Jeff’s final blog - Return to Boudha

Our return to Boudha was a special ending to a special experience.

Although Cory has hosted many pilgrimages to Nepal, this pilgrimage was special, designed as it was to explore the similarities between Buddhism and Patanjali’s 8 limbs of Ashtanga yoga, 2 of Cory’s 3 great passions, along with travel.

To do so, he recruited Ashtanga guru extraordinaire Tim Feldmann to join the outstanding team of James Hopkins, Sarah McTee and Bidur Ghimire, who have cohosted his prior pilgrimages with him.

An absolutely perfect combination for me. Ashtanga practice has been part of my life for many years and Tim is one of my favorite yoga teachers second only to Ana Hollis, my teacher at Yoga Shala San Antonio.

I’ve been privileged to have attended a number of workshops with Tim practicing Ashtanga in the mornings and studying the sutras of Patanjali in the afternoons. Tim knows his stuff.

And James Hopkins knows his stuff too.
After graduating from Duke, James spent 20 years as an investment banker with UBS before leaving it all behind to take refuge in the Buddha. He’s been living in Boudha since 2004, studying philosophy and language at the monastery, traveling around the world as a Tibetan lama’s assistant, running a social project in an encampment of street beggars, his “Quilt Project”, leading international yoga and Buddhism tours and taking writer groups to Bhutan with his Himalayan Writers Project.

It was fascinating, educational, stimulating and so fun to listen and learn during our study sessions as Tim and James and Cory compared, contrasted and debated the teachings of the Buddha and those of Patanjali.

And each morning James would lead us in “noble silence” as we practiced object focused mediation before we had our Mysore practice with Tim.

On our final evening together, James hosted a social for us at his apartment along with several young women from his “quilt project” who were among the first to proceed to higher education. It was inspiring to get to spend time with them.

James’s apartment is super cool, two stories with a beautiful interior staircase, balconies and a practice room with a view of the stupa.

I’ll treasure for years to come the quilt made by the families in James “Quilt Project” knowing that in a small way, I helped these young women and others.

And then we had a wonderful final banquet with traditional Nepali food at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the stupa.

Our final morning together was special because rather than Mysore practice, Tim guided us in the primary series. It was awesome to feel our combined energy, moving together and breathing in unison as Tim called out the asanas, counting in Sanskrit.

But most special of all, after practice Cory and Sarah brought in long strings of Tibetan prayer flags and markers so we could write names on them. Cory and Sarah had arranged with the monks at the monastery to hang them from the top of the stupa at the conclusion of their morning puja.

Blue represents sky, red is fire, green is water and yellow is earth. The white prayer flags representing air are reserved for the names of those who have gone before us.

Before returning to the hotel to pack my bags, I walked around the stupa a number of times, circumambulating slowly with my right shoulder (sacred side) to the structure, reciting the mantra, spinning the prayer wheels and crying, overcome with the realization that within the hour, my wife’s name would be carried aloft by the wind, along with aspirations for compassion and wisdom, and spread to peoples and places far and wide.

So yes indeed, for me, it was all a very special experience, a wonderful trip, a great adventure, a spiritual pilgrimage!

Thank you Cory; and Tim; and James; and Sarah; and Bidur; and all my fellow pilgrims.

The divine light that resides within me honors, respects and admires the light that resides within each and every one of you!
Namaste . . .