from Tom Carr (tomcarr@well.com): I have been reading a great book, "The Double Mirror, a Skeptical Journey into Buddhist Tantra" by Stephen Butterfield. Its about his experience in Chogyam Trugpa's organization Vajradatu.

I remember being a graduate student when I first saw Chogyam Trungpa, just after he had come to the United States. My own teacher, Jacob Needleman, had helped make arrangements to bring him here and publish his book: Born in Tibet. Chogyam Trungpa gave a talk in one of our classroom. I did not understand anything of what he was saying at that time. He was wearing a turtleneck shirt, sports coast, and drinking a Coke. Not my image of a spiritual teacher. But as many, many years roled on he became one of my most important influences. I am thankful for the encourter.

I saw the making of a sand mandala in Denver last year. The monks making it were painstakingly bent over their work seemingly oblivious to the spectators gawking about. The picture of concentration, control, precision. After hours, I begged the security guard to let me take one last peek (after a closed Denver Art Museum affair) When the guard walked me back the mandala monks were talking and eating and drinking party leftovers on a break from their work. Like you, I was surprised and shocked as if Tibeta monks were to be on such a level to deny the pleasures of conversation, drink and good chocolate truffles!

...clearly, enlightenment is not about a specific set of food, sex, sleeping, exercise, etc. practices..... subtle are the ways of truth, I suspect.

I also saw some Tibetan monks doing a sand mandala at the Whole Life Expo in Ausin two years ago and it's part of the slide show we're running on our home page right now.

om mani padmi hum....................

The unfortunate result of Denver's sand mandala is that is was preserved and now lives in the Denver Art Museum.

It seems as if enlightenment is in a sense unlearning all the programming we have had, teaching us how to function in this existence. These monks seem to be doing this, getting as close to time when we were children, before all the concerns of the world were with us. Zen mind Beginner's Mind. This isn't an easy task though and each of us (because we are all different) has his/her own way to get there.

Teaching us "how to function in this existence" or teaching us to simply exist in our function?

we just are what we are at this moment thoughts added onto that are still that