Author: Lama Lekshe

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This has been a month of reflecting on Dekeling’s past year, in order to prepare for 2025, and so naturally I have also spent a lot of time thinking about our possible futures as a community.

Today, just before waking up, I had a dream about a future where I attended Dekeling as a student of the people who practice there now. That’s you.

You.

In the dream, I came to Dekeling and I stayed for some years, and learned the way of compassion from those who were well-trained and steadily focused on the well-being of others, and I was pleased to see that they were very much on the way to alleviating their own suffering by having devoted their life’s energy to the Bodhisattva Path while they worked as carpenters and pilots.

I learned fearlessness from the Green Tara practitioners who chanted in English and Tibetan in a beautiful room devoted to Tara and her many blessings. The Green Tara folk had come to rely on awakened compassion as a means to see through the allure of worldly attachments and the sticky cleverness of klesha-mind. They were noble in their countenance—both the very young and the very old—and I noted the way that they were ready to spring up on a moment’s notice into action. There were Medicine Buddha folk, and Chenrezi folk, and the masters of the smoke offering and other rituals, who gathered every morning at a large fire pit outside to confess our harms, and to renew our aspirations to be harmless, open, and loving.

I learned from the generous young bookworm-scholars, happy to correct my incomplete knowledge and flimsy facts, and I was glad for their nonjudgemental commitment to accuracy of transmission. Many were fluent in Tibetan and Sanskrit, as well as Spanish and Chinese and several indigenous languages, and there was a calligrapher washing old-school brushes at the sink.

I learned community building from those who took western knowledge and seamlessly joined it to the dharma understanding of interconnectedness and who had, over years, strengthened the living container of sangha for future generations, including me in the dream. These folks held a living knowledge of our lives together across time. There was a chant about our history that was sung on the lunar New Year.

I learned without ever speaking a word about anything from the ‘secret practitioners,’ those whose main quality was ‘no-big-deal’ dharma. These yogins lived simply and carefully practiced what they’d been given, free from the useless clutter of intellectualizing and pride. They glowed. They laughed, they were quiet, they brought little trays of healthy snacks so neighbors stopped in sometimes just to enjoy.

I learned from those dogged Lojong folk in so many disguises—business people, writers, tech innovators, actors, healers and plumbers—how to open my heart in each moment of the ordinary person’s day, and how to use the steel will of bodhicitta to melt hatred in all of its forms—including self-criticism. They were a wise and steady bunch with great senses of humor. They were helpful when I locked my keys in my car.

I learned art practice and the marvelous way it lifted me up right out of thinking mind into a sublime experience free from the fetters of words; and I learned sacred music, and it permeated every service, and even our work. There was a community choir and several composers.

I learned from the temple space keepers, the tea-makers and the cooks, the greeters, the cleaners and those who cared for the sick and dying. I learned from the children and old-wise-ones, and the mysterious, unusual person sleeping on the bench by the wall near the shoe rack. I saw someone confidently setting up the altar and someone else tending the many plants. Everyone was teaching someone else something. There was no gate-keeping of knowledge and power.

I learned in a beautiful library, and an old person sitting quietly at a desk organizing the books and the reading glasses while children drew and whispered.

I learned from George, whose voice and heart survived on podcasts we made way back when. It seemed like I remembered his voice.

I learned from visiting the stupas of Chozen and Hogen, my old friends. And I saw a small reliquary for my teacher, Lama Michael. Bokar Rinpoche and Khenchen Rinpoche had special gratitude gardens in their honor. Medicinal herbs were thriving nearby, all labeled, with special scissors and help for taking some home. The paths were clear and wide and many people did walking meditation and lay on the grass. Dogs wandered in the little dog playground.

I spent time in the dharma treasure room and ancestor room, where people sang songs of our spiritual ancestors three times each day. It was always open for those with yearning hearts to sit quietly in good company. I learned from those beings, without ever having met.

In the dream, I really just came one day for the tea, but I stayed for decades, and the whole place felt like home, so I learned a lot gradually and without arrogance or pride, because even though everyone was teaching someone something—no one there seemed to be teaching those two things at all. In fact, I never heard those words mentioned in the dream, now that I think of it.

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It’s Saturday, December 16th and we are preparing to leave Nepal for a few weeks in Thailand. We’ll jump from 64 degrees to the mid-eighties as we disembark in Chiang Mai—another place saturated in Buddhism. A dharma friend of mine will meet us at the airport and we’ll check into our hotel and then go out for an early breakfast. It’s two short flights to get from here to there, but we’re leaving at 6:30 PM local time and have a 7-hour nighttime transit in Bangkok—so arriving at 7:15 AM.

The time in Kathmandu and the surrounding areas has been rich and educational. After settling in here, we then travelled to Mirik, India, to visit our monastery. Then we drove to Darjeeling, an important city in the northern Indian hills, where tea plantation entrepreneurs escaped the brutal summer heat of the lowlands in the early part of the 19th century. Darjeeling is at about 7,000 feet (about 2,000 feet higher than Kathmandu) and so it was quite cold already.

In a near-miraculous route of return that mostly relied on luck and karma, we made it from Darjeeling back to Kathmandu in one lonnnnnggggg travel day.

The Delhi international airport is modern and it was an easy stay since we didn’t have to leave the terminal. Outside the airport, Delhi has shockingly bad air pollution—with AQI once reaching 550—nearly 200 points worse than when the Pacific Northwest was experiencing dangerous wildfires several years back. This was an important experience, really driving home the cost of letting air pollution get irreparably out of control. It’s hard to image how India could reverse Delhi’s poor air quality, even as it slowly decreases both the quality of life and life span of all of its citizens, including humans and animals.

Just for reference, the AQI in Kathmandu is 72 today—50% better than a few weeks back and in Portland it’s reported to be 23. At 150 in Kathmandu, one is well-advised to wear a mask and I’d say half the population has a chronic deep cough when the AQI is in the 150 range.

Both Nepal and India are fascinating intersections of ancient and modern culture. Of course, both are predominantly Hindu countries, but both are also strongly impacted by Buddhism. I see it in every moment of life here. There is a tenderness and joy that flows freely in everyday interactions, despite the effort required to simply get by here. Down at the stupa, many stray dogs have little coats, fashioned from old sweatshirts and jackets. I don’t know, of course, if the jackets are helpful or not, but it seems clear that they are intended to keep the old street dogs warm as they lay in the sun near the stupa.

We have been at our hotel, Lotus Gems, long enough to know many of the staff by name. Some have shared their stories and all have enriched us by being the very embodiment of kindness and care. This is the second month’s long stint I have been in residence here. I can hardly imagine a nicer, more supportive place to stay. The hotel is run by a Tibetan family and the proceeds from the business are offered to their dharma teacher’s many humanitarian projects. He is here regularly, meeting with people and conducting the business of benefitting beings.

The hotel is at the end of dead end street, and is just a few feet from the entrance to Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche’s old monastery (He built a magnificent new one about an hour outside of town, in the hills near Namo Buddha a few years back. We visited that, too.) My alarm clock has been the 5:30 gong of the monastery, calling the monks to morning services.

Both Julie and I got the usual Kathmandu bronchitis, related mostly to pollution. It’s a deep, persistent and sludgy cough, often accompanied by a mild eye infection. I visited the clinic twice, since mine is complicated by asthma. The CIWEC clinic was founded decades back by a Canadian team, and now includes a hospital wing with a dozen or so beds. At this point, I think all the staff are Nepali.

In Thailand, I’ll be slowing down a bit—taking time to enjoy the warmth and wandering around Old Town and doing some practice in my hotel room. We’ll also meet up with friends and eventually drive 3-4 hours to the northern countryside in Chiang Rai. I am especially happy to return to the small communities of various ethnicities in the mountainous regions. I learned so much last time I was there.

I am almost done lighting lamps here. A couple of emails about folks to remember came later, so I will light those and recite the names of those people when we’re back from Thailand. I am thinking about making an offering at a temple in the jungle for Dekeling community’s many animal friends, too.

On the topic of offerings, I made an offering to our monastery in Mirik and also one to Venerable Bokar Rinpoche’s tulku (incarnation) as well. These offerings were made by our community as a whole—you included. Our offering will be used for daily operations of the monastery and its activity, including education, healthcare, and housing for monks and nuns training under Ven. Khenchen Lodro Donyo Rinpoche. Due to the vision and generosity of Ven. Bokar Rinpoche, many of these same services are also extended to the surrounding community as well.

Travel here is quite different than in the USA. Things are pretty much completely unpredictable. There’s lots of information online, for example, and much of it not even remotely accurate, even on official government websites. Taxis may lack tread on their tires and oomph in their suspension and doors may or may not stay shut. Cultural and language are challenges even when intentions are to be flexible and collaborative. Most objects and most processes are about 70% functional, and to be honest I have come to appreciate ones that are that effective as ‘above the grade.’

So each hour of a 14 or 18 hour travel day must be met with near complete patience, openness, and acceptance. I know if I have to sit and wait for two hours, it’s excellent good fortune to actually have a place to sit. Even more lucky to have a hint of information about what might happen next. It’s a wonderful practice of letting go. When I can do that, things always seem to work out fine, even if quite different than I expected.

I am ducking out to have a bit of lunch at the cafe next door before putting my luggage in storage and hailing a cab to the airport, where the rule is ‘hurry up and wait.’ Still—flying to Thailand certainly beats the other options.

I think of you all every morning as I sit snuggled into many blankets, watching my breath make small clouds on the out breath. Much gratitude for your practice and your regard for each other and all beings.

Lekshe
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You can follow Lekshe’s travels via her Facbook page.

This is Boudhanath, the neighborhood where I am staying. The photo is borrowed from the internet, because it’s a drone shot. I am three minutes’ walk from the stupa in the center. 

This is how the stupa looked when I was walking home last night. 

Last year I had the good fortune of staying at a hotel called Hotel Lotus Gems. It’s owned by a local dharma family with deep roots in Dolpo, a region of northern Nepal, close to the Tibet/China border. The proceeds from this hotel go to the humanitarian projects of the family’s Tibetan Dharma teacher. 

Last year I was one of a tiny handful of guests at the hotel so there was lots of time to get to know staff. One of the front desk staff is a young man named Karma. He hails from Dolpo, as many of the staff here do. One day, I was admiring a painting on the wall and I asked Karma about it. He said, “It’s a painting of life in Dolpo. My father, Tenzin Norbu painted it.” 

A view of Dolpo in Nepal:

Yes, Phoksindu Lake is actually this color. I have seen it:

This could be us in Dolpo:

This year the hotel is full of guests. This morning at breakfast, I can hear French and Chinese guests enjoying morning conversations. But Karma is still here, and in between large groups, we still manage to connect and I am learning more about his life and family. He’s a little shy, so these conversations take time, but I can tell he enjoys sharing about Dolpo, his family and his life. The longer the conversation goes, the faster he talks and the straighter he stands.

Yesterday, he carefully drew a map of how I could get to a place called Caravan Cafe. It’s location included a lot of hints like, “There is a sign that says Dolpo Gallery, which is actually not there, any more…”

So after breakfast I took the small scrap of paper that was the map and went down the stone paved road near the hotel and rounded the corner onto the muddy lane that leads to the stupa. It took a bit of wandering, but finally I found it:

It appears that Cafe Caravan used to be Karma’s father’s gallery. Now his father has moved back to Dolpo and works there again as an artist and leader of some humanitarian projects like schools. 

The cafe name is a reference to the French movie Caravan. Here are a few clips from the film on YouTube. It was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film the year it came out. 

Karma’s father, Tenzin Norbu, was a technical advisor for the film. Tenzin was trained in thangka painting and is in a family lineage of 400 years of thangka (Buddhist scroll painting) artists. But at some point in his life, he met a Frenchman who took him to France and together they visited many museums, gallery’s and other cultural scenes.

It occured to Tenzin that he could step outside the thangka tradition of painting in a very carefully prescribed way of Dharma story telling to create paintings in his own style. And after the long visit in France, he came to feel that his own culture was a kind of art, which could be expressed in the thangka style and so he began to paint everyday life in Dolpo—in the thangka brush style. 

Here is Tenzin as a young man, working on a painting:

Here is Tenzin’s painting of a snowy night in Dolpo:

Dolpo can be visited today so that one can see these things for oneself. Tenzin has illustrated children’s books, which you can find online.

The Dolpo people live a Tibetan lifestyle. They have many kinds of herd animals, including yaks. Yaks are especially revered by the Dolpo community becuase they are the most hardy of the herd animals. Not only can they carry heavy loads, but they give milk, which can be made into butter and yogurt. The movie Caravan shows the relationship between the Dolpo people and their yaks. 

Last night I was having tea at the Caravan Cafe with a young woman named Sonam Lhamo that I met last year at the gallery where I bought Dekeling’s Green Tara and Chenrezig thangkas. She is college age and hails from a village in the far, far west of Nepal, called Limi. (Limi, she told me, means the people near the river’s border.) Their village is right against the Chinese border. 

Sonam is smart and remarkably confident. In her village, the environmental conditions in winter are quite harsh, so even children have to work hard. She told me that their yaks liked to be out in the out-of-doors all winter, so they let them wander. Then in spring and they would go collect their animals and get ready for their time together. Sonam told me a yak in deep snow can survive for up to a month without food or water, unlike the goats and sheep which would die if not close to the village. 

This is a yak:

And this is a yak:

And this is a yak with clothes made by people who value their yak-friend:

This is why you see yaks in so many of Tenzin’s paintings:

Sonam Lhamo and I were looking at dozens of prints of his paintings (they make canvas prints here). She got teary-eyed seeing the very life she lived as a child treated as precious art. For two hours she kept pointing out tiny details my eye might have missed. She said these details were all accurate and tell many important stories which are quickly disappearing. Looking at one kind of striped wool bag for storage of grain and salt, she explained to me how these bags were made and how, as a child, she had to twist yak wool threads to make ties for the bags. 

Here is Tenzin Norbu working on a large-scale painting which is stretched in the traditional style used for thangka, paintings as well. He works in stone color—a very, very laborious process that involves grinding the stone to make pigment:

Some of Tenzin’s paintings are not about village life. (Or maybe they actually are, now that I think about it.) Such as this one, a traditional mandala, but it’s melting. (At the bottom is an ice cream cone, immortalized.) I don’t know what this painting is about—maybe climate change? Or the change of village culture (melting away?) 

A few of them are quite unique and their meaning is lost on me—fodder for future questions to Karma and Sonam. 

Dolpo in spring. This is very much how I remember Tibet:

There is a painting here in the hotel of a person standing at Lake Phoksindu, out on a small point of land in the water. In the sky, a dark grey cloud looks like a dragon. There are a few yaks in the lower right hand corer, kicking up their feet and running. Two birds are flying in the sky.

I asked Karma, “What do you think your father was thinking of when he painted this?”

He said, “Well, that cloud is thunder, and I think the person is just standing there, enjoying the thunder. The yaks are startled by it because they don’t know what it is—only that is a a powerful noise, which could indicate some danger, so they are frightened and are running away.”

A whole moment of Dolpo life captured in a snapshot. 

This is why I come to Nepal. I am not as much interested in sightseeing as I am in seeing into the stories and lives of ordinary people. I would rather follow one good story like this over a few years, in multiple conversations with multiple people than I would visit the great ‘modern wonders’ of the world. 

I also enjoy giving a listening ear to those whose voices have not really been heard. Especially to young people who can come to value their own culture and past by telling the stories they have lived. I appreciate their openness and their generosity in sharing these stories and the beautiful details of their lives, which are slipping away moment by moment. I also enjoy hearing about how they are navigating the rapid changes that are happening to them as electricity and roads and so-called ‘improvements’ reach their homeland. 

I wish you were here. 

Lekshe

November 20, 2023

Hello, Friends,

It’s early in the morning—frosty and dark outside—and such a good time of year to turn inward. Off in the distance I hear jets at the airport warming their engines. I am aware of the good fortune of a safe and comfortable home.

Thank you for your efforts and your altruistic intentions in 2023—they are bearing such good fruit. In just a few short years so many of you have developed a steady shamatha practice and are now beginning to integrate insight mediation. Some have also connected to regular Green Tara or Medicine Buddha practice and inside that, have nurtured friendships and lively support for each other. Our Lojong study and practice is friendly and flourishing.

I see the dawning of an experiential understanding that practicing in the Vajrayana is a gradual process that will necessarily span years of more or less continuous effort and investment. Little by little I see you letting go of society’s demand that we should measure and judge practice and ourselves as we do our secular endeavors: let us not succumb to that. I delight in watching you act on the understanding that the challenges of our lives are not obstacles to practice but form the basis of the path itself. As you practice in that way, I see you responding more and more with patience, humor, and grace in all kinds of demanding situations. What a good sign!

Slowly, slowly, personal connections are forming among community members. To those of you who are such good shepherds of that, thank you for adding joy and stability to our community.

In 2023, many of you were able to take days or even weeks off to do retreat. I know it takes effort and determination to make this happen. Thank you, and your significant others, too. And thank you to our teachers and benefactors. In these challenging times, strong and compassionate hearts are medicine for the world. Thank you for your abiding presence as fellow travelers on the path
of wisdom and compassion.

With sincere gratitude for our continued connection, and for your goodness,

Lekshe

Today, after our tonglen practice, I accidentally found myself at Woodlawn Farmers’ Market. I meant to get coffee and a roll at the bakery, but I saw the market was open and I decided to go there instead, because I was hungry and had some cash in my pocket because last week was my birthday. 

I walked around the perimeter of the market, looking to see what was there today. Apples— good apples fresh from a field somewhere, not the kind that have been prisoners in a dark refrigerated commercial storage unit since last fall. And there were all kinds of root vegetables. and colorful buckets of dahlias. There was coffee and tortillas and sweets. 

I stopped at the first booth nearest the street. I used to have a market vendor stall, and I remember claiming that space as I aged because it was nearest the loading and unloading zone. That’s what you do if you know you’re going to be tired when the market is over, and especially if you are working alone or it’s raining. 

The man did look tired. And to be truthful, his vegetables looked tired, too. But they were honest.. they had the scars of a garden with no pesticides and they were shaped in such a way as to make me think they got watered on a variable and somewhat unreliable schedule. That seemed perfect. Simple and real food from a simple and real neighbor. 

So I gathered up vegetables in the way that I do—no idea what I am going to cook. I got apples, and a bunch of stunted kale, 3 potatoes, some pickled beets, and a few other things. Quite a few. 

While the man was packing up the vegetables, I noticed that every knuckle joint on his hands was enlarged. His skin was dried from continuous exposure to the sun. I said, “It’s hard work, isn’t it, growing vegetables?” He sighed heavily and and shook his head slowly in agreement. He responded but his voice was so soft I could barely hear. I realized he possibly did not speak much English—or just not with confidence. His front teeth had old-style gold fillings. His clothes were all the color you get when you wash all the clothes in the same load. His skin and his clothes were the same light brown. 

I said, “I am getting old and and I can’t really garden any more.” He looked at me as he put vegetables into a bag and said, “I am also old now. I am 75.” I said, “You don’t look 75, you look 60 and he smiled shyly and said, “Actually I am a boy. I am 16.” We both laughed. And for just one moment his eyes sparkled and his back straightened a little and he looked a tiny bit more alive before he sunk back into the soft posture of a man who has carried too much for too long. 

I said, “I appreciate these vegetables. I appreciate your work. Your hard work.” and he looked and me and didn’t say anything, but handed me the bag. I saw him carefully smooth the dollar bills and put them into his pocket. 

I looked around a little more and then decided to go home. As I passed his stall, I looked him in the eye and said, “OK. See you next week.” He tilted his head and smiled the smallest of smiles and then looked down at the table in front of him. What I meant was, “I see you. I feel you, and I know we are connected. I love you.” 

I walked across the street and put my bags into the car, got in the front seat and put my head on the steering wheel and cried a little before turning the key. When I have been practicing, I see that we are all so beautiful. We are all tired and alive and old and young. The only food I want to eat is the food that sustains someone else. The only things I want to buy are those that put money in the pockets of those who are poor. 

Much love in the practice, 

Lekshe

Upcoming Events at Dekeling

October 28: Vipashyana: Seeing Clearly

October 29: Conversation with Lama Palden: Women in Tibetan Buddhism

Diane Berger is a senior Buddhist practitioner in Seattle, with a fascinating life story. It’s our good fortune that she’s also a writer. This book details her time in a solo three-plus year long retreat, guided by her teacher, the esteemed Tibetan master, Kilung Rinpoche. Diane is smart, direct and full of mischievous joy. I’ll be taking AmTrack up to see her in fall and hope to convince her to join us for a Zoom talk in our 2024 series of visiting teacher/practitioner talks. Tricycle magazine reviews her book here. Have a look!

Review of ‘Small Boat, Vast Ocean: My Years in Solitary Buddhist Retreat’