(These notes are my unedited thoughts from sixteen years ago. I decided not to change or delete anything, except last names, because I wish to share these fully. Any defects are mine, at a younger age, and please take them as innocent ramblings, not meant to offend anyone.)
"You should know that the entire heaven and earth are the roots, stem, and branches, and leaves of the long bamboo. Thus heaven and earth are timeless… a wooden walking staff is both old and not old.
A plantain has earth, water, fire, emptiness, also mind, consciousness, and wisdom as its roots, stems, branches, and leaves, or as its flowers, fruits, colors, and forms. Accordingly, the plantain wears the autumn wind, and is torn in the autumn wind. We know that it is pure and clear and that not a single particle is excluded."
Painted Cake - Eihei Dogen (Matthiessen, P. 1987. Nine Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982. p 235).
April 24th, 2001; Miami Florida:
Well, over six years have passed (Since my last entry). Life is good. I prayed in the Sweat Lodge for new relationship, career, home, beyond my Wildest dreams.
It has come to pass.
My wife is one of the most spiritual beings I have ever met. My son is 18 and lives with us. He has grown into a fine young man.
I am now a teacher and a healer. I teach T’ai Chi and am a beginning mental health counselor and psychometrician. Tomorrow my wife Susana and I leave to travel to India to attend a workshop in Dharamsala, to address the questions, “What is real wealth and how can we create it?” Our group has an audience with the Dalai Lama on April 30th “At his house”.
It is my plan to continue this journal through these interesting times.
April 27, 2001; India:
We are on an overnight train from New Delhi to Pathankot, and then a three hour bus ride to Dharamsala. I will attempt to chronicle the last few days while they are still fresh in my mind.
The day before we left Susana opened our front door and a large, very alive snake was there on our doorstep. She quickly closed the door, and moments later, when I opened the door, it was gone, and nowhere to be seen. I carefully looked, and it had totally disappeared.
We flew Air France to Paris. Louis, my son, took us to the airport, and we hope to keep in touch by internet.
At Charles DeGaule airport outside Paris, our flight was delayed three hours while we sat on the plane waiting for the food to arrive, as the caterers were on strike. This, however, gave us three more hours with two Tibetan Lamas who were traveling on the same flight.
I noticed them in the airport, and after we boarded the flight, Susana, emboldened by her recent adventure to Quebec City to cover the Summit of the Americas Conference with a brazen Argentine reporter, (from whom she emulated more aggressive behavior), approached them and engaged one of them in conversation. They were traveling from Barcelona to Darjeeling, to perform Ceremony, and spoke fluent Spanish. A connection was made, and Lama Tenpo later found us in our seats and continued a delightful conversation, mostly in Spanish with Susana.
We landed in New Delhi at one am, got out of the airport at two, got to bed at about 4:30 am. Our driver, who met us with a sign “Barciela”, spoke no English. “Benot” was a delightful driver. Greetings from India!
The next afternoon his boss, “Sonny”, or Nashta Singh, a Seekh from Punjab who spoke good English, took us to several sites in New Delhi, including the largest tower, in a park of archeological remains which were being re-assembled, Qutab Minar. From there we went to an outdoor Jain shrine with a large Buddha atop a hill. This was a special place, and we went with no shoes or leather. We visited many shrines, a market, and an astrological park.
I learned of communication and culture from two interesting situations in which I was lagging an hour behind in my understanding. The first was in bargaining for a purchase, and was a simple not following the tour book’s instructions to offer half, then pay three quarters of the asking price.
The second event involved an interesting man almost my exact age, born with the independence of India on August 15th, 1947. He was a guide who approached us and explained the operation of of the various instruments, types of giant sundials, in the park. He was an official guide who worked for the government, and the park. He was delightful, but strangely, he refused my offer of a ten rupee tip. I thought this extremely unusual, but it wasn’t until after we left that Sonny explained to me that he had refused it because it was too small! I had difficulty understanding his English, and we were hurried to pick up Sonny’s wife from work. An interesting lesson after the fact about culture, pride, and communication! He kept saying “I am not greedy!”, and I thought “How Special!”.
April 28th, 2001; Dharamsala:
In school a few years ago, I was asked what advice I would have for young people today, and it is “Think big and be kind”. Yesterday in New Delhi I added “And listen to your wife”.
Jorge and Maggie K. Joined us the evening of our first day, and we had dinner and went to the Red Fort in Old Delhi the next day together. Old Delhi is Moslem, much poorer, and much rougher. The crowds and mosquitos were much thicker, and the beggars were so common we were afraid to give to one lest we be overrun by the rest. The day before, I would give, first to a child, then to a mother with a child, just as we left a place, so as not to be overrun. We were joined that morning by more of our group that would go to Dharamsala. Michael, a Brit from Seattle, was acquainted with the work of the Roerichs, and said that the Gorbachevs were too.
We travelled to Old Delhi again Friday evening, the 27th, to the train station, which was an intense crowd scene, and very third world. On the train we shared a compartment with the K.s, who are avid travelers and birders, and I enjoyed getting to know them better. Maggie has been mediating an hour a day for the past four years! I had wondered how she was able to deal with the ongoing fight she has been waging for justice for the families of the Cuban fliers who were shot down by the Cuban government, among which had been her brother. Jorge and Maggie are architects, and we had also had a wonderful discussion about creativity and beauty at dinner the first night.
Other fellow travelers included Tom, from Boca Raton, who works for Motorola as a management trainer, Roosevelt from the Bahamas, and Rogelio from Mexico, both organizational trainers/consultants, and Fritz and Vivian, also from Seattle, who have an educational center for spiritual and ecological issues.
The drive from the train station in Punjab to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh is very beautiful. Upper Dharamsala and the Dhauladar range of the Himalayas behind it are very magical, and Glenmoor Cottages where we are staying, is indescribable. Mr. Singh, who owns them (the cottages), is the ultimate host, very quiet, and with an aura of quiet spirituality. His dog, Maggie, remembered Susana, as did Mrs. Singh.
April 30th, 2001; Dharamsala, Glenmoor Cottages:
Today we have a one pm audience with the Dalai Lama. Already the day feels special. We talked late into the night, and woke early and spoke of people who had shown us compassion, our family, and our new friends.
The workshop and its Open Space format are such a treat because of the gathering of people from all over who share spiritual concerns. Yesterday morning when they asked for prayers I prayed as in the Sweat Lodge, in Lakota and English, as the circle felt like Tiospe, (Lakota for community, or Sangha). We were assembled in the prayer hall of the Chinmaya Mission Temple in lower Dharmasala. Many people wanted to attend my T’ai Chi group and also Seema’s group on “How do I find my calling?”, so we put the two groups together, and after demonstrating and talking about and answering questions about T’ai Chi, we discussed finding one’s calling, and happiness and fulfillment.
(About Open Space: There are four rules: 1) Whoever comes is the right people. 2) Whenever it starts is the right time. 3) Whatever happens, it couldn’t have been any other way, and 4) When it’s over, it’s over. The event is self organized, with everyone sitting in a circle. After the introductory evocation of names, and whatever prayers we have, participants post subjects of interest to them on a wall, including time and place, with tape and paper and markers, after which people “sign up” on each paper who are interested in joining a particular discussion.)
Later in the day, Tulku Ngawang Rinpoche, the English Liason for His Holiness the Karmapa, complimented my T’ai Chi, and I told her of my studies with Trungpa Rinpoche. I told her I was ashamed not to be a practical sitter (meditator) these days, and she said her Root Guru told her, “No Sorry! No Sorry!” Then she looked at me and said “No Sorry! No Sorry!” I told her that I left my Buddhist practice when I married my first wife, who wasn’t in to it, and she said “Life is hard.”
Anne S. Is a wonderful person and new friend. She is a storyteller with incredibly expressive hands, and a calm, yet energized gaze, and no fear to ask everyone to get up and dance.
Michael, who was the gardener at Findhorn, said his favorite vegetable was the potato, when Susana asked him. His countenance was that of Peter O’Toole in Laurence of Arabia, when I first met him in New Delhi, and Susana got a kick out of this observation when I told her last night. A soft spoken Brit with a wild glint in his eyes and a keen mind and wit connected to a compassionate heart. Many fine conversations, in the dining room and on the road.
During yesterday’s Open Space, “Think Big, be kind, and listen to your wife” evolved to:
Think big and act with courage;
Be kind, and by so doing, create real wealth;
And;
Listen more, because we all learn from each other, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
May 1st, 2001; Chinmaya Mission Temple; Dharmashala:
The Open Space workshop ended this morning here, and included a dance performance by one of our group, the famous Indian dance master Astad Deboo. This was one of the highest points of the trip, and brought tears to the eyes of many of us.
Yesterday’s audience with the Dalai Lama…(to be continued)
May 4th, 2001; Jammu Airport:
We decided to stay at Glenmoor Cottages in upper Dharmashala unitl we had to go back to the USA. Our host, Ajai Singh, made arrangements for us to be driven to Jammu, four hours away, to fly to Delhi this afternoon. We are four, Jorge and Maggie K., and Susana and I.
A delightful drive from the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, through a small part of Punjab, and then into Jammu and Kashmir, which because is near the Pakistan border, on which there have been some incidents, there was a strong military presence. There was a lot of security at the airport, for which we were thankful.
As soon as we left Himachal and got into Punjab, and all the way into Jammu, we saw pot plants growing like weeds in thick stands by the roadside wherever there was a village or town.
To continue the story from the visit to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I go back to Monday April 30th , 2001.
In the morning the group met on the lawn in front of Ajai’s house. Rinpoche arrived and said “Come with me,” before she was taken away in conversation with others. A little while later I saw her sitting with Mark J., a wild Buddhist from Seattle, and with Michael, who is also a Buddhist. I sat on the lawn with them, she looked up and said “Good” and we discussed Buddhism and taking vows. (I had never taken them in the 70s when I was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.) I decided to take Refuge vows and she said I could perhaps do so with the Karmapa! Wow! She gave me instructions and a Mantra.
We Americans were to go to the Dalai Lama’s Namgyal Monastery first, because the security would take longer, so we didn’t just walk over, but took a short ride, then walked the last bit to the Dalai Lama’s residence. After a wait, (We had showed up early), we were shown into a room with chairs in rows in front of a large, but simple wooden chair with a small table next to it, on a rug which extended to the third row of chairs, where Susana and I sat next to the center aisle. The Dalai Lama came in and sat, we meditated for about ten minutes, after which he said it could be very informal, and did we want to ask him any spontaneous questions. Dinesh, our group’s leader, said that we had five questions which we had decided as a group to ask, and the members who had suggested them asked their questions. We were scheduled for a half hour audience, and he sent a whole hour with us.
We asked him what we could do to create real wealth, and he said that religion helps the individual, but the community, “I don’t know.” He said compassionate acts were what made a lot of difference, and that we could each do a little. He said to be content with our material wealth, and discontent with our spiritual wealth, always striving for more.
Susana asked the fifth question, which was, “Do you ever get discouraged? If you do, what do you do about it? If you don’t, what’s your secret?” He answered in detail that we are only discouraged when we have expectations, and expect immediate results. As he answered, Susana said he looked right at her, and spoke as to her directly. She said it was quite an experience. After the questions he got up to leave, and people went up for individual blessings, for which there wasn’t time. He did speak with several people briefly. I had a gift for him, and there were three or four people between us and his back was to me. I didn’t know how to address him, but I wanted to say something and hadn’t, when he turned around! I said “This is for you” and he took it, then took my hands, looked into my eyes, and said “Thank you! Thank you!” And then he turned around and left the room. I cannot begin to describe the experience.
As we left, Rinpoche came up to me and said “Let’s go! Right now!” (To see about an appointment with the Karmapa to take refuge vows.) It was after two pm and that was when the public could see his personal secretary for appointments. Susana took my bag, and we ran down the hill, got into a taxi with three Indian members of our group, raced to lower Dharmashala and the Monastery/residence of the Karmapa. (The Karmapa is the head of the Kagyu Lineage, which is the school of my teacher, Choygam Trungpa, the eleventh Trungpa Tulku.)
It turned out that the government had just OKed foreign press interviews with the sixteen year old Karmapa, who had recently escaped from China. He was totally booked up until May eleventh! Then Rinpoche pointed up to a nearby balcony, and excitedly said “Look! There he is!” He had come out of his meetings for a break. We started backing up to see him better, and as he looked at us, Rinpoche almost tripped over her dog, which had joined us. This caused the Karmapa to give us a big grin! We stood outside a while, and he came out twice more while we were there. So I briefly saw the Karmapa!
As we were leaving, I asked the Rinpoche to join us for dinner at Glenmoor, and she accepted. We stopped at Chinmaya Mission, where she lives, (On the way there, I asked her to accept a gift, and she used it to pay her rent. The next day she said it was a double blessing, as her rent went into the student fund, which had been depleted. She had told them, showed them her rent receipt and some of Susana’s articles, and they all praised us, said Susana was beautiful, and wanted to meet us.) That evening at dinner we all had a great time. Rinpoche is originally from Texas, and has a great, down to Earth sense of humour, and an infectious giggle. Michael, Mark, and Anne were equally mirthful.
Michael: “What is this?” (Bouncing his bread on his breadplate) Answer- “A bun dance” and, unfortunately, many more from us all! Later, when retelling it, Mark said, “It’s lucky for you he didn’t start jumping in his chair!”
Rinpoche is a wonderful, delightful human being as well as a vessel of the teachings, and over that day and the third of May (yesterday) when she came back up to visit us and again stayed until late, we had many fine hours with our new friend.
Back to the present (May 4th, Jammu Airport): They took everyone’s bags totally apart, and took our batteries from the electronics. Though thorough, the inspector seemed much less formal after finding the Malas, which Rinpoche had blessed, in the bottom of my bag.
Back again to May 1st, after my last entry: The Open Space Workshop ended before one pm, and we were offerred an audience with the head of the Chinmaya Mission Worldwide, the successor to Guru Chinmaya, at 6 pm. Swami Tejomayananda had just arrived at the mission from his travels, and we were lucky to have this; yet another miraculous meeting with a very special holy person. Susana went to interview the Doctor at the mission clinic, part of a microcredit program started by Mohamed Yunis, which she had been writing about. I spent some time in the mission meditating, writing, having tea, and chatting.
Susana rejoined me before 6 pm, and we were: a lady from Bombay, Paul from Seattle, a couple from New Mexico who were students of Ramana Maharshi, and us. We walked to Swami Gi’s cottage and were seated in a small, comfortable room with a view of the mountains. He joined us there, and later we were joined by a doctor who was on the mission board of trustees. Swami Gi’s assistant was also present.
After a few questions about his scheduled visit to Bombay, and each of us telling him where we were from, I said that I had a spiritual question. I said that I tried to do good, and to develop the habit of doing good so that when I was not awake I would act as if I were, but that I many times would put my foot in my mouth, innocently say or do the wrong thing. What would he recommend as the next step on my path?
He said that first, we do something that we regret, get angry, etc., and then we are sorry after. We should “Kiss the feet” of the one we have wronged, if possible (not necessarily literally), and try to catch it sooner. Next, we see ourselves while we are doing it, and finally, we see it coming before we do it and can choose a different path.
We asked him, “The other day a question came up about discouragement”, and he had a practical answer to the question we had asked the Dalai Lama. He told the story of a woman who came to Guru Gi (Guru Chinmaya) because she couldn’t control her anger. Guru Gi told her to sleep on the floor for eight days with no bedding or pillow each time she got angry. She stopped getting angry. This reminded me of Milton Ericson. A wonderful Holy Man, who Susana said “Felt so normal.”
May 4, 2001; New Delhi International Airport: 6 pm:
We made it to the airport lounge, and the next plane we get on at midnight takes us back to the West and it’s comforts. The security at Jammu Airport took Jorge’s leatherman tool, and they promise it will arrive here tomorrow (when we will be in Miami). Jorge got upset, but chilled by looking at birds through the lounge window. I think we are all looking forward to being home.
It amazes me that we can travel half way around the world in less than two days.
Some thoughts about the last few days. I am looking forward to keeping in touch with many new friends made on this trip. With the wonders of the internet creative dialogues at their own pace would have made even Jules Verne turn green with envy! I hope to reconnect with some ot my Buddhist practice. Our connection with Rinpoche is so delightful!!!
June 1, 2001; Miami:
Things have moved so rapidly since our return that I am only now getting back to continuing this journal.
On Wednesday, May 23rd, nine days ago, I had orthoscopic knee surgery for a torn meniscus in my left knee, which has been bothering me since February. That is also the day that Rinpoche arrived. At the workshop, some of the Seattle group invited her to visit. As the political situation worsened for the Karmapa (He wanted to go to Sikkim, and this angered the Chinese, who are India’s “Big Bully” neighbors), she decided to make her yearly pilgrimage to the US. She arrived in Seattle, but things weren’t what she expected, so we invited her to come to Miami, and she is staying with us until she goes back to India on June 7th! What a treat! (We had been keeping in touch through the internet since we left India.)
June 3, 2001; Miami: Saturday:
I have spoken with Jim twice since returning. The first time he suggested I write of my travels, something to send to my friends. We talked again yesterday and I told him I was typing up my journal notes to share, and he told me this story. He said:
When I walk on the beach I pick up interesting stones. I keep some of them, but some just look interesting. They aren’t necessarily for me. Maybe some of the things you have acquired in your travels may be the pieces others need to complete their puzzles.“
And so I offer these notes in that spirit. Blessings!
