Thursday, October 14, 2010

Oral Transmissions


On Tuesday, October 12th, Rowan Fairgrove and I attended a “teaching” of the Dali Lama at the San Jose Convention Center in down town San Jose California. Dali Lama means “Ocean of Compassion”. [Tibetan : Mongolian dalai, ocean + Tibetan bla-ma, monk (so called because he is known as the ocean of compassion).

I always enjoy listening to the Dali Lama because you generally come away with the impression that he has been talking directly to you. Unfortunately the venue did not help this transmission of knowledge very much. They asked the interfaith community to be there at 12PM with which Rowan and I faithfully complied (despite spilling tamale sauce all over my white blouse and having to go back to Rowan’s to wash it before hand). It took about 10 minutes to get through security to move to our seats. Hummm, the seats! The seats were small and narrow and it was worse than an economy air ticket on a five hour flight. We sat waiting, for about two hours, then sat another two hours to listen to the oral transmission of the wisdom of the “Eight Verses for Training the Mind.”

He opened by saying that a larger background in training the mind was necessary to arrive at these verses in understanding, but as we did not have the time, it was not necessary today; a pragmatic and delightfully fresh approach to religious training. He spoke to the calming of the mind and the stepping aside from the emotions in order to think clearly. He said that it is in the most emotional of situations that we need the clearest of thinking. We need to analyze and contain those triggers leading to emotion and defuse them before they get out of control. In that way if you cannot avoid conflict at least you will have the clarity of thought to allow you do decide where to throw your punch to do the most good. Got to love it. He spoke as well to the Wisdom of Impermanence and letting go of material things, and of not allowing mundane concerns to color religious practice. He ended by having us all read the verses out loud, turning to the Vietnamese monks on stage and saying, “you can read in Vietnamese wa wa wa wa etc and the rest of us will read in English”. Then he laughed a delightful belly laugh that the monks shared. He ended the teaching with the words “thus ends the oral transmission”.

A financial report in service to transparency followed. The figures I quote here are approximate as I did not write them down. They spent about $350 (something),000.00 on the event and cleared about $85, 000 which was split three ways; one third was to go to the foundation supporting the Dali Lama, one third to the Gyuto Vajrayana Center who produced the event, and one third to various charities. They did announce that the teaching had been taped and would appear on You Tube soon as well.

After having held us hostage and torturing us for four hours we hobbled off to the Interfaith reception moving at the speed of mud through the crowd. Having arrived we were offered a…snack?...of an apple and a muffin. I shamelessly ate the muffin. (Thank the Gods for the tamale sauce lunch that Rowan thought to suggest prior to the event.)

The speakers for the reception included Rev. Dorsey Blake, Acharya Prabodh Chaitanya, Rev. Mathew Fox, Dr. Thupten Jinpa, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Noah Levine, Bishop Koshin Ogui, Rev. Murshida Ana Perez-Christi , Ann Marie Sayers, Samina Sundas, and Prof. Huston Smith. In the interest of already lost brevity I will not cover the speakers’ except to say that they each discussed the Dali Lama’s talk in light of their own work. I did really like a quote Rev. Fox shared which apparently originated from a Scientist friend of his…

”we are the only species on the planet that can choose not to go extinct. Of course we have not yet made that decision”.

Needless to say despite the fact that each speaker had only four minutes and held to that, it went on for far too long and the moment the speakers were finished (now 6:15 PM) about half of the attendees got up and left, leaving much of the program unfinished. Rowan and I stayed at least until folks could make announcements and then beat feet along with the rest of the mob to find a decent restaurant and eat.

One last note: Please pay attention to how you dress at these events. I was shocked to see people showing up to listen to His Holiness dressed in cut offs and tee shirts with thongs on their feet. Let us set an example of how to show respect to our contemporaries and elders in wisdom…oh and it’s probably a good idea to avoid Tamales before one of these events.

In Her service and yours,

R. Watcher, NPIO, National Interfaith Representative

Monday, September 13, 2010

Iteresting Collaborations

As some of you may already know, I am a founding member of one of the newest Cooperation Circles of the Multi Region of the United Religions Initiative. Our goal is to tell the "grass roots" stories of Peace, what it looks like, how it happens and what results it can have.

As a start in that direction we have begun a series of dialogues called "The Witch and the Preacher's Kid". Each month we will be having a half hour dialogue loosely based on a particular topic. This month we kicked off our program with the topic of Evil and what it looks like from a Christian and from a Wiccan perspective. This program does not suppose to speak for every Christian nor every Pagan but really is only a dialogue between two friends who have found deep kinship despite our different religions.

This dialogue is available for listening at our web site at Think Peace Media and Communications Network. Here we invite comments from the listeners in the form of arguments and agreements which we will then discuss on the following months' shows.

I highly encourage participation in this dialogue from everyone interested in exploring religious concepts and having fun while they are at it.
In Her service
Rachael Watcher, National Interfaith Officer, Covenant of the Goddess

Friday, April 30, 2010

Indigenous People speak of Climate Change

In prior posts I spoke of meeting Chief Orin Lions among others at the Parliament of the World's Religions while we were in Australia. I was sent this post by another American Indigenous person, Phil Lane Jr. Who's web site is "The Four Worlds International Institute."

Dr. Lions is a professor of American Studies, an author, and member of the Council of the The Onondaga People and faith keeper of the Turtle Clan.

Wikipedia has this to say.
Onondaga (Onöñda'gega' or the People of the Hills) The Onondaga are one of the original five constituent nations of theIroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy. Their traditional homeland is in and around Onondaga, New York. . Known as Gana'dagwëni:io'geh to the other Iroquois tribes, this name allows people to know the difference when talking about Onondaga in Six Nations, Ontario or near Syracuse, New York. Being centrally located, they were considered the "Keepers of the Fire" (Kayečisnakweˀnì•yuˀ[1] in Tuscarora) in the figurative longhouse. The Cayuga and Seneca had territory to their west and the Oneida and Mohawk to their east. For this reason, the League of the Iroquois historically met at the Iroquois government's capital at Onondaga, as indeed the traditional chiefs do today.

Here Chief Lions is speaking of climate change. It is a powerful and moving testimonial. Please take a few minutes to listen to it.
In her service and yours,
R Watcher







Monday, February 8, 2010

A Report on Glogal Warming from South America

A report from Amaru and Alejandrino Quispe about Global warming and the immediate effect that it has had on his home town of Ayacucho, Peru