I was Blessed by a Lama

GOT BLESS BY A TIBETAN BUDDHIST MEDICINE MAN /HEAD LAMA

I find the Yong He Gong Tibetan Buddhist Temple very peaceful

Today I went there and visited all the Buddha's living in temple

I love watching people in religious places. You can see how important
the Buddha is to them.

It is like the Buddha is a psychological container to what is most dear to a person.


At the temple today I sat on a park bench and did a single focus meditation

In one of the main halls the Buddhist monks in their maroon robes
were chanting
there were a small gathering of Buddhists sitting on cushions

I sat outside and meditated for 30 minutes

Then I wanted to go inside where the chanting was. I asked the security guard
can I sit on a step that is part of the doorway, he said I can't

Then I asked can I sit in with the buddhists (the non monks)

I put down my jacket and sat on it and meditated

Maybe for an hour, at first it was not so great

but then something happened and I surrendered to the group

I felt like we were all merging together as a group

I just said to myself "let the Buddhists monks voices guide you in your meditation, they are creating a path or a vehicle with it, it is a place to rest your mind, the point at the creation of the sound"

So I did and I felt the group become one.

I felt my ego boundaries disappear. and I felt an connection with every person in that temple
every person in the Lama Temple
every person in Beijing
every person in the world (sounds corny but it is true)

I felt us all held together as one

before outside I had felt a flower of perfection growing from my right cheek and curling up
inside my skull
I could feel my skull, my teeth and how they turned into a skull
and how life, the life inside the mind is like a journey through a long tunnel
passing through time

I could feel the life cycle and impermanence
three people walking along the tunnel of time
child parent and grandparent
and the death and birth cycle

(this is all really hard to explain so probably sounds daft but you had to be there)

so inside the temple
i felt and saw all sorts of things
like a hundred arms reaching up towards the ceiling and they all
entwine and twist until they become like a mountain or sort of screw driver shape


it is funny because it was a particularly Chinese mediation

collectivist

In the west I have meditated and have had moments of emptying the mind

I have also felt at one time that someone came along with an eraser and erased me


But in China I did not just completely disappear but I became something bigger

becoming nothing yet I was still something

part of a larger organism



In China I disappear into something larger than myself
In the west I disappear into nothingness
In Australia I just get rid of the concept of self but did not feel connected
it still felt good though

(during meditation) (


during meditation an old woman was talking to me
she tapped me, started showing me photos
I found it amusing that someone would start chatting to another during mediation
it made me smile, I thought, oh well
she showed me photos of a monk with a halo, pictures of Wu Tai Shan
and photos of a cave at Wu Tai Shan Mu Fo,, The Mother Buddha Cave
pics of her 36yo daughter who works for a BJ newspaper
and gave me her daughters card


after meditation
we went outside the temple and her and two 30 something girls
and I stood around and talked in Chinese

she sent wishes of fortune to me
I think she said that my clothes are too worn etc

I said to her "I want to come here EVERY week and participate in Buddhist activities
do i REALLY have to buy a ticket, I am not a tourist coming to visit this BJ tourist attraction"

She said "I will take you to THE Shifu" (The Master)

You just have to tell them you know THE Shifu and you won't have to buy a ticket

We walked towards a red wall with a moon door

It had a sign "No admitance" in English

"no admitance for tourists" in Chinese

So we were going beyond the facade of the Buddhist temple as a tourist spot
to the real side of an operating Buddhist temple
ordinary Chinese people were standing around, garages with cars,
an apartment block, rooms etc
we went up some stairs into an ordinary apartment block
down a long hall way where we took off our shoes
I entered the room, a small bachelor apartment to see
an old man sitting on a single bed

his eyes were sunken and red
he was old
the Chinese women bowed, got on the floor and put their heads to the floor
I just kind of put my hands in the prayer positing

the old woman said "ta shi gui ren, kao tao"

I Kao toaed to this old man, got on the floor and did the
three bowing that I have luckily learnt before

He gave us three red tablets on our hand and we ate it off
then he pulled out some water from Tibet which had some VERY OLD looking ginger in it
and poured some into the palm of my hand and I lapped it up like a dog

A girl asked to be blessed and he blessed her

Then it was my turn and I kneeled at his feet
he put both hands on my head and started chanting in a deep vibrating way
I actually did feel relaxed and my stress leave from my head but stay in my shoulders
he put his hands on my shoulders and chanted
maybe for 10 minutes or so



The old lady said "they want to participate in meditation here, what about giving them a note so they don't have to pay"


He got pieces of paper from his assistant and he was concentrating, considering

He wrote something in Tibetan on a small white piece of paper and gave it to me and said

rua la ma jia ba


I said "oh"


not really knowing what he meant but not knowing what ask

I was always a bit confused about the ettiquite with the shifu
very unclear and unsure
the way people acted around him
like they were meeting god or something
I was always too shy to say "shenme yisi" about anything (what is the meaning?)

1. could be rude
2. i am sure I would not be able to understand his answer
3. I am trying to get the golden ticket for free weekly access to the lama temple
and if I am totally clueless perhaps I don't deserve this

I was wondering if he was going to ask me "Ni xin xiang fo ma?"
(do you believe in the Buddha?")

because IF he did I would have been left with an ethical dilema
I would have said "no" and told the truth

anyway i felt comfortable enough asking questions to the old lady and his assistant

they said "this is Tibetan writing it is your name"

"I was like, this is someones name? this is his name?"

"zhe shi nide mingzi, zang yu mingzi"

??? WODE mingzi??? (my name???) dui dui

OH! rua la ma jia ba

qing xie zhongwen (please write it in Chinese)
they wrote it in Pinyin (roman character writing of Chinese)
I asked for it in characters too (otherwise I wont' be able to work out the meaning and I want my Chinese friends to tell me about it)

Then they wrote the 师父 THE Shifu's name

师父 ： l拉西 仁 饮 (the last character should have the zhong or yin radical)



My Tibetan name is


如拉玛布 布 (with a ren radical)


如 ＝ like, as, if

拉 ＝ pull, draw, drag

玛 ＝ agate

布 ＝ cloth, but not sure what it means when it is written with the ren character


anyway perhaps the Chinese characters are just a phonetic way to write the Tibetan language
and don't actually contain any important meaning

but will tell you what the characters are made of
female, mouth, hand, kind, horse,


The old lady said that

"mu fo bao ni"

Mother Buddha Protects and holds you

is the meaning :)

pinyin is

rua la ma jia ba

yeah my computers does not have Tibetan script on it
not sure I could write it anyway

:)

I did remember from my time in Tibetan Buddhist centres in Australia not to turn my back
on a holy person
so I walked out of his flat backwards.