A poem by Mary Oliver has me trying to remember more physical aspects of the pilgrimage, set aside in my mind the murder mystery I’m reading and recall at least the presence of the earth itself over the thousand miles and more. Driving, there were flashes of trees past the window, corn fields browned and dead by the roadside, grey strips of highway stretching ahead and some, although not many, hills. There was beauty, of course, but there were few chances to connect w/ground as it were, bare foot toes in grass kind of stuff. On the road in the U.S. almost literally means "on a road" and in a car w/tires connecting in their quick momentary touching of pavement. And the stupas themselves did not give a sense of grounding either, rather a sense of lifting one above the ground, levitating the spirit if not actual human feet. I remember the pavement, the hotels, the swimming pools walked by unused, laughter inside the car from the silliness of old friends, and the consistent continuous moving. The other day I called Iris who picked up the phone with, "How many miles do we have to drive today?"

I could ramble on but probably shouldn't in this post after so many days of being too busy to write, a few days of unexpected illness, and so much time with the animals. Ching Hu just had his nightly catnip and proceeded to tear around the house, climbing furniture, walls, bookcase and leaping over the dog. It took over 15 minutes for him to finally land on the bed where he has promptly fallen asleep in the same posture as Sengay on the floor. They've been mirroring each other in that way lately. So there is movement and stillness, travels and home, concepts and non-conceptuality.

It is good to be home, on our own impermanent, perishable plot where we do connect with the earth and, consecrating sections of it at a time, hand it over to its own sacred presence, then adorn it with structures that bless beings. There is nothing like Dharma activity. 

LKC

So much work has been going on at the Center that I haven't had time to post the past two days. Apologies to anyone who thought I could actually find the time daily to post anything! It doesn't look like I'll have enough free time to post more than every other day for a while now. 

One reason is that Kagyu Shedrup Choling has two major events coming up. The main event in October is a fundraiser that we hope will allow us to pay for the great event in December -- the visit of Lama Norlha Rinpoche who's coming to consecrate and seal the stupas. Six other Lamas from the monastery will join him and stay with us for 8 or 9 days. The fundraiser will be fun, of course, with music, silent auction, wine bar, etc. Two bands have confirmed so far, one Latin jazz and one Latin rock. We are in Miami, after all. 

When all aspects of both events are confirmed, I'll post the flyers here.

One of the great things about Rinpoche coming is that by the end of 2012, KSC's stupas will be another sacred site for Buddhist pilgrims to visit. There is much more information about our stupa garden on our stupa blog, southfloridakagyustupas.com. And, on this pilgrimage blog we will soon put a map of North America that points out all the stupas on the continent. 


To return to the pilgrimage itself, the last photo on the previous post was taken inside another beautiful stupa built by Lama Norlha Rinpoche, this one in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is 35 feet high and houses a small shrine room in the "throne" where Lama Chopal painted the 35 Buddhas on the wall with a large Shakyamuni Buddha in the center. Years ago I actually visited the site for a while (there used to be a Dharma Center there, too, where I stayed) and helped paint these Buddhas. Several other people also helped paint and I'm sorry I don't have their names. (Stupas always end up being community events with many people working on various aspects.)


Here is an outer view of the Charlottesville Stupa where you can see a window of the shrine room:

This beautiful stupa sits in the middle of a dry field this year as the temperatures up and down the East Coast were sweltering. The stupa is closed and locked but a student in Richmond had contacted me during our trip and kindly provided the code that opened the door. This is what we found inside:

The paintings are impressive and the shrine room, while small, was a lovely place to sit for a while, chant aspiration prayers, and meditate. Circumambulating in that afternoon's heat was a challenge as both Iris and I were pretty tired from walking in the heat in Maryland and circumambulating the stupas there. But I did 7 rounds while chanting Om Mani Peme Hung before we started out for North Carolina. 

We didn't quite make it, though, as we had only reached Danville, VA at 10:30 p.m. and neither one of us could go farther. It had been a very long day, so we stopped at a hotel where the bill was almost double what we usually paid because they only had suites available. At that point I understood exactly what it means when someone says they are too tired to care. I paid up, dedicated the day's merit and crashed.  

The next morning's photo of the Danville skyline from the 6th floor was taken before cappucino but after a pretty good night's sleep so it's probably in focus. My co-pilgrim and I took our time getting back on that road.

In Dharma,
LKC

Yesterday we celebrated the day the Buddha began teaching the Dharma, or to put it another way, the first time Buddha turned the Wheel of the Dharma. Here at KSC a few of us took sojong vows and worked on painting and rolling the zungs that go inside each tsatsa that will go inside each stupa. So what does all this mean? It means that -- in answer to a question sent in -- when you build a stupa, there is a lot more to it than just building the outer structure.

The stupas built after the Buddha passed into parinirvana were reliquaries to house the physical relics of his body, which makes these structures very powerful spiritually. In our four stupas here at KSC, the relics Lama Norlha Rinpoche has been kind enough to offer have been put inside what's called a tsok shing, or life force wood/tree. This in turn is put inside the spire part of the stupa (called chusam) and reaches down into the rounded part of the stupa (called the bumpa).

To return to what goes inside the stupas, the tsatsa look like this:

The ones we are making are about 3" high. The impressions around the top are of all eight different kinds of stupas and a mantra ring appears underneath. Each tsatsa holds one copy of the Zung Chen Dey Nga or the 5 great zungs which are mantras printed on paper. That paper is first painted yellow with saffron water, dried, then rolled into a little cylinder, covered with plastic wrap and inserted into the tsatsa before the cement is completely dry.

Still, the tsatsa are not ready to be placed inside the chambers of a stupa. First they will be consecrated with days of chanting, about 6 hours a day. The KSC stupas will each hold about 6,000 tsatsa so we have made almost 25,000 at this point and are in the process of painting them. For Florida stupas the tsatsa had to be made out of a special cement that wouldn't deteriorate after a few years in the tropical heat and humidity.

Lama Norlha Rinpoche has been instrumental in this process. He brought the statues of Shakyamuni Buddha from Asia and consecrated them; once we got cedar tree posts to the monastery he oversaw their cutting, carving and painting; and now, he is working on finding KSC the mandalas -- one for each stupa. This world is so blessed by his presence!

Tomorrow we'll get back to stories of the actual pilgrimage and soon I might be able to write about the next leg of this journey to find every stupa in North America.

In Dharma,
LKC