I’m a city girl, and the bigger and louder the place, the better. Right now I’m in one of them: Moscow. I love it! There are 15 million people here. The traffic is unbelievable: they drive just like I aspire to drive: with the aggression and focus of the Germans and the spaciousness and flexibility of the Indians: a perfect combination. They drive three cars abreast in two-lane roads; they turn left from the right lane and right from the left; instead of stopping at the tram stops, like in Melbourne, they pass the trams on the other side! No one seems to get upset. Everywhere there are traffic jams: it’s the default mode. And they park wherever they like: sideways, backwards, and in double rows down entire streets. And they love their cars big and black with deeply black windows.
And why on earth would I like this? Sure, the countryside is very nice. I’m happy the trees are there, doing their job – but I don’t need to see them. Cities are where sentient beings are, and sentient beings need us, not trees – in fact, trees need us to leave them alone. Instead of noticing all the big noisy cars, we could look instead at the people driving them. Instead of seeing all the big ugly buildings, we can remember that they’re full of people. And these people are just like us: depressed, anxious, attached, angry, struggling with their lives.
Movement, action, energy: that’s what I like. If there’s no crazy energy, then there’s nothing to transform, I remember Lama Yeshe saying. All this potential! It’s grist for the mill.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s center, Ganden Tendar Ling, invited me. I was here in 2002 as well, a year after Tanya Petrova started the group. Rinpoche named it the following year during his fist visit. The people are wonderful: big-hearted and hungry for the Dharma. They have me teaching every weekday evening for the entire two weeks, and what with all the questions the sessions end up being three hours.
We did Discovering Buddhism module 3 last weekend, the entire lam-rim, but we didn’t get past the lowest scope, so we did the middle scope, all about the mind, being our own therapists, on Monday; and Tuesday and Wednesday we looked at the bodhisattva part of the path. Mischa translates: he’s doing a brilliant job! We still haven’t finished, but hope to do so next Monday, the day before I leave for London.
The first time I was here was during the Soviet days, 1969. My mother had come to Europe to visit me and my sister Jan in London. We took the train across Europe, a three-day journey. Mum was a professional classical singer and pianist and wanted to attend a music conference in Moscow. I was a full-blown hippie at the time, looking quite out of place in staid, grey Moscow. One of my main memories is of the big empty streets and small empty shops, and Lenin’s pink doll-like body. People still line up to pay respects to it.
A very different place now! Commerce is doing pretty well, thank you very much. A small caffe latte at Starbucks costs nearly seven dollars! But I hear that the average wage for workers is around $500 a month. I also hear that 85% of all Russian wealth is in Moscow. And I keep hearing about the corruption; how no one trusts their government and therefore doesn’t pay taxes. Russia has the same problem that every other free market country has: all the cheaper imports are destroying their home-grown industries. They say that the main export is oil and gas and that most of the profits stay in the pockets of the rich. Who knows what the facts are. . .
Meanwhile I’m enjoying the place. Lots of driving around in Big Andrey’s big black Land Rover (with Small Andrey in the back seat, translating), looking, looking, looking.
Next weekend about 30 of us will go to the country to do a nyung-ne fasting retreat, in Pavlovski Passat, 80km west of the city. Most of the people haven’t taken an initiation, so we’ll be casual about it: they can come to some or all sessions, take the Eight Mahayana precepts or not. At least they’ll get a taste of this type of practice.
I’m staying with Sergei, who runs the group, and his wife Galina, who does the accounts. Small Andrey and Mischa run the spiritual program. They’ve produced a beautiful version of the Discovering Buddhism printed materials, and they’ll transcribe the teachings of each module as they hold them, and make this part of the materials. There are very few of Lama Yeshe’s and Rinpoche’s teachings translated, so they’re brainstorming ways to do that. They all agree if they don’t have the teachings in Russian, how can they grow?
We’ve started or finished most of our teachings with prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche. We’ve just heard that Rinpoche has moved into a private home in Bendigo and will go to the hospital for therapy three days a week. And that Khandro-la from Dharamsala is coming soon. My observation at Tushita when Rinpoche was there was that she took such care of Rinpoche, like a mother and sister. I’d hear bumping noises upstairs and was told that it was Rinpoche doing the exercises that Khandro-la had told him to do! And she’d take Rinpoche for walks.
Sergei told me that a group of the students here are going to France in the summer to receive teachings at Nalanda Monstery from Khandro-la. Wonderful.
From Russia with love. . .