AncienTrails

Al Franken wins election to the US Senate.

Summer                          Waxing Summer Moon

Al Franken wins election to the US Senate.  Boy, these election returns took a really, really long time to come in.  The election was in November of last year and today is the last day of June.  We have gone through Samhain, Winter, Imbolc, Spring, Beltane and into Summer while waiting on this decision.  Finally.

He was not my favorite, his politics and his manner jarring to me.  Norm Coleman was certainly not my favorite.  Still, Franken is a Democrat and he will caucus with the Democrats.  He may have provided the necessary vote to pass cap and trade.

I went into the museum today for a confab with other docents touring the pre-Raph show.  So much there, so much.  Only scratched the surface have I.  Not yet ready me.  But soon.

A Friend Has Died

Summer                                Waxing Summer Moon

Gyatsho is dead.  According to this article I found on death in Tibetan Buddhism, he may still be in a liminal state hunting for a next birth place.  The process of hunting for an appropriate vehicle for the next life can take up to 49 days.

Gyatsho lived in exile, first from the mountain realm in which he grew up, Tibet, then in India at Dharamsala, the government in exile for Tibet where the Dali Lama lives.  He served the Dali Lama directly as founder and maintainer of a Tibetan library which kept Buddhist texts, thangka paintings and also preserved the various crafts needed to sustain Tibetan culture away from the home land.

These last few years he lived in Minnesota, part of the intentional diaspora of Tibetans sent out to spread the Tibetan community around the world.

Below his obituary is a brief explanation of death according to Tibetan Buddhist thought.

Here is his obituary from a Tibetan Buddhist website:  (picture–His Holiness the Dalai Lama inspecting the Library’s construction plans with former director of LTWA Mr Gyatso Tsering (Left) (Photo: Tibet.net/file)

Obituary: Gyatsho Tshering, Eminent Scholar of Tibetan Studies
Phayul

[Monday, June 29, 2009 12:17]
by Bhuchung K. Tsering

Gyatsho Tshering, former director of the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives and a respected scholar, passed away on June 25, 2009 at a hospital in Minneapolis, MN, after a brief illness. He was 73.

Born in 1936 in Sikkim to Lobsang Lama and Nyima Dolma, he finished his college education from the University of Calcutta. Following his studies, Ku-ngo Gyatsho la worked in the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India, and had served at the Indian Mission in Lhasa. He also served in the Government of Sikkim.

He joined the service of the Central Tibetan Administration in 1963 and worked in various departments until his retirement in the late 1990s. He served in the publications and translation department in 1965. In 1966 he was transferred to the Foreign Department and in 1967 to the Department of Religion and Culture. During his stint there he was a member of the entourage of H.H. the Dalai Lama during his first trip to Japan and Thailand. Subsequently he was promoted as a Secretary in the Department and later as Assistant Kalon. In 1972, he became the acting Director of the newly established the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives (LTWA) until the appointment of Prof. Thubten Jigme Norbu as the Director in June of that year. He was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the new Director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in 1974 and served in that capacity from March 1, 1974 until his retirement. Following his retirement he joined his wife, Namgyal Dolma, in the United States and they settled in Minneapolis, MN.

He was an unassuming individual who shunned publicity, but was totally dedicated to his work. He came to serve the Tibetan community during those years when there was a dearth of educated Tibetans with adequate knowledge of the English language or exposure to the world. His most significant contribution would be the development of LTWA as the pre-eminent center for Tibetan studies internationally. He nurtured several Tibetans in the field of Tibetan studies at the LTWA. Also, it may not be incorrect to say that almost all of the Tibetologists serving in various research institutes and universities throughout the world currently have had some educational stint at the LTWA during his tenure there.

His simplicity and his readiness to be of assistance endeared him to all those he came in contact with. Personally, he has been a source of encouragement to me from the time I started working in Dharamsala in the early 1980s. I benefitted greatly from his advices.

As a subject of Sikkim and a citizen of India, Ku-ngo Gyatsho la had quite many work opportunities, often with more attractive compensation than the one he was getting at the LTWA. However, his reverence and loyalty to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his love of the Tibetan people made him reject all such job offers and to continue with his work in the Tibetan community.

He liked gardening and used to have a neat but small garden at his official residence at the LTWA.

He is survived by his wife Namgyal Dolma and daughter Yiga Lhamo.

Death in the Tibetan Buddhist Perspective

The Buddhist view is that each living being has a continuity or stream of consciousness that moves from one life to the next. Each being has had countless previous lives and will continue to be reborn again and again without control unless he/she develops his/her mind to the point where, like the yogis mentioned above, he/she gains control over this process. When the stream of consciousness or mind moves from one life to the next it brings with it the karmic imprints or potentialities from previous lives. Karma literally means “action”, and all of the actions of body, speech and mind leave an imprint on the mind-stream. These karmas can be negative, positive or neutral, depending on the action. They can ripen at any time in the future, whenever conditions are suitable. These karmic seeds or imprints are never lost.

At the time of death (clear light stage) the consciousness (very subtle mind) leaves the body and the person takes the body of an intermediate state being. They are in the form that they will take in their next life (some texts say the previous life), but in a subtle rather than a gross form. As mentioned previously, it can take up to forty-nine days to find a suitable place of rebirth. This rebirth is propelled by karma and is uncontrolled. In effect the karma of the intermediate state being matches that of its future parents. The intermediate state being has the illusory appearance of its future parents copulating. It is drawn to this place by the force of attraction to its parent of the opposite sex, and it is this desire that causes the consciousness of the intermediate state being to enter the fertilized ovum. This happens at or near the time of conception and the new life has begun.

One will not necessarily be reborn as a human being. Buddhists describe six realms of existence that one can be reborn into, these being the hell realms, the preta (hungry ghost) realm, the animal realm, the human realm, the jealous god (asura) realm and the god (sura) realms. One’s experience in these situations can range from intense suffering in the hell realms to unimaginable pleasures in the god realms. But all of these levels of existence are regarded as unsatisfactory by the spiritual practitioner because no matter how high one goes within this cyclic existence, one may one day fall down again to the lower realms of existence

The Grandchildren Are In The House

Summer                                      Waxing Summer Moon

Grandpas Bill Schmidt, Scott Simpson and Frank Broderick (Woolly Mammoths all) prepared me for the wonder of grandchildren.  They were spot on.  Ruth came in last night and said, “Hi, Grandpop!”  She had me at coming through the door.  Gabe got transferred from Dad to me soon after Jon came in the house.  Gabe looked up and gave me one of his trademark smiles, Happy to see you Grandpop.  That’s what I heard, though Gabe’s 1 year plus mouth formed no words.

Herschel, their 6 year old German Shorthair, recently diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, bounded in as if he had no stinking terminal illness.  He proceeded to pick up a small Ruthie sandal and run from one end of the house to the other with it in  his mouth.  This is Herschel’s way of signaling anxiety.

The Olsons stopped to see the Johnsons in Nevada, Iowa.  Zelma Johnson, Jon’s grandma, still lives in this small Iowa town where Kate and her sisters grew up.  Due to estrangement from David, Jon’s father, Jon had not seen his grandma in a long time.  Jen got to meet Zelma and Zelma got to meet her great-grandchildren, Gabe and Ruth.  David and Kate were high school sweethearts.

Kate got two cloth bags full of kiddy stuff at the dollar store.  Ruth opened her hers and took out each item and showed it to me, exclaiming happily as only small children can.  Retaining the  young child’s sense of of awe and wonder at simple things is a goal worth keeping at the forefront of our maturity.  Who needs a Lexus when she has a bubble maker?  Who needs a fancy house when there’s plenty of chalk to draw on the sidewalk?  Who needs fine clothes when a small electric fan with lights can entrance you?

These visits, back and forth, them here, us there are critical to family cohesion.  They are why I still travel to Indiana and Texas for family reunions.  As Grandpa Frank put it, “You don’t have a family if you never see each other.”  True.

Grandchildren on the way

Summer                  Waxing Summer Moon

Grandchildren.  Those living links to the future who know us and whom we know.  In my case Ruth and Gabe.  Three years old and one year old.  They are on their way here right now, probably someway in the Twin Cities.

Grandma Ellis, Jennie, was a school teacher.  I knew her a bit.  I liked her.  She understood young boys.  I have three memories associated with a visit I made to her house in Oklahoma City when I was 9 or 10.  In the first I took apart a clock Grandma no longer wanted.  She realized I wanted to know how it worked.  Later I tried to knock wasps out of the air with a bug bomb.  In my mind it was a dogfight, fighter to fighter.  If so, I got tagged and plummeted to earth with a huge swollen left hand.  The last memory involved a sinkhole that appeared in the alley behind grandma’s house.  It was big enough to hold a car.

What this means to me, these memories as central to my experience of my grandmother, involves the humility to realize my grandchildren may not remember me for who I am or what I have done, but for what happened when they visit.  Do I accept it and recognize the experience, validate it?  My grandma Ellis did.

I’ve written elsewhere about my namesake, grandpa Charlie Keaton.  He rode the rail at the Derby every year and loved horses and harness racing, too. Again, I remember him making syrup from water and sugar.  He also cooled his coffee in a saucer and drank from the saucer.  He wore green underwear with a flap in the back.  Those are my memories of grandpa.

Grandma Keaton, Mable, was a different story.  Either she suffered from bi-polar disorder like most of her children or she suffered some mental problem associated with child birth.  I remember her as a shuffling, almost mute older person.  Within in our family lore she famously fed a 13 year old growing boy half a weinie and two tablespoons of baked beans for lunch one summer during an extended visit.

Thus, my grandparent memories are thin soup, memory wise, though as the oldest in our family at least I have some memories where my brother and sister have few if any.

Puppy Dog Tales and Grand Kids

Summer                                  Waxing Summer Moon

Geez.  63 this morning.  I like it, but moving from peak BTU’s per square inch of flesh to late September makes the neck whiplash a bit.

The grandkids arrive today.  Sometime this afternoon or evening.  We’ve done the usual things:  wash the bed linen in the guest bedroom, clean out the detritus that gathers in an empty room, moved furniture, worked on stains in the carpet.  We’ve also made a modest start toward kid-proofing the house.  Gabe’s a little too young to need much and Ruth seems wise enough to not make us very concerned.

I’m glad to see them come, like the new puppies having Gabe and Ruth in the house will crank up the energy level and remind us of our embeddedness in the next generation.  Jon and Jen are good parents and fine friends so it’s a delight to see them come, too.

There is an inevitable upset with the arrival of guests.  Routines change.  More people need consideration when deciding on something.  This can, usually does, create some tension and anxiety on all parties.  It is, simply, part of living in community and as part of a family.  My introverted personality makes me especially prone and my anticipation about guests gets tamped down as a result.  An unfair and unnecessary experience, but I don’t seem able to shake it.

The next few days provide a learning opportunity for me.  I’ll report back here.

OMG!

Summer                  Waxing Summer Moon

I’m a sucker for sci-fi catastrophe movies.  Well, ok, for a lot of other kinds of movies, too, but the sci-fi catastrophe so often get made for tv.   The scenario is pretty straightforward:  an unsolvable problem emerges much to the surprise of the scientific establishment.  A renegade scientist, long ago discredited and/or fired by the VERY AGENCY now wanting him or her back resists, then with reluctance agrees to try to save the world.  Once they’re back in the good graces of the system, that is, people have begun to listen to them, a military expert comes up with a solution to the problem–no matter what it is–that involves an atom bomb.  After much hooing and hahing, the chief decision maker decides against the renegade scientist becauses atom bombs always seem so damned convincing.

The bombs go out or in or over depending on the source of the problem:  the moon, the earth’s core, the magnetic field, an incoming asteroid or alien invader.  They fail.  The chief decision maker, chastened by experience returns humbly to the renegade asking again for their help.  Well, you see where this goes.  There are no On The Beach endings on TV, nor in a lot of movies either.

Tonight, in the strange way TV has of reshuffling actors, the old JAG leading man joined up with the female lead of a new show about lawyers, and built a machine that electro-hemishpherically supercharged the whizzidizigit, thereby expelling the brown star that had collided with the moon.  This, trumpets and then a sappy romantic flourish, saves the earth.  Again.

I know.  So why do I watch them?  Because I find the notion of uber competent scientists who have our back as compelling as the next guy.  THre’s always something to cheer for and a romance seen through to completion.  What’s not to like?  Oh, all right.  A decent script, maybe.  Often the technical affects are cheesy.  Sometimes, well, usually, the acting is atrocious.  Oh, hell, I don’t know why I watch’em.  I just do.

Reminds me of that song: I don’t know why I love you, I just do.

A Riff On What It Takes

Summer                      Waxing Summer Moon

“The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.” - Edith Sodergran

I wrote yesterday about things done well.  This capacity comes from practice, practice, practice.  BJ comes to mind.  Each time I’ve seen her she never fails to practice at some point during the day.  Mastering a consummate skill like playing the violin or the cello, practicing medicine or painting at a high level requires more than practice though.

It also requires inner fire, passion.  Without that passion, which can be lost, the discipline to continue the ongoing work of gaining and maintaining a high level skill will fade away.  Typing has not required an inner fire, that’s for sure, but continuing to type, to maintain a high level of skill has.  Professional musicians, we often imagine, play effortlessly because of a talent inherited in some end of the gene pool.  Not so.  At least for almost all.

There is some evidence that a certain number of hours spent at anything will make you an expert.  I have no idea if this is true, but the sure thing is that you cannot become an expert or a master without putting in the time.  Some skills, like medicine and classical music, not only require practice but also require constant learning–new repertoire or new medical information.  Talent, the argument here goes, will only get you to the starting gate, but will not support you in the race around the whole track.  To finish requires running the whole track, each step, without quitting, a tough discipline and one not managed by many.

Spent this morning repairing netaphim (our drip irrigation line) chewed up by the puppies.  Kate said they got excited when these 1/2″ plastic tubes turned on.  They pop and fizz a little as air is forced through the lines and water replaces it.  This really energized the pups.  Vega, I imagine, picked up a netaphim line in her mouth and ran off with it.  The result was toothy damage to the line where she held it and gnawed, but she also pulled the line out of its stakes, kinking it in places and strangling a poor gooseberry plant.  She almost pulled this plant out of the ground entirely.

This is a little disappointing since we just had these particular lines installed the first week of this month.  It is, however, the kind of transitional behavior that puppies and small children bring to our lives.  While the results might not be what we want, the energy and vigor of the actions more than compensate for whatever upset.

Vega and Rigel run and jump, stalk each other and throw each other to the ground, biting necks, baring teeth.  Our more sedate whippets rarely exhibit this kind of behavior and then only when annoyed.   They are, after all, 8 years old–Hilo and Kona–and 13–Emma.  More dignified now.

This morning Rigel discovered the spray of the sprinkler and spent quite a while biting at it, then trying to dig up the sprinkler head.  I can only imagine what she must of thought was going on.  Rain coming from the ground?  Holy Noah, batman.

Gremlins or Demons or Bugs, oh my

Summer                    Waxing Summer Moon

This morning the temperature has fallen back to 65.  Good garden weather for moving mulch and repairing netaphim.

Electronic gremlins have given me fits for weeks now.  Not strong fits, but sure annoying.  A while ago my computer refused to recognize my disk drives.  On a day to day basis this is not a problem, but on those days when I want to play a CD or reload software or look at photographs saved to disc, on those days it’s a total frustration.

Then, sometime after returning from the trip to South Carolina, Georgia and Florida my photoshop elements photo organizer seized up.  It opens with a large rectangle in the upper left of the screen and a smaller slice vertically to the far right.  Nothing happens after that.   Again, on a day to day basis, not a big problem, but when I want to manipulate photographs, something I do often, particularly to make them smaller so they’ll fit on this website, I’m shut out completely.

In all these cases and the one below I try to sort stuff out myself.  I have a pretty good, but not perfect track record at this.  I never could figure out how to set up our wireless router, for example.  Geek Squad.  I may have to take my computer over to best buy.

The last couple of days, too, I’ve been bothered by a diminished stream.  No, nothing that Flomax could cure.  I’m talking about irrigation system.  I’m very familiar with the amount of water that comes out of a given spray head.  When it comes out in a weak flow, something is wrong.  It happened last week and I called the well guy to check the well reservoir.  Works fine and he did not charge me.  Whoa.  Again, this morning a weak flow.  Hmmm.

Kate said, “I know why it’s weak.  The front sprinkler is on.” Now that’s just strange.  This should never happen, two zones on at the same time, unless two different programs are scheduled for the same time.  Nope.  I checked that, not the problem.  Zones run in sequence.  1 runs, shuts off, then 2 runs, shuts off, then 3 runs and so on.  Why this should happen, I don’t know, but I hope the folks at Rainbird can explain it to me.

What Do You Do Well?

Summer                      Waxing Summer Moon

“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.” - William Hazlitt

What do you do well?  No false modesty, please, just a clear honest look at yourself with an assessment of your skills and abilities.  Each of us has something that we have forgotten the how of in the midst of performing the act.

Typing is one such skill for me.  I long ago broke with the eyes to the keyboard, careful typing of the uncertain.  I’ve used a keyboard since turning 17 and it is now a tool about which I think little.  Perennial flower gardening is the same.  Vegetables not so much, since I still have to think about growing season, water and food preferences, sun and varities.

Politics comes naturally to me now, but only because my dad and I started watching political conventions when I was 5.  Weighing the political possibilities in a given situation is like typing.  I no longer look at the keys.

Writing, too, has begun to come into that category, too, though the longer pieces, like novels, still require a good deal of careful planning and thought.

Parenting and child-rearing, also, seem to have become second nature to me.  I can think about it, but I don’t much.  I just do.  In the same vein caring for dogs now has experience and attentiveness to guide me, not conscious thought so much.

Cooking, too.  I’m not confident in my cooking skills when it comes to cooking for others, but for Kate and me, I work in the kitchen with interest and experience.

Touring at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts has gone through peaks and valleys, with my comfort level and confidence now beginning to rise again.  This one will take a while to pass into something I do well consistently.

OK, that’s my list.  What about yours?

Sharpening. Mulching.

Summer            Waxing Summer Moon

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”- Bertrand Russell

Hmmm.  I wonder if that’s true?

Laid down some more straw, weeded a bit in the perennial garden.  After that I went out to the hardware store and bought a diamond file to sharpen my Felcro pruners,  often used garden tools.  A clerk had take me back into the tool aisles.  When asked why they roped them off, she gave me the expected answer, “People have been stealing tools.”  Tough economic times.

Then over to Anoka Feed and Seed where I ordered 6 cubic yards of shredded wood mulch.  Gotta cover up the netaphim and refresh the mulch all around the orchard.