Kalachakra started!5/7/2014 Tiring and boring
Ok, I am being honest here, if it wasn't for the great blessing of the Dalai Lama, I would have bailed out after 2 hours haha. We woke up at 4am, because everybody told us that it will be very busy traffic. Also, it was good to get your seat fixed, which will then last for the rest of the 10 days. Well that was according to the website, yet according to the organizing committee, it was nothing like that. But it is interesting to see that the Ladakhis do not dare to say anything to the foreigners :P The security check Every day we are checked by 5 people, and right after each other. They all ask you to open your bag and get frisked. And then every time you have to show your camera is a real camera. So, now every morning I am making a picture of whoever asks me to :P The Dalai Lama arrives It is interesting to see that when he arrives, everybody stands up and does prostration to him. I admire the guy a lot, very friendly presence, and also he would stop the whole ceremony when he heard that the translations were not working, made sure it was working for everyone before continuing. In the afternoon, he saw his old friend, a Thai monk, in the crowd, stopped the process and called out to him and asked him to come and sit by him. And so the same thing happened yesterday, when he saw his old friend Robert Thurman, father of Uma Thurman (from Kill Bill), and was asking about his flight and if he had eaten yet. Yes, just like a normal human being, or maybe more human than most of us around. Dalai Lama the star and his groupies In addition, every morning he deliberately walk the 300-400m from the gate to the podium, so that people can say hello to him. The guy is 79 tomorrow and does not walk fast. So, yesterday morning, I took the opportunity to be a Dalai Lama groupie, waiting for him haha... and that is how I got my close up picture of him. The lady next to me was hugging me with joy, and telling me that he looked at me haha. Funny. This morning I did the same, and this time the Dalai Lama stopped and shook a woman's hand, and the woman started to cry. Then there was this other woman who shook his hand, all these women were touching her hand, like it was something holy. The Dalai Lama groupies :) Also interesting to see that he would only stop for the women haha :P Well I would do the same :P Kalachakra process The first day was so tiring, Marcus ended up sleeping from 5pm to 5am the next day. I had to force myself to wake up, because we promised to meet up with Jonathan, this German guy we met on the bus. But all is well :P still got my sleep. Next day, instead of sitting the whole day, we decided to also lie down, like sleeping meditation, which is actually good for the process we noticed. Well, at least we could go the whole day this time. I won't go too much into detail, but the it is basically a lot of prayers, an average of 4-4.5 hours straight on. We basically don't need to do anything, just surrender to the humming chanting sound and the process will happen by itself. See it as the vibration sound of the monks with a code embedded to it, entering into your mind and body, reprogramming and deleting stuff :P Now these 10 days our basic routine is as follows:
Yeshe the Dakini We met a local Ladakhi girl, who is a volunteer, and was nice enough to help us sort out the information for Kalachakra, and find good food and taxis. Yesterday, we took a shared taxi back with these 3 old Ladakhis, one guy sitting in front of me started to sing and clap his hands with the music, and started to smack my leg for the beat haha. And they were discussing if Yeshe was Marcus' daughter haha. Yeshe also invited us to her birthday tomorrow, that will be interesting to see. To go to a Ladakhi birthday. Let's see if we are tired tomorrow
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