Hello.

Hope you like the new header picture.  Have decided to start again a little bit with the visual layout here as the links I have (or have planned) have started to add up.

Anyways, above are some notes from our Classical Tibetan class.  The Mid Term exam was this morning and well, there’s still some work to do let’s say, but I am confident I will get there….  eventually!

Good teachers will bring out the best in even the slowest students, so there’s hope for me yet, as the teachers here are really good! :)

I am typing this in our open air cafe at the monastery.  The sun is shining and the green-shrouded mountains which ring the valley seem a little closer than usual.  There are some amazing stacks of white fluffy clouds around and I would say that it is peaceful, with the birds twittering in the trees, except there is the ubiquitous Nepal incessant barking dog somewhere in the near distance.

Still, it beats the rush hour tube in London by about oh, 1000 miles, at least. 

So what is it like studying in a monastery?  Very interesting.  In addition to the regular academic classes, some of us have signed up for a meditation course in the evenings over the next two weeks.  As with everything else here, this is clearly and thoroughly delivered, with ample chance for questions and experiential stuff as well.  Good things.  It is really beneficial to hear the teachings on medititation from a monk who has probably done the same practices probably 1000’s of times, maybe even 10,000’s of times.

I am hoping this will feed into my academic understanding as well, as we start studying Tibetan Buddhism in our History class next week.

All of our classes are in English at the moment by the way, but some are delivered in Tibetan and then tranlsated by some very able translators.  The course aims for us to be able to understand the teachings directly ourselves in Tibetan by the 3rd Year, and I for one am really looking forward to having even some of that level of understanding.  (One day, one day!  ).

So, I will sign off for now.  My battery is about to go and I am keen to check out a few more things before it does.  Next post I want to reflect on how the electricity issues here have influenced my status as an STA Explorer.  Suffice to say for now that it is difficult to keep up with the internet world with limited power windows and slow connection speeds…  But I AM working on it!

Namaste!