It's a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon in McLeodganj. I've just come back down from Tushita Meditation Center, where, as of a week ago, I've begun attending daily morning meditation sessions. This decision required me to relinquish my classes in Beginning Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. But the truth is that this was a very easy decision to make (though I do regret stopping my Tibetan study for now). During last Saturday's meditation session, I had an epiphany: This is what I was particularly looking for when I came to India. The teacher, Richard, has a welcoming, kindly manner, yet real mastery of many types of meditation. So since last Saturday, my days (except for Sunday) include a morning meditation session (followed by tea on Tushita's deck, overlooking deodar cedar forests and Mcleodganj far below) and an afternoon of teaching. I'll stop teaching English classes at the end of May, and then am scheduled to take a 10-day residential meditation retreat at Tushita beginning in early June.

This morning, Richard led us in doing a Vajrasattva purification session, in which one visualizes the Buddha of Purification and recites his mantra in order to clear away mental negativities. This sounds more esoteric than the session was in practice. And probably sounds less effective than I experienced it as being--this meditation is one of many things in life that's easier to experience than to describe, I think.

My Intermediate English class has been going very well. Thursday was another high point, when the class interviewed a US friend of mine, Carol Keslar, assistant director of Chaksam-pa Tibetan Dance and Opera Company, based in San Francisco. Carol has been doing wonderful volunteer work publicizing the company's performances and the performances of other Tibetan performing arts groups, obtaining funding, and helping performers to arrange for the visas needed to come to the US. To my delight, the students asked lots of questions. I hadn't been sure that they would feel confident enough, or that everyone would be able to understand enough of the discussion. But I think we were all delighted by the interview, and the students seemed genuinely moved that a non-Tibetan American is working so hard on behalf of Tibetans and Tibetan arts.

Here's a photo that Carol took of the Intermediate English class:



Carol has generously shared some of her other photos with me (credit for all photos: Carol Keslar).

In this photo, she and I are enjoying excellent vegetarian thali at Moonpeak Thali, a local restaurant near His Holiness' residence:



Carol took this photo of Lama Lungrig Nyima, who has been a student in my Intermediate English class, during a farewell get-together yesterday. He now must return to his monastery in Ladakh (where he himself has important teaching responsibilities):



And here I am at Moonpeak:

It's a beautiful evening in McLeodganj today, clear and warm. As I write, I can see lots of strollers (Indian, Western, Tibetan) passing along Baghsu Road.

Yesterday, I took advantage of the clear, warm weather to take another crack at hiking up to Triund (a 9,000-foot viewpoint on a high ridge above town). I had turned back 2 weeks ago when the weather began to deteriorate, but yesterday, I was lucky. I reached the ridgetop sooner than I'd expected, soon enough to allocate 2 hours to sit lazily on top of the grassy ridge, drinking masala tea (of course, there are tea stalls at Triund) and enjoying the unobstructed view of the huge, snowy Dhauladhar range. The hike up had taken about 3.5 hours. I'd hiked solo, but as I'd expected, I encountered a very international collection of other hikers on the way up, including lots of Indians who'd come from New Delhi, the Punjab and elsewhere for a cool weekend in the mountains, a few local Tibetans, and Westerners from England, Europe, and the US. Lounging at Triund, I met and chatted with a Dutch nurse I'd befriended earlier, and also agreed to hike down with two women from Finland and England.

The three of us walked back down to McLeodganj without incident, enjoying conversation, the beautiful views, the evening light, and chats with other hiking parties. Reaching the top of town, our Finnish companion hurried off to a massage appointment she was now somewhat late for.

Walking on with my English friend, I noticed ahead of us one of the two older women beggars whom I often encounter here, and whom I'm pretty sure are lepers (both have gnarled stumps where their hands should be). I often give each of them a few rupees, so I dug into my purse.

As I bent down to greet her with a "Namaste, Madame," and to put my money into her tin can, life suddenly flipped--in a way likely recognizable to any Western traveler in India--from under-control and pleasant to confusing and quite frightening. She is usually cheerful (though perhaps a bit addled), but now she seemed tired and agitated, and badly wanted our help with something. But initially we couldn't make out what it was that she needed.

As she waved her arms about and spoke Hindi much too rapidly for me to guess at what she needed, we eventually realized that she wanted us to support her so that she could take a few steps to a more comfortable location. I wasn't comfortable touching her, but I also knew that leprosy is treatable and not very communicable (I also knew that it's not unlikely that she's been treated and is not infectious). We each put a supporting hand under one of her elbows and helped her to her new spot. Next, it became clear that she needed something else. My alert English friend soon realized that she needed a drink of water, and a helpful tea stall attendant filled her tin cup with fresh tap water. She took a long drink, holding her cup neatly with the stumps of her hands, and I realized that she was very thirsty--how long might it have been since she'd had a drink of water on this warm day? Had she had a drink all day?

Next, she needed help transferring her collected donations into a plastic bag so that her water wouldn't spill onto it. As we helped her collect her coins and small bills, she continued to wave her arms agitatedly, often touching my hands, arms, and clothing (an outcome I'd hoped to avoid). With her money transferred, my English friend was ready to leave--"I think it's time for me to extract myself from the situation"--and I followed suit.

Heading down Jogibara Road through town, I realized that I was feeling shaken--partly because of a concern about infection (probably not that warranted, but still), and partly because I'd come face to face with someone's truly profound suffering. On reaching my guesthouse room, I hurried into the bathroom to wash my hands and flip on the geyser (a wall-mounted water heater common in India). I waited impatiently for the half hour it took for the water to heat, then soaped myself over and over in the comforting warm shower. I'd piled my clothes in a corner of my room, being unsure what to do with them, I usually have my clothes washed by a local dhobi wallah (washer), but didn't want to spread any possible disease agents. Those clothes are still in the pile this evening, and I suppose the best bet is for me to wash them with hot water and soap.

Once thoroughly washed and in clean clothes, I felt somewhat calmed during the rest of the evening. But I spent a restless night, partly wrestling with out-sized "what if?" fears for myself, and partly feeling in a very immediate way the horror of the beggar woman's situation. My healthy hands and fingers seemed an immense gift from the universe. Without them, how would one take care of oneself, change clothes, wash, use the toilet? Could one ever brush one's teeth? Worst of all, I thought, would be if your very presence frightened everyone, so that no one would ever want to touch you. I thought about how I take hugs and simple touches for granted, and vowed never to do so again. During that restless night, Mother Teresa seemed the most remarkable and inspiring person in the universe. I imagined how many people she and her colleagues must have helped to feel comfortable and loved--people who might not have felt that way for many years, if ever. I saw the gulf between what Mother Theresa had done in her life, and what I've so far accomplished in mine.

Another blue-sky day, a morning meditation session at Tushita Retreat Center, and a cup of hot tea on Tushita's deck has put me back in balance, and I went on to enjoy teaching this afternoon. But I'll be reflecting on yesterday evening's events for a long time to come. I don't think I have a right to forget them.

It's been a busy week, and a stormy one as well, with a few lengthy power cuts that kept me out of the internet cafes. With all Mcleodganj's computers frequently down, the only thing to do at times was to put my feet up on the windowsill of my guesthouse room and enjoy watching the spectacular lightening, thunder, and pounding rain. There's nothing like a good thunderstorm in the mountains! Yesterday and today marked a welcome change, however, with sunshine and warmth most of each day. And the trend towards good weather is likely to continue (I just learned this from the Mcleodganj Weathergeek, who was a US meteorologist for 8 years).

Despite the sometimes drenching rain, cold, and heavy clouds, which preempted my usual Sunday hillwalking, the week has been a real high so far because of the inspired work of my Intermediate English students. On both Monday and Tuesday, we started off class with high-energy 15-minute conversations. On Monday, I asked students to pair up and tell each other a story from their childhoods. On Tuesday, I asked them to talk about people who inspire them. On both days, the conversations started immediately and would have continued unabated had I not stopped them to return to (oh, joy!) discussion of the present perfect tenses. And yesterday, we read the story of Emperor Ashoka's transformation from tyrant to Buddhist after encountering a monk on a battlefield, and then had a very active discussion about it.

The big high point came yesterday afternoon, though, as I sat on the outdoor deck of the Kunga Guesthouse's cafe to review the first batch of written assignments that my students had just turned in for my class. I had asked them to write at least 2 or 3 sentences about a childhood memory. I quickly realized that each student had taken the assignment very seriously, and each had written a much longer story than required. Best of all, I learned that Tibetans are born storytellers! Every story was remarkably well told, despite understandably imperfect grammar. I have to wonder whether their skill has to do with having grown up in a world devoid of the modern distractions that can so fragment our attention these days.

The stories, taken together, created for me a window into a lovely and non-Western world. Several of the writers described their experiences when looking after their families' herds. They had typically been given that responsibility in childhood. Some described the natural beauty of their motherland (most spent their childhoods in Tibet). One commented on how wonderful it was that everything they needed was provided by Nature. Another described feeling frightened as a child by Westerners with their strange, light-colored hair, and encountering a group of them when out alone herding sheep. One student described riding her horse so far from home that her late return frightened her mother. Another writer described learning his (Tibetan) letters from his father in the evenings after a day of herding. One student described how he could not go to school for a few years because his family needed his help (at age 6!) herding the family's livestock.

Just after I'd come up to the classroom yesterday--the day that the writing assignments were due--the students had arrived en masse, with eyes and faces bright. I think that they had been sharing their stories with each other up on the office roof. Today as they gathered before class, they were quiet with anticipation: what would their teacher have to say about their carefully crafted stories? The first thing I did in the classroom was to write in large letters on the white board: "Thank you for your wonderful stories!!"

At the Kunga Guesthouse yesterday, I had reflected for a while on how best to respond to their impressive efforts. I had particularly wanted to do their work justice, being pretty sure that these stories were the most substantial pieces of English-language writing they'd produced. So I had lightly edited each story and also had written a short note to that writer to thank them for their story, to say what I'd especially liked about it, and to point out two or three areas to focus on in their future writing projects. (For example, use of articles like a, an, and the, which aren't used in Tibetan.) I handed both documents to each writer. That feedback seemed to be well-received. For the rest of the hour, we practiced with the several aspects of English grammar that were most challenging for the writers. I noticed that during this discussion, many of the students were speaking with less reticence and more assurance than before.

The Buddha taught that because circumstances are constantly changing, one is wise not to cling to pleasurable circumstances when they arise, but rather to cultivate a state of mind that adapts comfortably to whatever arises, without judging. It's a good thing that I've tried to take this teaching to heart over the years (which is not to say that I've mastered it), because my Friday English class was far more subdued than Thursday's class (described below). Perhaps it was the effect of the on-coming weekend, or perhaps the Buddha was right. Ah, well! Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Meanwhile, you may remember an earlier blog entry in which I talked about learning Tibetan. I explained how I've been testing my pronunciation by trying out my favorite practice sentence, "Di yak karpo rey" ("This yak is white") on Tibetans to see how many actually understand what I'm trying to say. Approximately 4 out of 5 Tibetans understand me when I say this, and 1 Tibetan completely breaks up laughing. Now I'm pleased to share with you this photo of a white yak, kindly given to me by my friend Carol Keslar, who encountered it a few days ago in Manali.

Teaching, I'm learning, is as experimental a process as research science. For the 2+ weeks that I've been teaching the Intermediate English class, I've been trying different approaches to generate substantial conversations in English among my students. Encouraging the students to talk when they don't yet feel confident of their English skills has been the hardest part of my job. On most days, my methods have prompted only a little conversation, and once or twice, my efforts have fallen flat.

Today, though, something went wonderfully right. At the beginning of the hour, I asked students to arrange themselves in pairs, and then to practice with the present perfect continuous tense by taking turns asking and answering the following Q/A pair (which I wrote on the board):

Q. How long have you been studying English?
A. I have been studying English for ___ months/years.

The students efficiently divided into pairs, asked and answered the questions, and then, to my surprise--since I expected this exercise to take 5 minutes at most--they continued to talk animatedly for the entire hour, moving on to compare notes on studying English, living in Mcleodganj, traveling elsewhere in India, and a variety of other subjects. They were careful to continue to speak English for the whole hour, which the exception of only a few very brief forays into Tibetan to explain something.

I could have stopped them to move on to the verb tense exercises I'd prepared, but that didn't feel right. Instead, I circulated among the student pairs, answering questions and cheering on several people who felt least confident about their English skills. During the course of the hour, faces gradually brightened and the energy in the room remained high. None of the conversations flagged. By the end of the hour, I could tell that most of the students were truly excited to discover that they could converse for so long in English.

I remained at Lha for the daily conversation class (in which a monk, two young Tibetan women, and I explored the potential for starting a new restaurant here featuring chocolate momos--I would be the first customer, I pledged). Afterwards, I encountered one of my least confident students in the hallway. He had a serious question to ask a fellow teacher and me: Did we think he was ready to read a Sidney Sheldon novel? Go ahead and try, we encouraged him. If you don't like it, you could try an easier book from the Lha library first (the library contains many good books for learners). As it turns out, he'd already bought his Sidney Sheldon book. So we're crossing our fingers--tightly--that he'll enjoy this new adventure.

Yesterday evening, a ferocious storm rolled in, pelting Mcleodganj with heavy rain and powerful lightning bolts, and temporarily turning the steep streets to fast-running creeks. Today, though, we awoke to a cloudless blue sky and the heart-lifting sight of the huge peaks that loom above town, now covered by fresh snow.

On days like this, Mcleodganj could be mistaken for Shangri-la. But now and then, I'm reminded that it's located on Planet Earth along with everyone else.

Lha, the Tibetan-run NGO I've been volunteering for, hosts a "Conversation Class" every weekday afternoon that's open to all. I almost always go. The conversation class begins just an hour after I finish teaching my Intermediate English class, so it's convenient to work on lesson plans in Lha's library for that hour, and then to join a conversation. The idea is for English speakers and English learners (nearly all Tibetan) to form small groups and to talk together for an hour of language practice.

Today I joined a group of two monks and a young Tibetan man. All three came originally from Tibet but now live as exiles in Mcleodganj. Our conversation soon turned to the difficulties that people in Tibet are currently facing. My conversation partners all share strong concerns about the erosion of Tibetan culture that's taken place since Tibet became part of China. They see deliberate efforts by the Chinese government as being largely responsible.

One of the monks had heard that the Chinese government has recently decreed that Tibetan is no longer to be spoken or taught in Tibet. (I just checked Google News and found a news story explaining that the Chinese government "plans to enforce Mandarin as the primary or possibly sole teaching language" in schools and universities in Tibet. I didn't see evidence that Tibetan can no longer be spoken or, presumably, taught to children by their parents at home.) My conversation partners expressed their worry that Tibetan will gradually decline until no one can speak it.

I commented that along with many other Westerners, I have been studying Tibetan for the last few weeks, and I treated them to my best rendition of "This yak is white" in Tibetan (that the monks easily understood what I said is a highlight of my day today).

The monks were delighted to learn that Westerners were studying their language. But this didn't satisfy the young man, who argued that it's time for the Tibetans to take up weapons and free Tibet from China by force. "It's been 50 years, and Tibet has already lost too much. Without weapons, we have no power and the Chinese will never listen to us," he said. "When we have weapons, the Chinese will have to listen." He looked searchingly at me as he expressed his opinion that the U.S. should provide those weapons.

In my experience, this isn't a common opinion among the Tibetans here in the home of His Holiness, who repeatedly expresses his belief in nonviolence. Still, the young man's comment set the direction of our conversation for the rest of our hour. I brought up the obvious example of how Mahatma Gandhi and his followers had achieved India's independence from Britain by only nonviolent means, and noted that for many years, the people of India probably didn't believe that independence could be gained without fighting. I said that ever since that day, the whole world has known that nonviolence is powerful, and that countries can use it to free themselves. I talked about the Jasmine Revolution countries in which common people have managed to change their governments without adopting intentionally violent means. The monks expressed their strong support for nonviolence and their belief that the Tibetan people should follow His Holiness in supporting peaceful autonomy for Tibet within China, rather than independence.

The young man was having none of it. What about World War II?, he asked: It wasn't won by nonviolence, nor could it have been. And besides, he said, China is far more powerful than the British Empire ever was; England was in decline when India won its independence. The US and the West have only been talking, he argued; now it's time for them to supply the Tibetan people with the weapons they need. I pointed out that then two nuclear superpowers would be at odds, putting the whole world in danger. I also noted that my country has often tried to use weapons to solve problems for several other countries in past decades, and that it's not yet clear to me whether those efforts have helped in any of the cases. The monks quietly nodded in agreement.

But then our hour was over. The young man left with his opinions unshaken. Perhaps the monks had the same thought as I: how many other young Tibetans share his feelings?

It's an overcast Sunday afternoon, with rain threatening. After a long, happily meandering conversation with a Swedish friend in an outdoor cafe, I've taken shelter in the Green Hotel's internet cafe.

Yesterday, though, was a beautiful day, sunny with high clouds. That morning, I paid my first visit to Tushita Meditation Centre, where I'm scheduled to take a 10-day meditation retreat in early June. Tushita offers drop-in guided meditation sessions each morning except on Sundays, so I walked up to the center and found my way to the lovely Medicine Buddha Hall for the morning meditation. Afterwards, I sat with a cup of tea on the main wooden deck, quietly watching the small forest birds flitting through the tall deodar cedars and the scenery below me (Tushita is perched on a steep hillside above McLeodganj, and surrounded by forest). Tushita is a remarkably peaceful setting, and I felt quietly delighted that I have a place in the June retreat.

Eventually, I continued up to the village of Dharamkot, and then returned to a quest I'd begun earlier: to find the footpath to Triund, a viewpoint on a high ridge that offers spectacular views of the 17,000-foot-high Dhauladhar Mountains. The Dhauladhars are the nearest of the true Himalaya peaks, and loom over McLeodganj. Were there not a few trekking outfits that make part of their living taking paying tourists up to Triund, the footpath might be signposted, but it isn't.

First, I walked up a forest track from Dharamkot to Gallu Temple, which I'd visited before. When I asked directions from the owner of a tea stall next to the temple, I learned that the footpath to Triund begins just behind the temple.

I set out onto the path, which took me diagonally higher and higher through pines and rhododendrons along the side of a steep ridge above Dharamkot. It soon gave me views steeply down to Dharamkot and out to other villages, McLeodganj, and the main city of Dharamsala below and beyond.

If you've taken the dugway trails up to either the East or West Rim of Zion Canyon in Utah, the Triund path will seem familiar. It is constructed of large, flat stones fitted together with Civilian Conservation Corps-like exactitude, with fitted stone steps in some of the steeper places. (During the Great Depression in the US in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps employed young men to build trails and other structures in many national parks). In some places--especially reminiscent of the dugways--there are steep dropoffs on the outer edges of the path. But the path itself is wide and secure.

I had the path mainly to myself until I reached the "Magic View" tea stall (there's always a tea stall in India!), which I am guessing is about half-way to Triund. There, I lingered to drink tea and chat with the friendly owner and a group of university students from Chandighar, who were headed up to Triund with overnight packs. The owner lives year-round behind his tea stall, and gets new provisions when needed via donkey trains from time to time.

A little later, after the students had moved on, an English walker and his tiny puppy arrived. The puppy, Sembay ("Snow Lion") had insisted on walking all the way up, and he immediately flattened himself in a patch of shade for a restorative nap. We two-legged creatures relaxed and continued to chat on the veranda of the tea stall. With the sky clouding over and the temperature dropping, I had realized that the "Magic View" would be a good turn-around point for the day's walk.

I started back down at around 3pm, encountering a few other groups of trekkers on the way down, as well as the first snake I've seen in India. The snake and I scared each other: I jumped backwards as it hurried off the path into the brush below the path. Once it seemed safely off the path, I continued down. Later, I had the troubling thought of what could happen if tiny Sembay were to encounter the snake when coming down the path, but I remembered that his owner planned to carry him down, and guessed that the snake would be far from the path by the time they passed by.

Once back in McLeodganj, I looked back up to the ridge I'd walked along, and noticed that from here, I can see the Magic View tea stall, which now appears as a blue dot near the ridgeline far above town. I plan to return to the path soon to walk all the way up to Triund and, I hope to stay overnight there. There is a government rest house and a private guesthouse at Triund--and no doubt a tea stall or two as well.

Of course, the best thing about traveling is the people you encounter, and the opportunity to glimpse at least a small part of their lives and perspectives. This wonderfully diverse--and talkative--subcontinent offers that opportunity in spades.

Here in Mcleodganj, each day I get glimpses into the experiences of the Tibetan and Indian people I'm temporarily living among. Many of my best conversations have been during the informal "Conversation Class" held each weekday afternoon at the Lha office (Lha is the NGO I'm volunteering for as an English teacher). At 4pm, immediately following the Advanced English class, Tibetans (including many monks and a few nuns) and people from around the world all squeeze into a classroom until it's laughably crowded, and divide into small groups to talk together in English for the next hour.

Yesterday and again today, I talked with two vivacious young Tibetan women; one of their friends joined us today. As has been the case with many Tibetans I've talked with here, I learned that they had walked out of Tibet in order to get to India. Generally, Tibetans are noncommittal about their journey here, which had given me the impression that perhaps it hadn't been so terribly difficult to do--sort of a long hike, like the final scene in The Sound of Music. But the conversations I had with these young women yesterday and today indicate otherwise.

One of my new friends walked away from her home at the age of 13, leaving behind her entire family (who had chosen to let her walk to safety). The other was just a few years older when she left her family to travel to India (both are in their 20s now). Each traveled in a group led by a guide (which I've learned is typical); they traveled in different groups and met each other here. Each group traveled first to Nepal along a route over relatively easier terrain. In each case, the trip to Nepal took several weeks. They had to hide during the day and travel only at night, in order to evade Chinese patrols who search the known routes for refugee parties. It was so cold hiding in the snow, and they were at constant risk of being shot or imprisoned during their trip, my young informants cheerfully explained.

Once across the border in Nepal, they were not yet completely safe, because the ties between that country and China have been strengthening in recent years. There was a possibility that they would be turned back to China. In the end, though, both were allowed to travel onward to India. Now that the Nepalese government has been taken over by the Communist Party, my young informants explained, the situation has become much more difficult for people escaping Tibet, because the Nepalese government has become much closer to China, and now is much more likely to turn refugees back or imprison them.

Nevertheless, they told me the same thing that I'd heard from others: that back home in Tibet, the ordinary Chinese people remain very sympathetic to the plight of their Tibetan neighbors. We all thought that in the long term, Tibet's best hope may lie with ordinary Chinese and the changes they may eventually insist on bringing to their country.

Today, our conversation then turned to topics closer to their young hearts: travel and fashion. They had asked where I'm from in the US, so we spent much of our hour inspecting a world map. We digressed for a few minutes to the topic of whether it's true that it stays dark for many weeks in the winter in Alaska (I explained that it is true, and circled one tilted fist around the other to try to demonstrate why). But the conversation then turned to a topic of greater interest: what it's like in the countries in Europe they'd love to visit. Switzerland and Austria rank high in their lists because of the beautiful mountain scenery and the alpine pastures with animals (Like Tibet!, I remarked). And France, too, especially Paris, which we agreed is probably the world capital of fashion. I described a recent story I'd read in the Times of India about US fashion designer Donna Karan's visit to India, and how much she'd liked the clothing she saw in India. I speculated that in a year or so, we may see India-inspired designs on the runways in Paris and New York. We all thought that traditional Tibetan chubas were bound to hit the fashion world soon.

I saw my much younger self in them as we talked and ran our fingers around the Europe section of the map. I felt regret that they were unlikely to travel the world as I've been lucky enough to do in my life. Even if they somehow obtained the money, their passport-less state would create complications (as refugees, they have only ID cards). With their bright young faces in front of me, it was easy to remember how exhilarated I'd been at age 22 when I first traveled Europe as a frugal backpacker. But I could not detect a flicker of self-pity or envy in my young friends. They seemed to epitomize the adage, "Bloom where you're planted."

It's noon on Tuesday, and I'm taking a quick blogging break before I need to prepare to teach my English class at 2pm.

As always in Mcleodganj and in India generally, so much happens in a day or two! For one thing, on Saturday, India, which had won the semi-final game against Pakistan, went on to win the cricket World Cup after besting Sri Lanka in what must have been a very exciting final game. I didn't watch the game, but it was fun to see the streets so quiet and empty. A short story in the Times of India yesterday reported that many Pakistani cricket fans were expressing pleasure that their "next door brother" had won, and their sense that the best team had won. Maybe sports really can help to bring peace between these two countries.

Saturday evening, I had dinner with a new American friend who had just returned from a short trip to Kashmir. S was recently widowed and is nearing 70, but once you meet her, it's soon clear that she has no intention to retire from life. She'd never done anything like visit India, much less Kashmir, where there are security concerns, but she decided to join a friend on this trip, and she's having a ball. Kashmir was generally cold and rainy, and she and her travel companion nearly froze in their otherwise lovely houseboat on the storied Lake Dal by Srinagar. And no one, anywhere, was able to accept her credit card, which she'd assumed she'd be able to use everywhere as she does in the States. But nevertheless, it was clear that they'd had a very good trip, and that she'd be showing her photos and telling her stories back home in Pennsylvania for a long time to come.

She also had learned, and passed along to me, that a puja (blessing ceremony) had begun in the main Temple, for the purpose of blessing the medicinal herbs that have been collected and that soon will be used to make this year's supply of Tibetan medicine. I went over to the Temple on Sunday afternoon to watch the puja. Inside the main upper chamber of the Temple, long lines of monks chanted, rang bells, clashed cymbals, and blew huge Tibetan horns, in order to bless the big stack of burlap bags of herbs towering over them. This puja continues for days, I'm told. Imagine if we in the West had this relationship to the medicines we use to cure people? It's hard to imagine a process that's further to the other end of the spectrum than the highly commercialized drug manufacturing and delivery processes of the US.

Whenever I visit this upper part of the Temple--which I do at least once a week--I like to circumambulate it on a designated walking path, and I did some circumambulations once I'd watched the puja for a while. It's always a very peaceful, centering thing to do, and there are long rows of big prayer wheels to turn as I walk. I'm never alone, either in walking or in turning the prayer wheels, and the wheels are rarely still. There are always Tibetans, many of whom appear to be older refugees, and always lots of visiting Indians as well as Westerners. A group of young Punjabis from a town near Amritsar asked to take my picture with them. I was happy to oblige, and told them how impressed I had been by our visit to Amritsar and the Golden Temple. Farther along, I encountered a young Tibetan father and his young son, who was just learning to walk, and who was sporting tiny sneakers that squeaked like ducks as he tottered along the walkway. His father and I grinned at each other with delight as we watched him.

Meanwhile, outside the Temple gates, a small crowd had gathered, in part because news had gotten around that His Holiness was about to arrive, on his way back from a meeting in Delhi. The crowd by the gates included a large group of local students fasting for the day in honor of a young Tibetan monk who had immolated himself in Lhasa several weeks ago to protest China's restrictions on Tibetans (many of us were fasting along with them, in solidarity; it was probably a bad day for Mcleodganj's restaurants). At a booth opposite the students, I made a donation and signed a related petition to the Chinese government. I suppose that none of us who stopped by the booth are going to hold our breaths waiting for changes in Tibet, but then, large political changes usually happen in small steps. Think of the decades of patient work it took Mr. Gandhi and his colleagues to win India's freedom!

The crowd included mostly Tibetans, along with Indians and Westerners. It was an attractive group: so many people, young and old, many already with palms pressed together in prayer. Love and devotion beamed from many faces. A moment or two later, we could hear a police siren in Temple Road below us, then a police vehicle drove past us into the Temple gates, and then, as I'd already learned to expect, in the passenger seat of the second car was His Holiness, glimpsed just for a moment or two before his car passed through the gates and out of view. I walked back up the road, reflecting on his heavy responsibilities, and how he must know very well how many people rely on him. There will never be such a thing as a quiet retirement for him.