PORT TOWNSEND — Joanne Kumekawa said she has always sought to help people improve their lives.
Now, as Padma Yong Chedtso, a newly minted teacher of Tibetan Buddhism at the Dzogchen Dharma Choeling center in Port Townsend, she has the same desire to help, but it is manifested in a different way.
“I spent my whole life trying to change other people,” she said.
“But I found that a lot of highly educated people think they have the answers, and they don’t.”
After years of the study of Buddhism, she will begin her teaching phase Saturday.
From noon to 2:30 p.m. at Rosewind Commons, 3131 Haines St., Port Townsend, she will speak on how one person can make a difference in times of great suffering
There is a suggested donation of $10, but no one will be turned away for financial reasons.
Kumekawa’s attraction to Buddhism was unexpected, she said.
She had worked at the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Reserve Bank, the United Nations and the federal Health and Human Services Department, where she helped to set the stage for the development of tele-medicine and other programs, she said.
She had left government work prior to George W. Bush’s election and worked as a consultant for several years before, in 2005, suffering a severe allergic reaction to steroids used to treat poison ivy.
Feeling drawn to Port Townsend and a different life, she sold her house in Washington, D.C., when the market was at its peak and visited a friend in town.
She found a place to live in Port Townsend, and “ended up just sleeping for about a year.”
She said she awoke after meeting a visiting Buddhist master.
“It was sudden,” she said of her attraction to Buddhism.
“It was like coming home, and everything fell into place.”
Buddhism, she said, is not a religion but rather a way of thinking.
Buddha’s teaching is that all suffering is a result of negative thinking and the negative karma created by that thinking, so the end of negative thinking results in an end to suffering, she said.
As Padma, she points out that both the positive and negative thinking of a single person have ripple effects.
“When you come home and kick your dog and scream at your spouse, that has ramifications,” she said, describing an effect of negative thinking.
“She goes off and complains to her sister, the dog feels bad and you feel guilty, so all of the negative energy is like a wave that affects the people around you,” she said.
And while the idea that positive is good and negative is bad seems obvious, it is the advanced teachings that show how this can occur, she said.
Beginning with positive thinking extends to creating a balance between the positive forces of renunciation, compassion, faith, love and wisdom compensating for anger, jealousy, greed, pride and ignorance, she said.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
