How Lama Dawa’s Actions Were Wisdom Display …Provided Your Eyes Were Open to See

“But through play, spiritual energy can be sustained, so we must not think that play is always bad.  Whether or not our rigid mature minds reject play, everything is still the display of the natural secret essence of the elements.  If we are serious and rigid, our subtle elements become congested and cannot reflect this wisdom display.  If our mind is calm and vast and playful, we can always recognize this essence display.  In open space there is never turbulence….”

--Thinley Norbu

Unfortunately, I recognized only very few of Lama Dawa’s displays.  I was lucky if I every once and a while caught one of the sparks when he shot them spontaneously through the pitch-dark night sky of my closed, rigid mind.  Even more seldom, were the occasions when I interpreted them correctly and translated them into suitable matching action.  Mostly, I didn’t.  And many times I must have not even recognized that I had missed something important. Here’s an example for my failing to see the meaning of one such display, and its long-term ripples extending into what lay then still in the future.  

One day I was again sitting in Lama’s room.  It must have been shortly before my departing back for South India, around 2004.  All of a sudden, Lama rose from his carpeted bed, his sort-of teaching throne when he was home in Kathmandu, went over to the metal cabinet where his clothes and some valuables were kept, and pulled out a letter size manila envelope.  He handed it to me unopened with the cryptic comment that soon I would need what was contained therein.  I was too arrogant to have a peak on the spot, and so I took the envelope to the guesthouse where I opened it. 

I don’t know what I had expected.  Clearly I had expected something big, portentous, although I have no clue what that could have been.  But I hadn’t expected what I held in my hands: about two dozen laminated color photos of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, showing him in layman’s garb on the shore of the Tsangpo River near Lhasa.  The picture is quite famous and by now has been used by many, many times over to illustrate their Facebook posts.  Thinley Norbu also included it in his autobiography, A Brief Fantasy History of a Himalayan. 

But I was clearly disappointed when I held these color photos in my hands.  Devotion didn’t well up deep from inside.  “Just pictures,” I thought and I didn’t even touch the photos to my head.  It didn’t occur to me that these pictures were pointing to something important.  For example, I might have considered that Lama had the same picture on his shrine and that he was fond of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche (in general he didn’t entertain such high respect for Lamas simply because they had been enthroned); furthermore, Khandro Kalsang was Thinley Norbu’s devoted student.  So, upon reflection it could have been conceivable, even to the rational mind, that some auspicious connection from way past when was being re-established in this moment.  Or I might have taken into account that when a Lama really cares about a student, he connects him or her to other worthy teachers.  But no, to me the whole thing felt like a letdown, although in actual fact it indeed was what I had hoped for: portentous.  My fault was that I missed the point.   

When I arrived back home in Karnataka, I burned the photos except for one, which I put up on my desk.  For me the case was closed, filed under: ‘one of Lama’s incomprehensible actions’.  I did not think about the matter any further.  And I had totally forgotten about it until a few days ago when I started writing this article first in my head, and especially about the ramifications of my reaction and action.

A year or so after the incident with the photos, I received a communication from one of the publishers in Germany with and for whom I had free-lanced since the late 1970s quite a bit, asking me if I was interested in translating Thinley Norbu’s Magic Dance and White Sail into German.  Nothing was definite yet, but they were about to sign the contract with Shambhala.  Of course, I was.  More than that, I was delighted. 

It so happened that shortly after receiving the offer I was seeing Lama in Kathmandu, again.  I asked him to ask in Sarasvati’s mirror about the chances of success for the project, which he did.  The answer came that, “there were obstacles, which might be vanquished, if a certain puja was done, even though the outcome was far from guaranteed.”  Lama just commented, that we had to do the puja, which he arranged for through a yogi friend.  What Lama didn’t do was to remind me about the photos and the auspicious connection that he had seen possible and thus had tried to establish in the past.  As stated above, I had totally forgotten about the photos, and as usual he was far too subtle to rub my nose in it. 

But, looking back, I am sure that Lama hadn’t forgotten.  He had the memory of an elephant, and elephants are said to never forget anything.  He could remember a text after reading it once.  On occasion he quoted something that I had said in the past verbatim, and several years later.  You could say that all the networks and files in his data collection were retrievable at any moment  - and not just the data collection from his personal memory bank.  Naturally, most of the time he gave no clue of possessing such abilities and actually could play dumb very convincingly, at least to the unsuspecting.

A few weeks later, I was requested to hand in a sample translation for Thinley Norbu’s people to check for accuracy and style.  I felt absolutely up to the task.  I have great confidence in my stylistic sensibilities especially in my mother tongue.  This is generally not misplaced, yet in this case my habitual arrogance was to be deflated.  I made one big stupid error, which was more like a typo than anything else, by forgetting to add a required negation, which I did not catch, although I read and re-read my two sample pages several times before sending them in.  The reaction came promptly,  “If the guy is not able to get a simple sentence right, even turning the intended meaning into its opposite, how will he translate the book correctly.”  Result: I did not earn the privilege of translating Thinly Norbu’s two books… that I still cherish and still keep reading to this very day; now even more than ever.

At the time of this happening, I did not connect the failure to my ignoring of the tendrel (or auspicious connectedness) that Lama Dawa had tried to point out through his non-verbal communication or display.  Now, I do.  However, one should not confuse such synchronicities for mechanical causalities, which they are not.  Even though as sharp as the tip of a sword, the Lama’s displays always remain as light as a feather.  They do not create do-or-die situations, even though in a way they are.  As we all know, one has to die many times before wizening up, if at all.

A few years later, after Thinley Norbu’s parinirvana, he appeared to me in a vision in the course of one of my dakini retreats.  He stood clearly before me as a man in his prime, like in the photos of his that I had dismissed as ‘un-portentous’ and said, “Although we were supposed to meet in this lifetime, we didn’t. My promise is that we will meet many times in the future.”

What else could one wish for?  Well may be, that I won’t be such a knuckle head as I proved to be in the context of this story, for the remaining years of my life.  But then again, one shouldn’t entertain high hopes against the odds.

“To show true respect in a consistently deep and subtle way we must make our minds pure.  Then, our respect will not be two-faced.  It is always best to examine our mind before automatically saying that we respect someone, remembering that true respect always comes from the mind.  If traditional outer rules of respect for body and speech are taught rigidly, without skillful means, we become fearful that we will disobey or betray the tradition.  When our minds are fearful, our pure inner elements become congested, and we can react by becoming wild, rebellious and disrespectful.  If we learn the inner respect of good intention, which exists within the pure light essence within the elements, then the outer expression of our body and speech will be open, pure, and unobstructed, and our respect will always be continuous.

--Thinley Norbu

 

Remembering Lama Dawa – Part I How & When He Gave His Refuge Lineage

“The Dharma point of view is to try to destroy samsara’s tradition through wisdom expression of skillful means, such as writing, painting, speaking or teaching to teach enlightenment, which is beyond tradition.”

--Thinley Norbu

Thus one fine day, the Lama spoke totally unexpectedly, ”Today, I am giving you my refuge and bodhisattva lineages, and I will explain to you exactly how you should pass them on to others.”

I cannot claim ownership, let alone exclusivity regarding this lineage.  Yet, I feel that some kind of a disclaimer is warranted.  Disclaimers need to be made in today’s environment more frequently than in the past when people were more perceptive of the meaning between the lines of what was being said or written.  Today, too often when somebody comments about an event (even from his personal life and experience) or shares a reflection, a dream, or a momentary impression, due to the already deeply ingrained mistrust habit, even further corrupted by social media exposure, people take it as generalized statement with an agenda.  As if someone else’s experience could contradict one’s own, let alone devalue it.  At the bottom of this lies the basic assumption regarding the sole validity of one’s view.  Which, of course, is faulty, and creates all the trouble in the world. 

I am sharing about the event like I will about other memories of my Lama because I like to demonstrate how multifaceted he used to be and how free of the fetters of conventionality he occasionally acted; for example, how Lama Dawa sometimes passed on essential teachings spontaneously, and seemingly without preparation.  By nature, such sharing, as expressed in these events themselves as well as in telling about them, has to be personal.   And because it is personal, it neither describes nor characterizes how Lama Dawa went about his Lama business with others, or in general.  I don’t know about how he was with others, and of generalities I know even less.  Actually, there is no one and only way that would define or do justice to how he acted. 

He was always spot-on in the moment and taught everyone according to capacity and past life connection.  Quite a few people were blessed by being guided by him in this manner.  Everyone always received a warm-hearted welcome.  But no one received goodies that were not his or hers to receive.  Lama wasn’t a people pleaser or crowd chaser.

His words on the day in question came out of the blue, and even that is an understatement.  Lightening struck, so to speak, in the course of a conversational get together in Lama’s room over cognac, red wine, and, yes, smoking Marlboros – Lama’s ambrosia and incense of choice, at the time.  I had gifted him with a bottle of Hennesy XO only the day before.  He was very fond of XO.  To the chagrin (and annoyance) of many, he used to joke that he had made a vow to build a palace in the realm of the hungry ghosts with his empty booze bottles accumulated over a lifetime, and that the XO bottles were required for ornamentation.  To which Khandro Kalsang drily remarked that enough bottles had been emptied already to last for three palaces.  Strangely enough, I tended to take Lama’s statement at face value.  For me his words rang true.

This meeting took place in late March or early April 2006, when I was visiting Lama in Kathmandu, like I had been doing almost every year after 1999.  Since I started living in India in 1998, it was always easier for me to connect with him while he was in Asia.  To me connecting with him in Asia also felt more satisfying, because in my eyes he appeared different, standing (or even sitting) taller in a way; he appeared to act even less bound by rules and outside expectations, more carefree and spontaneous – and sometimes doing even more outrageous things when challenging students’ egos stuck in the mud of their own pattering.  This, again, is a personal observation, with no claim to objectivity.  May be it was my own perception making me feel this way.  I know that I am more cautious and guarded when I am in the west than when I am in India.  And thus I might have only projected on him to be freer, whereas he was a carefree yogi everywhere and always.

In a way, with the few words that I said I already told the full story.  Nothing much else happened.  No bells and whistles, no great ceremony ensued.  Lama was never the man for much ado about nothing, at least according to what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.  He was always only ceremonial when he felt it was needed.  When a puja was being conducted or substances to be collected and used for a particular purpose, he allowed for no short cuts. 

Thus, he gave me the teaching on how to bestow refuge right there on the spot.  He gave the instructions on how to give bodhisattva instructions the next day.  He told me how I should design the refuge card, and what I should request of people when they asked for bodhisattva instructions, because at that moment they have to give something which they usually wouldn’t want to give.   This something didn’t have to be a material thing, by the way.  He reiterated that I should not discriminate against anyone and that I should grant refuge freely to those who had asked, and that I should always give bodhisattva instructions not ‘bodhisattva vows’ as according to the lineage that he himself had received there weren’t any such vows to be made or taken. 

He concluded the day’s teaching by ordering me that on the coming Padmasambhava day (whichas far as I can remember fell April 9^th   that year) I would need to give my first refuge ceremony, and the one receiving it would be such and such person.  It was someone I knew quite well and to whom I had suggested that he should request refuge from Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, only a few days before.  Hilarious: I had sent the person to Kunzang Dorje, Kunzang Dorje referred him to Lama Dawa, and Lama Dawa and sent him to me instead, to go full circle.

To date, I have not appeared in public much and only a handful people know my dharma story and connection, naturally not many ask for refuge.  This is also not going to change.  I have given refuge to about a dozen people since then, and bodhisattva instructions to even fewer.  We are a close-knit yet open spirited family so to speak, and everyone is working, in the world and on the path.  I am the only non-Indian in the group.  Everyone else is from either India or Nepal.  Two have completed the dakini part of the Tersar introductory 3-Root retreat series, one has graduated to the Guru retreat; most have completed Ngondro or are applying themselves, including the two teenagers in the group.  In this sense, Lama’s seeds have fallen on fertile ground. 

Some of our sangha members’ lives, in terms of how they feel about themselves and their position in the world, have been evolving over the years from utter confusion and even self-torture to merely basic confusion (of the kind that is afflicting all of us); from total dissatisfaction to a sense of groundedness – in that which has no ground.  Which makes me, and everyone else happy, of course, if only fleetingly.  The teachings are growing on us as we proceed.  There is no end of the process in sight.  The sights are not set on worldly happiness and comfort alone.

A few days ago someone asked me, if I was a ‘Lama’, as he had heard that I had people at my house doing traditional Vajrayana retreats, sometimes for weeks at a time.  I answered that in this context designations and titles were meaningless.  Only actions are meaningful, and over time are telling their own story.  Besides, I don’t have much liking for formal robes as such, not to mention thrones.  The idea of being tied to them has not the least appeal.  Because of my childhood social conditioning, robes and thrones almost disgust me.  Stating that, I also understand and respect the function that robes and thrones play within Tibetan society.  Therefore, I don’t feel called to criticize or change any aspect of Buddhism.  It would serve no purpose whatsoever, except ego-inflation.  I teach the way I learned from Lama Dawa, and how the process evolves, time will reveal.  But whatever slight modifications will occur, they will only be meaningful if founded in practice experience.  Anyway, the essence of the Buddha’s teachings hasn’t changed (according to Dudjom Rinpoche’s dating of Shakyamuni’s life on earth) in the past 2.800 some years.  Why should we try and change anything now?

One event from the year before about which I had never informed Lama Dawa, might have had something to do with his bestowing his refuge lineage, as well.  Being an accomplished tsa-lung yogi Lama Dawa could see both past and future in the present, and nothing could really be hidden from him, ever.  However, often he closed his vision, which is only understandable because nobody wants to know and see everything that is going on around.

In May 2005, a young Indian woman lived in our house and worked at the small business that I had established in Goa.  She had run away from home and with deep emotion begged me to help her to break free from the shackles of the society in which she had grown up and furthermore to help her break the shackles of samsara.  No doubt, a serious request was being made, and not only once.  She appealed to me many times, and it was clear why.  By leaving behind everything that she had known as a safe haven since childhood, she had already proven that she meant business and wasn’t only pretending.  She was dead serious about her desire for liberation.  Besides, an uncanny intuition arose about her past connection to the dharma, later confirmed by Lama Dawa’s mirror divination.

I felt that I needed to encourage her with some outer sign, some token to seal the bond in this life, so to speak.  I reflected upon it for a few days, and eventually told her that if she were up to it that I would give her refuge.  To do something as outrageous as this had never occurred to me before.  I also clearly stated that what I was proposing constituted a breach of protocol.  I was not empowered to give formal refuge and had no instruction on how to go about doing it.  Therefore, I would let my heart spontaneously invent a ceremony for her and pray that it be in harmony with the dharma, in both spirit and form.

In addition, I requested the protectors silently to punish only me and not the innocent aspiring student, for my wrongdoing, adding in my heart, “If I have to go to hell for this violation of a basic dharma precept in my future life, let me go alone and spare her.”  I totally meant it.  I am also not speaking about this as if there had been any kind of emotional drama involved, neither outside nor inside.  Everything concerning such and similar events was and is always only what it is and totally matter-of-fact.

I have no clue if Lama perceived any of these threads from the past through his wisdom eye, or if he only acted on an intuition himself.   But when he said, that he was giving me his refuge lineage, I felt relieved and vindicated.  I hadn’t done something so totally wrong after all.

This is how I received Lama Dawa’s Tersar refuge and bodhisattva lineages.  I always tried to live and act accordingly before I received them.  Nothing changed fundamentally after I had received them.  Much work is still ahead, needing to be done.  No work lies ahead and nothing needs to be done.  My greatest wish is always to convey and teach what cannot be taught.

“If we write or paint or say something that is not too close to tradition, some rigid Buddhists think it is not the Buddhist point of view.  They do not understand that the Buddhist tradition is to break samsara’s impure traditions, to attain the vastest, purest traditions.  Tradition always makes limits if it is not pure.  So, from the beginning, we should have no attachment to tradition in order to release our mind from the habit of samsara’s traditional trap.  We should have an understanding of the display of many possible aspects of tradition without ignoring others’ traditions in order to benefit and satisfy samasara’s traditional beings.  In this way, at the same time we release our mind from tradition, we should play without accepting or rejecting in order to decorate it, as a beautiful bird and a tree ornament each other.”

--Thinley Norbu