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| As you enter the shrine building there is a foyer shown above. Chris is shown on the right above. He is the staff person who is responsible for the shrine and was our most gracious host for the teachings and many of the chants. There were 30 to 40 people at the teachings which were held in the main shrine room shown above. Lama Dudjom Dorjee or Lamala talked about the nine stages of meditation within the hinayana traditions, leading to self liberation though not full enlightenment. My take on the difference is that through those meditation techniques you can eliminate all misery and suffering from your life, but they don't create the joy of celebrating your connection with other sentient beings. The stages are mostly different levels of controlling the mind. The teachings caused me to contemplate what is missing from the hinayana traditions, a sense of balance between eliminating misery in our lives and developing the joy in our lives. I wrote these thoughts up in a separate page as it was pretty long. After each teaching session, there would normally be a question / answer session where we could ask questions (below). |
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| Here is a picture Robert took of Sherry asking a question. | |
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| After the last teaching, Lamala gave his blessing and some seeds to take if we ever have poor health. Above is a picture of Chris, Lamala and me with a kata (scarf) I borrowed from Leslie as my two katas are in storage. Leslie took that picture. After that is a picture of Lamala and my brother, Michael, with Duke waiting for his blessing. On Saturday afternoon we were able to meet and get blessings from Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, the head of the Kaygu lineage in North America. After getting his blessing we had a group picture shown here. I am on the back row in a light green shirt (no kata, I borrowed my brother's kata for Rinpoche's blessing) and it is great to have a picture of all the other retreat participants. |
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| Here is Beth. She helps organize many of these events and takes many of the group pictures (so she is not in many of the pictures). Sadly her eyes were closed when I took this picture, but she does look absolutely radiant here, which is the way I remember her. The teachings ended about 5PM on Sunday, but most people had flown in from Dallas and hardly any had flights that evening so they stayed through Monday morning. They had mostly taken two vans (rented at the Albany airport on Friday) and were due to return at 9AM. Breakfast was at 7:30AM so from 8AM to 9AM we enjoyed walking some of the trails around the monastery. There are numerous such trails through the woods. A group of ended up at a nearby pond (shown below) and Dawa fed the numerous fish (clearly they had been fed before). |
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This page was last updated on November 5, 2009.
