Liquid Silver

This is the first of several short poems I wrote sitting at the bow of the Research Vessel Thomas G. Thompson during my month-long sojourn at sea this August and September.


Liquid silver rolling like hills, pushing
     ship to crest and running past to chase
     the albatross.

From afar, the vast round disk of ocean is flat, but,
     there's nothing flat here. It's all rolling,
     wandering, mixing, moving in every direction
     every moment.

Strong swell from a distant storm slide smoothly
     beneath the silver sun.

And the iron ribs of our ship comply:
     rising, falling, ever following
     the will of the waves.

Spontaneous Poetry Tweets

I've recently started up a Twitter account, and am using it to post spontaneous poems. I've linked the feed in the right sidebar. Also, you can visit it directly.

Pema Tsepak

A friend of ours has relayed the following about a nephew of his, who was beaten to death by the People's Armed Police in Tibet.

Pema Tsepak was born to a farming family in Phunda Village, Tsawa Zogong, Khams (Eastern Tibet). Pema Tsepak lived with his mother, Sonam Drokar, and two brothers in Phunda Village. His father, who passed away in 1989, was named Choedon Gejung. He was also survived by one sister.

Pema Tsepak died at the age of 24 in prison on January 22nd or 23rd 2009, following a public protest in Zogong between 2:00-3:00 in the afternoon of January 20th. Pema and his cousins Trinlen Ngodrup (age 24) and Buyang Dargye (age 23) protested for approximately 40 minutes, an unusually long period of time, before they were arrested by city government police and members of the People's Armed Police. At this time, Trinlen Ngodrup and Buyang Dargye are still prisoners in Chamdo City.

The protest started in a busy area of central Zogong where there are numerous shops, restaurants, houses and apartments intermixed with buildings belonging to the municipal government. The three young men began at one end of the main street, and worked their way down the street, waving hand-painted Tibetan flags and stopping at the door to every shop, restaurant and guesthouse to shout their protest: "Whoever eats tsampa, wake up! Whoever eats bugs and crawling things, go back to China! We need freedom in Tibet! Tibetan people need the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet! We don't want to celebrate Tibetan New Year this year!"

They moved quickly from door to door, cris-crossing the street as they worked their through the town centre. When they had nearly reached the police station (over half-way through downtown), 30-40 municipal police emerged from the station to arrest them. Trinlen Ngodrup and Buyang Dargye were quickly captured, within about 5 minutes. Pema Tsepak was not so easy to catch. When police charged him, he lowered his flag to hold it horizontally at his waist, and charged the police, knocking them down. Unable to arrest him, the municipal police summoned the People's Armed Police. About 50 People's Armed Police arrived, but still found it difficult to catch Pema Tsepak, who nearly made it through to the far edge of town.

Finally, the group of armed police completely surrounded Pema Tsepak, then jumped on him and began beating him with batons and kicking him. According to witnesses, he was severely beaten, and bled profusely. Trinlen Ngodrup and Buyang Dargye were also severely beaten before many witnesses on the street, suffering broken bones and open wounds. Then, all three were taken in to the municipal prison.

One of the men responsible for the capture and beating is a man named Bu Ge, who serves as mayor and deputy leader of Zogong District. He is also in charge of the Zogong municipal police. Another man known to have been involved is Bu Chong, head of the Zogong municipal police security department. There are many other ethnic Chinese working in the Zogong municipal police department, but their names are unavailable.

The following day, on January 21st 2009, Pema Tsepak and one his cousins were taken by the municipal police to the city hospital. A doctor who examined him (his name is withheld for protection) informed us that Pema Tsepak had two ruptured kidneys and lacerated intestines. He was immobile, unresponsive, and unconscious. After examining Pema Tsepak, the doctor told police he could not save Pema Tsepak's life, the injuries were too severe. Then the police quickly sent Pema Tsepak to Chamdo. It is not known whether he survived that journey or where he was taken in Chamdo.

On January 23rd, Trinlen Ngodrup and Buyang Dargye were transferred to Chamdo Prison. The police driver was a man named Yeshe Nima. He reported that he transported only two young men to Chamdo – their heads had been shaved and their mouths were gagged.

The police report for these events is wildly unusual and does not match the facts of the situation. They claimed that all three men were transferred together to Chamdo. This is not true. They also claimed that when they arrived at Chamdo Prison, Pema Tsepak suddenly stabbed a police officer and attempted to stab a second before jumping from the third floor into a river, where he drowned. The police have released a video depicting these events, which they showed to Pema Tsepak's older brother, Lobsang Jampa. In the video, a young man is seen wielding a knife and jumping from a roof. His face did not appear in the video, but from the back, this person did not resemble Pema Tsepak and appeared to be a 13 or 14-year old youth.

The police account can be disproved on several grounds:

1. Many witnesses saw Pema Tsepak's beating on the 20th in Zogong, and felt he would be unlikely to survive even one day


2. Pema Tsepak was already unconscious, and immobile when examined in Zogong, and the doctor reported that his life could not be saved.


3. Only two men were transferred to Chamdo Prison, not three.


4. It is highly improbably that a prisoner in a place like Chamdo Prison could obtain a knife, stab police officers and jump from a rooftop.


5. The person in the video was not Pema Tsepak, he was an actor.

On January 21st, a large group of over 200 women in Punda Village met with the local mayor and another government official. They wanted to see the three young who were in jail, and recover their bodies, if they had perished. But the government officials convinced them to wait until they could find out more information on the status of the young men.

On January 22nd, the group of women gathered to wait for the officials to return and provide information. Six police cars arrived in Punda Village, and police told the women to disburse; they were not allowed to gather as a large group. The women did not disburse, and police stayed for 6 or 7 hours, trying unsuccessfully to convince the women to return to their homes. The police decided to return to Zogong, but the group of women blocked the road and would not let them return until they provided information about the status of the three young men. Finally, they said they would return the following day with the information.

On January 23rd, 16 police cars and three trucks carrying military troops arrived in Punda Village, sirens blaring as they entered town. The police told the villagers they could not support the three young men because they had committed crimes. Anyone who wished to support them would be arrested. The police then proceeded to thoroughly search the family homes of Pema Tsepak, Trinlen Ngodrup, and Buyang Dargye. They confiscated two large pictures of the Dalai Lama in Pema Tsepak's home. They also asked Pema Tsepak's mother if she had any guns or explosive materials. She replied that she did not use weapons like that and had never in her life seen such things in the possession of anyone in her family.

Pema Tsepak was a skilled painter (he painted the Tibetan flags used for the protest) and a member of a local traditional dance troupe. Pema Tsepak strongly wished to promote improved human rights and freedoms for the people of Tibet. He often spoke about these topics with his friends. He believed that it is very important not only to support one's family and relatives, but also to promote freedom for society at large. He was not afraid to lose his life for the purpose of improving conditions and freedoms in Tibet. Pema was friendly to everyone and easily forged good relationships with everyone he worked and spent time with. Many people loved Pema Tsepak dearly.

This account describes the deeds of only one man, Pema Tsepak, because I am familiar with many of the details of these events. But he is just one of many hundreds or thousands of brave people who have given their lives for the benefit of Tibetan people. Many thousands have also suffered terrible injuries and torture at the hands of police. This includes lost limbs, loss of sight, paralysis, and severe internal and brain injuries. And hundreds of thousands of people have died in prison or as a result of injuries sustained in prison. All of those people endured these sacrifices not for themselves, but for the benefit of 6 million people of the Tibetan diaspora. This includes me.

We must never forget their sacrifices and their bravery! Today, we must start the work of accomplishing their wishes.

24 Hrs on the seafloor

This past week at work, I compiled a time-lapse movie from recordings by a video camera operating 111 metres below the sea surface in a place called Saanich Inet.

This silent movie spans a 24-hr period on November 11, 2008. The camera captured 3 minutes of action every half hour over the period; each clip is sped up to create a sort of time-lapse effect. In the upper-right corner, a trace of depth indicates tidal phase over the course of the day. Tempo-mini's oxygen sensor is the device at left.



At this 111m location, squat lobsters, soles, anemones, and sponges inhabit the seafloor, which is visited by a wide assortment of small fish, krill and plankton. An unusual visitor (a seal!) makes a brief appearance toward the end of the movie.

NOTE: This is the low-bandwidth version. To see it in higher-resolution, watch it on the NEPTUNE Canada website.

What interesting things do you see in the clip? Do you notice the sole landing on the anemone? How about the dance of the squat lobsters? Please share your observations!

Jascha's Portland

My son Jascha Owens has been living in Portland Oregon since fall. And he's been creating. Here are some recent works he's made, three ink-on-manila-envelope drawings and a chalk (conté?) piece. (Click the images for a closer look.)









Since his move to Oregon, I see a shift toward more organic forms in his amazing work. Also, I don't know if he would agree with this, but I detect volcanism. I need to ask him about that, though.

About this blog

Alphapure in the Tibetan is ka-dag, meaning primordially pure or pure from the beginning. As explained in the Dzogchen tradition, this is "the basic nature of sentient beings which is originally untainted by defilement and beyond confusion and liberation." (From the Ranjung Yeshe Dictionary.)

Although my words, expressions, thoughts, and world view are mired in a thick black fog of conceptual limitation, I still aspire to dwell in the unstained realm of primordial purity, which radiates from the heart centre of every timeless instant.

Hope & Fear

In the year twenty-ought-eight, co-joined twins were born from our collective womb of love and hate. Some hoped for love, fearing hate. Others hated love and feared hope.

The labour was unending, nearly unbearably painful, and unexpectedly inescapable:

Nor crown, nor breech births were feasible. So, the entire planet linked in to witness the birth by poll-directed C-section on YouTube.

Twins were born:

• Skulls fused,
• Blue veins and red arteries interconnected,
• Sharing a single brain.

The parents (who quarreled over everything) quarreled over naming: Hopeless and Fearful? Fearless and Hopeful? In the end the babies were named Hope and Fear.

Having two mouths and two stomachs, the babies demanded a lot of feeding. And the twins’ four-cheeked derrière demanded double diapering. But, they were well-fed and grew at an alarming rate. Before long, their vast maws began to gobble up every scrap and smidgen of our attention. And the thundering reports from their eruptive blast holes shattered every window pane on Earth.

Hope’s first word was Yes!, but Fear disagreed and tried in vein to shake his co-joined head. Then stamping his foot in fury, shouted No! (Sharing one brain, however, it is difficult to disentangle who actually said what. Perhaps Fear spoke No! through Hope’s mouth, but it garbled out as Yes!. Maybe Hope willed Fear to utter No! as an act of one-upsmanship. Or, possibly, Yes! is No! in the language of Fear.

* * *

As we enter twenty-ought nine, Hope and Fear grace the glossy covers of every magazine in the check-out line. Hope has been elected President, while Fear has been appointed to Greed’s long-established post as chairman of the economy.

Being co-joined, it’s difficult for the twins to stay out of each other’s business. Hope has been dabbling in the stock market. Fear has been lobbying for a large military contractor.

But the people can’t get enough of this dynamic duo, so out they are trotted by every network, to mouth the words of every headline news story.

* * *

The words of Hope, the songs of Fear,
Be they loud, be they clear,
Whether whispered in the dark,
Or carved from stone in every park,
Mumbled on a beggar’s breath,
Eulogized at your mother’s death,
Engraved within your wedding ring,
Emblazoned on a bomber’s wing:
These two will never be unbound—
Hope without Fear cannot be found.
And both derive their strength, you see,
From thinking thoughts of what might be.

The blindness of a fearful heart
Uncloaks itself when we start
To focus on what’s here and now.
And hopefulness will take a bow,
When, like an infant girl or boy,
We fill our hearts with boundless Joy.