The breeze brought the warmth of that spring 1998 sun drenched afternoon, precluded the need of coats or jackets for the large group gathered to hear instruction from the Venerable Losang Samten. The large second floor auditorium was filled to capacity with eager students. The Kensure Rinpoche, The Dalai Lama's senior teacher was arriving in the United States. Rinpoche's first stop was for a review of the practice and teaching of Losang Samten. Losang-la was the dance master of the Namghal Monastery presided over by The Kensure Rinpoche, as Abbott. There are special sutras and songs to learn before the arrival of such a person. It was important that we had all the time we needed to say them repeatedly, over and over until we got them right!
After an arduous morning and afternoon as we were leaving the university theater, Losang faced me and said, "I want you to help the many who do not believe in God. There are more than 6 billion people on the earth, yet two-thirds, almost 4 billion, do not believe in a supreme being. He continued, "I have been thinking that they deserve a way to contact the immaterial in a fashion that suits their individual feeling and thought." As we were walking down the wide staircase he continued, "I want you to design a flyer to attract students. I want you to help people rewire their systems to feel better about themselves and become more loving and productive in their lives. I want you to help them rewire their systems."
I smiled and said, "If we call it The Institute for Rewiring the System it will be the IRS of meditation!" He laughed out-loud, smiled, and said, "That's it!"
Now the Institute for Rewiring the System is available to individuals and groups as well as 'in service' sessions for businesses from the presidents to the janitors. This system is my thirty years of digested theology designed using the current biological and brain/consciousness developments. This theory is so easy to understand that anyone can get it and use it in their own lives. In February, I gave a presentation at the first BIL, an outgrowth of the TED conference held in Monterey this year. My presentation was not filmed as I chose an outdoor space beside the pond for the attendees to do my basic breathing exercises.
Was there content besides the exercises?
Since I am no longer a homemaker, I am able to fulfill my lifelong wish to devote my philosophy, time, and attention in service to the greater common good.
On March 8, 2008 I met with Losang Samten after he had swept together his Kalacharaka Sand Mandala in Chico, California at the college center. I told him that I was applying for studies to receive a credential to be a chaplain. I asked him if my interest was a proper path for me to pursue at this time. He gave me his blessing, said yes, and again authorized my robe for clerical counseling.
Do you mean role?
From my teenage years, I have searched for the thread of truth in many religions. I feel that the Tower of Babel is a symbol which is used to show the way we surround our individual beliefs with preciousness.
In the public library, I found a copy of Herman Hesse's, Siddhartha. It planted the seed of Buddhism in my heart. The Buddha described himself simply as man in search of waking up to what is. The Buddha did not ever want to be treated hierarchically. He was never a deity to be revered. That appealed to me since I strongly believe that each man, woman, and child is an important thread in the human tapestry. Buddha wrote 84,000 sutras describing in detail what worked for him as a path. Those with the time, devotion, and discipline could follow this time-tested process and wake up to what it is like to being truly human. In that state of awareness, we turn to help those further behind offering a hand of friendship. A 'friend on the path' is what religious leadership represents and I continue to value.
My Grandparents wanted me to go to an ecumenical nursery school, so off I went to attend Beth Jacob Orthodox School. I did not have a welcome ear to my objections until the end of second grade. It is and was the practice of separating woman from men, that is little girls from little boys, from kindergarten through all the grades and teaching them using different curriculums based on gender, which was very apparent to my rapidly developing brain, eyes and ears. For the highly intelligent girls in my class to have crafts and housekeeping skills along with reading and writing rather than the basic Judaic philosophy meant something to me. I realized at that early age that within the Abrahamic religions, intelligent woman were not valued as individuals but as homemakers to tend nests for the next generation.
My Mother suffered, as did her generation because of this, since she was not a natural homemaker. Her intelligence was mathematical not hearth-oriented and she was happier in the stock market than in the kitchen. She was the only working mother in our neighborhood.
When I was eight years old I had an epiphany, or a calling toward the Living Truth. As I crossed Second Street, called Two Street in South Philadelphia on my way to school I had the sudden insight that those who told me the Easter Bunny was real were not telling the truth. I felt that there is an expected a leap of faith, not faith itself, which is demanded by religion. The expectation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam were in fact not actual truth but aspects of the holidays and tenets based on old cultural styles.
Immediately, I had an insatiable urge to research what people believe and why they accept some leaps of faith. I then put my toe on the path by reading, studying and struggling toward discovering the ribbon of truth in the myriad belief systems. From the Subud to the Ibo I read and attended houses of worship. There are truths in the faiths for the believers in their chosen path. I turned to Tibetan Buddhism and HHDL as well as his teachers and attendants in his inner circle.
Before the age of twenty, I had read and researched enough to apply and enroll in a Buddhist Correspondence School in New York City based on Buddha Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. It was a rigorous adventure with monthly questions to answers and so many books to read. It gave me a rather broad view of cosmology in general and some specifics of the beginner practices in training the mind. Just a few years later I met Losang Sherpa Rampgay in a grassy knoll in upstate New York where he was helping doctors who care for Aids sufferers care for themselves and deal with caretaker burnout! Though I am not a doctor, he invited me to sit in on a few of his sessions. It was an amazing beginning to my life's work. After several years of both studying and self healing, I was introduced to Losang Samten who continues to give me his blessings to attend to this path and work as a spiritual counselor and chaplain.
After college, I taught in a high school that had no building, called the Parkway Program in Philadelphia Pa. Imagine the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as a major creative spine, running from City Hall to the Art Museum with the Programs offices dotting this thoroughfare. The whole of the city is referenced along that tree-lined boulevard which was the classroom for the high school.
Aside from my duties teaching Drawing and Painting classes, I was invited to create a third class, "Creative Conceptual Conjecture." This class used the three C's, which I feel are as important to mental development as are reading, writing, and arithmetic. The class read
The Act of Creation by Arthur Kessler and Myths by Joseph Campbell. This was before Campbell's huge popularity.
While learning new ways of thinking and using language, this class assembled a vocabulary list, even though the homework was the creation of a beautiful art project instead of a written paper. One week the assignment would be building a musical instrument, another week would be creating a sculpture built of food, and a third week would be to design a personal magic wand. The food week the class cooperated and built a five-foot long food sculpture! I am still in touch with some members of that class who learned how to transform themselves using the relationship skills I exemplified from my Buddhist study. I was just five years older than my students, yet I as able to inspire them by my words and presentation without any religious verbiage.
Late in my mother's life, as she saw how I lived in an honest spiritual manner, she asked me if I knew anything about dying. She wanted me to help her understand death and talk to her about her crossing. This inspirational seed question, once planted, set me further on my path.
Is this below a different time w/ Rampgay than that described above?
I meditated on her query, and then asked my teacher, Losbang Sherpa Rampgay for direction. He took me as his guest, to a Harvard Continuing Education Series on Dying, lead by Herbert Benson. There were doctors, medicine men, and spiritual leaders from every country on the globe either attending or presenting their tradition. The four-day conference was very informative and helped me understand the stages of letting go at the end of life.
During the last four years, I have helped seniors acknowledge their pent up feelings about their impending mortality. We discussed questions and issues that arise at the end of life. This is especially important for those with minds and hearts ready to face the reality of mortality.
I get to use the skills I have acquired during my years of religious study. As a spiritual counselor, I help people face their mortality. Every moment of life becomes sweeter and more wonderful when you know you will not live forever. I listen to their concerns and guide them with the grace of one who has a real feeling for the threshold. I help people feel better and attain a peaceful conclusion.
On the East Coast, in the early 1990's, I visited a senior residence in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and, with two associates, lead creative conversation circles on feelings about the end of life, with both dying and death. As a group, we walked along the rural roads picking up a rock or twig that spoke to us individually and vested them later with a painted image of spiritual significance. This eased the stress of old age for this group and possibly in conversation with their friends. This circle of peace spreads out just as the concentric circles ripple out when created by a single stone thrown into a body of water.
