Defining Canada » gdixon

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

gdixon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:34:31 +0000

Drove into Tibet over the high Himalaya passes from Kathmandu. I was following the route of the Indian sage who brought Buddhism to Tibet sometime in the 9th c. They say he rode in on a Siberian tiger. I took a kind of cross between a jeep and a mini bus. Not quite as exciting but still pretty adventurous.

We passed a lot of ruined monasteries – destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and came at last to the central plateau and the palace of the Dalai Lama. An interesting story: the India sage composed a lot of texts – and he used the local Tibetan dialect – writing it in a Sanskrit script. He buried the texts just before he died, saying that they would be unearthed when they were needed. One of these was found, many centuries later and it’s called the Bardo Thotrol. In the West, we know it as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

It’s a series of chants to be read over a person as they die (and for the 24 hours afterwards) to ease them into the next incarnation (it’s apparently a bit of a worrying time). The discarded body, meanwhile, is given a sky burial. It is taken to a sacred spot and chopped up into pieces with an axe. Then the birds of prey carry off the bits and pieces, scattering them to the winds.

My video podcast of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is now on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PilgriminthePalace

Or, even better. On itunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=344689204

The Dead Sea Scrolls

gdixon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:36:29 +0000

I’ve had some fun lately putting together the video podcasts for my book Pilgrim in the Palace of Words. They’re going to be up on itunes soon but you can get a sneak peak already. This is some real footage of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7TwKWeO_6g

And check out the ROM museum’s display if you haven’t already. I managed to see them just kilometres from where they were found… especially the amazing Copper Scroll.

Glenn Dixon
www.pilgrim-in-the-palace.com

Kicked off the Acropolis

gdixon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:37:29 +0000

Filming in Athens today for the podcasts that go along with my book, Pilgrim in the Palace of Words. It’s hot, like 38 Celcius (that’s what, for my American friends, about 200 Fahrenheit?). I was up on the Acropolis shooting some footage when I was stopped by the guards because I didn’t have a permit. They escorted me out (but I’d already got everything I needed – heh heh heh). Later went to the new Acropolis museum that just opened in June. It was supposed to be opened for the Athens Olympics but when they started digging the foundations, of course, they found ruins and that slowed it all down. The museum is beautiful and the whole intent is really to prove to the British Museum in London that they should send the famous Elgin marbles back to Greece. Lord Elgin took all the statuary from the Parthenon in the 1800’s (or the bits that survived a Turkish explosion anyway) and the British have always argued that the statues couldn’t be properly taken care of in Athens (what with the acid rain – remember acid rain?) but they have no excuse now. Time to ship those treasures back. They do belong here.

Filming in Jerusalem

gdixon — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:48:31 +0000

I’ve just arrived in Jerusalem where I’m staying at a little hotel just outside the Damascus gate in the Old City Walls. It’s a bit wierd – there are almost no tourists here. No matter, I stumbled around and got myself lost in the maze of little alleyways (coming out, suprisingly, at the Wailing Wall). Lots of soldiers there with Uzi machine guns swung over their shoulders… and I started to feel even more out of my element. I’m filming here, for a series of podcasts that will accompany my book “Pilgrim in the Palace of Words.”

Wandering back, though, I realized that I didn’t have a converter for my camera battery (or not the right one anyway) and I went into a little electronics shop. Well, try explaining battery converter in Arabic. The guy actually understood – after lots of hand motions – three prongs instead of two – diagonal, not straight – and I eventually got my camera charged up again. Back at the hotel, the owner brought me sliced watermelon and some little kids from down the lane came over, giggling and pushing the bravest ones forward. “Hello, hello, English” they said, then ran off giggling… so I guess all is right in the world after all.