Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

Dear Glenn,

I can't pretend that I can answer all the questions you've raised -
I'm still digesting your huge and very well written post.

However a couple of points occur to me, having read the paragraph you
wrote here:

--- <Glenn writes> ---
Now, most of my adult life I have been very open to new cultural
experiences, but I have been amazed at how this Tibetan experience has
affected me. I see a society which is mired in poverty by
choice—religious choice. They chose to do the following—spending too
much time and money on:

---<snipped - things Christians used to do in the dark ages> ---

There seems to be an underlying assumption that poverty (even by
religious choice) is a Bad Thing. (If I've misunderstood you, forgive
me). I question that assumption, for a couple of reasons, from stuff
I've read.

The first is a poem "An African Elegy", by the Nigerian poet Ben Okri,
whom I was priveleged to meet at a college dinner once (he had been
made a Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at my old college). The poem
was about poverty (in Africa), yet showed a spiritual richness notably
absent in much of Western life. I found the poem to be one of the
most uplifting things I've ever read:

An African Elegy (Ben Okri)

We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.

There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things.

And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless the things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.

That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.

And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here

And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend.

The second thing of note that I read was the book "Wisdom of the
Sadhu" by Sundar Singh. This book can be downloaded in PDF format
from:

http://www.plough.com/ebooks/wisdomofthesadhu.html

The story of Sundar Singh seems (to me) to reconcile eastern
spirituality with Christianity in a remarkable way. Singh was the son
of a Sikh father and Hindu mother. He was sent to a Catholic school
that was in the old tradition of trying to destroy Indian culture and
replace it with westernised values. As a teenager, Singh was so
incensed that he publicly got a Bible and tore out the pages and
burned them one by one. Then, later in life, he asked God to reveal
himself to him, while threatening to commit suicide by lying under an
oncoming train. A short while before the train arrived he received a
vision, and to his amazement, it was of Jesus. He then devoted his
life to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to his fellow Indians in a
uniquely Indian way - adopting the life of poverty of a Hindu holy man
(a Sadhu). Reading this book (which is a collection of his writings)
made me appreciate once again just who Jesus is and what he has done,
and also connected me with the way Eastern spirituality works. Singh
is able to explain so well what Jesus offers that the religions of his
own culture could not.

I don't offer this as a complete answer to your very valid questions,
but nonetheless I think it's a valuable perspective.

Be warned! Sundar Singh is VERY anti-materialistic, and is quite
scathing about Western values - and would probably have arrived at
much the same conclusion as the Okri poem, that there is richness even
in poverty.

Best wishes,
Iain

-- 
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After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian Proverb
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