Hop To It!

Just back from Darisuren’s house/temple where about 20 of us performed a tsok food offering ceremony on this 10th day of the moon, which is sacred to Padmasambhava. I snapped a nice shot of Minjimaa, our able chöpon (ritual attendant – altar girl, if you wish):

Sunday was Minjimaa’s 15th birthday. I’m awfully fond of her, so I sauntered over to present her with a copy of Lama Purevbat’s Life of the Buddha rendered in Mongolian:

As we chatted over short ribs and pickles, I asked Minjimaa, now that she was growing up, what did she see herself doing in life? Without hesitation, she said, “I want to go to India and study the Buddhist books.” I’ve been watching Minjimaa for a year. I’ve noted her eagerness for Dharma practice, her capacity for memorization, her intelligence, her independence and seeming indifference to the baubles of teenage girlhood, and her stable mind. If I don’t find a way soon to get her a serious Tibetan tutor and, for her sixteenth birthday, to send her to dwell among these amazing women, honestly I will have considered my time in Mongolia a failure. I’m not kidding. Soon, Darisuren (her foster mother) and I are going to have to have a come-to-Buddha session about it soon.

So, thanks to those of you who left kind words in the previous post’s comments about me ‘n’ my big @!*#ing deel. I still think I resemble the blood sausage but maybe I just have Issues. I’ll tell you the cool thing about a deel, though. Once you cinch up that sash, you’re an instant marsupial – cell phone, cash, small livestock, dinner service for 10, it all fits in there, handy as you please.

Now, what part of the world does the word “marsupial” bring up? Antarctica? Wait, that can’t be right. Antananarivo? No, those are lemurs. Hmm. Austria? Ooh, I smell smoke...

Of course it’s Australia, mate!

In the planning for months, I’ve hesitated to bring it up here until I was sure that it was a Thing, but it now looks sure that Brother Konchog will be on tour Down Under this coming January and February. Thanks to the devoted lot who comprise KPC Australia, I’ll be sharing the Dharma up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard, with likely stops in Brisbane, Melbourne, the Sunshine Coast, Sydney/Blue Mountains and Canberra. Crikey!

But of particular interest (I hope) to DODR readers, in as many places as we can organize I plan to give a talk/slide show entitled “The Buddha Was Only Sleeping: Mongolia’s Post-Communist Buddhist Revival”. I’ll post dates and venues and such just as soon as they’re available.

This is the major climate change I referred to. Like, a solid 100 degree difference between Mongolian winter and Australian summer. While I’m a little apprehensive about the heat (and the lethal snakes, spiders, jellyfish, crocodiles and sharks) I’ll be really, really relieved to get a break from Ulaanbaatar’s winter pollution. The coal and wood smoke is almost unbearable; the cold I had two weeks ago is gone but I can’t shake the cough. To give you an idea, I took this photo of my courtyard at 9 this morning. Look how obscured the back building is (I even brightened this photo a little):

The ordinarily stoic Mongols are starting to get riled. Recently a group calling itself Mothers Against City Air Pollution (it occurs to me that if they put "The Damned" before "City", the acronym would be MADCAP) took to the streets in protest. And, as they say, when the mamas ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Good for them. It really seems bad enough that it could kill those with weak constitutions.

However, with a twinge of guilt about the Mongol friends I'm leaving here, I’m going to escape this toxic fog sooner than January. Day after tomorrow, I’m getting whisked off to an undisclosed location for maybe two weeks. I may be able to post from where I’m headed, but expect a bit of bloggus interruptus in the near future.

To get where I’m going, I really should hop on board this:

That’s an actual UB vehicle and a very inside joke for you Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, especially you Nyingmapas. For the rest of you, I’m sorry, if I had to explain it, it would just make you knit your brow and utter nary a chortle.

But for you Nyingmapas, aren’t you a little surprised? I mean, for this vehicle, weren’t you expecting something along the lines of a Federation starship? I know, but listen. It’s a developing country and we just have to start where we start.

My kitties will be in capable hands while I’m gone, and anyway, they have each other (pic taken as I was typing this post -- naaaw, I love these guys):

Comments

[Leamur]

Best luck on your trip and travels, K. Be well!

[Jae-Min]

Any chance of you dropping by in New Zealand?

[Kay in New Mexico]

Travel in peace, enjoy new things, come back happy, and then tell us all about it. Remember -- wherever you go, there you are!

[Christian]

The Unsurpassable Vehicle! Let me guess... nine stations before the no-return point?

[Konchog]

Thank you, Christian. I was wondering if there was anyone who found that as funny as I did. Actually, before you even reach the first stop, you've already arrived!

Jae-min -- I would absolutely love to come to New Zealand, but I depend entirely on the kindness of others at this point. This tour is sponsored by KPC-AUS. I only know one or two folks in NZ. Don't think anything's officially organized there. But if you'd like to be a trailblazer...

[Robert]

The monk who used to work at FPMT in Ulaanbaatar is on a long retreat in Australia, on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. There seems to be a karmic Mongo-Aus connection.

[Jae-Min]

Lama Zopa told the resident nun in Mongolia to spend winter (our summer) in New Zealand a few years back.