Fri, 29 Oct 2010
So Long Lama
Lama Phurbu Tashi Rinpoche will be leaving for Indonesia next week. So it's a good time to catch up with what's happened since he came back to Annapolis in March. Last year we lost our meeting location in back of an organic pet food store. One of the group's members, Michael, offered to host the meeting in his house. That continued until he sold his house shortly after Lama returned. Lama has kept his regular Monday noon meetings at the psychologists' office, but the eveneing meetings have been at different places. Some were provate homes and some businesses. It's hard to build a group when you don't have a regular place to meet. We talked about pledging enough money to rent a space, but that hasn't worked out so far. Clearly finding a regular spot for meditation is a top priority for the group. Lama has taught an introductory class on meditation several times. It seemed to be well received, but who knows how many people kept up their meditation.
The other big thing is that Lama started writing essays on different aspects of Buddhism. There are eighteen of them now, enough so he plans to have them printed as a book. You can read the essays on his website. I was asked to proof read and copy edit the essays along with some of his other students. Discussing what he meant to say was cetrainly interesting.
This past year Lama got his driver's license and his green card. He stayed with Gabby for a week and Gabby taught him how to drive a stick shift. We invited Lama up to Baltimore and the Medicine Buddha Sangha to teach his meditation clas and that was a big success. We asked Lama to freee a house of a troubled spirit that had been bothering the daughter of one of our members. That was interesting, because although I had done Chod practice before with Lama, this was the first time I had seen it done in the presence of a spirit.
Lama seems to have had a positive impact on those lucky enough to hear him. And I hope as he travels to Indonesia and (maybe) Tibet, he will have the same impact.
