2-11-11 ELLA ARRIVES...WELCOME ELLA

http://www.youtube.com/user/hiphopcooking

TIBETAN NEW YEAR FOR THE METAL RABBIT AND BABY WARMER

The Year of the Metal Rabbit

The year of the Metal Rabbit promises to bring some much needed peace and tranquility. If you are like most people, you probably feel like you were on a roller coaster in 2010, the year of the Tiger. That will generally not be the case in 2011, as the Rabbit is everything the Tiger is not.

Let there be peace, and let it begin with me is the Rabbit motto. The Tiger makes waves, but the Rabbit mends fences. Diplomacy reigns. If you want to improve your chances of success, you most often want to negotiate and cooperate rather than try to force your ideas and methods on others. It’s also a time to kiss and make up. Forgive and forget. Let’s all get along. Make love not war. If last year the emphasis was on excitement, it now is on harmony.

This does not of course mean there will be heaven on earth. You can find good and bad in every year. Still, looking back at the last reign of the Metal Rabbit, it’s hard to deny there were significant, Rabbit-style developments. In April 1951, for example, the Treaty of Paris was signed, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. This was the first of several organizations that eventually became the European Union. A significant event in Asia in July was the beginning of armistice negotiations that eventually led to the end of hostilities on the Korean peninsula. And, in September, Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed a mutual defense pact (ANZUS).

The Rabbit is also very much about good taste and refinement. In March Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I began a three year run on Broadway. In July Judy Garland opened the first of 14 concerts in Dublin, Ireland, at the Theater Royal, and Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland premiered in London. In October An American in Paris premiered in New York and went on to win six academy awards. One of America’s classiest actresses, Audrey Hepburn, began her route to fame in November, as the lead character in the Broadway play, Gigi. In December the movie African Queen, starring Audrey and Humphrey Bogart premiered in Hollywood.

Self indulgence is another Rabbit theme. By all means go to the theater, spend time at the spa and patronize those great restaurants you love. On the other hand you do want to be careful about not overdoing it. And, you can bet the Rabbit will put lots of temptation in front of you.

This is especially true if you belong to the Rabbit’s group, that is, your sign is Rabbit, Sheep or Pig. These, however, are the people most likely to have a great year. If you are one of them, make an extra effort to follow your dreams, seize opportunities, and enjoy the moment. Other signs with excellent prospects this year include the Ox, Tiger, Snake, and Dog. Those that might want to hold back a bit include the Rat, Horse, Monkey, and Rooster.

There is a common theme here. Active people who always seem to be on the go are likely to be unhappy with the Rabbit’s leisurely pace. They can find themselves in trouble if they try to move faster than the prevailing one. The Tiger, being the Yang to the Rabbit’s Yin, can still do well by modifying its style. This year the cautious, slow but sure approach is likely to win the day more than a charge ahead one.

The question, then, is what to do in a so-called, peaceful year? Education, for one. Leisurely travel could also provide a nice experience. That means the museum circuit as opposed to trekking the Himalayas. And, pursuing your hobbies, be they ballroom dancing, bridge or gardening is a very Rabbit thing to do and will bring you many happy moments.

The Rooster is the sign most likely to encounter difficulties this year. If this is your sign, you are probably feistier than your friends and family. Your love of debate, nitpicking attention to detail and argumentative side all run contrary to the Rabbit’s fundamental, peacemaking nature. If you can’t keep this tendency under control, you may feel you are frequently trying to swim upstream as you pursue your goals.

So far it’s been all about the Rabbit. The fact that 2011 is a Metal year is almost as important---and for two reasons. Since this is a Metal year, those people born in an Earth one will generally fare better than others of their animal sign, while those born in a Wood one are likely to do worse. It’s also slightly negative for those born in a Fire year and mildly positive for Water sign people. Finally, those born in a Metal year will be in their element and do well if their animal sign is compatible with the Rabbit but could run into lots of confrontations if not.

The second reason is the Metal Rabbit is not that cuddly, soft, little ball of fur you see in the pet store. Metal gives this bunny a competitive, aggressive side. It is cold, sometimes insensitive, oh so different from the Rabbit. The Metal Rabbit, then, is the most unlike the other five breeds of this sign. So, there will be some confusion from time to time in 2011. What will predominate at any given moment, the gentle Rabbit or steely Metal?!

Thanks to the Rabbit, this is a Yin Metal year, so steel may be too strong a word. There could be some aggressiveness when it comes to fighting for a cause, but it is not likely to be a dominant attitude. Yin Metal is also more thoughtful in contrast to its Yang counterpart that often pushes ahead without thinking. And, under the Rabbit’s influence, there is more empathy and sensitivity with only the occasional lapse.

A final word. The Rabbit should give most of us an opportunity to pause and catch our breath after a hectic 2010. It’s a time for peacemakers to shine. But, it will have a metallic edge to it. From time to time aggressiveness will suddenly materialize and disrupt the peace. For those who revel in a slow pace, however, it promises to be a most enjoyable time.

So, in the spirit of the Rabbit, peace be with you.

HAPPY LOSAR

HIP HOP COOKING at LuLu.com

  Hip Hop Cooking By Annette Adams  AT

Paperback: $17.00

GOSSIP REHAB: How To Stop Gossip.................(DR. PHIL, MAYBERRY, OPRAH AND ELLEN) available NOW AMAZON.COM or Lulu.com (author Annette Adams) IF THEY GOSSIP TO YOU THEY WILL GOSSIP ABOUT YOU...FOR PEOPLE 14-80 YRS. OLD... GO TO AMAZON.COM or LULU.COM AND ORDER YOUR COPY

AVAILABLE SOON ON AMAZON.COM or  lulu.com (author Annette Adams)
If they gossip to you ... they will gossip about you...THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE GOSSIP
IN YOUR WORLD OR IN YOUR CHILD'S LIFE

PREPARE TO DIE: GET YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER (Design your funeral) TO ORDER YOUR COPY GO TO LULU.COM AVAILABLE NOW on LuLu.com Annette Adams, Author

My Days At Green Gulch Zen Center for 25 years

Monday, February 8, 2010

GREEN GULCH ZEN CENTER AND ORGANIC FARMS where I spent 2-3 mo. retreat per year (cooked there and love their kitchen and wok the size of a house) for a couple of decades + (some years I went to other center's)

Green Gulch Zen Center and organic gardens at Muir Beach
The regular daily schedule for Practice Period students begins with two periods of sitting
 meditation starting at 5:00 am (wake-up at 4:25). After breakfast, all residents gather for 
work meeting, and work until noon service in the zendo. In the afternoon, Practice Period 
students work for one hour then have a break until study hall at 4:00 pm, followed by 
meditation, service, and dinner with the community. The evening schedule consists of 
either two periods of meditation, or a class, or lecture. The day ends at 9:00 pm.
In addition to the regular daily schedule, there is a half-day sitting once a week. 
Two one-day sittings and a seven-day sesshin (meditation intensive) are also part of each 
Practice Period at Green Gulch. There are a number of ceremonies, classes, lectures, 
and events which all members of the community are invited to participate in. 
1. No expectations
2. Faithful daily practice is enlightenment
3. No sticking to any teaching; there is nothing special to do or understand, every moment is always new (this Suzuki Roshi expressed in the phrase "beginner's mind")
4. Zazen is the most important thing in our practice and true Zazen is our whole life
5. Kindness and toughness are not two different things
6. A close and loving relationship with a teacher
7. Whole heartedness in all activity
8. Pay close attention to the details of form, for true freedom is found there...Soto
My teacher, Jiryu is below.  He is the author of "Two Shores of Zen"...the only monk who gives me the rope long enough to think my way...Zen-Lite.  My way is also the more practical form of Zen in the outside world.  How to deal in daily life when I get up when I wake up and then I Sit 
At the bottom of this post you will see my teacher, Jiryu, and under him the bee hives
During our practice period our group sang "Save The Bee's" to the bee shrine I made 
to the tune of "Let It Be"...

     

  My Teacher Jiryu

The BeeKeeper, Alan Hawkins

Alan has not added any favorites yet!

Alan, add your favorite posts here!

palgyal jonangpa takten shadrup choeling

Madeline and Alex at Laura Ziskins Birthday Party and THE RANCH

READ PAGE 2 OF THIS BLOG (OLDER POSTS) IT HAS SOME COOL ASPECTS OF MY LIFE

Annette Adams The man I love

Photo of the Day

His Holiness the Dalai Lama wearing a souvenir cap from the winter olympics in Vancouver that was pr...esented to him by a student. His Holiness is signing a book during a break in the Delhi teachings, March 20th, 2010.

Photo of the Day

By:Dalai Lama

My parents gave birth to 9 daughters (9 is a Tibetan lucky number but we are not Tibetan)

Michele, Suzanne, Annette, Kathleen, Karen Marie, Jacqueline, Debbie, Jennifer and Sheila
The above names are the order in which we were born...not the order of the photo
Growing up in a family of 9 girls is living in a laughing crowd.  2 sisters gone now.

I owned (still own but it's in retirement) THE REALLY CHILE FESTIVAL in Santa Fe,NM

 
At THE REALLY CHILE FESTIVAL I had a Frida Kahlo Beauty Contest
The festival was supported by The Dept. of Agriculture and the governor of NM
proclaimed it a day HONORING THE NEW MEXICO CHILE...
The Lowrider car desk below the Frida winner's is by Lowrider Nic of El Rito
(a Santero:carver of the saints)
The desk is made from a car and has a dvd player in it...yes, it rolls

"I always felt as though I walked the edge of a knife, afraid to fall
off. So what? What if you do fall? I would rather be doing something I
really wanted to do." ~ Georgia O'Keefe

Thailand, land of unusual pointy and glittery architecture, Tiger Monks and and Emerald Buddha with food shopping on the river in boats

  

I was in a sea of saffron robes at a Buddhist monk "sit in"

I ate black jello cubes for vitality...I think seaweed

             

About 50,000 people gathered in Bangkok on Sunday, to take part in a protest against Thai Prime Minister 
Thaksin Shinawatra.

                    

Tiger Monks

Guatemala full of color and colorful friendly people and then...Belize you'd better Belize it...underwater beauty...Orchidia Island (full of orchids)...

MAJNU KA TILA (OLD DELHI, INDIA) What was once a Tibetan refugee camp is now a down with shopping, restaurants and delish food with plenty of Tibetan monks to make you feel safe in India (rare opportunity) rooms cost around $10.

  
I spent one month in Majnu Ka Tila and would go back in a hearbeat
The lanes are lined with  a Tibetan market,  hotels and restaurants.  
It is the go to place for Tibetan monks.

One can book travel there or go to the Tibetan Temple.
Everything you need is there as it is a town inside a city.
If you want to  spend more $ go to Khan Market in New Delhi.
Watch out for the shoe shine guys who will toss monkeydung
on your shoes so they can charge you to clean them (in town)
with monkeys running around everywhere.  
Great MoMo's to eat...and then I left for Menri Monastery

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Santa Fe Woman is 'toy Lady' to Tibetan Orphans
Consultant has spent two months in India helping Tibetan orphans

By ANNE CONSTABLE | The New Mexican

Young monks pose for a photograph at the Menri Monastery in northern India. - Photo courtesy of Annette Adams

Annette Adams, a fine-art consultant who has lived in Santa Fe for 30 years and who has practiced Zen Buddhism for nearly as long, is in her second month at the Menri Monastery in northern India where she is helping to care for Tibetan orphans.

The monastery is dedicated to the preservation of the Bön religion, Tibet's oldest spiritual tradition. At the monastery, some 200 monks undergo nine years of religious training that includes philosophy, logic poetics, astrology, the languages of Zhang-Zhung and Sanskrit, medicine, ritual and meditation.

The monastery also supports two orphanages.

"Not unlike the tribes of New Mexico, their culture is rich in ancient tradition," Adams wrote in an e-mail from Dolanji, India.

A few years ago Adams met Tempa Dukte Lama, who studied at the Menri Monastery and now leads retreats with Joan Halifax at Santa Fe's Upaya Zen Center. He asked Chongtul Rinpoche, founder and president of the Bön Student Welfare Trust and a teacher at the Bön Dialectic School, if Adams could go to the orphanage to study and work.

On Dec. 26, Adams said, 21 children, ages 5 to 10, arrived at the monastery from Tibet and Nepal after a six-week journey. While they were waiting to meet His Holiness, Lungtok Tempa'i Nyima, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Bön religion, Adams said, "I handed out gum and cricket cards. They were so appreciative. They formed a line and were taught how not to toss the wrappers on the ground as they had done with their eggshells in the morning."

Adams said one of the new children told her about waiting six weeks to cross the border. "His command of the English language is extraordinary. He spoke of how relieved he was to be here and excited to see his new school."

She is teaching the woman who escorted the children how to write her name and read. And, she said, she bought a book bag for a 12-year-old who will start school in a month.

They receive an excellent education, she said, in Tibetan language and history, English, art, math and astrology and spend their free time playing marbles and cricket.

The children are very polite, she said. "When they received their four marbles (my favorite gift to give), they bow and thank me," Adams said.

"I am known as the 'toy lady' because I buy the cricket bats and balls and marbles and hats. But, in reality, the gifts come from (Santa Fe friends) Anne Parker (who taught Adams about the Bön religion) and Joe Schepps (a local developer)."

Her day begins early with mediation at her shrine and reading about the Bön religion, Adams said. After tea, she goes to see what needs to be done.

In an e-mail in late December, Adams wrote, "Today I brought water-filtering sets I bought for the dispensary and met three monks who had been hit by a truck while coming from Nepal on a bus. They had broken bones and were not feeling well."

While looking for someone to give the water filters to she walked into the monastery's medicine room where, she said, "there were thousands of pieces of incense and jars of herbs and Tibetan medicines."

During the last week of December, Adams wrote, the monks go to the monastery temple for daylong chanting, which culminates Dec. 30 with the lighting of 1,000 candles.

But the highlight of her visit was on Christmas. She and Sandia Douglas, another volunteer, were cooking a vegetarian dinner when "His Holiness walked in and sat in this small kitchen and talked with the two of us for an hour. He told us stories and chatted. This man is equal to the Dalai Lama, and there I was in his presence. It was lovely."

"They really need a complete set of clothing for play," Adams said.

Unfortunately, mailing packages is risky.

"I mailed myself two boxes," she said, but they arrived without the clothing they originally contained.

"They left me no clothing, just my books," she said. "Little did they know that I prefer the books, but it was the children who needed the clothing. Poverty mentality is everywhere."

Menri Monastery in the very north of India

Among the many Tibetans who fled their homeland since the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959, many are Bonpo, followers of Bon, which is the oldest spiritual tradition of Tibet. Bonpo believe their culture to have originated in the land of Olmo Lungring (located in a larger country referred to as Tazig, a region probably to the west of present-day Tibet) and that it flourished as it moved eastward through the Kingdom of Zhang Zhung, which made up much of what is now western Tibet. The ancient roots of Bon religion derive from a profound respect for nature and emphasize the healing of physical and environmental as well as spiritual afflictions. As Indian Buddhism was being established in Tibet, many native Bon elements were incorporated into the incoming religion, resulting in a distinct religion known today as Tibetan Buddhism. In turn, Buddhist influences are abundantly evident in Bon religion as it currently exists. The two religions are distinct in many ways but share a strong and identical commitment to bringing an end to all suffering. Although they trace their origins to ancient times, Bonpo practice a living doctrine dedicated to perpetuating the teachings of their founder Tonpa Shenrab, who occupies a preeminent position in Bon culture similar to that of Sakyamuni in Buddhism. Tonpa Shenrab's teachings are collectively known as Yungdrung Bon or the "tradition of Eternal Wisdom" and include the Nine Ways of Bon that outline the laws of cause and effect on the path to spiritual liberation. Bon monasteries have survived throughout Tibet despite long periods of persecution. H. H. the Dalai Lama's recognition of Bon as the native religion of Tibet and one of its five core spiritual traditions is an important acknowledgement of Bon's significant role in Tibetan history and current affairs.   H. H. 33rd Menri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima

The Menri Monastery