[Buddha-l] Iconochasms

[Joy Vriens]

Hoi Erik,

>Let's be honest Joy, you wouldn't call that puja noise music, would you? 
>In my previous Buddhist career I visited Rumtek where the 16th Karmapa  
>lived and discovered that there was an underground culture of folk  
>music. People gathered secretely in hideaway places to listen to the  
>local fluteplayer and singer. Music was a no-no in this Tibetan Buddist  
>world, because it leads the mind away from the dharma. 

That's not my experience. I was in Rumtek the year the 16th Karmapa died. At one point two traveling muscians (Westerners living in India) came by. They called themselves Himala Chu chu Re. A simple armchair was placed in front of the temple for the at that point very ill Karmapa to sit on and watch the show, surrounded by all the monks of Rumtek. It was a very pleasant moment and I enjoyed the simplicity and joy of it, including the Karmapa's who was happy as a child. He explained jokingly that those two artists must have been part of the birds he used to keep.
But that was probably a moment of rest and relaxation. When I stayed at Kalu Rinpoche's monastery at Sonada, the young monks would come to puja in the evening, wearing jeans under their robes. As soon as the puja ended, they got rid of the robes and went into town to watch Bollywood movies. Sometimes they were caught and got beaten with a stick by the master of disciplin. They also told me there was a special police in Darjeeling that would look out for monks in theaters and bring them back to the monastery.

Joy