What did I do for Christmas ? Well I spent most of the day walking around trying to find this tibettan recovering heroin addict. He's been doing pretty good, well out of rehab and slowly getting a focus on the next phase of his life, but he keeps losing hope and getting weird thoughts. Then he decided he wawas bored here and he was going back to Delhi. Everybody thought that was a pretty bad idea. Not that he would intend to do it again, but in Delhi the heroin is cheap, thanks in part to the Taliban being thrown out. Afghanistan is again the world's leading producer of heroin, and none of the current drug lords are likely to make a deal with Bush.

So anyway, our tibettan dude did not leave town, he changed his mind. So I didn't have to kick his ass. Everybody else is doing something. I'm reading, writing and meditating. I've even written code on sheets of paper. The tibettan guys are mostly doing prostrations. Like kelsang who needs to get in 30,000 more to complete Ngondro (preliminary initiation), after which he concentrates on entrance exams for college. Lots of guys and girls getting up before dawn to do prostrations for a couple of hours. 2,000 a day is average, you need to do 1 lakh (100,000). Our tibettan dude got a sore stomach when he tried them, and he's not really yet interested in buddhism. Last year at kalachakra he was ehem.... shooting up IN THE STUPA. That's rebellion for you.



All the kids around here want you to come visit their school and maybe make a donation. The problem is most of these are scams. Every hour somebody tries the 'donation for my school' thing. In the US we get the black guy with the gasloline can. 'oh you wouldn't believe it my car ran out of gas and I really need to get to this job interview'

I met this really nice smart kid, Nadim. He's running the usual lines, I start to act really bored and distant, and then I start asking him questions. So we actually get talking. He wants to be a doctor, we talk about schools and what he needs to do to focus on the goal. A couple of days later he too starts bugging me about money for books, and I'm not really sure what to think.
I said after a while that I wasn't going to help him, I was going to give money to one of the legit schools so that I could help more people, and I hoped he understood. Then he just walked away and didn't talk to me for a couple of days.

Today I realized that I am now staying next door to his house. He invites me in for papaya from his garden. The whole family is very happy to sit and stare at me. Chai, talking, comparing lives. They used to own a bunch of the land around here, going back many generations. Now they have money problems and they have sold a lot of it, including the plot that I am now staying on (Nepali Community Center Meditation Center). But farming is "just like water running, money doesn't stay", so they don't miss the land. They still have a bunch, but they want to sell one half by their house. Maybe try to build a guest house with the money. If anybody wants a nice piece of land in Bodh Gaya, bordering on fields, contact me.

Kagyu and Nyngma Monolams are coming soon. That means a puja for world peace, and about 14,000 monks and nuns. The town has already swelled in size, lots of eating places popping up out of the dust. Several thousand poor indians came through for free eye treatment.

new arrivals from tibet and their children with cameras:



my guru: