Independence Day

Today I worked hard to get off the job as quickly as possible, like A Good American.

I finished giving the exam at 10am, had it graded by 2pm, and turned in the students' scores by three. I cleaned and dicked around for an hour, and then went to say goodbye to the students and turn in my key.

The students had already begun their computer exam, so bag on my back I only saw them from outside the room. None of them noticed me. I didn't really give them a proper goodbye after their exam in the morning, but a part of me felt it was better to slip out when their minds were on other things. A lot of the girls cried at our year-end party the other week, and I didn't see any reason to uncork a small river before their examination. I returned my key, negotiated my phone bill with the building manager, and found a car to Kangding.

Besides, I've always kind of sucked at goodbyes. I get reminded of change fairly often, but have difficulty expressing the right emotion at the right time. I am most sentimental in periods of great comfort, ingenuous when parting, and usually don't realize how much people mean to me until after the situation has changed.

I'm feeling, again, the regret that comes from making the right choice.

I now have a bus ticket to Ganzi, halfway to Yushu (Qinghai Province, a part of Amdo) where another Bridge Fund teacher Jon and our old friend Meg are to meet me. After spending a few days with them, I'll drop back down into Kham and see a few more students before starting the long journey back to America. I'll try to be on my email from time to time.

Upon boarding the bus from Chengdu yesterday, a very outgoing Chinese man dressed in sweat shorts and a red fleece bordered by gold cloth began talking with me very directly. I felt he was probably a Rinpoche, and he confirmed this after some time. He was recognized seventeen years ago, when he was in Beijing. This Rinpoche is not Tibetan. He had a broad smile, unhinged and young for his age. The burst blood vessel in his eye gave him an impressive countenance.

He blessed and gave me his mala, small prayer beads made of yak bone. He told me he counted five different prayers: Guru Rinpoche Padmasambava, Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, Green Tara, and one other that escapes me at the moment. He told me he declined to say the prayers for wealth that he usually offers Chinese people. I gave him the black plastic mala given to me by a student in return, and a Kalachakra Mantra sticker I bought as a gift for someone at home.

Rinpoche had been to Europe and was clearly very hip to Western youth. I've had a question on my mind, and I told him that I have been thinking of getting a tattoo of some Buddhist iconography. I'm afraid that my motivation is not correct.

He immediately began performing a mo (ritual divination) in his bus seat, and after some time he told me that he had visualized Manjusri, with his blue sword and red lotus, and that if I liked I should tattoo the sword on my right shoulder and the lotus on my left.


The sword cuts through the obscuration that prevents us from understanding the wisdom of compassion. This thanka is for that Rinpoche, and also for my students, whose thirst for knowledge may never be matched by the apparitions of our world.

Worm Food

Tom and Kendell came back through this weekend and I think they had a pretty excellent time during their week-long stay in Kham. To chronicle their trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, they have set up a blog aptly--though unfortunately--named Transsibirskayamagistral.

Here's a picture of theirs that I quite like. It is the entrance to what is probably a special sanctuary for performing the Tantric arts, the left-handed path that propels practitioners to powerfully realize the emptiness of form.


It's worth clicking to view the paintings of skinned humans and decaying faces in detail.

Situ Rinpoche

thirty-three seconds

Patrul and Ad.z.m R's

[Desmond Dekker, Rude Boy Ska]

I've been intermittently reading Patrul Rinpoche's The Words of My Perfect Teacher, lent to me by Lisa, a lay attendant to Ad.z.m R. She's also friends with my pal, Olivia Bartlett (who met her while studying in there). On his way, he'll be stopping in Chengdu for a day after leaving his monastery in Chamdo, and I hope to meet him in the city. I've been trying to get through Words, a commentary on the preliminary practices of a Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, before I leave. In my brother's words, the book "contains everything you need to know to become enlightened."

I recently stumbled across a mention of the town Dartsedo, the Tibetan (and proper) name for Kangding, the city half an hour from the college. The context in which Patrul Rinpoche brings it up reminded me of a number of things, which I'll get to after sharing the passage with you:

Where tea is grown, in China, the number of small creatures that are killed while it is planted, while the leaves are being picked, and so on, would be impossible to count. The tea is then carried as far as Dartsedo by porters. Each porter carries a load of twelve six-brick packs, taking the weight on a band around his forehead which wears away his skin. But even when his skull shows through, al white, he carries on. From Dotok onwards, dzo, yaks and mules take over, their backs breaking, their bellies perforated with cuts, patches of their hair chafed away. They suffer terribly from their servitude. Bartering the tea involves nothing but a series of broken promises, cheating and argument, until finally the tea changes hands, usually in exchange for animal products like wool and lambskins. Now wool, in summer before shearing, is crawling with fleas, ticks and other small creatures as numerous as the strands of wool themselves. During shearing, most of those insects are decapitated, cut in two or disembowelled. Those not killed remain stuck in the wool and suffocate. All of this can only lead to lower rebirths. As for lambskins, remember that new-born lambs have all their organs of sense, and they feel pleasure and pain. Just as they are enjoying their first instants of life, in perfect health, they are killed. Perhaps they are only stupid animals, but nevertheless they do not want to die--the love life and suffer as they are tortured and slaughtered. As for the ewes whose little ones have been killed, they are a living example of the sorrow experienced by a mother who loses her only child. So when we think about the production and trade of such products, we can understand that even a single sip of tea cannot but contribute to rebirth in the lower realms.

I used to think about these kinds of things quite a bit during the summer of 2001, my first stint guiding in New Mexican woodlands. That was when I stopped eating meat for two years. At the time I felt that there was a way to reduce the suffering of animals, at least, little by little. The wheel of death could be slowed in time, eventually halting, upon all ills would be undone.

The following summer significant areas of the ranch for which I guided suffered from forest fire. Alternatively hiking through restricted blackened areas and places that hadn't seen a fire for half a century provided stark contrast. Neither represented especially healthy forests; the under-burned areas were chillingly grey and orange from the accumulating largess of fallen tress and their resulting decay. I found a certain peace, however, in the face of such destruction, which relieved any guilt about my hand in death.

I disagree with some literalist Christians that believe that Man's divinely imparted stewardship over the animals gives him carte blanche when it comes to ecology. On the other hand, there can be no Absolute Zero with respect to the food chain and the natural events of birth and death. The process can never grind to a halt. Perfect equilibriums never last in natural systems. I'm reminded that when I was a child I thought that the Theory of Relativity meant that if the Earth ceased moving and spinning, Time would also stop. I'm not sure if that's wrong, but it certainly is absolutist.

Contrary to what you may think, the above passage by Patrul Rinpoche does not necessitate vegetarianism. His aim in pointing out the resulting carnage of such a mundane and basic activity is to remind the reader of the suffering that is everywhere in life. In Buddhism, we are held accountable for even the above actions via karma. I find the transmigration of souls to be at best irrelevant, though, and at worst empty threats to encourage moral action.

This does not mean we can hope to completely stop the chain of good and evil that tethers our mind to the conventional phenomenology of this world. It does mean that there are causes to our every action. It also suggests a way out; by taking responsibility for results of the things we do, and recognizing their impact on our way of thinking and our attitudes, we can discover the antidotes to our misdeeds to effectively become liberated from ourselves.

Sorry for sounding preachy. I'm really only trying to convince myself.

[Mountain Goats, Nine Black Poppies]

Tibetan Thanka

A Black Dakini in the Tibetan thanka syle:
































I realized that I hadn't seen many good examples of Tibetan iconography before I went to India a few months ago, and since I haven't scanned my photos from my vacation to Daofu there's a good chance that many of you also aren't familiar with their artistic style. I was unable to find an example of thanka painted in light colors on a black background, which makes for a nice reverse chromatography excellent for depicting fiery skulls and blazing Dharma Protectors with bulging eyes and enormous teeth.

I think this image is related to the Hindu Mahakali (Great Black Goddess), and similar or the same as the Tibetan Vajrayogini. Michael would be able to correct me on all of this. Things to note about this image are her headdress of skulls, and the tiny man she holds in her right hand. She tramples a man under her left foot, and she wears a necklace of red and blue severed heads (that has a nice ring to it). I'm uncertain of what holds in her right hand.

She is a Dharma Protector. She ferociously guards the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Other fiery deities are appealed to in order to purify bad karma or powerfully overcome obscuration. I'm embellishing a bit, and Michael would have more authority to explain this symbolism. She is a powerful Tantric deity, clearly superior to her male counterparts; some Dakinis are even depicted as coupling with one or a number of shriveled male consorts.

Pretty damn sweet if you ask me.