a few simple words - a world of meaning

DATELINE: Brooklyn, NY

Thats my little brother... ya. He is the tall drink of Guinness jumping off of the Brooklyn Bridge next to his best friend and fellow Venice local Jaime Burtis upon Dom's graduation from Sarah Lawrence ... but alas I digress.

I remember the first time I recognized my brother Dominic had found what he was born to do... no it wasn't when he was a classically trained guitar virtuoso who did a gig on a world tour as a guitar tech (roadie) for the popular metal band known as Megadeth at the ripe age of only twenty-two years old.

Nor was it the time he had been a self-admitted failure as an aspiring knuckle head surfer living deep in the hood in Venice Beach. It was really more than ten years ago now we were sitting together in an impossibly hot indoor cafe in with the young man in the foothills of the Himalaya in Northern India. This Rocker turned Buddhist scholar would eventually become a Harvard Graduate - but not before he shared something priceless with me - his friend.

We had been together for two intense weeks of travel and teachings at temples ostensibly so I could see up close and personal the world he had immersed himself in. Dominic had become the rarest of things ... a Westerner living, breathing and sleeping as one totally immersed in the monastic life at the Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies a Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Dharmsala - the capital of Tibet in exile.

One of Dominic's friends there was a young Tibetan nun named Ani Tenzen whom with her smooth shaven head showing just a hint of stubble and scarlet robes personified the beatific image of shyness. She only spoke her native Tibetan to my brother and he would translate for me.

Ani Tenzen spent many days with us and observed me making photographs of everything all day every day. I made action shots of a courtyard full of young monks practicing the thunderclap of debate in the school of dialects... she was there. When I arranged for portraits of a trio of young candidates known as Tulkus (thought to be reincarnated Lamas) she was there quietly present. When I was privy to a rare public audience with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama - Ani Tenzen saw it all.

Then near the end of my stay - she spoke directly to me for the first time. In perfect English she said carefully choosing her words, "... Now I understand!" At first I was quite stunned and amazed - but then I quickly gathered myself and asked her, "Ani Tenzen ... what is it that you understand now?"

And then without fanfare - this timid young woman gave me the best compliment of my professional life... when she said, " Photography is your meditation." I just could not believe what I was hearing. For one who has dedicated her life to the discipline of meditation on a daily basis she not only noticed but took the time to mention it to me - but only after great consideration, deliberation and finally a deep knowing.

Photography is my meditation.

In her world mediation means not only focusing on the important things - but also to discard the noise, throw out the trash and dismiss the wrong view. The more I thought about it the more I knew that Ani Tenzen had taught me more about my work in a simple declarative sentence than I had gained from years of tuition at University.

I shall be forever grateful.

Tashi Delek

~ dz