Close of Shambhala Program

Today was the last day of our teachings in Berkeley.  This was our most well-attended program with Rinpoche ever--looked like about 100 people to me.  The amazing part was that they stayed until the last session, and some beyond.  I think Rinpoche only covered a few pages of the massive text this time, and plans to pick up where he left off next year.  Actually, you rarely get this incredibly detailed commentary on a text in our Nyingma school.  Every word explicated, wow.

Once again Rinpoche proved me wrong.  I thought we would loose our shirts offering a teaching-only program (no empowerment ceremonies) for two and a half days.  These events are quite expensive to put on, hosting three lamas, airfare, rent and so on--the budget is mind-boggling sometimes.  I didn't think the topic would attract all that many people.  Boy, was I wrong on all counts.  I didn't do registration, but I am certain we must have at least broken even.

Rinpoche met with us afterwards, and said we students would eventually write Dharma-related books, and he would check them for accuracy.  He told us in the group that we could have a (big) center like the Shambhala Center, and reiterated this to me again in private--saying we would have a center like that.  I said "Do you really think that?" and he said emphatically yes he did.  Something about a turning wheel or circle would increase power more and more.  He is very impressed with our lack of pride (that means humility) in our California group.  He tells other groups this--it could really go to our heads!

Well, it's time to hit the sack.  Guess where I am going tomorrow.  Another teaching retreat?  You betcha.  Tomorrow I leave for the Lotus Land of Pure Light.

The Renunciates and the Mantrikas

Jampa (AKA Richard D.) at Tara Mandala last week 

Ani Jampal Tsomo at lunch today--that's fake fur!

The shrine room, mantrikas backs, and April's daughter

Stacey and Ellen chatting at the auction today

Teachings continued today at the Shambhala Center, plus the annual fundraising auction for charities.  Christine, the doc in charge of the Tibet Humanitarian Project spoke about one twelve year old nun who needs expensive surgeries on for deformities of both legs, and these must be done before she is 13 because of something about her the growth plates.  We did a good job pulling together for her, accompanied by a song by our favorite rapper Ellen S., who happened to be in town making a music video, and paid us a surprise visit.

Rinpoche always stressed that we are a sangha of both monastics and mantrikas (ngakpas), and likes all the non-monastics to wear a specific stripped shawl -- that some other lamas think indicates only a super high level practitioner.  I think it is understood that the robes indicate a mere aspiration for us.  It makes our lama feel uplifted to see up in robes, perhaps because he is a monk who has spent his life around people in robes--but what he says is that it increases his faith in us when we are in mantrika robes.

Between Colorado, Houston, Arizona and California, Rinpoche has at least six American nuns: Bhikshuni Kelsang Tsomo, Ani Chotso, Ani Tsomo, Ani Tsultrim (tall), Ani Tsultrim (short), and Ani Jampal Tsomo.  And one monk: Jampa.  The shortest time any of them has been ordained is two years.  I had lunch with Ani Jampal Tsomo (Robin) today.  She says she has never been happier.  She works as a school teacher then just comes home and practices.  She doesn't do anything else, and now she wants to tell everyone how peaceful that kind of life is.

Jampa (Richard) has really blossomed as a monastic as well.  What I have observed is that each of these monastics is really drawn to the heart aspect of monasticism--they are practical, good-hearted practitioners who like to keep their lives simple.  Really, I have been impressed with how taking these vows has enhanced their dignity, faith and humility.

Boy, I just lost steam!  I'd better post these photos and hit the sack.

Rinpoche at Shambhala

Can you find Rinpoche in this picture?  I took this about an hour and a half ago, 

no effects added.

Preachin' the Dharma

Jetsunma

We rented the Berkeley Shambhala for the weekend to host Rinpoche's first of a series of teachings on the Kunsang Lamai Shelung (tr. as "The Words of My Perfect Teacher") a well-loved book by Patrul Rinpoche on the foundational practices of the Dzogchen tradition.  Rinpoche spoke "pandita" (scholar) style, elucidating each sentence in great detail.  Anne Klein is translating.

He made a key point that it is a mistake for people to think the foundational practices are not dzogchen.  He made an analogy to an airplane.  First you have to build an airplane before you fly it in the sky.  Ngondro is like building the plane, you have to have it built well for it to fly.  But it is an airplane before it takes off as well as while it is in the sky.

I am staffing the sales table.

You will also see a picture above of Jetsunma, our tulku of Yeshe Tsogyal, and the abbess of many nuns in Tibet.   She is said to be one of two women in Tibet today who give empowerment.  In her previous life she was Chime' Wangmo, a Dharma Physician and the daughter of Adzom Drukpa.  She is an excellent scholar, and was nearly complete her Khenpo (Doctorate-like) when forces outside of her control cut off her final year of education at the shedra she was attending.  There are some predictions she will move here to North America, but Rinpoche told me recently that the faith, devotion and practice of the Dharma here are not yet strong enough to warrant it.

Interesting how the picture came out of Rinpoche leaving his throne, above.

Join us tomorrow, starting at 10:30 am.

Home Briefly

After a cold Christmas eve at a hotel in Albuquerque--the heat in the room didn't work--I departed for home.  On the way back I sat next to a troubled male-to-female transexual, who restlessly alternated between a kind of grunting sound, and asking the flight attendant for peanuts or "something alcoholic."  After the first Jack Daniel's was consumed, the flight attendant said they were all out of Jack and had only "Woodruff" which she explained was "like that."  I had a strong feeling that woodruff was a non-alcoholic drink that only tasted like liquor, and that she was preventing a drunken scene through a compassionate act of deception. Do you know?

Anyway, I silently practiced compassion, feebly, but I didn't start up a conversation.

Once home, my fabulous practitioner girlfriend L interrupted her personal retreat to pick me up and then exchange gifts.  It was lovely.

Then the 26th and 27th were maintenance days, fixing and "smogging" my car, shopping, and a little meeting with Nina in preparation for seeing A Rinpoche.  In 2001, Nina and I cofounded his California group Osel Thegchog Ling, and needed to talk about what we and others would say to him at our annual checkin tonight.  After this meeting yesterday I went to visit Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang, who were staying with their son in Berkeley.  He gave me a text (Tseringma dice divination) that I am going to get translated somehow, at my own instigation, then I helped with a few phone calls for them to help iron out some visa problems for one of their sons because they leave for Asia Sunday morning.  Taiwan is a time consuming hassle to get into, India is easy, for someone with  Nepali passport.  This I learned.  

Skillful Means

A backyard in Santa Fe, Sunset, Christmas Eve 2007

One December 24, I started to drive down to New Mexico via Chama.  In Chama the state of new Mexico provided a tourist stop with free internet.  Fortunately I read my email there.  I found that Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe had decided to throw a last minute Christmas Eve traditional dinner.  I have signed up for a Buddhist Chaplaincy training program at Upaya, that starts in 2008, but I have never been there.  The centers' Roshi (zen master) Joan Halifax Roshi was to make her cranberry relish, so I had to go!

Now, I have never spent more than five minutes inside a Zen center before.  I came to the door and was ushered towards the Zendo, a lovely spartan glowing room with a statue of Manjushri in the center, and cushions all around the fringe.  Not facing the wall as one might expect, actually.A A gnome like priest gestured me silently to come-in, come-in.  Damn, I just remembered my back was toast from the previous days activities.  Oh, well, I sat and tried not to squirm.  They had the lights dimmed, which added an other-worldly quality to my meditation.  They mercifully have periodic walking meditation, I couldn't feel my feet by then. The gnome told us to carefully follow the person in front.  Being inattentive, I went astray and zig-zagged wildly throughout the shrine room.  

It was then that I realized the gnomes voice sounded familiar from You Tube.  As I limped out of the shrine room when I could take the pain no longer she found me--it was Roshi!  Smiling, instantly remembering who I was and giving me a robust greeting, she welcomed me to dinner. 

Her little talk before we ate was similar, enthusiastic and hearty she made aspirations that this little roomful of 25 people or so was exhorted to end war, poverty and suffering for all in this very life.  She is short in stature and goes up on her toes with feeling at times, a clear leader, vigorous and present.

The assembly mirrored the friendly cheerfulness of their mentor.  I will have a great time at my Upaya visits over the next two years, that is certain.

Enchanted Morning

Finally, on December 24th, after eight hours of kick-ass empowerments, preceded by a frenzy of torma making* for yours truly, I awoke to see the rising sun and the setting full moon in the sky at the same time.

Time to say goodbye to Tara Mandala and head out to New Mexico where I plan to stay wait out the airport rush on the 24th and fly home on xmas day.

You may notice I haven't said anything much about the content of the program.  It was a very magical time, but it is traditional to keep the experience "warm' inside and not disperse it by blabbing about it to people who weren't there.

*tormas are symbolic colored dough sculptures used in Tibetan Buddhist rituals.

My Friend--The residence building

Close Up

From across the meadow

While at TM, we were the first group to use the new Residence Hall, an addition to the place that really makes it possible to go on retreat there without being a total bitch.  I have had back pain since childhood, and also I have high needs for alone time.  Now, we can stay on a very comfortable mattress with only two people per room, and have a luxurious pain killing hot shower, or--get this--a bath--after a hard day of sitting.  Thank you thank you, to the donors who made this possible!

Tara Mandala--a vital growing retreat cnter

The Community Building, added a year or two ago.

The stupa, based on a series of dreams of Nyala Pema Duddul, a great adept of the Dzogchen lineage, this was put up in the late nineties.

From December 14 to the 24, I was on retreat at Tara Mandala.  Rinpoche has been leading a sequential program of teachings over several years there, related to the pinnacle teachings of the Nyingma tradition known as the Great Perfection, Dzogchen in Tibetan.  

Tara Mandala is a 700 acre piece of land we used to call wilderness.  Now, with a stupa, two large buildings, and one on the way, I guess we could call it one of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist retreat centers in the U.S.  Founded by Tsultrim Allione, an American Dharma teacher and visionary, in 1993, outside of Pagosa Springs, Colorado in the Western foothills of the Rockies--it is a stunning representation of what sticking to a clear and ambitious vision statement and pure intention can wrought.  I remember in about 200- being struck by seeing the architect's diagram of what Tara Mandala would become in the small yurt bookstore near the stupa in the summer of 2000, after a night of being kept up by wolves frolicking by my tent.  A community building, a temple, a three year retreat, environmentally responsible design principles.  Right!  My home Dharma center was in a circus tent at that point and it was headed by a Tibetan Dzogchen master, how was this woman and her crew of college students on work-study going to do that!  

Actually, I could see clearly that she would.  Tulku Sangngak Rinpoche later said that TM is a pure land of Tara, and she met Rinpoche a few years later who confirmed it is a "Ney" of Tara and many people will attain enlightenment in the future there.  Rinpoche is now the guiding light of TM and comes annually.  

Tsultrim has always emphasized mainly the practice of Chod (hint, you begin to approximate the pronunciation of this word by dropping the D, the o is pronounced as like it has those two dots over it) in her teaching.  She resides at TM and travels widely, helping bring Dharma to the west, and fundraising for TM.  She became well known through her book Women of Wisdom, a collection of biographies of some of the female meditation adepts of our tradition, turning on an interest in TB for western women who would not be magnetized by men in red robes sitting on thrones (which for some reason works for me, even though I have a radical feminist background).

This summer Tsultrim went to Nepal and Tibet with her large retinue, and was officially recognized by two different lamas as an "emanation" of Machig Labdron, the 11th century female meditation master who was the first native Tibetan chod practitioner.

Onward to Pagosa Springs

After magnificent teachings on a practice of the most penetrating manifestation of Padmasambhava, Rinpoche concluded his short visit to Crestone.  I participated in a convoy over the Wolf Creek pass towards Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in another snowstorm.  In front, Machig Labdron in the form of Tsultrim Allione, driving Rinpoche and entourage.  Behind, the tailgaiting son, Coz.  With me, Dechen--one of Rinpoche's American attendants--keeping me company so I don't sever the steering wheel with my death grip as we  descend from the pass.  

It turns out Dechen is planning on going to Tibet on the same group pilrimage to Tibet that I hope to make with Lama Yeshe Wangmo in 2009.  A speaker of Tibetan and experienced traveler there, she has been helping Lama Wangmo plan the spots to visit on this excursion to unravel the enigmatic Yeshe Tsogyal's sacred story.

Jnanasukha's trip to Tibet 1009.  See bottom of the page.

When we arrived on the edge of Pagosa we did a pit stop at a gas station.  As I have witnessed on numerous occasions with Rinpoche, a destined disciple connected with him in the gas station.  This ordinary looking young man is planning to go to China to become a monk.  Tsultrim invited him out to Tara Mandala, a large Tibetan Buddhist center a few miles outside of Crestone that she founded, and he did not know existed.  One the last day of the retreat he received a Guru Rinpoche empowerment from Rinpoche, by candlelight, and was invited to come back to the place Rinpoche was staying, for a personal chat.

Tara Mandala 

Tomorrow, I hope to bring the blog up to the present day.  It is the day, Friday, that A Rinpoche arrives at Oakland Airport.  Do you want to come?  I hear the flight comes in at noon.  Then, a public talk at the Berkeley Shambhala Center at 7 pm.

Rinpoche in the Winter Sun

Just another pic of Rinpoche in the winter sun at White Jewel Mountain.

White Jewel Mountain

I woke up at the Silver Star B & B in Crestone. I recommend it--$52 a night, warm, caring, clean and pretty.  I dragged my sorry ass over to the home of Hanna Strong.  To make a long story short, Hanna and her husband Maurice, were told by the 16th Karmapa in the 70's that many people would attain great realization in this place that they owned.  A foundation was set up to make land grants to representative legitimate groups from all the worlds contemplative traditions.  And so, the most unusual place in Colorado was born.

The foundation has made a land grant to A. Rinpoche, who is one of my main teachers, to build a cremation stupa there, and a place for monastics to live, and serious yogis to do retreat, maybe more.  There are several other centers for Tibetan lamas already there.

Above is Rinpoche with Prof. Anne Klein (of Rice University) on the land, clarifying where the stupa and residence will go.  There are several of his nuns already living in Crestone waiting to move onto the land.  He was in loafers, and asked my to tromp a path through the snow with my big Sorrel boots to make a path.  I had fun doing that with others.

Here is the website for Rinpoche's group in Crestone.

White Out

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.

Inauguration

I bought a house on an urban creek in Oakland, California, moved in with my partner, quit my job, and went into retreat in a glorified tent in the back yard--where I remained for six months.   So began the story of life on Sausal Creek.  

Now, with greater clarity and direction, I emerge for a while to share my stories with you.  From Sausal creek to other universes, and everything in between.