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Published: February 12th 2007
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Diamond Temple
Here's the temple, wood and adobe, with wireless internet, spare of furniture, it can hold 180 people. Hi Friends - It’s been two weeks here at Diamond Mountain University and high time I told you what’s going on.
In short, nothing. Rather, emptiness. That’s the operative word. Everyone around here is working to see it, or not see it, as the case may be. There’s an old debate about whether we can see something that doesn’t exist. The idea is that emptiness does exist, but it has no qualities of its own. It’s free of qualities. A qualityless quality. People spend their lives pursuing it and debating it. Most of the people here are doing just that. Some apparently have had some success. I’m still working on it.
The idea is that a thing has no quality, from its own side, that makes it such. And any quality it has, is something that our minds have given it. And our minds give it that quality based on the thoughts planted in our minds.
Just for the record, there is no Diamond Mountain here in Southeastern Arizona. That might be part of the whole joke. There are ridges and peaks, but no peak, per se. There are lots of cactus and thorny bushes. And rocks, lotsa
Temple inside
What temple is complete without a disco ball? These people know how to have a good time. those. It is no doubt blazing hot here in the summer.
I’ve been camping with about 30 other people. About a hundred more come on weekends, some flying in to Tucson from New York and places even farther away. They’re here for the teachings of Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally. Most have completed the 18 preliminary courses to get them into the tantra course, that is, access to the secret teachings passed down by the Buddha. I’ve been working to understand the first course, the Three Principal Paths to Enlightenment. It’s pretty straightforward, all one has to do is renounce everything, wish to reach enlightenment to help all beings and develop ‘correct view.’ And that gets us right back to emptiness, the idea that everything we perceive as reality is just a projection of our mind.
I could go on with the lessons, but you can find a shortcut at www.world-view.org. It’s all there.
I’m taking some other classes, too. Mira Shani is helping me become a better yoga teacher, confronting my weaknesses. “I love you guys,” she told the class, “but my job is to make you uncomfortable.” I’m teaching a single student some
Yurts
This shot is from a fella staying in one of the yurts. Now he's camping like the rest of us. private lessons and incorporating more of the subtle anatomy into my offerings.
I’m taking a meditation class in which we work to contemplate specific subjects like renunciation, the six realms of existence, the three forms of suffering. I’m spending about 90 minutes a day contemplating various ideas and concepts. I’m also memorizing. And sometime singing. Today we sang a ditty in Arabic. These folks embrace lots of traditions.
Lastly, I’ve begun taking a class on Karmic Business Management, that is, how to use the principles of Karma to meetgoals. Essentially, what comes around goes around and it’s a bit like farming, you won’t get corn by planting acorns. The class is applying itself to a real business situation. We’re working to release a fat digital library of classical Tibetan Buddhist literature. All in a few weeks.
I’m also learning Tibetan debate. It’s a form of mind training where one person “attacks” and another “defends.” The idea is to propose a concept, then hash it out in a logical way. Defenders are limited to saying ‘yes’, ‘no’ and versions of ‘that doesn’t follow.’ They occasionally get asked to give examples of points and people debate everything from the concept of emptiness to whether living a moral life is a requirement to attaining the direct perception of emptiness. I’m obviously a beginner, but it’s a great way to test what I know.
The layout of DMU is spare. There’s a temple, built from adobe and a matching shower and toilet building. The lamas, monks and nuns live in buildings up the valley to which access is limited. Down at our end of the valley, we have a kitchen yurt and a meditation yurt. A few long term students have yurts to live in. I spend nights in my tent which this week has been quite pleasant. My car is my locker and at times study lounge, filled with clothes and books. Day time temperatures are in the 70s. Nights are in the 40s, a vast improvement from last week where it was mostly raining and below freezing.
The students who are camping share refrigerators, but often get together to share meals. We’re all taking on duties cleaning up, doing maintenance and attending weekly service days. Last week I helped add an extension to the Nectar Lounge, the fancy name of a 40-foot army tent. We’re heating it with a kerosene stove. I also helped build the floor extension and my carpentry skills have been welcomed. I’m sure they’ll keep me as a handyman if I want to stick around. People have also appreciated my vats of chai tea and one dubbed me the “chai wallah.”
Most of the students taking classes full time have put their jobs on hold or work seasonally. Others from Tucson devote their weekends to being here for the five-week semester. Quite a few have come down from Canada, a few from Australia and a smattering from the other Americas and places in Asia.
The nearest town is Bowie, a run-down town featuring a lot of trailers, two dusty mini-marts and a post office. There’s a shingle-sided teepee that some Diamond Mountain folks are teaching yoga in. Bowie’s a ten-mile drive and for me, so is cell-phone coverage. Twenty miles farther west is Willcox, home to a Safeway, Pizza Hut and the regular town stuff. I’ve also found a chiropractor there to help straighten out my crooked neck for $35 a pop. She is a welcome surprise.
As you might imagine, the people here are all quite nice, doing their best to accumulate merit by helping others. It’s a nice community. I’m glad to be here. And I hope this message finds each of you well.
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