One of the most learned and highly trained American-born lamas in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. He is a meditation teacher and author.
This morning I happened to turn on the tv seeking weather, and found Diane Sawyer broadcasting from Tibet as the first installment of “Good Morning America’s” Seven New Wonders of the World Series. Between Tibetan music and dance, and drinking yak butter tea and eating yak tongue at a street stall dubbed Yak in the Box by her slightly squeemish colleague, she did manage to tell us quite a bit about the Tibetan situation vis-a -vis China, the Dalai Lama, and the new Roof of the World railroad from Beijing. She also showed gorgeous footage of the wondrous Potala Palace, home to over a dozen successive Dalai Lamas (rulers of Tibet) over the eras. It’s the largest building of its era in the world.
Travel broadens the mind and opens the heart; and moreover, pilgrimage awakens the innate spirit while nurturing and nourishing the soul. I appreciate ABC and Ms. Sawyer for helping us somewhat isolated Americans to travel with her around this shrinking globe.
As Tibet’s greatest poet-saint and yogi Milarepa once sang, a millennium ago: “To leave one’s own territory is to accomplish half of the spiritual life.”
I know in Tibet the temperature can range from pleasant to bitter cold, given time of year and time of day. I can take high altitudes, avoid anything political, and am interested in someday visiting these people that to most Americans seem very exotic.