I'm Not Dead, Just Busy

That's right folks, despite my absence of more than a week, I'm still alive and well. I have been very busy at Tashi Jong, and my routine there doesn't allow me time to get down to the internet café in Paprola much. I am writing this from McLeod Ganj, where I am starting off a 10-day or so holiday. After a couple of days here, I'm off to Manali (whilst the monks at TJ have a 7-day puja). I have forgotten my journal with the last week or so in it (I'm on to a new one) so I can't really tell you about all that yet - not that there's too much of interest to tell you. So, instead, I'll tell you about this morning's fun.

I got up at 6.45am and we went off to the Dalai Lama's temple to see him teaching. We went with Jeremy Bard (GAP project co-ordinator for NW India) who is visiting us all at the moment and Nyima, our GAP rep in the country who I haven't seen since we first arrived in McLeod Ganj (that's good, though, it means we haven't had any major issues). Nyima knew how these things work - what happens is we are at the temple, and His Holiness walks over from his house, about 20 metres away, opposite the temple. We were standing right next to the steps up to the temple, and so the Dalai Lama walked right past us, perhaps a metre away. He stopped there too, right in front of us, to talk to a lady in a wheelchair. We were close enough to hear him speaking to her (in Tibetan). It was fairly awesome.

The next couple of hours was spent listening to his teaching (and the radio translation) about the post-meditative state, the nature of emptiness, etc.. It's fairly deep stuff, and the translation wasn't exactly perfect, however I did my best to follow it. The teachings were followed by a mass feed of rice and dhal for everyone there (who had a bowl - we didn't). I'm going to find somewhere to eat in McLeod soon, though it's only 12.15 or so.

McLeod is very nice, though full of hippies and people on spiritual-awakening trips (or some nonsense like that). Beyond this, since I've left my journal behind, I have nothing more to say. I will try not to leave you all on tenterhooks for so long again, and I'll certainly pop on the net in Manali at some point. I hope all of you who have just started are settling into to uni well, and that all is well at home.

Talk to you soon!