In the Splendid Dharma Tent: His Holiness Karmapa's Second Visit to KTD (Part 4)

Note from A Word Witch: I paraphrase Karmapa’s speech, except in sections marked with quotes. Any errors in meaning or transcription are, of course, mine and mine alone.

Karmapa then asked, “What do we mean by ‘peace’?” Is it a state of ease or relaxation? If so, these are difficult states to maintain and so, they are not our goal. What we are aiming for is something a little more than “eating ice cream on a hot day.” (He could not have picked a better metaphor for this Floridian!)

True peace requires effort to actively and intentionally renounce violence in all its forms. To achieve true peace, we must eradicate the mental unvirtuous actions—covetousness, malice, and wrong views—because these are the “seeds” of further unvirtue committed by body and speech.

“We cannot create peace through force or violence.”

In terms of renouncing the three unvirtuous mental seeds mentioned above, Karmapa made a distinction between eradication and suppression. Suppression, he said, can create mental illness, is unhealthy, and is different from the correct application of remedies that leads to eradication of unhealthy mental states. In addition, you need to understand the reasons for the remedies, or the remedies will not work. “Using my own experience,” Karmapa said, the more we are aware of the harm our kleshas do, the easier it is to apply the remedies.

“We may notice love is not constantly present, but anger happens by itself.” Yet because our minds have the capacity for the alternating emotions of anger and love, we need to realize that experiencing either of these emotions is a choice or decision we can make.

Do no wrong whatsoever.

Engage in abundant virtue.

Utterly tame your own mind.

This is the Buddhist teaching.

This saying describes “a gradual process of learning and development.”

“Do no wrong whatsoever” is the guiding principle for the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas. “Engage in abundant virtue” guides those on the Mahayana path, while “Utterly tame your own mind” guides the Vajrayana practitioner. All these guidelines are stages of taming the mind and represent different “levels of responsibility,” or what individuals of different capacities are able to bear—like different grades of school. “The way we practice here,” Karmapa said—meaning at KTD—“is an integration of all three vehicles.”

To “utterly tame your own mind” is the correct understanding of Vajrayana or Secret Mantra. “Mantra” means “the protection of mind,” and when we practice Vajrayana correctly, we protect our minds from ordinary craving and perception, transforming our perception into the pure appearances of the mandala deities—a transformation that is unique to Vajrayana. This is a mental transformation that is not achieved through the accumulation of ritual implements; progressive practice is not “the accumulation of stuff.”

Here, we broke for lunch, with the rain shower still falling. I don’t know who the people were who served the delicious vegetarian lunch, but they had their act totally together, moving large numbers of us through a lunch line reminiscent of a school cafeteria so that everyone was well fed and even had extra time before the afternoon session began.

Karmapa began the afternoon session with more spontaneity. I wrote in my journal, “~frequent faces and exhibits of a wicked sense of humor~.” At one point Karmapa looked at his translator and said, “Understand?” Yeshe’s response: “Things are warming up.”

Karmapa explained that it is the ability or strength of the individual that lends the vehicle that person practices its power. If a person at the Shravaka or Pratyekabuddha grade level tries to practice Mahayana, they will still end up practicing on the Shravaka/Pratyekabuddha grade level; if a person in the Mahayana grade tries to practice Vajrayana, they will still end up practicing Mahayana.

Karmapa then addressed how we practice with body, speech, and mind. Whether or not we actually enter into the Buddha’s teachings depends on whether our body, speech, and mind “enter that space.” Mind is of foremost importance; it must be purified. “We cannot fake it or be hypocritical.”

The challenges we experience must be met with the corresponding faculty. If we are confronted with physical danger, our response will need to be a physical, bodily response, as in running away or otherwise removing ourselves from the situation. If we are confronted with harsh speech, “Can you feel compassion on the spot? It’s possible, but quite difficult.” Most of the harm that comes to us through body and speech is external harm.

Ill will that comes toward us from the minds of others does not hurt us—I was reminded, though of course Karmapa did not say it, of the old children’s teaching tool, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Harm that comes to us through our own minds, however, is internal harm. What hurts us is our own malice and ill will that we develop, often in response to the malice or ill will that we sense is directed toward us from others. “Our anger only harms ourselves,” and this is the worst suffering we can experience because we cannot run away from it.

Karmapa explained one way to deal with what is frequently our knee-jerk reaction of developing malicious thoughts in response to criticism leveled at us from other people. He explained that when someone criticizes him (and I really have to wonder who has done this), instead of immediately jumping to his own defense, he thinks of himself as a friend of the critic, and this enables him to assess whether the criticism is valid or not.

In the Splendid Dharma Tent: His Holiness Karmapa’s Second Visit to KTD (Part 3)

Note from A Word Witch: I paraphrase Karmapa’s speech, except in sections marked with quotes. Any errors in meaning or transcription are, of course, mine and mine alone.

His Holiness Karmapa began his speech by saying that there are many different spiritual traditions in America—he used “America” frequently to refer to the United States—and that we have the freedom to choose which of these we will follow; we may also choose to follow no tradition at all. From one point of view, this makes things easy; from another point of view, choosing a tradition becomes difficult when confronted with so many different choices.

Sprinkling English words and phrases throughout his Tibetan, Karmapa explained that “religion” is different from “spirituality.” Spirituality is the cultivation “of the fundamental goodness or virtue of which we are all capable,” and does not need to follow any specific tradition.

Adherence to a spiritual tradition or religion is a choice that we have. The evolution of the spirit includes benevolence, an understanding of interdependence, and a sincere wish to help others along with the development of the means and insight to do so. “The basic idea is to be a good person.” These remarks reminded me of things that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said over and over again, many many times.

I wrote “-RAIN!-” in my journal here, and was thankful for the breeze and the lower temperatures that followed the shower.

Although religious practice is a personal choice, what must underlie this is recognition of the self, meaning: We have all been born as humans, so we have unique, innate abilities. Something that is very special about humans is that we have the capacity for ethical choice (italics mine). We know the difference between right and wrong, and between what is helpful and what is not—not only for ourselves, but also for others. “This is the first step,” Karmapa explained.

At this point I wrote again in my journal, “~He seems more animated now that rain has cooled things down considerably.~”

When someone has faith in the dharma and becomes a practitioner, they are supposed to become a better person—but sometimes they become worse! This is a problem. Karmapa cautioned us about falling into “too much fantasy” because we are so inspired by the dharma. “We must never allow the practice of dharma to ignore our innate human abilities.” Instead, faith in the dharma must be based on practicalities—as in the Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind and “contemplation of what it means to be a human being.”

With regard to the foundation of Vajrayana practice, “We can’t start by imagining ourselves as gods…we must become good, decent people before we can realize Mahamudra” or the Great Perfection.

“We must not allow ourselves as human beings to become isolated from the dharma we practice.” (Again, italics are mine.)

We need a stable foundation for dharma practice: “This is important.” Karmapa suggested that maybe it is more important for beginners to become a good person than to cultivate faith in the sources of refuge.

Every time Karmapa spoke about “being a good person,” I was reminded of my mother and how, growing up in the American South, I was taught from the time I was very young to consider the wishes and needs of others before my own, and to cultivate good manners. It was the traditional Southern woman’s blessing or curse (take your pick) to learn to put others first, to anticipate the wants and needs of guests especially, and—at all costs!—to avoid being rude.

Like most children, I chafed under this code of conduct when I was very young, but later I began to notice how practical and helpful the code proved to be in different social situations. Over time, I developed what I think is a fairly good ability to assess the states of mind and needs of other people around me—an ability that has proved useful in any number of work-related situations. I’m not always a shining example of politeness—I’m too impatient and I tend to interrupt conversations, which I know is a bad habit, for one thing (and there are more)—but I do think my traditional Southern upbringing had a lot to do with why, when I first started studying Buddhism with a teacher, the dharma resonated with me so strongly. Of course it didn’t hurt that my first dharma teacher was a Southern woman who had been raised with the same code of manners!

Karmapa went on to explain that the term for “spirituality” in Buddhism is “dharma” (Sanskrit) or “cho” (Tibetan). While there are 10 different definitions of dharma, what is important is how we understand the term: Dharma refers to “fixing” or “transforming” our minds. The essence of dharma is ahimsa or nonviolence, which refers to a state of mental nonaggression or peace.

The principal result of dharma practice is to develop peace of mind.

Here, Karmapa held up a large teacup with a lid and said, “This is American size,” eliciting laughter from the audience. I thought his remark was simply an aside, but as I look back on my notes now, I realize it was actually a part of his teaching—what in literature we would call a foreshadowing of points yet to be made.

In the Splendid Dharma Tent: His Holiness Karmapa’s Second Visit to KTD (Part 2)

One of the things I bought on this trip is an absolutely beautiful book, Karmapa: 900 Years, published this year by the 2010 Karmapa 900 Organizing Committee. The book has a two-page spread (pp. 78-79) about “Life in the Great Encampment of the Karmapas” which explains that:

For 300 years, the Gyalwang Karmapas moved freely across the wide open spaces of Tibet, accompanied by a vast mobile practice community known as the ‘Great Encampment of the Karmapas’ or Karme Garchen. While they did visit major Karma Kagyu monastic seats along the way, the Fourth through the Ninth Karmapas spent the majority of their adult lives on the move, traveling to wherever they saw opportunities to be of benefit.

This unique institution of the Great Encampment allowed the Karmapas to move or stay put at will, setting up camp when conditions were right and continuing on when they were not. Yet unlike an ordinary camp, the determining factor was not what the location offered to those camping. Rather, it was what the camp could offer to the location, for the Great Encampment was effectively a vast means of reaching out to offer the Dharma in whatever place was then most receptive to it.

I was struck by this last sentence, especially when I remembered the photo I had seen earlier in the week of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (HHDL) and His Holiness Karmapa (HHK) in front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Hopefully at least a few of our elected officials were receptive to the blessings that I am fairly certain HHDL and HHK were beaming in their direction.

It felt like an encampment at KTD, with close to 1000 people from all over the United States and, most likely, all over the world—all crowded under one huge tent that was set up in the courtyard.

I was thrilled to be able to meet and chat for just a couple of minutes with Lama Tsultrim Allione, whose book Women of Wisdom helped fan my early interest in Machik Labdron; within just the past few years, Lama Tsultrim has been recognized as an emanation of Machik. Since Lama Tsultrim’s refuge lama was the 16^th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, I sensed that she was delighted to be reunited with Karmapa’s stream of blessings. She indicated she may be collaborating with Karmapa on projects involving Machik’s severance practice, and on women’s issues. Wonderful!

This particular encampment did not take place in an ornate, embellished Tibetan tent, however, but in a stark white temporary structure supported by huge metal poles that stretched to the sky and was buttressed by many canvas supports. Large-screen television monitors placed at intervals throughout the tent gave those of us who were sitting toward the back a clear view of Karmapa’s very expressive face and gestures.

We all stood, as is customary, to watch Karmapa leave the brightly embellished main shrine building, descend the red stairs into the courtyard, and enter the tent. His entrance was marked with the fragrance of incense, a procession that included dark-suited security people and high-ranking lamas clad in robes of maroon and gold, and the distinctive sound of Tibetan gyaling trumpets.

As high as the tent was, when Karmapa ascended the short flight of steps to his throne, it looked like his head almost bumped the top of the tent! And while his stature is imposing, it wasn’t only his height that made it seem as though his presence filled the tent.

Returning to KTD after three years “seems like a dream,” Karmapa said, but “despite difficulties, we are now reunited and I am really delighted”—at which point the whole tent full of people, all of whom shared his delight, erupted into thunderous applause.

During the first few minutes of his remarks on this first day of the teachings, I was struck by what seemed to me to be the unusual quality of Karmapa’s voice. Whether he is speaking sternly or gently—or even, as he did fairly frequently, engaging in animated debates with his translator, the brilliant Lama Yeshe Gyamtso—Karmapa’s voice has a magnificent musical quality; “~melodious voice~” was what I wrote in my notebook.

And at some point during these early remarks, the phrase “sitting in the splendid tent of dharma” flashed through my mind.

Karmapa thanked everyone for building KTD—the new building is now complete after decades of work toward that goal—and said that those who have helped with this effort should now “rejoice in what you have done.”

Early in his talk, Karmapa remarked about the heat; the day had started out being very warm. A little while later, we heard the first raindrops hit the top of the tent, and Karmapa looked up and looked around. As the rain shower went on, the temperature dropped noticeably and became much more comfortable for all of us. I filed this occurrence away mentally as “one of those things that makes you go ‘hmmmm…'."

After he greeted us, Karmapa took some time to gather his thoughts, looking out at the audience or down at the table in front of him, sometimes rubbing the top of his head. This thought gathering was repeated several more times over the course of his two days at KTD.

Karmapa prefaced his talk by saying that he does not think of what he does as “lecturing or teaching,” but rather prefers the idea of “giving a speech…a forum for me to voice my thoughts, which I do without preparation.” And while I am certain that he knew we were all expecting a teaching about The 1000 Buddhas—because that was what had been publicized before the event—Karmapa showed no qualms about completely shattering our expectations. Instead, he expressed his wish to speak spontaneously, to express his thoughts of the moment, and to speak from personal experience, because it would be “more beneficial for me to speak to you directly and personally.”

So we were forewarned, right from the get-go, to expect the unexpected.

In the Splendid Dharma Tent: His Holiness Karmapa’s Second Visit to KTD (Part 1)

Orgyen Trinley Dorje, His Holiness the 17^th Gyalwa Karmapa, visited America for only the second time this month. While those of us who had heard rumors that he might be coming waited eagerly for news, the staff at Karmapa’s North American seat—Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) in Woodstock, New York—were faced with the challenge of preparing for the visit on terrifically short notice and without officially being able to tell people that Karmapa was coming, given that India (where His Holiness is living now after having escaped from Tibet over New Year’s 1999-2000) issued his visa at the very last minute.

Karmapa’s first stop was Washington, D.C., where His Holiness the Dalai Lama was giving teachings and the Kalachakra empowerment. There were a lot of Tibetan Buddhist dignitaries on hand for that event, but Karmapa’s arrival caused something of a stir—“collective gasps” was one description that I read—when he walked on stage for his first day at the teachings. Word had not yet spread widely that he was even in the United States.

Karmapa’s second stop was at KTD and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend. I’ve always heard that when one plans to attend a major teaching or empowerment, any obstacles that arise beforehand are the result of previous bad karma that is somehow being cleared; if this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), I cleared some serious karma through a series of miscommunications about registration for the event that cropped up just before I left home and continued through the first morning of the event itself.

Was my payment due before the event or at the event? If before, was there a deadline I had to meet for payment and could I meet it on very short notice? Who at KTD had the authority to give me the correct answer to my questions? (Many thanks to Lama Kathy Wesley for routing my frequent pesky questions to the right people.) Would my luggage and I make it onto our scheduled plane at the very busy, crowded Orlando airport? Would I have to arrange for a taxi up to KTD, or would there be shuttle buses? Could I make it through Security and over to the registration tent at the KTD gate without having the requisite badge? With a long history of motion sickness when I’m not driving, would I throw up on the bus ride along the twisting road up and down the hill to KTD? (The answer to this last question was “Almost.”)

Throughout all of these obstacles, the mantra “practice patience” kept repeating in my thoughts—a vivid reminder that the Buddhist teachings on the Six Perfections are real challenges to old, ingrained mental habits. So easy to get petulant; so hard to be patient!

But with obstacles finally overcome and patience thankfully preserved, I found myself once again entering the Gate of Dharma.

There have been many changes at KTD since the last time I was there. The new building is complete, and occupied. The old Meads Mountain House, the stagecoach inn that has housed KTD’s offices and staff for several decades, is deserted and barricaded, slated to be demolished later this summer. (Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche presided over a closing ceremony for the house just recently.) The funky old bookstore space with its nooks and crannies and unexpected traffic patterns…my favorite patio table where I admired the surrounding mountains and enjoyed many meals outside…the steep stairs with the narrow steps…the slanting bathroom floors…the cracked walls…the cramped showers…the ancient windows and rickety furniture…never again will KTD’s guests have the opportunity to experience these things!

The new bookstore spaces—with books and gifts on one floor and statues and thangkas on another—are a vast improvement and a great delight; Namse Bangdzo may well be the best Buddhist bookstore in North America.

Since I’m not staying at KTD this trip, I’ll have to wait to report on what it’s like to spend time in the new building—though I did have a chance to eat in the new dining hall on one of my last trips, and it is a big, beautiful space with spectacular views of the surrounding trees—a place worthy of Karmapa.

And so I journeyed up the hill past “Welcome Home” banners and prayer flags, through the Dharma Gate to the registration tent, past a long row of purple porta-potties, around the shell of Meads Mountain House, and through the bright new Gampopa Gateway—now dedicated to my refuge lama, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche—and into the splendid dharma tent, erected over the central courtyard of the monastery to protect the hundreds of us in attendance from rain and sun.

And once again, I was reminded of the great gatherings that assembled around notable teachers in old Tibet, where people traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles to hear the dharma from masters in an unbroken lineage and to receive heart-to-heart blessings that are, so often, life changing.

The Nagas and the Elements (Part 2)

When I went swimming at the spring near my house one day last week, I met a beautiful young woman of Indian (Indian/Asian, not Native American) descent as I was bringing some small pieces of trash out of the spring. We fell into conversation about the health of the springs, and practically the first thing she said was, “These places are sacred.”

Even—or perhaps, especially—my neighbors, who are part of a large extended family that has lived in this area for generations, are upset about the pollution and water withdrawals that are harming the health of our springs. I don’t know if my neighbors would agree that the springs are sacred; most Western cultures have moved far away from attributing any kind of sanctity to the natural world, even at places that most everyone recognizes as having intrinsic power. My neighbors might, however, agree that “The springs shouldn’t be messed with.”

So if we humans are concerned, I wonder what the nagas must be feeling, since the big algae blooms and reduced spring flows must be hurting them even more?

Here is how Machik Labdron describes the appearance of nagas, the watery inhabitants of the underworld.

“Black spiders and scorpions, or ants, beetles, otters or fishlike female dogs fall like rain and cover the ground and stick to your body. They are as big as puppies that have just opened their eyes, and extremely cold and wet. Just seeing them is unpleasant and frightening. Also frogs, scorpions, fish, tadpoles, large pir fish, makaras (crocodiles), or lizards the size of young bulls with their mouths open as if ready to eat. Whether on dry or wet land, they all gather together, yelping or quarrelling. They are single or in pairs, their bodies sheathed in fog with slightly formed water droplets. Just looking at them upsets and confuses you and makes your flesh crawl. Or else snakes: black, red, yellow, green, multi-colored, white, variegated red, variegated yellow, or variegated blue, like great trees in full foliage. They are as long as fifty bow lengths…The toxic vapors of some of them boil over onto your body as it lies in bed. They have great manes (hoods) that blaze with fire. Various diseases exude from their mouths and eyes in the form of various colors, like oozing fog spreading out as far as a hundred bow lengths… Just seeing them terrifies you. Your hairs stand on end, your senses become paralyzed, and your body goes out of control from their contamination.

Alternatively, [you experience] small children just eight years old with serpentine bodies below the breast and many blazing snake-hoods on their heads exuding bluish-red disease. Toxic vapors and fog boil up from their tails. Their torsos are generally covered in mist. They are seen in various colors in wetlands larger than the eye can see. Sometimes their torsos are exposed and sometimes their tails show above the water.” (From Machik’s Complete Explanation, pp. 239-240; the italics in the first paragraph of the quote are mine.)

Now, whether you believe in the existence of nagas or not—and I cannot either prove or disprove their existence—the idea of disease-causing nagas is a powerful metaphor for the dangers of pollution.

Just this week, I learned of a 2004 study on “Cyanobacteria: Lyngbya Toxin Monitoring and Evaluation” that was conducted in Florida’s springs under the auspices of the Centers for Disease Control. Lyngbya is just one of the species of algae that is blooming now in our rivers and springs, and is suspected as a cause of allergic reactions that some swimmers have experienced. According to the study, “Elevated groundwater nitrate and other nutrients may be responsible for the proliferation and expansion of toxic Lyngbya species (spp.)…Limited reports of acute dermatitis, blisters, desquamation, and respiratory distress may be related to Lyngbya exposure.”

Our nagas, it seems, are not pleased.

And my Buddhist teachers are sounding warnings.

His Holiness Orgyen Trinley Dorje, the 17^th Gyalwa Karmapa, has some very interesting passages on the web site that describes his design of the Monlam pin:

“…Ever since the human race first appeared on this earth, we have used this earth heavily. It is said that ninety-nine percent of the resources and so on in this world come from the natural environment. We are using the earth until she is used up. The earth has given us immeasurable benefit, but what have we done for the earth in return? We always ask for something from the earth, but never give her anything back. We never have loving or protective thoughts for the earth. Whenever trees or anything else emerge from the ground, we cut them down. If there is a bit of level earth, we fight over it. To this day we perpetuate a continuous cycle of war and conflict over it. In fact, we have not done much of anything for the earth.

Now the time has come when the earth is scowling at us; the time has come when the earth is giving up on us. The earth is about to treat us badly and give up on us. If she gives up on us, where can we live? There is talk of going to other planets that could support life, but only a few rich people could go. What would happen to all of us sentient beings who could not go? What should we do now that the situation has become so critical? The sentient beings living on the earth and the elements of the natural world need to join their hands together—the earth must not give up on sentient beings, and sentient beings must not give up on the earth. Each needs to grasp the other’s hand.”

Thrangu Rinpoche, who is Karmapa’s tutor, has also spoken about our environment and the elements:

“If the external world we live in does not thrive, how can that be good for the ‘internal’ beings who live in that world, its inhabitants? In the external world there are clearly problems…Those of us who are humankind have the responsibility to take care of this world we are in. We might say that it is the responsibility of governments. But whether governments will do anything or not is another question. It is something we all individually need to do something about…When we call this the degenerate age or the age of dregs, we mean this is a time when sentient beings are not easily satiated. They are not modest in their wishes. So they do a lot of business in order to benefit themselves. They make a lot of pollution to do business and gather wealth. They do not gather that wealth for the benefit of the whole of society, but for their own individual benefit. In doing so, they pollute the ground, the water and the air. It creates a problem for the whole world. It is all really due to our greed…We need to know what is happening to our world, what scientists have elucidated. When we know this, we can infer what we need to do, and what we actually can do….

What is happening today is that there is chaos in the elements. There are the four different elements of earth, water, fire and air, and these have now become unbalanced. Due to this imbalance, sometimes there is destruction because of floods and water, sometimes due to wind. Sometimes there is destruction through earthquakes and now there is also destruction happening through global warming. The temperatures are unbalanced—sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold. Because of this, what is happening now is that grand, resplendent snow mountains are melting. Hard, firm, beautiful glaciers are melting. When they melt and disappear, the rivers and lakes will become scarce, parched and dried out. We can actually see this happening. Disturbance in the four elements, snow mountains and glaciers all melting, the water all drying up – what harm do these lead to? Then all the forests of the ancients and trees of beauty will near their deaths. Forests are drying out, trees are dying. Beautiful, wonderful forests that you could explore are drying out, and coming to their deaths. There is now the danger that the whole world’s reaches will become a great wasteland without water supplies. In the entire world, we will not have anything beautiful or good, nor any way of supporting ourselves. There is a frightful, terrifying danger that this will happen. It is a basic truth that if something bad happens to the environment we live in, the inhabitants that live within it will also suffer great harm.” (Again, the italics are mine.)

Karmapa has also said, in a recent message to young people:

“…it is not impossible that in the future, we might face great and unbearable mental burdens and a sense of chaos…”.

Yes, we are being warned—and at the same time, encouraged to take action.

I went back to the spring near my house very early yesterday morning to make an offering to the naga. On the short drive to the spring, I saw a skunk scuttle across the road into an overgrown field. As I waded into the spring, the great heron that had been standing silently in the shallows flapped her large wings and flew off upriver. Something—a raccoon? an otter? a squirrel?—chattered away at me from the bank. As I drove away, I saw a doe move silently away from the road and into the woods.

For those moments, the environment and the elements seemed in balance. And while I’d love to bask in that feeling, I know that to do so—to turn away from what I know is happening around me—would simply be giving in to illusion, making believe all is right with the world when clearly, it is not.

There are many good articles about living in a world in which the elements are out of whack, and encouragement about what we can do, at the Ecobuddhism web site. Karmapa, who is in the United States visiting as I write this, has his own environmental web site as well.

OM AH HUNG BENZA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG!

The Nagas and the Elements (Part 1)

Today was a naga day—a day in which those snakelike “unseen beings associated with water and fluid energy” are said to be especially active and receptive to offerings—so I rose with the sun to make the short drive to my local spring to make an offering to the naga who may live there. The springs are busy all day long in the summer, especially on weekends once the local schools are no longer in session, and I’ve come to value whatever privacy I can get on those rare days—usually only a couple of times a month—when the calendar says the naga might accept my offering. So it’s best for me to go very early in the day, even though I’m not normally an early riser.

It was the Buddhist teacher Khenpo Ugyen Tenzin who first hinted there might be a naga at my neighborhood spring. Khenpo was staying at our house on his first visit to our area, and at dinner one night at a Thai restaurant, one of the folks visiting for Khenpo’s teaching mentioned to me that Khenpo “worked with the nagas.” I was immediately fascinated; the ideas of unseen worlds, magical and mysterious beings, psychic phenomena, and occult goings-on have always strongly magnetized me. So I asked Khenpo about the nagas, but I either asked at a bad time or we were hampered by his beginner’s skills in English and my total lack of skill in Tibetan.

But driving Khenpo into town for Sunday’s teaching on that weekend several years ago, I made a spontaneous decision to show him our local spring. Poor Khenpo! I imagine he must have felt as if he were being kidnapped, but luckily the spring isn’t that far off the main road and I calculated that we had just enough time to visit it without being late to the teaching.

We got out of the car and walked the short length of sidewalk along the river up to the spring, which wasn’t visible until we got right next to it. It was early on a spring morning, and we were lucky. There were a couple of people taking pictures, walking around the horseshoe-shaped limestone shelf that embraced the spring, but there was no one in the water so the spring boil was clearly visible as it bubbled up from the turquoise depths.

Khenpo and I stood in silence and watched the sparkling water until I realized our time was up. “We’d better go,” I said, and we turned back toward the car.

“This is a really unusual place,” Khenpo said after we had turned away from the spring. “Thank you for bringing me to see it.”

“Do you think there might be a naga here?” I asked him.

A tiny proto-smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I think maybe so,” was all he said.

Some miles down the road, after we’d left the spring far behind, Khenpo looked at me and again said, “That was a very unusual place. Thank you for taking me to see it.”

I had an interview with Khenpo later that day, in the afternoon. “Khenpo,” I began, “this morning I took you to see the spring near where I live. Our springs are threatened now by so many things—they’re being polluted, and people want to pump water out of our rivers and put it in bottles and take it away to be sold. Would you please pray that our springs and rivers will be protected?”

Khenpo thought for a minute. “Don’t you think,” he asked, “that other people may have need of that water?”

Then it was my turn to think for a minute, and of course I remembered how we all needed bottled water, even here where water was plentiful, when the tropical storms came through and knocked out our power so the pumps on our wells wouldn’t work.

“Yes,” I answered, “I understand that. But I also know that if all our water gets taken away, there will be nothing left to support the people and animals and fish who depend on the water we have now.”

“I will pray, then,” Khenpo said, “for an auspicious balance.” I understood his answer to mean that yes, there would come a time when we would have to surrender some of our water for a greater good—the benefit of other sentient beings. With global warming now melting the glaciers and ice caps in Khenpo’s Himalayan homeland, that time may not be far off. Himalayan ice is the source of many of Asia’s great rivers, and when the ice is gone, there will be millions of people left in a region with practically no fresh water.

Khenpo’s visit inspired me to do some reading about nagas, which are really fascinating creatures. Often depicted in Asian art as part snake, part human, they are sometimes the guardians of the treasure texts hidden by the 8th-century Tibetan sages Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) and his consort and principal disciple, Yeshe Tsogyal, for discovery in later eras when those texts will be especially beneficial. And nagas are strongly associated with bodies of water, especially springs, as well as great and magical trees.

It turns out that Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists all share the idea of nagas. As my friend Khandro relates on her web site, “In the language of Kashmir, the word for ‘a spring’ is naga…A large number of temples were built near springs and were dedicated to the worship of nagas…Most probably, treating springs and rivers with great reverence wittingly or unwittingly resulted in the ecological balance necessary for a healthy and natural interaction between the environment and man."

I love this idea of temples being built near springs, and treating springs and rivers with great reverence. I’d love it if every spring in Florida had its own temple, even a small one, because the temple would reinforce the sacredness of those spots where pure, cleansing water rises, unbidden, from the unseen depths. Our springs are magical, numinous places, and little temples might make people stop and think before they vandalize the areas around the springs, dump things like tires and railroad ties into the water, or forget to pack out their trash when they leave after a day of swimming.

I wonder how much our whole world would change if we treated all of our great natural features with reverence—and if we wouldn’t be better off for doing so.

(to be continued)

The picture above was taken at Ichetucknee Springs. Can you see the face of the naga? J

Adventures in Academia: High Weirdness With Computers and a Letter

The spring sunlight brightened the world outside my office window with a promise of even warmer days to come. Here, from the third-floor aerie of the college’s graphic design teaching program, I could see the bright neon glow of new green leaves and the ebb and flow of human tides as classes began and ended and began again.

Like the seasons, the activities of the college followed a regular pattern, and the arrival of springtime meant that we were nearing the end of our annual budget cycle. That cycle had begun last July, when we got word of how much money our department would have for the next 12 months. When that money actually reached us in August, we started buying things we needed for fall and spring semesters—office supplies, new planning books for the faculty, printer paper, markers and chalk and erasers for our classrooms, which were prominently featured in our marketing materials: “You will learn the newest techniques of graphic design working with state-of-the-art computers and the latest software.”

What we couldn’t afford, though, were those state-of-the-art computers and latest software. Money for those items had been held hostage for several years by our legislators, who refused to believe that any form of stable funding for education—especially for community colleges—could possibly benefit our state’s citizens.

But that spring, we had actually received some encouragement. After several years of ongoing discussions, the college’s administrators had agreed to let us use the lab fees they charged for classroom materials to purchase brand-new computers and software for our classrooms! And though we all thought this sounded like a no-brainer, the decision had taken three years; such was the pace of decision making in academia.

With frustration now replaced by boundless delight, we decided to share this good news with our students and Kitty, my boss, asked me to draft a letter to them. The letter would be especially important for students coming back in fall term, since the college was planning to raise lab fees considerably. We didn’t want a student revolution on our hands as Kitty surrendered steerage of our department to its new coordinator, Cabana Boy.

So I sat at my computer, drafting the letter and looking out over campus as the landscape began to flower and youthful hormones began to surge. I had been reading a lot in my spare time about earth religions, the pagan calendar, and the various rituals for reawakening that were appropriate for springtime. Drafting a happy letter to students fit right in! And while this job didn’t always use my highest skills and I sometimes copped a ho-hum attitude as the college moved through its annual cycle, I realized that I was basically content here. My co-workers were creative, lively, and liked to laugh, and there was a steady paycheck twice a month.

Life was good.

I finished the letter. Kitty liked my draft, tweaked the letter in a couple of places, and signed it. I made copies, and we gave the letter out to students as we approached finals week.

Spring warmed into early summer; June gave way to July and the new fiscal year. Cabana Boy took over from Kitty as coordinator, and our good humor carried us through the transition. Some of our students graduated and took jobs; others moved on to four-year colleges. We registered our returning students for fall term with no audible complaints about the increase in lab fees.

We started planning our computer and software purchases, and submitted the required paperwork to Dr. Doubledud, our division director, who was widely regarded as being one of those public employees who was retired on active duty. We’d done our jobs, though, and then some—bowing and scraping as our department hosted a seeming throng of new college trustees, dragged through as part of a tour of the college’s showcase programs—so we settled happily into our summer routine.

Life continued to be good, until our purchasing paperwork fell into a black hole that seemed deeper and blacker the longer the summer went on. When Dr. Doubledud returned from the World’s Longest Vacation, Cabana Boy was lucky enough one day to reach him by phone to get a progress report.

Hmmmm. It seemed that we’d had the mother of all misunderstandings. Cabana Boy was assured, via Dr. Doubledud, that the college never had any intention of using lab fees in those programs where those fees were actually collected. Would we get new computers this year? Nope. New software? Nope.

Now, at this point, here is what a good bureaucrat would have done: Nothing. And here is what a good bureaucrat would have said: Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And so here is where the story would have ended.

Except that I had never been that good bureaucrat, and anger rose up within me like a lion because that letter Kitty signed, that went out to students—that letter that I drafted—that letter, from back in spring term when the earth was turning and the world was greening and we were basking in a garden of delight—that letter was now a lie.

A lie told, unwittingly, by Kitty, who was right up there at the top of my list of favorite and best supervisors ever. Favorite, because we had similar interests and enjoyed giggles and good conversation about things that were totally unrelated to our jobs. Best, because she was smart, organized, honest, trustworthy, and knew how to give direction without micromanaging. Any one of these traits would have been enough to set her head and shoulders above most supervisors, but she had them all—in droves. And it’s because of her honesty that I had that lion anger about her letter’s being made out to be a lie—because she didn’t lie.

So what I thought of as my Artemis energy—that energy that protects animals, children, those weaker and more helpless than those predators who prey on them—started to kick in. And when Artemis kicks in, look out.

Cabana Boy and Kitty were both thrown for a loop by Dr. Doubledud’s assertions, because they had both been in the meetings in which the lab fee and computer purchase issues were discussed, and they both had heard the same assurances: Lab fees would stay in the departments where they were collected and would be used to purchase materials that were needed for those departments.

It turned out that Cabana Boy wasn’t the best bureaucrat in the world, either. He made some phone calls on the sly to other administrators who were in those same meetings—something he should have cleared with Dr. Doubledud first, because administrators always liked for their underlings to “go through channels”—and was told no, those things he had thought that he actually heard were never actually said.

We realized that perhaps something involving the college’s finances had changed dramatically, something that we didn’t know about—something that would mean the college desperately needed to use those lab fees somewhere else, at least for this year—but none of us could figure out why, if that were the case, the administrators would feel they should lie about it.

Kitty finally accepted the situation but Cabana Boy and I remained flummoxed, certain that there was something more we could or should do, but not sure what that something was.

Then I remembered: The college’s president, Dr. Tumbleweed—for whom I had once written speeches—had what he called an open-door policy, and frequently made himself accessible to students, staff, and faculty by plopping down in various well-announced places on campus for an hour or so, to take questions and comments from anyone and everyone who showed up.

Surely, I thought, if he knew about this situation, he could do something to fix it. He could work some magic, and Kitty would no longer be made out to be a liar to our students. All we wanted, really, were some new computers and new software. All our marketing materials said we had them! We were a showcase department for the college! Why should we have to beg?

I was not above begging, though—or communicating with the college’s president—if either would get us the equipment our students needed. I decided to write a letter because I was the only support staff person, and if I left my desk to meet with Dr. Tumbleweed we would have to close the office.

“Dear Dr. Tumbleweed,” I typed, “I could very easily title this letter, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’” It was one of his favorite phrases, so I figured it would buy me some absolution for what I was about to say: “Our administrators have just made my former supervisor out to be a liar.” And I explained the whole situation, in as much detail as would fit on one page—how neither Kitty nor Cabana Boy were in the habit of hearing things that weren’t said, how we could all understand if something in the college’s budget had changed and in that case, we would all like to hear what that was and why the funds we had been assured we would get were not actually coming to us. Most of all, I stressed that our students were expecting to be trained on the latest hardware and software, and that wasn’t happening.

I marked the letter “CONFIDENTIAL,” sent it through campus mail, and waited.

Weeks went by, and we began fall term with old computers and old software. One day, we had a call from Ruby, Dr. Doubledud’s administrative assistant. Dr. Doubledud wanted a meeting with Kitty and Cabana Boy.

I got a really knotty feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I got when I had a strong psychic flash that turned out to be right; it was not a pleasant sensation.

“You don’t think this could be about my letter to Dr. Tumbleweed, do you?” I asked both Cabana Boy and Kitty. They doubted it, but I felt no relief.

I have found out, over time, that my stomach does not lie in cases like this. Kitty and Cabana Boy returned from the meeting with long faces. I sensed instantly that something had gone terribly wrong.

“What is it?” I asked. My voice was almost shaking.

“It was about you,” they told me, “and the letter you wrote. Dr. Tumbleweed wanted us to fire you. We said no.”

Kitty and Cabana Boy explained to Dr. Doubledud that they had read the letter before I sent it, that they agreed with what I had said, that there was absolutely no difference between my writing a letter when I could have walked up to Dr. Tumbleweed at an open office hour and said exactly the same things I said in the letter, and furthermore, the letter had been marked CONFIDENTIAL so how was it that Dr. Doubledud now knew about it?

When they refused to fire me, Dr. Doubledud hit them with another gem: They had to give assurances that they would tell me that I was never, ever to communicate with Dr. Tumbleweed again.

“Why would she?” Cabana Boy asked. “She marked her letter confidential, and he’s now violated that confidentiality. You can be sure she’ll never communicate with him again.”

No, I thought, I certainly never would. I was rendered speechless by their support, and bewildered by this crazy turn of events. Dr. Tumbleweed was, after all, not a stranger; I had worked directly for him for a time, and we had, I thought, gotten along fairly well.

That night when I got home, I asked my husband, “What kind of organization is it that tries to silence its employees?”

He thought for a while, but not long.

“Fascist,” he replied.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, during World War II, described the domination of the government by corporate power as “the essence of fascism.” Benito Mussolini said that fascism should be called corporatism because it is essentially the merger of state and corporate power. Essential to fascism’s success, it seems to me, is a population that is afraid to speak out, to challenge those people who use power in ways that harm other people and harm the planet. A silent citizenry is a doomed citizenry.

“Adventures in Academia” is a chapter from “Failed Bureaucrat,” a work in progress.