One Giant Step

I'm up in New York at Penor Rinpoche's retreat center now -- the Mongolian ladies will come tomorrow -- and though it's late and I'm tired, I wanted to quickly share some pictures from last night's Shower of Blessing ceremony. It was a fantastic, really aupicious occasion.

Prior to the ceremony, however, Enkhtsetseg had the opportunity to conduct a sit-down interview with Jetsunma to incorporate into her television program. Afterward we took the inevitable group photo, with Uyanga the translator...

...and then had a coupla yuks:

The Shower of Blessings tsog was well-populated; about 60 people came. Jetsunma led us in a long accumulation of the Seven Line Prayer:

Then she blessed malas:

Following this, it was time to present her with the offerings, invitations, and personal letters I had carried from Mongolia. Unfortunately, I was the presenter (as well as the chant leader during the ceremony), thus the dearth of certain photos. I'll have them soon from other sources. But in the meantime, you get a sense here of the joy and pleasure that accompanied this exchange when Darisuren made her presentation and I could snap pics:

One amazing gift Darisuren gave had a funny story attached. Apparently she recently went with a friend to a special place in Arkhangai province where there are 108 springs. They had gone to see an old woman with a reputation as a real dakini. The friend offered an ancient, very rare blue khatag (ceremonial scarf) to the old woman. She expected to get it back, but much to her surprise the old woman turned around and gave the khatag to Darisuren! She explained to Jetsunma that it was at least 300 years old, woven with a pattern depicting Shakyamuni Buddha and his two disciples. Jetsunma accepted it with great happiness:

But the best part of all by far was Jetsunma's declaration from the throne that she had formed the firm intention to make a short trip to Mongolia this September. She made it clear, though, that this was dependent on Penor Rinpoche's OK, which we'll seek later this week. But we just moved one giant step toward a great blessing for Mongolia.

Comments

[rho]

It sounds like everything is going so well - and I just have to comment that Jetsunma has got the absolute best smile I think I have ever seen - not just the mouth but it comes thru her eyes too. So many people only have the mouth part of a smile but their eyes don't reflect the same joy. My spirits were lifted today by seeing that wonderful smile.

thanks