Once in a lifetime

Letting the days go by....
Kathmandu, Nepal

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may say to yourself
"am I right? am I wrong?"
and you may ask yourself
"My God - What have I done?"

Nothing is working. My camera's picture card, the laptop, my watch, audio recorder, cell phone - every piece of personal technology I own is, in some way, broken or dysfunctional.

The one Skype terminal in town sounds like it's coming through Peter Frampton's Vocoder (or was it a Talkbox?), and international phone lines are usually jammed.

Of course, the fact that power is OFF eight hours a day means, among lots of other things, that that's eight hours less of available fax time for the all-important fax to be transmitted from the FRRO in Delhi.

At this rate, I can only hope to be back in India in time for Tibetan Uprising Day (March 10), when a group of Tibetans will begin a march back to Lhasa. Somehow, I am going to have to find out the origin point of the march and its planned route. For obvious reasons this is being kept somewhat secret.

This photo of the young monks listening to translation on an I-pod was taken at 2007 Spring Teachings.

In local news: three weeks in Nepal has convinced me that the elections are, once again, not going to happen as projected this coming April.

Meanwhile, back in Himachal:
The people I asked to hold my bags and reserve a room for me must be wondering where the hell I am. The phones never work here now, and they don't do email.

The picture below was taken at the Dalai Lama Temple in Dharamsala a couple years ago. The Tibetan women are performing prostrations (full-body-length prayers) in front of the main temple.

Here's a report lifted directly from Phayul.com about the opening days of HH Dalai Lama's Spring Teachings (aka, Where I'm Spozed To Be).

One year ago, things were so simple. How did things get so complicated?

Dharamsala, February 23: Thousands of Buddhist devotees are attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama's annual spring teachings, which began Friday at the Main Tibetan Temple (tsuglag khang).

Earlier on Thursday, the Tibetan spiritual leader gave teachings on Jataka Tales after presiding over the “Butter Lamp Festival” (Choe-nga Choepa, held on the fifteenth day or the full moon day of the first Tibetan Lunar month), which is the highlight of the Monlam Chenmo (the Great Prayer Festival). On Friday, His Holiness began his spring teachings with Dhammapada texts....

...Alongside main discourse, His Holiness has also been giving teachings on “The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa” (Mi-la-ras-pa’I gur-’bum).

Below is a full text found on the Dalai Lama’s website following the first day of the spring teachings:
The two texts His Holiness the Dalai Lama is to teach belong to the Six Major Texts of the Kadampa Tradition: the Jatakas and Udarnavaga (Dhammapada); Asanga’s Bodhisattva Grounds and Maitreya’s Ornament of Sutras; finally, Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life and Compendium of Trainings.

His Holiness clarifies that his approach to presenting the Buddhadharma is first to describe its benefit and second how to put it into practice.

All sentient beings yearn for happiness, but not all know how to achieve it. Clearly, material development counts for a lot, but not if it increases your anxiety.

More important is having a calm mind. Recently doctors have demonstrated that medication alone does not affect a cure; calmness of mind also has a role to play.

Cultivating love and affection, warm-heartedness in our relations with others is a source of inner calm.

I fell off

Resolution dissolution
Delhi to Dharamsala

Well, so much for my new year's resolution of blogging every single day. As we used to say Back In The Day, I "fell off" for a while.

Fortunately, in a few weeks it will be Losar (Tibetan Lunar New Year) and I will have a chance to resolve anew.

So as to end the mind-numbing suspense, yes, I was FINALLY granted the (very brief) visa extension, just long enough for me to get out of the country without a fine.

Then I was kidnapped by an emerging colony of underground artists deep in the bowels of Delhi's Lajpat Nagar and am only now emerging from the subterranean lair to tell the story.

Members of this collective include a Japanese public-art pirate and a Mandaya Indian stop-motion filmmaker. We've got Warhol's Factory beat all to hell, now all we need is drugs and money.

Seriously, this was my first experiment with the traveler's space-sharing project Couchsurfing. So far, so good.

Republican Parties
The road to procrastination is paved with good downloads. We had fully intended to attend the Republic Day parades in the morning. But, since we ended up watching the Bob Dylan interpretive-bio flick I'm Not There till about 2 in the morning, this was not to be.

Instead, Indian Republic Day (Jan. 26) was spent pigging out South Indian stylee at the Karnataka cultural center, then hanging out at Tamil Sangam auditorium with fantastic tribal folk dancers from Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Lakshadweep, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Punjab.

My favourites were the ethereal dancers from Bhopal, a hybrid of Masai warriors in full dress and characters from the movie The Fifth Element, swirling to hypnotic sounds of a dissonant gong.

As bus rides to Dharamsala ("I Mean McLeod Ganj") go, I had the absolute best 14-hour bus ride ever, crashed out in the cabin (driver's compartment). I managed to nab a 250Rs ($6.00) a night room at OM Hotel with a valley view.

I was miffed to see that the McLeod landmark Sunrise Chai stand is no more. (This place is a real institution on Bhagsu Road.) It's been replaced by - wait for it - a Kashmiri emporium ! Just what McLeod needs more of. The neighboring Moonlight Chai stand remains, but Sunrise will be sorely missed.

Now in Dharamsala ("I Mean McLeod Ganj") for just a couple days on an administrative mission. More news as it happens....

Finally

...the password is....
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh

FINALLY. After nearly 2 weeks of getting the Log-in runaround on my new, "improved" Blogger account, I can actually log in.

Had to try all kinds of weird combos of my old and new user name, as well as old and new passwords... and eventually came up with the right two at the right time.

Whew. Got a lot of catching up to do. Last week there was damn-near a race riot (between Tibetans and Indians) here in Dharamsala. And yesterday Belgium (nice, neutral, EU-founding Belgium) dissed the Dalai Lama, and kowtowed to Chinese pressure by asking him not to come and address the conference in Brussels he'd been planning to visit for months. Talk about a Belgian waffle.
Taxi driver
If you're coming to Dharamsala, don't plan on taking any taxis, at least not if you're Tibetan. There's a gang of Tibetan guys going round telling all Tibetans (or anyone who looks kind of Tibetan, like my Nepali friends) not to take taxis or autorickshaws. It's effectively an unofficial boycott. This, despite an official show of reconciliation between the Tibetan govt. and representatives of the local Indian community. It's all because of the crazy brawl between some Tibetan youths and an Indian auto driver last week.

It's been really hard to get any unbiased or reliable information about the incident. The English-language papers were largely completely silent, while the Hindi language dailies wrote one-sided stories accusing the Tibetans of "bullying" the Indians. Every single person, Tibetan, Indian or western, that I spoke to had a different version of the story. An opinion piece sympathetic to the Tibetans went live on Phayul.com last week, but was promptly pulled after protests and pressure from the Indian community.

Trouble in paradise
In the understandable rush to restore order in the small town, some crucial issues have been swept under the rug, and it's evidently not the first time. The Tibetans are here as refugees with very few rights; however, their presence and that of the Dalai Lama brings in the vast numbers of tourists, around which the local economy is completely based. The Tibetans draw a great deal of international attention (read: money, sympathy and sponsorship). Jealousy and resentment manifest from time to time between the communities, alongside a great deal of mutual tolerance and cooperation.

On good days, which is most of the time, everyone is united by a common interest: making money from the "spiritual tourists." Ironically, all this comes just a few weeks after the Indian community had arranged a beautiful Hindu "long-life puja" for His Holiness, which entailed lots of Gayatri Mantra and some beautiful speeches about the mutual ties (commercial and cultural) between the two groups.

Another factor: the vulnerable position of many Tibetan refugees (in terms of immigration legalities) leaves them prime targets for harassment and blackmail from certain unscrupulous members of Indian law enforcement. Young Tibetan men are routinely stopped after dark with police demands to show their RC (registration card).

However, no one wants to talk about this, it seems. So once again, like the dysfunctional family we are, India and people living in India pretend "no problem, everything is fine." Until the next blow-up, of course. This time, total disaster was averted because there were no fatalities ("only" hospitalizations). I wonder how long the soothing statements about "unity" can cover up the glaring need for honest dialogue.

Curiouser and curiouser....

Uphill climb

Zoning out
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh


Wow, the past 2 weeks since the Vipassana retreat have gone in a sort of twilight zone. I did so much in the previous 2 months, I could hardly do anything these past few days. I decided to give myself a few "slop days."

The Dalai Lama left for his dates in Kinnaur, and then, America (he will be there twice this year) on Saturday morning. He'll be back in the Big D on May 15, and will give teachings on the 19th for a few days.

People complain about the heat here now, but that is a joke. It's nothing! Highs are in the high 70s F or so. That is positively chilly compared to all the Aprils I sweated in the south, or even right now in Rishikesh.

The Panchen Lama's birthday observation was weird. It was so decentralized here in Dharamsala, which is where I figured it would be most together. There were speeches at the Temple, all in Tibetan. No media were invited. There was a conference down at the government offices; again, no public invites. Far too much stuff around here seems to be preaching to the choir.

There was a "marathon" which seemed a strangely appropriate metaphor. Lots of Tibetan, and a few western, young people ran laps around the town, supposedly in honour of the Panchen Lama. What did it mean? Did they have sponsors and collect money as marathons usually do? Did they even tell the media? If not, what was the point of such an event? Running around in circles - the metaphor was all too obvious.

Delhi, London, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, Bhopal and other cities seem to have been much more active in their observation. And of course, there's the brave kids who got arrested in "Chinese" Mt Everest - the first of what I hope will be many protests of the Beijing Olympics (I don't want a boycott; I want people to use the opportunity to speak up).

I have been working hard lately on the 50 Million Missing project - we now have over 225 members and over 1000 photos. But that means a lot of screen-time and I am fried. Here are a few more photos from the past weeks. Enjoy....

Oh, and I managed to put a few videos (of the hundreds I have) up on my YouTube site.
It just takes so darn long for them to upload!

Oh crap, the net place is closing now. If you want to see more photos, go to my Flickr.com page.

Free This Child.

Today is Free Panchen Lama Day. --Who?
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India

Okay, you Gereheads and groupies. I know I promised the photos of His Silverheadedness Richard Gere last week.

Well, I finally uploaded them today! See Gerespotting, below!
Feringhee: The India Diaries: Gerespotting

-----

Today's installment really isn't a blog. It's a political op-ed piece. Robert will hate it. But, I feel it's important. All over town the Tibetan Women's Association and others are gearing up for the Panchen Lama's birthday, tomorrow. Here is the piece I published about it, on Newsvine.

At right is the only available photo of the Panchen Lama, taken when he was six years old. Today, he is eighteen. He has not been seen for twelve years.
---

Imagine, as a six-year-old, being recognized by the Dalai Lama as the incarnation of a revered Tibetan lama.

What a great honour! Your family is so proud. Your whole community celebrates!

Then, a few months later, imagine being kidnapped (along with your parents) by a communist government, known for its brutality to its own citizens. You live the next 12 years under house arrest, and don't know where your parents are.

The months run into years. Perhaps you don't even know that it is your 18th birthday.

If only you could know that across the world, particularly in India, people are pasting up your photo, shouting your name, holding protests and candlelight vigils.

The only photo ever released of you - as a ruddy-cheeked five year old with a shock of black hair - adorns walls, stickers and flyers all over Delhi, Dharamsala, Bhopal, and other cities.

You spend your 18th birthday in silence and solitude as thousands, far away, chant your name.

Tomorrow (April 25) is the birthday of the Panchen Lama.

----
Gendun Chokyi Nyima, aka the "Panchen Lama," was, at the time of his disappearance by the Chinese Government, the world's youngest political prisoner. His only crime is that he was recognized as the incarnation of an historically powerful Tibetan lama - one who was traditionally instrumental in identifying successive Dalai Lamas. Therein lies Gendun's worth to the Chinese government.

Traditionally, only the Panchen Lama can truly identify a newly incarnated Dalai Lama. This is their way of preventing the lineage of Dalai Lamas, and thus, genuine Tibetan Buddhism itself, from continuing.

Remember "Free Nelson Mandela"? Eventually it worked, didn't it? Why can't we at least try to do the same thing with the Panchen Lama - the world's youngest political prisoner?

Gerespotting

Celebrity cameo!
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh

I just met Richard Gere and he is really cool. He and Robert Thurman (Uma Thurman's dad) were here for a scientific conference with the Dalai Lama and 11 top neuroscientists, cosmologists, astronomers, physicists and psychologists. The conference is called "The Universe in a Single Atom," which is the name of one of the Dalai Lama's many books. The Dalai Lama has always maintained a keen interest in science. It was a pretty amazing conference, covering the confluence between Buddhism and its traditions of "mind training" and modern science's technological manipulations of consciousness.

Richard Gere had just walked out of the Dalai Lama's residence and was having coffee at Ten Yang, my regular hangout, with Matthew Ricard (a French Buddhist monk and Tibetan translator) and Jeremy Russell (another Tibetan translator).

My friend Victoria had sent him some material about her current project, "Stand For Tibet." So we boldly went up to the table at an opportune moment and asked whether he had a chance to review it.

Amazingly, he had read the whole thing and gave Victoria very valueable, detailed feedback about her project. He lamented the relative uselessness of the United Nations regarding the Tibetan issue ("They won't do anything - I mean, they won't even let me be an International Ambassador for fear of offending China") and suggested that, since "face" and "honour" mean so much to the Chinese, that an appeal to their global-image-conscious side would be an effective approach.

Richard then graciously posed for photos with the Ten Yang coffee shop employees, who are Tibetan. When a few excited westerners started snapping his photo, he smiled at first, then gently said, "Okay, enough. I'm trying to talk with friends," and smiled.

The Gere Foundation literally paid for all the paving and sewage and drains on Temple Road here. He is quite the local patron saint/hero.

In case you're wondering, he looks great in person, with a huge crop of thick silvery hair, glasses, and somewhat pinkish (sunburned?) complexion. I have a photo I snapped of him walking down the street with 2 friends and promise I will post it tomorrow!

--A week later: Okay, the photo is here, you Gere-heads!!! and in case you can't get enough, here are 2 more random ones...he is a normal person who walks down the street dodging garbage and cows (we are in India) like everyone else!


Bad looks = Good luck
Looking like hell must be my good-luck charm for meeting famous people. As luck would have it, this morning I tumbled out of bed with no time to brush my teeth or hair or even wash my face. Naturally, this would be the day I would meet Richard Gere in a coffee shop. The first time I shook the Dalai Lama's hand, I hadn't showered and was wearing an inside-out shirt (!), and when I met Sakya Trizin, head of the Sakya lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, I had not showered or even looked in a mirror all day.

Maybe unpretentiousness attracts good fortune, and auspicious beings....

Silent Treatment

Closed for Vipassana
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh

Sorry for my lengthy absence. I have been away at a 12-day silent meditation retreat in Dharamkot. The Vipassana program is well-known. The program requires that you sit for 10-12 hours every day in a darkened room, meditating with about 75 other people.

Speaking or even eye contact with other students is not allowed. There was a beautiful bunch of dogs roaming the grounds that became my therapists for the 12 days.

I can just say it was very worthwhile, very effective and very, very difficult. I almost walked out several times during the first five days. It was really, really annoying that every Indian TV commercial I'd heard in the past month played continually in my head. On the last day, it was even worse - my mental DJ was playing "Living Next Door to Alice."

Death Wish

I have been missing all the fun. While I was in the 12-day Vipassana retreat, HH the Dalai Lama received death threats from the militant Islamic, Pakistan-based group Lashkar E Toiba ("Army of the Pure").

Needless to say, security around His Holiness has been stepped up.

What does need to be said is exactly what LeT is upset about. The Dalai Lama has gone out of his way, for years now, to deliver the message that "all Islamic people are not extremists, and we shouldn't generalize on the basis of the behaviour of a few."

Read the full story here.

Pro-Tibet activists took out a protest march here on Tuesday against the reported threat to the life of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

...Reports galore in the media about a possible assassination attempt on the Dalai Lama by Pakistan based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Holy hangover

That voodoo that you do
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh

The Extra Special Super Auspicious Healthy Good-Luck Long Life pujas are finally over. I think I have a Triple H (His Holiness Hangover).

HH the Dalai Lama just left for a gig in Pune on the 23rd, and the town has resumed its rather pensive "waiting" vibe. The weather warms daily in preparation for "high tourist season."

Wild Kingdom
I have spent the last few days doing blessedly little, mainly taking wonderful walks out by the Bhagsunath waterfall, reading two Tibet-related books (Kundun by Mary Craig and Dance of 17 Lives by Mick Brown).

And, listening to the wild birds call. They have swooping, trilling songs that (to my western ears) sound like something out of the Jungle Book. There are all kinds of wonderful birds here, including a tiny black-and-white art-deco sparrow that looks like a windup toy, and some kind of magnificent magpie with long feathers streaming out behind like a kite's tail.

The white butterflies have hatched. My friend Victoria says that every year after Spring Teachings, they come out in their hundreds, filling the air in living snow flurries. You see them in twos, usually. Tiny pure-white butteflies.

The mongoose (mongeese? mongooses?) are having a high old time - it must be mating season. They are slinking round the hillsides, their tails far longer than their bodies. Raju says they live in a den just outside the guest house.

I can always tell it's Sunday, by the hordes of Indian family tourists traipsing / driving in streams of mini-cabs and SUVS like a parade, honking as though it were a life-threatening emergency, through Bhagsu. They never travel in flocks of less than nine (seriously). I think it's a requirement to get the group rate, or something.

This morning, I was awakened from my normally deathly-quiet slumber by a woman shouting. It was a Punjabi woman (and her family) who'd gotten a room directly beneath mine. I prefer the mating calls of the mongoose (mongeese?).

I have noticed quite a few of what looks like "group honeymoons." That is, a girl who is clearly a newlywed bride (judging by her traditional armsful of wedding bangles, and covered head while others have heads bare) on holiday with about eight or nine in-laws.

Since it's a holiday so soon after the wedding, is this their honeymoon? Are they (the couple) expected to enjoy it? Do they get any privacy? Maybe it's supposed to be a way of getting the bride to bond with her new family. Traditionally the groom's family is supposed to completely replace the girl's family, in every way. Everything she would have once done for her parents, she must now do for her in-laws - and they don't get a chance to get to know one another before the wedding.

Server Down
Life has been easier since Thursday, but Internet has been tough. "Server down" was the cry every time I lugged the laptop down the hill to hook up. When I finally did, I was rewarded with a horrible virus called Adober.exe.

It took a Turkish Buddhist systems administrator (he's here volunteering for the Tibetan Computer Resource Center) to help fix it, free of charge. What a boon! Thanks, Ilker!

Ilker got to have his solo photo taken with the Dalai Lama last week during the special Russian audience. Of course, Ilker is not Russian, but got into the audience because the Dalai Lama cannot visit Turkey, either - "The Chinese, they say if you allow him in, we cut the business," said Ilker, making a "snipping" scissors gesture with his fingers.

Ilker showed me the photo of His Holiness clasping both hands with him, like old friends. Ilker's eyes were shut in the photo, though.

"I couldn't open my eyes while he was holding my hands," said Ilker. I could see the tears coming to his eyes as he held the photo. Tears, and a big, irrepressible smile.

Where the earth meets the sky

Singin' in the rain
McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala

Has it really been a week since I wrote on the blog? -- unbelievable.
Yet, there is the evidence, in front of my eyes, on the Tibetan Rigpa calendar
(another calendar to keep track of - in addition to Hindu and Newari dates).
It's the year 2134 in Tibetan time.

The weather is really crazy- today we had:
1-cloudy morning,
2-heavy rainfall, then
3-beautiful sun WHILE it was raining
4- a rainbow
5-a hailstorm while sun came out and
6-around 6pm, yet another hailstorm, this time literally the size of moth-balls. You could have put an ice bucket out on the terrace and filled it quickly. I really thought it might break the windows!
and finally -
7-More lovely sun and another rainbow, only to be followed by
8-a late-night shower.

Tibetan tradition, like Indian and Nepali tradition, does everything by astrology (they have their own system which is a cross between Chinese and Indian astrology). This year is "an obstacle year" for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In fact, for anyone turning 73 their 73rd year is considered an 'obstacle' year. So, there are extra "long-life" ceremonies being offered for him, for the past week. I call it "extra special very auspicious healthy lucky long life merit puja" (a take-off on the way Indians love to embellish things!).

Yesterday was quite remarkable - about a thousand (literally) Tibetans came all the way from Nepal and western Tibet regions to offer stuff (elaborate hand-made gilded Buddha and deity statues, sacks of rice, potted flowers, precious sacred Tibetan texts printed on the traditional long-paper and wrapped in silk, hand-woven
carpets, bolts of brocade and so on).

Hundreds of the old folks dressed in their "traditional dress" which looks
like a rainbow-striped circus crossed with Native Americans from outer space (don't know how else to describe it, really).

Sacred Stomping
As HH came into the temple, they started dancing. Tibetan folk dances look a great deal like Native American dances (small steps from side to side, moving in a circle and spiral). Like a lot of folk dances, the individual steps were not so remarkable - it's when seen in a large group that it really makes an impact. The ladies looked like a moving, shifting wall of rainbow colours. The men, in their heavy boots, stamp and whirl with long sleeves outstretched, resembling eagles' wingspans.

They dance in a large circle, facing the centre, where a single drummer (always male) pounds the very simple beat - again, a lot like Native American music. It feels very shamanic and tribal. Of course, now in addition to the drummer there is a
videographer. So, at least one thing has changed in the tradition. I reflected on how they probably used to dance around a fire. Now, they dance around a camera!

They always sing while dancing. The men start their vocals, low and earthy. Then after a verse or so the women come in with their soaring singing and it sounds like the sky meeting the earth. What it must be like to see these dances on the open steppes under the endless blue sky of Tibet!

Most of the dancers were 50 yrs old or older, and one probably never sees such a gathering of traditional Tibetan attire even in Tibet, these days.

Wizards of Weather
To get my photographer's press pass for tomorrow's Extra Special Lucky Puja, I had to go allll the way down to "the library," which is the name for Lower Upper Dharamsala where the Tibetan Govt. offices are. (There's Lower Dharamsala, Upper Dharamsala / McLeod Ganj, and then what I call "lower Upper Dharamsala" below the temple, "Middle Upper Dharamsala" and "upper Upper Dharamsala" - above the main road). I was helped by a sweet-natured fifty-something Tibetan woman named Sonam Wangmo. It turns out she attended NYU on a Fullbright scholarship.

We discussed the crazy weather (always a fecund topic for conversation here) and she casually mentioned, "You know, maybe we should call a Ngagpa. Do you know what a Ngagpa is?" (pronounced "nakpa").

I did indeed. "A Ngagpa is a kind of Tibetan sorcerer or wizard."

"Yes, they can stop the rain - or make it rain, or snow. They can control the weather."

"Perhaps you should have one on staff!" I half-joked. Really, it would be a good idea.

"Yes...but you know," she added on second thought, "we do need the rain. Water is such a problem always here in Dharamsala." It is one of the weirdnesses of the locale that a place receiving so much rainfall (#2 rainfall in India, after Cherrapunji) also suffers from water shortages.

The whole conversation was very matter-of-fact -- as though Sonam had been discussing the pros and cons of hiring a particularly difficult plumber.

It is really lightning out and I have to walk back to the village before it starts raining AGAIN!

Western disturbance

Under the rainbow
McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala

"A Western disturbance," the papers say, is causing severe precipitation all over the subcontinent - even in the desert of Rajasthan, and normally arid south India. My Chinese friend is on her way to Jammu and Kashmir on a government bus, but she must be snowed-in, because the paper says the J&K Highway is closed for snowfall.

Here, we just got beating down hard rain, several hailstorms, and severe, cable-snapping winds.

There are two advantages to such crappy weather - one, everyone looks like hell so there is no need to fix my hair, or even shower or wash my hair - it's too cold to even take my clothes off (even for a hot shower). Most people are sleeping with their clothes, gloves and hats on anyway. Makeup is a long-foregone pretension and dirty hair is hidden under my fake-fur hat (the kind we used to call, in the hip-hop days, a "Kremlin hat"). I am wearing my heaviest pair of (cotton) pants, a t-shirt, my cotton chupa, and a flannel nightshirt over it all, with the fleece jacket zipped up all day long. Many people appear to be wearing every item of clothing they own.

The second advantage is that, since the rain is so cold and hard and relentless, fewer people show up for teachings, and that means if you are an early bird (I am not), you can get a good seat very near to the Dalai Lama. Or, at least near enough to sit under his benevolent "blessing" hand as he walks by on the ways in and out.

There's also the fact that such frigid weather makes me crave starchy foods. I hope my body is burning it off with the constant walking up and down steep hills and staircases. Dharamsala is not a place for the physically challenged - or even for those with a serious knee problem.

Finally, last night
Finally. The rain finally stopped last night - just in time for the Long Life Ceremony this morning, for HH the Dalai Lama. An amazing double rainbow came out over the Kangra Valley, just around 6pm, before sunset.

This morning's (thankfully dry) Long Life Ceremony was graced by none other than HH the Karmapa (head of the Kagyu lineage), HH Sakya Trizin (head of the Sakya lineage), and the head of the Nyingma lineage (whose name always escapes me). It turned out (news to me) that some people, even foreigners, had come and saved seats upstairs the night before (usually upstairs is only for monks). Some people arrived as early as 5.30 AM to ensure their seating. Live and learn.

The ceremony featured "special appearances by" not only the Nechung Oracle but two more traditional oracles of other regions of Tibet, representing Amdo, Kham and U Tsang. Evidently there are no less than four oracles residing in McLeod and many more traditionally in Tibet and Bhutan. Each "channels" or manifests a different god when they go into trance. Though I didn't get upstairs, my Taiwanese friend got video of the oracles. When they collapse after the trance, they are immediately carried out like corpses feet-first.

(At left: Nechung Oracle manifesting the god Dorje Drakden in a trance at the Nechung Monastery, March 7 2007)

After the ceremony, HH had private (that is, about 100 people at a time) audiences for the Russians, Ukrainians, Mongolians and new Tibetans. The explanation I got was that he gives these audiences for countries where he cannot travel freely (like Russia) because of the country's relations with China. However, I know he did go to Mongolia just last year. Not fair!

Also, I heard later that a German girl snuck in with the Russians. You have to get a piece of paper from security - but they don't know who's Russian and who isn't. Then the whole crowd of 100 or so Russians goes together and has to show passports. But, because there are so many people, they don't really examine all passports - just look to see if the face matches the picture inside.

Okay, now I know the deal.

Mongolians, Russians and Ukrainians all understand Russian - so they get audience together. Everything is translated from Tibetan into Russian.

I caught two Ukrainian kids as they emerged glowing from the HH residence. What did he say?

"It was very short - less than half an hour," Sergei said. "But he said that in general, it was better for people to stay with their own religion, the religion they were born into. To change religions arbitrarily creates confusion and misunderstanding for a lot of people. But, if you do want to be Buddhist and practice Buddhism, it is very important to study - and study well. To really understand the concepts and what they mean - not just go through the motions. And His Holiness was very serious when he said this - not joking, like in the teachings!"

On the road, for real
At rainbow time (6 pm), I was in the Shangri-la restaurant, run by the monks of a monastery. In America, a restaurant where you are waited on by monks would be some kind of novelty theme chain (with a cutesy name like "The Monkery").

I was with Lama Sherab Gyaltsen, the monk who prostrated all the way from Lhasa to BodhGaya, India. Sherab speaks no English at all, but was accompanied by a translating friend, Passang. (Passang is another monk. Most Tibetan names are bi-gendered, that is, Passang, Tenzin, Tashi and so on can be either male or female.)

Back in January, I went to find Sherab on the Patna-Gaya Highway in Bihar. I had read an Indian news report about the "Tibetan monk crawling from Lhasa for world peace" and wanted to interview him and photograph him for myself. I spent two amazing days with him, his two Tibetan companions and the Bihari villagers, who lined the roads to alternately stare and support him - bringing him foodstuffs and water at day's end. They seemed to regard him as a modern-day yogi-saint or "tapaswi" (one who does severe devotional austerities) out of some Vedic-era mythology. Certainly they did not hesitate to "pranam" him (devotional salute) and instantly recognized what he was doing as in the Indian tradition of devotion.

Sherab was explaining how he got permission, from the Chinese government, to exit Chinese Tibet and enter Nepal while prostrating. He had to get some kind of special religious-pilgrimage visa - lots of paperwork. People from his home town of Dege, Kham district had to vouch for him ("he really is a monk and devotee, he is not just escaping, he is for real" and so on). The fact that he is from Kham - now considered part of Qinghai province or China proper - helps a lot. People dwelling in Lhasa or other parts of the TAR ("Tibetan Autonomous Region") are considered more of a political risk and have a harder time getting travel documents.

I had my trusty laptop Tawanda with me, and made a disk for Sherab of all the photos and videos I'd taken of him while he was literally "on the road." He insisted on buying me dinner, and paying for all the CDs (a welcome change from most Indians and Nepalis, who expect YOU, the rich firang, to pay for everything) and requested a second CD of the videos "for my mother."
Sherab had gotten press notices from the BBC, Times of India, Asian Age, Jagran Dainik and a few other Hindi language papers. However, I was special - according to him - because they were all Indian. (The BBC sent a local Hindi-speaking correspondent.) I was "the only English person" who had come to see him.

On our way home
It's always with a combination of sadness and relief that I watch the crowds pack up and go home after a teaching. Sadness, because it's so great to be in huge (if sometimes maddening) crowds of people who have converged for such an elevated cause. I mean, contrast 7,000 people coming together to receive Buddhist teachings from a Nobel laureate with the energy of 7,000 people - for example - gathered at music festival to get drunk and get laid. Or at a political convention, or a football game.

Relief, because finally I will be able to walk down the street and end up where I had originally intended to go, without several people sidetracking me - and will be able to get a table in one of the dimly-lit, always crowded restaurants of McLeod Ganj, where people huddle against the chill drinking Hot Lemon Ginger and catch up on who's going where, which Rinpoche is in town and who's getting teachings from whom.

And, of course, the next reading of the Oracle or Oracles.

Typing with gloves on

Fools in the rain
McCleod Ganj, Dharamsala

It is beating down cold heavy rain, has been since March 10 which was Tibetan Uprising Day. It's so cold I am typing with gloves on. Not so many typos as I expected, aactual;l;y
WHOOPS - actually.

My gloves are borrowed, teal-coloured acrylic-yarn gloves, from my friend Victoria. Victoria is a five-foot seven spark plug of a former schoolteacher. She used to teach on the Hupa Indian reservation in California, and in the tough neighborhoods of Oakland (SF). When she retired, she "decided to devote the rest of my life to helping Tibet and Tibetans win freedom and autonomy."

The Daily Lama
Today HH the Dalai Lama gave the Avalokiteshvara initiation. The weather could hardly have been worse; but an amazing number of people (probably 1000) turned up anyway in woolly hats, boots, raincoats, umbrellas, sweaters and shawls. The giant yellow canopy over the temple courtyard gets heavy with rain, and every so often, a great gust of wind ripples it and literal gallons of cold rainwater come crashing down, through the canopy seams, onto the people's heads. Never the same place twice, so you really don't know where to stand. People got to using their umbrellas even while under the canopy.

I noticed that as he came in today, HH had a very small entourage (normally he is proceeded by monks carrying incense and so on), and carried his own maroon umbrella. A lucky few Tibetans seated by the railing, holding the white "khata" scarves, got a brief handshake, as he paused to greet them.

As he approaches the brocade-covered, carved wooden throne, everyone stands up to prostrate three times before him. But he also prostrates three times - to the throne itself and to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. He lifts his robes like a skirt and carefully climbs up the four steps to to the seat. I noticed that every day, as he sits down and arranges his robes and cushion around him, an attendant monk hands him a single Handi-Wipe. He wipes his hands, then tucks it inside his robe.

When he does initiations, HHDL sits upstairs in the temple with his Namgyal monks. So, we downstairs only see him on a video screen at these times. I kept hoping he would put on the pointy yellow hat, which looks extra cool. He has even joked about it in the past ("Now I am going to put on the yellow hat. I say this because photographers like to take my photo in this hat. I notice this. Tee he he hehe").

HH's teachings can be roughly divided into a few segments, which he rotates. First, there are the opening prayers. Sometimes, he makes comments on what's happening - like, "Some of the Chinese delegation are leaving tomorrow afternoon. Therefore, I will give the initiation tomorrow morning instead of waiting till Wednesday." Or a rare bit of scolding - "I see that many of you do not have the printed text. Perhaps you have such great powers of memory that you do not need to see the words themselves. " (nervous laughter from crowd) "So, maybe you can look on with some friend sitting nearby who does have the text."

Then, he reads directly from the original text itself. Next, he gives commentary and elaboration.

Often, he adds to this personal stories, which are my favourite part. I love the one about the parrot he hit with a stick when he was a boy (this is also in his autobiography). It was a friend's parrot that showed great affection to the friend, but paid no attention to the boy Lama. Young HH was kind of lonely for friendship and got angry that the bird didn't love him too. So he attacked the poor bird. Of course, this terrified the creature and certainly didn't make it love him. From this he learned the limits of using force. (You can just see it - "I'm the Dalai Lama, dammit, you have to love me!!!" Whack!)

In an initiation, first we take the Bodhisattva or Upasaka (layperson's) vow not to lie, steal, kill, commit sexual misconduct or take intoxicants. If you feel you can't keep all five of the vows, HH always says "just take the ones you feel you can keep, to the best of your ability."

Then he goes into the elaborate visualizations of Avalokiteshvara, the deity of universal compassion. The tradition is that HH is actually a living incarnation of this deity. The visualizations help you to picture yourself as the deity, "with one face, and four arms" emitting universal love and compassion to all "sentient beings."

Then there are his jokes. One day he warned the Tibetans about getting too fat, "because it will be a burden on your health. In the west, there is a saying - 'eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunchtime, and take supper like a pauper.' But in Tibet we say - 'In the morning you should eat a great deal, because you have the whole day ahead of you. Then, the afternoon is also a good time to eat. And at night, you should eat a good dinner, so you will sleep well!' " All the Tibetans laughed in recognition of their habits.

HHDL also manages to get in all kinds of social commentary. During the past 7 days we have heard about vegetarianism, animal rights, women's equality, the equality of all religions, nutrition, non-violence, medical testing on guinea pigs, the importance of charity, Mother Theresa, AIDS awareness, religious freedom within Tibet, and of course the environment.

I try to scribble down as much as possible, but today, my hands were freezing - as they are now, even with gloves on.

Also, I have a ton of photos to share, but have to leave the laptop way up in Bhagsu at the room (security dictates 'no electronics inside the teachings site') and it's just too far to go back up and get it.

On Saturday, HH had a special audience with the mainland Chinese - about 50 of them. He spent an hour with them, according to my Chinese friend, answering their questions about Buddhism. No political topics were discussed.

I wondered, considering the prohibitions on his photo within China, whether they got the world's most desired photo-op - a picture with the Dalai Lama. She said, "Yes, they were so kind - they took a group photo, then gave it to each of us on a computer disk." A good way to get past Chinese customs (they might see a photo, but just don't have time to search every disk)!