Back to India!

Dear Friends,
We arrived in India about a week ago. We have a couple of old friends
in town who live here and understand how hard it can be just to put
your bags down and relax. They've made it much easier. One of your
fellow students Peggy just arrived today and illustrates just how hard
it can be. Her plane set down at 11:00 pm and she got out of the concourse
and looked around. However our driver whom we always use--Manohar could
not find her and she couldn't find him. So she proved to be very resourceful
and managed to rent a taxi to drive her 3 hours to Mysore then she rented
a rickshaw that overcharged her by ten times to get her to the Shala. Sharath
was there and she asked for me and he put her in the room we rented for
her across the street. Needless to say she was a little discombobulated.
She's sleeping now, but she lives just next to Vivien who is a Taiwanese
woman who runs a restaurant in Gokulum. Today she made Tsampa, which
is a lovely Tibetan fresh bread. I've got a few pictures here that I thought might
interest you. I will post again after I get a good photo of us with Peggy. : - )

the Austin saga

Dear Friends,

We've left New York now. We had a great time in the big city. Many of our friends are there and we were able to catch up and renew our camraderie.

The most flexible woman I have ever met owns a dachshund. She took us to a dachshund ralley and we raced her dappled dachshund. Unfortunately she came in third, but still ate my sandwich.

We later went to the Empire State building and it snowed fantasticaly. We have decided that we love the Chinese pug dog. This lady, without any sense of how unfair or materialistic she was, had three while we have none. I think it would be better if we all had one each, don't you?

This fellow here with the sash is our friend Greg Kinsey. He is on the board of Asian Art at the Smithsonian institute. He has a vast collection of Chinese and Japanese art and pottery. He was recently awarded by the Japanese Emporor for service to Japan. He is one of the only westerners licensed to teach the tea ceremony in Japan.

We've now moved on to Texas where our sole responsiblity is feeding these 12 golden retriever puppies twice a day. It takes about four hours.

Love to you all. Rusty and Sally

New York State of Mind

Hiya folks,

We're in New York still. We were very bemused to get an e-mail from Ethan. He sent us a photo of himself with Guruji. Very sweet. Sally and I seem comfortably over our cold and now are in the clear with the whole volcanic mucous eruption that overwhelmed our senses and sinuses.

We're having a really nice time now catching up with our friends. My best friend from Graduate school is here. She was also my best man at our wedding. A little strange, but I didn't have any male friends that were available. Her name is Jenny Maloney and her dad died last weekend. He had a very peaceful death. His wife told him that it was alright and that he could go. And he did. He just went a few minutes later.

Sally and I have been studying with Robert Thurman-- who was the very first westerner to take the Tibetan Buddhist vows and to receive the 126 precepts from Tenzen Gyatso the current Dalai Lama. He told us a story about how in the first Star Wars movie Obi Wan Kenobi can feel a disturbance in the force. That disturbance is the death of billions of people frightened of destruction as the Death Star blows them away. That kind of death where you shield yourself and hide is the kind of experience that causes us to be reborn hiding and protected. So we end up being reborn as a crab, or a rhino, or a cockroach scurrying around. Literally, we are choosing a rebirth to become a Sherman tank ready to fight back.

However, if we can receive death peacefully with joy and open arms then our next life will be one where we can search for the buddha with an open heart. And that death is one that calms the waters for other rebirths in every direction. It is a gift.

So I told Jenny's mom how pleased I was that Jimmy Maloney had a peaceful death. That it was important. She agreed and we had a little cry together and then went and got something to eat.

Dear Friends,

We've laned in NY. Bit of a rough landing actually. Both Sally and I inherited some kind of Flucold. I've included a picture here. We've started teaching at Guy's again as he is Mysore. In the meantime we made it down to Austin where we celebrated X-mas again with the Fam. I've included a picture of my brother and his daughter. Much love to you all. I am going back to my new best friend--my bottle of nyquil.

The last night in England

Hi everybody,

I'm on the phone with my mom as she talks to her neighbors. I'm sure we all have relatives like that. Tomorrow we fly to NY and see my old mentor Guy. Then we'll fly to Austin and do another workshop there at Yoga Yoga. The workshops seem to be going very well. People generally seem to be exhausted to the point of delerium. Though I do hope to teach them something about Tantra. Breathing with sensation in hatha yoga (not pain mind you.. pain teaches you to stop hurting yourself-- I mean stretching and working) can help us to accept discomfort in our life. Of course discomfort and dissatisfication with our daily life is a sure bet. If you can accept that you can really start to enjoy life. Just enjoy smiling... just enjoy the way your hands feel on the seat of the car.

Christmas Story

Hello all,

I heard from one of our students that so many students were coming to see Gladys, Axl, and Takei that Space was going to find a bigger room. We didn't know there was a bigger room. Well... Merry Christmas to you. We're spending the evening watching ballroom dancing and Doctor Who on the telly.

The last two weeks

Dearest Students,

Brrrrrrrr.. wow is it cold here. It's not helped by the fact that it gets dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. (pitch black by 5) And, finally the sun comes out at 8 AM! So, mostly we sleep a lot like little hamsters. I have to apologise for this late post, but will endeavor to post more regularly from here on.

We left Space Dec 2nd. That night we slept at the KDM and really didn't sleep as a party of Americans were watching football from 12 to 3. The next morning exhausted already we flew to HK. However our moods were uplifted by spending the day with a lovely woman Eng Eng who is a good friend of our student Annie. We had a wierd Lebanese fusion Italian health food meal with her coworker Andreas (They run the Mysore class at Pure Hong Kong-- I've known Andreas for a while) Spent two hours drinking coffee with him called Annie from HK and then we acccidently met Patrick from Pure on the street. He seemed chummy. Later that evening we flew to London and slept for the majority of the 13 hours.

In England we made our way to Oxford. This fellow Ian MacDonald runs a program there. He met Danny Paradise in 1983 and has been in love with Ashtanga ever since. His program is a visiting teacher community really. Once every two months a senior Ashtanga teacher comes through and all the students in the neighborhood come out of their Hobbit holes and attend. If it is someone famous, gregarious, and charming they get a big crowd. Someone like John Scott for example makes a big splash.

We were very pleased by the turnout: 30 people on average. The most Ian had ever had for a first time workshop. Needless to say we were invited back for next year. We then spent the following week running the Mysore program for a junior teacher who was looking for juice for her own practice. She was lovely. Yasmin was her name and she had a very deep, balanced practice and worked very hard. She was a very good listener as well, which many Westerners find very hard to do. In that they want to "do their own thing" or move "to their own ryhthm." This makes teaching very difficult.

We're down in Brighton now at Sally's sister's home. Emily is a very good host and we're doing our best to chip in around the house. We're running our old Mysore program in Brighton in the morning. I've included some photos and I will post in two days time.