A deep sadness veiled my heart during the week I spent with Lama Dawa & Khandro Kalsang in Sarnath and Varanasi in early December 2016. The sadness had set in long before, actually. It permeated throughout and to the bone, due to a sense of futility. I had lost hope that this precious jewel of a man would live in his present body much longer. To the discerning eye, the roll of the dice of karma in conjunction with the Lama's obedience to the dakinis' calling had long ago decided that much.
I am sure that Lama would not at all have seen it in this way or phrased it in such a gloomy manner. His vision was of a different quality and order, altogether. He never just noticed one plane of existence. Yes, it is true, I hardly ever saw him denying ordinary feelings and emotions rippling through him in the moment of their simultaneous arising and vanishing. To all appearance he was a simple man not given to flights of fancy, least of all the ostentatiousness of self-denial. When he was happy or hurt, he often openly talked about it in private. Yet, about the perception of a true and genuine dzogchen yogi, we can only project wrongly or seek recourse in what the texts have to say regarding the view resultant from perpetually abiding in the central channel.
Of course, such lofty station doesn't apply to me. To me in Sarnath at the time, every of our get togethers every day and every hour spent in Lama’s company felt like an extended and, from my side, dreaded farewell. The mood was amplified by the fact that the days passed under the thick north Indian plains' winter fog, made even heavier and longer lasting by industrial and/or vehicle exhaust pollution. The fog hardly ever lifted—and when it did then only partially to reveal a hazy and never warming sun, which even when appearing to shine remained pale and powerless.
And there was one more downer which was severely dampening the overall mood: the entire population of north India seemed to sleep-walk around in a state of half-stupefied disorientation if not outright despair as the government had recently opted for a brutal demonetization (eventually proven to be meaningless as black money did not disappear; it only changed hands). The old 500- and 1000-Rupee notes had been declared illegal in early November and the new notes were almost impossible to get. If you wanted cash from a machine or from the bank teller you had to wait in line for a few hours only to discover in the last minute that your wait had been in vain. One of the purposes of my visit therefore was to bring much needed funds in the new currency to Lama & Kalsang as these new notes were more easily available in Goa than in Varanasi. Such was the situation upon my arrival and prevailing throughout my stay.
Nothing extraordinary happened in the course of my visit. Lama only gave the one formal teaching that I had requested.
I was never one to want ever more formal teachings. Right from the start of our relationship, I had never set my mind on ‘completing a specific curriculum’, although it often occurred to me that Lama would have preferred me to be more ambitious, or rather: more dedicated in this respect. But my mind simply is not geared in this manner. For me, teachings unfold naturally, they happen in every moment. Life provides so much! For me life being the ‘ultimate teacher’ is not a new-age platitude. Of course, scriptures and formal dharma instructions give life experience the structure it needs so that we don’t get lost in the unpredictable vagaries of our mindstreams. But life itself donates the juice; life IS the juice. Simply being with Lama was my kind of dzogchen instruction that I could thrive on, grow on: it had always had been like this right from the start.
What did we do together in Sarnath, Lama Kalsang and I? Nothing really noteworthy for sure! And although it may not have been generally noteworthy, it seemed nevertheless deeply meaningful to us. None of the simple events of the day seemed like negligible or a waste of time.
Lama insisted that we share every meal together. He totally rejected my offer to give them privacy. Thus we either ate at a restaurant together or shared what Kalsang had been preparing (mostly chicken thukpa or rice) on one of these old-fashioned one-burner kerosene stoves in their rented room. The stove reminded me of my visits to the East in the 1970s. I had then cooked quite a few meals on one of these, especially in Nepal. One time we paid an extended lunch visit to Lopon Orgyan Tenzin (enjoying a meal of the obligatory buff momos). Lopon is an old school mate and life-long friend of Rinpoche’s.
We circumambulated Damekh stupa together more than once, and the other stupa the name of which I forgot. We went on a boat ride on the Ganga, Lama explaining the meaning and history of some of the ghats. We took a stroll around his Alma Mater, the old Sanskrit University located in the center of town and built in colonial times (but we found the building was under total renovation). We made offerings at different sacred places, did ganachakras together, without instruments and fanfare. Lama had declined Lopon’s invitation to join him and his students for some bigger group tsoks. Lama Dawa obviously wanted these pujas that we shared to be simple and private.
On the last day, Lama bought five soap stone Shakyamuni statues and asked me to keep one
and distribute the remaining four among some of his students in India whom he individually designated. These were people who truly felt and had shown devotion for him. They also had taken teachings and empowerments—and subsequently had progressed in their preliminary practices or even done some of the 3-Root retreats in my house in Goa. When he handed the statues over to me I could sense how much it meant to him to give these gifts precious beyond compare, albeit not for their material value.
The next morning and final I went to the airport at 7am for a flight scheduled for 10am and had to wait until 3pm for the fog delayed departure. I used the time to do mantras and reminisce about mirages, phantoms and dream images.
The dharma kaya aspect of the guru may be priceless and all pervading. But it cannot come to life and truly radiate throughout our own being without the deep love and cherishing that keeps welling up from deep inside us for the guru’s precious human body. Ultimately there seems to be no dharma kaya possible without a nirmana kaya calling it forth.
But then, who is calling whom and what is emanating what!
