From the Land of the Snows to the vast Plains of Africa
Last week Patti (mother of newly ordained Phuntsog, GP teacher and translator in Eshowe) and I visited an area which I had already visited about a year ago called Elamoya (east of Eshowe). Driving there in the truck, we picked up a number of people every few miles, all who were waiting along the road; people from various areas who remembered me from previous visits. Gloria, the lady in the blue T-shirt in the pictures, invited me to come and speak to her community. They so much loved the prayers and Dharma teachings – it was amazing how grateful they were.
This particular community used their local church for our meeting. We engaged in Prayers for Meditation (in Zulu), then I gave a general Dharma talk, a topic that corresponded to specific issues within their community. We discussed teachings about the mind and how to train the mind, had a guided breathing meditation, and then concluded with discussion. All teachings were translated beautifully by Patti into Zulu as hardly anyone could understand any English. One single visit has countless beneficial consequences for the community – they tell me months later after my visits how things improved for them by practicing the Dharma instructions they received.
As with previous visits, the list of requests for visits into different rural areas gets longer; we can’t keep up!
All is well here at Mahasiddha Kadampa Buddhist Centre in Durban, and the Dharma activities are going very well – we thank Venerable Geshe-la for bringing pure Kadam Dharma to Africa.