THE CIRCLE OF  UNITED TRADITIONS

In the month of March 1997 we received the information that Nadia Stepanova and Where the Eagles Fly had been invited to an interreligious meeting organized by Lama Denys at Karmaling in France during the visit of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
A few days later we went to France to meet Lama Denys to talk about the presence of the Buryatian delegation and Nadia Stepanova's participation at the meeting.
Karmaling is a very beautiful place, close to Chamonix, near the French Alps. The day we arrived spring had burst out. Lama Denys was very busy, but was able to meet with us and we spent some very pleasant hours together with him. He told us of how difficult it had been to contact some of the representatives of the ancient religious traditions.
In particular he told us about the hardship they went through trying to reach the village of Monte Wambile, Chief of the Rendile tribe in Kenya. The woman who had gone to invite him to the meeting had traveled through 1500 Km of forest and once there she had presented herself with a khadak, a traditional white scarf, in one
hand and a picture of H.H. the Dalai Lama in the other. The Rendile Chief observed the picture and then started to dance to the rhythm of a chant that said: Dalai-Lama, Dalai-Lama.
The 23rd of April we were driving together with Nadia Stepanova and her husband Nima Pourboev towards Karmaling, all very anxious to meet H.H. As we were arriving Nadia Stepanova told us that when we would be in the presence of H.H. the Dalai Lama and listening to his teachings we shouldn't worry about the translation of his words.
She told us we must learn how to listen going beyond the meaning of the words:
"…when a person of the importance of the Dalai Lama teaches, we must learn to listen to his voice, to the sound, the quality of his statement. Try to drink the energy of his knowledge and live this moment with the highest degree of attention, with all your senses wide open. Very often people listen to the words, take notes, but after a while this knowledge disappears, we have no memory of it. If we manage to establish a real contact it will remain as knowledge in our hearts forever."
With these words still echoing in our ears we arrived to Karmaling.
On the property of Karmaling there is a main building, the ex-Monastery of Saint Hugon, built in the XII century and many wooden houses that Buddhist practitioners use for periods of personal retreat. Immediately we saw some well-known faces: they were the representatives of Tuva, a Siberian republic of shamanic faith adjacent to Buryatia. Kantchyyr-ool, President of the Tuvinian shamans, had met Costanzo Allione in Tuva. For the old Kanchyyr-ool it was a relief to meet some well-known faces.
That same afternoon we met Monte Wambile , the Rendille Chief of whom Lama Denys had spoken about during our first meeting.
The sun was shining high in the sky against the profile of the Alps and the tops were still covered with snow. Monte Wambile appeared looking somewhat lost wearing a long coat that reached his ankles and a fur hat. Over the coat he wore a beautiful red cloth and was carrying a long stick, which along its length was half-white and half-dark.
Monte Wambile had never been to Nairobi. He had never seen houses built on the top of mountains; he had never seen snow, an airplane or a European man.
Monte Wambile is the Chief of a nomad tribe, the Rendille. His title is "The Stick Holder". His saliva has healing proprieties. He derives from a princely lineage transmitted from father to son.
The life of the village is based on sheep farming. Every six months they move to find new pastures where the sheep and the cows feel comfortable and the men establish a new village by raising their tents. At the center of the village they set up a tent where the men meet every evening. Beside the tent they light a fire that can never die. Monte Wanbile owns two sticks, one of which can never leave the village. This stick is his ritual instrument to communicate with God.
While we were talking with Monte Wambile the Bonpo delegation with Lobon Thinley Nyima Rinpoche, director of the sMenri Monastery of Dolanji in India, and Geshe Namgyal Nima, passed by.
We had met Geshe Namgyal Nima in Italy some years ago during the second "International Symposium on Tibetan Language" organized by Namkahi Norbu Rinpoche at Merigar, a Dzog Chen center.
During our meeting in France the Bonpo had words of high recognition for Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche who has been studying the ancient history of Tibet for many years, giving credit to the Bonpo, the traditional religion of Tibet, up to the point where H.H. the Dalai Lama decided to include the Bonpo among the five schools of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
In the last few years H.H. has been committed to safeguard all expressions of religion and spiritual knowledge. However we must not mistake the interest of granting free statement to every kind of knowledge with an attempt to assimilate all religions to one only truth.
H.H. the Dalai Lama is very clear about this matter:
"…We don't want to sew the head of a yak on the body of a sheep or viceversa. The question is not to mix different system of knowledge, but to get to know them in order to respect them.
This great wealth of spiritual systems and teachings must not be lost, as we must not loose the subtle features that characterize each tradition."
According to H.H., what unifies all traditions is the ethical message, the message of love.
H.H. the Dalai Lama has committed himself to found an interreligious dialogue. His efforts began at Assisi in 1986 during a meeting organized by the Pope, H.H. John Paul II.
"…I believe that a harmonious relationship among religions is very important. We must
encourage the meeting of representatives of each religion in order to discuss about the points we have in common and the ones on which we don't agree, to encourage empathy and better our reciprocal understanding. It is of the utmost importance to have the leaders of the different religious traditions gather together to pray publicly. This is a very simple and effective tool."
The 25th of April, H.H. arrived in Karmaling directly from Washington. He came out of the car and found his way through a small group of people with his usual bearing, an statement of his great humility.
As he passed by a wave of deep emotion reached everybody. It is difficult to the express what happened by means of words.
The next day, on the only plateau in Karmaling in a large white circular tent that resembled a Mongolian yurt, H.H. performed a ritual to bless the site where a Gompa (meditation hall) will be built.
After the ritual, when H.H. reached the town of La Rochette where six thousand people were waiting his teachings on the Buddha's Four Noble Truths.
Each delegation present at the meeting explained where they came from and the essence of their belief .
The next few days H.H. came and left the circle, but his blessing and his spiritual presence were always with us.
While H.H. gave teachings at La Rochette, at Karmaling each delegation performed a ritual to bless the site.
A fire was lit in the middle of the tent and each one prayed according to their tradition. The South American delegation offered flowers, fruit and colorful feathers to the fire. The people from Siberia offered vodka and milk, the Voodoo from Benin offered cola seeds as holy meal and an alcoholic extract of the palm tree. The North Americans offered corn and tabacco. Nadia Stepanova purified the participants by smoking them with the bark of white fir. The Americans used white sage and sweet grass. The Bonpo used Tibetan incense.
Each representative told the story of his people; they were all accounts of people that had survived repression on the part of some major religion or conqueror. We all know about the native Americans, but no one imagined that the situation was still so backward. For example some places around the "Indian Reserves" shop owners charge four times more to a Native American that any other American, damaging, to a very serious extent, the life of communities that are already poor.
Less well known were the accounts of the native Australians or of the Siberian shamans that have survived the attacks of the Communist regime in ex Soviet Union.
Nadia Stepanova explained that she was the first person after Perestrojka who had the courage to announce publicly she was a shaman. She spoke of the threats and the disdain that surrounded her for many years.
The African Voodoo saw their people deported to America and their religion manipulated by the Catholic missionaries.
The Mexican delegation spoke about their struggle for survival and the right to profess their belief when even their North American brothers didn't believe in the existence of a native tradition in Mexico.
The two Mexican representatives, Aurelio Diaz Tekpankali from the Purupeska tradition and the elder Tlakaelel of the Atzec tradition, explained that only five years ago they obtained freedom to practice their own religion. They had been persecuted for five hundred years !
The Bonpo explained that they are the representatives of the traditional religion of Tibet that derived from the mythical reign of Shang Shung, whose existance many Tibetan question, but in which the Bonpo firmly believe .
A very moving testimony came from Dick Leichletner, President of the Papuan Council, a native Australian, he spoke of the law of the white man that in his country has replaced the original law of his people, one of the most ancient people on earth. According to the teachings of the native Australians each person has a natural home, a particular place considered a holy place.
Today he and his people live in reserves, far away from these original sites, so important to their culture.
These direct testimonies amplified what H.H. the Dalai Lama had declared as the finality of the meeting: to safeguard the ancient traditions of the planet and the people that represent such traditions.
For the next nine days the exchanges went on without interruption.
Since the first day a very warm communication arose between Nadia Stepanova and the North American delegation. Historically the American "Indians" could have arrived to America from Siberia passing by the Bering Straits or viceversa as explained, Morgan Eagle Bear, great grandson of Geronimo from the Apache Nation.
Morgan Eagle Bear has dedicated his life to raising 28 children whose parents were alcoholics and drug addicts. He raised them with the teachings of traditional knowledge and the 6 languages of the Native American nations. When they were old enough he sent them to school to receive a formal education. Today many of his children are medical doctors and lawyers and are capable to transmit the culture
of the native Americans within the communities they live in.
Other very moving presences at the meeting were two elders from Canada and Alaska: Grandmother Anna Haala, of the Tlinquit Nation and Grand Mother Sarah Smith of the Mohawk Nation.
The strength that emanated from them blended with an inner understanding and a humane availability that is difficult to describe.
They talked about their social commitment working among the homeless and young drug addicts. Their teachings were given through the beautiful words of the ancient prophecies.
Tlakaelel performed his ritual from the Aztec tradition: the Medicine Wheel. He placed around the fire four flags that represented the four human races: white, yellow, black and red.
The Medicine Wheel, as Sparky Shooting Star explained is a circle where the four parts represent the four directions . It is an altar. Wherever we find ourselves we are inside it surrounded by the four directions, and wherever we are, walking or sitting, we are standing on Mother Earth with Father Sky above our heads.
The mother receives energy from the sky and transforms it in nourishment for all human beings.
In each point of the earth when we point towards one of the four directions we connect with our ancestors of that direction. Recognizing the protection our ancestors give us develops the desire to return what we receive.
"…In our tradition we speak of the universe, the circle and the pipe. We are the pipe, the circle and the universe, not in a selfish way, but as a total connection: to go beyond separation. Putting ourselves in the middle of the circle in each instant of our
lives we meet our destiny as human beings born for the benefit of every living being on earth. When we open ourselves to receive the protection and the love of our
ancestors automatically we receive the ability to see beyond our personal sufferings and in doing so we develop the capacity to serve others. Our destiny goes beyond the suffering of our body and when we accept the support of the universe our suffering decreases a thousandfolds every day because there is no place where the suffering can hide."
With this teaching Sparky Shooting Star helped us to understand the rituals that Mary Thunder and Chief Jeffrey Hubbel performed during the meeting.
Another participant at the meeting was Don Hilario Chiriap of the Shiuar tradition who was born and grew up in the Amazon jungle of Equador. Together with his "brother" Aurelio Tekpankalli he performed a beautiful ritual.
The 30th of April all the delegations met at La Rochette. On stage, at the left of H.H. the Dalai Lama sat all the representatives of the "ancient" traditions and on the right the Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jewish. Each
delegation offered a prayer, a chant or a ceremony to the 6000 people gathered under the enormous tent. The succession of one ritual after the other was extremely harmonious; each delegation communicated a message from their hearts.
The next day, when H.H. had already left, the delegations met to organize a permanent institution, the Circle of United Traditions, whose seat is in Karmaling.
The aim of the Circle is the preservation and diffusion of traditional doctrines, and the safeguarding of Nature. Nadia Stepanova suggested that each delegation of the Circle could write a list of the power places and holy sites that belong to their
tradition to publish a world map of these holy places in order to promote information about pilgrimages.
A the end of the last meeting the Supreme Chief of the Voodoo, Dagbo Hounon Houna asked permission to Lama Denys to leave. Greeting the other delegates he said: "…Before I arrived here I thought that Voodoo was the most ancient religion of the world, the most important, the greatest. Now, after spending some time together I understand that I need to pour some water in my wine."