Riverside Drive from my room on the fifth floor at the Buddhist Church in New York City.
Here I am in New York, Tuesday, December 10, 2013, and it’s mid-morning. I’m into the second of my two weeks here for Shantideva Center, and they found me a nice room on Riverside Drive near 105th Street, in the Buddhist Church, a five-story house that was offered to them years ago. I’m on the fifth floor: there’s a miniature elevator, but I like to use the stairs.
It’s snowing today, and the strip of park outside my window, with its trees – and its joggers – and beyond that New Jersey on the other side of the river, are turning white fast.
Finally I got to hear Esperanza Spalding. In Postcard 26, in June last year, I mentioned flying from Sydney to London in time to attend her concert there, but in the end didn’t get to it. In New York, one of Shantideva’s volunteers, Tara Baltazar, a jazz guitarist, managed to buy tickets for the sold-out show at the Village Vanguard. What a dakini! She played bass and sang, nearly all of it her own music. She was with her Chamber Music Society: four women and two men: violin, viola, cello, piano, drums, and another singer. Such gorgeous, holy sounds.
In New York, I finally got to hear the gorgeous, holy sounds of Esperanza Spalding. Photo Ethan Hill.
It’s six months since I wrote a postcard, and it was six months before that that I wrote the previous one: two in a year.
I wrote about Raleigh, NC and our amazing cocktail party-auction in November last year that raised funds for The Bodhichitta Trust, as well as Toronto early December. And then I wrote about His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s event in Sydney in June. And that’s it for a year, I’m ashamed to say.
Jaime Silberman running our auction in Raleigh, NC in November 2012, which brought in funds for The Bodhichitta Trust.
His Holiness seemed to be forever joking during his time in Sydney in June, which I talked about in Postcard 33. Photo Rusty Stewart for DLIA.
Chasing Buddha DVDs displayed at The Bodhichitta Trust’s stall during His Holiness’s teachings in Sydney in June. We were invited by the organizers to launch the DVD release there.
And the reason? Nothing other than laziness: the second of the three kinds of laziness, in fact, as described in the Six Perfections of the Bodhisattva. Laziness, in general, is the biggest obstacle to the development of Enthusiasm or Joyful Effort, and this capacity for joyful effort is said to be the key to success in getting enlightened. The laziness I’ve been practicing is called “procrastination” – oddly enough because we normally don’t think of putting things off as laziness. We usually call it, “I’m too busy.” So today I decided to stop putting things off.
For the record, the first kind of laziness is called “I can’t be bothered,” and the third, the deepest and the biggest obstacle, is called “I can’t do it, not possible, I’m not capable.” What’s the thing we can’t be bothered doing? The thing that takes too much effort. And what do we put off doing? The thing that takes too much effort, the thing that we’re not attached to doing. It’s very tricky, this one, because when we say to ourselves, “Oh, I’m too busy, I’ll do it later,” we really do believe our own propaganda. We’re not honest with ourselves, and as long as that happens, we will never see the problem and can never solve it. And, finally, what is the thing that we’re convinced we can’t achieve? The thing that looks impossible to achieve because we feel such a gap between where we are now and where we want to end up; we just can’t see the process in between, which of course is the gradual process, step by step. It’s logical, actually, that we CAN achieve it: we just need to make effort, a little bit at a time, stretch ourselves.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “Without effort we don’t create merit.” Which is another way of saying we won’t achieve anything. We’ll just stay in our comfort zone: because the inertia of that deepest attachment is the problem.
So, where have I been this past 12 months? Perhaps we should be calling this Postcard 34-44, which is what is what it will turn out to be: a summary of a year’s events.
Since my visit to Lama Yeshe Ling in Ontario last December I’ve been around the world and back.
After Toronto I went to Boston for three weeks, to Kurukulla Center. Before I left for the West Coast I had lunch with Tim McNeill, Wisdom’s boss, and met his Great Dane Jangchub, a very nervous fellow who bit me. Tim had saved him from some dreadful situation apparently.
At Vajrapani Institute we did their annual New Year’s Vajrasattva retreat. I drove to Reno, in Nevada, after that: first time there. If you look on the map you’ll see Reno to the right of San Francisco, and down the other end you’ll see Las Vegas to the right of Los Angeles, thus ensuring the these Californians are never short of a place to lose their money.
I taught at Dharmakaya Study Group, the FPMT group in Reno, NV, for the first time in January. Photo Dharmakaya Study Group.
Then it was back to the Bay Area: a night each in Marin, at my dear old friends Judith Hunt and Jack’s; Gyalwa Gyatso in San Jose; and in San Francisco.
It was a special time at Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel, in January. At the end of the Heart Sutra retreat Geshe Dakpa came up from the city and led the consecration ceremony for Sherab Plaza’s magnificent wealth deity statues, made in the UK by Peter Griffin: a one-foot Dzambhala, a three-foot Ganapati and a five-foot Nam-tu-se. Lama Zopa Rinpoche had seen the plan for Sherab Plaza back in 2007 and delighted in it, gave us various practices to do for its success: wealth vases, the statues, various recitations, a tangka. We’ve done all but one (forgot the tangka!), although no sign of the vision manifesting yet: maybe it’ll be next life, and that’s okay with me. Denice Macy at LMB has kindly offered space in their little gompa for the two big statues, and the smaller one we offered to our main benefactor, Ven. Jangchub Phegey.
Sherab Plaza’s magnificent wealth deity statues at Land of Medicine Buddha in California, where they were consecrated in January. From left: a a three-foot Ganapati, five-foot Nam-tu-se, and one-foot Dzambhala – difficult to see, but there, just under Nam-tu-se’s left foot. Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised we make the statues for the project’s success.
Next it was to my old friends in Santa Fe, NM, plus a quick trip to Taos. I was based there soon after Rinpoche moved the entire International Office from LMB, in 2000. Mandala, which I was editing at the time, was included of course, as well as the prison project, which at the time was about four years old and was still a project of Mandala and called Milarepa Prison Project. Soon after that the prison project became a separate entity and Rinpoche named it Liberation Prison Project. Because the work we did wasn’t confined to NM, there was no reason to be there: it was clear to me that we needed to be in a big city environment so I relocated us to San Francisco where we moved in with Tse Chen Ling.
It’s late January by now, and I visited a little Gelugpa group in San Antonio, TX, for the first time, run by Covita Moroney. Then Missoula in Montana, where I’ve been going since I first came to the States, in 1994 (well, not counting my stay here in pre-Buddhist days, in 1974). Maitripa College in Portland after that was the last stop in the US.
In Bogotá in Colombia we had a pretty intense week turning the place upside down and redecorating in time for the arrival of their first resident lama, Geshe Lobsang Kunchen.
At the beginning of March I went to Argentina for the first time to visit Yogi Sahara Study Group run by Ven. Thubten Kundrol in Buenos Aires. I like big old Spanish cities like that!
I visited Buenos Aires (above) for the first time this year as well, to teach at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s center there, Yogi Saraha Study Group (below). Photo Yogi Saraha Study Group.
Australia next, March 20 through August. Sydney several times during the six months, the Blue Mountains, Queensland, and there Langri Tangpa in Brisbane twice. In Queensland again this year I made sure I had my editing retreat on Stadbroke Island overlooking the ocean: perfect. More work on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s book about how to help at the time of death; it’s nearing completion. And for the first time in years I spent time in Western Australia, mainly at Hayagriva Centre in Perth.
For the first time in years I spent time in Western Australia, mainly at Hayagriva Centre in Perth. Here with friends from a course at Jhana Grove. Photo Ven. Katy Cole.
During my six months in Australia I decided I’d drive up and down the east coast between Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane instead of flying, which is what I usually do on most continents I visit. My trusty green Merc did the job. The trouble is, I speed: I got so many tickets that another couple would have caused me to lose my license. So I decided I’d sell it or give it away. But instead, in an underground carpark in Melbourne I crashed it into a red pillar that I simply didn’t see, and wrote it off – and, happily, got my money back from the insurance company. A most efficient way of getting rid of it. My sisters, for one, were immensely relieved: they lived in daily fear that I’d kill myself on the roads.
My trusty Merc on Stradbroke Island, QLD last year. I got so fed up with all the speeding tickets in Australia that I decided to sell it, but I accidently ran it into a red pillar in a Melbourne carpark and wrote it off. A quicker solution! Photo Gail Bell.
In June, the father of Alison Harr, who worked for the prison project with me in San Francisco, informed me that she was in hospital after a car accident. Within a couple of weeks she was dead. It was shocking to everyone. A young woman in her thirties, her organs collapsed and could no longer sustain her. She struggled in her life for years and always came through. She was devoted to her practice, to her lamas: a special person.
Alison Harr and me at Kadampa Center in Raleigh, NC last November. She died in June. We met at Land of Medicine Buddha in Santa Cruz in 2002, and she came to work with me at Liberation Prison Project in San Francisco in 2007. Photo Alison Harr.
More than a hundred people attended the July 7 celebration of Alison’s life at Land of Medicine Buddha organized by her parents, Bruce and Pearl Harr. Photo Rosa Maria.
In March I did a quick roundtrip to Hong Kong to hear the teachings on death from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Actually, they turned out to be teachings on emptiness. No complaints from me. I was invited to have dinner with Rinpoche and some of the Hong Kong center people, which of course, was a delight.
Getting the thumbs-up from Rinpoche in Hong Kong – at dinner with some of the center people in March, including, here, co-director Esther Ngai – for promising to have the teachings on how to help people at the time of death ready by early 2014. Photo Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
His Holiness’s visit to Sydney was a highlight, I’d say. During this time in Australia I’d been working with my filmmaker nephew Amiel, who made Chasing Buddha, in 2000. The producers split up years ago and the one who had CB sat on it for 10 years, doing nothing with it. Eventually she gave it to Amiel and he agreed that we could do the first commercial release of it as a DVD and he’d split the profits with my Bodhichitta Trust. Lynn Bain of The Dalai Lama in Australia kindly offered us a free stall at the teachings in Sydney where the film was launched again.
These days any money that comes into The Bodhichitta Trust is helping pay back kind lenders to the prison project and to a business venture that Michelle Stewart and I went into together when she ran Tse Chen Ling. Any donations I receive are used for the same purpose.
In September I led a pilgrimage to Burma, first time there, too. What a country! The people are so sweet, and they seem to have such devotion in the Buddha. And everywhere golden pagodas! Any profits from this also went to The Bodhichitta Trust.
I led a pilgrimage to Burma this year – another first. Here with three fellow nuns, clockwise from left: Ven. Gyalten Palmo, Ven. Tenzin Chökyi, and Ven. Katy Cole. We all worked together in San Francisco when Michelle Stewart was running Tse Chen Ling and I was running Liberation Prison Project. Photo Dalglish Chew.
You see golden pagodas like these everywhere in Burma. Photo Ven. Katy Cole.
In October I had three wonderful weeks at Kopan. I haven’t been for years. After I left the prison project and therefore stopped running the annual pilgrimages to India and Nepal, which supported LPP, I had no reason to go. But because I was in Asia for Burma, I made sure I did a detour before I got to Europe for the FPMT Education meeting in late October.
The London meeting was a pleasure: people from the centers worldwide came together to learn about how to develop the spiritual programs: many old friends.
In October I spent three wonderful weeks at Kopan monastery, the monastery of Lama and Rinpoche, outside Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo Jespers Sachmann.
After Kopan, I traveled to London for an FPMT Education conference at Jamyang Buddhist Centre. Lots of old friends. Photo Violette Pliot.
Then to France, Sweden, Denmark: Institut Vajra Yogini for a full-on week’s retreat. Swiss painter Peter Iseli and his wife Jangchub are well settled into the apartment and studio built especially for them at the institute. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has commissioned Peter to paint a 15-meter/45-foot long painting of the Twenty-one Taras for Tara Institute in Melbourne. I had dinner with them and Peter told me the that project will take him three to four years.
After the FPMT conference in London I went on to Institut Vajra Yogini in France, near Toulouse. I usually go every year for a week of teachings. Photo Violette Pliot.
A weekend in Stockholm and a week in Copenhagen. Then back to the UK. There’s an FPMT group in Findhorn now, on the east coast of Scotland. And I went down to Bristol, in the southwest, for Jamyang Bath, where I’ve never before. Beforehand though I took the train to Penzance in Cornwall and spent a couple of days in a nice hotel by the beach. My father’s father, Louis Courtin, who was the son of a French parfumier from Caens, use to live there and I visited him once, in 1968, when I first went to London.
Before my visit to Jamyang Bath, another first, I took the train to Penzance in Cornwall and spent a couple of days in a nice hotel by the beach. My father’s father, Louis Courtin, who was the son of a French parfumier from Caens, use to live there and I visited him once, in 1968, when I first went to London.
That brings me up to date. It’s 2 o’clock now, and the snow is still falling.
