Dang Zang

My contribution to the discussion in the Guardian:

At last the catalogue project that I began so long ago has reached a sort of completion. Improvement will always be possible, through more detail and ironing out mistakes. But at least I now know what I’ve got, and will avoid that embarrassing moment when you start reading a wonderful text that you ordered from Snow Lion or from Wisdom only to realise that it is already somewhere on your shelves and that you first read it two or three years ago.

In the course of this work I stumbled across a surprise. If you like you can look at it directly at Amazon Books, but because these things change all the time, I also provide a screenshot here.

(Click to open a new window and see it the proper size.)

A number of misleading things should be cleared up. First of all, on some of the pages related to this book, you will even see that it is “by” Tenga Rinpoche and Alex Wilding. That is tosh. Even the statement that it is “by” Tenga Rinpoche and translated by Alex Wilding is a misleading exaggeration. Tenga Rinpoche was translated by Susanne Schefczyk, into German. What I did was translate Susanne’s German into English. That was when I was first finding my feet as a translator, and I did it for free, partly as an act of support to the Dharma, and partly to keep myself occupied and in practice in the trade that I was trying to develop. I seem to recall that Susanne herself took the self-effacing Buddhist line. I think she would almost have preferred her name not to be on it at all, but utmost to be in small print and an obscure corner. Since, however, I was effectively donating more than £1000 and was also trying to get myself established. My one condition was that my name, as the translator out of German, should be clearly visible. I must stress again, however, that my significance is way, way below that of either Tenga Rinpoche or of Susanne.

The astonishing thing, as you might have guessed, is the price! £60 to be sent the cheapest copy, a new one. £84 and no less than £175 to get hold of either of the used copies, while the more expensive new copy in exchange for no less than £185! Bear in mind that the book was small and not particularly well printed, and that the contents don’t include much that is not available in many other works from, for instance, Snow Lion Publishing.

I cannot say whether the explanation lies in the illustrations, which are colour plates of some moderately rare paintings of Bardo deities, but that is the only thing I can think of. Again, though, I must say that the colour balance in my copies (I have both the German and English versions) is really quite poor.

185 quid – wow!

http://learning.tergar.org/

It looks as if it might be quite helpful, depending what stage you are at. Anybody have personal experience?

I recently paid a bit more attention to the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, which is in Pisa, only just over an hour and a half drive from here. It’s associated with the FPMT, which scores highly in my book. It’s in fact a really important study centre. The website is clearly very much “under development”, so you might get a better idea from the Wikipedia entry.

OK, being very Gelug-oriented it’s not quite “my” tradition, but I’m hoping that from time to time they might have some kind of celebration, festival, or what-have-you for a broader Buddhist public. I’ll keep you informed!

For a little while this morning, the front page of the online Guardian (read it or be ignorant!) included an article entitled “Indian police charge Karmapa lama after seizing foreign cash“.

Let’s ignore the common journalistic error of calling the Karmapa the “Karmapa lama”. Without, I note, even capitalising “lama” – so is it meant to be a title or not? Anyway…

In case anyone is new to this story, but not wanting to indulge in a long essay, let me just say that it has quite a back-story. While some people at the monastery may well have been careless in one way or another, we should remember that the presence of cash was at least in part due to the bureaucratic obstacles that have (or had) prevented the monastery from opening a bank account into which these donations could be paid. The story is in all probability connected to whoever-it-is in high places there in Himachal Pradesh who has been working for a decade now against the Karmapa.
In February I wrote a short post here, which also provides a couple of links where those interested can find out a few things.

I was talking to someone about the place pictured in my last post, which caused me to dig out what I wrote about it shortly afterwards. I thought I might share it.

I was ready to explore, so left the guest-house with no more plan than to wander a little. The main street is “new Chinese”, and with all good will can, as such, only be described as ugly. I passed the cinema and walked towards the main junction, by which is an open square used as a market place. Looking across this square, the badly damaged Sakya¹² monastery which overlooks the town from high on the hill can be seen. Behind the square I could see some older parts of the town, so took that direction and soon found myself climbing narrow-paths, quite unpaved and with water trickling down the middle. The doorways of the brown walled houses were decorated with prayer flags, under which brown dogs lay sleeping on the brown earth, warmed by the morning sun.

A man of middle age was standing outside his door, and as I climbed past him we went through the recognition procedure: blank stare, curious stare, slight smile, big smiles. I continued to climb, and soon realized that he was following close behind me. I mistakenly thought that he was following just to see what the long-nose was going to do, and as he made no attempt to speak I decided after a minute or two to make it easy by sitting down on a rock, and communicating by play-act that I was out of breath. By now he had been joined by a friend, and the two of them stood in front of me, watching. I had my mala round my wrist, and as this fell on my observer’s eye he bent forward to examine it. All that is essential for a mala are the beads, but usually a number of other things are strung on it. Most commonly one has two short strings, each of which has ten small rings that slide up and down and a larger ornament at the end of each. This ornament may be in the form of a lotus, or very often is shaped as a vajra on one string and as a bell on the other¹³. With the first one can count ten rounds of the mala, and with the second one can multiply the count again by ten, thus counting up to ten thousand recitations. If this is not enough it is also possible to use a little clip that can be moved from bead to bead each time the second counter is full, and with such a “ten thousand clip” one can count to a million before resorting to paper. Unwinding my mala from my wrist I held it out, and as he fingered these small pieces of silverwork it became clear to him that this was not just some mala-like ornament. It really was a Buddhist mala. Ergo, the pale-eyed stranger was in all probability a Buddhist.

Reading these thoughts in his face, I held the mala up and counted off a few beads while reciting Om Mani Peme Hung. The two men smiled at each other and said something which can only have been “Look, he’s even reciting the Mani!”. It is not exactly difficult to know the mani, so, encouraged by their response, I began the long mantra of Dorje Sempa. This “hundred syllable” mantra is the best known of the longer mantras, and is used in purification practices. Their smiles told me that they were now convinced that I really was a Buddhist. Pointing up the hill my new friend said something in a questioning tone about “khorwa”, and I thought he meant to ask me if I was going up to circumambulate the monastery. Luckily, I failed to communicate my answer that it was too far. Neverthe­less the three of us continued up the hill. After a minute my acquaintance recited the first few syllables of the long mantra, I answered with a few more, then it was his turn, my turn, and we finished together.

Climbing up and round a few more corners we came to a point where I understood what he had meant by “khorwa”. We had come to a small lhakhang (temple) which was being circled, clockwise of course, by some fifty or more Tibetans, and my companions were on their way to join this morning devotion. The building itself was maybe some ten metres square, dark red, with a veranda to the front. I joined the walkers. At the back of the building was a row of prayer wheels, and to the side a mass of mani stones, over which hung hundreds of prayer flags. Dogs slept in most of the available hollows. A few times round the building gave time for the brown-haired stranger to be assessed, discussed and accepted: he looked funny, he could not speak Tibetan and seemed a little lost, but otherwise he seemed to be in order. As I came one more time round to the front, some of the women started gesturing to me that I should go up the veranda steps, where a rather older woman led me to the curtained door. She did three prostra­tions at the step, which is normal when approaching or entering a shrine. I think it would be an exaggeration to say that I was watched to see if I would do the same, but she was nevertheless very pleased when I did, giving me a two-handed “thumbs up”, evidently a gesture that has gone right round the world. Then in through the curtain.

The contents of the dim interior gave me some surprise. The entire ­building is primarily a housing for the biggest prayer wheel I have yet seen. Each of its handles had ropes attached so that at busy times thirty or forty people could squeeze in and help to turn it. There was no space on any of the side walls that was not hung with thangkas, while opposite the door the wall was given over to an altar. The central figure was a striking Guru Rinpoche, at least twice life size, and he was flanked by figures of Chenrezi to his right and white Tara to his left, each of which were about one and a half times life size. Guru Rinpoche is sometimes said to have brought Buddhism to Tibet, but that is really a bit too simple. By the late eighth century (CE) there had already been considerable Buddhist activity. The king himself, Trisong Detsan, was a Buddhist, and had invited important teachers such as Santarakshita. A monastery was being built at Samye, after which the centre now in Scotland is named. There were, however, difficul­ties, and Santarakshita suggested that the famous Padma Sambhava be asked to come. It was he who dispelled the difficulties, clearing the way for Tibet to become such a stronghold of the Dharma in the centuries to come. Since then he has been known as Guru Rinpoche, the “Precious Guru”. Not to get too involved in technicalities, one can say that Chenrezi and Tara are forms of the Buddha: Chenrezi emphasizes compassion, and Tara empha­sizes active help. Her white form is particularly associated with long life. To one side sat a monk with a flask of water. I turned and muttered happily for twenty minutes until at eight o’clock nearly everybody left, so I thought I had better do the same. Outside it was dogs’ breakfast time, so I made my way down to the Guest House to get some myself. Later in the morning four of us went back, and I think we all felt the same joy at being able to join in this exercise, religious in the simple sense, having more to do with experiencing beauty, devotion and inspiration in a concrete and natural way than with philosophy.

¹² One of the main schools of Buddhism in Tibet.

¹³ The vajra, often accompanied by a bell, is a form of sceptre representing the indestructible essence of mind.

Years ago I had an experience I treasure that led me to this building just outside Yushu (or Jyekundo). It houses a very large prayer wheel in front of a statue of Guru Rinpoche. Can anyone tell me more about it?