We're Going to Tibet! We were attending the yearly 10 day teachings of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche at the seat of His Holiness Karmapa in America, Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery, on Meads Mountain near Woodstock, NY. I was feeling very determined and more committed than ever to applying myself to my practice and studies. I had an intense desire to throw myself into the dharma with abandon, and had various scenarios in mind. I was ready to plunge in and get to work. I felt on the verge of setting the course for the rest of my life. Then one morning I woke up. Michael, my husband, said he had awakened at 4 a.m. with an intense desire to see His Holiness in Tibet. I thought what a huge distraction this would be to my motivation—what a harebrained idea! We didn't speak of it again until we had our brief yearly interview with Khenpo Rinpoche. Among the many ideas and thoughts for our future that we presented to Rinpoche, Michael mentioned, as an aside, his having awakened with this feeling. Rinpoche started to respond to our questions, then stopped, and said, smiling and chuckling a little, "Go and ask these questions to His Holiness." He seemed to feel this was the solution -- the perfect one. How could I but feel the same? After all, this was Khenpoc Rinpoche talking happily about us visiting His Holiness. Just that quickly I knew we were on our way. Still, after we returned to our home, I spent a week in shock. I could not imagine surviving a 14 hour plane trip, with an hour of previous flight, 4 hours of flight after that, plus the layovers -- 24 hours spent in non-stop travel! That would only get us to Hong Kong. After a day's rest, there was a 4 hour plane trip to Kathmandu. I had never flown for more than 4 hours. I had images of our youngest child, eleven year old  Michael Andrew, getting nauseous headaches, diarrhea, finding it difficult to eat, loosing weight from his already too slight frame, and whining for a month as we traveled. I was right, except for the whining. He was, in fact, very brave through his maladies. (Although at one bad moment he did, understandably, exclaim, "I want to go home to my spoiled life.") I had images of me being exhausted, having stomach complaints, and getting motion sickness on the airplanes and the winding mountain roads of Sikkim and West Bengal. Thankfully I was wrong. I was unfamiliar with and very frightened of altitude sickness, with good reason. I did know all too well the special difficulties we would face traveling and relating for a month as an older family of five, under pressure, and in close proximity. Plus, as my family knows very well, getting ready for a trip is one of my least favorite things to do. This was far beyond any "getting ready" I had done before.  So, during that week of shock I could do little but sleep and read Carl Barks "Donald Duck," as I digested the fact that this huge undertaking was before us. I amused myself by imagining Uncle Scrooge, Donald, Huey, Duey, and Louie in Tibet. Meanwhile Michael collected a library of books on Tibet, pored over maps, plotted our course, arranged the trip, ordered gear, made Tibetan/ English phrase cards, and in the evenings he could be heard in his office repeating phrases of Tibetan from the tape recorder. I was disgusted. After that week, I stirred to action and began ordering gear in vast amounts. I got very carried away on hiking boots and must have ordered 10 pairs for myself, looking for the ones that wouldn't hurt.  All the boots, plus the few pairs of shoes I had ordered, took me three hours to lace and try on. It was madness. The return boxes of gear for everyone equaled much more than we took. Karma Drubgyu Tendhar from Rumtek was living next door at the Heart Center then. He would wander in from time to time, as I was poring over catalogs (or sitting among boxes) and say very helpful things like how he had traveled a lot all over India and only took a small bag, and that one could buy whatever they needed in Kathmandu. I began to read about the places we would go, and thrill to them and to thoughts of seeing His Holiness, Gyaltsap, Rinpoche, and Bokar, Rinpoche.   Finally we were down to trying to cram everything into the packs we had chosen. It was a sobering moment. After the sleeping bag went in there was room for little else. One word of advice: don't fill a bag too full or you will struggle the whole trip trying to close it. Somehow we got the necessary items packed; others were left. I still didn't need quite so many clothes and could have left behind a pair of shoes, but that's about it. In fact when we had to return home the first day of our journey because of a canceled flight) I was relieved, because I thought I could really pare down on the amount of stuff I was taking. I repacked everything and only managed to leave a few more items -- not worth the effort. We really used, or needed for emergencies everything else we took. We may have overdone the medicines. I carried homeopathic remedies, herbs, and vitamins. Michael carried allopathic medicines. Kate White, a doctor and fellow student traveling with us, generously made up a first aid kit for us. But one never knows what might occur. We did survive the air trip. It was difficult, although not as terrible as I had imagined. Michael Andrew developed tiny bruises on the sides of his face and his ears were sore from throwing himself around in his seat in annoyance at being unable to sleep.  Babies were crying and kicking the back of Michael's seat all across the ocean. Over-stressed mothers were "losing it." The boring movies were endlessly rolling. The eagerly anticipated terrible airplane food and drink kept being wheeled down the narrow aisles by edgy flight attendants. We kept popping, every two hours, a homeopathic remedy called "No Jet Lag."  The whole tubular, orderly rows of humanity in various states of discomfort and activity were hurtling on, well above the clouds, chasing the sun through space, across time zones, and the international date line on this very long day. The flight was smooth and timely. We were on our way. ...back to the opening page go on to the next story...