Sunday

Circuitous Route

from Cathryn Stein

I am now living in Wuhan, China for the next few months teaching English to Chinese high school students. One of them showed me a book he was reading: ‘Buddhism’ was the title. Everyday in the China Daily newspaper, there is a reference to Buddhist films, photographers, artists, monasteries, etc. Yesterday at a huge shopping mall (and I mean beyond the size of anything in the west) a small shop was entirely Tibetan with a shrine in the back, two lamas, lots of incense burning, thangkas, gorgeous handcrafted jewelry, prayer flags, etc. All much more upscale than anything I have seen in Indian or Nepal. In three weeks I will be visiting the dharma students of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Beijing, a group that is coordinated by Rob Curtis. What goes around comes back around. While this country has grabbed onto materialism by the throat and horns, its history and culture cannot be erased. Rinpoche gave me the bodhisattva name of ‘Chariot of Dharma’ and he would be delighted to know that I am fulfulling this role in the country which made him an exile. I will be presenting to the Beijing students poems that he wrote just prior to receiving the Stroke of Ashe. Number One, unpublished, is an inner secret lungta practice in seven syllables and four lines also presented on the Chronicles interview.