Full Coffers

In one certain aspect of giving, the coffers are full and the capacity has been reached. The object of generocity that has been exhausted is the friendship with Jane, the lay nun.

I once knew an activist in Seattle who was of South Asian descent. She would go to bars in white supremacist areas and engage in conversations with white supremacists to learn about the inner workings of militantly racist minds. I have no doubt she was putting her life in danger by doing so. Coming to Nepal with Jane was my version of what the South Asian activist did, but minus the life threatening part. My intention also differed. For me it was an exercise in patience and compassion and putting my Buddhist practice into practice. That or I'm really stupid.

I'm nearing the end of my time in Nepal and luckily we are going in our separate directions. Am I sorry I did it? No. She still is a very generous person and I wouldn't have gotten to know Kathmandu or attended so many teachings without her. Would I do something like this again with her or someone like her? Hell no. Being with Jane was a good exercise in breathing it through and not once did I lose it.

As my time in Nepal comes to an end, so does a chapter in a short friendship. And next resumes the chapter on much cherished alone time.

The Gift of Giving

So now I'm at my last teaching before leaving Kathmandu. From the Karmapa I received the oral transmission for the ngondro, the preliminary practice, but not the instructions for actually doing it. It just so happened that I lucked out again because a monastery is offering a teaching on ngondro instruction.

I am at Jamgon Kongtrul Lobrang, a beautiful Kagyu monastery perched on a hill. On the drive up, the monastery's prayer hall would stand out boldly and then disappear as the cab followed the curves and bends of the windy road up the hill.

The most striking structure is the prayer hall that is painted in hues of purple and red. The wall that surrounds the huge entrance doors is covered with paintings of various deities. Pujas start early in the morning and monks are blowing horns that accompany the pujas into the night, even after the pujas have ended.

In front of the prayer hall is a stone tiled square, but in the shape of a circle. From it are stairs and walkways that lead to other buildings like the monks' dormitories (they call them hostels), the office and a smaller prayer hall with a stupa inside. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with flower gardens that surround the prayer hall buildings.

Last night was my first evening at the monastery and after finishing dinner, I enjoyed a moment alone at the edge of the square under an almost full moon. The days are getting hotter and hotter and being outside after it gets dark is much more comfortable.

Yesterday's teaching was on the practice of the mandala offering. One of the elements of this practice is either giving actual physical objects and/or visualizing giving objects. In this practice one is to generate a sincere feeling of offering abundance, the most precious of objects free of any attachment.

Attending all these teachings and learning about all these rituals, there's a lot to do in Tibetan Buddhism. It's not solely meditating. In that way it's a lot like being Catholic - and I thought I was getting away from being Catholic by converting.

During the lama's teaching about giving and generosity, I thought of my mother. She was a wonderful example of giving. One year I bought her a Thai orchid bouquet for mother's day - and it wasn't cheap. I asked her shortly after mother's day if she liked the bouquet and she said she gave it as an offering to the altar at church. She was always giving away her best as offerings. Her best roses out of her garden were always given as church offerings.

Her generosity went beyond church offerings too. She freely gave away things - clothes, financial help - without any attachment. In my mother's generosity there was also unbending devotion and faith - also points emphasized in the Buddhist teachings I've attended. Maybe it's all a conspiracy to make me Catholic again.

For much of my life I've focused on how I didn't want to be like my mother. There were a lot of painful issues that were unfortunately never acknowledged or healed. As a result I could only see through unresolved anger and couldn't see how in many ways my mother was a shining example, whether Catholic or Buddhist.

I have known that the painful side of my relationship with my mother is my teacher, but haven't had the capacity to accept it. The teaching on generosity opened the door for me to accept that, then and now, good and bad, my mother is my teacher and to learn from it.

The flip side to my mother's devotion is that she forced Catholicism onto me that had the affect of turning me away from it. My mother may not have made me a good Catholic, but she's making me a good Buddhist. And in the end, I think she's proud.

Perfect Timing

My timing for being in Kathmandu is lucky. Since the cremation, it's really been teaching, after teaching, after teaching - thus the lag in my blog posting. Jane keeps on saying that I'm lucky and have good karma because while I've been here, one lama who never gives teachings has given teachings twice, and other very high lamas have given teachings that I've attended as well. It feels like one door after another opening up for me.

One consistent lesson I've heard is how fortunate it is to be within earshot of the dharma much less to have the time to practice it. So I better get on cashing in my fortune.

Holy Stupas, Batman

After arriving in Boudha I made my way to the guesthouse where Jane and I would share a room, took a shower, ate a quick breakfast, and then I was off to Chogye Trichen Rinpoche's cremation.

Jane's purpose for being in Kathmandu was to attend the cremation, so naturally I followed along. Tibetan Buddhism is confusing because there are divisions of a topic, any topic - truth, hell realms, methods - and within those divisions there are subdivisions, and within those subdivisions there are more subdivisions and so on. It never seems to end. So I'll try to break this down as simply as possible.

There are four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma, Sakya, Gelug, and Kagyu. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school and the Karmapa of the Kagyu. The Sakya school has three lineages: Sakya, Tsarpa, and Ngarpa. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche was the head of the Tsarpa lineage. Being a highly revered and renowned master and lineage head, his passing and cremation are a huge, huge deal.

Rinpoche's cremation was held at his monastary in Boudha. To attend, a special pass was required and luckily Jane was able to score one for me. A madhouse amount of people were in attendance.

A special cremation stupa was erected in the middle of a square grass lawn. When it came time for the ceremony to start, a procession of monks blowing horns walked in followed by all the heads of the Sakya lineages and the head of the entire school of Sakya, His Holiness Sakya Trizin. Another reason the cremation is special is that it brought all the lineage heads together at one time.

After the parties processed in, each lineage head, his Holiness Sakya Trizin, and his oldest son, the heir to the Sakya throne all took their seats at thrones situated in each of the four directions, each on one side of the square lawn. From their, the pujas began accompanied by horns, drums, and cymbals at certain points. Each respective lama had been leading a puja since the death of Chogye Trichen Rinpoche.

The lineage heads then did kora around the cremation stupa and the body of Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, enclosed in a glass case sitting in meditation posture and wrapped in cloth, was carried out upon the shoulders of each Sakya lineage head. Rinpoche's body was then removed from the glass case and placed inside the stupa for the cremation.

The pujas continued during the entire ceremony. It was fascinating to hear the chanting and watch the beautiful mudras that accompanied each puja. During the pujas, objects that seemed to be branches, grains, oil, and others I couldn't identify were brought on platters to each lineage head. While still reciting the puja, the lineage head would then place the objects on another platter and then the contents of the platter were tossed into the cremation stupa. Sometimes a forceful stream of fire would come out of the top of the stupa and many people in attendance claimed to see different colors within the fire that came out of the stupa.

A few hours into the ceremony, I was starting to nod off due to the long busride and my recent arrival. I ended up leaving early. Even though I didn't stay for the entire cremation, it was quite an honor to attend and witness such a ritual. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche was truly loved as evident from all the Tibetans lined up outside of his monastery hoping to attend his cremation, to his western students who remember him and his teachings very fondly, and to other lamas who pay homage to him in their teachings that I've attended. Another testament to his mastery is how long Rinpoche stayed in samadhi, mind concentration meditation. Rinpoche remained in Samadhi for fourteen days, the length of which he determined prior to his passing, a capacity that only great masters have.

Full Moon Over Kathmandu

At 7:00 AM the bus arrived at it's final destination, nearby the entrance gate of the stupa in Boudhanath (Boudha for short). The Boudhanath stupa is the largest stupa in the world and at around 5:00 PM, many Tibetans and other Buddhists alike do kora, circumambulate the stupa.

The best way for me to describe the area around the stupa is like a piazza, and rather than a church, there's the stupa. The stupa is surrounded by a red cobblestone walkway and on the border of the walkway, the circular area is lined with guesthouses, restaurants and shops that sell different kinds of dharma wares - statues, thangkas, malas, and more. Boudha has anything and everything related to Tibetan Buddhism.

Boudha is saturated with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, twenty-eight in fact. There are also many shedras, schools for learning Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and language, for westerners. Kathmandu is a dharma rich city for sure. There are so many resources here and so many teachings by respected masters available that I feel like I've accumulated good merit toward my karma by just being here.

The day that I arrived in Kathmandu was the first day of the full moon. That evening there were many carts full of lit butterlamps to offer at the stupa. The full moon also lit the final hours of an auspicious day that hosted the cremation of a great Buddhist master - Chogye Trichen Rinpoche.

Next Stop... Kathmandu

Toward the end of the Karmapa's teaching in Tilokpur, Jane had been trying to convince me to come to Nepal with her, or to meet her there. Two days later I was packed up and in New Delhi. I gave up my apartment and let the owners know that I would be gone for a few months. Two days after arriving in Delhi, I was on a two-day bus to Kathmandu.

I was traveling with a monk friend of Jane's. We thought we were going to ride on the comfortable bus to Kathmandu, the ABC bus. We walked up to the ABC bus and presented our tickets to the ticket collector. He pointed out the name of the bus company printed on our tickets and directed us to the neighboring bus parked nearby. I looked back at the roomy, comfortable looking seats on the ABC bus as we made our way to the other one. I'm not sure what happened, but the travel agent for some reason put us on a different bus even though we specifically said we wanted ABC.

Our bus was not so comfortable. The seats were quite hard, but luckily I was able to sleep. The bus ride was a straight thirty-six hour drive with meal stops two times a day and bathroom stops. I'm not talking literal bathrooms, either. I'm talking find a good bush and squat on the side of the road. Hand sanitizer has been my best friend on this trip so far.

The drive through Nepal was so charming. We would pass rice terraces and fields of flowers with thatched roof adobe houses. Scene after scene was like this and such a joy to take in. There were also curvy mountain passes that would lead back into fields and rice terraces with the charming houses. As we came within the final hours of arriving in Kathmandu, I looked forward to what my stay in Nepal had in store for me and to giving my ass a break from the rock hard seat.

Refuge

I didn't think I was going to go, but did. I had known for a while that the Karmapa was going to give a teaching in Tilokpur, a village an hour and a half away from McLeod at a Kagyu nunnery. I wasn't going to go because of the cost. The teaching was a fundraiser for the nunnery and the cost for staying at the nunnery guesthouse was $200-$300 U.S. for all five days.

I called the nunnery a few days before the teaching started to see if there were cheaper options and it turned out that there were in village houses. Those options ended up being all taken by the time I arrived at the teaching and luckily for me Jane was attending the teachings too, so we shared a cab each day.

What a contrast to his public audiences. I found the Karmapa to come off as serious and intense, but underneath he is very soft and charmingly funny. From him I learned the Thirty-Seven Practices of the Bodisattva. I also got to take refuge, which makes me officially Buddhist, took the Bodisattva Vow, AND received the oral transmission for the Ngondro. To receive all of these in one teaching, much less one day is uncommon. The ngondro is the preliminary practice that consists of visual meditation and devotion practices, so once I receive the instruction, I can begin. The Karmapa did not give the instruction for the ngondro, so that I will have to seek out elsewhere.

This teaching turned out to be very auspicious. It set the foundation for me to begin my Buddhist practice and revealed the context for my journey, to plant myself in the dharma.

The Most Unlikely of Friends

Shortly after arriving in Dharamsala, I met Jane, a New Yorker and lay nun who has been living in India for the last few years. Jane wears robes, and has taken vows, but she is not a fully ordained nun. In fact, in her school of Tibetan Buddhism, there is no such thing as a fully ordained nun, meaning the full set of vows that are available for monks are not available to her as a woman. Being that she can marry if she wants. I call her a lay nun for lack of better words.

Jane is a character. A tiny middle aged woman who looks like a buddhist nun shaved head and all, but swears like a motherfucker and smokes (in secret). And she comes with a New York accent.

Being with her while she bargains for taxi and rickshaw rates is a little stressful and embarrassing. If a rickshaw or taxi wala quotes her a tourist price , she yells at them telling them to fuck off or to go fuck themselves. God forbid they try to survive in a third world country by quoting tourists a higher price. After all, that's what anyone remotely involved in the tourist industry does in India. That's India. Bargaining is the name of the game here and she's a good bargainer, so I'm a little perplexed why she gets so vulgarly bent out of shape time and time again about something that is so routine, a daily fact. Yea, they do try to take advantage of tourists and I wish she'd get over it, especially when she successfully bargains and gets the local price.

Her upper middle class upbringing and privilege were easy to peg. In Dharamsala she had her Tibetan housekeeper to do her dishes and laundry and her Indian driver whom she barked orders at probably very much like she did her colored servants growing up. And sure enough I learned that she had a governess and black cook as a child. The only person I haven't seen her treat like a subordinate is another white woman who also has money and very, very high Tibetan lamas - people with high social rank and status. She knows better than to pull that higher rank and subordinate shit with me. I won’t put up with it.

Two weeks or so after arriving in Dharamsala, I got my worst case yet of diarrhea. One of my older sisters had asked me previously in an email if I had lost weight in India. Well, with this case of diarrhea I can confidently say yes and being that this was my third bout, I've been able to keep the weight off.

Jane generously went to the chemist for me on her own accord and sent medicine up to me via her cab driver. Another thing about Jane is that she takes the liberty of sharing people's medical conditions with others. Upon meeting her friends for the first time, they already knew that I was recovering from a bad case of diarrhea and were expressing their sympathy.

Traveling, especially around the context of the dharma, has created the most unlikely friendships. Jane would never be my friend in the U.S. We come from different class and race backgrounds, and have different ways of being in foreign places. I prefer to learn as much of the local language before I travel somewhere and act in accordance to the local culture and customs. Jane expects people to adapt to her, a centrism that gives Americans bad reputations.

Jane is also one of the most generous people I know. When I was sick, there was no hesitation in her generosity and action in helping me get better. As someone who wants to plug into learning about Tibetan Buddhism and developing a practice, she has been an invaluable resource who is so willing to help me make connections. A wealth of information she is. Jane also exercises her generosity by financially sponsoring monks and monasteries and finding sponsors for monks.

Maybe it's the karma, the situation, or my own growth, but I'm learning to take the good with the bad, and more importantly to see beyond what is offensive (we'll see how long that can last with Jane though). And as a result, I've made a friend, even if only for this leg of my travels. Someone who is loyal to those whom she loves, and someone in the end who has a good heart.