The development unfolded gradually over a five year period and it was
beautiful to observe, especially when understanding it fully now by looking
back, for all the love and care that it involved and expressed. Lama Dawa never met my mother in person,
but for all intents and purposes she became his student, albeit unbeknownst to
her. And, in a manner of speaking
he played the part of a devotee, as it became more and more apparent how fully
devoted he was to her welfare—how all these little hints and pointers of his
culminated in liberating action at the time of death. In this sense, any true teacher becomes a devotee, devoted
to his or her dharma friends’ welfare, and unreservedly so.
Much of what transpired between Lama and my mother happened through
mirror divinations, which is also how it got started. The year was 1999, the month of December to be exact. I had arrived a month earlier, with the
intention to stay into April 2000 because of the full cycle of bKa-Ma
transmissions and empowerments to be given at a Nyingma monastery in Tinchuli
beginning after Losar 2000. Lama
had insisted that I take part, overriding my objection that I would anyway be
able to practice only a fraction of what was to be given. This being a fact my protestation was,
why bother at all? He didn’t
accept this, replying that I needed the entire lineage and not just bits and
pieces. When he spoke like this
with the voice of absolute guru authority, ‘no’ was never an option.
About a month after my arrival, on the occasion of my weekly phone call
to Germany I heard from my mother that she had been diagnosed with more cancer,
this time in the other breast and that she would have to undergo surgery the
coming Monday in the early morning hours.
I believe I made the call on a Friday. My mother didn’t request me to come, but it was obvious that
as her sole close relation alive (after all she was already 85 years old at the
time), I would need to go.
That same afternoon I went to see Lama Dawa and told him all about it. His reaction was, “We have to consult the mirror immediately.” Which he did. But he ignored my readiness to go and book a flight,
immediately. Instead, he was
totally focused on arranging whatever needed to be done. At that time he was at home in the old
Kathmandu house by himself, with only his daughter Rigzin, as he had sent the khandros
Kalsang & Kunzang together on a pilgrimage to India. Economical as ever with words in
important matters he stated, “Two pujas have to be done tomorrow, and Lama
Yedrol will do them for your mom and then there is something else that only I
can do, and I will do it in the night.” This was about all of the information that he
volunteered. He called Lama Yedrol
on the phone and then sent me over to his place to make the required
offering.
In addition Lama instructed me not to call Germany on Saturday, but only
to get in touch with my mother in the hospital on Sunday after the last
pre-operation tests and check-ups.
I didn’t understand why, but I nevertheless did as I had been told.
Reaching the woman at the reception desk, I asked for my mother. She took a while to find the room number,
but then replied, “Your mother has been
discharged an hour ago. You can
probably reach her at home by now.”
I made the call, and yes, my mother was in her apartment. Excited even agitated as she obviously
was she was almost tripping over her own words, “Would you believe it, son, they checked my breast again, and there was
absolutely no lump. They found this
quite strange because only a week ago there had been one, and not too small.
And they had the records to prove it. They then murmured
something about an unbelievable spontaneous remission and let me go.” Well, may be the remission hadn’t been
just spontaneous after all. May be
it had to do with some unknown skillful intervention. We will never know. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have to fly to Germany.
Every year after this happened, whenever I visited Lama in Kathmandu, he
did something for my mother. And
mostly he initiated the action himself. I remember one time, when she had confessed to me that
she was becoming increasingly depressed because several of her friends had
passed. While listening to me
telling him, Lama nodded, did another divination without my even asking for it
and then suggesting, “Now that she has
lost some of her friends, she needs Tara as a friend. I will send Tara to her myself.” Which, again, he did!
Come to think of it, many of the interventions for her sake he insisted
on doing himself, rather than commissioning another Lama. Whenever I called her after ‘Tara had
been sent’, the depressed undertone in my mother’s voice was gone. I believe this was in 2002. It took me a while to discern it
because it was quite subtle, but whenever Lama spoke about my mother, his voice
sounded even more loving than usual.
Which, of course cannot be read as a claim to exclusivity. Whenever Lama was lovingly focused on
someone that person automatically felt special. In this sense, all the people whom Lama Dawa ever fully
focused on, for that moment of his focusing, became the same kind of ‘special’.
In 2003 I could not see Lama Dawa because he did not return to Kathmandu
for over an entire year, but I was able to call him a few times, either from
India or Germany. On one of these
occasions he stated out of the blue, “Choyin
Dorje, you cannot let your mother die in Germany. It is absolutely necessary that she dies in India, in your
house. I will help you to get her there.
First I will send you a small Guru Rinpoche picture that you have to
place somewhere in the room where she spends most of her time.” I interjected that knowing her I was
quite certain she would throw the picture into the waste bin. He remained unfazed, “She won’t notice it. But it has to be near her.” Later that same year when back on another
visit in Germany, sure enough I received an envelope with a small Guru Rinpoche
image from and blessed by Lama in the US and placed it on the China cabinet
next to the TV set. As Lama had
predicted, my mother didn’t comment which means she hadn’t noticed, as
otherwise comments would have been made, and neither too few nor too pleasant! My mother strongly disapproved of
anything religious that wasn’t Lutheran, and she especially detested my
involvement with these eastern lama or guru types.
I met Lama again in Kathmandu, shortly after Losar in 2004. He reiterated his previous command
(yes, and a command it had been, no doubt) to get my mom to India, soon. I had some reservations doubts
and voiced them, like my mom being blessed with the mindset of a staunch white
supremacist and therefore she would never move to a country full of colored
people. Lama didn’t honor this with an answer. “Bring her to India.”
But he said it very softly, with a deeply half pacifying and half seductive
voice, not harshly. This time he
elaborated further. “Once she is with you in India, she will pass
on very soon. She cannot die in
Germany. She has to die in
India. It is your duty to make it
happen.”
I didn’t deliberate further.
I finally took Lama’s word for it.
When back in South India after my return from Nepal I called her up and
said, “Listen mom, we are going to move
to Goa in the fall or early winter where we will rent a bigger house. I would like you to come and live with
us.” I had expected a
resounding rejection, but was surprised to hear something like, “That would be lovely. Sure I will come.” I couldn’t believe what I just heard,
but of course I did.
Despite of all of Lama’s hints my mother’s positive answer t the
invitation had still taken me by surprise, and the fact that it did,
illustrated unfortunately, how little I had grasped of who Lama Dawa really
was!
The vastness of his view that was all-knowing, whenever he wanted it to
be!
Past & future did not exist for him in these instances; although I
should probably write DO NOT exist for him even now, as now he is omnipresent.
(to be concluded)
