Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, March 3rd, 1996

By: Aaron Jorgensen

February 21: Sometime after noon yesterday, I found myself in Wappinger's Falls, New York. I had heard there was a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in town, and I stopped into a gas station to inquire. Not only did they know of the monastery, but they offered to take me there.

Up a small mountain in a beat-up old snow plow, around a curve I suddenly saw acres of green, and a lovely brown building-- with a fifty foot cross. Some Franciscans had also made a home here.

Further, a dirt path led to a big yellow house, with a smaller building fifty yards to the right, and down a hill, at the bottom of which was a huge, icy body of water (I later learned this was the Hudson; it looked like a lake.) Across the water, another hilly countryside, a beautiful reflection. As I stood gazing, a young American woman, shaven head, red-robed, came from a side door and asked me "Have you come to visit?" "Yes." We smiled.

Minutes later, I was seated on the floor, looking up at Lama Norlha, explaining myself. He was direct. "What do you want?" I didn't know. I told him of my trip, the march which I would join. "You are going to fight the Chinese?" I explained, fumblingly, that I was interested in peace. After some discussion (Lama Norlha spoke English, but we still required a translator) he said that I was very kind to help the Tibetans. Still, I wondered what he thought of me.

I had come, fortunately, at lunch time. A bell rang. I entered the dining hall (which looked like any summer camp's, though smaller) with the Lama and the young woman (later she told me her name: Jamdrol.) There were about a dozen women, American, with nun's robes and shaven heads. Half a dozen more wore street clothes, some the maroon color of the robes, some not. Also a few men. They chanted an offering prayer in Tibetan, and we ate.

I ate three meals with them. The food was always plentiful, simple, nourishing, and tasty. Nearly everyone ate a lot of vitamin supplements, as well. They ate quickly, but not too quickly. Which is to say they did not linger, for there was much work to do. The monastery is very practical, matter-of-fact; later, I would sit in the shrine for the chanting of prayers: just business as usual.

After lunch, I made butter lamps: a small goblet, perhaps the size of an egg-cup; a cotton wick is twisted into a small hole in the bottom. Into these, I would pour warm, liquefied butter, which I would first strain through a sieve. These butter lamps would be lit as offerings in the smaller building: one thousand each Saturday. It is not often that I get to see exactly one thousand of something, let alone interact with "one thousand" in such a physical way. Tray after tray after tray of empty butter lamps, which I would fill just to the top; full, but not too full. I was careful not to spill, making sure to wet the wick so it would burn properly. Sometimes, and insecure wick would float to the top, and I would reach into the butter with thoroughly washed fingers to fix it. Though I worked as carefully as I could, it was simply impossible to keep the butter just in the proper vessels, and not anywhere else; this butter wished to be free. Fortunately I had some help, or I would have still been there w

hen the dinner bell rang.

Afterwards, I went upstairs to the shrine to wash windows. This was simply one of the most delightful rooms I have ever been in. It was mostly red with blue and yellow, encircled above my head with glass cabinets containing one thousand golden Buddhas, each about a foot high. It reminded me fantastically of a toy store, and I laughed; the comparison seemed far from profane. The rest of the afternoon was spent pleasantly with a gentle and humorous nun who was washing the glass on the cabinet doors. We agreed that this was among the best rooms in which to clean.

My stay was, in a word, good; my descriptive skills are inadequate here. So many hard-working, compassionate, curious people. Lama Norlha, I discovered, really was very pleased with my endeavor. He honored me greatly at breakfast, saying I was very "natural." My hair, my beard, my walking, very natural. He spoke, briefly, of his own walk into exile from Tibet. He did not go into detail, but such a walk is no small feat. I spoke with him again before I left this morning. His final words to me: "That Tibet will soon be free, we pray. That there will be peace in the world, we also pray."

February 24

Dear Friends,

Today I wish to write to you in a different way. As I think about yesterday, I imagine that you are with me, and I invite you to do the same:

We are awakened early by the sound of a train. It rained during the night; our things have become very wet. We pack, a muddy and sloppy business, and breakfast on bread and cheese. We telephone a woman from the Tibetan Women's Association. She will look for a place for us to stay, she says; we agree to call her in the afternoon. We head south.

It is not long before we realize our road has disappeared in the suburban complex. We consider, again, the possibility of taking a train, though we do not yet know where we will stay. We wonder if we will ever see woods again, or if our New Jersey friend will find us someone. We look for a train platform anyway; we can, at least, learn the route and schedule.

For some reason, we have stopped to look at our map and compass, as we will do many times today. A young man next to a pickup truck strikes up a conversation. He is very friendly, says he knows the area well, and suggests we take the Interstate. He offers us a ride there.

It is crowded in the truck, with his dog, who keeps trying to lick your face. The young man tells us of his love of hiking, his job, his dream of buying a house in rural New York. Soon, we are at the Interstate, and we say goodbye.

Walking the Interstate is not fun at all. When we come to a river which seems to be flowing in more or less the right direction we decide to follow it instead. By now we have realized, looking at the map, that we went off course days ago, that we were beguiled by the Hudson.

But this river is lovely, and we soon decide to forget that we ever had plans in the first place. Watching the river flow, we decide that this is a good strategy for us, also.

After a time, we come to some railroad tracks. I compare them to the river, seeing them as artificial, and rigid. I am still thinking of the trains from last night, how lost and strange I felt. But you say, no, they are the same, the tracks just flow along. So you take me to the tracks, and we walk, the sun comes out, and you make up a little song for the birds. And I see that you are right.

We meander all day, trying to understand the place we have come to. Why are there so many people here? What are their lives like? Why have they come? Why do all the trains buses and roads swirl inevitably inward to the City? We leave these questions unanswered.

By late afternoon, we find ourselves on another train platform. We call our New Jersey friend on the telephone. She has found someone.

By the end of the night, we have a new friend. We are again happy to be among people. We say goodnight, feeling that it is a good night. We sleep.

February 27

Changes in scenery, changes in plans; my relationship with this writing, also, has changed. Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent.

From one wilderness to another, and into a wilderness of my own words. My eagerness to narrate this journey threatens to obscure it. Writing is tricky. There is an old story about pointing at the moon. It is the moon you wish to see, but sometimes you get stuck looking at the finger.

Many questions have been raised. Why am I writing this? What am I walking for? What am I pointing at? Nothing is obvious. I have ideas and intentions. But they are not as important as I might have thought. This is a dialogue. But apparently you are there and I am here. Writing is tricky.

Briefly, then: in New Jersey I was rescued. There are many people in New Jersey, perhaps more than anywhere in the country. From New York/Newark to Philadelphia, a vast corridor of urban development. I believe it was the outskirts of this which I first stumbled into.

Fortunately, my friend (whom I have not yet met in person) Tsering Yangdon of the Tibetan Women's Association, made some calls, and I was rescued. Among the many people in New Jersey, there are plenty who are involved with Buddhism, and Tibet. I have been learning much about community.

There are quite a few Buddhist monasteries and Centers in New Jersey, as well (and New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, clear across the country, you'd be amazed.) It was at one of these that I have spent the last two days. The Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Washington, New Jersey is, indeed, central in the Tibetan Buddhist community. Its founder, the late Geshe Wangyal, was the first American Lama. Many of his earliest students have become leading Buddhist scholars, teachers, and practitioners (for example, Robert Thurman, Uma's dad.)

At the center, I was the guest of Joshua and Diana Cutler, whom I met at Williams College, where they were teaching a class in Tibetan Buddhism. Josh and Diana have been at the center for twenty something years, the last years of Geshe Wangyal's life; he left the center in their care.

My stay here was much more informal and relaxed than at the monastery in Wappinger's Falls. The Center is very public; they have many visitors. (In fact, Diana told me, the Center sometimes attracts some very strange people; she had some interesting stories.) Diana introduced me to an interesting social aspect of Buddhism in America. Like all communities, the spiritual community has its celebrities, and many of them, it seems, have been involved with Geshe Wangyal or the Center, in one way or another. The Dalai Lama has visited the center several times. I have not met him; from my current perspective, he seems something like a rock star.

On the spiritual side, there are three monks at the Center, though one is currently elsewhere for health reasons. The Center is of a different spiritual lineage than the monastery in Wappingers's Falls, and therefore different in ways I do not fully understand. The temple (they did not call it a shrine) was simpler. But the monks seemed much the same, in their dress, and in their daily business: prayer. They were very kind to me, and fed me delicious food.

Also residing at the center, an old man, whom I immediately liked very much; Taikang. We had tea together several times, with the monks, during which the three of them spoke mostly in Tibetan. Eventually, he told me something of his story, from which I understood that he was an "economist." I was later told that he had been the finance minister of Tibet.

There was a young man at the center, as well. He had come out of curiosity, and stayed for a year, working in exchange for room, board, and education. We talked for hours.

In two days time, I feel I have another home. Buddhists are like that. Ok Glen, here it is. Do with it what you will. Write an article for the record if you have time. Distribute this by email and by hand, I suppose, to anyone who is interested. I have no idea. Message in a bottle, you know? So far, so good.