my pulse, looked at my urine, and asked (through a translator) if I was having pain in my lower back and running down to my knees – Oh, yes I was at a point where I was always in discomfort and pain. He talked about cold and kidneys and that I should stay away from fried foods, cold foods like ice cream, and cold drinks. He gave me Tibetan herbs to chew four times a day and will see me again in 15 days. At that time he will also give me advice and herbs for acclimating to the altitude in Ladakh. I have to say that my pain and discomfort have diminished significantly.

“Dr. Yeshi Donden was born in 1929 and received the traditional Tibetan medical training in Lhasa, Tibet. Beginning in 1960, he served for over two decades as the personal physician to H.H. the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. There he re-established the Tibetan Medical Center and achieved fame by his successful treatment of many renowned people. Dr. Donden continues to serve a great number of patients around the world.” Health Through Balance: An Introduction to Tibetan Medicine (Paperback) by Yeshi Donden



Graphic of the week










Material Girl: I have been trying to downsize and detach from material things over the past two years but it seems as though I end up with the same amount of “stuff”. I get rid of things and then accumulate more. Being in McLeod Ganj is like one huge superstore of Tibetan, Indian, and Muslim goods; a temptress to my weakness for beautiful art. Two weeks ago I went to a one man art show of Tibetan contemporary art at the Tibetan Museum and ended up purchasing a large piece. The artist, Migmar Wangdu Shaasar, expresses the experiences of growing up in exile in India. Through his painting the viewer gains a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture both spiritual and secular. His wife works at the Tibetan Library & Archives and they have two young children. Here you can see the painting and the artist. And yes I’m going to need help stretching the canvass when I get home!

Readings:
A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club) by Rohinton Mistry With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. Inside Flap
Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East by Gita Mehta. "Beginning in the late '60s, hundreds of thousands of Westerners descended upon India, disciples of a cultural revolution that proclaimed that the magic and mystery missing from their lives was to be found in the East. An Indian writer who has also lived in England and the United States, Gita Mehta was ideally placed to observe the spectacle of European and American "pilgrims" interacting with their hosts. When she finally recorded her razor sharp observations in Karma Cola, the book became an instant classic for describing, in merciless detail, what happens when the traditions of an ancient and longlived society are turned into commodities and sold to those who don't understand them." Amazon.com
Monkey Business: My fascination with monkeys continues – the crouching monkey is in a pose of aggression as I was getting to close to him. My hiking stick comes in handy with the monkeys – usually just waving it in the air at them sends them away. They can be quite vicious.

Photos of the week: There is a long walk around the Dalai Lama Temple (Namgyal), his home, grounds, etc. which Buddhists, tourists, and others circumambulate in a clockwise direction usually at sunrise and just before sunset. It’s called the Kora. Along the way are Mani stones (Mani stone are stone plates, rocks and pebbles inscribed, usually, with mantra, served as a form of prayer in Tibetan Buddhism. Mani stones are placed along roadside, in the river or put together to form small mounds. Creating mani stone is a way of showing one's piety to his/her deities and the Buddha's teachings. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_stone 4/22/07) carved with prayers, and thousands of people have hung prayer flags or wind horses along the path. There are also prayer wheels, little alters, and a large Stupa (a monument that contains prayers & relics of the Buddhas or high practitioners) all helping the pilgrim to gain merit for their deeds and devotion. As my teachers would say we don’t really know if any of this helps but if it does we will receive great benefit and if it doesn’t - nothing is lost. We have done no harm.


























Spinning Prayer Wheel

Hanging Prayer Flags

Suspended on a hillside

Tibetan Children's Village

Tibetan Children’s Village

April 2, 2007: Mary, from Boulder Colorado, and I spent the day at the Tibetan Children’s Village up the hill from McLeod Ganj. Wow, what a day, we had so much fun seeing the houses where the children live, the classrooms, one of the libraries, the canteen, athletic facilities and the administrative offices. Mary decided to sponsor a young girl, Tsering, who had walked from Tibet to Nepal in January. The gig is parents pay travelers to take their children across the Himalayan Mountains through the cold and snow, by foot, to the safety of Nepal. At the border there is a TVC reception area that accepts the children and takes care of them for about a month. Then they go to Delhi for about a month to be processed in and assigned a village. Once they arrive at their village they are assigned a house and foster parents. There are usually about 25 kids per house and they are mixed ages so the older ones help out with the younger ones. They all have chores and the older ones have a younger child sleeping with them. The foster parents are very loving and do all the cooking and management of the ‘family”. We spent a couple of hours with Tsering, Mary’s new daughter, at her home. We got to see her bed, closet area, and actually the entire home. We were served Tibetan butter, salt tea and cookies and got to talk with the parents while watching the kids eat their lunch. Then Tsering took us to her classroom and showed us her desk and supplies. Sponsors are encouraged to come and visit and establish a relationship with their student. It’s very easy to see that the money goes where it is supposed to go - to the child’s clothes, school supplies, tuition, and room & board. The administrative processes seem very organized and well developed. The unfortunate thing is most children never see their parents again because they came across the border illegally (of course, that's the only way they can cross!)

All over the grounds are waste receptacles and signs reminding students not to litter but not in negative terms. The children have to make their beds everyday (actually unmake them) and all their clothes are neatly folded in their cupboard space. Washing up and brushing teeth is emphasized and their uniforms are crisp and neat (and attractive). Boys and girls wear the same clothes and get the same education, they all have the same opportunities. They also have daily chores dependent on their age.

We also spent about an hour in the Junior High Library which was extremely well endowed withbooks and magazines. The younger kids were reading and the older ones studying.

Several kids were sitting reading aloud to themselves and were doing a fabulous job. One little boy sat down next to Mary and read a book to her and then others wanted to read to her as well. None of them made mistakes which reflects well on the curriculum and teachers. They learn Tibetan, English, and Hindi. The library was almost an exact replica of one you would find in the typical American schools. It was arranged by the Dewey Decimal System and students signed out their books using the book accession number on their account sheet. No automation system here! I was quite surprised to see books that were fairly new (within the year) and many reflect what we have purchased for Gardiner Area High. They had all the Harry Potter books, Eragon, and so many other familiar titles. There were tons of easy books, big books, and beginning chapter books.

The classrooms had lots of interesting posters, artwork and rather nice classroom libraries with books and magazines. There seemed to be a predominance of English language projects hanging on the walls but in order to graduate they must pass the Indian National Exams which are in English & Hindi. Classes and activities in Tibetan culture, arts, music and religion ensure that the children will be brought up with their traditional heritage.

My Main Man

High Five with Friends

Ceremonies

Puja (devotional observances or offerings)

One of the interesting things about the lifestyle here is how events are scheduled. Very few things are advertised and even more are decided at the last moment. So word of mouth on the street is often the only way of knowing what is happening today. Then when you get there it might have already started or you might have to wait several hours. Most business is conducted in the same manner – I’ve been waiting for four weeks now for an airline reservation – first I went in every day, then every other day and now every other week. The travel agent says “Don’t worry madam, it is coming – you have very much time still”. I’m actually starting to enjoy this as it is very much being in the now.

When I got back from Tushita I heard, on the street, that there was a 7 day Puja going on at the Dalai Lama Temple (Namgyal Monastery) and that sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 PM there would be ceremonial dancers. So I grabbed a good book (Holy Cow) and made off for the

temple. I believe the monks spend the entire day going through the particular elements of the ceremony. They had the drums, cymbals, bell, and horns punctuating certain parts of the texts that they were chanting from.

At around 5:00 the two dancers came out, one with a black mask and one with a red mask. It takes a lot of training, balance, and leg strength to make the slow, stylized movements.

March 31^st: A group of us hired taxis and made a fieldtrip to visit the home in exile of the Karmapa. The Karmapa is the equivalent of the Dalai Lama only from a different lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, the Karma Kagyu lineage. He is in his mid-twenties and has only been in exile for about 6 years. His temple and monastery are beautiful and look fairly new. The process was similar to when the Dalai Lama held public teachings. You have to register with your passport and then have a body search before being allowed in the temple. The Karmapa gave about an hour teaching and then we presented our Katak or Kata (a white scarf given in greeting) to a monk who gave them back to us around our necks. Then we each walked by the Karmapa and he touched us and handed us a red cord which is usually either worn around the neck or wrapped around the wrist. And that was that – short, sweet and well organized.

The four of us in my taxi decided to go on to Norbulingka which was only about 10 minutes away. Norbulingka was built originally for the Dalai Lama as a summer home (named after the summer home in Tibet), but he felt it was too large and elegant for his needs. It has become an arts & crafts institute for preserving Tibetan traditional art such as Thangka painting (Tibetan religious painting or the literal translation is flat painting), wood carving, embroidery and fabric arts. The work is beautiful and very precise. For the painting there are specific proportional rules that must be followed – makes me wonder about DaVinci, Romans & Greeks. Genghis Khan did get around!

One of the things I really loved about Norbulingka, and I may have to go back, were the gardens, ponds and incredibly textured stone work. There was a little café in the gardens where we stopped for lunch. It was a nice place to hang out with a book and relax.

I probably didn’t mention that it is spring here and everything that wasn’t already in bloom is beginning to. It’s also hot especially at the lower altitudes where the Karmapa & Norblingka are located. I understand the plains of India are already sweltering. Needless to say I have picked out some light weight fabrics and ordered some summer clothes from a tailor – drawstring pants and Nehru style loose blouses. If he does a good job I will order some Tibetan style shirts. The fabrics in his shop are gorgeous so it’s difficult to make decisions.

Interesting fact: On the plains south of Dharamsala they grow two crops on a rotation basis. Wheat or barley during the dry season, then they let the animals loose in the fields to fertilize and eat up the stalks and then they use the same fields during the monsoons to grow rice.

Photo of the week: The sad thing is that all the animals are free range and they love eating paper, cardboard, and plastic from the streets. The plastic often wraps around the intestines and starves them.

Tushita Meditation Centre

Tushita Meditation Centre

The centre is part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) http://www.fpmt.org/ which is a part of a worldwide network of centres. I attended a 10 day retreat “Introduction to Buddhism” which included such topics as the mind and emotions, karma, rebirth, love and compassion, and the nature of reality. There were only 24 of us instead of their usual groups of about 70. The teachers thought because we were such a small group that we bonded with each other too much. Our silent retreat included lots of laughs, pantomime, and a few whispers here and there – guess we were acting out a bit. We had choices about staying in a dorm or for an extra fee a single, double, or triple room.I got the last single – a very small cell with a low, hard single bed, built in shelves, a small desk, plastic stacking chair and a picture of the Dalai Lama. The bathroom was quite far away and I always took my walking stick to scare off the monkeys. Our first afternoon orientation warned us to beware of the monkeys and shake out our sleeping bags for scorpions – yikes! Guess what I did faithfully every night. There must have been at least 50+ resident monkeys of all ages including some very, very young nursing babies. They seemed to know the human schedule and enjoyed jumping onto the Gompa (Buddhist temple) roof, made of tin, and sliding down it during our class time. It was impossible to hear during those times as there might be 20 of them jumping up and down. Then they would walk by the windows and peer in. They certainly hadn’t picked up any Buddhist practices as they would steal anything not nailed down. You’d see them in the trees playing with dish cloths, someone’s towel, a dog bowl still full of food, someone’s lunch and parts of prayer flags to mention a few.

My fellow retreatees’ (yes, I know it’s not a word – should be though) were from Poland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Italy, Canada, England, Indonesia, Israel, United States, and Spain. Most were in their twenties and early thirties but a few, like me, were a wee bit older. Many of the younger ones had been living in Asia for years and teaching English to support themselves. Others were on six months to a year of travel with very open agendas. Our two teachers were a nun from Italy and a nun originally from Switzerland. They were both excellent teachers and were very adept at translating the complicated concepts of Buddhist practice and how to apply them into everyday Western lifestyle. They recorded all our sessions on an MP3 recorder and made CD’s available at the end of the retreat. How techie is that!

After lunch each day we had an hour and a half break so I often went to the library and checked out a book - mostly large art books. At the end of the course, when I got my camera back, I took pictures of the library and discussed all the various library procedures with the librarian. I will make a separate blog for that specifically for my ILS 225 & 325 students taking online library courses from the University of Maine at Augusta.

Unusual Stuff:

• Seeing two Snow Monkeys – large, white fur with black faces and very shy
• Seeing a huge rainbow framing the snow capped mountains
• Sitting through a hail blizzard in the tin roofed Gompa
• Seeing lightening run along the ridge of a mountain

While we were there crews began to tear down the original Gompa which will be replaced by a larger one. Under the roofing and above the ceiling in a tiny crevice about 15 1950’s style eyeglasses were found. Where they were located was quite sealed off – not accessible for a person to stash them and seemingly not the type of situational behavior associated with monkeys. The Gompa was over 100 years old. So we had fun trying to conjecture how they got there. Have any ideas?

The interior and exterior walls were braced with wood and filled with stone - then some kind of wall board with plaster over it. I'm sure it was cool in the summer and cold & damp in the winter. It was fascinating to watch the men tearing down the structure – everything was done by hand with crow bars and ropes. They climbed like monkeys all over the structure prying and pounding the various sections apart. While that was going on the Indian women would take the debris away in baskets on their head. These are very heavy loads of large stone blocks, cement, bricks and huge bundles of wood. They brought their young children to the site while they worked all day and cooked lunch at mid-day. There were all ages involved from teenage girls to old women carrying well over a hundred pounds down steep hills in flip flops. The younger girls wanted me to take their pictures so I did that and have made prints to take back up to them. They were very sweet. Because of the cast system in India they will probably continue to carry heavy loads at construction sites the remainder of their lives. Dispite the hard work they all seemed content and compassionate with each other.

So what did I learn at Tushita? I’m still assimilating it all but several people have come up to me and said I am glowing…….could that be nuclear waste! I learned quite a lot about myself and my “afflictive emotions” (attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, deluded doubt, wrong views and secondary causes such as jealousy, envy, craving, gossip, greed, laziness, etc.) In Buddhism these emotions are one of the causes of unhappiness. Training the mind through meditation can help to become aware of our behavior and begin to eliminate them. There is a painting and story about training the mind that involves a wild, uncontrolled elephant (the mind) and the stages and training he must go through until he is completely in control – it’s such a fabulous visual. Of course this is a simplification of Buddhist practice. There are three traditions of Buddhism - the Mahayana tradition, often called the Middle Way, goes beyond just striving for personal enlightenment and answers the question: Why do I go for enlightenment? The answer being “for the benefit of all sentient beings”. Built around all three traditions are precepts of no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no bad speech (gossip, slander), and right views. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Galug sect of the Mahayana tradition.

Karma in a nutshell – you can’t get away with anything. We are entirely responsible for our own actions. If you do negative things eventually you will suffer from your wrong doing.

Dukkha – fake, no real essence. I love this word, Mr. Klofas (Klofish) and I often discuss reality and emptiness. Close your eyes and think about what is real. We can all witness the same event and have totally different descriptions about what happened. You know there are lots of snakes in the area and far off in the distance you see a long curvy object and know it is a snake. When you get closer you find that it is actually a fallen tree branch. Think on it. Television is Dukka.

Here is an Indian poem I would like to share – after my close encounter with cancer this became very clear.

This day is a special day,
It is yours,
Yesterday slipped away
It cannot be filled with more meaning,
About tomorrow nothing is known,
But this day, today, is yours,
Make use of it.
Today you can make someone happy.
Today you can help another.
This day is a special day,
It is yours.

I’m reading a hilarious book called Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald – it’s an Australian woman’s depiction of India and her experiences while living in India. It’s irreverent, funny and surprisingly right on. I think many of you high school students and adults who are interested in traveling, adventure, and Bill Bryson style humor will not be able to put this down. You can actually smell the spices, excrement, burning cow dung and incense that so defines India as you read the book.

I’m back to Tushita in two weeks for a three day workshop on Living & Dying which should be very intense. Hopefully while I’m there I will get pictures of the monkeys to post. I can have my camera during the workshop.

Namaste my friends