May 9th...Hoist....

Today our goal was to get the hoist mounted so we can lift the sandpot and sand up to the platform we built last week. We thought we had a plan....but...

As it turned out, we did get scaffolding erected, a pole mounted, the hoist secured and a pallet attached. Sounds great, except the pallet lands below the level of the platform. We'll have to work on it some more. Norbu wants to add another tier of scaffolding, but that's a tough job getting the pieces up there (you literally carry it up the scaffolding itself, as you climb it, not a steady feeling for us not-so-lean folks. : ) The third tier was a real challenge, and going up another level would take it near the level of the tree branches. We'll see. It could be we use buckets one at a time for the sand instead. I think getting the pot up will be easy enough but the sand will be tediously time consuming if we can't do entire bags...again, we'll see what we work out. Our deadline for getting the Stupa sandblasted is a week from today! So the pressure is on to get past this building phase and get on to some blasting...

My camera did die today, after staggering through one last round of photos (almost, it just wouldn't do anymore after a while). I knew I needed a new camera so I was ready (there is an advantage to those "reward cards" after all). We'll see how it does tomorrow... : )

It was great to see folks come out to visit today! Always a surprise to see how many come out just to walk the land, see the temple and the Stupas.

Behind the scenes much is being done as well, planning paint purchases, sand purchases, and fund raising strategies. It's all moving along...slower than we hoped, but moving along steadily. It is always amazing how it works...even today we had a guy, who was clearly not Buddhist, lend us an aluminum pole to secure our hoist. He didn't even get our names or contact info, just asked us to bring it back whenever we're done with it...and we really needed it! Thanks Gordon, by this merit may all your aspirations be swiftly fulfilled!

So I'll leave you all with that short story for tonight. The Stupas are miraculous, and if you're sincere, you'll get what you need to serve them, sometimes in completely unexpected ways!

Remember that the Stupas exist only for the benefit of beings, and their blessings require no knowledge or understanding, even a slug can have the seed of enlightenment planted firmly in their mind just by touching a Stupa by accident. Thus, there's no pre-requisites for visiting the Stupas! They're here for you! Who ever you are, whenever you need them! 24 hours a day, always. If you come while we're working, we promise to stop and let you circumambulate, make offerings or say prayers. We're doing all this work to preserve them for you, so beings for many generations may enjoy their limitless blessings!