Hear that flushing sound, like the one that used to be a regular gag on All in the Family? Well, that’s my travel karma. Not only did the opportunity to accompany my friend Susan to the Gobi dissolve into emptiness earlier this week – postponed to early May, p’raps – but, alas, there will be no Floki-totin’ trip to Kharkhorin and Erdene Zuu monastery this weekend either. In chatting with them, it became clear that in their frenzy to prepare for Monday’s Maitreya Festival, there was no way anyone would be able to adequately pay attention to the arrival of a new dawg. So we’re looking at sometime in the next couple weeks.
I’m optimistic, however. Last Saturday, Floki had her first real countryside adventure, a day trip out to Terelj National Park courtesy of Glenn Mullin. A group of us ventured out and Miss Floki had her first encounter with countryside dawgs, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and even camels, as well as their assorted, endlessly fascinating droppings. She kept her cool throughout, except for crawling into my lap with growls and barks when the bulls wandered in this close:
As Glenn observed, they may very well have been lured over because I was strolling among them clad in only a big red cape. He had a point. But the only real threat came from – can you guess? – that’s right, humans. One young man in a ger camp threw a stone at Floki, which nearly earned him a poke in the snoot from yours truly.
Anyway, I was thrilled to see that the Flokster was truly in her element out there and I feel comfortable now letting her go live a happy country life. I mean, look at her:
OK, on to other matters.
I’m very pleased to report that after an alarmingly difficult pregnancy, our printer Zana’s wife has brought a lovely little girl into the world and both are doing just fine. You might recall that the wife sponsored the printing of the Mongolian Shower of Blessings texts as a means to create good karma for the birth. Well, Zana, inspired by this, has made an offer of his own, also on behalf of his newborn, and issued a small challenge to all of you.
The objective of KPC’s Mongolian Buddhism Revival Project (MBRP) is to cooperate in the restoration here of the traditions of Padmasambhava, known in Tibet as the Nyingma tradition, and frequently referred to in Mongolia as the Ulaanii Shashiin, or Red Tradition. Central to this tradition is the practice of Guru Yoga. This is the means by which one purifies delusional habits of mind that obscure one’s indwelling enlightened, pure awareness nature. One accomplishes “yoga,” or inseparable union, with those qualities as represented by Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche.
One of the pithiest expressions of the practice of Guru Yoga is what’s known as the Vajra Seven Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche. This, what Jetsunma likes to call the “Queen of all Prayers,” when accompanied by visualization, forms one of the central enlightening methods at my temple. I can personally attest to its extraordinary power.
So, when we first arrived in Mongolia in 2005 – almost exactly two years ago, by the way – we lost no time in finding a lama who could translate the Seven Line Prayer into Mongolian and transliterate the Tibetan characters into Cyrillic for chanting. Putting it on the back of a lovely Guru Rinpoche image culled from a thangka in our Maryland prayer room, we printed 1000 for free distribution.
Well, now they’re all gone and people are clamoring for more. Thanks to Khatanbaatar’s masterful work on the Shower of Blessings practice, we have a new, wonderful translation of the prayer rendered in classical Mongol poetic form. The next batch of 1000 will also be printed in a larger format (about 4” x 5”) on sturdier, glossy card stock. This is the graphic file that’s ready to go:
Isn’t it gorgeous? Now, here’s the challenge. Zana surprised me this week with an offer to pony up nearly half the cost of printing these cards, if we can raise the rest. Since we’re only talking about $400 here, I think this will be a snap. I hope you feel moved to toss in a few shekels and share in this great merit. The easiest way is to make a secure (and tax-deductible for my American brethren!) online contribution here, making sure to type “Mongolia Project” in the comment box.
It’s here that I slip into my role as bhikkshu. This is the Sanskrit term for a fully ordained Buddhist monk, but that’s not its translation. It literally means “wandering spiritual mendicant,” or, more plainly, “beggar.” The original description for entering the monastic life under the Buddha was to “go forth from the household life into homelessness.” The whole gig was designed to undermine worldly attachments. Not only was it a case of “wherever he hung his robe was his home” (you’ll remember that from the smash hit “(Lama was a) Rolling Stone”), but a monk was restricted to a single meal before noon, consisting of whatever was placed in one’s bowl after a round of begging at local homes.
Such wandering spiritual asceticism was, and is, common in India and respectfully considered to be a courageous way of life. To provide alms to such seekers is seen as one of the main ways that householders store up good karma for future lives.
As Buddhism has evolved and spread, such practices have modified a bit, but I often find myself with a symbolic begging bowl in my hand. I try not to burden the DODR readership with this too often, but this is one of those times. It’s important that I stay here as the prime mover of this revival project. I hope you agree that we’ve been doing decent work so far.
So. Whatever you generous folks give over and above the $400 challenge will be added to the general MBRP kitty. This is quite timely, as I have my next 6-month chunk of rent due at the end of March. It’s not much – I’m not homeless, but my home is quite modest – but it ain’t nothin’ neither. Funds accrued beyond that make my Thailand beach vacation all our other work possible, and I'm truly grateful for any offering you might make.
There’s going to be an even more interesting way to help support the MBRP this summer; stay tuned, I’m going to detail that on Monday.
This is what my browser (Opera) tells me after clicking the Donation button:
What's the matter?
Posted by: Christian | March 23, 2007 at 08:07 AM
I ask because (1) some of my translations of Neruda's love poetry (from Spanish to French) have been published in spite of an editor who wanted more poetical vocabulary (it seems that many people have a wrong idea of what can be poetry); (2) I am always puzzled by Protestant Americans still using King James translation, which is not modern English, and are not using international measeure units, but this is another story:-). I mean, it sounds like latin at the time of Luther, no?
Could you give us an excerpt of the English translation? Whould you say that it is poetical or not? Does it matter?
I love translation, so pardon my inquiries...
Muslims, when asked for a translation of the Koran, often mention that "... but all the poetry is gone." And I think: "Why care a priori? Poetry is a plus, the plain meaning is the heart of it."
I did a painful re-translation of my book of preliminary practices (ngondro), from Tibetan to French (despite I don't know much of Tibetan, mostly some technical vocabulary), and I chose to use only French words (yes, I even avoided karma, samsara, dharma, lama, buddha etc.) and no poetical form at all. But the French vocabulary is not common at times and I don't hesitate to borrow sometimes to Christianity, despite some in my sangha oppose---they seem to have an issue with their previous religion. For example, I prefer "fault", "sin" and "repentance" over "negative act" and "regret".
After all, Buddhism is a religion, it is about life and death right now, not a personal-development-narcissistic trip.
Posted by: Christian | March 23, 2007 at 08:33 AM
Hi Christian -- I've heard about that once before from our site, and I don't get it. The online donation service we use really is secure. Please don't worry. We've never had a single problem in several years of using it.
AFA translation, we used the top translator who works full time at FPMT. His gift is to balance the meaning with understandability. Every Mongolian I showed it to prior to printing proclaimed it as "excellent" and said it was definitely superior to the one we had before.
This has been a problem with other Mongolian translators, though. Some are so single-mindedly dedicated to retaining archaic dharma terms, that I've heard their work described as "impenetrable."
Posted by: Konchog | March 23, 2007 at 09:18 AM
Just to inform you that i didn't have any problem making a donation. enjoy Thailand, eehm, sorry, Ulaabaatar. Hope to go this summer again (it was 1 1/2 years ago i was last in UB).
Posted by: Roeland | March 23, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Thank you, Roeland! Be sure to drop me a line when your UB plans firm up.
Posted by: Konchog | March 23, 2007 at 11:27 AM
I know I shouldn't have, but honest, it just slipped out before I could help it. That guy that threw the stone? I put a pox on him!
Posted by: marylee | March 23, 2007 at 02:58 PM
i didn't have any problems donating, either. and i'm doing it in the name of the guy who tossed the rock at floki. sounds lik he needs enlightenment
Posted by: minnie | March 23, 2007 at 10:42 PM
I am sure I can donate using the on-line form, but the message is clear: eavesdropping (by traffic analysis) on the connection is possible, so someone else can empty my bank account. And since it contains all my money, you can understand my paranoia, which is also supported by me teaching internet protocols in college this semester.
Maybe you guys use IE? Amazon has a server which implements HTTPS correctly, no problem.
Now, if you think eavesdropping is improbable, well, my ISP called me a few days ago implying that there could be such kind of attack on the hosts of their network and wanted me to help fix this by doing some on-line connections. Of course, I didn't trust the caller:-) (I checked later that it was indeed the ISP who called.)
More annoying: after that, I received an e-mail from KPC asking me to consider donating for some other project. I answered back, in order to be sure I didn't "donate" without my knowledge and, if so, how much. Somehow, my e-mail address was collected, so I am concerned that it was through the form... Anyway, technically it was a SPAM, which is uncool.
Posted by: Christian | March 24, 2007 at 12:51 AM
Hi Christian (and possibly others): My deep apologies. A little while ago, I sent a few names and email addresses of longtime DODR readers to our email database monk to input with the express proviso that they be filtered to receive only emails about the Mongolian Buddhism Revival Project. Apparently, you got folded into the general list as well. I've just sent instructions for all of you to be struck from the general list, but retained on the MBRP list. This will amount to maybe 8 emails a year, most of them an e-newsletter. If you'd rather not receive that, please email me privately and I'll make sure you're unsubscribed.
Also, I've sent your Opera message for our IT guys to look into AFA the security of our donation system. I'll report back when I hear.
Again, I'm sorry for the intrusion.
Posted by: Konchog | March 24, 2007 at 03:00 AM
Thanks for the explanation. I get so many spams a day that a drop is no more a drop...
I am probably the only paranoid here, so I don't mind going to my bank: all I need is a KPC IBAN + bank name + address et voilà.
PS. I am glad you found a good translator for the project.
Posted by: Christian | March 24, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Who is going to Opera? I'm not getting this. I will stop reading comments section...
Btw- I recived invitation to donate for "tara's babies" animal shelter. I would love to but first I must take care about "shelter" for some local animals including myself.
Posted by: Vedran | March 24, 2007 at 03:47 PM
I also use Opera and a while back I got the same message:
Information from this HTTPS page will be submitted to an unencrypted page on www.tara.org.
The data will be transmitted without any security. Submitting sensitive information is strongly discouraged.
So I just sent a check via snail mail. Unfortunately the Internet as currently implemented is not secure and I am subject to a number of phishing attacks as well as other bad behavior (none of it coming from KPC I hasten to add).
Hopefully Floki will be well cared for in the country.
And keep up the great work. May the light of Liberation shine from Mongolia to illuminate the darkness of the world.
Posted by: Kirt Undercoffer | March 25, 2007 at 10:44 PM
omg i JUST got it - bhikkshus to fill. ha ha ha ha ha...
Posted by: janet | March 27, 2007 at 01:31 AM