Back from Retreat

Just some quick thoughts, since I have so many other things to do today!!

The retreat is over, and it was amazing. I am constantly in awe, and so grateful for the karmic seeds which continue to sprout around me. Perhaps a few have been watered by my own meager efforts, but I am convinced that I have behaved a lot better in a previous life than I have been so far in this one to be where I am right now. I owe so much to the kindness of the Lamas I have been privileged to meet, and I know that I won't let them down.

I'm not really sure where to begin, and what I want to share, some things that have happened in the last couple weeks will be kept in my heart. It has been nice to have the opportunity to take some time out, and now there is a growing crest of the next adventure about to crash down on me.

First I received teachings from the Sutrayana...Shantideva Chapter 5 to be more specific ( I added a link to the text on the sidebar). Khenpo Sherab Ozer Rinpoche is such an amazing Lama and a wonderful teacher. Shantideva is a text that you can read over and over and still not grasp, although you will continue to learn something every time...the key (for me) is actually applying it.


After we finished chapter 5 it was off to the Tantric vehicle with a Amitayus empowerment and then to retreat. The retreat was really excellent, really good meditations, and (as Khenpo said) not any major obstacles...although maybe a few minor ones like an amateur heavy metal concert over the next hill on Saturday night. But really I think it is in the face of adversity that the Lama's qualities really shine. As we all sat kind of squirming and trying to focus on our visualization with the noise, he wrote this beautiful little teaching about the emptiness of sound and passed it around for us. Light rays of wisdom really do shine from him.

I just feel blessed and very happy...to be able to practice the Dharma and do retreat, to be able to spend time with my Lama , and old friends and to make new ones!



And now my little Dharma vacation is over and the rest of my life continues, but with fewer obstacles thanks to the Amitayus Practice. I am very excited to think in less than one week I will be on another continent. I have to study hard because the program for Translators starts in September 2006, and I think a baptism by fire living with Tibetans will be just what I need. It's just a weird feeling because I know my life is about to radically change, but I just don't even know what to expect so I am not trying...I am just going with the flow. But it is exciting.

Honestly I feel like I could write a lot more, but I really should get going so maybe I will let my thoughts and reflections marinate a bit and try and do one last post before I leave for China on Friday. And I am really excited to do that, after all that was the reason I started the blog in the first place...as a journal from Asia, and here I feel like I have filled up so much empty space already!!