Let me out. Who's got the key?

 

Time has come, once again, to release old contracts.  Which ones remain?   Have done this exercise before.  We are peeling back the layers of the onion.

What is left?  I invoke the spirits of my great teachers.  The Dalai Lama 14th, the Karmapa 17th, Situ Rinpoche, Jigme of Bamei, of the Lotus Monastery.  There is Geshe Dargye in this cloud, and Tergar Mingyur Rinpoche, too.  They surround me within their light.  I ask them to help.  Together, let us pull.  Pull!  Grab that energy which is stuck, and pull.  But it does not come.  Does it budge a little?  Maybe  I hope   Is this more of my vivid imagination, that is not connected to reality?

 

Evil exists, I would never deny that.  But it is a lower energy, one I need not fear.  It is easily defeated by evoking the light.  Like the TV commercials of household cleaners; goodness bubbles up and swoops down upon these scared little mites that run, defeated.

I feel blocked in.  I wanted to go to California, to a rally of potential 300 other mostly-women, assembled around Lee Harris, Mr. Clean with his great physic and bald head.  I spent over $2,000 before even leaving my home.  Then the genies struck, breaking into my car and stealing ONLY my passport, which I never carry on my person but was forced to by the Mexican government that day.  That act brought to a screeching halt my plans to finally get myself into a mosh pit of other spiritual workers; to finally break the isolation.  Nope.  All plans canceled, money lost. 

Then the ordeal of getting a replacement passport.  There was no grace there, either.  My experience, elsewhere documented, was traumatizing.  To rub salt into the wound, when the passport finally did arrive it was for 12 months instead of 10 years.

And then I discovered that the world has collectively lost its trust in humanity.  The passport has newer, more intense and frankly ugly changes to the passport, to thwart the thieves and outlaws.

The mother of paranoia is, however, Mexico.  The one document that reigns supreme is the birth certificate.  There is no authentication, no legal person, without a birth certificate.  It is so universal, that outside government processing offices in the mall there is a slot machine dispensing birth certificates.  But not mine, of course.  All I have, to prove who I am, is my passport; which is recognized internationally as sufficient documentation of citizenship.  But not in Mexico.  The passport is nothing without the birth certificate doubling down.

I feel caged.  I can’t do anything with my car without a title.  Having lost the title, I cannot fulfill the requirements for replacing it without a birth certificate.  Sympathetic friends tell me to sign up for assistance for seniors.  There are various, one of which is a monthly pension check.  I went to apply, but without a birth certificate I cannot.

The consulate cannot replace my birth certificate.  It is a State matter, not Federal; they have no jurisdiction.

Is anyone listening?  Answer anytime, I am listening, I am waiting to hear.  Whatever is binding me, please let me release it.  I am ready.  I am not fighting you.  Here I am, talk to me.

Let go and let Light

 

Hello friend.  Yes, I mean you, since you are the only one reading this.

I have made a somewhat disturbing observation.  I mean, once I see it I cannot unsee it, so it is not disturbing to the in-the-present me, but it rather sets on its head my long-held beliefs.

Christianity is inside-out from itself and its goals.

As Christians, we are taught to guard our hears closely.  We are taught to protect ourselves against outside influences that might be evil.  We are taught that guilt is a good thing, as it points us to repent; except for when, for various reasons, repenting cannot undo the ‘evil’ that is at the base of our guilt.

True spirituality, really being in touch with ‘God’, that sweet pure oneness that we recognize in rare moments (or perhaps for the properly trained Catholics, each time we hold the communion host in us), is at its core quite the opposite of all that.

We are composed of energy.  By now, our culture contains in common knowledge the construction of the atom.  We know that we are composed of atoms.  If we pursue that thought all the way to its natural conclusion, we realize that our bodies are composed of a huge pile (neatly and purposefully organized) of spinning units of energy.  Our ‘solid’ bodies are an illusion.  We are, at our core, energy.

Meditation, also, has entered our common cultural consciousness.  I am old now, and I cannot remember, among my earliest memories, my parents or neighbors talking about meditation.  Now the word might easily arise in our everyday conversations.

Why do people meditate?  In my youth, prayer was the means to arrive at the same end as meditation, although more restricted towards Christian goals, and more commonly comprised of memorized prayer.  Some might have encouraged us to ‘talk to God’, but we received little instruction on how to do that, so we fell back upon our rote prayers.  We didn’t understand, then, how by letting the mind relax into a swirl of memorized sounds, there was some other aspect of mind that might be released to connect with a higher reality found in non thinking, or letting go.

In letting go, we release the filters that normally confine and redirect our core energy.  Once released, the light released in that energy connects us to our true selves.  We become light.  Those moments of light-power, released, bring us enormous benefits. 

We all have within us the desire to connect with God.  For some, that desire has been extinguished by dashed hopes.  In my association with Christians, especially the Holy Rollers, also called Pentecostalists, I was implanted with the illusion that I was battling with The Enemy, who wanted to separate me from God.  For many, this was an external force.  “Get thee hence, Satan.”

I am not saying that evil does not exist in the world.  Negative energy exists.  But that is not my nemesis. 

When I experience the sweet presence of ‘God’, in that space evil does not exist.  Light and darkness cannot exist in the same space.  So then, all we have to do is live in the Light, right?  Oh, such sweet words, so facile to speak.

At birth we begin to forget our connection to the Light.  The transition from our life in spirit form to life in this crude clay mold is traumatic.  Some arrive so full of that light energy that it takes longer for them to forget.  But by around age three, we have all forgotten where we came from.  The combination of our emotions and the discomforts and pains of the physical body have all combined to create a new entity; the personality.  Our soft clay begins to toughen up, develop scars, and create a unique tough shell.  Like any bit of rock that breaks off from a mountain and falls into a stream, the constant friction of our unique journey through the water as it flows to the ocean reshapes us. 

Wait, what are we?  Soft clay, or hard rock?  Geologists tell us, at its earliest creation all the earth was molten rock.  As we pass from lifetime to lifetime, we pick up bits and pieces that cling to us, represented by the hard corners and embedded bits in that broken-off piece of the mountain rock.

You may have heard the following description of us souls.  It is universally found across beliefs, so there most likely is validity to it.  Imagine that God is one great beam of light, like the sun.  Now imagine a dome over the earth, a great mosaic of multi-colored cut glass.  Or, see a prism.  My spirit originates with that one source of light, but as it is filtered through a pane of that mosaic, it absorbs unique traits all of its own.

All of humanity has but one Source.  We come imbued with our own unique characteristic pigment. Ultimately, we want to get back to that Source, which contains all pigments, because it is the most beautiful, with infinite qualities.  If we speak of colors, as in stained glass, then we see white as containing all colors, radiating out, making all things visible.   Black absorbs all pigments to itself, unable to reflect colors back into the light.

Where is the bucket of black paint that is intent on coating our beautifully pigmented glass, obscuring the light?

We find that in emotions.  The Bible tells us about the Seven Deadly Sins.  What are these if not emotions.

As we learn to quiet our minds and allow, unfiltered, that pure light to flow through us, what feeling remains? 

Joy.

We have expressions to approximate joy.  The Balm of Gilead, for Old Testament readers.  A sweetness flowing from our crown down to the core of our being.  Peace.  Warmth.  Release from fear, anxiety, worry.  Maybe we can hold that but for a moment.  Once felt, we have begun a journey from darkness to light.

Whether we get there through partaking of Communion, or saying the Rosary, or repeating other ritualized prayers, the end result is the same.  If we focus on learning to meditate, and find it difficult to maintain the concentration, every effort uncovers a little more light.  Once we do find that light, that inner peace in our ritual meditations, we have set our feet firmly on the path.  Young souls may find it a struggle, that struggle may be off-putting.  The truth is, it all counts, it all adds up; a stroke of light that cancels out a bit of darkness.

Our goal is to live in the light, 24/7.  That journey may be a short one, or a long one.  In truth, the Light we find in one life can carry over to another.  The filters are thinner or thicker, depending on what went before. 

What does it mean, to live in the light? 

This is where, as I see it, Christianity is turned upon its head.

Different organized religions may be closer or further from this truth.  However, modern society has its roots in distortions of Christianity

We all share the Golden Rule, Do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  But overlayed are other factors that keep us from realizing that dictum; The Seven Deadly Sins

Who among us is free of envy, greed, lust, pride, gluttony, anger, sloth.  We struggle to contain these impulses, to eliminate them from our lives, each of us according to his own inherent qualities. 

We pride ourselves in saying, “I never lose my temper.”

I have my sexual desires and ambitions under control; I do not lust.  But what of that twinge in the belly when we see our child’s classmate receive a recognition that we feel our child deserves?

I am responsible, I take care of my obligations.  But what of that phone call that we put off, to a friend or relative who is going through hard times?  Or that room that I know needs painting, I bought the paint and brushes already, months ago?

No matter how hard we try, we will never achieve life by the Golden Rule.  Rules are a product of duality.  Good, bad.  Do, Don’t do.  Virtue, vice.

If you can open your heart, to absorb all that is written here, your life can change in a moment.  That is unlikely to happen.  It sounds so easy, yet so unattainable.

If we were all gathered in a lecture hall, and we all quieted our minds and focused on whatever light shines through our filters, it is theoretically possible that your life could change in that moment.  The one thing these words don’t contain is Energy.  I remember the first time I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  I was in a line awaiting his blessing, standing in his driveway, inching myself closer to him.  Once in his presence, I felt a great peace, and a rainbow of Energy. This is the Energy that mere words lack, that these words cannot convey.

Way back in the day, before I began my first odyssey, I was in LA fascinated with Zen Buddhism.  I would go to the Temple to sit zazen.  I tried to capture this meditation thing.  I puzzled over the Koans (what is the sound of one hand clapping).  I tried and tried.  My mind never stayed quiet for very long. 

I arrived in Israel, after waiting for the ferry three days in a youth hostel in Greece.  I met a girl there in the bunk across from mine.  We got along.  We got through the ferry ride sleeping on the deck.  We Landed in Haifa, and said our goodbyes.  She had a destination in mind.  Mine was still vague; I only knew I wanted to live on a kibbutz, but had no idea how to get there.  I spent some days in Jerusalem, the root of it all.  It was Christmas time; a trip to Bethlehem, perhaps.  The Eve arrived.  I was in a hostel with random people.  With a nod to O. Henry, we all brought something to share, from our wanderings in the lanes.  It was magical.

I honestly cannot remember the details of how I ended up as a volunteer on one Kibbutz rather than another.  When I arrived at Kibbutz Gat, near Ashdod, I was greeted joyously by this same hostel and ferry companion.  Once again, we were bunk mates.  I observed that she left at dawn each day, and returned for breakfast.  I asked her about that.  She said she would go to the edge of a field, and meditate at dawn.  A discussion ensued, mentioning my failed attempts.  This is where the magic happened.  We sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of our volunteer-housing, knees to knees.  She did not try to ‘instruct’ me.  We just meditated.  And for the first time, I felt a peace and joy flow over me.  The flame was ignited. 

In my experience, words alone are not enough.  Some souls who arrived with fewer filters than mine may contradict me on that.  For me, at the beginner stage and at a higher stage as well, I needed that live transmission.

We are meant to live in a state of joy.  We can never eliminate the basics of, as the Zen Masters say, wash your rice bowl. 

“I have just entered the monastery.  Please teach me.”

Joshu asked, “Have you eaten your rice porridge?”

“I have eaten”

“Then you had better wash your bowl.”

At that moment, the monk was enlightened.

Quoted from Mumonkan

 

Not necessary to anticipate the next lesson, nor the next meal.  It will all unfold.  We need only focus on the task at hand.  Or as Matthew [6:28-29] describes in the New Testament, the flowers don’t stress out; their beauty comes naturally.  And the birds, too.  They don’t have to plant to get all those seeds they eat.  You cannot read these too literally.  How I realize it, I no longer have to write lists before going to the grocery store.  I check my kitchen, see what I need, and go.  While I am in the grocery store, my basket fills with what I need.  In the mornings, I meditate.  I ask, what needs doing today?  Maybe I add, how may I be a blessing?  Those divinely ordained serendipities unfold.

In the Old Testament, Psalm 50, we see that when we walk in the Spirit, we lack for nothing.  The beasts of the forest, the cattle upon a thousand hills, the fowls of the mountains, the wild beasts of the fields, all the world is mine.  My hunger is satisfied, if I live in the Spirit, because I lack for nothing.

In this decade, 2024 – 2034, the opposite seems true to the naked eye.  We are in financially hard times.  To many, the roof seems to be caving in.  What used to be simple is now made so complicated.   I still broke my hip, I still walk with pain until, in due time, it is healed.  But despite my near empty bank account, the doctor and hospital bills will be paid.  I look at the blessings ensuing within my struggle.  I see people being extra nice to me, when before I was invisible.  I see a need to slow down, which offers me, if I choose to accept, extra down time to simply sit in joy and reflect.  And as I said above, the light accumulates.  Every minute I spend in joy strengthens my ability to return to it effortlessly.  More layers of darkness, more filters, are cleansed away, removed.  It is a process.  As we focus more on hope, and less on worrying, struggling, fearing, our joy increases.  Our bounty is uncovered.

Instead of being independent, self-contained, in control, now I see that happiness lies in coming to oneness with my core energy, uniting with the joy and bliss I find there, and letting go of all my musts, and I’d betters, and shoulds.  I cannot look outside and see if the world is conforming to my concepts of it.  I let that go, and let joy and love be my only filter, instead of that pompous judge.  On this we agree:  Giving is better than receiving.

Christ, Revelations and Fifth Density

 Light and Dark

Light can’t co-exist with darkness.  Flick the switch!  Walk into the light.

This is what I have been highlighting with my friends/acquaintances in the past few weeks/months.  But wait.  What is this?  Turns out, there are degrees of light!  It isn’t all or nothing, black or white. 

Ever since Atlas (3/I) entered our air space, I have been awakening my spiritual path.  Or should I say it more passively…my spiritual path has been awakening.  [And that is the crux of the premise of this essay]  Not that I ever left it, but seems like there it was at the center of things, until it disappeared.  Until now; something has jump-started this new age for me. 

I had followed a private, little-known channeler, Samual.  My oldest and dearest friend in the world introduced me to him, in the past decade, as I readjusted to ‘western society’.  Acknowledgement that we live in an era that quantifies invisible air waves.  I was able to follow Samual through the internet.  Specifically, Zoom meetings.  This one was a very well-guarded entity, permitting his followers--what I interpret to be--very little access.  I am comparing this scene to years of my training with the Tibetans in their home-in-exile, Dharmsala, India.  Their way of teaching feels much more interactive and personal.

Apparently, roughly 30 yeas ago the earth was swept through a particular wave field, that created an opening opening for spirit and galactic individuals to synthesize with humans.  More and more I am getting the picture that they are living amongst us in remarkable numbers, leading small groups having their private followers, very low key.  Only a few have reached the level of notoriety.  A few I have come across on YouTube are: Bashan, Lee Harris, Kelly Kolodney, and David Clemens.  There are many more having podcasts, too many for me to know about.  In fact, I do believe it is possible to take a course in becoming a channeler.  Would love to take it, I am curious, but too lazy. :-{

Samual’s teachings tend to be intellectual and at a semi-deep level.  More like a college course into dark secrets.  I was needing fuel to wake up my soul.  I need food.  These insights were nourishing guava; unripened sour guavas, but would have to do until the ripe sweet ones come along.

Samual alerted his group about the Atlas coming into our airspace.  Once, though I cannot place it as to time, he taught an exercise that he said was to prepare our bodies for the new energies coming, giving us an eighth strand to our DNA, or capacity for 8th density, or I don’t remember more than that he was trying to prepare us for what was to come.

Then, of course, I started doing more reading about this Atlas.  Step by step I was led to David Clemens.  And so my spirit led me back home, aligning the old path to this updated one, and I was flying.

I had crossed the veil, seen the light, could knowingly Let Go.  Suddenly, I was Holier than Thou!  I made it to the promised land.  I was floating on air. It was so easy!  Just let go; say yes to the warm ocean of light that flows in and unites you in an ocean of love, pure love and light.  One with the Source.  Know God.  Reunite to the Flame

Truth remains, as I discovered decades ago, once off the meditation cushion it can all disappear mighty quickly.

I thought, this time I had past the sputtering stage, and reached the Free Flowing stage, even if it were only my toes tickling the ocean.  My optimism was drowning out the Truth, again.    On the plus side, it is as if while I was dormant, I was still slowly cleaning out the muck that fought with the Light.  My impurities, egoism, judgmentalism, as well as the crippled but not dead:  self-deception, no longer relevant contracts and promises, desires; the dross that grows on us like barnacles, from birth.  Some even come along with us in birth.   It seems that they continued to grow weaker, their hold on me.  In the Tibetan years I had done many, many practices and rituals with the purpose of cleansing these more banal and negative impulses and habits.  I was glad that I got to do that during a focused period of my life.  Millions are now dealing with that, each to varying degrees, while living a householders life.  Work, family relationship, financial demands.  What a nightmare.  And now, on top of that, having to face and deal with our hidden self, the muck from deep within our souls. The cleansing work must be done, however, one way or another.  This work is done on the ‘energy ‘ level.  Our body vibrates at an energy level.  (Since the discover of the atom, which happened in my lifetime, we have known that our bodies are not as solid as we thought.  They are made up of atoms, a constant spinning around the nucleus; invisible to our naked eye, but now that we know, we cannot look away.)  The dross holds our body back from being able to vibrate at a higher, more refined energy level; a level that receives more Light, that Light of God, or Source.   I happen to prefer David Clemens path, because it gets to the core.  Not all the theorizing and philosophizing and schmoozing that others offer.  Other healers have to feed the ego while teaching their followers how to break it down; the young’ns are still fragile.

In the last few days, I could feel myself filling up again with the dross.  Why?  What’s going on?  But no, these are the wrong questions.  This is the old energy approach.  Let me introduce here, for ease of reference, 3D energy and 5D energy.  Some soothsayers, in efforts to wrap their heads around this new consciousness, say that the energetic earth is splitting into two time lines.  Those still functioning in third density (3D) vibration are living their lives as they always have, for millennium.  That is not too dramatic a time span, to give an idea of how drastic a change is coming upon us now.  That level of density is incompatible with the change in vibrational density that is now revolutionizing life on Earth, called fifth density (5D).  And so, being incompatible, our channelers are telling us that the 3D world  cannot and will not survive.  They and their societies will fade out and disappear.  They will not thrive.  When I toy with this concept in my mind, I see two highways.  One is rising, while the other is sinking into collisions and splits; the one is rising, dripping with those holding on by their fingertips, the slow pokes, the late bloomers, the procrastinators.  I am assured this is too literal.

But who decides? Millions of good Christians are trying their best to live out the life of our Christ figure, our Holy Brother, our God the Father.  They have no idea about a “New Earth”.  Of course, for those who study the New Testament they see a description that talks about a New Earth, but it is difficult to clearly see any connection between that description and what we see around us.  The traditional churches may not be doing anything to illuminate the connection, either.

Throughout the New Testament, especially in the Book of John, but in Acts as well and elsewhere, the teachings of Christ as captured by his followers seem to point at it; we see hints, if only we can  interpret them.

We are told not to let our hearts grow weary by working too hard, and worrying—being concerned.  After all, the beautiful wild flowers put on a show for us every year, but they require no fuss from us.  The birds, of which each and every feather is seen by the Eye of God, don’t worry unduly about building a nest and feeding their young.  You don’t see them organizing into unions to protect their rights.  What?  How is that instructional?  These bills don’t get paid by themselves.

The New Earth, the fifth dimension, works on different principles entirely.  There is a flowing, an alertness to this new awareness.  Usually I bring a list when I go food shopping.  I go into town for specific things.  Now I find that the list is almost not useful.  As I flow through the market, the things I need present themselves to my hand, the feet find the right aisles.  The car finds the right doorways, to pick up the little things, to pay the bills, to remember to say hi to a friend who is thinking of me.  I find the right amount of change in my purse, even if it was empty when I left the house.  The right person crosses my path, to address something I was thinking about.  To my old way of thinking, I would call these coincidences.  Accompanied by a smooth, calm and joyful mind space, I know it is me yielding to the higher intelligences, the spirits and galactic beings, that walk alongside me and flow within me.  We move in an ocean of Love, which connects us all at all times.  That being the case, I have to ask myself why in the world I would allow old memories, old habits, low-density energies to distract me from that bliss, to pull me down.

It is free will all the way.  My struggle is to maintain conscious awareness at all times, to not let these old bugaboos drag me down.  On days like this, I cannot see what muck is being stirred up.  I only know “I don’t feel like it.”  I don’t feel like meditating, I don’t feel like denying the negativity.  The chores that I ‘should’ do like cleaning house and washing dishes, are virtues totally not appealing to me today.  The concept of ‘tough love’ seems called for here.  The deeper-knowing parts of me (Me being not necessarily just my brain, but my spiritual awareness available to work together).  If I let these negativities rule the day, the stain of their dross carries over to the next day, and so and so it builds.  Then the ‘Holier than Thou’ energy rings hollow.  It doesn’t work.  It is up to me to change the dynamic. 

And so it is, the interplay of the assertive and passive, working together.  There is a momentum required when actualizing change.  How is it for you?  Can the momentum build through doing the ‘right thing’, the spiritual practices building that muscle until one day the switch is flicked and I am walking in the bountiful Light, buoyed in the Ocean of Love?   Or am I required to produce more of that forward momentum by focusing all day every day on maintaining that quiet mind, fighting off that ‘monkey’ mind? 

I know that the chaos and catastrophes that a man called Trump is subjecting the world to is tremendously destructive, and needs to end.  I would like someone to take a rifle to him and blow his brains out, with the goal to ending it all and beginning the healing.  But in fact I know that that one man is only a cog; just one particle of a greater dynamic , through whose godless machinations the old world will be destroyed, or certain essential parts of it, in order to make room for the New Earth.  This I know because of a deep awareness that there is a whole universe out there that I have been cut off from at my birth, and that I am now in the throes of being reunited with.  That is the foundation of my faith.  What is the foundation of yours?

 

Paul Simon: "Why Why Why"

 

Paul Simon: “Why Why Why”

The above quote from the album Graceland.

 

So, why do I write this blog? 

Almost no one reads it.  Certainly not even my best friend, unless I pointedly remind him, and then not always.

Maybe I am optimistic, thinking that my future incarnation would stumble across it early in life.  It would then jump start my remembering, which was blown out during the pain of rebirth.  How Cockeyes optimistic is this?  It would depend on

1.     I choose to reincarnate fairly quickly.

2.     The digital technology supporting this is still viable.

3.     The child has early access to digital tools

And then, reader, perhaps you believe reincarnation is hogwash.  In which case, I am spitting into the wind.

Life update Feb 2020

Life update 3 years

The last three years in China was fun and educational.  In the end, the bakery was a money pit.  I arrived back to America broke.  Fortunately I had invested what was left of my failing savings in 2008 into a house in Florida.  Do you know about Reverse Culture Shock?  Have you experienced it? 

In that fog, (was it 2017?) I attempted to sell the house.  In the end I did manage to extract enough to serve me as a cushion, my medical emergency fund, a bulwark against my approaching old-age debilitations.

You may recall that I spent 2006 in India.  There I connected with a vague acquaintance from the time when I studied with the Tibetan lamas.  He introduced me to a retirement community designed to bring together Western students of the Buddha dharma in retirement, the focal point being a meditation hall.  I had sent considerable money to him in Mexico to secure me a lot and begin to build my house, which I designed.

He had told me that the shell was finished.  When I first saw it, the outer brick walls had been constructed, but where there should be a sliding door there was a gaping opening, through which a couple of horses and the occasional calf took refuge from the climate.  The floor was littered with fresh and aged poop etc.  Birds had nested, too.

A big chunk of that medical fund went into finishing off that house.  Far more than was prudent, given that the infrastructure was of such inferior material.  Curtains I made and put over the windows blew in the breeze.  This area is prone to wind storms, the gusts seem at least 80 mph.  It has knocked down my gas tank (breaking the valve which resulted in a cold fog as the gas rushed out in the middle of the night).  The cement roof has begun to cave in.  One day the rain inside the house was so intense, I left and went into the village to spend the day elsewhere.  There was no where I could sit or stand and not be dripped on.  Eventually we painted a waterproof coating on the roof, and installed a beam across the living room ceiling to forestall the cave-in.

I live on a hectare of land, between orchards, oat and corn fields, and pasture land. It is about 6,000 ft high in the Sierra Madres.  This valley is perhaps one mile wide.  The mountain ridges that enclose it are low, maybe 800 feet.  It runs mostly north/south, which makes for gorgeous and ever-changing sunrises and sunsets.  The Fall is rainy season, where the land is lush green and a morning mist shrouds it all in mystery.  The rest of the year is dry, prairie-like.  A trickle of a river meanders through it in a deep gorge where it passes through my land.

It is a beautiful and isolated place to live.  If only a community had grown here, it would idyllic (even though retired Tibetan Buddhists are eccentric people, not the mellowed out hippies you might wish to find here where weed grows freely).  Sadly, the community is a bust.  The meditation hall was never built. There is no spiritual community here.  Two kms away there is a tiny village occupied mostly by widows, very provincial people.  My home is too far for any of the ladies to walk to.  None drive.  The widowers ride bicycles, but none are inclined to risk the scandal of visiting me here unchaperoned. Since we are in this valley, a small dip of land, the cell phone reception in this small cluster of homes in the village is zero.  People walk in the street if they wish to use a phone.  This inhibits easy intercourse.  I can go weeks without talking to anyone.

I did purchase a wifi plan, using its own box and SIM card, to provide myself with internet at my home.  I get great reception, in this wide-open spot.

One house, immediately adjoining mine, is for sale.  For a mere $10,000 US you can own your own 10 meter wide brick house.  The brick walls are painted but not finished, the floor is not tiled.  It has a functioning kitchen and bathroom with gas water heater and well water.

There is another brick house, with a large floor layout, that is nothing more than a shell.  The fourth house structure is two stories, the roof room being the meditation room.  A Canadian guy paid for its construction and visits it twice a year.  He is a bachelor, a recluse, very awkward.  He doesn’t like to do outdoor work, is not handy at all with tools; not much support to the ongoing task of maintaining the land and infrastructure.  I have ongoing problems with the well and water distribution system. I am trying to tame the land; the ‘orchard’ has twelve surviving peach saplings, at last count.  All other trees I’ve planted have died, probably for lack of water.

I am a cat person, as you may recall.  One of the nearby farms had a lot of cats, before they got a dog.  I took one of those kittens, an unusual calico with gray instead of black as the third color.  She proved to be sterile (for a couple of years, anyway).  She cycled in and out of heat but produced nothing.

When I moved onto the land, there was a white dog living on the adjoining farm.  The farmer lives in town, which is about 15 minutes away.  She was like a Maltese, but very bedraggled.  She even had a bald spot on her neck, which turned out to be from scratching fleas.

This dog, which after procrastination I finally name ‘Chula’, attached herself to me.  I tried not to adopt her, but she tried harder and won.  I cleaned her up, she proved to be very pretty, and the folks in the village were quite surprised to see how she turned out.  I had her for two years, before she got separated from me in the city of Durango, in a Sam’s Club parking lot.  At first I felt relieved of the responsibility, but after a couple of months I started missing her a lot.  She had taken a one-month road trip with me November 2018, when I drove to Vermont to empty out my storage there.  She was a trooper.

Stray females would wander on to the property, lovely dogs each one, but large animals.  I turned them all away.  Then a villager handed me a tiny white bundle.  It would have been rude to turn her away.  Of course, she could not compare with nor replace Chula.  I named her Peanut.  She was a pup, a bit wild.  Not like the sedate Chula, who already had maturity and a couple of litters behind her when she came to me.

I felt ambiguous towards Peanut. Then she got pregnant, her first cycle.  Way too young for pups.  She turned out to be a terrible mother.  She didn’t like nursing her pups.  The milk dried up after four weeks, she barely had enough to feed them.  They could wander off in the house and get stuck somewhere, and scream, and she would sleep on.  She never learned to grab the scruff of the neck to move them out of danger.

When it came time to find her a sire, of the dogs that hung out here, I chose a black one that had a similar body but long legs and pointed ears.  The week that she was in heat was a lot of work, beating off the big dogs and isolating the two small ones to court.  He managed to impregnate her, and so began our nine-week wait.

The owner is employed as the farm manager to a large piece near mine.  He is a cool guy; I think he lives in Canatlan (the town 15 minutes from here).  I don’t know anything more about him.  He has a gentle smile and demeanor.   Before the pups were born he walked over to my place and said he would like one of the pups.  His dog, the sire, had died from dog-fight wounds.  We hoped for a black one to replace him.

The pups were finally born.  Three of them came, two boys and a girl, but no black one.  Two look like Boxer-colored  twins, and one white one.  The twins are boy/girl.  The white one was the biggest.  As they grew, it became obvious that the white one would have the long legs of the sire, the other two would be squat sausages like the mother.  At the moment, seven weeks along, the twins really do look like little sausages, but I’m sure as they get bigger they will develop a more normal physique.

Meanwhile, as they grow older, the white one is transforming into a heart breaker.  She is not white after all.  A feint shade about the color of champagne is emerging.  He is no Alpha male, he sleeps a lot, and is affectionate.  I thought that would be the dog Julian would choose to replace his, but now I doubt it.  I think that if he takes any of them, he will choose the Alpha male twin.  I hope it works out that way, because I am leaning towards getting rid of all of them except Champ, my champagne dog.

Remember that gray calico?  When Peanut was two weeks pregnant, don’t ask me how, the ‘sterile’ cat got pregnant.  So now I have her, five kittens, three pups, a dog and another stray cat. The non-resident neighbor farmer has a plow team that I also interact with.  A beautiful black horse, not trained for riding, and a skittish jackass.  I could write a long essay about our adventures, but I won’t here.

You write me about the men in your lives; for me, it’s the animals that share my love.

This life is not fulfilling; I need a small circle of friends for support.  On the other hand, if I follow the pattern of forebears, I should have about five more years of lucidity before the Alzheimer’s kicks in. I think to move to either Morelia or Oaxaca, each deeper south into the Mexican heartland.  But then what do I do with my investment here?  Who would buy this house!  People in Durango, an hour away, do come this way to look for a second, country home.  But none have stopped to inquire here at my door. To complicate things, the hectare is owned by a non-profit association.  I am trying to buy my piece of it, but that is complicated.  So I could have to walk away from my considerable investment.  My monthly pension is not enough to live in a city, I think, without the supplement of the proceeds from here.  If I am right about having only five more lucid years, do I really want yet one more stressful move and re-acclimation?

It is unfortunate that after my long and wandering life I have never acquired a friend to join me here as companion.  I think, one good buddy who drinks coffee and plays board games is all it would take. 

So, here I am.  If you ever get to traveling this way, you will find me here.

The floral arrangement

In November, 2016, I left China and came to Mexico.  My introduction to my new life included a breather, a time out to regroup.  I immediately began a week-long retreat with my Canadian friend Jhampa Shaneman, and his students.  We were in the beautiful city of Morelia, at a countryside resort hotel.  There I met Rudy.

At the end of the retreat I planned to visit my friend Catherine, at Lake Chapala in Jalisco.  Jhamps was also going to Jalisco, and so we go by bus.  Rudy, however, over breakfast volunteered to drive us.  Extraordinary!  I came to learn that he is a semi-retired medical doctor, who admired Jhampa and just wanted some stimulating conversation.  He agreed that when I returned to Durango, he would meet me at the airport.  He offered his home for a brief visit.

Rudy and his wife turned out to be two classy people.   Rudy still had his private practice, though he had given up his University gig.  His wife was very active in a group of ladies who were in a guild and focused on helping underprivileged women.

I grew very fond of them.  Unfortunately, I was not a very good guest.  Still, they suffered me when I returned in June for eye surgery; they put me up for pre and post-surgery days.  I was living at the time out in the countryside, in the Luz de Compasion compound in Pozole.

At the time I was painfully aware that I had a duty as a guest to bring hostess gifts.  This is a skill I am woefully bad at.  There seemed no grace to my state as a guest.  I could not regulate my schedule to theirs.  I would eat at noon, as is my custom, only to find that at 2 pm the servant would prepare a meal for them.  It took me a while to realize this was not random.  I longed to think of what I could do to show them my appreciation.

For months I have been thinking that when I returned to Durango, flush with the sale of the Florida house, I would buy a huge flower arrangement for Rudy and his wife.  I finally got to do that Monday, late in the day.  I got a call from the florist, saying it could not be delivered.  No one was home. 

I picked up the bouquet and drove to the house.  I saw that both cars were in the garage, and a white car was parked at the curb by their door.  I surmised they had taken a plane trip.

Salvo, their large schnauzer, was roused after I rang the bell.  I spoke with him some through the barriers, until he went up to the roof so we could talk.  I stood in the street and we had a happy reunion, but mostly he wanted me to take him with me.  I couldn’t believe they would leave him alone, but what else could they do.  No doubt someone came to add to his kibble bowl.  There was enough rain falling each day to fill his water bowl naturally.  He was used to peeing and pooping on the roof; that was not different.  But I wondered how often he got to go outside.  His usual routine would be to go out early every morning and check out the neighborhood, going far down to the corner on a regular route of his own, to meet and greet, to sniff and suss.  He was crying in distress, and I felt so helpless.

I put the bouquet in my car and brought it to my tiny room at the motel.  When I occupied the room initially it held the overpowering smell of camphor.  I removed the camphor from the toilet bowl and put it outside.  The dominating smell then was from the bouquet.  Knowing I wouldn’t keep the bouquet there, I also bought an air freshener for use in subsequent days.

On Monday I drove by Dr. Carrillo’s office, before seeking out the florist.  Dr. Carillo was just pulling up as I was leaving, I having made an appointment for the following day.  He came to my car, saying oh what a miracle, Rudy said he hadn’t heard from you.  Gee, it would have been nice if at that moment he had gossiped just a tad and mentioned that oh, by the way have you heard they are on a trip to the Vatican?

I only learned that tidbit on Tuesday, when I arrived for the appointment.  By then I had spent a large chunk of change on a gorgeous and fragrant bouquet.  I told him that I would bring it to his office, so that he and his patients could enjoy it.  He said oh no, no, no need, don’t do that.  I said well then, would you prefer I threw the arrangement in the garbage?  My tiny room is too small, it overwhelms the room.

Gosh, I can’t imagine myself ever spending that kind of money just to have a nice bouquet in my recluse’s home.

This eye clinic is on a very short one-way street on a hill, with extremely limited parking.  Earlier that same day, planning for a 12 o’clock appointment, I left my house at 11:15 to make sure I found it okay.  I got lost again on the way, got into traffic, and when I thought I was minutes away I hopped into a shop to get a gordito to go.  But still I arrived just minutes before 12 noon.  There was no parking space.  He keeps one space in front of the clinic marked clearly for his clinic only; it was occupied, although the office was empty of patients.  I parked behind that car, in a driveway clearly marked for no parking.  The receptionist came out and said I had to move.

Fifteen minutes later I returned to the office, out of breath.  The receptionist tried to usher me into the office, but there was an elderly lady sitting there waiting for her 12:15.  I insisted that she go, not wanting to appear like the pushy American. 

Eventually I saw Dr. Carrillo.  He looked into the eye and pronounced it sound.  Apparently, he did not see the folds that the other ophthalmologists had seen.  He recommended ending the medication.

I felt a little puzzled by this, but perhaps I have been focusing too much on the eye and imagining the pains that I’ve been feeling.  So we are off the drops.  The last time I tried that, just about three weeks ago now, my eye turned deep red and light hurt like a knife through the brain. [two days later:  sans medicine, the eye is once again red and painful.  It is evening now; in the morning I expect pain upon seeing the sun]

I caught him up a bit on my travels, anchored by visits to ophthalmologists.  Then I finally enquired about Dr. Rudy and his wife.  That is when I learned they were on a trip to Europe.  Dr. Carrillo could not say how long they would be away.  So I told him he must enjoy the flowers in their stead.

As I left the doctor’s office I said to the receptionist, please doni’t leave until I get back.  I knew she had a penitent for keeping her hours to the absolute minimum. I don’t know what her deal is, no doubt it works for the doctor, but it has caught me up short a few times.  So I purposely said, please don’t leave!  I’ll be back right away.

Well, of course I got totally lost on the way home. I found myself on a new very wide connector road, it didn’t match the map, and I was utterly lost.  I pulled over to the side of the road, tears of frustration streaming down my face, the large map I had just bought stretched across the wheel.  I heard a tap tap on my window.  A very nice man, who reminded me a bit of a young Uncle Tony (Dad’s brother), smiled and said hello.  He had obviously noticed my Florida plates, and wanted to be of assistance.  It turns out that I was on a new road, the 3-year old map was inaccurate.  He handled my teary story with class, and helped me back on my way.

I finally found the motel, grabbed the flowers and headed back to the doctor’s office. 

By this time I knew by heart the direct route to the doctor’s office; I was unthwarted by the jumble of one-way streets. 

The car that had been parked outside the clinic, in the parking spot clearly marked reserved for the clinic, was still parked there.  Without hesitation I parked in front of a garage.  At the top of the hill I saw what looked like a homeless guy waving his arms and screaming at me, No! No! No!  I ignored the madman.  I was still in my car getting ready to open the door.  He banged on my window!  I, still in my Zoloft-deprived state, fierce face swollen from the recent tears of frustration, banged back at him.

I carefully lifted the flower arrangement out of the back seat, noting signs of wilting, a rose petal fluttering down.  I tried the door of the office.  It was locked!  I set the flowers right down at the entrance, and left it.  If it stayed there all night, if the crazy man came back and helped himself, it was no concern of mine.  I was done with this good deed.

As I pulled away from the curb, it occurred to me that perhaps this homeless-looking guy was actually employed by the homeowners on that hill to protect their garage entrances from cars like mine.

Once back home, I tried the office number.  It was hooked up for fax reception.  I could not leave a message.

I called again the next day, asking if they enjoyed the flowers.  The receptionist smiled an affirmative.  They were received, I did not ask at what hour.

Medicare costs out of control. Cataract surgery

Ripping off Medicare?

                How much does a cataract surgery cost Medicare?  I did not receive an itemized bill.  Happy to have the cost taken care of, I didn’t care.  I wanted the multifocal lens, to do away with even reading glasses.  That is not covered by Medicare, so it is an out of pocket expense of $2,500. 

                I had one eye done in the United States where I could use my Medicare insurance.  The other eye was done in Mexico, a cash affair.  To have a trifocal German Weiss lens put in, the total cost was 30,000 pesos, or roughly $1,500.  Obviously, without the multifocal lens it would have been well under $1,000.

                So, how much does Medicare shell out to an ophthalmologist for this basic procedure? 

                Let us compare to two procedures.

                In the US, I received the personal attention of the doctor’s technical assistant.  She spoke with my by phone about the medicines I needed prior to the surgery.  There were drops that were needed, to prepare the eye.  One small vial of drops cost $300.  She arranged to get a discount card for me, perhaps from the manufacturer, to reduce that cost by half.  I was given a detailed schedule for applying the drops prior to surgery.  The instructions included washing my eye with baby shampoo the night before and the day of surgery.  For the office visits, I sat in front of about five machines that measured my eyes.  Not quite sure what each of them measured, but it felt professional and efficient.

                On the day of the operation, I was instructed to go to a local hospital.  This hospital provides a wing devoted to this ophthalmology group.  Clear directions sent me from the hospital entrance around to their wing.  I was greeted at a polished wood reception counter, and checked in.  There is a carpeted waiting area with comfortable chairs.  I was invited to put on a hospital gown, to be more comfortable.  I was given a bed on wheels, and a tall shaven head man came to me and introduced himself.  He was the technician who was to prepare me.  He explained what would happen.  He was upbeat.  We quickly discovered something in common, and became best friends.  When the time came, I was wheeled into the operating room.  By this time I am so well informed that I am completely relaxes.  The local anesthesia is administered.  I am totally awake.  I am offered something that might take the edge off, but I tell them I am fine.  The procedure, done in a dedicated sterile room, was quick and painless except for one little pin prick.  I assume, by its timing in the event, that it was the lens going in. 

After the procedure I return to the other room.  I sit up, and am given a package of bandages and drops for doing my own after care.  Inside the bandage they’ve applied, there is a concave clear plastic tear-drop shaped perforated disc.  This will protect my eye, especially when I sleep.  I am given a sheet of instructions for the following three weeks.  It is a schedule, clearly written out, of how and when to apply each of three vial of drops I’ve bought.

I notice that the waiting room as well as the beds are full.  This is clearly an assembly line.  No telling how many of these procedures the doctor does in a day, although he may only do this procedure twice a week.

I have a follow up visit the next day at the town office of this ophthalmology group, which is pretty routine.  The doctor just wants to have a look at his work.  A week later I have another follow up with the referring optometrist, but I figure this is just his way of getting his cut, by charging the visit to Medicare.  There is nothing for him to do or see.  I blow it off.

During and after the surgery I have no pain or discomfort.  Given all the anti-inflammatory and antibiotic drugs I’ve been given, how could I.  I am given the instructions, not to bend over, not to lift anything heavy for at least a week.  They give a safe margin of error for the prognosis.  Three to six weeks and my vision will return to clarity. 

I think about how much all those machines cost, with which my eye was so closely examined and measured.

For months I have suffered with crazy vision.  One eye is normal, the other still needs corrective lens.  I try some old contact lenses.  They help a little, but they sat in sealed packets for years, and were probably slowly degrading.  Reading, for these months, is a big problem.

Finally I am free to go to Mexico.  I drive there from Florida, and settle into an unoccupied piece of land where I started and then abandoned a house.  One house on the community land is completed, and I am allowed to stay there.  I slowly make contact with the medical community, I see one doctor and then another, and I am told that the required lens is on order.  Once it arrives, my surgery will be scheduled.  I am in Mexico about four weeks before the day comes.

When I first met the doctor, perhaps the only one in town that does multifocal lens, and apparently he hasn’t been called upon to do many, he peers into my eye with one machine only.  Later a doctor friend would refer to this as a sonogram.  The appointment took perhaps five minutes.  He then searched out and ordered the lens, for which I would have to wait another two weeks or so.

I called ahead of that day to ask if I needed to do anything to prepare.  Any drops?  Shampoo for the eye?  No, there is nothing.  Just arrive at 10 am, fasting.

For safe keeping, I squirt my eye with remaining drops of anti-inflammatory left over from the previous eye surgery, that morning.  I scrub the eye with baby shampoo.  I show up at the doctors office before 10.  Then I am told the surgery will be at 11;30.  The receptionist said something about needing time to fill out history forms, but I thought my appointment got bumped.  The doctor was squeezing me in, as it was, as a favor to my physician friend.  And so I waited, light headed from a light supper the night before and no breakfast nor water.

The first referring ophthalmologist arrives, and waits in the tiny reception room.  I didn’t recognize him at first.  After some time, he came up to me and said softly, are you ready?  We are ready.  Yes, I agreed.  Ready.  It would still be some ten or fifteen minutes before I was prepared with gown, hair net and booties.

The procedure took place in a back room, on a guerney or examining table.  The referring doctor gowned up and was assisting.  There was not much talking, no mood lifting banter.  So far, three different drops had been applied, and they all stung to varying degrees of intensity.  The last were applied and I laid down.

The procedure took place.  I think the US doctor used laser tools, which this doctor did not have.  The first procedure felt smoother.  That being said, there was very little discomfort.

When it was over the eye was bandaged.  I was instructed to take care of it, don’t put pressure on it, don’t bend down or lift anything heavy. There was no plastic disc to protect the eye under the bandage.

These two Mexican doctors had done cataract surgery for my friends and their elders.  None of them requested the multifocal lens.  All had excellent results.

My question is obvious.  Is all that primping and pampering given the US patient and charged to Medicare necessary?  Yes, it feels good, but it doesn’t change the outcome.

Congress doesn’t dare cut Medicare funding, for fear of an outcry from the public.  I think the reduced funding requirements should come from within.  The medical profession in general relies on more and more instruments of measurement, expensive equipment and lab tests, to avoid liability from error.  Perhaps this testing is also a cover-up for the poor diagnostic skills acquired during medical training.

There is so much wrong with health care in the US.  I am only addressing one small specialty.  Of the broader field of western medicine, I believe that once treatment is applied, it is quality for the most part.  (I am sure there are studies out there reporting on this; I am not aware. I am being optimistic.)  But the expense around it is out of control.  There is a great body of traditional healing that is suppressed, not integrated into our system of health care.  When I lived in China I had access to many affordable natural remedies over the counter that relieved symptoms I might have gone to the doctor about in the US, if I could afford it.  In Mexico, and among my Mexican students in America, I have been acquainted with traditional healers.  I respect their work.

These are my observations from undergoing the same procedure in two medical systems.  And gratuitous ramblings on the topic of health care in general.  I welcome your comments.

Remembering an old friend and mentor

Birthday Blessings, Losar 2007

When you find a place you really love, it is hard to leave it.  Sometimes, however, there is no other choice.  While it is true that you cannot enter the same stream twice, that stream can still hold sweet water.  And so I left one Tibetan community and returned to another.

2006. This is a story about visiting an old friend, and reconnecting with a new friend.  Having left China (East Tibet) after being denied a worker visa renewal, feeling at sixes and sevens, I returned to a safe place.  India.  One goal was to visit the current incarnation of my deceased root guru. I learned he was in Bylakuppe, which is a Tibetan refugee camp a few hours from Mysore in Karnataka, southern India.  This is where the ancient Sera Me and Sera Je monasteries had been established, after the Tibetans were exiled from Tibet. 

Upon arriving at New Delhi (Indira Gandhi) airport, and spending a night in the refugee community, Majnukatilla, my feet trod once again a familiar path.  How well I knew this road, this 8 hour journey by overnight bus up a twisting bumpy mountain road to McLeod Ganj. This is where my life found its center, during 3 years in the 1970s.  This was my first time to revisit this mountain village in the Dhauladhar Mountains in Himachal Pradesh, north India.  I remembered a sleepy town where the only cars to brave the narrow and rough mountain road were the rare visitors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  We lesser mortals rode the rugged bus, each trip a death-defying act over narrow ascending roads cut into the mountainside, or walked the half-hour path down to Dharamsala markets.

The buses entered the small plaza, discharging their passengers before making tight U turns to prepare to head down the mountain again.  In this same plaza sometimes a projector and screen would be set up in the evening, and chairs set out to watch a rare movie.  At the wide convergence of the dirt streets leading up and down the hillside from the plaza, Tibetans on holiday occasions would form a circle and dance traditional dances.

McLeod Ganj is set on a mountain ridge at most one mile long. At one end was the small plaza.  Entering the plaza there were buildings straddling the ridge on either side. Behind the plaza at one end the mountain rose further, where there were stone-built colonial homes left by the British.  This was one of their ‘hill stations’, where they sent their families up from the plains to escape the unbearably hot summers.  In the center of this long narrow plaza there was a cement building housing a large rotating Tibetan cylinder filled with papers inscribed with ‘om mani padme hum’.  Each time it made a complete revolution a bell would tinkle.  Beyond that was a row of smaller such cylinders in rows, roofed but open.  Devout Tibetans came daily to turn these prayer wheels, repeating the same mantra or other prayers.  In one of these wooden buildings on the left side of the narrow road the Tibetan doctor had his medical practice.  When he was not seeing we mere mortals, he was occupied with tending to the health of His Holiness the Dalia Lama.  Or perhaps it was the other way around.  He was to go on to become a world renowned authority on traditional medicines, traveling and lecturing all over the world (Dr Yeshe Dondun). 

Further down the long narrow plaza, before the terminus of the ridge, there was a road sloping down to the right, towards a smaller prominence on the far edge of this ridge.  Except for a few hotels, there were no buildings here.  This was the path that pilgrims walked, alongside untouched woods, to the home of the Dalai Lama.  Hidden in the woods was a primitive nunnery for about 20 Tibetans.  (After I was ordained as a nun I asked if I could join this community of Tibetan nuns in this forest.  I was told it is too primitive for a westerner; I was denied community there.) Believers would take the narrow path below and around the ‘Palace’ repeating mantras, in a practice called ‘kora’ (circle).  They believed they were acquiring merit, canceling out some of their negative karma.

In the decades following the establishment of the Tibetan Government in Exile here, the focus for western residents (aside from those rare visitors who came briefly for a personal audience with the Dalai Lama) was attending the ‘Tibetan University’.  This was a project developed by the Dalai Lama with the purpose of preserving the Tibetan language, art, culture and Buddhist teachings by transferring them to westerners.  It was described in an article in Asian Times in the 70s.

A lucky few could find rooms in the apartments built around the government center, halfway between McLeod Ganj and Dharamsala.  These two-story buildings were mainly for the exiled Tibetans, and westerners who found housing there were usually visiting scholars come to study with the lamas and or to do research at the Library of Tibetan Books and Archives.

My shack was part of 'shanti bhavan', above McLeod Ganj in the forested former Raj-era compounds.  To attend the daily teachings at the Library entailed a walk down some 2,000 meters of altitude, on a dusty winding road. The walk down in the mornings was pleasant. In spring it included a short cut through a flowering rhododendron forest.  The road down was very steep, the view breathtaking.  A large lake was a shimmering ribbon of silver on the distant horizon, drawn on a canvas of blue haze.  To the right was the mountain wall.  To the left was a sheer drop off and the other side of the gorge.  It was a steep gorge cut by a river of melted snow runoff.  The return journey was arduous, in the burning hot afternoon mountain sun. 

On cold winter mornings, shivering in my nun’s traditional robes, I would rush down the small slope to a chai shop in McLeod Ganj for morning sweet chai and a roti, and maybe a cup of freshly made sour yogurt, before the long walk down the mountain to the Library.  The shop, with its worn linoleum floor and made of wood slats, darkened from years of cooking fires, was balanced precariously over a precipice. The cooking fires warmed the room.  A handful of other westerners were also there for the same reason. It was a cozy, intimate experience.

Because much of the housing construction was of unlined, uninsulated wood, winters were brutal.  Luckier, wealthier students and monks lived in concrete block houses, but these were also unheated.  The cold was unrelenting.  Each year there would be a mass exodus of lamas, and their followers, to the warmth of Bodh Gaya on the plains of Bihar state.  Usually from December until the Tibetan New Year, or ‘Losar’, the center of devotion would shift to the sacred area where Buddha was believed to have attained enlightenment.  Buddhists of all traditions were there. It was a rare opportunity to study with other traditions.  Notably was a Burmese teacher name Goenka, who led intensive 10-day meditation retreats in the Vipassana tradition.

When we all returned to McLeod Ganj to live out the short remaining winter weather, it was time to celebrate the New Year.  The high light of this time was receiving the Dalai Lama’s blessing.  He would sit in the main temple on his elevated seat, and a long line of devotees would snake outside the building waiting for their moment.  As I approached his seat, hands folded and draped with a traditional white silky scarf called a ‘khata’ that I would offer him, I would cease paying attention to whom else was in line.  My breath deepened, my spirit stilled, focused on the strong peaceful presence of the man who was about to lay his precious hand on my head. I knew that he knew who I was, and that his blessing was personal. 

Thirty years of change greeted my return.  Buildings had blossomed everywhere on the mountainside.  The dusty narrow steep road down to the Library and Dharmsala beyond was now paved.  It was regularly traversed by taxis and a few private cars.  There were frequent jams, where the road was not wide enough for two cars.  The narrow streets in McLeod Ganj proper were made more narrow by rows of vending tables, nevertheless cars dared traverse its 200 meter length, threading throngs of pedestrians with blasts of horn. 

Much of the forest that had been the front yard of His Holiness’s home was gone.   Many luxury hotels crowded the cliffside, shops and boutique restaurants hug the hillside, and there were new monasteries.  On the cliffs edge of the narrow road, stalls lined the sloping connecting road leading to the Palace.  Leathered brown faces sat beside blankets or tables filled with turquoise and coral stones set in silver, or mani beads.  These are strings of 108 beads, made of fragrant wood, or eye of the Pepol tree, or smoothed semiprecious stones.  

The small ‘ani gompa’ or nun’s temple had been replaced by a far more comfortable nunnery.  The Dalai Lama had done much to raise the level of the nuns.  They received more profound teachings than were available to them before, and were respected for their spiritual depth and learning.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s His Holiness would come down to the plaza, sit with his students over chai and laughter.  By the time I had arrived, the population both Tibetans and westerners had grown to an uncomfortable level.  He could no longer stroll anonymously in his village streets.

By the time of my return visit, the population had swollen to a seemingly insupportable size. His Holiness would give regular teachings each month, announced on his web site.  Throngs of westerners and Tibetans alike would travel in for the week-long teachings and sacred initiations.  The hotels were full, the Tibetan family homes were crowded with distant relatives sleeping on couches and floors.

My plan was vague; I was running away from disappointment, looking for a healing solution.  While passing through Bangkok from China I managed to obtain a ten-year tourist visa.  My goals included getting back in touch with my teachers, get some teachings, do some retreats, and otherwise jump start my flagging spiritual life. 

After a few days in a hotel in McLeod Ganj I was lucky to find an apartment halfway down the mountain towards Dharmsala, in an area that used to house the exiled government secretary.  In its day its address was home to a publishing house, which specialized in translations from the Tibetan scriptures and commentaries to English.  Now the area was developed and still developing, the now-asphalted path lined with concrete construction.  My apartment was in a 2-story quadplex.  It was modern, with tiled floors, a large shower and well-equipped kitchen.  

I applied for and awaited my permission to go to the Bylakuppe refugee center in Karnataka, were I would visit with the young incarnation of my deceased Library teacher. This would be a new experience for me.  Would he recognize me?  Would he find it strange that I treated him like an old friend, this 11 year old boy?

My year was coming to an end as the Tibetan New Year approached.  I had renewed my acquaintance with some of my teachers, sat in on illuminating teachings, and spent months in retreat meditating on these teachings.  I had made it down to Bylakuppe, and met the young ‘yangtse’.  As it happened, the holiest day of this Losar would fall on my birthday.  It was raining, cold and miserable in McLeod Ganj.  My summer wardrobe was hardly appropriate for this cold and wet weather.  My stay would be short.  I found a bed in a lodge run by a group of monks from a traditional monastery, right on the central plaza.  Losar was a holiday festival, a time for everyone to relax and enjoy themselves.  It was fun to be around the monks in these days.  Their childlike sense of play, and the laughter that filled the shared restaurant-reception area was infectious.

Reflecting on the old days of receiving His Holiness’s personal blessing at Losar, I wished to re-experience that intimate connection.  In reality, during the intervening years he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and become world-renowned.  It would be impossible for him to continue that practice of touching each of the tens of thousands of visitors who waited expectantly for his blessing.  Instead, the day’s activities in his temple would take on a different aspect.

I could not face these crowds of strangers.  Instead, I decided to spend the hours doing kora around his holiness’s home and temple.

Even that had been built up.  Of course, much of the path on the exposed side of the mountain was still narrow and unpaved.  But along a broader strip of land new homes had been added to the mountain slope, for honored reincarnate lama teachers, benefitting the monks studying in HH’s monastery.  Devoted followers had donated shrines, small buildings housing precious reliquary and candles.  Near the end of the long circle there was a small plaza, lined on one side with mani wheels and on the other by an enclosed shrine.  I reached that point at the end of the kora, just as the sun came out dispelling the drizzle.  I folded my umbrella, and stopped for reflection. 

I closed my eyes, and focused on that precious presence.  I wished him a happy new year prayer.  To my astonishment, a warmth flooded over me, accompanied by an inner light and profound peace.  It lingered for a long moment.  He came to me, and wished me a happy birthday, letting me know that he had not forgotten me.

Upon that joyous note, I soon booked my travels back to Kham, East Tibet, where my friend was awaiting the arrival of her first child.  I was the designated doula, or midwife.  I was returning to China as a tourist, for a short stay of three months.  The future was uncertain, but I knew that whatever came my way I could weather it, knowing that I was held in the heart and under the protection of a very special spiritual being.  Though I be alone in the world, I know I am tethered by an unbreakable cord.