Like promised I have now uploaded some more pics of the incredible work of Dawa in the Karma Guen Gompa. At the moment we are painting Buddhas life story from the Tuchita Heaven, Kings palace to his fled and the time with the askets to his enlightment under the bodhi tree.



Dawa is mostly doing the lines - and there are many



while one of the helpers is the master the clouds - and there are many 2;)))



I am at the moment just painting with one colour: gold. Gold for the roofs, the ornaments and garments of Buddhas mother etc. I love it. But every mistake is visible right there...pride purification all inclusive;)))
And who wants the Tuchita heaven anyway if you can be there:

After an excursion to London and a time-out for painting in the end of 2009 I am back tp painting.
At the moment I am in Karma Guen in the south of Spain and we are painting every day the big Thaye Dodrje Gompa. The master is Dawa a nepalese painter who now lives in Rumtek/Sikkim. He is one of Karmapa´s favorite painters and a master of tjhe Karma Gadri style of the Karma Kaguy lineage.

The whole gompa is painted on the advice of Karmapa.
Uploaded some pics for an impression.


And that´s me;))

So after all this stories about India I am back to painting.

Besides buddhist painting i made the experience of some western art in Villeneuve sur Lot in the south of France in June this year. I took some lessions with an american painter for drawing and some hours with a dutch illustrator.
So I trained my eyes and my hand.



Now I am back to Le Bost or Lacot for the Mandala of the Green Tara. Unfortunately in winter nobody was here so actually in the last year nearly nothing happened on the mandala. But now we are 4 people and the atmosphere in the workshop is very nice and relaxed.

Emaho. We made it! After 4 month this is now our last day. We will leave tonight. KIBI is getting more and more like a ghost house. People are leaving in all directions after a great course with Karmapa where he teached us and gave initiations. Claudy and me just came back from a final blessing. His Holyness is just amazing. During the teaching he was funny, inspiring and very western in his way of talking to us.
The final sum-up about the tour and what it did to my mind, the concepts and the perception of life in general I think will be done in Germany or say it like this: it will take some time to let it sit - if you can say this in English.
But I am shure it will be different.
India will not be amoung my favorite coutries in the world but for shure one of the specials!!

Tomorrow I will celebrate New Year for the third time for 2009. First I had Lossong - the Sikkim New Year on 28th of December than our central European New Year and now Losar.
We had Mahakala Pujas the last days and today some people suffer from purification - including me! They normally come in this strong powerfield. Karmapa is living right besides us in my case really next door. So I don't complain just see.
Tomorrow at 7 am we will all offer some Kataks in the Gompa and then we will have lunch with Karmapa. Next week a lot of friends will come from all over the world and His Holyness will give teachings and initiations for 7 days. I want to get the Mahakala initiation already for many years and normally it is given in Karma Guen. But now I am at the right time at the right lace: it will be here.
As Europe is covered under snow as we can read in the internet and mails here in India it is getting spring: the trees in the park opposite of the KIBI have a fresh nice green and the nights are getting warmer. Unfortunately this also means that the moskitos are coming back.

the wilderness of Asia!!! I took the bus from Kathmandu to Delhi direct on Sunday and finally landed in the pure realm of the KIBI.
After we had a delay of the normal 1 and a half hours from Kathmandu I got on a bus with 30 Tibetans to Manju ka tila in Delhi - the Tibetan Camp. Most of them were on their way for Losar. On the border to India we had to wait half of the night until it opened and than I witnessed of how to bribe the Indian Police at the border. Incredible. Me they didn't check at all. I was only: Madam! So all the worthy statues from the Tibetans landed on my lab covered with my jaket and were brought to India without being payed:))
Than we had a very rough ride through the upper part of the Northern State and I got really sick. Medicine Buddha helped me out but for some hours I was not sure if I wouldn't leave some marks on the side of the bus...
Anyway after a second night on the bus - and the streets got better and better - in the end we were on something like an highway that wouldn't even fullfill the European standards for a normal road we entered crazy traffic jam of Delhi. I am still amazed by everyone driving in India!!!
The whole time I was protected by my personal Kampa sitting right besides me, helping me to get the stamps at the border, packing my stuff and translating all the short announcements from the bus driver in his Tibetan English. Great!
Now I am in KIBI and I will stay here until I will fly home. All the friends are here and the place realy changed form the last time I saw it. The next days we will get teachings together and finally even from His Holyness for a week in the beginning of March.
More to come about that ....

Today I went with Anna out of town to a place near to the Kathmandu Botanic garden. It is a holy place of Palden Lamo more or less a fountain in the jungle which is unfortunately covered from the hindus like everything here meaning that the hindus are taking over all the places. But still there was the power of the red lady. We meditated there and afterwards we went in the garden to search for the aurora plant - meaning the tree which has a different name here. Unfortunaltely neither we nor the garden management could find it. But Anna will go back or even up the the border to Tibet to make fotos for an exebition in Linz this year about tibetan healing plants.

I spent the last days mostly in the center here and I meditated on Diamond mind. A little retreat under the shower of the nectar of the purity of all buddhas with a look on swayambu every day! Lucky me!
In some days from now I will go to Delhi on a bus and spend my last 3 weeks in India. Maybe even I will leave a little earlier as Karmapa changed his schedule and starts his teachings in the first week of March. That will be a party on the plane back - shure about that one.....

After more than a week in kathmandu I was at some of the holy places like Boudha - the other big stupa at the other side of the town and Paping - a special place with a Gurur Rinpoche cave, a freen Tara temple and a Vayra Jogini temple. All overcrowded by Hindus - crazy and loud like always.
After all the friends left form Kahtmandu I decided to do a retreat and meditate on the roof top of the Buddhist center with a view on the stupa of Swayambu.
But today I took a little bit a time-out and went with Anna to a beauty salon!!! Massages and hair cut for incredible little money. If you have money here you can live like a king or queen. If you don't mind the power cuts of 12 to 15 hours a day, the poluted air and the non existing streets!!
I also booked a bus ticket to Delhi for a 36 hours ride to be at the KIBI at Losar as Karmapa will be there this year. I am really looking forward to that and try not to think about my bottom of my back for this advanture.

Actually I am still counting down the days and make wishes never to be reborn in this part of the world. I got quite an understanding of what Karma and suffering is really about and that we all live on an island of the gods realm in the west no matter how hard the times are right now. And I know a bit about living with little money and fear to the future. Finished with this experinece here.

One of the bigest wishes I had for my tour in Asia was to be with Ole in Kathmandu and see all the holy and for us already historical places of the roots of the Diamondway Buddhism. And it happend: the Lama arrived on the 27th at the airport 2 hours delayed and first he blessed and inaugurated the new center her. I didn't get this as i was still at the airport collecting all the friends from KIBI who travelled with him to get them on a bus.
The lecture at the same day was arranged at a Gompa of Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche at the buttom of the Swayambu Stpa not far from the center. Though the accustic was really bad there, we had a nice time together as the hall is beautifully painted, all the monks were serving tea and cookies and we were only 100 people. Nice little family party!
Afterwards we went to the center to have food and later some drinks togehter. As the building has many floors and terasses as balconies, it was like a summer party in the middle of winter. The day has been extremly nice: warm, sunshine and so was the night: clear and not cold at least.
Unfortunately we had a little accident as one of the russians fell on his face and kicked out 3 tees! Strong place with strong purifications in this case.
The next day we went up to Swayambhu. Ole came a little later and we made the round on the top and went to the place were Ole first saw 16th Karmapa. It is actually the entrance of the Kagyu monastery there. We even went on top were Ole and Hannah made prostrations and Diamond Mind. One floor below there is the place were Ole and Hannah could always see 16th Karmapa as seen on may pictures. Here he was welcomed by the monks and talked about this.
Later we went together to Lopon Tchechus monastery and meditated together at the golden Stupa inside in which is the mody of his first master.
What a day! I also enjoyed staying with the friends and I have the whish to spend even more time with some of them and go to KIBI diretly from here next month to be with 17th Karmapa at Lossar (Feb. 25th) in Delhi.
Let's see what happens....

Yes things can change hear very quickly. After spending my first night and day in Kathmandu I was not really happy: being here alone in a stinky city again with all those locals jumping on you - I wanted to leave. But after 12 hours of sleep I went up to Swajambunat (or how ever this is written) with the wish to meet now some Ole students! And wish was fullfilled after 5 minutes. I met a woman in the next restaurant from Wisbaden sangha. Then we went together to the local center which is actually only a group. But what a nice surprise: big house, friendly people, family - at last.
Anna and her husband came in the afternoon and I felt at home:)
I moved from the crowdy Thamel downtown up the hill into Lopon Tchechus monastery as for the next days there is no place in the center. But the monastery has a great view over the whole city and the stupa. And it is a quite and clean place. The monks are nice and the gompa impressive with the life story of Milarepa on the wall. I think you will find this motive very rarely.

But honestly I will not develope to a fan of this part of the world. Though there are special places and I am shure when Lama Ole will come tomorrow and give teaching at the place where everything started 40 years ago I will have tears in my eyes. Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche will also be here tomorrow and spend some time with Lama Ole and us. So I will be blissed and blessed out....

I made it. Incredible. If you want to see your Lama there can be quite some obstacles: I wanted to leave Gangtok on Thursday early morning. I got up a t 5 am to get a jeep to Kakavitta at the Nepali border but there was a strike in West Bengal: Gurkaland. Is the biggest problem there right now. So i just made it to the Sikkim border 40 km from Gangtok and stayed a whole day in a dusty, loud town with nearly no atraction. But if you are a buddhist you are lucky: your mind and your behind is always with you so you can meditate:))
Yesterday I took a jeep to Nepal but my driver forgot to drop me quickly at the Indian border to get a stamp in my passport that I have left India. So I had to walk all the way back over the bridge: forth and back 1 km each, my workout.
Than at the immigration office there was a man waiting to offer me a bus to Katmandu. I am shure he bribed the police for this infomation. And he told me there is only one bus going: his at 10pm. But than in the street someone appeared and told me he is cheating me. There would be a government bus station and the bus would leave soon. So i rushed after him, bought a ticket, I am shure still for too much money because on my ticket and the money I paid finally there was a difference of 120 RS. Like always here!!! Nice countries.
Anyway I had a busticket and a woman sitting right besides me who nearly spoke English but she was some kind of protector on the tour. We had to change the bus and walk over a bridge made of palm trees to cross a river as the last monsson has washed away the street and it was not yet rebuild. Some weeks earlier, you even had to take a boad to cross.
She took me with her, took care of my luggage and that I found my right bus again!!! Early in the morning we arrived finally after 18 hours in Katmandu. It was still dark, my driver couldn' t find the right hotel and I ended up in some expensive but quite and clean hotel in Thamil.
Let's seewhat happens today:)

After one month in Sikkim I am spending my last 24 hours on Gangtok - the capital, that has been some kind of western world island in this land of jungle and mountains. Actually I wanted to leave already yesterday but when I came to Gangtok I met the two girls again with whom I spent some nice days in Rumtek. They wanted to go to the north, 40 km up from Gangtok a place called Phodong. I wanted to go there too but than skipped that plan a week ago. So I got a second chance and took it. It was some kind of adventure: first of all the roads are the worst I saw since I came here and then the place was very different. Normally in the season it is maybe a tourist place. But we have off-season so all the hotels were closed. We finally got something like a dormitory in one restaurant for 100 Rupees each - one even sleeping on the ground, which is actually robbery. I took it as some kind of greed purification and hope the lady will not become a hungry ghost.
The two monasteries were than a nice surprise after the frosty welcome. We first went up the hill to a very old Kagyu monastery with a big 9th Karmapa statue coming originally from Tibet and nice paintings on the wall. Unfortunately some strange photo on the throne from am man who is not even accepted by the Indian government as Kamrpa - but what to say. I just ignored him. But the monks were very polite to us and showed us around.
The next morning we went even further up and met some monks on the way. We ended up on the top of the hill. If there would not have been so much fog it could be a brilliant view over the mountains. But the monastery was really very beautiful. It was a Nyigmapa Gompa on two floors with 1000 Guru Rinpoche paintings in the lower floor and very lively paintings of Buddhas and protectors in union on the second. On top they have a Mahakala room with the Zeringmas and 5 different emanations of the Black Coat.

So in a week from now I will meet the Lama in Katmandu and I am really looking forward to this.

By the way: Tashi has his visa. So for everyone who wants to paint and learn from him please call Patricia in the EC!!!

From Pelling I decided to walk to a place called Khetchopari lake - a holy lake 26 km away from Pelling. I took a shortcut as recomended from a Canadian guy I met. Advanterurous! It was a steep and wet way down the hill, over an old bridge that looked like out of an american movie: all shaky and half rotten down and than the way went up, up, up. Five km before the lake I gave up and took a jeep after 6 hours of walking with my huge backpack. When I arrived there I had to figure out that my guest house was another half an hour way up again on the top of a hill at the lake!

But what a sight the next morning when the sun rose and put a redish light on the Kabur a 7000 meter rock: a 360 degree panorma. The guest house was run by an old lama called Pala. He told me that Lama Ole stayed as his guest house aswell as Lopen Tchechu mediatated there once for some month. Actually there was also a monastery on the top just at the side of the huts of the guest house but it fell apart. So at the moment they are reconstructing it and as the way up is very difficult, 7-8 yaks are carrying the concret up there twice a day. You feel like in Tibet. Especially as there is nearly no water, electricity is only sometime awailable and in the night you sleep more or less outside in the winter on 2000 meters altitude as the huts consist more of wholes! But I enjoyed it as it is a very special and wishfullfilling place. I went even up to a cave on top of the other hill that arounds the lake to meditate there.

The first night I arrived there a woman from the highbourhood died only 25 years old after giving birth to a baby. This would have been a very sad and personal thing in Europe but not there. All the people from the village, relatives and friends were invited to do a three days puja guided by some monks and even the guest of the hotel were invited. The children were not kept away and everyone was in the same room with the dad woman who was in a wooden box at the side of an altar. Food and drinks even alcohol were served in this room and though people were crying the mood was more like a family party. On monday they told me that she was carried in the jungle and burnt there. But I decided to leave and go back to Gangtok.

It is incredible cold here. Actually not outside because in winter in Germany or France it is also cold, but you don't get a rest here as they don't have inventions like heaters. Actually they even love everything open: open windows in restuarants, and right now I am sitting in an open internet cafe!
Anyway the country itself is a big gift back: today I have been walking 15 km from Tashiding to Legship as we could not get any jeep. The Sikkimeas Democratic Front had a party meeting today and all vehicles were blocked, so we walked. I got later a jeep than to Pelling and tomorrow I want to visit two of the oldest monasteries in Sikkim . One was founded by one of the kings that founded Sikkim itself.
Tashiding and its monastery was also very impressiv. It is a Gompa of the Nyingmapas on top of a mountain. Founded in the late 17th century it has even two gompas over each other, all painted beautifully and the atmosphere is special there. When we came there ( I met some very nice guys drom the US, Canada and England) they just staretd a puja for 6 days on Guru Rinpoche.
For the next days I want to walk and visit a whishfullfilling lake with another Monastery and later I want to go to Yuksom, normally the start to some mountain trekking. But for me it is just another monastery:))