Native Americans, Tibetan Buddhists, and the Ultimate Enlightenment of One
Yesterday, while perusing my emails, I received these remarkable 19th century sepia-tinted pictures by Timothy O'Sullivan showing the American West (thanks Baruch!), as it was charted for the first time. I began to look for places that I had been and found a few – rafting and kayaking down the Green and Yampa rivers, the scent and feel of the White House, an ancestral Pueblo Native American Anasazi cliff dwelling in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, and luxuriating in Pagosa Hot Springs, Colorado. Fascinating as each picture was, I was extremely intrigued by the photographs of Native Americans. I couldn’t shake the impression that they looked like rock bands, with a kind of collective style, but sporting individual ambiance and flare, predestined to go out of history in a blaze of glory. The most amazing thing, though, was that even with the sepia-tint pictures, I could see these wonderful human souls shining through. They were a people, living within the (then) present and obviousl