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Accelerated Spiritual Marathon: 2008 Part Two
Tangpulu monastery in Boulder Creek is a densely powerful place. It is now mostly a ghost town. Unlike the Cambodian monastery that I earlier visited Tangpulu was practically empty. The Burmese donors had fled long ago. Alas, politics ruins everything always. But when I arrived at Tangpulu in 1990. It was humming with life. A massive stupa had just been consecrated and the Burmese throngs were in a festive mood.
I write my best stuff at holy places. My animated figure---Ginger Smudge had been created at the Cambodian monastery. Here I wrote Little Monk and the first two Harvest of Gems books all during the first Gulf war. I had told a nervous retreat person at the time that we would be stuck in Iraq for quite some time. But,nNever in my wildest dreams did I predict that we would be still stuck in Iraq almost twenty years later with yet another Bush-monger.
Tangpulu had been a big forest master in Burma. When I arrived at the monastery he had long since departed the body, but his presence was everywhere. His room was a powerful place. You entered it and got whacked immediately. It had a sweet, silent density that just squeezed the life out of you. You furiously experienced a massive dense stillness that lifted both your mind high and sunk it down deep simultaneously. You had to experience this to really appreciate it.
Laing-Tet Sayadaw one of Tangpulu's main disciples was the abbot at the time. I got to know him quite well. This master had a weird absence of presence. All the Buddhist books that talked about emptiness now made sense to me. Somehow Laing-Tet's body no longer really mattered in the real scheme of things. You felt in him this unconditional love that somehow came out of this strange and mysterious absence of presence.
Back then Laing-Tet just took me under his wing. What can I say? He had a soft spot for crazies! Human politics swirled furiously around us both domestically and globally, but in that dense stillness that protected us none of this seemed to matter. Laing-Tet is also no longer in his body.
Now as my production assistant and I walked around Tangpulu only a few scared Burmese monks remained who spoke almost no English. We manged to persuade them to let us stay the night and I dreamed of Tangpulu and his great magnificent presence. Like in Stockton whatever meditation practice you brought---it got super boosted here. Here real gold was in abundance, no, not fool's gold.
The next morning the marathon continued. We were off to see the Tibetans.
Michael
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