October 13th through the 17th
After our visit to the Cleveland area, we made the beautiful drive to Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA. The trees are changing to their Autum colors with brillant shades of red, orange, brown, and everything in between. This part of the country is also the home of many Amish communities and it is common to see them traveling the roads in their horse drawn buggies. What pleasant sights to behold as we travel! This is a great time to be here in the East.
Matt Snyder of the Herald newspaper did a great article on our visit. Here is the the link, it is two pages so look for the “next page” link at the bottom of the first page – Monk’s revisit Westminister.
We were brought to Westminster College through the vision of Dr. Bryan Rennie and the kindness of Dr. David Goldberg and his wonderful daughter Natasha. Both Dr. Rennie and Dr. Goldberg are dedicated professors, constantly striving to expose the students to a wide range of cultures, philosophies and perspectives of the world. With this in mind, they made sure to have us spend as much time in their classrooms as possible.
Our main event was the creation of a Chenrezig sand mandala that started on Monday and was dissolved on Thursday evening. The monks did another great job and you can see pictures below. In the evenings we did Dharma talks and a Vajravidaran Healing Ritual. All were well attended and we had a great time. We even had some friends from the Cleveland area show up – Ken and Amy =).
One night, after leaving the monks alone, I was driving back to our house and saw them all walking down the road in white t-shirts and huge grins on their faces. It was late at night and I thought this looked a little weird to say the least. It turns out that the wandered down to see the soccer team play and managed to become the halftime show! Not by chanting as you might imagine, but by trying to hit the crossbar of the goal with the soccer ball. As it turns out none of them quite made it, but as a consolation prize they all received soccer t-shirts from the team. You never know what is going to happen on this journey.
One Comment
THANK YOU to the monks for sharing their culture with us and for leaving many blessings in their wake.
Thank you, also, to Drs. Rennie and Goldberg for ensuring that the students – and residents – of our little hamlet were afforded several days to experience firsthand the rich traditions of the Gelugpa monks.