A letter to twenty years from now

Dear Me,
                   Twenty years from now you'll be having a different set of worries from now. Some already imagined and some impossible even in your dreams.
                    You may have grown older but who can say if you've grown any wiser? For we learn each day and every moment. We change, that is the only assurity that I can give. How will you face age? You hope with grace and elegance because its a downhill battle from here on.
                     Your children? Don't even want to think about it but Im sure you hope that with enough love, care, kisses and cuddles, they'll grow up right if you're any proof that a mother's love works.
                      Your main worry I guess is finances and how you are to finance the schooling as you calculate the daily rising prices versus your income. You worry about caring for your mother and her health and whether you will be a good daughter to her and reflect as you look on at other daughters and their mothers.
                      You hope, as every parent does, that your child will turn out to become brilliant valued individuals in society yet who can say whether they will turn out as you wish. You have kept plan B, C and D reserved in case they don't turn out social butterflies and outstanding citizens. And if the boys have a string of one night stands and many illegitimate children, you hope that they take with dignity the answer you already have ready for them, "go out there, work and pay the alimony yourself, they aren't my kids!"
                       You also very much hope that your daughter will have a husband who will carry her handbag when necessary, cook her dinner and breakfast in bed, hug her and sooth her when she is in need of care and calm her when her temper flares.
                        I know you have BIG dreams for yourself that you don't like to share with anyone and this is one reason why you work so hard or maybe you just like being a workaholic...nonetheless I know your little secret of dreams of grandeur and great schemes. This is also one reason why you strive and hope to become better than the tiny person that you are now. I know you think there are big shoes to fill from the family and spiritual legacy left behind and you will struggle and climb till your last breath to ensure that you live it to the full.
                        You may worry about your country and its situation and choose now not to vote just yet, but you will be voting every time from 2018 onwards, but I hope that your judgement will be as sound if not better as you age and vote for wise and steady leaders that will not sell our country to our neighbours for lining their pockets and you hope there are people out there who have a drop of wisdom, care and integrity of our Kings. You hope to even see a female Prime Minister as you secretly know Bhutanese women are tough and may make better leaders than the men right now.
                         As you turn the big 50 in twenty years, you hope that you can look back and know that though you may not become Prime Minister or an actress or singer, that you've made your own unique mark, that you've contributed towards the greater good and touched atleast a few people's hearts enough to make them change for the better. You hope to look back and smile at the life you had and a few tears in your eyes for those who've left before you.
                        Oh and I also know that you plan to dye your hair a shocking pink once it goes grey all over...good for you, go define a new weird kooky cool!!!;p

My 1st Week at the Thangka Conservation Centre

'Welcome to Bhutan. This is the Thangka Conservation and Restoration Centre...'
Our boss Eddie-Ephraim Jose introduces us and shows the tourists around. It is not a tourist destination as yet but word still gets around for those who are interested in art, most especially in Buddhist art. So far we have had most visits from people who live in Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

I work with 4 monks, though there were more...most of them left because they got married, were not well enough to continue working those long hours at the Centre or were sent elsewhere by the Dratsang(monk body).

These four are Lopen Tashi(the oldest and most mature one from our group), Lopen Tenzin(who's slightly deaf but is the most talkative one), Lopen Sonam(who smiles at everything) and Lopen Dawa(who's quite thoughtful and sensitive).
And there's me, the only female working member of the group, supposedly to manage the monks and also learn on the job.

This is my 2nd week here at the Centre and so far I've learnt how to roll thangkas, how to document them via photographs, listing and how to handle them as we move them around. I've learnt how to clean the dirt off the thangka and to 'consolidate' it, which means we have to put this wax-like substance made from fish flakes which look like yellow gelatin and can only be obtained from Japan.

Its long hours, its a lot of fun but also demands much patience and thought and care. It is very good for my Buddhist practice of the being aware of the present and of discipline.

I understand now why Eddie chose monks-this job is something where people involved in it are thoughtful, graceful, meticulous, careful, caring, passionate, patient and have rather a fair degree of self-discipline. All of which traits the monks have and which a lay person might have difficulty with.

Its tough at times but thoroughly enjoying this work!!




 

Udumbara Magazine, May 2013:Guest Editor Message

Dear Readers,
                        as Guest-Editor, I would like to welcome readers to read the Udumbara spring edition for 2013. There are many teachings to be found from eminent masters of our times and also meaningful contributions from our spiritual peers who inspire us daily.
                       These masters and spiritual friends are our glimpse into what inner happiness truely is. It is not to be sought externally nor to be found as one finds things that are bought or gifted; it is something that we carry within us, it is something that is to be discovered...in our own time, through our own experiences and felt with our own hearts.
                       I cannot tell you where or how to discover inner happiness, but I can tell you that I have met many who live it daily, who live it every moment; and these are sometimes Rinpoches or Trulkus but most times they are the people who touch our lives, the ones who inspire us to live a greater and more meaningful life, these are the people who have compassion, love, laughter, kindness, wisdom and wit.
                       We hope that Udumbara serves as a reminder to readers that your life is your message to the world; make sure it's inspiring!!
                       Many a grateful thanks to all our kind contributors and also a special thank you to Rinchen Namgyal, whose inspired wanderings make every edition of Udumbara possible.

                         prayers and best wishes,
                         Kesang Choden

A Time for Reflection

Christmas is upon us and another year of celebrations to add on to my years of living and a year closer to getting older, to death.

I dont mean to seem morbid, but I guess its the truth and somehow the truth, its bittersweet moments are those moments of celebration and joy that I come across on my journey called life. I watch my children dance about in delight to the familiar tunes of Christmas, I see my friends getting settled and some are getting married. I look at the flushed and delighted faces of those merry makers and I smile at the delight they take in such events.

These moments I will never have again, where in all my next lives will there ever be such circumstances as these?? It will all depend on the subtleties of karma and it can somehow never have a  repeat button...and here attachment comes to play because I feel sad that I will not meet those I love in my next life and even if I did I would not recognise them as I do now-we would be strangers to each other, or perhaps even worst enemies. And here I stop, for it feels like life is a bit like watching a movie, one is so engrossed with the plot and its characters, we forget that we may just be actors in our own little play, we forget to step back and breathe, to let it all be and abide.

 Spirituality is my usual dose of well needed medication from whatever hurdles come along in life. A good dose usually allows me to learn to let go of fear, anxiety, ignorance, arrogance and even most times anger. It is also times like these where I feel a tremendous sadness of existence in samsara that I turn to my sole refuge-my Dharma teacher.

In remembering late Rinpoche, I remember the utmost peace I felt, this knowing, abiding in that moment in utter peace with a blank mind, not empty but luminious, filled with light from the heart that there are no thoughts left in the mind to think; that stability I felt was the centre of my being and Rinpoche emitted this radiance from every pore of his being that even after 21 years, those feelings come to me as easily as it did when I was 4 or 5 or 7 years of age.

Many people think that I do not remember Rinpoche, I smile and keep silent because it is enough that I know, and that somewhere Rinpoche knows what I remember and how I remember our time together with great reverence and love.

This luminosity clears whatever darkness that looms in my heart, allowing more room for empathy, compassion and love for others.

KC Works

My Rabsel Dawa

I was lost
Wandering this samsaric wilderness
Groping in the blackness of my mind
My Rabsel Dawa, My Brilliant Moon
Perfect in every aspect
The stars adorn your brilliance
like jewels of wisdom
You arose to illuminate the darkness
That enveloped the valleys of my heart
You soothed the tides of inner turmoil
Calming these ocean of thoughts
Gazing at your gentle luminous face
They calmed the passionate fires of ignorance
That burned the forests of my soul
Bathing in your radiance
The cold bitterness of samsara fades
Clearing like the winter skies at dawn
I find comfort in knowing that
The greater the darkness of the night
The brighter you'll shine upon us
That wisdom light of compassion and love.

29/10/09

A lifetime

A thousand experiences could never reveal
the wisdom, her secrets in those innocent smiles
and deep dark eyes.
She searches and finds-my soul.
This tiny and fragile person,
already a woman, a saint, an imp
What peace settles over me
just watching this angelic cherub slumbering
Remembering, savouring,
each different smile,
every kind of frown,
her giggles and peals of rumbling laughter,
her tears
Each moment unto itself
I am blessed every second, every hour and each day,
the experience of life with my daughter

March 7th 2006
You

The green silence of the twilight
the humming of the cicadas
the lazy mists lying upon the mountain peaks
the lightness of the summer rains
the rippling upon the surface of the pond
the lone butterfly fluttering overhead
that single perfect lotus emerging from the muddied waters
the cool healing breeze in the scorching heat
the smile on my children's lips
you are everywhere
ever present
in my mind.

A few of my all time favourite poets & poems

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood
 

Pablo Neruda

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!   

Rudyard Kipling

     

 

YEEWONG NOVEMBER 2012 ISSUE