Corner View ::: School ::: in Ladakh

After summer break I never really landed in blogland. Also Corner View's first topic "school" cried for skipping.
I'm a teacher and the German school politic is so crazy, I'm not very eager to talk school nowadays. From this summer in Hamburg elementary schools classes on craft, wood, sewing are almost cancelled and on art very reduced. And this is just a minor (though not in my eyes) crazyness.

Thanks to Ian from An Englishman Abroad memories came back to my most exciting teaching experience.

While spending time in the Himalaya in 2004 a friend of mine introduced me to Dr. Tsering Palmo and her Ladakh Nun Association.

Ladakh is the most northern region of the huge state of India. Most parts have the Hindi religion. Ladakh on the other hand is characterized by the Tibetean Buddhism.
The small city of Leh is the capital.

Traditionally most of Ladakhs familiys (and Tibetean at least in former times) send at least one boy to a monastery (called "gompa") to become a monk and get educated. The girls stay home, not being able to read or write and so on.

Dr. Pelmo seeks educations for the girls as well and their chance to study and practice the Dharma (Buddhist wisdom).
She also undertakes the labor of spreading information about health and so on in the tiny villages all over the vast country. Often those villages are hard to reach, only by foot with a duration of days.

During my revisit in 2005 Dr. Pelmo informed me that those were the weeks where she gathered young nuns from those villages. They get English lessons by a native speaker Lady, intense Dharma studies and more.

Dr. Pelmo asked me if I could help out somehow, not knowing that I'm a teacher.
So I offered what I can and organized 3 afternoons of paper craft. My purpose was giving fun to the girls and women and more important, enable them to teach this to the children of kindergarden age in their villages. Because this is what they will be doing.

Folding boxes, hats and ships is not one of the skills to survive, but for sure it lays traces in the brain for further education in all senses.

For teaching I needed all my senses. English was the common language, but not spoken by all.
The candle was not for a cozy atmosphere (with paper around!) but electricity was broken, as it happened every day for some minutes or hours.

Complete concentration.

My adventure was to get the supplies. There is no MacPaper.
This color orgy of pink and yellow for sure was not my fav choice but you use what you get.

The young women mostly enjoyed working the ships. In the middle of the desert part of the Himalaya. I told them storys of Hamburg and the harbour.
Cultur exchange :-)
Proudly the wrote their own name and the name of their villages on the flags.

For the lotus blossoms I got napkins from my daily restaurant. Your eyes might be big by now.
German chocolate Leh! That was the treat for the last day.

With a lot of labor and a lot of love the home of Leh's nuns gets nicer each year (picture from 2005).

Leh is situated some hundreds of meters higher. Down I rode my bicycle. Up I got a lift with the 'school bus', that took the nuns to the Temple for religious studys. The boy just put my bike on the roof.

:::As always money is always appreciated.
If you want to offer something, feel free to follow the first link to Dr. Pelmos page or go to this Dutch site, also in English and German. :::

Little kitten also enjoying the class :-)

Thanks for reading the long post and following me to a very special place on this beautiful earth.



Jane is turning over the hosting of Corner View to other participants. Go to her post for further information.

Blumiger Freitag - flowers on Friday

Allerleihrauhs Blumen scheinen Energie zu spenden und Lucys schicken die Heiterkeit.
Natürlich sind das meine subjektiven Empfindungen.

Ich habe mich inspirieren lassen, mir meine Kamera geschnappt und bin in den Garten gegangen.

:::::Geduld kam mir in den Sinn:::::

Geduld, angesichts der s-teifen Hamburger Brise, die heute die zarte Schönheit bedroht.

Geduld, so lernte ich einmal auf einer buddhistischen Schulung, hilft mit widrigen Umständen umgehen zu können. Vielleicht sogar mit einem kleinen Lächeln auf den Lippen, in den Augen und vor allem im Herzen.

Sunday Morning

This sunday morning



looking for peace
recognizing it



looking for joy
recognizing the beauty in it

Gold for Human Rights

During my Easter vacation travel I already heard the sad news about Tibet on the radio. You all probably know about it.

China (the politicans) is not the only country in the world that isn't valuating the human life (and the nature). Of course the event of the olympics draws the attention to it.
There is quite a lot of information on the net as well as features to express your indignation.
I would like to point out just some possibilities to make it simple.

Amnesty Internatial started their campaign already before the violent strike down of the demonstration of the Tibetean people because what happens in Tibet for many, many years is not the only violation of Human Rights.

The English information page is found here.
In German one can sign a petition online or print it out (pdf-file) and collect signatures to send to AI.

Monday March 31 is Global Action Day for Tibet.

Like in the weeks before there are all over meetings, get-togethers and demonstrations.
Last Wednesday I joined the crowd in Hamburg. It was important, peaceful and heart-breaking to see the participating Tibetan suffer.

For Germany here are all informations.
If you are interested please find out for yourself what happens in your own country. Thank you.
The Hamburg Tibetan Center, where I go to more or less regular for study and meditation, also puts together (in German) current information of what takes place in Tibet and in Germany.

Quote Dalai Lama: "Never give up!"
Here is what His Holiness wrote in an open letter to the Chinese people.
This is the official homepage of the Tibetan Government in Exile.

Thanks for reading.

Good-bye for this year

I wish to all my readers and especially to the people with whom there is a deeper contact with me via comment, email or personal meeting a wonderful Christmas time and a very Happy New Year.
I will spent those special weeks down at the very most south-western point of Europe hopefully in the so much needed sun. My days will be filled with climbing, walking on the beaches and in the hills and discovering some of the Andalusian attractions. Hopefully the last will include fabric, special yarn and other craft shops. The nights will be long. Depending on where I will spent them its either time to curl up in my cozy sleeping bag for a lot of reading (if I don't fall asleep) or knitting on a Christmas present. I also take with me a little hand sewing project.



This year my presents were all packed in little modular origami boxes. The pattern is from Tomoko Fuse. Every once in a while my brain wants to solve the riddles of origami patterns and my fingers itch to touch and fold paper.



I filled up the boxes with Roibush Tea and dark chocolade plus something extra depending on the person. Essence for the oil burner, very good soap from France, a tiny knitted swatch as a teaser for fingerless gloves made of Hundertwasser yarn, one Svarowsky bead as a teaser for a bead-ball.



I love the paper from the background. It was the wrapping paper of a present a friend of mine got - and he was throwing it away!!!!



My mother got her box with a matching bouquet of different white flowers.

Again, have a good time, stay or become healthy!

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,
May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering,
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

Auspicious shell

After quite a while a post for the Bead Journal Project.
My theme for July was already fixed, when I enrolled. Since 1,5 year ago I knew that this July I would travel to Hamburg ;-) for the teaching of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
Finally during the last days I developed a plan of what to bead. As long as it took getting an idea and thinking it through as long it might take to learning how to do it.
First I will tell you about it and if you have any hints I would appreciate them.

Remember my overall topic are bracelets for each month. I will take the golden ribbon from my entrance pass that was hanging from my neck for the week. In the middle I will stich one of the 8 auspicious symbols of the Tibetean buddhism, namely the conch. More about that in another post. I liked very much the design of it, a wonderful modern translation of a very old sign.
The brownish-red outline I will bead. The holography in the middle I will try to embroider. Since I'm a beginner in both techniques it will be kind of a trial for me.
Because I want some of the golden ribbon to show I will only stitch some lines of a opal white on the sides.
I have to figure out quite a bit, mainly the design and than how to transfer it onto the ribbon.

Hopefully I get around doing that and the beginning of the beading and stitching. End of the week I will travel for mountaineering and bicycling. My hands will be too cragged for such a delicate work so I won't bother taking it with me.
I'm already way past schedule and decided that the main part is getting the idea and design fixed for the month.
Today television is showing 5 hours of the public speech the Dalai Lama was giving in Southern Germany today and some documentations. I have recorded them, so I can watch and listen during working on the braclet on the long winter evenings (well, among 1000 other things I plan for them *lol*).

Thubten Chodron in the evening

Each day after the teaching of Dalai Lama there are other programms to go to.
Today I went to the talk of Thubten Chodron, an American buddhist nun. What a lively speech, what an inspiring person. This lady really draws ones attention into her talking.

Dealing with anger - who does not know the situations where one is annoyed, frustrated, even furious.
I can't write down all the explanations for anger and all the remedies she was mentioning. The most important is contemplating about impermanence (everything is changing every moment). This prevents from exaggerated expectations and attachment.

As I found out Thubten Chodron has an expanded homepage. Have a look for yourself if you want to read more: Thubten Chodrons homepage

Dalai Lama in Hamburg

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in Hamburg.
What an honor, what a pleasure!

I've first met him in December 1994 in Dharamsala, where he and the Tibetan people are living in exil. In 1998 he was teaching for a whole week only 25 km away from my home in a tent village build for 10 000 visitors on a former army area. Very special.
This time his teachings are taking place right in the middle of Hamburg in a huge stadion.

He is a untellable wise man and very gentle. His humour is contagious.


Saturday was the starting day of the big event. Although buddhisms is amongst other things about a steady calm mind I was very nervous and very much looking forward toward the event. Thousands of people were moving into the stadion.
Exitment was in the air.


The stadion was packed. My girlfriend and I had fantastic seats with a good view to His Holiness and an overview of everything.

The Dalai Lama was speaking on the psychology of the mind, of global responsibility, of the importance of dialogue to prevent fight and violence, of peace among neighbours, of global peace.
The dialogue between the different religions of the world is very important and their mutual acceptance.

Compassion is the basis for everything.

During those 2 days there were people invited on the podium who are working in projects for peace and human relationsship.



Five days of buddhist teaching will follow from Monday on.

***tashi delek*** (the tibetean greeting :-) )



You can see more and professional done pictures for expemple in these newspapers:
"Spiegel" and "Welt"