Where to now?

Now that the time for returning to Japan is near, some of you who have been reading this blog have asked - what have you learned from this two month visit to Nepal and the study of thangka?

Obviously, if you've been following the blog, you've seen that I've learned a few rudimentary drawing and painting skills, and in regard to these I have done better than I expected. Sitting daily for two three-hour sessions, I had a chance to let my mind settle and to practice patience and concentration. These qualities were also developed partly through daily mediation, a rediscovered practiced that blossomed alongside a reawakened interest in Buddhism.

So where does all this lead?

Practically speaking I've learned that it may take 2-3 years of regular practice to become a decent painter, after which I can spend the rest of my life refining my skills and learning more about the philosophy behind the iconography.

While it seems unlikely I'll ever make much money as a thangka painter, there are other rewards, including those that I've already mentioned - slowing down the mind, developing concentration and patience, and a deeper understanding of Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice. There is also the very real possibility of developing a whole new network of relationships with artists, many of whom work many years within the Buddhist community painting thangkas, statues, temples, and other artefacts associated with practice of Buddhism.

For the moment I think those are worthy aspirations. I'd like to continue to develop my art skills, but the question then becomes how to do that.

Ceiling painting from Pullahari Monastery

Among the ideas I've been mulling over is to take a leave of absence for the fall semester and return here to study for the period from Sept/Oct through to this time next year, March 2008. That would allow me to complete the core 1st year program at Shechen and establish a very solid base, after which time I could reevaluate my development and interest in continuing.

Another is to enter the arts program at Naropa, the only accredited Buddhist university in North America. Here I could study thangka and earn a certificate or another bachelor's. It appears, though, that the cost may be prohibitive.

Still another is to bring a teacher to me, rather than me running across the world to the teacher. If I can find a few people in the Fukuoka area interested in studying thangka, it may be possible to sponsor an artist to come and live in Japan.

It goes without saying that any decision will be made in consultation with Mutsumi, whom I've missed a great deal while I've been away. I think she's missed me, too, but I'll let her be the one to tell you that. It seems she's been quite busy with her own projects and has acquired some new confidence and interest in pursuing some of her own interests, which I'm hoping to learn more about on my return.

I feel now like the future holds great possibility for new directions for both Mutsumi and I. I'm looking forward to exploring those with her and, where appropriate, sharing them with you.

You might also be interested to know that in addition to all this, I've lost as well as gained - 3 kilos and 2 notches on my belt.

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We know what we're not

Nepal is now in a political interim awaiting elections for an assembly to write a new constitution. Some people have already written off the Royal family and hope to get rid of the monarchy altogether. Apparently the Tourism office of Dashinkali has already made their decision. Notice what is crossed out on this receipt we received from a toll booth on our outing to the Kali temple.


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Blood sacrifice . . .

. . . is still practiced here. This past Saturday I went out with Sandip, Yamuna and Sangita, part of my expanding Nepali family, to a Kali temple, where we could witness the ritual slaughter of what appeared to be mostly goats and chickens. Below a chicken loses its head.

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My amazing day in Kathmandu

A couple of days ago I met a woman at my guest house who turned out to be an anthropologist from Cornell here working a short research project. Previously she's focused on the people of Mustang and Dolpo, ethnic groups more closely related to Tibetans than to Nepalis. When I told her that I was here studying thangka she asked if I had heard of an artist by the name of Tenzin Norbu, whom she said has gained some notoriety in Europe and North America for painting landscapes of the Dolpo region in a style similar to thangka, which are the kind of paintings he started training with as a young man.

She also mentioned a gallery in Thamel, the tourist area of the city, that sells his work and when I was down in that area yesterday I happened to run across it. Wasn't looking for it, just passed by it and saw some interesting work on display and when I checked the name of the artist - it was Tenzin. So I go in and look at some more work and talk to the sales clerk a bit and when he finds I'm staying in the same area where he himself lives, and where Tenzin lives, he asks if I'd like to meet him.

So we met this morning at 7:00 and walked over to Tenzin's house. His wife served tea and we sat around and chatted for an hour or so. Got to see a number of paintings and had the opportunity to talk to him about the possibility of introducing his work into Japan. And I also found out that the anthropologist is the writer of this children's book project on which they collaborated:

Clear Sky, Red Earth

I returned to my guesthouse and called Sundar Shrestha, the producer of a locally recorded cd. I had found his music at a cd shop - and his email on his cd - and had written to see if he might like to sell his cd at CDJam. We met up for coffee to discuss CDJam and in the process I find out he's the exclusive distributor in Nepal for a number of recording equipment manufacturers and has himself helped set up more than 100 recording studios in Kathmandu. I mentioned that besides my cd shop and radio show, I also do a bit of voice work in Japan and ask if he can't introduce me to someone who might help me get a little work here.

The more we talked the more ideas started to percolate. He drove me over to meet DJ Santosh, who is supposed to be the hot remixer in Kathmandu and we did a little bit of recording with the idea of producing a demo cd that Sundar can shop around to radio, tv, and film producers. When I finally got back home late this afternoon, I confirmed that Santosh is indeed what he claims to be. I asked a young man who has a music shop here in Boudha, a guy whom I've spoken to on many days while walking through town, if he knew DJ Santosh, which generated a are-you-kidding? reply.

DJ Santosh: Addiction 2

Santosh has invited me back to the studio to do a little more work with some music he's mixing now. If time permits, I hope to do so.

Besides having the chance to meet all these amazing people in one day, and to meet them without first knowing who they were or without any idea of meeting them, has been quite a high, which has been kicked into even higher gear by talk of all the possibilities of future projects and collaborations.

Maybe the most amazing day I've yet had in Kathmandu.

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Waiting for a friend

Had a chance to visit two nearby monasteries yesterday afternoon. This was shot at Kopan.

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Exams

The past three days have been exams at art school. As I've just arrived, I didn't sit for them, though I did go to school one last time yesterday to savor for the last time a bit of the atmosphere.

It was sad to sit at prayers without getting choked up thinking that I might not see this group of people together again for some time, some of them perhaps never again as they will graduate or go on to other things.

I also had to say goodbye to Thomas, a Belgian traveler staying at my guest house and with whom I spent a week full of breakfasts and dinners.

Yesterday was a hard day of farewells.

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Strike

The last three days have been quite contentious in Nepal. First the Maoists abducted a prominent hotel owner to extort a large amount of cash. An association of business owners declared a strike in protest and most businesses were closed for two days. In the south, the Maoists got into a scuffle with local ethnic activists and 25 people died.

Apparently the businessmen have called off their strike and perhaps things will return to normal. Good news for me as I have been waiting to pick up some tailoring.

Below is a shot of the local Maoists protesting on the main road in front of Boudha.

Book Review: Images of Enlightenment (revised); Jonathan Landaw & Andy Weber, 2006

If you've ever seen Tibetan Buddhist art and wondered who or what is represented in these colorful paintings (known in Tibetan as thangka), what the various objects in the paintings symbolize, or how the paintings are used in the practice of Buddhism, Images of Enlightenment may answer your questions. Concisely written for a western audience of general readers by two English students of Tibetan Buddhism, this book also provides an introduction to basic Buddhist principles and practice, as well as a brief history of Tibetan Buddhism and short biographies of some of its greatest teachers.

Images of Enlightenment is organized around 32 full-color plates, paintings by Andy Weber, a UK-based artist trained in Nepal by refugee Tibetan painters and now himself a widely traveled and respected teacher in Europe and North America. (See the artist's website for more examples of his work and his current teaching schedule.) Each chapter of the book begins with a theme, followed by explanations of the handful of paintings that best represent them. The first chapter on the life of the Buddha and the basics of Buddhist philosophy, for example, includes descriptions of paintings of the Buddha, stupas, and the Wheel of Life.

As an introductory text, the authors cannot hope to cover the nearly 200 deities of Tibetan Buddhism. They manage, though, to provide an informative, well-written, and properly illustrated volume covering some of the most popular images. If you'd like to learn more about the methods and materials used in painting thangka, you might like to see Jackson and Jackson's Tibetan Thangka Painting: Methods & Materials. The paintings used in this book, while well executed, are quite simple and not cluttered with many of the background items found in many thangka. There is, therefore, little in this book explaining many of the minor elements of Tibetan painting. For a more thorough treatment of symbolism and iconography, see Robert Beer's A Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. If you'd like to see larger and more elaborately and finely detailed thangka, have a look at two collections in Romio Shrestha's Celestial Gallery and Goddesses of the Celestial Gallery.

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Book Review: Spoke in the Wheel; Amita Kanekar, 2005

A Spoke in the Wheel is a cleverly constructed and insightful novel about a 3rd century Indian monk named Upali who writes the first biography of the Buddha, some 800 years after his death.

The book opens with Upali's first chapter on the birth and early life of the young prince of an Indian ruling family, a boy known as Siddartha who will when he grows up renounce his family, kingdom, and inheritance for the life of an aesthetic, eventually becoming the enlightened one we know today as the Buddha.

Between the chapters on Siddartha's life are chapters on Upali, conscripted by Emperor Asok to compose the first biography of the Buddha. A late convert to religion, Asok was responsible for spreading Buddhism across a large part of Asia and even into parts of Europe, but only after leading campaigns of conquest, imperial adventures that created an empire spanning nearly all of current India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Iran. Among those conquests was Upali's kingdom, a genocidal campaign that has left the monk scibner with an abiding contempt for his emperor and patron.

The chapters on Upali are hit and miss. The more interesting ones detail the theological and historiographical issues facing the monk as he attempts to piece together a biography from material that was intended to preserve the essence of the teachings, and not the details of history. The less interesting chapters follow Upali's efforts to act as matchmaker between caste-crossed lovers, and the investigation of a monk's murder.

Still, this is a book worth the time and money if only to explore some of the issues involved in trying to sort out the historical from the mythological Buddha. Upali argues, for example, that the story of Siddartha's home leaving is far-fetched. As typically presented, the young prince leads a sheltered life, protected by his father from anything unpleasant. Siddartha's world is turned upside down in a matter of hours when he one day ventures out of his family's estate and witnesses poverty, sickness and death, sights that cause him to leave home that very evening in search of the meaning of life. How utterly fragile a person Siddartha would have to be, argues Upali, to have such unpleasantries cause him to run away. But even assuming he did leave home on that very same evening, its unlikely Siddartha had never been exposed to suffering. As the prince of a nation, Siddartha would have been groomed from a very early age in religious practices (which included animal sacrifices), statecraft (which involves a good measure of deceit and threat of violence), and martial arts (which on many occasions would have produced bloodletting, maiming, scarring, and even death).

Is the Buddha a god - or was he just a man? Is the purpose of his philosophy the means (leading an ethical life), or the end (enlightenment)? These and other such issues make A Spoke in the Wheel an engaging read for those interested in Buddhist or Indian history.

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Dharahara: The Bhimsen Tower

Yesterday I went downtown with a classmate to pick up some art supplies and while we were there we had a little time to kill and so hiked up the 213 steps of the Bhimsen Tower for a look over the city. At 61.88 meters, this is the tallest structure in the Kathmandu Valley, first built in 1825 and later rebuilt after most of it fell in an earthquake in 1934.



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