Newsletter XVI - Archived Newsletter - The Ferris Wheel of Life

Dearest Friends:

I just returned from viewing the Monet to Picasso Exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Museum of Art. I have heard that the University of Utah spent $5 million for this exhibit to be shown here, and it ends this Sunday; thus, I wanted to write this newsletter now because a few of you might be inspired attend this event. I doubt that we will see one like it again here in Utah. For more information visit www.umfa.utah.edu 

I love to visit cemeteries. I used to teach my Death and Dying class at the cemetery near Ft. Douglas on the University of Utah campus. Some people thought it was rather strange, and at the time I didn’t realize why I was compelled to do such a thing. It was only years later when Evans-Wentz mentioned a yogi practice called “cemetery frequenting” that it made sense to me. Yes, “cemetery frequenting” is an exercise in the Law of Impermanence, reminding us that all extrinsic phenomenon is impermanent. If we realize and understand this on a very deep level, we will not grasp or cling or become attached to those things that have no lasting permanence. The big pay-off in avoiding this attachment is that we will avoid a lot of suffering from what we perceive as loss. Here in the west it is quite easy to get stuck in this phenomenon called loss without acceptance--all part of what we call life. 

I realized how difficult it was for people to accept loss when I showed the movie “Fall of Freddy the Leaf”, designed for elementary school children as a tool for death education. During the movie, the audience grew fond of animated Freddy through his birth in the spring and his joy in the summer. However, as autumn came and the leaves on Freddy’s tree started to fall, which included his friends and family and neighbors, there was a hope that Freddy would not fall but rather, that he would hang on and and remain the happy, animated Freddy that we had grown to love. Yet, the leaves on Freddy’s tree continued to fall one by one, and sometimes in clusters. Finally, Freddy, all alone, clung to the limb that he had called home. It was difficult to accept that he, too, would fall to the ground even when suddenly, a huge gust of wind came and threw him upward, past the highest limb. Freddy fell…and fell….and fell….until he finally rested on the ground. As I observed the sadness of the audience in seeing this, I saw how pervasive it is in our society to deny the certainly of death rather than honor and celebrate the cycle of life where death only brings rise to re-birth.

Thus, with this discourse as a prelude, my son, Colby, and I, attended the exhibit of Monet to Picasso at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the campus of the University of Utah. Many years ago, as an English teacher, I knew that many of our greatest writers were true Bodhisattvas in that they gave us messages to awaken and enlighten and thus, help to alleviate what is known to us as suffering. I also feel the same way about so many of our great artists who never experienced fame and fortune during their lifetime as Hollywood celebrities or successful entrepeneurs. They were not motivated by, nor did they experience this fame and fortune but rather, they were driven by purpose through their own passionate expression. When this expression portrays the cyclic nature of the human condition as a ferris wheel going around and around and around and around, it can actually motivate us to step off---and in an "ah-ha" moment--hold a higher and thus, liberating view.

I might as well have been in a cemetery yesterday, with the Law of Impermanence staring me in the face. Not only did so many artists experience an untimely death but their deaths represented a spectrum of how one leaves this existence. My favorite artist, Paul Cezanne (French, 1839-1906), died of pneumonia. It can be comforting for those who have lost a loved one in this manner to know that illness and disease cuts across all culture and ethnic groups and does not discriminate the rich and poor, male and female, young and old----

I studied “LaVie”, a painting nearly 2 meters tall, which depicted the onset of Pablo Picasso’s (Spain, 1881-1973) melancholy “blue period”. Picasso, at the age of 21 painted this when a dear friend of his, Carlos Casagemas, committed suicide after being rejected by his girlfriend. This piece portrays a woman holding a baby, Casagemas and his girlfriend, a nude couple and a single, grieving woman---I saw it as representing a cycle of life. I remembered that despite Picasso’s life of much hardship, poverty and desperation, which included the devastating death of his 7 year old sister, Conchita, who died of diphtheria, Picasso died while entertaining friends with his wife, Jacqueline. He seemed to be celebrating his life in death, and this is what I admire the most about Picasso.

I could actually feel the emotion in the canvas of “The Red Kerchief Portrait of Mrs. Monet” by Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926). Isn’t that what makes art so great---when it arouses emotion? Mrs. Monet is outside, walking in the snow and glancing in through a window. Claude Monte never sold this portrait of his wife but kept it close to him throughout his life after she died 18 months after giving birth to his second son. What is the message as she is passing by this window? She is doing exactly that---passing by. But the intriguing question is--did he know on a clairvoyant or claircognitive level that their time together would be brief in their present incarnation?

I have been amazed at how many artists were botanists as was Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1960) prior to painting "Vase of Flowers". True, Gary Young has brought essential oils out of the dark ages, but so many artists love plants and flowers and trees and nature, and thus, they share their beauty and meaning with us. These artists recognize the power of the earth, water, fire, wind, and space elements and depict them in their art. They don't call themselves healers or Shamans but their art exudes some undeniably shared fundamental and universal truths. If you have an opportunity to see “The Poplars at Saint-Remy” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) you will feel the communication between the poplar trees in the foreground and catch a glimpse as to why Van Gogh was so moved by their spirit. It is he who stated, “The way to know life is to love many things.”

I was surprised to see so many sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), including “The Thinker.” Throughout his tenure as an artist, he was criticized and rejected for his work, but he never changed his style. He was true to himself, despite the unfavorable opinion of others. 

I have only mentioned a few of the deeply moving pieces I was fortunate to see yesterday. And, although I certainly do not claim to be an artist, I do appreciate those who came before us and those who will come after us---those whose experience and expression offer insight into the many lessons we are here to learn.

Love-light,

Carol

www.carolwilson.org

Copyright @ 2008, Carol A. Wilson

Archived Newsletter XV - July 7, 2008 - Believing In What You're Doing

Dearest Friends:

I will never forget my father saying, “If you can’t do it right the first time, don’t do it at all.” I used to think that his perfectionist attitude was the result of attending military schools his entire life —first at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville Georgia, which included all grade levels, and then at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland where I was later born when he was teaching physics there. However, I have recently found myself telling students, clients and friends: “If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, don’t do it at all.” Hmmmmm---

The truth is that I’ve been in the healing trenches with people long enough that I have accumulated some anecdotal observations. One of those observations is that when people believe in what they’re doing, the outcome is positive. However, it is often difficult for people to believe in much of anything when it comes to healing, particularly if they have had negative experiences in regard to their health care, which is often impacted by their own painful life experiences. So, they “kind of” hope and “kind of” wish and “try”---but believing---well, believing can be such a stretch.

As for myself, I concluded a long time ago that I wasn’t going to waste a minute of my time doing anything that I didn’t believe in---as in “be true to yourself”. It also didn’t matter what people thought about that, either. I am making an analogy here because I honestly see people who are concerned and even fearful about what their family, friends, doctors and peers will “think” if they realize they are into “alternative” and “complementary” methods of healing such as Reiki. After all, they might think Reiki is rather whacky despite the fact that Reiki has gone mainstream medicine.

I actually believed in Bhutan’s Drukpa Kunley (1455-1570) fertility wang (blessing or empowerment) when, in 2005, I asked for a fertility blessing for a student of mine who had just experienced her 5th miscarriage. I believed that this blessing would result in a child, and 11 months later she delivered a healthy baby boy. Thus, when my own son and daughter-in-law were unable to have children after nearly four years of marriage and beginning to accumulate some serious medical expenses for infertility work-ups, I wanted to return to Bhutan earlier this year and ask for a fertility blessing for them, also. Believing in Reiki and some other healing modalities is rather conservative when compared to appreciating the life mission of the beloved Drukpa Kunley, also known in Bhutan as “The Divine Madman”, an enlightened Master, recognized as the reincarnation of the great Mahasiddha, Saraha, and from the Kagyu Buddhist lineage of Tilopa, Niropa, Marpa and Milarepa. Born in Tibet, Drukpa Kunley was precocious as a child and had a full memory of previous incarnations; however, after his father was killed in a family feud, he became disillusioned with the world and became a monk, dedicating himself to a spiritual life. Then, in his early 20’s he discarded his robes and became an ascetic wanderer or neljorpa (yogi) who discovered and gained control of his spiritual power. His behavior, exploits, songs and humor were outrageous, wild, and often obscene--an example of the Tibetan tradition of “crazy wisdom”--but never for personal gain or self-aggrandizement, but rather with a spontaneous desire to benefit and Enlighten others. Often viewed as irreverent when he mocked “the establishment” and man-made rules and prescriptions, he developed an unorthodox teaching style that shocked people out of hypocrisy, greed, stiff and rigid ideas, religious dogmatism, attachment, and egoistic self-possession—things which he felt kept people from learning the Buddha’s true teachings. His miracles were undeniable; i.e. turning a small quantity of tea into amounts for thousands to drink; exorcising evil spirits, transforming demons, and instantaneously transporting himself to far away locations. He never killed an animal for meat without restoring the animal back to life. He is even credited for the creation of a species of animal, the takin, by putting together the remains of two different animals (a goat’s head and a cow’s body)!

To honor Drukpa Kunley, Drukpa’s cousin built a yellow-roofed monastery in 1499, known as Chimi Lhkhang, near the town of Punakha, Bhutan in the valley below Metshina, which was dedicated to fertility. Each year hundreds of childless couples come from Bhutan (and now from around the world) to pray for children and receive a fertility blessing, which includes having a lama bless the couple on the head with a large wooden and bone phallus. Yes, I want you to know that I went through this ritual in proxy for my student and more recently for my son and daughter-in-law, making a donation and giving the lama their names written on a piece of paper.

I believed in what I was doing. I hiked once again for about 20 minutes across rice fields to the monastery that sat afar on a hill…past many modest, Bhutanese homes in Pana with a white flag on the roof swaying in the breeze—an indication that their home had been blessed by their lama, past a white chorten with prayer wheels, following a tiny stream downhill to Yoaka (“in the drain”), across an archery ground, past more wind tattered prayer flags jutting more than 40 feet into the air, and finally, finally—a short climb to Chimi Lhakhang monastery with monks playing in the yard without a care in the world. Once inside, we were able to view a central statue of Drukpa Kunley with his beloved black dog, Sachi.

Not once did I “hope” or “wish” that this blessing would be effective, nor did I want to “try again to see what happens.” I never even considered that it was quite absurd for an educated person as myself—trained to respect reason and rational order---to travel thousands of miles once again and go to such lengths without concern for any one’s opinion. I just believed in what I was doing….totally....100%….not even half a bubble off.

My dear friend, Elka, from Bulgaria, also received a fertility blessing for her youngest son. And yes, just so you know---both Elka and I are both going to be a grandma in February---11 months after our sons received a fertility blessing from Chimi Lhakhang, the monastery of Drukpa Kunley near Punakha, Bhutan.

Our lives are blessed with miracles; yes, I love the word miracles (considered Judeo-Christian) even when I hear people say that they cannot stand the word. I say that I love the word miracles because it is the world in which I live. But, we need to believe in order for them to manifest, even when our lives get so chaotic and complicated that the simplicity of that principle gets lost somewhere. Another wonderful miracle in my family this month is that my youngest daughter just returned from a trip to Italy with her boyfriend—ENGAGED. Yet, before she believed this could happen, she joked about writing a sequel to the book How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days.

Finally, to those of you (over 200) who attended Lama Ole’s teaching and received so many blessings here in SLC, thank you. There are many of you whom I wanted to visit with but I was multi-tasking beyond my capabilities, I’m afraid. I was fielding phone calls from Europe and doing dozens of other things that I hadn’t planned on, including the fact that I needed to be the tech person during the lecture even though I had hired a tech person for the evening.

Boundless Love-Light

Carol

Copyright @ 2008, Carol A. Wilson

Archived Newsletter XIV - March 23, 2008-Pilgrimage

Dearest Friends:

Happy Easter. I am safely home. A few of you were closely following the international news while I was gone, and a couple of you emailed me with great concern. I regret that I did not have access to my group email address book or I would have sent a group email to assure everyone that I was fine. It is true that a helicopter crashed in Kathmandu, and everyone was killed. I had mentioned to a few of you that I would be going to a Himalayan region from Kathmandu in a helicopter; however, it was a United Nations helicopter that crashed, and the loss of life was tragic. Also, the New Delhi airport strike was horrific but ended a couple of days before I was to depart although the strike affected some of our group members. The hotel I was to check into in New Delhi had to shut down because of a roof collapse or other problem but those of us who were scheduled to stay there managed to find other accommodations. However, the biggest concern was the situation that is ongoing in Tibet. Two days before I left New Delhi I came across a protest near the Tibetan market, and I am including a 182 picture slideshow of that protest. Picture 66 is Erin, my roommate from Norway, who is holding a sign “Stop Killing in Tibet.” As you watch these pictures, try to understand the frustration that the Tibetan people feel after near 50 years of Chinese rule in Tibet http://www.pbase.com/khandro68/delhi_tibetan_protest&view=slideshow

I would like to ask you to please join the growing world support to take action against the atrocities committed by the Chinese. I have been closely following this situation for years, and I do not believe there is one living Tibetan who feels there has been any advantage to Chinese rule in Tibet. A few months ago the Chinese military shot and killed a young Buddhist nun who was bringing children to Nepal so they could live in religious and cultural freedom, which was captured by mountain climbers on film. I believed at the time that this event that would be a catalyst for action; however, more recent events and just prior to the Olympics in Beijing, has created a momentum that might truly see some positive outcome results. Please take a few minutes of your time to complete the following petition, and I thank you in advance from the deepest place in my heart: http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/

With a pilgrimage comes endless blessings, and it was such a joy to see Maggie again and my friends who went on pilgrimage with me in 2005—Elka and Nikolay from Bulgaria. As far as the challenges and obstacles I faced and the suffering I experienced, it was a wonderful opportunity to purify karma. I want to share this with you because so many of you suffer, and it is a difficult concept to understand the fact that we live our karma. There are no stray bullets that strike us, and we are not victims. There really is fairness in the universal law of karma or as John stated, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

While our pilgrimage group of 51 people was in Bhutan, a man from Argentina discovered that he had a very large tick on him that was embedded underneath his skin. I didn’t realize what a serious situation this can be and that people can die when a tick is not completely removed; thus, Maggie and a few of us took him to a hospital in Bhutan. I have several pictures of this tick, and I thought it was a rather gross situation. We were at the hospital for quite some time, and a 74 year old medical doctor from Germany proceeded to remove the tick. Of course, by that time I was thinking that any tick that got near me was asking for death….so of course, there was one near me in my room that night, and in human response, I did kill it. I was already sick from an all day trek that we had taken in the snow and rain to the Tangui Gompa of Tulku Tenzin Rabaye Rinpoche, whom I met two and a half years ago in Bhutan when he was with Je Khenpo, the spiritual head of Bhutan. When Tenzin Rabaye Rinpoche was just two years old he began talking about historical events of 15th century Bhutan and was recognized immediately as a reincarnation (parents—just imagine what this would be like). Now he is about 14 years old and not only received us in his private quarters but also gave each of us an individual blessing. Any way, the trek was not ordinary climbing. We were climbing up rocks, and I had no rain repellent gear on (only a shower cap, and yes, it did look ridiculous). 

That night I could hardly move from physical pain and discomfort but the itinerary moved forward, and that night I was at the home of the Princess of Bhutan, Asi Sonan, in a dress and tortuous high heels. It was an evening of tea, food, and conversation but what was most special was that we were invited to sit in the beautiful gompa in their home where monks and their lama chanted special prayers for us. Their lama also did individual MO divinations for us until midnight. Please understand that Maggie is very close to the Royal Family of Bhutan, which is why we have seen Bhutan from the inside and visiting places owned by the Royal Family that are not on the tour circuit. A couple of you have asked what tourist agency I have worked with, and there hasn’t been a tourist agency. For both of my pilgrimages to Bhutan, I was invited by Maggie who was the personal translator of Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche for 15 years, who was the Uncle to the Queen of Bhutan. 

Back to the tick. The lesson I have learned from this is to travel with a jar to “catch the insect in.” There was also a spider in the toilet in Bhutan. My roommate, Erin, had gone to the bathroom and noticed a spider in the toilet so she ran into the room to tell me. We stood over the toilet as she tried to build a bridge with toilet paper so the spider would come out but it was not an effective strategy (he went in the opposite direction) so we both starting saying mantras for this spider. I have to tell you that it was probably the most humorous thing that happened because everyone was waiting for us at the dinner tables, and we were standing over the toilet saying mantras for a spider. Finally, I looked at Erin and said, “Let’s not think about this now”, and I closed the lid. I truly experienced some karmic suffering for both the tick and the spider. I not only got “near pneumonia”, suffered from altitude sickness (we were at 10,000 feet but I have never had altitude sickness before), but also got carbon monoxide poisoning from riding in an open 3 wheeler for a few hours in New Delhi, a very large city with much traffic). One night I decided that I either had to call Maggie, go to the hospital or come home to America. I ended up doing none of those things but I will say that I have never been so ill. My attitude, of course, was that karmic seeds I had planted had now come to fruition, so I did what I could, with all of my tools, to alleviate as much pain as I could and embraced the process with gratitude because I was paying a debt now that I wouldn’t have to pay later. 

When some of my friends and students have karmic diseases, they often tell me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve such suffering so I am here to tell you how imperfect I am in that I, too, suffer from unvirtuous actions such as killing a tick and giving up on a spider; however, I will never do such a thing again because I will be prepared with my insect jar.

The highlight of my pilgrimage was to spend eight days with His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Trinlay Thaye Dorje, at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute (KIBI). After meeting with our group and giving us each an individual blessing, he gave a four day teaching on the “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva”. He first taught it in Tibetan and then translated the teaching himself in perfect English. He said that he first received this teaching when he was 12 years old and talked about how precious this teaching was to him and how much it has helped him. We also received teachings from Khenpo Tsering Samdrup, the main instructor at KIBI and also, Professor Sempa Dorje, a renowned Buddhist scholar, who has been teaching the Karmapa in Kalimpong since he was 10 years old. The Karmapa told us that it has been a “luxury and a joy” to learn from him; thus, for Professor Dorje to teach to another audience was such a blessing for us. Also, Tsultrim Namgyal gave several days of teachings about his experiences with His Holiness the 16th Karmapa. Tsultrim Namgyal is often seen in pictures holding the Karmapa’s Black Crown. The Karmapa then gave three days of initiations (empowerments), and when I learned that one of those initiations was Medicine Buddha, I realized why I was there since Medicine Buddha greatly enhances the healing work that I do, and I had only received the lunge from Lama Ole a few years ago. 

What was most meaningful to me, however, was when the Karmapa talked about all of the blessings we had received and then said, “These blessings will remain with you until you reach Enlightenment.” Because all extrinsic phenomenon is impermanent, and the happiness that we cling to in this world is a temporary happiness, to know that those blessings would remain with me was deeply meaningful. For more information and 48 wonderful pictures, please see http://www.karmapa-news.org/?id=443

In many of the sacred and powerful holy places on our pilgrimage, Maggie told us to make strong wishes; thus, I made strong wishes for all of you---that you will be free from suffering and that you will have devotion to your spiritual path, whatever that spiritual path might be---Buddhist or non-Buddhist.

Finally, those of you who asked that I purchase singing bowls or malas for you, yes, my luggage was lost but it was delivered to me at 2 am this morning. Please email me and let me know if you can come by this week. Those items traveled with me on my entire pilgrimage, and the malas were blessed by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa (I have a dozen extra for those of you who want one, and in fairness to everyone, it is best that I include that information in this newsletter rather than pick and choose whom I might wish to have one). The weight of the singing bowls (85 pounds) was not easy to work with as far as transporting, including the ride back to my hotel on a motorbike. My purse was swinging on this kind man’s motorbike, and I was holding 85 pounds of singing bowls between myself and his back. As you know, the traffic is quite crazy in Kathmandu, and at one point in time, we were trapped between a car and a bus, and just as I thought the bus was about to take off my right leg, he HIT the side of the bus very hard. I learned that hitting the side of a vehicle is an emergency signal for “STOP.” I am very grateful for that.

A few of you have asked me to give a talk about my pilgrimage; thus, I will not share further stories here but will hopefully plan for a presentation sometime in the near future.

Boundless love-light,

Carol

www.carolwilson.org

Copyright © 2008, Carol A. Wilson