Travel Stories

Tibet, by Joe Wagner. Part 1

hello from Nangchen, Kham.

we're in a tiny internet place in the wildest town i've ever visited. got to kham about 5 days ago after one of the most difficult and agonizing bus trips i've ever had, second only to the standing-only 24 hour train trip through bulgaria cindy and dennis and i had in 1990. anyway, we found a driver in Jekundo after the bus trip and he took us all the way to Nangchen Gar, a monastery which is headed by Adeu Rinpoche, a lama I met in boulder in 1999. Rinpoche (as well as the son of our root teacher, Tulku Urgyen, named Tsoknyi R, who just happened to be there receiving a cycle of empowerments) received us and was glad to see me, his "old student" as he said. we had a great time and were treated to extrordinarially excellent food for a center miles from anywhere with no running water, etc. the best thing was a dish of yoghurt mixed with tiny dried yams - a real delicacy. Rinpoche is a very powerful and excellent teacher, and i feel grateful to have seen him again.

tomorrow we're going on pilgrimage to the site, a cave where the founder of esoteric Buddhism in Tibet, Padmasambhava, hid a text revealed last century by Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's grandfather. This text is my main meditation practice and has been for the last 8 years or so. I'm very excited. There's a spring with medicinal water, self-arising images of various deities, and lots of other weird and wonderful things. Tibet is amazing, and I don't know what to do between the crazy Khampa (Kham is this part of tibet) cowboys and amazing Buddhist teachers. More soon.

love,
joe and cindy
Somewhere having fun.

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