Amazing Boudhanath

I'm writing from a Cosmos Cybernet, an Internet cafe overlooking Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. I'm able to get online for an hour and a half, but it looks like most of the time is going to managing the spring retreat, so this will be another brief entry.

Yesterday we came to Kathmandu to meet Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche with Khenpo. There's a lot I could write, but I need to keep it short for now. He blessed each of us twice and gave us a teaching on impermanence. He talked quite a while with Khenpo-la in Tibetan. He fed all 14+ of us tea and a delicious lunch. All this just minutes before he was to start a 9-day Drupchen practice. I was able to view the opening ceremony of the Drupchen. Really beautiful and amazing. This all took place at the monestary where Khenpo taught from about 1992 to about 1997. Afterwards we walked a couple blocks to Boudhanath and Khenpo immediately ran into the great secret yogi Pema Dorje who often lives in San Jose and his attendant Zongmo (Alexis) who is from Laytonville, California. This was the second time during the pilgrimage that we ran into Pema Dorje and with him was a well known Tibetan doctor Tsering ____ who is Chatral Rinpoche's doctor. We all participated in a ceremony that included kora, smoke offering, meditation and personal aspirations.

Afterwards we celebrated Susie Croxton's birthday at a nice restaurant. Susie, Chris, Sveta, Tenzin and I spent the night near the stupa and everyone else took to van back to the retreat center.

In the morning I got up at 4:30 AM and took a cold bucket bath at the Pema Guest House where Tenzin and I shared a room for NRS.350. I took all my things and came to the stupa to kora and take dawn photos. After that I did smoke offering and preliminary practice on the stupa. I met Susie and Sveta at their hotel restaurant. Chris joined us, then Tenzin. We made plans for the day. Tonight Khenpo will do a fire puja at the retreat center.

Attempting to catch up on some email. I got a note from my sister Bronwyn who said, " I've been following your blog on India with great interest. It's a spiritual journey wrapped in an adventure - fun to read your observations
and experiences. I hadn't appreciated the depth of your involvement in Buddhism, so I feel at least that I've gotten a better window into your world from reading the blog. I couldn't believe the story of you drinking Ganga water - this is the guy who hated to use plastic glasses or tableware because bacteria might be lurking in the microscopic crevices!! On a serious note, I hope you didn't become ill - polluted water can transmit diseases that are virtually unknown in North America - we lead privileged and fortunate lives, as you are seeing on your trip."

I haven't really told my family that much about my spiritual life over the years. I guess we each have our own faiths, and it is not always a comfortable subject for harmonious family gatherings. I have had a few deeper conversations about belief systems mainly with my brother Kim and his wife Mary Ann and of course a little bit of religious discussions with all my family. I really care a lot about every member of my family, but being the baby of the family and separated by 6 to 10 years in age from my siblings, we grew up a little bit apart, especially once I was in junior high and all of them were in college or working. When I moved to California in 1992, the gap kind of widened, but we have gotten together every couple years at least. We seem to get along very well when together, and we do stay in touch pretty well, but probably not as close as many families.

What my sister pointed out in her surprise about me sipping Ganga water indicates quite a shift in my thinking. My germ awareness grew as I got older and when I was studying ceramic engineering as a freshman in college I had a professor (Mr. Funk) who taught his students that only ceramic dish ware could be fully sterilized. I latched onto that idea and have been pretty meticulous about eating off clean dishes since that time.

Drinking Ganga water was really a step closer to what Buddhist philosophy labels pure perception. Perceiving all things purely as Buddha. Perhaps I'm making some progress on my path! So far I have not seemingly gotten sick from sipping some Ganga water. One can not always say exactly what conditions lead to a particular illness other than one's own negative thinking and negative karma as the primary cause, and if I do suffer from some symptoms that's just something to accept as a ripening of my negative karma. The ideal Buddhist response is to not complain, to actually rejoice that I'm burning negative karma, and to use the best skillful means to recover swiftly. Hopefully this trip will be a bit of an inoculation for me, toughening up my immune system for healthy world travel experiences for me in the future.

I guess this blog is not as much of a trip report. There is so much to write about my personal experiences that it is easy to imagine how a book could come about this trip alone.

I also so wish I could share a few of my photos, but there are some technical an time management issues that have been so far preventing me from sharing. If I was traveling alone, and better prepared, then I'd be able to photo blog more effectively. I'm learning a lot about life and travel in this part of the world.

I'm very grateful to Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche bringing me here and for his tireless efforts to have this pilgrimage create as many benefits for me and the others as possible. He's always working tirelessly to help all beings. I've seen him in so many different situations over the years, and in many new situations (new to me) during this trip. He's always teaching everyone around him and that is a great inspiration.