Across country

I am gearing up again to travel across the US. Slowly. A kind of pilgrimage. First to my sister's for some weeks, then to my cousin Pam's, then on to St. Louis to visit friends and family before making my way to upstate New York for a month long study with Sakya Trizin, one of my Tibetan teachers.

I keep thinking that I should grow up and get a job, a home of my own. But this desire for sitting with the enlightened ones is like a bulldog latched on to my leg. It won't let go. I keep thinking I should look for my one true love but my passion lives with those moments when I know in my bones, that I am connected to something deeper, something more powerful than what I have found in the arms of a lover, in the moments of laugher or tenderness that can surprise.

I leave Thursday for Durango. It's twenty or so hours driving out of Sacramento. It's a lot of space to experience, the lands of Nevada. The last time I did this was after my father died, coming back to California, determined to find my home and work that would sustain me. There will be a lot of remembering.

I miss my dad. Before he died, when I drove places in the US, I would call him up and tell him where I was. I could hear his smile. He would tell me when he had been in this place I was driving through and we would laugh together at the richness of life that had allowed us to see so much, experience so much, share so much. He would shake his head at my latest adventure, I know it. He would say he didn't understand what I was wanting but I wonder. A month or so before he died, I asked him what he thought happened when a person died. He told me that he hadn't given it much thought and now that he was nearing that time, it didn't seem fair to do anything about it now. Fair to whom? I wonder. I didn't have the courage to ask him. I wish I had. My sister Ann is brave like that.

I still talk to my dad. I still hear his laughter, his love in his voice when I called. I can still see his face light up when I would come home to visit. It is a sustaining vision. I don't have that with my mother, no memories of her appear but her love was so busy, always pushing me to be more, do more, meet her spoken or unspoken needs. Dad just loved.

I often hesitate to write in this potentially public place. The outward journey is so linked to the inner one. Do you want to hear this? Is it boring? Ah well, I can only hope that it touches you in some way.

Bangkok

Last night I arrived in Bangkok. The hotel is elegant with fountains, marble, lights, men in uniforms standing about to take luggage, answer questions. An event was starting in one of the large, chandeliered rooms and the lobby was full of formally clad Thai's, women in long evening gowns, men in suits walking by. I felt large and grubby in my white blouse with the coffee stain and baggy black travel pants. However, this discomforting thought only circled around but did not make a nest in my head. I was pulled back into the moment. Such luxury. I was startled by the opulence, the fine detail of the clothes, of the women's make-up and polished hair coiled on their heads, of the waterfall that was visible through the glass wall of the lobby, of the silence of carpeted floors, of the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere that rendered the hot humid air a memory.

After finding my room, I changed into my swimming suit. I was determined to go swimming. My shoulder is getting better and I was hopeful that I would be able to do a full crawl stroke without pain. I found the hexagon shaped pool. As soon as I walked into the night and heard the water fall; I felt it--the joy. It surprised me. I hadn't felt such joy in such a while. My emotions have been caught in a predictable range that didn't include this visceral delight in just being, the sheer pleasure of being alive, in this place, in this moment. The night was still hot and humid, the pool was deserted except for the young man who provided a release form for me to sign and towels to drape over the chaise. He offered me a drink of my choice. I quickly signed the form and waved him off. I was for the water. It was cool with no obvious scent of chlorine. My shoulder will still not tolerate a full stroke but I can almost move it though the complete range of motion. Like the joy, I can feel movement in the direction of wholeness. For 15 minutes or so, I swam back and forth doing the breast stroke, heart beat pounding by the end of it as I swam without reprieve. And then I started playing, diving under the water, floating on my back before arching back and under, circling around to return to air, over and over, porpoise dives, then back dives recalling the joy of movement. I finally slowed, swam over the the stairs and walked out of the pool.

For some time I just lay on the chaise looking at the night sky, the lit towers of other high rise buildings around, letting the night air play on my skin. Where I had not toweled off, the water drops remained with no hint of evaporation. The breeze was almost cool on my skin.

As I got up to go, the young man came walking over. I thanked him for the gift of the swim as if it was his pool, his hotel, his night of warm moist air.

"You looked so happy," he said.

I laughed, "Oh," I said, "I am."

I put my hands together mirroring his hands and we bowed to each other.

Meeting with Bairoling Rimpoche

Yesterday we met with Bairoling Rimpoche. He is old; he is fragile. Julie says that when he is out of retreat, he has a Parkinsonian tremor and when he is in retreat; it is gone. He needs two people to help him walk. Two young men, one on either side carry him into the room while his legs move in harmony but clearly are not bearing any weight. He is gently settled into his chair. Then he looks around and smiles. He smiles with such love that my heart catches.

I have seen this look before. I have seen it in some of those I have tended who are dying. When the body is making its demands known, its intention to stop heard, something changes. The mind hears a call from another world; you can feel it. There is a kind of detachment filled with peace, filled with love. Rimpoche radiates both. And my heart is filled with it. It is a love that is not based on good works or behavior. It is a love based on being. All are welcome. It is the look of joy free from wanting something from me, just the pleasure of seeing me and everyone else in the room. There is no shortage here, no sense of limits. Yes he will tire, his hands tremble as he touches each of our heads as we come up, one at a time, to be blessed. But the the love, the love is clearly not bound in his aged body. His love is everywhere, enfolding, comforting, rejoicing. Afterwards, after we have quietly filed out and I am walking from that place, my heart seizes. How can I leave him? How can I live without such love, such acceptance? And grief roils up. I am back in hospice watching the family collapse around their beloved, grief pouring out and me vibrating with it.

I tell Julie of the love I felt and the grief that followed. "Ah," she says, "the love you felt will not die with his body." Then she paused and looked at me. "Although that kind of consciousness it is a kind of death, you don't have to die to have it." I ponder this. I hold it close. He is not the source of the love but a beacon glowing the way. This love, she tells us over and over again, is here already available to all. He is a door, marking the way, a light illuminating the path. He tells me, this tiny old, trembling man that it is possible for me to grow into this love and hold a place within it.

Thank you for being there, thank you for listening. I hold you all close in the skein of light, the fibers of love that connect us.

October 10, 2010 Back in Nepal

Yesterday we drove from Bairoling Monastery where I am staying to Amitaba Monastery, an hour away. The ride was across town over really bad roads and I was in the way back of the SUV. It was much bouncing and looking out side ways as the city of Kathmandu passed by. Images still linger of the markets, tarps spread out on the dirt with food, clothes and shoes displayed while dogs, a vagrant cow, chickens and people wandered through. These tarps lay five feet away from the busses and cars, motorcycles and bicycles that sent dust and fumes everywhere. And the people, poor, dirty, carrying loads on their backs or their heads, children playing or being led by a mother on the edge of the road watching out for the motorcycles and bicycles that like to sneak around the cars and busses stuck in traffic. The women are always beautiful though, their saris glowing in the brilliant jeweled tones and their luxurious, black hair thick in braids or tied in a ponytail or knotted on the back of their neck. The last part of the drive was fifteen minutes of up requiring a stop to engage the 4 wheel drive before we arrived at the top, breeze fresh with the scent of the terraced fields and pines that lined the way.

The monastery is pristine, freshly painting in the wealth of colors that Tibetans love. There was the archway that houses the five Buddhas sitting guard and then three more giant Buddhas, the last two gold colored shining in the sun that sit in the bottom, middle and top of the stairway that runs up the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. Amitaba Monastery is for nuns, one of two in the country. And you can feel them; their quiet grace as they move about, smiling softly when spoken to.

After feeling quietly nauseous from the ride, the breeze was welcome and I stood for some time outside the gompa (temple) and watched the hawks, looked at the valley below with Kathmandu spread out below, seeming another world away. And yet behind me, beside me were mountains still green with terraced land and trees on the top, a bright, verdant green. The clouds were wild with possibility, some whipped cream white, others dark and threatening. I knew that behind them were the Himalayas, like another realm of silent gods.

The next morning, at 3AM when I again woke, I thought of those images and realized that my life feels a bit like the landscape I had spent the day in. There is the part of my life that is Kathmandu, loud and messy, untamable in its desires and determination to wrest from it what I want, or what I think I want. But if I look at it in the wrong way, it makes me sick and I get caught in the suffering, my own and others. And there is another part, the part like the monastery that has fresh air that sweeps out my fatigue, my vague sense of illness. From this place I can see where I have been and can feel a moment of reprieve. And from this place I get a sense of the Himalayas beyond, softly moving, almost a whisper, of where I might go.

More thoughts on Nepal

Last year I wrote the blog but somehow these thoughts feel so personal that I am not so comfortable doing that. Maybe I will put this writing on the blog later but that seems not so important; sharing my ideas with you seems much more relevant. Your responses mean so much to me; I want to thank you for writing back.

So I am still struggling with sleep and my solution is to read. Before I left the US, I loaded my kindle up with the usual variety of fluff; romance novels, mystery novels and then a few, more demanding and thought provoking books of fiction and history. I like romance novels. I like knowing that love will out in the most unrealistic way, i.e., happily ever after. I also find it interesting to read about relationships now that I am not in a romantic one nor am I listening to others talk about theirs (except for my friends, of course). For the last few days I have been reading mystery/detective novels. This morning in my meditation I had this insight. The reason I am liking the detective novels is that our hero or heroine, who is extremely intelligent, intuitive and physically adept, overcomes evil. As I travel and learn the history or hear the current abuses of power where I am, I am deeply impressed by how evil we are, albeit intertwined with goodness.

Einstein said that the problem can't be solved on the level of the problem. I am comforted by this. I am doing something that may help in a way that is different than dealing with the problem at the level of the problem, not that I don't value that as well. Maybe this is arrogant. Maybe it is just plain wishful. But it gives meaning to the struggles I feel when I can't sleep, when I am overwhelmed with the question of what am I doing?, when I feel cut off from the usual comforts of this world, loved ones, physical ease.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for loving me, being my friend, my confident. I am blessed. I feel the tendrils of connection even here, on the other side of the world.

October 5th 2010

I arrived yesterday. All through the 25 hours of flight I was complaining and promising myself that I would not do this again, It's too difficult. I'm too old. But after I arrived, I found myself just smiling at all of it; the noise, the heat, the smells, the bouncing around ruts in the road, honking at the other cars. Ah yes, I'm back. It is glorious.

People here have god/gods woven into their lives. I passed the shrines to this goddess or that god as I drove through the streets. Today I spent two hours at the artist's home who paints tangkas as he spoke with us about this or that god or goddess, showing us the painting, looking up the mantras, talking of gods, talking of prayer, talking of lives changed and moving within this world of finding connection to the holy. But the holy is not some quiet, distant kindness but gods of passion with their consorts twined to them, multiple heads, arms legs thrashing about holding skulls, knives dancing on demons. Passion. It is full of passion.

It is so poor here. What we take for granted, paved streets, cleanliness, intelligent medical care are all distant dreams here. And yet the vibrancy of it all, the pure thrumming humming throb of life is so loud that I am humbled.

It is a gift, this travel. It pulls me into it; I shed skin after skin of assumption about what is true, real, necessary. And I feel that connection, that pull of being near, surrounded even, by great souls that prod me into being more than I thought ever possible.

It is a gift.

Kuttolsheim, France

I am in France doing a three plus week teaching. I am a bit at a loss for words these days. I am living with a French woman, her five children and a fellow student from Hungary. Eve, the French woman also goes to the teaching.

It is about suffering for me; how to mitigate it both for myself and others. Such a simple idea; making it better and yet how challenging.

Every day we go and sit, listen to the teachings and receive initiations on special occasions as only the Tibetan Buddhists can. At night or when I meditate, sadness at the heartache of those I love floats up like flotsam and I hope; oh how I hope, that there is some way to relieve it.

I don't know if you read this just as I don't know why meditating seems to make it better but whether you do or not, I am grateful for your presence in my life; it is a gift.