Deja Vu

Six and a half years since I have last been in Dharamsala, and seemingly, a small lifetime. It is a strange thing, to return to a place that was never quite familiar to begin with. Memories come back to me in flashes, moments, with passing scents. I look through the curtained window of a small cafe ... and I have been there before. But with whom? What did we talk about, so many years ago? It is as if I encounter myself in a memory, in a dream. I was so young then, so fully vital and so alive.

I am by myself now, and still quite young. In the early afternoon I walk out of McLeod Ganj along the Bagsu road. I remember a waterfall somewhere, and I want to find it again. Along the deserted road there is a small cafe with stone steps leading down to a small house. I remember that house, suddenly. It was the temporary house of a man called Gary, a crazy American who eventually left India to become an astronaut. Gary was a man of wild and ridiculous theories, and if he saw you from a restaurant walking down the street, he would run out shouting to you about his lastest idea.

One thing he always complained about was the intrusion of artificial light in the night sky of the Himalayas. He argued that all artifical outdoor lighting should be replaced with red light bulbs, as it wasn't perceptible from space and didn't give the sky a purplish haze. Red light also has the added benefit, he said, of turning people on. So in addition to quelling the problem of light pollution, people would also become more sexually inclined in general. And how much violent conflict in the world might be averted, argued Gary, if people spent their nights making love and not war?

He used to travel with this enormous telescope. He was a friend of my flatmate in Kathmandu, who told me he might be stopping by one day. The first time I met him, he was standing alone in my flat, all six and a half feet of him, wearing nothing but a sarong, looking into people's windows with his telescope in the middle of the afternoon. It's to see the stupa better, he reasoned, after introducing himself. I was in love with his best friend, and together we all had a few adventures in Nepal and northern India. I wonder what has become of him.

I climb a shale path up through Bagsu and I eventually find the waterfall cafe - just a tin shack with a tarpaulin roof serving chai, in the middle of nowhere. I come upon a bend in the road, and a wilted rhododendron tree, and my mind flashes back again.

There was a field of yellow mustard flowers, once upon a time, very near to here. On the roof of Gary's house I met two Swedish girls who taught me how to knit. One sunny day, I took my yarn out to this mustard field, when the rhododendron trees were in full bloom. There was in Indian woman there, picking rhododendron blooms and gathering them in her enormous shawl. She smiled at me, laughed at my knitting and sat next to me to pluck the blooms and collect the petals. She spoke to me in Hindi, and I tried my best to communicate in broken Nepali. Chutney, she said, I am making chutney. In response to my disbelief, she shoved a handful of flowers into her mouth, and gestured for me to do the same. Which I did. So we sat there together, plucking petals and eating them.

She invited me back to her home for dal bhaat, and after lunch she began sewing and gestured for me to continue my knitting as I sat there on the dirt floor. I said goodbye after an hour or so, and as I left she gave me her beaded necklace. These are the things I remember.

The Second Sex

Walking through the narrow streets here, I enter unconsciously into the mandala of Indian gender paradigms. My awareness of my sex and my skin colour becomes heightened, acute.

Traveling alone as a woman in India - or anywhere, for that matter - is not so simple. In Indian culture, it is not at all common for a woman to be independent - it is rather an anomaly, a reason for suspicion, an outward curiosity. She is always connected to a man, whether her father, brother, husband or son. The only women outside of this are orphans, prostitutes and widows. To be a westernized woman alone in India is to inhabit a sterotype: moneyed, capricious, loose and sexualized - and, above all, powerful.

The discrepancy between the sociocultural standing of the Indian female, and the iconographical and religious symbolism of the divine female within Indian culture is vast and multivalent. It is, of course, the main topic of feminist criticism in Asian Religions 101 in universities across the world - and yet, it does necessitate a certain criticism. Particularly when one is both subject and object of the discussion.

Within the Hindu pantheon, much like the Greek and Roman pantheon, a male deity is incomplete without his female counterpart, his shakti. Shakti is a word with a remarkable semantic range - it means something like vitality, empowerment, revitalization. It represents the balancing of male-female energy, and also of the cosmic and natural order. On the mundane level, Indian breakfast cereals advertise that their product has added shakti - strength, vitamins, caloric power, nourishment in the deepest sense of the word. In the Hindu esoteric tradition, this quality of nourishment and balance is the quintessential aspect of the divine female.

Which is not to say that the role of the goddess is relegated merely to masculine empowerment. The Hindu goddess runs the complete emotional spectrum, just as her male counterpart: from peaceful and maternal, to wrathful and destructive. Sita, Radha, Tara and Saraswati are each invoked every day in Hindu culture for their symbolic relationships to art, music, poetry, harmony, life-giving, erotic love and mothering qualities. They represent the Great Mother, the dual principle of the two Marys in the Catholic tradition - mother and lover, virgin and courtesan.

The wrathful goddesses - Kali, Durga, Vajrayogini - are revered and propagated for the raw female power that they wield and possess. Iconographically, they are depicted naked, hair loose and flowing, tongue extended, menstruating openly, bearing weapons and riding feral animals. She is the woman of Dionysian orgies, only she is in complete control of her faculties and her shakti.

Hindu esoteric philosophy is somewhat Manichaean in its invocation of the union of opposites to create balance and harmony in the natural world and cosmos. The two most primary symbols of diametric opposition throughout the Hindu world are the lingam and the yoni - the divine phallus and its sacred vaginal inversion. The yoni statues are often enclosed and protected within public sanctuaries, but the ancient phalluses are everywhere. I have actually bumped into them while walking through crowded streets in the old city in Kathmandu - this is how commonplace and prevalent they are.

And yet, the power of the Indian woman has been secreted away, despite the blatant paradox. In the midst of however many thousands of years of history, this paradox is intensified by the arrival and presence of the westernized woman. In South India, I feel forced to conform - I won't touch men in public or make eye contact, I wear loose clothing and long shawls, and tie back my unruly curls. The men are much more aggresive, particularly in cities. The aggression takes a peculiar form - it is not sexual aggression, such as in Parisian parks (where it is the worst I have ever experienced, anywhere in the world), but rather some sort of perverse need to devalue westernized women as symbols of power. This is done not through violence, but through a sort of victimization. A casual brush of the ass or the breast, standing too close, leering. The only way to subvert this paradigm of power, for the Indian man who engages in this, is to demean the woman through psychological cruelty and physical intimidation.

In the north, however, it is much more liberal, and I am more comfortable here. The Tibetans are remarkably hip and unfettered by Indian conservativism, so it is quite easily to inhabit one's skin. I slide into my perfectly cut designer jeans, I wear my hair loose, I show my shoulders and my curves unapologetically. The Kashmiri men, with their black curls, strong Aryan features and startling green eyes nod approvingly - which, I must admit, is devilishly flattering in a world where sexuality is suspect and woman the culprit.

Darjeeling to Dharamsala: the unabridged version

(photo from left: HH Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje XVII and Tsurphu Labrang General Secretary Ven. Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche)

I don't think that a day has ever been as beautiful as this day in McLeod Ganj. But, I move too far ahead.

FRIDAY

Friday morning I left a rainy Darjeeling far behind me. I was longing for fresh air, for the rain to let up, to feel the sun on my shoulders. A friend needed to go down to Siliguri, in the direction of the airport, so we took a shared jeep together down the mountain and into the plains of Bengal. It is a semi-tropical region once out of the mist and hills, and my friend and I looked at each other and shared the same thought: just like southen Thailand, except rather than durian forests and banana trees, tea estates lined the narrow dirt roads.

At Siliguri, Carine and I said goodbye, and I piled my things into an auto rickshaw - my favourite transport in Asia - and we trundled out to Bagdogra airport to catch my flight into New Delhi.

Delhi is hot in June. My general rule is: nowhere south of Delhi after March - period. And yet, the passage to Himachal Pradesh runs through Delhi, and I needed to connect with the Shambhala delegation. Uneventful enough. I watched the World Cup and drank salted lime soda in our air conditioned suite, and woke before dawn for the bus to Dharamsala.

SATURDAY

The trip from Majnu ka Tilla to Dharamsala, although only 436 km, takes about 12 hours if the going is easy. Yet in India, the going is rarely easy. Rather, extraordinarily complicated would be an adjective that comes to mind.

Yet I was quite impressed with the highway in Uttar Pradesh. I have done the journey before, six years ago - once by night train and codeine, and back again by night bus and quite in love. Neither time could I describe the roads, or the journey.

Four hours after leaving Majnu ka Tilla (the Tibetan section of northern Delhi), still in UP, traffic on all four lanes of the highway came to a complete stop. Completely. Fortunately, our bus was air-conditioned, but the 108 degree heat crept in through the door nonetheless. Two hours passed at an utter standstill before news drifted in that some villagers ahead were staging a protest because the electric in their village had been cut. Something like that. Eventually, the protests was quelled and we started onwards once again.

Although the speed limit on the highways is 65 kph, I would say that the average speed is more like 30 kph, at a good clip. The buses compete for lane space with motorcycles, small cars, burro-drawn carts, bicycles, auto rickshaws, and these brilliant vehicles I am at a loss to explain: the front looks something like a rickety tractor or an extended sitting lawn mower, while the back is a flatbed truck of sorts. The ridiculous bit is that what the Indians pile onto these flatbeds - namely, the largest sacks of grass or grain that have ever existed on the face of the earth. The size and depth of a small swimming pool, covered in burlap and twine. The engines pour blackest diesel smoke into the air, four or five Indians pile onto the two-seat open hood, and it moves along the highway at about 5 kph. Brilliant.

India is a land of superlatives. I have smelled here the most beautiful and sensuous smells in the world - nightblooming jasmine in hot summer valleys; the spice, perfume and incense markets in the gullies of Varanasi - and also the most miserable, putrid and rank smells in the world. Sights that make one cry tears of gorgeousness - the sunrise over the Ganges River, the first glimpse of the Himalayas in their snowyheaded immensity - and others that can make a strong man sick to his stomach in two seconds flat. These, I will not recount. Not today.

India is a land of paradoxes. The beautiful and the wretched, the righteous and the insane, the beggar and the businessman, the modern and the ancient all pass before ones eyes at every corner, at every moment. Everything coexists here, one way or another ...

But, back to the open road.

Uttar Pradesh stretches north from Delhi, up through the plains of the Punjab. Crossing over state lines, one begins to understand the nature of boundaries. There are natural and obvious boundaries in the world, such as crossing from the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont into the flatlands of Quebec - and there are manmade and imposed boundaries, such as between Limousin and Le Dordogne. But the boundaries between Indian states are often subtle. The landscape begins to change slowly, and people's clothing, religion and ethnic identity change with it. In the Punjab, palm trees emerge from the dry soil, not yet wetted by the monsoon. Punjabi men in their brightly coloured turbans line the roads, fill the shops, ride on motorbikes. I wonder if the different colours represent anything, or if they are as capricious as I felt then, despite the stifling heat.

I listen to music as I travel. During that stretch of highway, I listened to Israeli music that reminds me of a friend, and I tried to imagine the meaning of the words through the melodies and the emotions in the voices of the singers. I think that they are mostly about women, about being in love. Love and loss, men and women, and the moments in between. Such is the nature of the human spirit. What else to sing about?

Entering Himachal Pradesh, the landscape changes dramatically. The highway ends, and the county roads wind their way through the smaller mountains, giving way to the larger mountains ahead. Night begins to fall, the speed drops to perhaps 20 kph to hug the mountain curves. At this point, after twelve hours, with five more to go, I fall asleep. At midnight we have arrived, far behind schedule. The Kangra Valley stretches out in its vastness under the Himalayan stars.

SUNDAY

I wake up disoriented, and Peter Volz is knocking on my door.

"Are you awake?" he shouts. "They're picking us up in forty-five minutes, and breakfast is being served downstairs."

I jump up and acknowledge him somehow, and drag myself into the shower. I forget to ask where we are going, who is picking us up, and why. In India, one often learns to surrender these things.

Over toast and coffee, I am told that we have an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama - an audience for the foreign representatives of the Karma Kagyu lineage who have come to celebrate the 21st birthday of His Holiness the Karmapa. We pile into a jeep, perfumed and dressed, and drive into McLeod Ganj to the Tsuglakhang, the temple and residence of the Dalai Lama. Inside the courtyard, there are Taiwanese by the hundreds. Easy enough then, to spot my delegation in their suits and Vajradhatu pins.

The audience takes place in an open hall, about 300 of us seated quietly on floor cushions waiting for the arrival of HHDL. When he does, he gives us his smile beatific, and actually sits on the floor with us, rather than assume his seat on the customary raised dais. He spoke for 35 minutes, and at first there was only a Chinese language intepreter. It was difficult for me to hear, even though we were seated only 5 or 6 metres away, as he was not using a microphone and was facing the interpreter. When I could hear him, he spoke about the importance of developing wisdom and certainty in the Buddhist philosophical system, rather than relying upon faith. The Buddha is not a god, he said, and merely believing in him is not enough to travel this path. Rather, a practitioner must dedicate himself to studying and understanding the Buddhist teachings, and then implement the insight gained into one's daily life.

We returned to our guesthouse in Lower Dharamsala, to rest for the evening. From my balcony, I was surrounded on one side by green mountains shooting into Himalayan blue, grey jagged cliffs with snow covered tops emerging from behind. The rice paddies and terraced red earth of the Kangra spread out in an arc across the valley, blurring into the horizon. We were exhausted.

At 8 o'clock that evening, however, we receive a frenzied call from Drupon Rinpoche, General Secretary of the Tsurphu Labrang, and brother to Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, who had being trying to reach us all afternoon - he wanted to receive us that evening at Gyuto Monastery for dinner. Gyuto Tantric College is a Geluk monastery, and has served as the seat of the Karmapa in exile since his escape from Tibet in January 2000.

At Gyuto, the preparations for the birthday celebration was still underway, late into the evening. We were ushered into a sitting room, and Drupon Rinpoche joined us. We were anticipating some sort of debrief, but it seems it was only a welcoming meeting, to honour our arrival and lineage connection. The Tsurphu Labrang sponsored our entire stay and travel in Dharamsala, and has shown us immense respect. It has been tremendously moving.

MONDAY

We arrive at Gyuto early on the day of HH Karmapa's birthday celebration. There were at least 2000 people there, from all over the world. As guests of the Labrang, we joined the smaller group of foreign delegates inside the main hall, while four times as many were scattered outside of the building, down the steps, and out into the courtyard.

The ceremony opened with a long recitation of the Buddhist Sutra 'Phags pa dKun mChog gSum rJes su Pa'i mDo, which I was able to join in. His Holiness Karmapa entered, radiant and serious as the sun. The sutra paused, and a long series of speeches began in honor of HH. Peter spoke on behalf of the Sakyong and the Shambhala International sangha. I was so proud in that moment, to be there, to represent the Vidyadhara and Mipham Rinpoche.

The ceremony concluded in the early afternoon. Tenga Rinpoche was in attendance, and our small group crowded into a stairwell for an audience with him. I translated as he spoke, and although quite elderly and obviously in poor health, Rinpoche glowed with enthusiasm. He told us how happy he was to meet again with member of the Shambhala sangha. Tenga Rinpoche has played a huge role in our community, giving the first Chakrasamvara abhisheka, oral transmission and practice instructions at the request of VCTR in the early 1970's. He has also been completely instrumental in the construction of the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, and is one of the last great living ritual masters in the Tibetan Buddhist world. He brought tears to my eyes.

TUESDAY

We arrive early once again at Gyuto, this time in anticipation of a private audience with His Holiness Karmapa. After waiting for several hours, the Taiwanese milling about ten people deep, Drupon Rinpoche brought us up about nine hundred flights of steps into HH's receiving room. And suddenly, we were ushered into a small sunlit room, and the Karmapa stood there in front of us, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He smiled, and we sat down together.

Our audience was brief, and Peter took his seat as the Foreign Minister of Shambhala. Christoph Klonk was there as HH's intepreter, and so I remained quiet as Peter passed on our international invitation for him to join us in the West as soon as he was able.

And somehow, I was unable to speak. Physically unable. After the audience, one of HH's attendants came up to me and asked me why I didn't speak to him. Of course I know now what I would have said, but the expanse was too vast in those few moments. I am going to return this week, and every week after, to see if I can't try again.

En Route

Tomorrow I fly from Darjeeling to Delhi to connect with the Shambhala Delegation. We will leave Delhi early Saturday morning en route to McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala ...

Sangha Announce

A copy of the SNS announcement that was sent to the Shambhala Community this week. My first PR as an interpreter ...

20 Jun 2006 - Shambhala delegation to attend birthday celebration for 17th Gyalwang Karmapa

A Shambhala delegation will visit Dharamsala, India, to join celebrations marking the twenty-first birthday of His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Thinley Orgyen Tinley Dorje. The birthday celebrations will take place 26 and 27 June.

The Shambhala delegation, being sent with the blessings of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, is headed by Mr Peter Volz, head of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs. The delegation includes Derek Kolleeny of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs; Clarke Warren, director of Naropa University's study abroad program in Sikkim and his Tibetan wife, Penpa; Frank Stelzel, of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs in Europe and his wife Kathrin Stelzel, of the Upaya program in Europe; and Jacqueline Dennis, a Shambhala member who will serve as the delegation's interpreter.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche led a Shambhala delegation to meet His Holiness in September 2004. At that time Rinpoche presented gifts to the Karmapa that included a bone relic from the cremation of his father, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Musing at the Bazaar: Alone in India (updated)

India fascinates me. I begin to realize how little of this country I have actually penetrated. On my previous trip, most of my time was spent between Tibetan settlements. At this point, having the comfort of the language, it is quite easy for me to live among the Tibetans. I know the food, I have a basic idea of cultural faux pas - if not the culture itself, I understand the religious tradition and the cultural history. I am accepted, by and large, because I speak the language and have sense of humour. I move through these enclaves with ease.

And yet, for me, India is not like this. I have to struggle with English, and even the most simple Hindi eludes me. I think that from today, however, I will try.

Travelers to this crazy place often speak of feeling immediately at home in this environment, in the wildness that comprises this country - alternating between chaos and natural order. I'm not quite sure if I feel at home here, but it is for me infinitely simple to adapt to this way of life once again. To wander the streets alone, to stare vividly and without regret, to wrap my shawl around my shoulders, to smile at the women and avoid the men, to buy mangoes at little stalls and chai on the streets. I'm not sure if I feel at home anywhere anymore, to be quite honest. I've been moving around for too long. I have many little homes in many places, but they are all fleeting.

I spent this afternoon in fabric shops, looking for the perfect fabric to have a few dresses made for the festivities in Himalchal Pradesh. The fabric stores are brilliant in design. Long and narrow, one side of it is comprised of a wide, low bed, upon which several barefoot Indian men sit. Behind them are stacked endless tightly rolled bundles of every colour and fabric imaginable. You enter, you tell them what you need, and they proceed to bring out bolts by the hundreds. The unravel them and throw the fabric over your shoulder. Good colour, madame! they yell. Best colour! Pure cotton! I yell in reply.

I end up with four and a half metres of something called swiss cotton, which doesn't particularly feel like cotton at all. It is quite beautiful, the colour of the lips of a seashell. And now to find the tailor. I asked a friend a few days ago to suggest a Tibetan tailor, and the directions she gave were somewhat like this: head down market, and when you pass the albino with the stall on the left, there is a little shortcut that bends around to the right. Go down the stairs, and the tailor is in an unmarked building on the left somewhere. Just ask.

Which is what I did. The gift of language works miracles. Heading down market, I asked a Tibetan woman if she knew of a tailor that lived nearby. She grabbed a little boy by the back of the neck who was going in that direction, and told him to bring me there. He swung around a building and took me around the side, through an alley and into someone's courtyard. Another Tibetan woman, the dressmaker, appeared, and ushered me into her workshop. Within five minutes, my measurements were taken, the fabric scrutinized, and myself sent off back up the hill with a promise to return within a week. Quite simple.

A Weekend in Sikkim

We left Thursday afternoon for Pelling, a small town in Sikkim. The plan was to spend a few days faraway from the city before heading to Rumtek Monastery for the Buddhist holiday of Vesak, the commemoration of the birth, death and enlightenment of the historical Buddha.

I was told that it was a simple process to obtain a Sikkimese visa on the border, rather than spending an afternoon running around Darjeeling to do the same. Only on the road to Pelling did I remember that we would cross a different border due to our route. But what could possibly happen, I thought. Surely they couldn't stop the jeep, refuse us entry, and send us back to Bengal.

Which of course, they did. The border guard was slightly evil, and could not be convinced in the least to allow us through. He even laughed at us. Before we were done arguing, I noticed the driver unloading our bags and leaving them in the dirt. He went onto Pelling without us, and we were left to wait on the border for another jeep with empty seats heading back to Darjeeling.

The weather changed dramatically between the city and the Sikkimese border. Immediately it was hot and humid, and the bastard border patrol didn't even offer us tea. We waited perhaps an hour, watching several jeeps come barreling past, filled to the brim with Indians. Finally, we were able to catch a ride several hours back through the mountains into rainy Darjeeling, and started all over again the following day. Such is Indian bureacracy. The ridiculous bit is that the Sikkimese visa is free - however, foreigners are only allowed to stay a fortnight in the state, thus the headache registry.

On Friday morning we left again for Sikkim, this time on the road to Gangtok. It is a five hour jeep ride down through the mountains of Bengal, winding through the Teesta River Valley, and up again into the hills. It is quite beautiful. Sikkim is a lush, jungly sort of place. Orchids grow wild amid the lowhanging branches, although we missed the season by a few weeks. There were still a few gorgeous survivors, however, varieties I had never seen before.

One night in Gangtok before heading to Rumtek. Gangtok is a dreary place, although we had a fantastic south Indian dinner and a television in our room to catch the opening game of the World Cup and few hours of Fashion TV. This region is quite literally the rainiest in the world, and yet it is simutaneously plagued with dreadful and crippling water shortages. Although it was raining when we arrived, there was no water in the guesthouse. I was happy to leave the next morning for Rumtek.

Twenty-six kilometers and an hour by jeep winding through to Rumtek. Out of the city completely, covered in bamboo and rhodedendron. Nothing but a few homes along the hill leading up to the monastery, a guesthouse or two, and a few restaurants down below. Perfect.

Rumtek Monastery is the seat of the Karmapa in exile, and was built as an exact replica of Tsurphu, the Tibetan seat of the Karmapa. For political reasons, the current Karmapa is unable to visit Rumtek, and remains in Dharamsala. Rumtek is a magnificent structure, stretching out amid the hills in many large buildings. This is where HH Karmapa XVI was cremated and enshrined in a reliquary, as per tradition, in 1981. I was very touched to pay my respects there. The cremation ceremony was attended by VCTR and a handful of Shambhala sangha members, and I was proud to visit with such a strong lineage connection behind me. Everyone I met asked after my lineage, and was very happy to welcome a student of VCTR and Mipham Rinpoche.

Apparently, the big celebration for Vesak was down in Gangtok on the Sunday we anticipated quite a show at Rumtek, but I was all too glad to stay out of the city and to wander around the monastery. We sat in on protector chants, joined a Vajrakilaya tsok, and watched the end of the reading of the entire Kanjur, in celebration of Vesak. We even got a few leeches in the surrounding hills. Mine didn't stick, but my friend was bleeding for hours. Nasty creatures, they are.

An Invitation to Dharamsala

I received an email from a friend this morning with an invitation to join the Shambhala Delegation in Dharamsala for the birthday celebration of His Holiness the Karmapa Lama (see photo, center), as the delegation interpreter. Needless to say, I am tremendously honoured and excited.

I will travel to Delhi at the end of the month to join the delegation, and from there we will travel together to McLeod Ganj, the Tibetan settlement above Dharamsala. Dharamsala is quite an extraordinary place. It is the seat of the Tibetan Exile Government, and home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, one of the northernmost states in India. It was a British hill station during the time of the Raj, a place where the British colonials would spend the rainy months out of the heat of the plains. Kipling spent time there, and wrote stories about it. The land was then given to the Tibetans by Nehru in 1959, during the Communist Invasion of Tibet. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into exile, and many moved to Dharamsala to be close to His Holiness.

I met Gyalwang Karmapa in February of 2000, upon my arrival in Dharamsala. At the age of fifteen, he made his dangerous escape out of Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet, where he was a virtual prisoner, and arrived in India only two weeks before I did. By some twist of fate, I was part of the first group of foreigners to receive an audience with him. Here is the link to his own description of his escape: http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.india.escape.html It is quite a story, if you are interested ...

That first audience with HH Karmapa, six and a half years ago in northern India, was the first moment that I knew in my heart that I would become a Buddhist and a Tibetan translator. Only a few months later, I returned to the US and became affiliated with the Shambhala Buddhist community at Karme Choling. The Shambhala connection was made for me when I learned that the founder of the Shambhala lineage was closely connected with the Karmapa's predecessor. Only one year ago, my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (www.mipham.org) met for the first time with HH Karmapa, reinitiating the historic bond between our communities.

Returning to Dharamsala as an interpreter and a representative of the Shambhala community continues a journey begun years ago, and under quite different circumstances. I am again reminded why I do what I do: for these moments precisely.

Lonely, madame?

Last night I was wrapped in my towel and chapals, about to step into the shower. There was a knock at the door - which quite suprised me, as I have yet to have any visitors.

"Yes?" I asked, tentatively. "Who is it?"

A small, heavily-accented voice whispered through the closed door. "Lonely, madame?"

"Pardon me?" I gasped. Was my guesthouse running a bloody male call service? Utter shock.

And again: "Lonely, madame?"

"No ... no, I'm not lonely, thank you ... " I replied, rather stoically.

And then I understood the accent. "Laundry, madame? Do you need anything washing? Laundry?"