New audio update from TA on Pumori.

This is the text of TA’s audio message:

Hi this is TA calling in from Dingboche at 4400 metres.  Its been a day of highs and lows, we’ve just learned of a plane crash in Lukla.  The details are sketchy but it sounds like most lives were lost.  Our hearts are heavy for the families who have lost loved ones.  We were flying into that same airport several days ago weather has been foggy and has been hampering those kinda flights.  Our climbing gear was on the plane behind the one that crashed and was turned back to Kathmandu.  Tim is looking to charter a helicopter to get the gear moving up toward us.  It takes four days once it flies so we may be a base camp for a few days without gear.  We will continue the expedition but we may be a little cold without some of our fluffy clothes.  We are hoping this is the third bad thing to have happened in the last few days so that our luck will change and our expedition can continue on without anymore hitches.

The day began at the opposite end of the spectrum, I almost phoned in and updated at lunch because the blessing ceremony was so moving for me this morning.  Lama Geshi greeted us all by taking our hands and touching foreheads.  Looking into his eyes I saw a depth that defies words as his smile was simply radiant brilliance.  He signed a card for each of us to take to the summit and then printed blessing and threw blessed rice.  We presented him with a Khata, which he then draped over our shoulders and then tied it around our necks and then blessed us.  He seemed to get a kick out of my pink hair cackling wholeheartedly every time we locked eyes.

Buddhist friends had told me the power of meeting an enlighten being but today I wasent prepared for how moved I would be to meet Lama Geshi.  In a heart beat I think I could have abandon the climb and taken him in as my teacher.  Having had my meditation practice in the doldrums for the summer I felt as though I instantly got it.  I saw the purpose of the path in a new and much deeper way.  Lama Geshi presented us with a wishing prayer request to all sentient being that he wrote: 

Give up all intention to harm other from your heart

and do your best to benefit them all

if each and everyone feels an universal responsibility to do so

we will enjoy the feast of peace.

Our lodge keeper, knowing that we were about to recieve a blessing this AM played the classic Ohm Ma-ka-Na Ohm CD that is heard so often in Kathmandu.  After the blessing that mantra came ceasingly and wonderfully into my mind for the rest of the day.

We are here for two nights and have an acclimatization hike tomorrow, and hopefully I can give you more detail about what is unfolding as our expedition plans then.

Thanks so much for your support and I will talk to you tomorrow.

TA