Fire on the Mountain: A Poet's View by Jacqueline Gens

[Photo by Emily Luhrs Eye of Rinpoche's special tree on Khandroling, 2016]

It's been about four years now of my steady blogging for both the Community and Khandroling Paper Cooperative. That's my personal bliss in relating to Tsegyalgar East, which for me has been a fruitful and abundant feast of possibilities for over two decades or what we call in our parlance, "potentiality." This Community IS my bliss -- warts and all!

When recollecting Nary's great gift of working tirelessly in our midst, I was touched by Naomi's dream of Nary working in the garden with the flowers and plants and seeing his experience through his eyes, and it was so very beautiful. And so it is a kind of dewachen. Each one of us is a prism reflecting our own vision of dewachen. We need to remember this about each other. In chronicling Community life here at Tsegyalgar East, I try to reflect this vision. When I look at these photos I do not see tensions or problems but great joy in our common destiny. Our mutual dedications and gratitude to our Teacher Chogyal Namkhai Norbu never fall short. 



Each one of us carries a unique and brilliant spark of pure vision. Naturally, there will always be tensions and deeply embedded patterns, stale narrative of old grudges whose origins are barely remembered or foolish when brought into the light of day. Sometimes we are thick with these childish rivalries like a big noisy family where everyone is fighting for a seat at the head of the table and throwing food at each other. A wild but colorful clan of sorts! It's never too late to develop a few table manners. This said in homage to the late Kathy McGrane who once left me a gift of a book by Miss Manners, which I well deserved in retrospect!

It's  been my experience over the years that when something is emerging with a positive force, this is a fragile moment when all hell breaks loose. The so called Maras love these moments. Remember the story when the Buddha was about to attain enlightenment and the Maras assailed him in full force. What did he do? He sent them missiles of flowers instead of sharp arrows. I would suggest that we too are on the cusp of becoming the Community we are meant to be. Such confusion invites all sorts of negativity and provocation. Nonetheless, we can each hold our shared transmission in the unique manner suitable for each one of us. It's up to us. 

No doubt I am already "preaching" to the choir.  However, the poet in me surrenders to this notion of pure vision in the realm of possibilities spoken so clearly by my favorite poet Emily Dickinson-- here in one of my favorite poems:

I dwell in possibility --
A fairer House than Prose__
More numerous of Windows--
Superior for Doors
Of Chambers as the Cedars
Impregnable of eye
And for an everlasting Roof
The Garlands of the sky
Of Visitors -- the fairest
For Occupation --This
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise --

Poem 466

May all beings discover the paradise of their true nature

Jacqueline Gens
Tsegyalgar East

[photo by Kathleen Fekete, 2016]