Dreaming Of Danzan Ravjaa

HH Penor Rinpoche: Unceasing Pure Phenomena -- Updated x2

Ani Damchoe Wongmo, our favorite nun of the frozen north (Canada, not Siberia), has been quietly regaling her Reflections of Reflections blog fans with images of auspicious phenomena following HH Penor Rinpoche’s mahaparinirvana. They’re really quite astounding: a rainbow out of the clear sky that crossed in front of Penor Rinpoche’s image on the Zangdog Palri temple after the 49^th Day ceremonies (Update II: Wow. Here's video of that rainbow.); the butter in butter lamps spontaneously formed into lotus petal reliefs (this I’ve never seen of heard of before, but as people love to remind me, I hardly know everything); more solar rainbow phenomena; and the odd movements of the temple statues.

I hope Ani-la updates with some context and whatever explanations have been offered about these phenomena, but for now, as she says, just to see the images is a great blessing. Especially today, which according to the Tibetan Buddhist calendar is the day honoring the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha. Seems like a good day also to chant the prayer for the swift rebirth of Penor Rinpoche. It's downloadable in short and long forms in several languages here, but when you click, look closely: there's also an audio link to Lama Dorje's gorgeous chanting of the prayer!

Update: Regarding the birth of Prince Siddhartha, who would discover true dharma as the awakened one, the Buddha, Ven. Ajahn Punnadhammo (also Canadian, hmm) over at Bhikkhu's Blog alerts us to the happy fact that you an watch the entire BBC documentary, "The Life of the Buddha", over at YouTube. Here's Part 1. I just watched the whole thing and it's very nicely done.

What's in a Name? Lots.

There are more moments than not when I wonder if this remote quadrant of cyberspace known as Dreaming of Danzan Ravjaa produces much meaning or benefit at all. Unfortunately, I’m often a glass-half-empty kinda guy. But then there are moments of such pure, exquisite sweetness that for a fleeting instant, the world seems suffused with love and all things possible. This is one of those.

Because of this blog, I’ve gotten to know a great guy named Ariel, who’s one of the enthusiastic board members of the DC Area Friends of Mongolia and occasional commenter here. During his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia he made a love connection and married the lovely Khandaa. Well, Khandaa just gave birth to their first child, a healthy baby boy – whom they’ve chosen to name Danzan! Maybe I should let Ariel take over, from an email that just made my whole week:

“Now of course, part of the reason we named him Danzan, was because it's real easy for Americans to just say "Dan" – or easy for the English-speaking American friends we have.

“But one of the other major influences was my knowledge of the Buddhist scholar, poet, artist, and builder of monasteries – a certain Danzan Ravjaa.  And most of that knowledge came directly from you -- so thanks for the positive influence!!”

Can you stand it?

“Danzan,” by the way, is the Mongolization of the Tibetan “Tenzin,” one of the names of HH the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. It means “upholder of the Dharma.” So, beloveds, please join me in welcoming to the world little Danzan. May he live up to his name and grow strong in wisdom and compassion, and one day may he call me Monkle Konchog!

 

I Should Hope So!

Can anyone hazard a guess as to what olloo.com's translator meant here? "Totalitarian"? I once wrote them a letter begging them to hire a better English translator. Clearly it went right into the recycle bin. I would suggest at the very least that "cars" is not the most illuminating example one might select of a "totalitarian event." Though perhaps he or she was referring to the proliferation of Hummers here. And "children's day"? Well, maybe if they're mostly two-year olds...

Flux

Today's forecast high? 86F/30C. Mañana? 39F/4C with a 60% chance of snow. It's OK for me, I got some inside editing work to do. But what about critters like this Mongolian Lark, that birding companion Tom Jenner caught here shaking his tail feathers last Saturday?

Might not be dancing with such vigor come the dawn. Hopefully he attracted a Mrs. Mongolian Lark to nestle down with.

In other news, Mongolia's opposition Democratic Party candidate Ts. Elbegdorj upset incumbent N. Enkhbayar for the presidency. Not sure why I care so little about this, but if you do, Mongolia Web and Asian Gypsy are on it.

Ya Big Galoot

Today Mongolia will hold its fourth presidential election. But enough about that. (Seriously, all my Mongolian friends are profoundly bored with the two choices offered to them this go ‘round, both of whom are very well-known to everyone. If you really must have details, here y’go.) It’s May, and what else is there to think about, really, other than migratory birds?

We all have our thing to keep our minds in balance, don’t we? Mine is tromping around outdoors looking for and identifying different kinds of birds – birding. What? Oh, right, yes, and meditation too.

Birding gets me completely out of my head and kind of merged with the surrounding environment. Just about every time I go out is enjoyable, but yesterday was epic. I’ve fallen in with a couple of Brits, Brian and Tom, who combine two excellent qualities: being sharp world birders and easy company. We have also befriended local birders, and yesterday Ishee accompanied us to Gün-Galuut Nature Reserve, about two hours east of town.

Gün-Galuut was formed on the one hand to protect known habitat of the wild argali sheep. But, while large mammals are all cuddly and stuff, the main draw for us was that Gün-Galuut also preserves the westernmost breeding grounds for the rare White-naped Crane, only about 5000 of which remain in the world.

On the way out, I finally got a chance to admire the gigantic silver statue of Chingghis Khan recently erected.

It’s pretty impressive, and I hear that for about ten bucks you can go all the way up inside of it and look out on...well, what you look out on at ground level – an endless expanse of grass. We passed on that experience and continued on to the reserve. We’d be doing plenty of squinting across what must be the world’s largest front lawn, for free.

As we neared the reserve, the day began auspiciously with a totally unexpected lifer for everyone, the very handsome Oriental Plover. (For you non-birders, a “lifer” is birding shorthand for a “life bird,” that is, a bird you’re seeing for the first time in your life. It gets marked down on your “life list,” or the list of all the bird species you’ve seen in your life. Given that there are about 10,000 bird species around the planet, this habit can build into obsession and competitiveness rarely seen in the natural world. I’m infected, but I have a comparatively mild case. A recent book, at the top of my must-get, um, list, documents the full-blown pathology.)

The rest of the habitat – blending short-grass steppe; shallow, semi-saline lakes; tussocky marshland; a section of Mongolia’s longest river, the Kherlen; and low, craggy hills, proved to be a veritable playground for spring-fevered birders. Not only was the avifauna itself amazing, but the Mongolian steppe setting provided spectacular framing and some funny interchanges you wouldn’t have many other places on Earth:

“Raptor drifting in, 10 o’clock, heading left. OK, now past the camel herd and over the yaks. Passing the black and white yak...now!”

“Which one, the hybrid yak or the yak yak?”

“The yak yak.”

The highlight, of course, was the exquisite elegance of the two White-naped Crane pairs we located. Again, the vista could not have been more superbly Mongolian. My camera doesn’t have much of a zoom, so I circled the crane location:

We also got to see them engage in their unique courtship behavior of throwing their heads to the sky and exchanging ululating vocalizations. It felt like a rare privilege, almost sacred somehow. (I should refer you to Peter Mathiessen’s wonderful tome, The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes.) All over the steppe, in fact, the male birds were trotting out their best moves for the ladies, in both earthbound and aerial dance displays amplified by lusty song. We caught a quite unabashed pair of Little Ringed Plovers in the act of “treading,” and at least one lark couple mated successfully, though their judgment might be a little off, stitching a nest together as they did in the middle of a cow pie:

All of us had a multiple-lifer day, but I had the big haul with eight, all uniquely gorgeous. Other than the crane and plover, I added Asian Short-toed Lark, Bar-headed Goose, Red-crested Pochard, Spotted Redshank, Falcated Duck, and Temminck’s Stint, as well as the delicate Marsh Sandpiper as a new bird for Mongolia (yes, we keep lists for individual countries; it gets way worse than that, you don’t even want to know).

I should also say that if you ever visit Mongolia, I can unreservedly recommend the tourist ger camp at the Gün-Galuut, Steppe Nomads.

Was anyone else here a Bugs Bunny fan? That’s where the post title’s from.

Image of a Reflection

Finishing touches are being applied to the first-ever Mongolian translation of Patrul Rinpoche’s classic, The Words of my Perfect Teacher. To assist in this process, I posted an inquiry over at E-Sangha to get some hi-res photos of prominent Nyingma lamas from the past century. What I got in return was utterly unexpected. One helpful soul tipped me to the fact that a current incarnation of the text’s author, Dzogchen Ranyak Patrul Rinpoche, displays at his site a photo widely regarded to be none other than the original Dza Patrul himself ( a bit enhanced along the way):

Is it possible? His dates were 1808-87, well within the time of the development of photography. The story behind the photo is here. What do you think? Does it seem authentic? If it were you, would you use it in the translated text?

Now, getting this photo was great. Unfortunately, my inquiry did not turn up any of the others we need. So. I’ll give it a whirl here. Do any of you have, or know where to get, hi-res images of the following lamas?

* Dudjom Rinpoche
* Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
* Minling Trichen Rinpoche
* Dodrupchen Rinpoche
* Chatral Rinpoche
* Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche
* Trulshik Rinpoche
* Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok
* Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
* Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

Please leave word in the comments or email me. Thanks!

Inner Beauty

Folks here in Ulaanbaatar display so many mash-ups of the English language plastered on the Chinese t-shirts they wear. But the other day I saw one that was so unambiguous, and its message so startling, I burst out laughing right there on the sidewalk. Some young spark was sporting a tee that declared in bold caps: “INNER BEAUTY IS OVERRATED”.

“Pah!” thought I. “Little else would account for my having any girlfriends whatsoever in my younger days.”

Anyway, it’s bunk, and I can prove it. I don’t know how I never came across this, but it seems one Tsoknyi Rinpoche, for several incarnations, has provided special attention to the development of real enlightenment among nuns and yoginis in his traditional seat in wildly gorgeous Nangchen, Tibet. First I stumbled on this photo of Mingyur Yogini:

Whoa. Then you know I clicked right on over to the site, and to my delight, and now yours, there’s a whole video about these astonishing women. It’s an absolute must-see. To be perfectly honest, after watching it, I was so abashed at what I call my “spiritual practice.” These women are actually doing what it takes to achieve enlightenment in one body and one lifetime.That's what's required, no way around it.

I pray that one day the women practitioners of Khamar Monastery in the Gobi may radiate such inner beauty.

Save the Date -- Live Namdroling Webcast

This Friday, May 22, marks the 49th day following His Holiness Penor Rinpoche's entry into nirvana. Huge ceremonies at His Holiness' Namdroling Monastery will be conducted throughout that day, and the best part is that wherever you are in the world, you can tune in! There will be a live webcast beginning at 8am, India time. The webcast itself can be accessed here, and you can work out time zone conversions here. One excellent way to participate would be to chant the prayer for the swift rebirth of Penor Rinpoche, written by Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. That's online here. See you there!

Dear Diary

May 16, 5:20am: Snow. Again. But I bet spring is just around the corner!

Our Man in Kalmykia

Brother Don Croner is currently visiting the westernmost land of the Mongolian diaspora, the Republic of Kalmykia in southern Russia. Always a compelling correspondent, Don has really outdone himself this time. He's offered us an unprecedented tour of the Golden Temple (the photo above is his, filched from his site), recently completed in the capital of Elista, billed as the largest Buddhist temple in Europe. His guide is none other than the Telo Tulku Rinpoche, himself hosting the abbot of one of the largest monasteries in the world, Drepung Gomang. Richly illustrated with photos of areas of the temple, such as the Dalai Lama's personal suite, that ordinary tourists would never see, you owe it to yourself to take a look. Dig the conference table with a mandala in the middle. That I've never seen before.

BTW, thanks to everyone who gave us a chuckle in the comments to the previous post. Due to some inscrutable technical glitch, when I try to post my own comments on my own blog, they just hover there in the ether, mocking me.

Putin on the Ritz

Sirens are erupting all over the city. Vladmir Putin’s coming this afternoon for a whopping six-hour visit. But let’s move on to more important stuff – camels.

I’ve concluded that Bactrian camels are the most photogenic creatures on Earth. Their faces are so expressive, and I thought we’d have some fun and let you tell what you think they’re expressing. I took a lot of portrait shots this time, and I’ll post the better ones here with a number and minimal remarks. If you could imagine a thought bubble over any of these lovelies’ heads, what would it be? The comments section is your comic garden. BTW, the camels are all looking kind of ratty because they’d just been shorn of their usable wool. It’s an unfortunate look, I know.

#1. The only one that’s an action shot...

...and pay special attention to the camel’s face. Outrage? Laughter?

#2. One of the teenagers.

#3. Another of the teenagers, with SIT students in the background.

#4. It was the ‘do that drew me to this one. I know, I’m just jealous.

#5. Here, it was more the ornamentation.

OK, have at it!

"You Rock, Lama!"

OK, before we get to the Gobi, Ma reports in to say that the Dalai Lama’s teaching she heard last week in Foxboro, MA, was unusually detailed and intense. She only attended the morning session, in which His Holiness offered an overview of the Buddhist path before delving more deeply into a discussion of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. She said there was an urgency to his message she hadn’t heard before, which left her pondering how she could step up her game as a traveler on the path. Wish I could have been by her side. (Here’s the Globe’s take, from which the post’s title derives. Wonder if it was my mother who belted that out, complete with rebel yell...)

But, alas, I was many thousands of miles from Foxboro, on my second gig accompanying seven American students on a field trip to Danzan Ravjaa’s Khamar Monastery as part of their semester abroad through the School for International Training.

Day 1 focused on the Danzan Ravjaa Museum in Sainshand, the East Gobi’s provincial capital. There, I spun through whatever half-truths I could recall about Danzan Ravjaa’s life and legacy before Altangerel, the hereditary caretaker of the monastery and everything associated with it, arrived to graciously field the students’ questions. At this point I stole away to get a photo of an amazing recent addition to the museum’s displays – the wrought silver crown and brocade garment that Danzan Ravjaa himself would don when he performed the oracular function of channeling particular enlightened protector deities. The crown’s a whopper, clocking in at nearly 30 lbs, but when the oracle’s in a trance, they wear it like it was fashioned from balsa wood:

 

Since I’ve written so much and published so many photos about these Gobi trips, I’m always on the lookout for what’s new. On the second day at the monastery itself, I noticed that one large stupa had been erected behind the Yellow Temple, catty-corner to this clever arrangement of eight stupas above a prayer wheel. Altangerel said it stands on the site of another stupa that had been destroyed in the religious purges of 1938:

In the Red Temple, I was drawn to this exquisite Chenresig statue:

Khamar’s abbot, Dush Lama, told me it was among the treasures unearthed last summer from the hidden crates of Danzan Ravjaa’s personal belongings, making it at least 150 years old. He said it would be re-consecrated and installed in one of the temples, but even though I pried a little, he feigned ignorance about its history.

In one of the meditation caves, we found an unusual resident adopting the Lion Pose...

...and wished him well before ascending to the Come-To-Buddha Revival Meeting at the top of the cave complex – everyone’s belting out Danzan Ravjaa’s golden oldie, Ulemjiin Chanar, their arms aloft to “get energy”:

I marched the kids around the desert a bit on this trip. It was lovely, if a bit hot and we cut things shorter than I would have liked as a couple of them were showing signs of heat exhaustion. Why, in my day we’d hike 10 miles barefoot on the burning sands before a breakfast of poached scorpions and camel fat, then...

Anyway, after paying homage to the sacred Khan Bayan Zurkh Mountain...

...we caught the overnight train back to Ulaanbaatar. Imagine our bafflement when we roused our sunburnt selves the next morning and squinted through sand-splattered windows to see that the two days of howling winds had blown in a near-blizzard:

You wanna be a tourist in Mongolia? Fine, but don’t come in May.

No Gobi trip would be complete without camels, of course, but it was so weird that at the one camel herder’s place we dropped into, there was Minjuur, one of the kids we sent to Namdroling Monastery in India!

He had returned due to persistent health problems, and he showed me the two-inch scar on his abdomen from surgery that seems to have fixed him up pretty well. He told me he really missed the monastery and I sure hope he’s able to return. Camel wrangling’s cool, but, you know.

Anyone who’s read DODR for a while knows I can’t help take a bazillion photos when camels are around, and this time was no exception. Check back in after a couple days and I’ll reprise the Kamel Kaption Kontest we ran a while back.

Mother Mongolia

Back in Mother Mongolia where I’ve just been given a free cup of coffee at Cafe Amsterdam in their impromptu celebration of new CA logo glasses arriving. Very welcome karmic ripening for a Monday morning!After 12 hours’ rest, I’ll head out to the Gobi to further confuse the minds of a group of American college students.

I was in a bit of a mood on the airplane so I amused myself among the fastidious Koreans during the 14-hour flight to Seoul by fake sneezing and mopping my brow with my “I {heart} Guadalajara” t-shirt. In Seoul, they actually stuck a thermometer in your ear (hmm, that needs to be enunciated precisely, or it takes on a much more alarming meaning!). I came out normal, rare for me.

Very loving reunion with my Moojie and Nita.

Lots in flux, much to talk about soon.

I'm With the Sangha -- Updated

Well, I never thought I’d say this, especially so close to Mother’s Day, but there’s really no other way to put it – my sainted mater has become a groupie. I don’t mean in an Almost Famous way; I’m pretty sure that was just a rumor about Bachman Turner Overdrive back in the day. But what else would you call it when tomorrow she’s going to join the throng at Gilette Stadium in Foxboro, MA, to see HH the Dalai Lama for, like, the 7^th time? True. If you’re there in the morning, look for her in the tie-dye shirt bearing his likeness, twirling on the grass in barefoot abandon as he gives his discourse on the Four Noble Truths.

Update: It occurs to me that if my mother follows an individual, she can't technically be a groupie, can she? I retract the moniker and, really, hesitate to use the term stalker...

I’d love to join her, but I’m finally jetting back to the wild west. Gotta make a Monday appointment to accompany American students to the Gobi to lecture about Danzan Ravjaa; the earlier trip we were supposed to take was postponed due to a combination severe sand and snow storm. Well, at least there’s unlikely to be too many swine flu cooties running around out there.

I’m grateful to my sister for providing a remarkably calm and sane refuge for me post-India. This trip has been...educational, and I have to grind through some pretty raw data this month. My sister gains a lot of wisdom from addiction recovery literature. The other morning, she read me the following quote, that’s really been bouncing in the hopper: “You don’t have to suffer continual chaos in order to grow.” As one nutty Thai chef I used to work with often barked out, “Correct or incorrect?!”