HHDL Avelokiteshvara NYC

Saturday (Norwalk CT): My internal alarm woke me at 4:30 AM. Downstairs for a brief sitting. Woke MB at 5 AM, and had a quick shower. Mom was up not long after that. Breakfast. We were on the road by a little after 6 AM. Very little traffic heading into Manhattan. We found a garage and parked by a little after 7 AM.

After getting some coffees and snacks, we went and stood in line. Many folks from Kurukulla wandered past. It was a little chilly out, and I had forgotten to bring any sort of coat. The doors opened around 9 AM, and we were seated by 9:30. Wnd wound up sitting right next to MB, which was a happy coincidence.

The first session with HHDL began at 10, and ran until noon. It was a (action-tantra) Avelokiteshvara empowerment. He spoke in Tibetan, and it was then serially translated into English and then Vietnamese (the NYC Vietnamese Buddhist community was responsible for putting on the event). The dual translation gave quite a slow pace to things, and combined with my early rise, made paying attention quite a struggle. Vietnamese is quite an odd noodly language to my Western ear. English is more verbose than Tibetan, but Vietnamese is even more so.

We had a break between noon and 2 PM, so we walked out and got some pizza slices and coffee in a shop a few blocks down. It was strange walking past the peep shows and through the thronging masses after the experience we had just had. One guy who was begging for change that looked like he was dying from AIDS. When we returned from eating lunch he had given up begging, and was lying propped up against a wall in a puddle of his own urine.

The second session was a commentary on the first. I picked up a few good tidbits, but I was so sleepy it was very difficult to focus. Also, its quite esoteric material, and even in two hours there's only so much detail that can be delivered. Especially when your audience falls asleep.

MB and I had thought about posting some NST Intro flyers while we were in NYC, but at the end of the event, it seemed like the best plan was to just head out as quickly as we could. Picked up the car from the garage. (We got the 'special' rate... $12 more than the normal rate.) Decided to stop at my mom's for a cup of tea. She'd had some good news: the P&S on the Cape house had been signed, and they had put 10% down. And then, a long drive back to Boston. MB and I played the yes/no guessing game. My thing for her was Pepe LePew, and her's for me was Pinecone.

We stopped at the grocery store in Somerville. Then back home, we put things away, and I went down basement for the rest of my daily practices. Christine came in just after I wrapped up. MB and I were watching SNL, and I was eating a potato with veggie chilli and cheese. She came up and hung out with us for a while. Then, some email, and to bed by about 1:30.