Let the fun begin!

This blog will be where I put my revelations along the way. But first a note about my Buddhist path.

My teacher is Lama Tashi Namgyal, and his teacher is Thrangu Rinpoche. He was also being taught by Bokar Rinpoche, who walked on last year. I am in the Kagyu school, specifically Shenpen Osel Choling, practicing mahamudra, a vajrayana practice. I am essentially a rookie, and still in the general stage of mastering tranquility and higher seeing. I suppose then I will be on to the nundro practices, and after that the verbal teachings.

So that is my current perspective. I first got interested in Buddhism when I terminated a separation between my wife and I. I was not in a good place, and she turned me on to Pema Chodron. I ate it up. Although the presence of Tibetan monks has been in and out of my life several times over the years, I never got the hint. Pema was a student of Chogyam Trunkpa, who founded Naropa Institute in Colorado. I attempted to follow in the Shambhala school, but there was no local group, and at the time that was Northfield, Minnesota. So I managed then to track down some folk who eventually started what became the Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center. It was an eclectic place, and I learned to sit Zen style because my knees and back welcome that position more than the vajra posture.

When it came time to move here to Washington, I decided to stay with Tibetan Buddhism, as it had been the most predominant form in my life. And lo and behold, the doors opened up. I find it interesting that although I love to read, and have used my knowledge and ability to remember as a defense mechanism against intimacy, that I end up in a school based on practices far removed from texts. Ironic, yet needful, so I welcome it.