Sun Temple

Happy Solstice

These last ten days of the year serve as a non-secular retreat for most of the western world. Not much of a contemplative retreat but for many, a certain anticipation of leisure and good food. Nuts will be cracked! Blogs and media retrospectives will summarize the year in politics and entertainment, obituaries, sports, the best and worst of '08' lists are hurriedly being composed. And that ain't all...

Amongst my friends, there are impoverished buddhists who invest way more time, money and energy in celebrating Christmas than they do in any Buddhist holiday. Ask and they will say they do it for their kids or grandkids, (who are neither Christian nor being raised Christian). When I consider this kind of situation, it seems redolent with suffering. Having failed to create/discover an alternative means of expression, people resignedly conform and initiate the young into the mindless rituals of consumerist culture, encouraging cycles of expectation and disapointment in relation to the year's 'take'.

From where i sit, the midday sun streams thru the highest branches of the tulip magnolia in the yard, throwing a broken shadow on some of the plants clustered at the base of the glass door. It will only be like this for a few more days as the arc begins ascending higher into the sky. If you think of it, pull back the curtains and note the westernmost place where the last direct rays of sun strike a wall in your home before sunset tonight. Mark it! If the sky is clear, you should be able to do this unless your apartment faces east or north. To complete the mission, do it again on an equinox and the summer solstice. Now you live in a sun temple.

Last night we were talking about how it is increasingly common for us to consider the nature of the food we eat, means of production, cost, how it is prepared and the quality of the environment wherein it is consumed. That's a big source of our energy but by no means the only one. So as we move into this period, remember the supreme gifts of appreciation, consecrated presence, simple mindfulness, conscious breathing, relaxed alertness, good humor, good company to y'all...

Trust

We rarely lock our doors. Years ago, when we first moved here, our only neighbors were two brothers, local boys and their wives, occupying separate trailers. One of their little girls would remove any prayer flags she came across in the woods or by our spring. We simply replaced them. The child's grandmother was equally curious and quietly climbed the hill behind us to see what the hippies do up there and discovered what she called 'kung-fu altars' which was apparently a relief as there were rumours about 'devil-altars'. Good woman that she is, Christine checked the hill out our for herself and assured her friends that whatever it was that we were doing, it was definitely not demonic. Eventually, their little clan moved away and sold the land to other members of our sangha.

An assortment of crystals and stones, some carved into the shape of turtles, dorjes, bells, sea shells and antlers, conchs, and buddha statues cover these little shrines and beyond changing a worn cloth or adding a new offering, they have sat undisturbed for decades.

My closest neighbors are friends who bought some of the land next door. They live another quarter mile into the woods where the road comes to a dead end. We often make use of this stretch for short afternoon walks. They had attended a Christmas recital at the local school where their kids performed Mozart's Night Music and came home to find their house had been robbed. We are pretty sure we know who did it. It is pretty quiet back here. Sometime in the afternoon, a car sped up the road so fast that the noise got my son's attention, allowing him to identify the vehicle through the now bare woods. The police were called. Everything is replaceable except the trust.

December Twilight

Returning from a late afternoon walk we stopped to look at the sky in the west. Above the hills, luminosity pouring through a network of bare trees like stained glass, a few dense clouds hovering in the upper branches of the hickories glow fiery orange, soon burnishing an intense bronze before cooling to purple. Padmasambhava's Copper-Colored Mountain is said to be somewhere in that range of light to the southwest.

One day the three masters decided to have a horse race and see who would win. Chokgyur Lingpa, on a dappled horse, came first, followed by Jamyang Khyentse on a dark blue horse. Kongtrul finished last and arrived crying like a child. “I am so unfortunate,” he wailed. Some people said, “Jamgon Kongtrul is usually a great lama, but he weeps when he loses a horse race.” Others said it was because he was the oldest. The real reason was they were seeing who would first reach the Copper-Colored Mountain.

-from The Life of Chokgyur Lingpa as spoken by Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche