Another slide coming out of my evening going through old travel photos. Like yesterday’s image, this image is a photograph of a slide projected onto the wall.
The photo was taken at Drepung Loseling monastery in Lhasa, Tibet in 1995. At the time of the Chinese invasion, Drepung was the largest monastery in the world with 10,000 monks - a small town.
The picture shows my Buddhist teacher, Ven. Geshe Damcho Yonten (on the right), speaking with an old monk who had stayed behind in Tibet following the invasion. This was Geshe-la’s (as he was affectionately known) first and only visit back to Tibet having fled the country in 1959.
I feel as though I have started receiving more spam emails in the last few weeks. Thankfully my email client is catching most of it, but I would still prefer not to be receiving it.
This photograph shows the village of Zhöl at the foot of the south wall of Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. The photograph was taken during a visit to Tibet in 1995, and is actually a photo of the original slide projected onto a wall a couple of evenings ago while I was going through pictures from my travels. I have left in the clipping in the top left so that most of Chagpori Hill can be seen. The Tibetan Medical Institute used to be on top of this hill, but was destroyed during the Chinese invasion in 1959.
I had known that Zhöl was under danger of having all its inhabitants moved out, but did not realize that this had happened. It turns out that in the summer of 1995,
the families residing in the village were evicted from their homes and resettled to the North of Lhasa. A number of buildings that were not deemed part of the monument at the time were demolished in the inner Shol while the additions comprising the outer Zhöl were razed.1
Quiet and stillness bring me to peace, like the stillness of a forest lake at sunset.
Out for an evening stroll I could clearly see the International Space Station fly over. That was at 7:51pm. It will be back around at 9:24pm. Pretty nippy.
Opportunistic rosemary plant growing on a dead Hāpu’u tree.
Spending this evening going through some old slides from travel back in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Emphasis on some. I have a lot of slides.
I just completed a yoga routine on Apple Fitness+ set to the music of ABBA. ABBA’s music was always present when I was growing up and I feel a wonderful sense of joy in what the four musicians offered. The routine was just the right uplifting practice for this early Monday afternoon.
July 2022 Hello Friend,
Sharing reflections
July has been an unseasonably wet month in the part of Maui where I live. Parts of the island have been struggling with water shortages, while my family’s property is looking green and healthy. For that I am grateful, and at the same time I sense the wet weather ending and the drier weather of summer approaching.
Earlier this month I was on a Zoom call with a charity in the UK of which I am a Board member.
English scientist James Lovelock died this week on his 103rd birthday. A bit of a maverick, he was looked on with some scorn by the scientific community when he developed the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960’s and ’70’s, along side Lynn Margulis, which sees the Earth as a self-regulating system. Like all systems, when it is pushed beyond its ability to self-regulate, the system starts to fail. Climate change is one result.
The acceptance of the hypothesis I don’t believe was helped by his choosing the name Gaia which was embraced by the hippy and ecology movement at the time, but not so much others. Time has been more generous to both Gaia and James Lovelock.
I read his book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth a couple of times, the second while studying for my Masters in Ecospychology. I feel that Gaia embraced is not a theory that one just understands, but a theory that one lives and experiences while walking through life.
The lights over the lanai cast sufficient light for me to read while rendering the world beyond in total darkness. I watch the creatures of the night emerge, attracted by the light. Aircraft fly over bringing visitors to the island and residents home. Crickets whistle, the wind blows, distant traffic chase by.
I return to my book surrounded by a world that at one time I am familiar with, and at the same time a stranger to.
Sometimes Faith is all that I have. The practice might appear on first read, on first hearing it to not be of any benefit and rather questionably lead anywhere. “How can that work?”
At such times I am asking myself to build on the faith that has come on the back of past lessons learnt from sources that I have come to trust. That is what faith sits on the back of, trust. Learnt, experiential trust. My experience.
With that faith I can then step out and at least try a new lesson, even if doubt or fear might be my predominant feelings. I see it like a parent helping a child learn a new skill. The child might be scared to give it a go, but trusting the parent they try, and with time the uncertainty and fear is transformed into a lived experience.
Sunrise through the window this morning.
Tired, but in a good way, having just finished trimming the hedge which I started last weekend. Showered, dinner next and then a quiet evening.
Interesting clouds floating over the house.
Our house looks out onto the Pacific Ocean, in the far distance where water meets the horizon. I have been looking out onto that view ever since we moved here, just being grateful for the beauty of it and the perspective it offers when my mind is foggy.
Then one day a friend visited and observed that looking out to the horizon, it was possible to see the curvature of the Earth. I took a look and sure enough the ocean curves down to the right. Once seen, I have never been able to un-see it. At times I find the view a little unsettling. The water of the ocean 'staying in place' as it curves down and out of sight.
I have my voting papers for upcoming elections here in Hawaii. The first time that I will be able to vote in the US since becoming a US citizen.
I have just made use of my step-daughter’s infrared sauna to help rest some weary muscles. Yesterday was an extremely exhausting day, while at the same time also being very satisfying, as I trimmed and leveling off our hedge under a hot sun.
