Natalie’s Sabbatical Journey

Five Days in Kathmandu

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:37:25 -0400

I spent five days in a shangri-la of a city ringed by mountains, the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance. I was invited by my friend Philip Bhark to provide pastoral services at the Shechen Clinic and Hospice in Kathmandu where he has provided medical services. The clinic is part of the Tibetan Buddhist Shechen Monastery and provides allopathic, homeopathic and Tibetan medicine, even making its own Tibetan medicines. After chanting with the monks I spent each morning providing prayer, touch, hand games and singing to the five patients in the hospice. None of them were actually in the last stages of life but they had no other care available so the clinic took them in. The clinic provides health care primarily to Tibetan refugees.

I also met with the wonderful staff, directed by Isabelle Pastor. The head nurse, Furgyalmu, invited me to speak with and demonstrate spiritual care with the nursing staff. We realized they already were providing spiritual care and just needed encouragement. I provided a small contribution to buy whatever is needed, such as singing bowls and massage oil, for spiritual support for the staff and care for the patients. Both the staff and many volunteers from Kathmandu and abroad are dedicated and committed.

Kathmandu is a series of ancient cities which Annie and I explored. I was most enthralled by the lively merging of Hindu and Buddhist temples, stupas, festivals and rituals. Tika, the festival of light, like India’s Dewali, was being celebrated when we visited. Annie and I also took an exhilarating flight into the Himalayas, within three miles of Mt. Everest. And I rode on the back of Tashi’s motorcycle.

This is the end of an exhilarating, at times chaotic, and awe inspiring sabbatical journey. There were times when life was very difficult for us as we negotiated and were witness to tainted water, dirty toilets, open sewers and stark poverty. Both of us were sick, and Annie was very sick for a week at the end of our trip. Thus our time in Kathmandu was cut short while she recovered in Delhi.

And yet the depth of relationships made along the way, the kindness and hospitality of the people, and the resilience of the human spirit moved me time and again. Sometimes we are complacent in the United States and forget that human connection and smiles amidst hardship may be most important of all. Thanks be to God for all the people we met along the way, for the opportunity to grow with my daughter, for the Lilly Endowment which made the financial part of the trip possible, for Church on the Hill which generously gave me time away, and for my friends and family who were left behind and waited for my safe return. My heart is full of gratitude.

The Magic of the Taj Mahal

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

How could I leave India without visiting the Taj Mahal? After a three hour car ride and a stressful walk through the gauntlet of vendors, rickshaw drivers, and would-be guides, I marveled at the largest monument built for the sake of love. The Taj was constructed by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631. Though it did not have the resonance that places of worship have for me, it seemed to float in the sky, standing on a bluff above the river. Surely a magic place!

Pray Study Receive Serve

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:16:48 -0400

Imagine my delight and surprise when I discovered that this Bon Tibetan monastery has a twin relationship with the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, New Mexico where I visited last March and lived during the summer of 1970! Like Bon, the indigenous religion of Tibet, the Benedictine rule consists of prayer, study, hospitality and service. I began my sabbatical at the Benedictine Weston Priory in Vermont, and now I near the end of my time away by following the rhythm of these monks and nuns at this breathtakingly beautiful Tibetan monastery in the small village of Dolanji in the Himachal Pradesh region of India.

The day begins at 6 am with chanting and then receiving a water blessing from His Holiness, the Abbot of the Menri Monastery. The monks intone a dedication of body, mind and spirit. The morning is devoted to prayer, study, and lively debate in the courtyard. Below left are nuns studying and at right monks debating

After a mid-day chanting and lunch, everyone rests, followed by work. Annie and I worked in the health clinic dressing wounds, pulling out thorns, and treating ringworm, scabies and lice for the monks, orphan children living at the Bon Children’s Welfare Center, and local villagers, both Tibetan and Indian. What little we were able to offer still elicited smiles.

The Bon Health Care Center is free to all. Many of these Tibetan orphans, monks, and nuns have arrived with harrowing stories from Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and northern India. There is little or no infrastructure from where they have come. The clinic offers allopathic and Tibetan medicines and dental care. Doctors come several times a year to volunteer their services. In the meantime some of the monks have been trained in some simple medical procedures. There is a small community hospital 14 km away along a precipitous and narrow dirt mountain road. There are plans to grow herbs on the monastery grounds to supplement the Tibetan medicine. One monk is particularly interested in being trained because his grandfather is a Tibetan healer in northwest Nepal.

Annie and I met three times with the Abbot, His Holiness Menri Trizen, who leads this monastery of 200 monks, a nunnery of 50 nuns, an orphanage of 170 boys, and the Bon Children’s Home of 250 boys and girls. There is a settlement of 75 Tibetan families and a school of Tibetan and Indian children run by the Indian government and overseen by the Abbot. The Abbot’s sense of humor and lightness of being quickly dispels my seriousness and gives him the honor of teacher by all who meet him.

Many Tibetans regard Bon as the ancient religion of the Tibetans. With the advent of Buddhism many Tibetans became Buddhists. Both Buddhists and Bon had to flee Tibet following the Chinese invasion. This monastery and nunnery helps preserve the culture and religion of Bon. (www.bonfoundation.org)

The nunnery is not nearly as developed as the monastery and yet provides a refuge and opportunity for many female Tibetan orphans and refugees. One of the teachers invited me to give a spiritual lesson which I was honored to do. I told the story of the “Good Shepherd” in the Godly Play approach of the Sunday School at Church on the Hill. Then nuns and teachers loved the opportunity to engage in the four wondering questions, and we all realized the universal nature of each person contributing to the whole community. Afterwards the nuns chanted energetically in their temple.

We ended our 11 day sojourn joining the Abbot in a powerful Powha ceremony, a death ritual for a Tibetan who had died 14 days earlier. For 49 days prayers are chanted and a paper with words about his life burned to help his spirit along. The Abbot chants special sounds to give his spirit the opportunity to “pop out” of this life to the next place.

The last day was the start of a seven day Festival of the Goddess of Wrath. The monks and nuns chanted with gusto, offering 100,000 prayers and 100,000 cookies cooked in the monastery kitchen to Sidpe Gyalmo. Incense, drums, cymbals, and the blowing of a conch create an atmosphere that touches all senses. Below is the depiction of this goddess of wrath riding a mule and the monks making offerings and loud music and chanting to honor the powerful energy of this deity. The Bon religion integrates all the emotions, from peacefulness to wrathfulness. The monks practice anger, sorrow, joy and experience them easily.

This time is the culmination of an amazing three months immersed in a timeless, spacious environment that feels like the center of the universe. I am grateful for the hospitality of Geshe Samdup, Geshe Sonam and Dondup, for the monks in the health clinic, Yung Drung, Ishi, Pal Den and Tenpo. We laughed and played and chanted and worked together, and my Christian faith came more alive in the rhythm of prayer, study, hospitality, and service.

Nuns make music and prayer flags
wave above the farm land and the
dairy of the Menri Monastery.

Season of Festivals

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Annie and I arrived in India at the height of the festival season. Nine days of the Hindi Festival Navatra celebrating the goddess of power ended in the burning of these giant effigies (above) to cleanse all evil spirits. We viewed this event in Punjab where we spent three days visiting Chandigarh and Amritsar. We viewed the Golden Temple, the holiest site for Sikhs, on the birthday of the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Ram Das. It was a chaotic and intense experience as we joined thousands of pilgrims chanting and praying on this holy day. Below a Sikh bather emerges from the sacred waters surrounding the Golden Temple and throngs of pilgrims push to get into the temple area.

We also visited Hindi temples where people made offerings to the goddess, Jain temples where believers take care not to harm any sentient being, Christian churches, Islamic mosques, and Buddhist shrines. India is full of an unparalleled diversity of religion and culture.

Above right we came across a wedding during the busiest month for weddings. Below Annie dances at the conclusion of the Navatra festival. We ended these days with a magical visit to the exquisite Rock Garden in Chandigarh, a fantasy park created by Nek Chand of old tiles and other household and industrial parts from a landfill.

Annie and I stayed in Chandigarh with a lovely Sikh family, friends of friends, Dolly, Kuldeep, son Karin, and daughter Manmeet who lives in Delhi.

Below is the Jain Temple and a Hindi temple across from Red Fort in Old Delhi. India Gate is on the right.

Images of India

Sun, 5 Oct 2008 14:28:59 -0400

I am loving India!

Annie and I arrived in Delhi on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and had a choice to visit his grave in the Raj Gardens along with thousands of Indians paying homage or go on a mindfulness walk with the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh through India Gate to mark Gandhi’s birthday and his commitment to nonviolence. We chose Gandhi’s grave and the adjacent museum paying homage to this remarkable man along with thousands of other people who took the day off.

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Annie took off for an organic farms conference at Navdanya and I took off for Jaipur in Rajasthan, adjacent to Pakistan. Images worth remembering--
a nine day Hindi festival called Navatra, honoring the goddess of power as women carried jugs of water on their heads for the elephant god, Ganesh, rickshaws careening through the streets around donkeys, horses, camels and elephants, the sound of Sufi music and Hindi music (25% of the population in this province is Muslim), yoga and a meal with my Hindi driver Mahesh and his wife, Manju, married 21 years in an arranged marriage (they did not meet until their wedding day), the sun setting on the pink colored buildings of this magical city, walking across a roundabout as cars, taxis, buses, bicycles, and rickshaws weaved around me (the trick is to just keep going in a steady line), the Palace of Winds, Amber Fort, and sundials at the observatory looking like abstract sculptures, sacred cows wandering in the bazaar, the train ride back to Delhi and the family I met who befriended me and told me all about the wonderful things I was eating for dinner provided by the train.

Today in Delhi I raced around the city taking in the array of rich and poor, well-heeled neighborhoods and pot-holed side streets, fashionably dressed shoppers and “scavengers”picking through the garbage and sleeping on the concrete median strip, sacred cows wandering the streets, almost getting ripped off at the railroad station, witnessing my driver being bribed for “tax payment” ( saw the same thing in Russia with my driver there). And I ended the day at the Bah’ai Lotus Temple along with thousands of Indians all decked out in beautiful and colorful clothes taking their turn in long lines to pray and find peace in this refuge
of quiet meditation.
of peace.