I really had all intentions of restarting up this blog incase anyone felt what I had to say was of benefit, but just as last year (and the year before that) I am so incredibly busy, it is very difficult. As it turns out though I am not too busy to write to my Mum so I decided to cut and paste a few e-mails and create some kind of blog (although not like what it was before but at least its something.)

So much has happened in the two years since I was a regular blogger and I can’t barely begin to put down all that has been going on so I will just start again and slowly things will reveal them selves.

I would like to write little Dharma insights and these things as I did before but these days it is a bit of a sink or swim situation and book reading is something I have to save up for the holidays.

Which actually I am on right now but it will be over shortly and then there wont be another until January! What type of marvelous Buddhist books have I been reading these days? What about ‘The way of Perfection”….. wait isn’t that the credo of Teresa of Avlila the great Carmalite saint?
Well yes, and probably I shouldn’t be reading it but it is fascinating and often rings true even in my weird situation. Unfortunately for my mother there is no indication of jumping boats but it still has a lot of fascinating insights in to monastic community life.

So to fill you in a little on what has been going on around here………

The annual nuns debate festival will be held in our nunnery this year, they are also expecting a lot of puja requests from the Tibetan government during the time of the Olympics. Already classes have been disturbed a lot by all the stuff going on this year. Also it seems there will be another Kalachakra at Amaravati in Jan or late Dec which means we will have exams a bit early. Or at least that is the excuse they gave us for canceling our summer vacation this year. Pretty dirty trick hey! They are giving us 10 days during June (ie now) which is almost over already and I have been so busy running up and down the mountain I’ve only managed one day of rest so far!

I thought I was coming down with tonsillitis so I went up to see the dr. Once I convinced him I was still in possession of my tonsils he said I only had a bit of pharengitus. It wasn’t an auspicious start. I went up as His Holiness came back a few days ago and we were told he would give a little talk and that there was some prayers so although it started early (8am but it takes up to 2 hrs to get up there sometimes) I went anyway (as I also had to go to the Dr so why not!) Anyway, we got there and there was prayers but His Holiness didn’t say anything so it was a bit disappointing. He will be giving a teaching to the Tibetan Children at the Tibetan Children’s village (giant Tibetan boarding school with several thousand students) tomorrow. I am not going, I will see if I can get someone to record it for me.

Two weeks ago we traipsed up to meet some of the meditators who are living in little shacks near my friend Ven. Nykills retreat hut. We went the long (and prickly) way but made it in the end (with a few puncture marks one stinging nettle victim and a neighbors dog who decided to join us for most of the journey but gave up near the top of the mountain when we lost the path and had to start crawling through the thorns.)
Of course there was a easy and relevily simple path to follow but we only found it on the way down….. its that always the way!
In the end it seems it was worth it though as we meet with a meditator who was a lovely fellow (who Nykil and Sangye (both American one monk one nun) had already named ‘Happy Monk’) from their brief meting when he was on his way back from Sojong. He wanted to cook us lunch but I felt bad because the food we ate would leave him with more to drag up the mountain next time he went for supplies so we just had tea.

He spent near an hour talking about the Dharma especially mind training and the benefits of cherishing other, which sounds boring but his way of speaking was really entertaining and very moving. I had to translate for the others but it was hard because he would say so many interesting things so fast and go on for a long time so I wasn’t able to translate it all exactly, but I had a nice time!

As for me I am well, class is really good at the moment I like it a lot and our teacher is really very skillful. All the nuns are surprised by how hard he is making class but we are so lucky to get a top notch teacher in a nunnery so they are trying to butter him up and make sure he doesn’t leave. He is pretty old already (ie not worrying about a career) so I think he may stay for another year or two which is good for us. Its not easy to get a good Monk to accept a post working in a nunnery. Besides the fact they are suddenly so alone in a nunnery they get a lot of flack from their mates back in the monastery. The stigma of nuns being stupid and unable to be married off etc is still thickk in the air. Even one of my classmates asked me why I didn’t go to Sara school and study philosophy with the monks rather than coming to the nunnery but to be honest I much prefer being here with the nuns where we can be friend and I am not always shut out of everything. If I have to be here for 10 years or so I may as well enjoy myself a bit!