bench at gampo abbey
sunset at gampo abbey
gabriel and i travelled to nova scotia, canada, last week, to visit buddhist friends and buddhist places there. the car became our home as four of us crossed the vastness of nova scotia on our pilgramage. the land is stark and beautiful, quiet and reverential. it's no wonder it was chosen for the seat of shambala's western practice. the elements force plants, animals and buildings close the the ground, creating a short and messy haircut of a landscape. i took lots of pix. more are here. i'm being lazy. i only posted a couple here.
the highlight of the trip was a visit to gampo abbey, a tibetan buddhist monastery quite literally at the end of the line on the north side of cape breton. this is the place pema chodron lives, teaches and practices. she's a fairly well known author now, apparently canada's best selling. despite the monastery's distant and difficult location, quite a few "pilgrims" showed up for the afternoon tour. we were guided through the main floor, library and finally the meditation hall, passing many shrines to shambala's teachers. those who wanted to meditated for about a half hour.
our friend deborah, who kindly drove us hither and yon, is a buddhist shrine and flag expert known as the "betsy ross" of shambala because she sewed the first shambala flag designed by chogyam trungpa rinpoche. she prepared the shrine brocades in gampo meditation hall and, i believe, also makes traditional clothing for monks and nuns including pema. i enjoyed seeing and being in this place that i've heard about for so long. it is much smaller than i imagined. but the setting is more spectacular and inspiring than i could have imagined. set upon a cliff high above the sea, the sun sets through the meditation hall windows over water rippled by the play of whales and dolhpins. it's breathtaking.
we took a ferry home across the bay of fundy to cut some of the drive home. coming back we realized how much wilder nova scotia is than coastal maine, which felt like a shower and shave after a week of roughing it.
2 comments:
I've just discovered you've been writing again, how nice, delighted to know you're well and all.
Seems like you had a wonderful adventure up there in the Cape Breton Highlands.
I had the pleasure of touring much of Nova Scotia back in 1997 using a RV motorhome over a two week span. It's sure nice country and there is never a need for the air conditioning. The only real compelling memory I now have from the Cape Breton Highlands during then, is how diseased most of the forest looked at the time as a result of acid rain. Perhaps now things are different and hopefully that intolerant growth has been replaced with trees more resistant to low PH levels.
Hope you upload all those 500 pictures you remarked on, "what to hell don't tease,' show them off." That what Flickr is for. :-)
hey Matt. i hope you don't hate me too much. You should come visit me in the city.. I am doing really well and am so proud of myself. it took a while but now i am living in a nice apartment. Still have the same job and am doing real well, have a dog and have had him for a year now. what is new with you. call my cell 718-687-3573
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