A monk, a lake, and friends

It was grey,rainy and quiet today. The entire other group went to Manali yesterday afternoon and won't be back until tomorrow night. Ahhhhh..... Bonnie, Sharmani, Deerij and I took a taxi to the Tibetan Library where Bonnie and I attended a Budhism class/lecture while Sharmani and Deerij hiked on up to Mcleodganj.

A very old monk talked and an older woman from Britain translated to the 30-40 of us (predominantly westerners of one sort or another) sitting on the floor. He talked of all the harmful, hurtful emotions and actions we have done in our multiple rebirths --- essentially we have done and felt everything that is bad and harmful. The point of the talk was that we need to ask for help from budha and bodivsitas (?) enlightened beings, truly regret what we have done and clense(??) our thoughts and actions and start sending out "waves of virtue" to help redress or balance out the harm we have done. If we do it just for ourselves, for enlightenment it is still a good thing but will only last as long as we are in this body. If, however, we truly regret, change, and send out waves of virtue and positive actions for the good of every living being, then the positive will have repercussions past this individual life. He suggested we consider our thoughts and behavior immediately because lord death doesn't care whether or not we have tasks we still want to do or not. One of the images he used that I truly appreciated was when he was talking about how when lord death visits all our possessions and attachments, everything gets left behind and our mind (spirit) leaves these things as a "hair is pulled from butter" -- nothing adheres to the hair...

We met Dheerij (who is now officially my grandson -- his are "late" and he asked if I would be his grandmother; I happily accepted) and Sharmani in Mcleod, had lunch, and went on to Dall lake. Dall Lake is surrounded by deodor cedars and has three or more small temples. The lake is brown from all the rain and full of fish. I wanted to go on the ferris wheel without a motor. Deerij said they were charging too much so the young man operating it said two of us could get on for the price of 1. We got in the bucket and he tried and tried to get us in the air. Another young man came to help him, then an older man. The three of them couldn't get us more than 3/4ths the way up. They beckoned to Bonnie and Deerij who got in almost opposite us and it still too the three of them to get us all going. One things were in motion, though, they kept us going easily. We were all laughing hilariously. I think the three men were having fun too as they were also laughing.

On the way back Bonnie and I stopped off at Mcleod for some last minute shopping as we are leaving Thursday. I needed a duffle bag as my suitcase fell to pieces on the way here. It rained and we went to a cafe where we met a woman with a three year old (spoiled rotten but cute) daughter. The woman is/was a facilitator for conflict resolution and also does/did? documentaries for BBC. She and her daughter had been living in Goa for six months. She is trying to find a place where she wants to raise her daughter as she doesn't like the values in Britain anymore.

Bonnie and I went different directions, she is staying to hear a band from Dharamsala who take english lessions here, play tonight in Mcleod. I found a duffle bag, bought a Kashmiri rug from "Lucky" in his little shop up the stairs (I wasn't shopping for one....) and saw the same family who live off their daughter walking the tightrope and little son dancing for hours that were in Manali.....

Mukesh made me soup when I got back, Lalu explained some things about Hindu gods to me, and Sharmani and talked long after supper.
Tomorrow I get to go to Naddi village and visit Rama and Manju at their houses. I will very much miss Dharamsal, Mcleodganj, and most of all, the people here!!!