Folk Life Festival

At the Folk Life Festival on the mall in DC, the two main exhibitions were from Texas and Bhutto. I ran out of batteries on my camera as I got to Texas, so this is my only picture of Texas. But I've been there, so we're good. This is a dance hall with live music. You have the people watching the "folk life" and people participating in the festivities by dancing. I really wish that I had gone with someone so I could dance--but I didn't even plan on going to the festival. I was ready to go to the gym, and I decided to hop on the metro and just go into town to see what was happening and as I emerged from the depths of the underground, I found myself at the Folklife Festival!
I tried to make it appear like I was taking a picture of the temple in the background, but really--I was giggling at these stalwart octogenarians. I hope I'm out and about attending Folklife festivals when I'm this old. Awesome.
This is the entrance into the Bhuttan Temple.
This is the inside of the temple. The monks sat playing the same music over and over again. I don't know if it's cooler in Bhutta than it is in DC, but they seemed absolutely miserable. I kept thinking about what I knew about Bhuddism--how they eliminate suffering by overcoming the self. You have two choices--to change your reality or change your view of reality--and Bhuddism teaches you to change your desires or your view of reality in order to eliminate the disparity and eliminate suffering. I expected to see happy monks. But these monks were not happy. They were suffering. So much for that theory. Maybe that's why they were playing music. I did appreciate that music and art filled the spiritual space. That made me happy. Even if it didn't make the monks happy.
This is a monk carving a statue from clay.
This is the outside of the Bhuttan Temple.

This is a Bhuttan Monk teaching little kids how to weave yarn. Now he was happy. And he didn't have any fans blowing on him.