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Trinkets of Virtue

So here is a musing on a interview with Ken Kesey for Paris Review. I read it long time ago so no much is left in my memory of it and when I found my little piece in the archives, it sounded ok so I decided to publish it again. I don’t think that many people would have read it before anyway. I wasn’t a part of the Beat generation, neither of its later sprout, the Hippy flower child. On The Road was not yet translated in socialist Bulgaria when I was at school in the late 70s. Fly over the Cuckoo Nest was translated but ‘of course, everybody knew it was written against the Capitalist society’. LSD, mescaline, the Doors, the Byrds and anything of this sort did not even exist in our world – ‘the dust bowl of reality’. My father was arrested for dancing rock&roll on a table and girls with short skirts had stamps put on their hips so they cannot ware them again.Even religion wasn’t there to give some kind of hope to the searching minds.  But both the Beat generation and we, behind t...
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News from Nangchen


This is a report from Kunga Gyaltsen, a friend of mine, who is at the moment in Tibet with Lama Karma Thinley Rinpoche and I thought that his story might be of interest for you. Here it is:

'Today KTR made the long journey over some very high passes (4,700 metres), to visit his birthplace.
Rinpoche was born in the Bongsar Palace at a place called Yeyang Sumdo, in the high mountain grasslands of Nangchen, Kham.


The palace no longer exists, and the Bongsar family have recently erected a large stupa there to mark the spot. 




Behind and above the palace there was a retreat centre, for monks, nuns and family members to do long retreats. This has recently been restored by Beru Khyentse Rinpoche.

The highest and most powerful mountain on the ancient Bongsar lands is the Jowo Menpa Tsesum, the three-peaked Lord of Medicines. It is famous for the many medicinal herbs that grow on its slopes. 



This picture shows the stupa built on the very place where KTR was born. His birth was marked by a white rainbow appearing above the house. In the background is the Jowo Mountain in all its glory.







The altitude of this place is about 4,000 metres!


KTRs neice Onyo, handing out the tsampa and yoghurt.




























Our picnic was in a carpet of edelweiss.

Close to the site of Rinpoche's birth is an inconspicuous hillside, behind him in this picture. This is the site of the monastery called Sharyak Dorje Ling. It was the monastery that belonged to Rinpoche's previous Sakya incarnation, Beru Kunrig. It had already fallen into disuse in the 1950s. Rinpoche plans to build a small commemorative stupa here.




The road passes through a long narrow gorge. This roadside shrine has been recently installed by locals. The Mani wheels are water driven. The images are carved into the rock and painted.


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