Sunday, January 11,
2004
The monastery is dedicated to the preservation of the Bön religion, Tibet's oldest spiritual tradition. At the monastery, some 200 monks undergo nine years of religious training that includes philosophy, logic poetics, astrology, the languages of Zhang-Zhung and Sanskrit, medicine, ritual and meditation. The monastery also supports two orphanages. "Not unlike the tribes of New Mexico, their culture is rich in ancient tradition," Adams wrote in an e-mail from Dolanji, India. A few years ago Adams met Tempa Dukte Lama, who studied at the Menri Monastery and now leads retreats with Joan Halifax at Santa Fe's Upaya Zen Center. He asked Chongtul Rinpoche, founder and president of the Bön Student Welfare Trust and a teacher at the Bön Dialectic School, if Adams could go to the orphanage to study and work. On Dec. 26, Adams said, 21 children, ages 5 to 10, arrived at the monastery from Tibet and Nepal after a six-week journey. While they were waiting to meet His Holiness, Lungtok Tempa'i Nyima, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Bön religion, Adams said, "I handed out gum and cricket cards. They were so appreciative. They formed a line and were taught how not to toss the wrappers on the ground as they had done with their eggshells in the morning." Adams said one of the new children told her about waiting six weeks to cross the border. "His command of the English language is extraordinary. He spoke of how relieved he was to be here and excited to see his new school." She is teaching the woman who escorted the children how to write her name and read. And, she said, she bought a book bag for a 12-year-old who will start school in a month. They receive an excellent education, she said, in Tibetan language and history, English, art, math and astrology and spend their free time playing marbles and cricket. The children are very polite, she said. "When they received their four marbles (my favorite gift to give), they bow and thank me," Adams said. "I am known as the 'toy lady' because I buy the cricket bats and balls and marbles and hats. But, in reality, the gifts come from (Santa Fe friends) Anne Parker (who taught Adams about the Bön religion) and Joe Schepps (a local developer)." Her day begins early with mediation at her shrine and reading about the Bön religion, Adams said. After tea, she goes to see what needs to be done. In an e-mail in late December, Adams wrote, "Today I brought water-filtering sets I bought for the dispensary and met three monks who had been hit by a truck while coming from Nepal on a bus. They had broken bones and were not feeling well." While looking for someone to give the water filters to she walked into the monastery's medicine room where, she said, "there were thousands of pieces of incense and jars of herbs and Tibetan medicines." During the last week of December, Adams wrote, the monks go to the monastery temple for daylong chanting, which culminates Dec. 30 with the lighting of 1,000 candles. But the highlight of her visit was on Christmas. She and Sandia Douglas, another volunteer, were cooking a vegetarian dinner when "His Holiness walked in and sat in this small kitchen and talked with the two of us for an hour. He told us stories and chatted. This man is equal to the Dalai Lama, and there I was in his presence. It was lovely." Adams plans to spend two months at the monastery and return to Santa Fe -- via Kyoto, Japan -- to curate an art show of Tom O'Connell's calla lily photographs to benefit the monastery's children. "They really need a complete set of clothing for play," Adams said. Unfortunately, mailing packages is risky. "I mailed myself two boxes," she said, but they arrived without the clothing they originally contained. "They left me no clothing, just my books," she said. "Little did they know that I prefer the books, but it was the children who needed the clothing. Poverty mentality is everywhere." |
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