Please join me in celebration of this next leg of pilgrimage!

My Dear Friends: I am going back to India! I have only just received a request to teach again at Samtenling Nunnery in Dehradun, where I was in 2008 - 2009. I leave Annapolis in 2 days, heading south to Miami and will return in May, 2011.

The Unity Church of Creative Living (UCCL) is again giving me a platform in which to teach and I am going to be in Jacksonville to facilitate retreat on Friday night OCTOBER 1 and 2. It is so helpful to have a way to articulate the teachings and I am most grateful to this congregation for their generosity and support.

I am making the final arrangements for this next leg of this pilgrimage. Having already given away everything, packing is much easier; having already been to India, the logistics of visa and passport is already completed. This time, I am a paid staff member teaching English to the nuns for a stipend, which is most generous of the Drikung Kagyu Institute and of Namgyal Tahkla, who oversees the operation of our monastery. I will be sending ongoing conversations to Kay who will post them on the blog: NELLIE IN INDIA.

All and all; it has been great and it is the most logical next step. The first time I went to India, I struggled much with my own mind and the fruits of that wrestling is a space inside my chest; just that - a space. I wrote a book called BUDDHIST FOOTPRINTS IN A CHRISTIAN HEART; It contains the journal and contemplations which describe the inner turmoil of facing one’s own mind! How great - for the resultant peace is beyond description, although we write volumes of words describing the wordless; we are a funny species.

In ancient Indian scriptures it is written:

The world is an illusion.
Brahman alone is real.
Brahman is the world.

The first 2 lines are realized as GOD ALONE IS; that is Brahman. The goal of this journey and of my life is to integrate is the third- to then see all as Brahman, as Buddha, as the Christ.

Wish me well, as I do you. I can only wish that we all awaken from this dream of birth, aging, suffering and death and realizing the Truth of our own nature, celebrate in great Joy.

You can easily google DKI Dehradun (Drikung Kagyu Institute) and you’ll find the official website and description of this lineage. The address there is: DKI Nunnery,
PO Kulhan, 248001, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.

The blog is NELLIE IN INDIA. Kay Wolf will manage this and I will send out one more email when I arrive in South Florida, along with Kay’s email address. Until then, I am packing and traveling! I will not be able to send and receive email as we do here; that is why I can send the information to Kay who will post the content; our internet access is limited in the village I live.

I thank each and all of you for your support and for the gifts of your Friendship. May the fruit of this and all journeys alleviate the suffering of all beings, without exception.

Finally, I thank the lama: Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche, for the teachings he gives without words. May I dive into That.

with Love
N