Our old friend Prof Lloyd Nick at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, and also Eric and Degii Hatchell of the Tibet Mongolia Museum Society, asked us to send over two Mongolian lamas to particicipate in various of their activities, OUMA in a follow-up program to their Portals to Shangri-La: Masterpieces from Buddhist Mongolia exhibit; and the TMMS in conjunction with serving the Mongolian community in North America, while speaking to American Mongolians on the importance of properly caring for and preserving their family art, much of which pre-dated the Communist destructions of the 1920s and 1930s.
Again we turned to the indefatigable Kuntu Zangpo and Baasan Lama, together with their translator.
All looked well, but a month before their departure Kuntu Zangpo Lama received a letter from the Ninth Jetsun Dampa Rinpoche in Dharamsala, requesting him to come to India for a major religious event that Jetsun Dampa was planning with the Dalai Lama. Our two lamas plus translator became one lama plus translator. (Maybe that’s a lama and a half.)
Glenn met up with them in DC after their arrival, to launch their tour.
Over the next three months Baasan Lama and translator traveled through a dozen US cities. Baasan Lama lectured on Buddhism, gave workshops on Mongolian astrology, and spoke in numerous universities.
He also visited the Mongolian communities and performed Buddhist services for them in DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco Seattle, and several other cities.
His lecture in the Paul Carus Mansion in Ottawa, a small city near Chicago, attracted considerable media attention. Paul Carus was one of the great publishers and editors of Buddhist literature in the late 19th century, and sponsored such Buddhist luminaries as D.T. Suzuki in their writing and teaching work, as well as editing and publishing their works.
A link to Baasan Lama’s event there:
www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=62,3566,0,0,1,0
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| Baasan Lama and Glenn Mullin in DC, Nov 2006 |
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| Baasan Lama lecturing in the Paul Carus Mansion, Ottawa, Ill |
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