On December 12 I flew into Albuquerque, New Mexico, upgraded my rental car to a four wheel drive tank, and started out for Crestone, Colorado, a unique remote community beneath snow mountains on the edge of the Rio Grande Valley. The expensive upgrade was triggered by news that Colorado had been pelted with a large amount of snow that day. I was exhausted, and had only slept an hour or so the night before--returning from another trip (to Kauai!) the night before leaving on this one. I drove a long way out of the way--thinking I should take the main highway to avoid unplowed roads. Heading up route 25 seemed to take forever. I eventually pulled off the highway, drove down a dirt road, and pulled into a dirt gully in Northern new mexico to take a nap. Just then, my cell phone--which had been working only intermittently--started to ring. my hand-eye coordination was just too impaired by fatigue, I couldn't get it out of my pocket in time. Then it rang again, who is calling me goddamn it! This time I got it. I hear a familiar accent on the other end--Tinglish they call it... it was Lama Pema Dorje.
Truly an exalted yogi trained by Dudjom Rinpoche and other greats of the Nyingma Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, yet so humble that few are aware of his qualities, Lama proceded to uncharacteristically asked me lots of detail about where exactly I was and what I was doing. By this time I was wide awake and oddly cheerful.
Soon I found myself going over some godawful icy mountain pass at 15 mph, in the dark, with blowing snow obscuring my vision so much it was hard to see more than 10 feet in front of the car. I wondered to myself what would have happened to me if I had taken an hour long nap in Colorado. Would I have been able to get through that mess, not a snowplow in sight? Did Rinpoche save my life? We will never know.
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