Golgonooza

  My first 'encounter' with Tibet was reading at school Lama Anagarika Govinda's classic account of his journey there in 1948, 'The Way of the White Clouds' where this remarkably gifted man and his wife explore a culture poignantly, unbeknownst to them, on the edge of wrenching change. Amongst much else, their paintings, drawings, and photographs became a unique record of artifacts that were to disappear in the destruction of the Cultural Revolution. If Govinda's works of  Buddhist exposition now raise eyebrows among more straitlaced scholars (though I confess to continuing to love them), no one can, I think, deny his sincerity, enthusiasm, and genuine wisdom - or the role he played in Tibetan Buddhism's transmission to the West.  https://ncolloff.blogspot.com/2011/05/way-of-white-clouds.html My next encounter was a critical illumination. At university, I was reading Tucci's 'The Theory and Practice of the Mandala' and pondering with little succe...

"....from unconsciousness to consciousness, from primitive impersonality to personality and from personality to sanctity which is transcendence, a higher impersonality, the gift of the 'me' acquired, enriched and harmonized by so much labor. And beyond this, there are heights of which it is not opportune to speak, since language has its bounds." (Petru Dumitriu, Incognito) This is one of three quotations that a friend has placed at the head of the manuscript of her proposed (and excellent) book on the German psychologist and spiritual writer, Karl Graf von Durckheim, that I have been re-reading. It reminded me of how we had become friends. Margaret had come to offer a lecture at the annual Eckhart conference in Oxford on Eckhart's profound influence on the development of Durckheim's thought (and as a therapist, practice). After her lucid and illuminating lecture, I found myself sitting next to her at lunch. She had a somewhat daunting demeanor as if she was ab...