More photies!

    We got more snow a couple of days ago. Hard to keep track of the time around here!

The Venerable Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

          Winnie and I had forty wonderful minutes with the Khenpo yesterday at the KTD retreat centre near Delhi (pronounced Delhigh) in the Catskills. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!! The bottom photie is him blessing a wee statue for Lama Ani Rinchen Palmo, without whose encouragement I wouldn't have attempted to get near an interview. This made going to America worthwhile. He is guru of my root guru, a man of outstanding accomplishment!

More photies

        After five or so days of silence and forty hours of meditations, we were allowed to talk again today. But I'm too tired to talk, too tired to write. Beautiful day as well. Spring arrived today. Shame to be knackered on such a day!!!

The Photies!

          We go into lockdown tomorrow at three. No nothing but sleep deprivation and meditation till next Sunday. No computery things or telephones.

            I bought the wee buddha to get it blessed for my wee lama, but the closest we got to the Venerable was the plaque on the wall. We'll try again. It should take three times to see a joe like him, by tradition, but it might take more than that for us to see him. He is see-able, but we've only got less than two days next weekend and ..... c'est la vie.

            This place is beautiful. Every time I walk out of the monastery .... well, it is uplifting just to look and see.

              The drawings on the wall are important to the zen folk. All about catching the ox. In the first couple of drawings the boy can't even find it. I think I can find it okay, but I'm just on the fourth picture when the boy is still having to give the ox a bit of a doing with the whips and ropes and all.

               I remember my dreams practically every night. This morning I had a lovely one. I was at Vulture's Peak trying to help my friend get promotion to the next stage. She didn't need my help. Just as well. I'm in a permanent state of tiredness.

After Two Weeks in The Zen Mountain Monastery

          This machine is so rinky dinky and clever that I have no idea how to download the photies from my mobile phone. Maybe when I get my laptop up here. I'm in the library of the Sangha House, a place I thought I'd be spending mos of my work practice, but I've been everywhere else this week.

          They have ten paintings about this boy trying to catch and tame this ox. First you've got to find the ox. I have no problem finding the ox in this monastery. The ox is in my face quite a lot. Most folk talk of being tired here. I'm still tired, but not as tired as I was last week. When I get tired, I get crabbit. When something irritates me when I am tired, I get very annoyed. When  someone tells me to do something or reminds me that I shouldn't be doing something (like talking loudly, or just talking at all), I start to boil. I think the programme here is designed to do that to you. The ox is, of course, the object to be negated. You are confronted by it in the anger.

          We've been here two weeks now. We got here just as Ango started. Ango is when they tighten the schedule so that you do not have any time to yourself. You have to work at something, usually something pretty menial, for about twenty five hours a week. That's about eight hours more a week than I worked when I had a jobbie.

           This weekend break is cut short so that they can tighten the schedule even further next week. It's something called Sesshin. This means we'll have to be up before four in the morning, and meditate for eight hours a day, and keep silent all the time. This I am actually looking forward to. You're walking on eggshells around here half the time because you must do this and not do that, but when it comes to the meditations I suspect me and my little Chinese friend will be in our element.

           These Zen folk do breath counting, but they only do it for thirty five minutes then they get up and do walking meditation, or chant, or do something that looks like they don't really get into the meditations anything like the Tibetans. Also, my experience is that the more I meditate, the better I feel so bring it on!!! I'd much rather do meditations than work.

            I can see what they're trying to do here with their schedule and whatnot, and it is very good for me, though it is difficult sometimes. Zen seems to be about being mindful whether you are meditating or not, and I can see how they get to that by the way they work things here.

            I need a bit of discipline. I haven't done any bad things now for over two weeks and my mind is getting clearer. I can usually remember my dreams. I will certainly remember being here, which is how I want to spend my life.

            We're going to try and see the abbot of the KTD today. Soon.

At the Karmapa's seat in the United States.

 I was at the KTD monastery last night and today. This is where the Abbot of the Samye Ling did his retreats. It is way up the mountain from Woodstock, which is a really lovely wee town. Very, very pretty like lots of the places around here.

          This morning we were driven there so my Chinese friend could hang around Woodstock and I could meditate at the monastery. So today I wasn't counting breaths. This is a big aid to mental clarity, but there is not so much bliss, or any at all, especially when you are falling asleep with your eyes open! But today I was back to the great Yajrayana, the juju of jujus and it is obvious what great benefits being here have wrought in my meditations. Purification and accumulation is the name of the game!!

         Afterwards, we went to a diner. I was dying to go to a diner. I loved diners when I was in California thirty odd years ago. I had a full breakfast, with dead animals and all, for $12.

         Then we went a walk up the hill from here and visited the cemetery. It was kind of beautiful with the simple wooden headstones  ...what? ... and the graves among the trees. This looked really lovely.

          The third photie down is on the packing house. I had a work practice there bubble wrapping malas for half an hour or so on Sunday morning.

          I didn't get up today till eight o clock!! Was asleep before ten and I'm still knackered. But I am so pleased to be here!!! I haven't felt as good as this for years.

Training in the Zen Mountain Monastery

          The last photie is of some prat in a juju suit. I don't know what the blank is, probably eternity. The white building front and side is the Jizo house and I'm in room 3. The building with the snow at the front and the firs at the back is the Sangha House where the library is. I'm in the library just now. This is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. What a fortunate creature, I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!!