Home Stretch

Today ended up being a partial day off for some, as others did conferences with Tereza. Zoe got the opportunity to sleep until it was too late for breakfast (which ends at 10, mind you). In the meantime, Jon went with Kavya, Emily, and Katherine to get a full body massage. But apparently it was too cold for a full body massage, so they settled on a foot bath and a light "full body" massage. Poor Jon couldn't do the full body massage anyways, because Fatima's (the acupuncturist/herbal medicine doctor/massage parlor) has no male attendants, and it would be too inappropriate for a woman to perform a full body massage on a man. Nonetheless, Jon wasn't discouraged. He still got a much needed foot massage/cleaning (ew). They came back refreshed and rejuvenated.

The time then came for meditation after about an hour of relaxing in the warmth of the morning sun. Today's meditation was different from the past in that we had a surprise location: the Padmasambhava shrine room, tucked among the construction of the monastery. Upon our entrance, we noted the cool, dark wood floors and then the massive statue that laid before us. This giant golden statue standing 30-40 feet tall overlooked this petite shrine room. Larry reminded us the story of why Padmasambhava is such a significant figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The long story short is as follows: the king of Tibet in the 8th century was actively attempting to bring Buddhism to his country. He attempted to do so by building a Buddhist temple, but was struck with dismay when opposition arose. Evil spirits and angry citizens would tear down the progress on this temple each night, stalling the introduction of this building to the country. In desperation, the king called upon Padmasambhava (who originally came from what is now known as Pakistan). Padmasambhava came per his request and changed the intent of the spirits and converted the once-angry citizens. From that point on, construction on the temple went smoothly, and not long after, Buddhism was officially introduced to Tibet. (Side note: we visited one of Padmasambhava's meditation spots during our first week when we went to the cave on our way to Pharping.) We also learned the rather disturbing component of the shrine of a staff with 3 human heads. One was supposed to be fresh and dripping with blood; on top of it lays a head a few days old; and at the head (pun totally intended) would be a human skull. He told us what it is supposed to symbolize, but we (Zoe and Jon) were too creeped out by that entire concept and the aggressiveness of the statue's facial expression to remember the symbolism. And then we meditated. I feel like that's self-explanatory...

The rest of the afternoon was mostly free. However, some of us had our one-on-one meetings with Tereza to discuss our reflective essays, and meanwhile, there was the option to go to a talk with Jose Cabezon, a graduate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He presented at Rang Jung Yeshe Institute, a Buddhist school primarily targeted toward westerners, on the relationship between Buddhism and science. He had four main points: 1) the Buddhist objective of science and the idea of religion with wissenschaft, (which is the study of religion and science). He said that many mediators are objectified and dehumanized as objects because there may be subtle changes in the brain that can't yet be measured by science. 2) Buddhism and its conflict/opposition with science. For example, in the 1800's, the 13th Dalai Lama tried to introduce science and math into the schools, but it was rejected by many. 3) Buddhism and science are very compatible and almost identical. Henry Steele Alcott revived Buddhism in Sri Lanka by building 300 schools, and he said that science and Buddhism say that human beings are subject to universal laws. Anagarika Dharnapala, a Sri Lankan who worked with Alcott, said that Buddhism and science say that there is no god, and there is no appeal to the supernatural. 4) unfortunately was forgotten, due to distraction and previous engagements.

Prior to this talk, Zoe and Esha discovered that Tashi's wife owns a salon by the stupa area. And by salon, I mean, everything salon. They do nails, hair, threading, waxing, you name a beauty treatment, they can probably do it. We went in today because Esha wanted to get her hair chemically straightened. I (Zoe), on a whim, decided to do so as well. We both have a lot of hair, so the process took waaaaay longer than we expected. About halfway through, Esha ordered a pizza as they continued to work on our hair. Four and a half hours later, our hair is now pin straight and should stay so until it gets cut. What an interesting (and rather painful) experience. I don't think it's ever taken me 2 hours to just flat iron my hair, not to mention all the tugging to get all the kinks out of my curls.

Following this talk, Jon went with Nick and Morgan and Max to Thamel to be a support system for Nick's first tattoo. Nick was a bit nervous. They sat Nick down in the chair, and were immediately thinking about buying themselves chocolate and tea. Jon didn't get the chance to see Nick's finished tattoo. They bought the chocolate and tea while waiting for Nick, since only the person being tattooed was allowed in the tattooing area. Jon still hasn't seen Nick's finished tattoo (it's now almost 10:30), since he had to come back to work on this blog and our presentation for the monks tomorrow.

It seems like that is what a majority of us have focused on this evening. Many people have been reading through the course materials, scouring for quotes to be used in our papers and presentations. Some of us (*cough* Sabrina) are already done with our papers, while the rest of us will likely wait until Friday night to frantically piece together something coherent. Tomorrow three out of the four groups will (hopefully) present to a group of the monks here at Shechen the Buddhist teachings that we have learned and will apply to our lives.

Only two more days, guys. Hang in there.