Dreaming Of Danzan Ravjaa

Labor Pleasures

Lots of stuff to tell you about/show you, but since it's Labor Day Weekend for my fellow Americans, I'll wait until Tuesday to lay it all on you. It seems the commemorations are a little similar here in Mongolia. Last night Erka told me she would be busy all weekend, because it's "Constructor's Day." I said, "What does that mean?" She replied with a tight smile, "It means I have to take all my workers out to the countryside and feed them for two days."

Anyway, here's hoping your holiday, whatever you may be celebrating, feels something like this:

Nice Ovoos!

Our little botany excursion in the last post was fun, no? The detective work (finding cool sites like this one) seems to hit similar pleasure zones for me as birding. Except, of course, the plants generally sit still. But, as an unreformed language geek, the most entertaining part was reading the Latin names. Four stood out as ones I might have plucked had I been creating characters for a comic farce about the Roman Empire:

Scabiosa comosa – the alcoholic doctor
Plantago depressa – the moody teenage daughter
Rheum undulatum – the frisky but hypochondriac spinster aunt
Artemesia frigida – the frustrated emperor’s haughty wife

Then there were the hilariously impenetrable scientific descriptions. Dig this for Mrs. Artemesia. I mean, how’s the actress supposed to uncover her motivation or trace her arc in this?

“Root stout, numerous tendril-shared fibrillose. Stems 18-50 cm long, slender, leafy, simple or shortly branched. Leaves 2-4 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, dark-green, with hole-shaped doted gland, above glabrous, beneath cobwebby entangled hairy, bi-pinnately sected. Terminal lobes thin-linear, 3-10 mm long, 0.5-1.5 mm wide, acute, entire or sparsely teeth. Head 2-4(5) mm long, on drooping pedicels. Internal involucral bracts oblong, with light scarious margin. All bracts entangled hairy or glabrous. Petal glandular-dotted. Receptacle glabrous.”

That little graf contains no fewer than eight words I’ve never encountered in my life. Needless to say, given the Latin name, I barked out a hearty laugh when I read the last three phrases.

OK, well, since we’re a bit PG-13 today, I should report on changes at Khamar Monastery’s breast ovoos. I’ve described and shown these before; they’re the two ovoos resting on a plateau just before one descends to the temples on the valley floor. They really were created during Danzan Ravjaa’s time to resemble a dakini’s breasts. The deeper meaning reflects women as universal mother, their wisdom aspect of empty luminosity being the birthplace of all phenomena, thus deserving of the highest respect. Only women are allowed to circumambulate these ovoos, and up to now, as women have added stones, they had matured as kinda lopsided, but perfectly attractive:

Well, we were in for quite a surprise when encountering the ovoos this time. I don’t want to start rumors, or judge, but don’t they seem just a little, um, masonically enhanced?

Taking a few laps around were my new friends and traveling companions, lovely Daka and her sister and mother, all visiting Khamar for the first time. Before, it seemed that women made all kinds of offerings, but now, appropriately enough, they sprinkle the ovoos with fresh milk. In a livestock-based culture like Mongolia, milk is considered a very pure and respectful offering for a wide variety of occasions.

{Daka, by the way, in addition to being an ace English-speaking tour guide herself, is something of an entrepreneur. She runs a business offering authentic Mongolian gers – the wonderful round felt tents – to customers from abroad. Here is her very informative website, where you can also peruse Mongolian furniture, antiques, and even traditional archery sets.}

I saw that the kiosk housing Khamar’s sacred spring was open and suggested that as our next stop. Again, a small change. Before, we had been invited in to drink from cups. Remember this pic of Khamtrul Rinpoche lifting a glass to all of our speedy enlightenment?

But now, everyone is asked to receive the water as it flows out of the mouth of a concrete lion’s head attached to the outside. This is, frankly, far more charming and fun, even when it kinda trickles down to a drool.

Here, Daka gathers a healthy handful.

Her sister fared a little less well in a somewhat bizarre incident. The water is mineral-rich and thus appears cloudy in a clear bottle. The sister looked at it and said, “Ew, that water’s dirty.” Almost immediately after, she was struck with acute bowel distress that nearly doubled her over as she sprinted for the latrine. It was the only episode she suffered, and you can be sure she didn’t dis the water after that.

The rest of the day I spent as tour guide and storyteller. Often, pilgrims just do what everyone else is doing, without much understanding of the meaning. They told me they felt very fortunate to have their experience of the sites enhanced by my tales, and even though they had all described themselves as “not very religious,” they said they now want to find out all they can about Danzan Ravjaa. That was pretty gratifying.

The next day we split into two groups. My other travel mate, Daniel, and I wanted to have a little bit deeper Buddhist day at Khamar. We arranged to have ourselves dropped off there and sent the ladies off to visit Khan Bayan Zurkh Mountain, sacred to the third Gobi Lama, Jamyn Danzan (our friend Danzan Ravjaa was the fifth).

Daniel and I spent some time doing prayers at the Red Temple that enshrines the Statue of 10,000 Knives (partially pictured in the upper left of this blog) and then walked the three-kilometer path to the Shambhala site. I got a couple nice shots along the way. This one shows the abrupt change in the desert’s soil content from grey-brown to an iron-oxide red made more vivid by the recent rain, which also greened out the serpentine wash. You also see one of the eight pathside stupas, and the bell gazebo. I’m currently selecting pics to use for Khamar postcards, and that might be a contender.

And here’s a shot of some of the 108 Shambhala stupas. I know I’ve posted many images from this place, but never one where it looks like the lawn needs to be cut! And while I certainly appreciate subtlety in the natural world, there’s something about the boldness of the primary colors in the Gobi, like the green-white-blue here, that really knocks me out.

We took a different route back to the monastery, taking some quiet time at the site of my cave retreat. Daniel, seemingly a sincere Buddhist practitioner, is one of the few to whom I’ve shown this cave. He looks pretty natural and happy in it, doesn’t he?

The trip capped off as it always does, with a visit to the Danzan Ravjaa Museum, where I again rattled on a bit. Strolling through town, I was thrilled to see that construction was well underway on the sorely-needed new museum.

This will be two floors instead of one, with improved technology for displays and conservation. As early as next year, visitors will be able to enjoy the full array of artifacts illustrating the multi-faceted genius of Danzan Ravjaa, including many objects that have not even been unearthed from their 70-year desert hiding places, a true benefit for the Mongolian traveler.

The Gobi Expands Its Palette

I don’t think I’ve ever said otherwise, but this past weekend trip to the Eastern Gobi was really fantastic, for several unique reasons. One of these I’ll relate to you here, mostly in pictures. It concerns that most precious and rare element in the relentlessly arid desert – moisture.

Six of us traveled down together – OK, 5 ½, one being a semi-feral six-year old boy. Three female relatives of the boy occupied one compartment, while my new friend Daniel and I shared another with other Mongolians. They turned out to be Sainshand residents who were very devoted to Danzan Ravjaa and spoke some English, so we began chatting away.

Como siempre, the subject of weather came up, and I asked them if it had rained at all in the Gobi this summer. One of the women replied, in a whisper usually reserved for offering thanksgiving to the deity of your choice or describing how the image of the Madonna and Child turned up on your tuna sandwich, “Four days in August alone.”

Now those of you in the American Midwest may be snorting in contempt, but in the Gobi Desert this is a stone cold miracle, and as with all true miracles, clear signs appear.

On one of my first Gobi visits, and in the slide shows I presented in America this past year, I fished for chuckles with this inimitable image of the view from the camp where I stay:

Well, just to give an initial impression, I took a similar picture from the same location:

Amazing, huh? Desert plants are, naturally, adapted to their environment. This means that when any rain falls, the seeds sprout extremely quickly and mature low to the ground. You can almost watch the whole cycle unfold all the way to seeding out.

I’d never seen this particular stretch of desert support anything more than widely scattered tufts of nearly nothing. I mean, this year we had herders coming through. Soccer and basketball games had to be called on account of grazing!

Marveling at the transformation actually sparked a couple of Buddhist thoughts (in one day – this can be said in the same awestruck tones as "four days of rain in August").

The first concerned the deceptiveness of appearances. As far as our senses are concerned, such places seem utterly barren and lifeless. I still laugh when I recall Khamtrul Rinpoche from Lhasa taking a short walk with me there and remarking with a chuckle, “The worst place in Tibet – Ngari – is better than this place.” But the conclusions we form based on the data brought in through our sense doors is so often mistaken, as in this case. So much is happening in the desert, it’s so full of life, but we don’t think it could possibly exist because we can’t see it. The truth lies hidden under the surface.

This brought up a corollary thought concerning latency and potential. The seeds in the desert exist, ready to sprout, but they simply will not, cannot, until the proper conditions have assembled. But when those supporting conditions arrive, those seeds cannot help but sprout. It’s their nature. This is very much like the Buddha’s teachings on karma. Our actions – and the motivations which precede them – leave impressions, seeds if you will, in our stream of consciousness. When the proper conditions have assembled, these seeds will ripen, depending on their makeup and relative strength, as collective experience, individual life-forms, the various pleasant and unpleasant experiences within those lives (the result of virtuous and non-virtuous actions respectively), and/or habitual patterns of thinking.

Anyway, let’s look at pictures of pretty flowers, shall we?

I spent a fair amount of time walking the desert, and was so delighted with the outburst of wildflowers that had occurred in the water-gathering depressions and ravines.

I’m not much of a botanist, but I was betting that among the DODR readers there are those who are pretty knowledgeable about flowers (TMK?), so I snapped six pics of the different varieties I encountered. Maybe you could hazard guesses as to their general families in the comments?

More in a couple of days, but I just scored a pirated DVD of The Bourne Ultimatum and it’s time to veg.

Potpourri

OK, mark it down. August 23. The first day I had to don a sweatshirt and toss a blanket on my bed. Autumn's in the air in Ulaanbaatar.

Leaving for a weekend Gobi trip in the morning, but I wanted to take a sec to share a few odds 'n' ends with y'all. For instance, this comic that occasional DODR commenter Tom Robertson sent me upon finding it at The Chopping Block, astutely gauging that it was just exactly my sense of humor. It gave me the first big belly laugh this morning. I've since been repeating the word "abbatoir" like it's a Tourette's tic:

The laughter quickly dissipated, however, overshadowed by a scowl as I read this item in today's UB Post about the rampant poaching of wild falcons by Arabs specially flown into Mongolia for just that purpose. That's right, these gorgeous creatures, which just happen to be on the endangered list. I'm sure this is going on because a lot of money is changing hands, but I intend to have a frank chat with powerful friends to try to get this stopped.

Me, I hunt birds with binocs, and yesterday I had a rare chance to go out birding with a real expert. Mark Brazil, among many things, is a professor in Hokkaido, Japan, leading tours during his summer break for Zegrahm Expeditions (including the one which brings him to Mongolia every year), and an author whose upcoming volume will be a definitive field guide to the birds of East Asia. Knowing that this ought to be a peak time for shorebird migration, we headed out to the wetlands near the airport for the afternoon. Our time was limited, but it hardly mattered -- in about an hour of fantastically exciting birding, we observed 17 different species of waders and shorebirds, four of which were life birds for me: Curlew Sandpiper, Ruff, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, and a long longed-for Pacific Golden-plover. I also saw one Ruddy Turnstone as a new bird for Mongolia. And to top it off, when I casually mentioned I hadn't been able to procure a copy of the essential Collins Complete Guide to the Birds of Europe, he immediately offered to give me his. Guess who's my new best friend?

Finally, I leave you with a quote that's been running obsessively through my head for some weird reason. I'm currently reading Dostoevsky's Devils. Early on, the pompous Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky says, in the French he frequently lapses into, "Et puis, comme on trouve toujours plus des moines que de raison..." at which his companion, Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina interrupts and busts him with, "You can't have thought that up yourself. You must have borrowed it from somewhere." He's forced, then, to cop to lifting the bon mot from Blaise Pascal's Lettres provinciales. It's translated in my edition as, "And then, since one always encounters monks more frequently than common sense..." Could be my epitaph, man.

Ger to be Different

Woke up this morning to discover that overnight somebody, for some reason, erected a ger on the corner of my courtyard's basketball court (try saying "courtyard court corner" ten times fast). Now maybe that's just remarkably bold squatting, or maybe, as I'm more inclined to believe, it's an advance intergalactic recon pod cleverly disguised as a ger. The aliens are simply unaware that one does not ordinarily place dwellings on teenage-infested sport slabs. What's your theory?

It's a Wild World

Last week was wrapping up extra-dull, man, then wham!

At a chance luncheon with Don Croner I'm introduced to his friend Sema, Turkish by origin but a world-walker now. She regales us with tales of travels in the 'stans, living among the peculiar Central Asian gypsy tribes (Luli, Mugat, and Juli) resident mostly in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan; of submersion in the ancient mystic Sufi culture that pervades the Uzbekh city of Bukhara (fun fact -- place used to be totally Buddhist back in the day: "Bukhara", according to Don, is a corruption of the Sanskrit "vihara" or monastery); and hanging in the Pakistan outback smoking (I absolutely swear) dried, powdered scorpion stingers the locals call akrep nos (there's a fact Reuters missed!) for its mildly hallucinogenic properties. In short, my kinda gal. She reads the blog and is insistent on going to Kharkhorin to check on Floki. We'll work that out (I have another bit of detective work to perform at Erdene Zuu anyway) and then we're all going to go meditate in the Eastern Gobi next month.

Speaking of the Eastern Gobi and transcontinental interdependence, last night I met a French guy named Daniel, who lives in the capital of Ivory Coast (Abidjan -- jeez, what are they teaching in schools these days?) who's a devoted Buddhist practitioner. He was so amazed to bump into a Western monk (and even more so when I told him I was the only Western monk). We hit it off, and decided to go down to the Gobi this weekend. I have another reason for toodling down, but it's a secret until next week. I'll show him the deeper side of Khamar, we'll spend some time doing practice etc. And, of course, a full DODR report later!

Title comes from one of the greatest bands of all time, The Birthday Party (though not on depicted album, one, however, that utterly changed my life when my friend Tod spun it for me in Swansea, Wales, when I was maybe 16). What do you mean, what's that? Oh, I got so scolded after post before last...just...OK click here. You'll thank me later. Hopefully. Not you, Ma.

No Accounting

Hokay, I’ve been puzzling over why no one wants to discuss their reactions to Jetsunma’s new music. So here’s my theory, that I have, which is mine...aaaaa-hem (Anne Elk Monty Python sketch reference for the culturally impaired): yer all a bunch of wheezin’ geezers with atrociously outdated musical taste who think you’re “rocking out” when you plop a James Taylor cassette in your player and/or get all choked up from Celine Dion’s latest batch of bombastic treacle. You don’t want to say anything cuz you didn’t like it and/or didn’t “get it” and you’re too polite to say so here cuz I’m obviously an enthusiast.

That’s my theory. Let’s test it.

Do elements of your life suggest songs to you sometimes, like a soundtrack? This happens to me all the time. For example, one of my cats is named Nita. I’m guessing that if you thought about it, her name might suggest morphing The Beatles’ “Lovely Rita” into “Lovely Nita” or, if the situation’s completely hopeless, Huey Lewis & The News’ “I Need A [Nita] New Drug.” On the other hand, when I see her, I immediately think of, and sing out loud, the chorus from The Damned’s “Neat Neat Neat.”

Mooj I don’t have a song for; that’s a hard one. With Floki it was always Iggy & The Stooges’ “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” or Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound on my Trail,” not “How Much is that Doggy in the Window.”

Let’s try another. I sent y’all to the site called The Worst Horse, where the lead horse reviewed Jetsunma’s Revolution of Compassion CD. When you see that site’s name, what song does it suggest? Those of you with a glimmer of hope might have come up with The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” or America’s “A Horse With No Name” (featuring the most grammatically convoluted lyric of all time: “In the desert you can remember your name/'Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain” – triple negative! With a half twist!). Extra points if Patti Smith comes to mind, but if your inner soundtrack kicked up the jingle from “My Little Pony,” only through summoning forth all my training in equanimity and great compassion will I resist banishing you for all eternity from DODR. My mind, conversely, pulls up both Motörhead’s “Iron Horse/Born To Lose” and the lyric “If you want to ride, don’t ride the white horse” from Laid Back's irresistible 1983 jam (“horse” is street slang for heroin, or used to be).

{here's a funny from the hoss' blog, especially good if somebody's got a case of the Mondays}

There. Have I insulted just about everybody? Yes? Hands? Good. I dunno. I think it’s fascinating that Jetsunma is setting mantra and Dharma ideas to “block-rockin’ beats,” as The Chemical Brothers would have it. But maybe I’m just a “special case”. My doctors seem to think so. After all, the first two records I bought when I was in, like, 6th Grade, were Aerosmith’s Rocks and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I've liked my sounds ruff an' tuff ever since.

ANYway, let’s move on. Last Friday I was honored to attend the 4th Anniversary Celebration of FPMT’s soup kitchen and community center and got a few nice photos to share.

Here, Doogie, the Community Center's Assistant Director, and Gloria, the center’s Managing Director, seem to be sharing a joke with the Dalai Lama:

FPMT Mongolia’s Director Ueli Minder does too:

I was so pleased to capture the following. This is the head cook for the soup kitchen, Namjilmaa. Isn’t she just so lovely? That beaming face, so pleased to have done some good in the world.

Finally, here is Migmarmaa, the trainer for the women’s sewing group, pulling together the MBRP’s order of cloth covers for the Nyingma text collection we will offer to Khamar Monastery on September 10. They did an excellent job, and I was really happy that these women could train on such an auspicious project. And I just loved the way the one sunbeam illuminated the result:

Horse Sense

So. Which hip outfit is first out of the gate with some impressions of Jetsunma's just-released Revolution of Compassion CD? Why, The Worst Horse, of course, of course. Bless its elongated nose!

I have to be honest. I love my lama, but I haven't always loved all of her musical output in the past. The music was fine; simply a matter of taste, that's all. But Revolution...? To me, it's simply the bomb, and I've given it a full spin just about every day for weeks now, hearing something new and cool every time.

But you need not take my word for it -- Jetsunma's MySpace page offers a selection of full tracks to sample (you gotta hear 'Step Down', her anti-Bush, anti-war jam!), as well as individual tracks to buy for your computer or iPod. And at the JetsunmaMusic homepage, you can hear 30-second samples of every cut.

Wanna own the whole CD, with Ursula Ward's fabulous graphics and the liner notes and everything? Well, of course you do, and just about the only place to get it right now is online here (downloadable tracks also available). And after you've heard it, send me your impressions! I'm really curious, because I think she's mining some pretty new earth.

Jabbing the Dragon

The preposterous, bitterly laughable irony of this, gave way yesterday to a ray of hope when I read about the courage of this and then discovered this. I was wondering when someone was going to stick a big ol' burr under that saddle. Hope they keep it up all year.

In other hopeful news, I've discovered that Sakyadhita, the International Association of Buddhist Women, will be holding their 2008 annual conference right here in Ulaanbaatar on July 1-5. Needless to say, the local women I've informed about this are all the way psyched. You'll be hearing much more about this -- I'll be on it like wool on yaks -- but they haven't released any more details beyond the dates.

Thangka Very Much!

One happy piece of news I received upon my return to Ulaanbaatar was that Soyolmaa, the thangka painter here who’s producing custom works to benefit both our Buddhist revival projects, has just completed and shipped her first three commissions. Needless to say, they’re stunning, as you’ll see in a moment.

Now that Soyolmaa’s cleaned her brushes and removed her smock, her hands are just idle, and you know what they say about that! Mara’s workshop (feeble Buddhist joke there). If you’ve ever considered getting a Buddhist deity or lama image for yourself, I really feel now’s the time. One reason is simply seasonal. Soyolmaa’s share of the commission fee directly supports her and her sister’s efforts to rebuild the women’s meditation center called Baldan Khajid Ling (get the fuller story on this here). As you might imagine, the construction season in Mongolia is maddeningly short – like maybe there are about two more months left this year to do anything involving concrete or mortar. So your fee would help right now, instead of being socked away for next year.

But the other reason is value. Consulting with a few knowledgeable friends, we set the fee for commissioning a good-sized, custom thangka at $500 (more if the image is complex, such as the 21 Taras you’ll see below). When I was in America, I compared this to what was being offered in Buddhist center gift shops at a similar price and…well, there really was no comparison.

For that price in the States you get a perfectly nice, somewhat generic thangka and you’re limited to the images and framing the shop offers. Commissioning a work from Soyolmaa, though, is completely different. Here’s why:

• You get to specify exactly how you’d like your image to look. As a small example, the person who commissioned the Achi Chökyi Drolma below felt it would be meaningful to have a bolt of lightning shooting from one of the clouds, to reflect a line in her prayer. Done. Your artwork will be truly one-of-a-kind.
• Soyolmaa creates each physical canvas by hand. Once the painting is done, she also sews the brocade framing herself (in colors you can specify) in which she inserts handsome dowels, making the thangka you receive ready-to-hang.
• Soyolmaa is a devoted Buddhist practitioner who creates each piece in the context of practice, reciting mantra as she works.
• The fee includes careful air shipping. From Mongolia.
• 100% of your fee directly supports both the Baldan Khajid Ling reconstruction, and KPC’s Mongolian Buddhism Revival Project.

And your finished thangka will turn out as exquisite as these recent commissions:

This is Achi Chökyi Drolma, the primary protectress of the glorious Drikung Kagyu lineage. Her story is here.

And here is Soyolmaa’s stunning depiction of the 21 Tara emanations:

Gorgeous, no? To see how versatile she is, check out our on-line gallery of Soyolmaa’s work here. And keep in mind, this is just a representative sample; she will create whatever it is you wish.

If you feel ready to acquire a custom thangka for yourself or as a special gift, or if you just want to inquire a bit further, drop me a line at konnorbu at yahoo dot com.

Weekend Puzzler

A short while ago, I issued a little challenge to see who could come up with the name of the 100th country from which visitors came to peep in at the doin's here at DODR. At the time, Zendette requested the same when we hit the auspicious 108th country. Well, we have had such a visitor and so we'll have another guessing game, with just a single clue: the name of the country formed the title of a hit song by a major rock band in the 80's.

To narrow it down, I'll give you the intervening countries from #100, Cyprus:

101. Jordan
102. Costa Rica
103. Bangladesh
104. Algeria
105. Guatemala
106. Moldova
107. Sudan

So, you can eliminate Motley Crue's "Moldova Blues." OK, what's your guess? First correct answer gets a postcard with a cool stamp from Mongolia. My friend Lisa says that's a crap prize, but Lisa also says she's a "Fulbright Fellow" when in fact she ain't a fella 'tall.

What's That Make Me? Gromit?

Wait! Konchog! I haven't finished drinking in the photos of sheeps' innards yet!

There, there. I know, but sometimes we have to impose harsh lessons in impermanence and just move on.

Now, there’s a Mongolian news and info portal site called Olloo that maintains a Mongolian news site in what is purported to be English. Mongolia just recently hosted the Emir of Kuwait, known as His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Blahblahblah. But instead of “His Highness,” Olloo called him “The Lofty Emir of Kuwait Al-Blahblah.” While I actually like that better, dude doesn’t look all that lofty to me:

But I did meet a really lofty guy at the beginning of this week in the person of Alan Wallace. The name might ring a bell to long-time readers who know that his wife, Prof. Vesna Wallace, is my summer buddy in UB and the Gobi when she’s here, and that he was the generous soul who allowed for last year’s group of young Mongolians to travel to India to study the Nyingma tradition. While Vesna’s the Sanskritist, Alan’s a very well-known Tibetan Buddhist translator (like, he often gets the gig to interpret for the Dalai Lama) and prolific author on a variety of Vajrayana Buddhist topics. But his truly trailblazing activity right now is exploring the nexus of scientific and contemplative traditions regarding the nature of consciousness.

As the base of his operations, Alan has founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. Among its many projects, one should prove deeply fascinating. It has a nice enough title at the beginning – “The Shamatha Project: Meditative Quiescence, Loving-Kindness, and Human Flourishing” – but they’re not done, and it gets more intimidating: “Longitudinal Studies of Effects of Intensive Meditation Practice on Attention, Emotional Regulation, and Their Neural Correlates.” Lofty, man. You can read the whole précis here, but basically they have organized a group to engage in two three-month intensive meditation retreats within which the individuals will be subjected to a full battery of scientific gauging with names like “96-channel surface electroencephalography.” Tellin’ you. Lofty. Check out the video of Alan's introductory talk to the retreatants.

Brother Batbold recently translated Alan’s latest volume, The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind, into Mongolian. This provided an excellent intro for his first visit to this fine country. He had a busy schedule of talks and media interviews, but I managed to carve out some time with him and Vesna, both for a lovely dinner discussing the current thinking of hardcore materialists (those who deny any role of consciousness in our existence beyond brain function) and religious fundamentalists (those who worship a “merciful” God who would condemn 99% of humanity to eternal hell for not worshipping the way they do) in relation to the experiences of those who have really matured in their contemplative vocations and studies.

And we went on a field trip. Monday morning we zipped out to Terelj National Park to briefly take in Aryaval Temple. One reason was to scout it out as a potential site for Alan to lead a shamatha meditation retreat next August. Vesna snapped a pic of us that manages to offset my bald noggin with the temple’s exquisite view:

Oh, and we both agreed that we thoroughly enjoyed our respective recent reads of Thomas Laird's The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama.

Dig In!

Oh, it's my most favoritest time of the year! You know, when there's a string of sweaty 100 degree days and, without warning, your hot water gets shut off for an indefinite period.

But at least I'm eatin' good. Many of you U.S. urban dwellers may have ventured into a joint that claims it serves "Mongolian Barbeque." Pfft. This past Sunday I copped an invite to the gen-yoo-wine article out at a friend's summer house and, believe me, it don't have nothin' to do with pimply kids fryin' up yer vittles on a metal grill slab and whackin' a gong when you tip them.

This BBQ was dished up in three courses savored throughout the afternoon. The first course, sizzled up on the grill, consisted of sheep liver wrapped in fat. Swear. Brother Konchog tried a nibble to be polite but that's all he could manage. Another friend to whom I later related the menu remarked, "Well, maybe they were all suffering from low cholesterol and it was, in a way, health food."

I probably should have indulged that course because then I could have claimed to be too full for the next -- a great steaming pot (that's right, not technically BBQ) of the dreaded "inside meat". I just couldn't bring myself to taste even a little bit this time. Rather, I persuaded my hosts, in the interests of broad cultural understanding, to let me take a few photos. Put down your breakfast spoon. OK, ready?

I know! One photo just isn't enough, is it? Now, study this next one and in the comments I want you to provide a caption for what the baby is thinking. Keep in mind that she has, I think, been given a wee organ hunk that she's gnawing on.

My kind hosts, registering my distress, provided me with an alternative at this point. I was served a bowl of gruel studded with meat bits -- forget the name -- and cheerfully informed that, "this is what we usually give to infants or people who have drunk too much."

Finally came the outside meat, in the form of lamb kebabs, and then I got it. My friends are secret militant vegans who apply the same aversion therapy as the dad who makes his young son smoke until he's green. Almost did the trick, man, I'm tellin' ya. Except the kebabs were pretty tasty.

Just remembered a funny detail. Earlier in the afternoon, my hosts introduced their other friends by saying, again swear, "We were at their summer place last weekend. We had marmot."

As a corollary, my friend Sarah and I are quite fond of the irregular installments at The Sneeze under the title "Steve, Don't Eat It!"