Walking down from Tushita Meditation Centre just now, I passed by the big white stupa that marks its entrance. Circumambulating that stupa was a monk with his cellphone held to his ear, conversing loudly in Tibetan. The ancient and the modern mingle in India like nowhere else on Earth (that I've been to, anyway).

Watching my own mindstates, I can tell that I'm entering a time of transition. I finished teaching English yesterday. This Saturday, I'll begin a 10-day meditation retreat at Tushita. Two days after that, I'll take an overnight bus to Delhi, and then, after a few hours appreciating the a/c in the airport, I'll fly to Osaka, on my way to begin a visit with my brother P and sister-in-law C in Kyoto. I'll fly home to Seattle at the end of that visit--a fact that seems a bit incredible just now.

As for mindstates, for the past few days, I've noticed myself being more easily aggravated than usual by the unavoidable irritating aspects of life here--the heavy traffic and constant honking in the narrow streets, which usually amuses rather than irritates me; the truly annoying British tots clambering around this internet cafe; and so on. But even more, now, there's also nostalgia for the marvelous aspects of life here that I'll soon leave behind, especially good friends, some of whom live here and some of whom have already left or will soon leave. And there's particular sadness about finishing my teaching stint yesterday and saying goodbye to my students, whom I've adored working with. Tibetans are easy to love and admire. And I've so appreciated my chance to learn something about their lives and concerns during our weeks together.

Yet there's also, now, happy anticipation about my upcoming return home on July 2, which should coincide nicely with the beginning of the high mountain hiking season in the Cascade and Olympic Mountains (I did bear that in mind when scheduling this trip). And besides the hiking, I find myself looking forward to the small ordinary things about resuming life at home: first of all, seeing friends and family and resuming Tuesday evening meditation sessions with the Seattle Insight Meditation Society. And next, the many pleasures of summer in the Pacific Northwest besides hiking: e.g., farmers markets, evening bike rides, and the Shakespeare in the Park season, which will start up about the time I return.

Impermanence and constantly shifting mindstates! I'll have plenty of fodder for reflection during those 10 days at Tushita.

Too many things happen in the course of a day, or just an afternoon, here that I've learned not to try to give you a comprehensive view of events. Today in particular, I'd like to tell you about just one thing: the work of one of my most inspiring friends here: Heather Zimmerman of Maine, USA.

Heather has been a volunteer English teacher here in McLeodganj since last September, and she kindly helped me learn the ropes when I took over the Intermediate English class at Lha (a Tibetan NGO). But she is especially devoted to helping with the work of Tong-Len, a Tibetan-run aid organization. Tong-Len is an expression of the Tibetan people's gratitude for the generosity of the people of India, who have given them a new home. The organization is directed by a Tibetan monk, Jamyang, under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. With the help of volunteers like Heather, Tong-Len works to improve the lives of Indian people displaced within their own country, particularly the residents of a slum in the town of Charan, in the valley below McLeodganj.

The more I learn about Tong-Len's work from Heather and other volunteers, the more impressed I've become with the organization. The overall objective is to help people to raise themselves up from the poverty of the slum. I'm especially excited about the student hostels that the organization has been building. In these hostels, children from slum families are able to live and study in safe, calm, supportive settings, close to their families, where they receive the guidance and help they need to successfully attend the local school. The idea is that if one child from a family can gain an education and bring themselves up from poverty, they eventually can raise their family out of poverty as well.

Tong-Len's first student hostel has been so successful that they are now completing a second hostel, which will be ready for occupation by new students in early July. The one problem is that there isn't quite enough money--about 1,000 USD per child per year--to host all the children that the hostel can hold.

Heather, who works with other Tong-Len volunteers each day to bathe, feed, and train the younger children in the slum, decided to organize a fundraiser to help garner the remaining money needed for the 12 new students who are not yet funded. To publicize her fund drive, from early this morning until late tomorrow, she is making 12 round trips on foot (running and walking) between McLeodganj and Charan (a one-way distance of 6 miles and 2,000 vertical feet). Each round trip represents one of the children who can come to live in the new hostel if enough money can be collected.

I encourage you to consider donating to Tong-Len to support these children, because I've come to believe that Tong-Len is one of the most effective and compassionate organizations fighting poverty that I've ever encountered. You can learn more about Heather's fundraiser from her blog. You can learn more about Tong-Len and make an online donation at its website.

Go, Heather!

Three things converged to keep me from posting as often as usual during the past few days. First, like many here, I was a bit under the weather with a mild stomach flu for much of the week. Second, I've needed to put more time into the English class I'm teaching, both because there's more for me to do as we near the end of the class (at the end of this month), and because some of the students are so enjoying writing in English that they've been handing in more pieces of writing than I've assigned. Third, I've now been here long enough that my social circle has expanded to the point that I can rarely go anywhere without having a good, long conversation--time I otherwise might have spent online.

Something I love about India in general, and which seems especially dramatic here, is the remarkable diversity of experiences and encounters that happen within a short period of time. Take this weekend, for example. In this normally calm town, my days start and end with the sound of gongs and chanting from the nunneries across the street, and nearly every other person strolling along the street is a Buddhist monk or nun. But Mcleodgang turned into Party Central this weekend, because three Indian Premier League cricket matches are being played in lower Dharamsala, just below us, starting today. Cricket is to India as baseball is to the US, only more so, and passions are especially high this year because India won the Cricket World Cup just a few weeks ago.

Friday morning was calm enough. I started that day as I start each day except Sundays these days: after a quiet breakfast, a walk uphill through the cool deodar cedar forest, evading roving bands of rhesus monkeys (the big males can be very aggressive), to Tushita Meditation Center for the morning meditation session followed by tea on Tushita's deck overlooking the forest.

Later, off to the Lha office to teach my 2pm English class. To provide English listening practice, I used a computer speaker and my iPod to play an ancient Buddhist teaching tale (Jataka Tale), which we then discussed. Emerging onto the street after class in an open-hearted state--the tale had been touching--I found people lined up, three or four deep in some places, along Temple Road. His Holiness must be returning from his US trip, I initially thought, and joined a group at a good viewpoint. But there, I discovered that people were waiting not for the Dalai Lama, but for a famous Bollywood actress. A few minutes later, a luxury bus pulled up, and out stepped a team of cricket players, to be met by enthusiastic cheering from their Indian and Tibetan fans.

As a Bollywood fan myself, I was quite tempted to wait for the actress, but I had a very different appointment at the Main Temple complex, where a Western nun, who recently was awarded a Geshe degree (the equivalent of a PhD in Tibetan Buddhism), was scheduled to give a teaching on the philosophically complex concept of Bodhicitta (luminous mind). My friend C and I had some trouble finding the lecture hall, but finally were pointed in the right direction by an obviously senior monk. Though he had the air of a very distinguished teacher himself, he immediately set aside his work and stepped out of his office to be sure we found our way.

Over the course of the weekend, the traffic in the narrow streets and concomitant honking have reached levels I haven't seen before, and the streets were jammed last night by excited fans and onlookers. Cars and motorcycles careened in the wrong direction along the one-way roads through town, pedestrians (including me) and animals scattered and jumped aside to avoid being hit, and I saw one motorcyclist skid out to avoid a crash. All in all, Mcleodganj looked more like the site of a Super Bowl party than the home of His Holiness in exile.

Today has been calmer so far, probably because the first game is being played in the big stadium in lower Dharamsala. Just now, the car traffic is markedly reduced, and I've been watching several cows, goats, and sheep, and one water buffalo who've reclaimed the road for now and are ambling towards Bhagsu village.

I spent this morning at a rooftop table in the shade of the yak-hair tent at Llamo's Croissants restaurant, breakfasting, preparing lessons for this week's classes, and then having a long discussion about green business and other not-necessarily-related subjects with a traveler-philosopher from Montreal. Then it was time for lunch with my friend C, who's headed home to Oakland tomorrow, and T, a researcher working for the Tibetan Government in Exile. T is investigating how health insurance and improved health care could be provided to exiled Tibetans living in India, so that was a main subject of our lunchtime discussion. So was the arrival last week of newly-elected Dr Lobsang Sangay, who will soon be inaugurated as the new Kalon Tripa (Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile). Having just left his job as a law professor at Harvard, he is making a major transition. Given that the Chinese government recently declared him a terrorist, he will have his hands full.

Who knows what will happen next? My plan is to have a quiet evening back at Llamo's Croissants, watching a documentary on the yogis of India. But perhaps on my way over, I'll encounter a cricket or Bollywood great instead.

“Some people may ask, ‘Why should the problems in Tibet stand out in a world filled with suffering?’ I think it’s because of the Tibetan people’s unbroken spirit, strength, and desire to find compassionate solutions, instead of falling into despair or pursuing terrorism or violent acts against their enemies.” - Tom Peosay

Today in the Intermediate English class, we had an interesting conversation after I asked the students to discuss whether Emperor Asoka was a good or a bad person. I had previously asked them to read an account of a pivotal episode in that emperor's life, which was described by Sharon Salzberg in her wonderful book "Lovingkindness."

As Sharon had explained, Emperor Asoka, though immensely wealthy and possessed of a vast empire, hungered for even more, and had been waging war after war to increase his territory. One morning, after an especially bloody battle against the tiny kingdom of Kalinga, he walked across the battlefield among the countless dead men and animals. He had been a miserable man in any case, and now, seeing the extent of the devastation he had wrought, he felt even more miserable. Perhaps for the first time ever, Asoka felt remorse.

Not far away, a Buddhist monk also was walking across the battlefield. Something about the monk's peaceful, serene demeanor, even in the midst of the devastation, touched the emperor. Asoka walked up to him and asked, "Are you happy? If so, how is it possible?" And so, as Sharon explained, the monk who had nothing (apart from begging bowl and robe) introduced the emperor who had everything to the teachings of the Buddha.

Asoka experienced what must have been one of the most profound changes of heart in all of history. From then on, he was a generous and loving ruler. He became Buddhist and vegetarian, and sent missionaries, including his own children, across the world to spread the Buddha's teachings. As it happened, Buddhism essentially died out in India not so very long after Asoka died. Had he not been so active in spreading Buddhism elsewhere, it might have died out in the world.

All the students felt that Asoka was a good man rather than bad, because of his sincere remorse and his later efforts to do good. They noted the similarity between Asoka's story and that of the great Tibetan saint, Milarepa. Milarepa, at his widowed mother's request, had learned sorcery in order to take revenge on an uncle and aunt who had refused to give his mother money that was rightfully hers. He used his sorcery to destroy the aunt and uncle, and many others. Soon afterwards, though, he too repented, sought out a great Buddhist teacher, Marpa, and became enlightened in a single lifetime--something that Tibetan Buddhists consider no mean feat.

Because monks make up about a third of the class, I asked about Asoka's and Milarepa's karma. I was told that Milarepa, having become enlightened, had freed himself of his karma. The class consensus was that Asoka had become free of his negative karma because his repentance had been so sincere and his later life so virtuous.

So from a Buddhist point of view, I asked, should we say that it's a bad thing to kill someone who has incurred negative karma, since that person then would be deprived of any opportunity to repent of what they've done in that lifetime? Of course, the students replied.

I may be the only person you know who got the news of Osama Bin Laden's death from Tibetan monks. I was in the daily Conversation Class here in which all are invited to come chat in English for an hour. (Many monks come here from monasteries elsewhere specifically to learn English, because--thanks to the large numbers of Westerners here--there are lots of willing volunteer tutors, teachers, and classes here.)

Though I'm not that far geographically from the location of the killing in nearby Pakistan (I'm roughly 200 miles away), I got the news many hours after most of the rest of the world. Only a few minutes before, I'd glanced through today's Times of India, in which the lead story was a NATO attack on the Gaddafi family compound in Libya. So when my conversation partners asked what I thought about what the American Air Force had done, I thought they meant Libya. Äctually, it was a NATO attack," I insisted. We talked at cross purposes until they were finally able to straighten me out.

The monks asked again for my opinion about the killing. I said that what first came to mind was Mahatma Gandhi's comment that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I said that any death was an occasion for regret, not celebration. I also said that President Obama would not have had any real choice in ordering the attack, given the political constraints on him. We all essentially seemed relieved to discover that we saw the situation about the same way, and soon moved on to other topics. Eventually, we gave ourselves a break from the deeply serious issues of the day to address the question of whether, if invited, we would have attended the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. We were unanimous in agreeing that we would, and one monk added that he would have wanted to offer special Tibetan prayers to ensure that they would have a harmonious family life.

Afterwards, being both hungry and reflective--I had not had lunch--I walked over to the Kungra Restaurant for a meal on their terrace. On the way, I met a Swedish friend in a similarly reflective mood. She was with a Frenchman who did his best to entrap me in an argument over whether President Obama is a lying politician, but I was having none of it, and was a bit curt about it. I got a gently sympathetic look from my Swedish friend.

I found a table to myself, and sat looking out over the landscape, which was serene in the evening sunlight, despite the violence that had happened so close to us and so recently. Swallows dipped and soared above and around us. I remembered an evening long ago when I'd sat on the shore of the Sea of Galilee watching swallows flying over the undulating water. The water surface had looked so firm and elastic that it had been easy to imagine Jesus walking out onto it. I thought of him, his life and words, and a comment he'd made that is a favorite of mine: "The Kingdom of Heaven is all around us, only men do not see it."

I take his comment to mean that the divine is much closer to us than we know, and that we should do our best to find our way towards it, and away from the confusion, anger, and pain that so often seems an inevitable part of the human condition.

Later, my Swedish friend and I agreed to take tea on Tushita's deck after the morning meditation session tomorrow. And then I walked off through the darkening streets, past the prayer flags flying above us all.