Dear Nick

 

    I was very glad to see your letter.  It's caused me to have to think.  Your four numbered paragraphs make it easier to answer.

 

    (1)  Agreed, except for your assumptive "It is still one person's take on things..."  Although I'm just an amateur and faraway sleuth, this message has all the earmarks of a collaboration of some pretty savvy people asking some questions, or a question, which is very poignant.  Barbara Blouin's study of court finances and procedures would suggest her as a source, but she denies involvement.  Who then?  Perhaps others sharing her concerns who have commissioned a cartoon artist (likely from Europe judging by the quality) to visually frame their own allegory?  As to the anonymity of the whole thing, how else could the issue be put without feeding the dichotomy, the us versus the them?  Are we not all practitioners of the same dharma as best we can?

 

    (2)  But of course the cartoon was ambiguous.  My own passion is for good detective stories.  Hence our exchange.  If I interpret correctly, your question the validity of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings as interpreted by "those who sat at his feet" but still can't agree about what he was saying.  I'm not getting your meaning in the rest of this paragraph.  Is your implication that there is a new order that whisks away ambiguities?

 

    (3)  I totally agree, each of us being responsible for our own knockings down, and no, you're not boring.

 

    (4)  I agree that the second panel of the cartoon, with it's *pop* is pivotal.  The dedicated practitioners'meditations are exploded by a passing parade, leaving connective tissue and one of the meditators tearing his hair.  The other poses an unstated question.  Can your labeling of the *POP* as emergence from "conceptual dwelling" be backward?  A 190 degree obverse view?  Do you think there's no chance that the patrons of a parade with balloons and elephants might be the conceptual dwellers?

    Just comments and questions.  I'm very glad of our exchange and hope you'll stay in touch with any further developments/comments re.  TinTin in Shambhala.