Here is Sandy with Lady Gaga -- looking nice and relaxed after yoga.

This is the way to the Jewel Heart Center. Beautiful horses across the way and white fluffy clouds in the sky.

Dharma brothers: David from Boston and Derek from Singapore.

Rimpoche likes to squeeze our cheeks and lips and sometimes we do it to him, too -- this is my friend, Carla.

Dharma sisters: Sarah from Cleveland and Fran from Connecticut.

Getting ready to start the morning chants.

The summer retreat includes fun events in the evening such as Bollywood night!

On the right is our Bollywood dance teacher who taught us a fun dance and got us all laughing and sweating! On the left is my dharma sister, Colleen, who is also one of our awesome umzes/chant leaders.

After Bollywood dancing, came an amazing vegetarian Indian dinner made by our own dharma sister, Joan, who used to be the chef at the Oberoi in Delhi. She and her helpers cooked for four days to make this delicious meal -- the best Indian food I've ever tasted! Thank you! Then we watched a Bollywood movie and did the dance we learned. Fun, fun, fun.

Rimpoche and Derek at an Italian dinner the next night.

Beautiful dharma sister, Naomi, from the Netherlands. She has been studying with Rimpoche since she was 18, what good fortune.

Rimpoche and me making funny bird faces to each other. He loves to be playful!

Even though this picture is out of focus, I love it. I am soooo fortunate to have met Rimpoche and to get to study with him. He has been the most important influence and I am forever grateful to him.

This is a t-shirt made by famous graffiti artist, James de la Vega. You can check out the De La Vega museum on St. Marks Place.

Hello, sir. I like your t-shirt.

This is Lena. She took my workshops at Hamsa Yoga in Copenhagen. She came to my class at OM yoga last week because she is in NYC working. She is a cellist. And she does a very nice Vishvamitrasana!

Judith Lasater is teaching Experiential Anatomy at OM yoga this week. So I took her out to dinner last night at Tabla. Yum!

We were joined by her daughter, the lovely and talented, Lizzie. Lizzie said the dinner was a high "WPM" meal. That means words-per-minute.

Last class together. Everyone was totally into it -- what a joy!

We decided to finish our retreat by visiting the Kami shrine.

The Kami shrine represents the feminine principle. We all wanted to leave an offering there at the end of our time together. Becca is picking flowers along the bridge as part of her offering.

First stop -- purification. There is a little trough and you use the ladle to scoop up some water and pour it on your left hand. Then wash your right hand. Then swish some water in your mouth and spit it out on the ground. Then wash your left hand again.

Pia, from Vancouver, BC, waits her turn to purify.

The sun feels good to me.

Next, we pass through this Tory gate, after making a 90 degree bow.

One by one, we each made our offerings at the Kami shrine, as Laura is doing here. First you place your offering on the altar. People gave flowers, writings on small pieces of paper, a tiny stacked rock statue, a mala, chocolate. Then you stand up straight, bow twice from the waist, and then clap twice. The first clap is to cut through obstacles and the second clap is to draw down the Kami blessing. Then one more bow and you are done.

Silently, we watched each other make our offerings, and then we left to go back down the mountain.

One last look back at this special spot.

A nice bow and then back through the Tory gate.

Past the purification hut.

Past the stupa.

The retreat is finished. Time for lunch.

There were 9 deer that hung out eating dinner outside my window for about an hour. They were like giant Leroys.

This is Lauren from St. Louis and Holly from Flagstaff having a nice cup of tea after 3 hours of yoga with me.

This is Irina, originally from Moscow, now from Columbus, OH; Keith from Austin and Laura from Loveland, CO.

Last night our group went for a hike up to the stupa here at SMC.

Prayer flags guided us along the path.

First glimpse of the stupa.

We're almost there...are you wondering what is a stupa? It is an Asian structure that sometimes holds relics. This one, the biggest in the Western hemisphere, is also a place for practice.

The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya that Liberates Upon Seeing.

This is the first floor of the stupa. We sat in front of this huge, beautiful Buddha and meditated. There are upper floors that are only accessible to those doing specific practices, such as Vajrayogini sadhanas.

This is the ceiling.

This is part of the floor. The whole thing is very ornate and beautiful. It took nine years to complete this structure and much of the work is handmade.

In between the ceiling and the floor are small alcoves called tokonomos. Trungpa Rimpoche was very inspired by Japanese aesthetics and so there are beautiful Japanese flower arrangements throughout the stupa and SMC.

Another picture of the Buddha statue. I'm not 100% sure but I think this is the mudra of untying the knots, liberating obstructions.

After circumambulating the stupa three times and meditating inside, we walked back down the mountain in the dark.

Being a resident of a city that never gets dark, I forgot to bring a flashlight. One of the students, Vladimir from Kansas City, loaned me his miner's light. When I put it on the lamp over my third eye came on -- they teased me that now I am enlightened!!

Isn't she cute? We went to the fancy neighborhood store and got just what she wanted: crab cakes, cole slaw, potato salad and lemon tart. And, her favorite thing, Sprite. Then we went back to the back yard of her building and had a feast!

This was my homey, cozy room at The Boulderado Hotel in Boulder.

Can you see the mountains out my window?

The teachings began at 9:30 am but we had to get there much earlier due to heavy security. This is not the security, this is just a picture showing how cool Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall look. There were long lines and you had to open your purse and all your belongings and be frisked with a magic wand. Every time anyone went to the bathroom you were escorted up and down the aisle by an usher and a state department guy. Those guys are HUGE! They do a good job taking care of HH.

Many Tibetans were in attendance, of course, very happy to be with the leader of their country.

And then we were in. I like to get there early because one of the best parts is seeing HH come into the room. You get to bow to him and he bows to everyone. He touches his head to certain people and monks and he waves to us. Then he does three full prostrations to the Buddha. Pretty good for a 75 year old guy. He wears flip flops and wears a baseball hat rim thing when he teaches so the light doesn't bother his eyes. You see, someone else might ask for the lights to be different but he works with situations as they are. A teaching right there.

A little more close-up photo from the video screen.

Sitting on the teaching throne.

On Saturday we had the opportunity to attend a private luncheon with HH. It was to benefit the NY and NJ Tibetan Association. HH really wants the Tibetans here to have their own building so they can have their own school. It looks like it will happen now.

Here he is coming into the restaurant. Thank you to Eric Ripert and Le Bernardin for providing this beautiful lunch.

He is eating lunch and everyone is taking his picture. Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a fishbowl like that? He is quite cheerful and focussed.

HH gave a short talk and took questions. I nudged my way up close to the stage. I ended up next to a state dept. guy who was whispering into his hand, "He's getting ready to come down. He's coming down now!"

Nudgie plays kirtan.

KD and Nudgie.

It just so happens that the way from Copenhagen to Malmo is to drive along the seashore until you get to Elsinore. Sound familiar? That's where Hamlet's castle was and that is what you see behind us here. We are at the moat. A very effective defense system, especially since all the soldiers pooped and peed in it for 100 years.

The Little Mermaid is on loan to China for a year so Nanna and Soham became Danish mermaids for us along the beach wall of Elsinore Castle.

Since it was Monday the museum part was closed so we could not go inside. But when we went into the courtyard we discovered a whole class of little children, some of them in Viking gear with little swords re-enacting their history. So cute. Their lunch boxes had sandwiches and broccoli. I thought, how cool. American kids don't usually have broccoli in their lunch boxes and obviously Europe is so much more healthy, organic and smart than we are. Then I noticed that not one kid was eating the broccoli.

A nice lady from the US offered to take our picture all together. Thank you.

We felt that there would have been no way to successfully attack this castle. The only thing you could do would be to lay seige to it. Prevent supplies from entering.

Another view from the ferry taking us to Sweden. Powerful spot, for sure.

You can't really see the writing on this life preserver but the name of this ferry is Hamlet.

Our beautiful Danish friends, Nanna and Soham.

Being here -- and being in Copenhagen -- is like being inside a fairy tale.

Soham next to a tree that grows pom poms.

We ate dinner at the Taj Mahal, aka, the Nimb. It is a very, very hip hotel and an excellent Swedish haute cuisine restaurant.

Danish design is so beautiful and cool. The entire kitchen of NImb is open. Every station is lined up next to all the tables and you can see the cooks with their meticulous attention to the detail. Shaving the licorice onto the dessert. Nimb has its own bakery and dairy. We finished our meal with thick milk -- I really don't know what that is and whenever I said that Nanna and Soham laughed and laughed, but it was good and came with lingonberries and a delicate waffle thing.