Harry Potter and the Tale of Gesar of LIng

Well, between writing these posts and carrying on with my staff job as "Head of the Marketplace" I haven't been making all the talks. Today is the last day, so I'm going to make a particular effort to get to everything. But yesterday, I blew in about lunch time. I set up my booth and went to get some lunch. I sat down next to Katherine Zeigler and asked her what was talked about that morning.
She said, "Oh you know, the horse race."
"What horse race?"
"In the story of Gesar of Ling."
"Oh."
Then she said that her husband, Bob, had decided after he heard about Gesar riding the broomstick that with complete confidence in his insight, that Harry Potter must be a manifestation of Gesar of Ling.
"What broomstick?"
"Oh, not a broomstick, just a stick. When Gesar was about 12, he used to play at horseback riding by riding a stick, and then one time he flew off on it."
"Ah, I see, Quidditch."
I saw Bob, so I asked him if this was true. He said, "yes." He really liked Harry Potter and had been reading the stories to his children since they were about 6 and 9, though he was still reading to them and they were now about 14 and 16. Thus began my education on the Tale of Gesar of Ling.

I tried to ask a few people if they'd taken notes, but couldn't find anyone, then, while waiting for the blessing of the space to finish for the afternoon abhisheka on the magnetizing aspect of Gesar, I asked Jim Hoagland if he could tell me a bit about the story and he waxed eloquently on about how it would make a splendid video game, with all kinds of obstacles and action. We got a little distracted with a discussion about how the Vidyadhara would have liked that as he'd talked about having someone do a computer animation of our vajrayogini visualization practice (I heard that myself back in Boulder).

I did finally find Meg Vigerstad who was very kindly willing to lend me her notes on the topic. There are many pages of them, however, and of course, there are whole books on this subject, like the one by Alexandra David Neel -- and more than 17,000 listings on the web for "Gesar of Ling" (and more than 900 for Gesar Mukpo).

I think it's too long to detail here, so I'm just going to list a few highlights. Gesar was born in 1038 in the Earth Tiger Year -- Milarepa was born two years later. It reads as though there was a distinct plot to have Gesar born in particular involving a search for a mother (Gesar's father was already married to a Chinese woman). This involved visiting a Naga King (nagas are water beings), asking for a wish-fulfilling riding crop, a daughter, a cow, and a tent. Evidently, the Chinese wife got jealous and was evicted and given a tent, a cow, a horse, and a dog. Hmm. They lived between two rivers and two villages. One day, Gesar's mother was sad and had a dream wherein Guru Rinoche appeared and gave her a bowl of yogurt. Hmm. Her father rose out of the water and said that something could happen soon, so don't be sad. A yellow man in golden armour appeared and Gesar was conceived. Presumably about nine months later, as the sun was about to rise, Gesar sang a song to his mother asking about the state of Ling and the various ministers and is now a good time to be born? She said, "Things are well and now's good." The earth shook, there were rainbows and gods and goddesses sang and made offerings and Gesar was born as a three-year-old without any pain. Guru Rinpoche gave him his name. He had both a human father and a non-human father (the fellow with the golden armour), who gave him his first clothes. Magyal Pomra appeared and gave the child some beer.

Many other auspicious things happened involving his "aggressive" uncle, who, for example, one time sent 9 blackbirds to kill Gesar. Gesar asked him mother to make him a bow and arrow.He then sat in his mother's lap and shot the birds; then transferred their consciousness's to a pure realm. When Gesa was 6, his mother was expelled from Ling for "alleged bad behaviour." Hmm. He then decided he needed a horse. This is where the horse race comes in. The winner was to be awarded a kingdom, a bride, and treasure. Long tales are involved in how Gesar and his horse, named Dorje kyang-go Perpo (source: Ting, alpha translator) found each other. Needless to say, he won the race after many trials and tribulations, which as Mr. Hoagland said, would make an excellent video game. This race was largely the subject of yesterday morning's talk by His Eminence. I think I will stop this topic here and encourage you to read further from better sources than second-hand notes.

I was however present at the afternoon abhisheka for the magnetizing aspect of Gesar of Ling. There was a period where there was definite feeling of mind transmission such that my mind was gently, but firmly grabbed from its wandering ways and made to pay attention, such that one sits up and the fog clears away, however temporarily, reminiscent to me of the Vidyadhara.

His Eminence spoke about three kinds of faith -- of attraction, irreversible faith, and the faith of conviction -- and told a famous story about an old lady who had a son who travelled a lot to places in Tibet, like Lhasa. She lived in a remote part of the country, and one time begged him to bring back a relic for her shrine. He went off on his journey, came back, having forgotten to bring her a relic. She was very disappointed and begged him a second time. A second time he went off on a trip and forgot until he was almost all the way home. He didn't know what to give her. He then came across a dead dog in the road. He pulled out a tooth and wrapped it up in a piece of brocade. When he got home, he told her it was an eyetooth from the Buddha. She was so happy. She put it on her shrine and prayed to it with total conviction and total faith, and in the fullness of time attained Buddhahood. It didn't matter that the tooth wasn't from Shayamuni Buddha, but because she thought it was, that was sufficient to awaken her. Though, just to be a bit irreverent, perhaps she did realize it and that's what woke her up.

I decided that perhaps I could review my opinion about the feminine principle. As you all know, we've been finely honed in the river of cynicism, particularly encouraged when Trungpa Rinpoche first began teaching us and wanted us to be wary of becoming Tibetophiles, wearing malas around our necks and chubas on our bodies and learning Tibetan, which was why he learned English and had our texts translated at great effort. I was sitting next to Petra Mudie while waiting for the blessing line and we talked a bit about all the potential thoughts that perhaps His Eminence's views on women were somewhat sexist, at least chauvinist (though that has its merits at times). I, of course, had missed Arawana Hayashi's talk. Petra told me that she had met with Khandro Tseying for most of a day and had been surprised when Khandro said at one point in some consternation, "What you don't speak kindly about each other?" Arawana stressed the quality of innocence and compassion in her outlook and that it was completely genuine. His Eminence of course had mentioned that the day before when he was talking about his daughters, in particular Khandro Tseying, and also how they are very learned and assist more than I think they actually teach per se, for example Tsemo Palmo has been assisting the translator, much to the amusement of everyone, because evidently His Eminence speaks quite quickly, doesn't separate his words much, and is rather colloquial in his phrasing.

So, in thinking about that, I decided that perhaps I could give straightforward innocence, compassion, and joy a break and not always have to look for the cynical take.

That's about it for now. We have a talk by the Sakyong this morning I think (if the schedule hasn't changed, a feast this afternoon, and I will get to sing bass with with Shambhala choir this evening at the reception. Heh.

yrs in the Dharma, Fearless Wildflower (aka Carol Johnstone), correspondent for the Chronicles.