Alan Clewley
Telford, UK
List Owner and co-moderator
Personal Homepage

"I've been interested in Buddhism for some years, but in 1996 I had the opportunity to attend a talk by His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his visit to Britain. I was very moved by this, and it confirmed a nebulous, but already forming attraction to the Tibetan form of Buddhism, and in 1997 I found my teacher at Karma Ling, Birmingham. I have had the wonderful opportunity to attend teachings there by Ato Rinpoche, and I took refuge with Lama Lodro in 1998. I am currently practicing Ngondro.

Although the majority of my training is in Psychology and Counseling I now work for my family's Accountancy practice in IT, Accountancy, and Human Resource Management. I have formerly worked as a traveling food vendor following Grateful Dead concerts, a Chef, a Head Waiter, and as a Builder. My wife & I share our home with 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 cockatiels, and live in Telford, UK,  where I settled in 1988, having spent the prior 12 years living in Massachusetts, USA."

Wayne Bonner
Florida, USA

I meditated with the Tampa KTC center for a full year before taking refuge with Bardor Tulko Rinpoche.  It's been another two years since then of (almost) daily Shamata practice, Thursday night Chenresik, and Sunday morning Green Tara practice.

Hard to say what led me to this oasis of being.  Nothing unusual in my background - a lot of Alan Watts and assorted mental lubricants in the late sixties, a return to my Methodist roots in the seventies, a lot of dedicated Japanese karate in the seventies and eighties, then a dry spritual spell that ran into the mid nineties.

Next, some pycho-theater work led to an astonishing dream in which I disolved in the Living Waters.  Shortly afterward I switched from karate to Taoist tai chi, which got me back into occasional meditation.  A few years later I saw a notice in Tricycle about a Tibetan Buddhist group in Tampa and attended a few practices.  I was in love with Krishnamurti at the time and a lot of the Tibetan practive seemed to contradict the personal independence so important to K.  But I'd also learned to reserve judgement, so I became a regular.  And guess what!  I've started to find a personal faith in the Guru that works for me.  Some of the simplest things I was told three years ago seem totally reasonable now.

I know this is my path.  The lessons of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' are as valid as ever - it's our responsibility to maintain our own vehicle.  Not to invent it or create it, but to put the effort into learning how to perfect it.  I look forward to many more years on the cushion because I have confidence in the Kagyu teachers.  As strange as it is to hear myself say, I really do have perfectly reasonable confidence in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
 

Roger Garin-Michaud
France
Personal Web Site

"I've been in touch with the Buddhadharma in the present lifetime since July '77 when in Dharamsala I met my friend (a brother today) Lama Thubten Nyandack. I gather people could label me a Gelugpa since Thubten Nyandack's monastery of Dip Tsechokling is Gelug and I received my first teachings from Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche in Kopan Gompa during the Nov/Dec '77 course and took refuge with them and received my first initiation (Jamyang Marser) from them.

Which is not to say that I never had any contact with any one from the Kagyu lineage, far from it. In fact I was at the Kagyu Ling Chateau de Plaige here near Lyon (well in fact about 150 ks from here) in '78 and helped a bit build the first Buddhist stupa in Europe. I received a few initiations and teachings from Kalu Rinpoche and Situ Rinpoche in Geneva (Switzerland) at the beginning of the '80s. Then I moved with my wife to Australia to join my brother in Darwin, then moved to Melbourne where I studied at the FPMT's Tara Institute for a few years. Then I had the opportunity of doing a BA/Asian Studies at the Australian National University at Canberra and did three years of Sanskrit/Hindi/Religions and History of India as my three majors with two years of classical Tibetan and Urdu as minor units. All of this while teaching French Foreign Language at Alliance Francaise de Canberra and then the Canberra Institute of Technology.

I mentioned that I am married (my wife Edith was born in , Karnataka, South India and therefore while with the family in law there we had the opportunity to go to the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe and visit Sera and the various Tibetan monasteries rebuilt in South India, and to meet as well Lama Osel, the current reincarnation of Lama Thubten Yeshe). We have three wonderful boys, Ananda-Adrian age 14, Atisha-Alexandre age 10, and Ashoka-Andrew age 7, and as a proud father I am happy to tell they are doing well at school. "
 

Alex Wilding
Kilbarry, Ireland
List co-moderator
Homepage

"I started off this life in 1948, got educated, worked as engineer, teacher, FE lecturer, electronics engineer again and now translator from German to English. I lived a lot in the English midlands (count myself really as a Birmingham lad) but also Hamburg for six years (where I learnt German), and a couple of years in Wales. Last October I moved to a cottage on a hill in the south-west of Ireland. (You can see pictures under http://homepage.tinet.ie/~wilding/kilbarry.htm if you really want.)

I took refuge in 1974 at what is now Marpa House near Saffron Walden - in those days it was called Kham Tibetan House. I was a more regular visitor to the Birmingham centre for some years. In 1979 I did an MPhil at Leicester University, with a thesis on "Initiation in Tibetan Buddhism". While in Hamburg I was quite active on the organisational side, and managed the Kagyu Summer Camp in Alsace for three years, which was fun, although three years is long enough! I was lucky enough to go with about 20 other students to Benchen in Kham (plus Beijing, Tsurphu) in 1992, and I've been to Kathmandu a couple of times.

I count myself as very fortunate to have received teachings from some famous lamas. I just have to put it all into practice."
 

Bill Williams
New York, USA

Member, New York City Karma Thegsum Choling. Member, Steering Committee, MAITRI DORJE: A Society of Gay and Lesbian Buddhists