Sittings-Teachings-Reading

Being back in Bodh Gaya is great! The last week with the rest of the students flew by and I finally said goodbye to them on Wednesday. The last meditation session at the Mahabodhi followed by a butter lamp offering concluded the program. They have safely arrived in Delhi and fly London today at one. The Vihar is extremely quiet now, only the faculty, four students, Yogi Mike, the Burmese and two newcomers are currently here.

The city itself is the opposite. The Hindustan Times believes that the quantity of tourists this year is double that of last year. The restaurants are full of westerns and the temple is very congested. Currently: there is a small monlam going on at the temple, the city is building a massive structure to house the 50,000 people arriving for the Dalai Lama's teachings, and Tergar Monastery (the Karmapa's seat in Bodh Gaya) is preparing for teachings on Nagarjuna's "Letter to a Friend," which start on Sunday. As the title implies I have been taking it very easy although last night a few friends and I met with a woman who needs volunteers for her campaign to clean up Bodh Gaya. I'm not sure how involved I will be, but it sounds exciting.

The schedule for the next few weeks is going to be something like this:
Dec. 20-22 Karmapa's teachings at Tergar
Dec. 24-30 Kaygu Monlam (hopefully we will get permission to camp at the Temple for some of these days)
Jan 1st (tentatively) The Karmapa's opera on the life of Milarepa will debut.
Jan 5-10 Dalai Lama's teachings at Kalachakra field

Also, the remaining falculty and students have a Christmas breakfast and gift exchange so I wont be missing the festivities entirely.