EPISODE ONE: Leaving Home
A great creator of the illusion of words
Of the people I have actually met, some I have known my whole apparent life and some only a short time. Some are alive, some are now dead. Some were totally insignificant and some meant so much to me. I have sat with countless Indians on trains, sharing food and conversation, whose names no longer exist in my head. I had tea with a man in Boston to discuss Dharma not knowing he was Allen Ginsberg and therefore missed the chance to discuss poetry with a great creator of the illusion of words. I met the most beautiful queen of dominatrixes, Whitney Ward, who showed me her dungeon, and who later joined a fire puja with me. And I met the third king of Bhutan, His Majesty King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, who lifted me up when I was a child and carried me around on his shoulders. I still remember the smell of cigarette smoke in his hair.
His Majesty Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, the Third King of Bhutan
Among all these apparitions, there have been so many transitions, so much death, also so much birth. There have been a handful of marriages and quite a lot of divorces. Even I must have transformed, in this life and in all my lives. I must have had so many other apparitions before: as a bird, as a bug, as a human.
But this present apparition of mine is probably worth a little something extra, having heard the name of Gautama and having acquired a childlike admiration for what he had to say. I have also met one of the greatest beings ever to fall into a cauldron of rice soup, a being who emerged as a compass, the one who became the beacon of my life.
When I was about five years old, I was sent away to boarding school. It was my first time alone with strangers, living in a dormitory. This was a big change for me because I was raised in a large, hard-line Buddhist family in Yongla, East Bhutan, always surrounded by visitors and attendants, yogis with dreadlocks that a Bob Marley fanatic would die for, and uninhibited yoginis so confident they would make perfect candidates for president of a women’s liberation organization. There were contented cave-dwellers who couldn’t understand why people were so concerned about digging earth, raising posts, and putting up ceilings. There were serene monks who probably had never touched more than ten rupees. There were also a lot of horny gomchen[1], whose teasing and flirtations with the ladies intrigued me endlessly and whose activities may have helped mature my hormones.
Every room in my maternal grandfather’s house had a shrine, so if you wanted to fart you had to go outside. There were constant pujas; I would wake up in the mornings to the smell of smoke offerings and the sound of cymbals, bells, and drums, which slowly blended with the songs of the cicadas and pigeons and crows. That must be why I love Ozu films so much, because of the sounds he uses.
Drubwang Sonam Zangpo
My grandfather was a renaissance man; in addition to being the perfect specimen of a yogi, he was a wonderful cook, a medicine man, an incense maker, a sculptor, and an architect, always renovating or building new stupas. From the moment I stepped out of the door, there were metalsmiths clanging away making ritual objects and the air was filled with the thick smell of Bhutanese paint, which was made from cowhide. Even today, every time I enter a freshly painted Bhutanese temple, it takes me back to my childhood. They still use that ineffective smelly paint thanks to the zealous Bhutanese National Institute of Zorig Chusum[2], which insists on guarding Bhutanese “tradition” in an era when state of the art paints are available.
As the day of my departure neared, my grandfather could be heard grumbling about how public school education was such a waste of time. And he may have been right. My grandmother joined him in the grumbling. She was worried that since it was a Christian school, I might lose my trust in the Buddha and his teachings and that I would start looking at animals merely as food. But their grumblings were not loud. Their grumblings were hushed, hesitant, and polite, using honorific language, the way you would grumble about someone who you really respect.
The command to send me to this English boarding school was my father’s and it was not even delivered face to face. I wasn’t close to my father; he and my mother were living in Kurseong, a hill station in Darjeeling, India. Both of my parents were too busy to care for me personally. They were working at All India Radio. I was much closer with my grandparents, but at this young age, children assume that, ultimately, their parents are the ones who love and care for them most. I remember how excited I would get if there was a visitor from Kurseong, how eager I was for some message or sign from my parents. But the messages were never for me, always for my grandparents.
So one day a footman came from Kurseong with the instructions to send me to an English speaking school. It must have been difficult for my grandparents because there was no way to reason with him, even if they dared. To get a message back to Kurseong would have taken weeks, and anyway my father would not have listened to their concerns. As my father, he had the authority to do whatever he wanted with me and on top of that he was the son of Dudjom Rinpoche, their spiritual master, so they dared not complain to him.
Father William Mackey
I was first sent for a brief time to a school near Yongla, in Khidung, (which could mean either “shit village” or spiral of a conch) but then transferred much farther north to a school in Tashigang, and finally to the newly-built Kanglung School run by Father William Joseph Mackey, a Canadian Jesuit priest.
Kanglung School eventually became Sherubtse College, the first college in Bhutan, but back then it was just a small boarding school. I remember being so worried because the dorm master was very strict and he would check our sheets every day to see if anyone wet the bed. The boy next to me had a habit of peeing. I would lay awake at night sleepless with fear of being shamed if I would also end up peeing. I don’t know what happened to many of these classmates but a few of them have gone on to do big things, like serving the United Nations or becoming chief of police.
Anyway, one cold rainy morning after a few months at Father Mackey’s, a truck with a wood paneled bed came up to the road above the school. Automobiles were rare in Bhutan at that time, so all the students ran up the hill and gathered around in the rain to look. They were hoping for messages from home. It’s customary in Bhutan, even today, for families to send packages of dried cheese, Bhutanese corn flakes, or dried chilies and that’s what a truck usually signaled.
But this was not the usual delivery. From a green tarp covering the back, came one of my grandfather’s attendants, Sonam Chophel, with his distinctive beard and red face (this is not the joker Sonam Chophel some of you know). Even years later when this man’s beard had became white, his skin never aged and his complexion remained tight and rosy. I immediately knew there was something in store for me. Maybe a parcel. He indicated toward the tarp and out came another figure I’d never seen before in my life, a peculiar looking man wearing pants, not the traditional Bhutanese dress. Instead of greeting me, Sonam Chophel and the stranger went straight to the headmaster’s office. A bunch of us kids crept up to the window to spy on them speaking to Father Mackey.
After they spoke for a long time, Father Mackey came and summoned me. He said that I was no longer a student in his school. “You must go now.” I believe Father Mackey actually wrote something in his biography about that day.
I don’t remember if I was happy to be going home or if I was sad to say goodbye to the friends I had made in that short time. Rumors immediately started to spread and some of my classmates began joking and teasing. Some were suddenly embarrassed to talk with me, bowing down asking for a blessing. I didn’t know what was going on. But there wasn’t much time for thinking about it.
Amcho in Sikkim, 2009
Immediately, that very same cold and rainy day, in that same truck, we left Kanglung. My classmates ran after the truck until we disappeared in the fog. And that was the end of my secular education. We headed south toward Yongla—this big man, who was clearly not Bhutanese, and Sonam Chophel snoring away in his faded sethra[3] gho. Later I learned the strapping Khampa was named Amcho. He had been a monk at Dzongsar East Tibet, Sichuan but disrobed when he left and became a big hotelier in Gangtok, Sikkim.
I often wonder what would have happened to me if that day had never come, if I had never been recognized and drafted into the phenomenon of reincarnate tulku. I may have become a computer programmer in New Jersey, as my youngest brother is now, or married a Jewish girl, or I may have become a struggling Dharma practitioner somewhere in upstate New York, where my father spent the last portion of his life. I may have gone to school in North Point, Darjeeling and college in India, then returned to Bhutan speaking good Indian English to be appointed as joint secretary of some government department that oversees projects funded by India. But knowing how attached I was to my grandparents, most likely I would have become a gomchen who doesn’t wear underwear, and walks around half drunk most of the time, night hunting and producing bastards left and right so that now there would be a few people roaming around eastern Bhutan bearing a close resemblance to me.
Doing Allen Ginsberg’s make-up for work in 1985 I talked to him about “Howl” and how my teachers confiscated his book.I had a New York Times article from the Sunday edition with his picture and he signed it for me.Underneath the thangka on the wall he wrote OM AH HUNG and under my name AH.I didn’t ask him about it as I knew nothing about Buddhism.
I was a friend of Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg back in the late 70’s. Lived in their apartment on East 10th Street ( the fist one). I have wonderful memories of those days.
Family is so precious
Sangha is refuge
The dharma self
May compassion and wisdom abound
Just Now
Correction , it was on the late 60’s…I’m old now and this was a loooong time ago.
Thanks for sharing Rinpoche
💜💜💜
Rinpochey had been my always inspiration for life and death… If I had a chance to choose between the life alone and death infornt of rinpochey.. I would choose death🙇♀️…
Rinpchey sharing his experience as a child similar to me gives goosebumps… life has been never easy for many of us staying away from home in a boarding school with harassment from adults… my parents were both drinking lots that time and had a very bad experience of getting ragging in the name of my parents having a drunken life..
Oh my Lama La how ruthlessly honest and funny you are!
Cannot agree more Regina. I teared unknowingly!
The existential Rinpoche roasting of DKJR. Turning his reality inside out he points to the way
we can do the same and reap the benefits of dissolving a fixation to the self. The far side of
brilliant and a wonderful inspiration. Beautiful layout graphics. Thanks to all who put this
together and made it work.
I just thought life was a pile of dung and what the whole point of it all was, but now, reading this, my mind changed and I can feel my heart again. Thanks Precious.
Dearest Rinpoche,
Really fantastic to read!
It’s amazing because I’ve so often been wondering
what your childhood was like for you.
_()_ _()_ _()_ always
Ditto!
Oh wow……
How this moves my heart. To read this is feels like the skin of my heart is pulled back.
Feeling so much tenderness and love for this boy and this man.
Thanks for sharing rinpoche 🙂
SO Precious…I can’t wait to see it published on paper!
wow, thanks Rinpoche, for sharing the sad, the bad, and the fab
❤️
Wonderfull.
Take care with sweeping statements like “I couldn’t care less about Stalin” because it comes across as not only callous and flippant, but spoken by someone who is unaware of historical facts. The style is reminiscent of Thinley Norbu’s provocative attitude which became predictable and tedious. I think it’s time to break away from his influence to really achieve your freedom of expression.
The causal condition called “Stalin” could not be more safely handled than by one’s being aware of him and not caring?
@Tiger Lily, Lecturing Rinpoche on “how to really achieve your freedom of expression” when you can’t even handle an innocuous “I couldn’t care less about Stalin”? . You’re a real piece of work. 🙂
I also paused when I read that sentence. I think it was partly a joke, partly a provocation. In any case I don’t think it was meant to provoke people to judge or insult each other; or if to provoke, then to get people to be more aware of their own belief systems.
Kyapsuche How lucky i am to have met you….
You capture these details from a river of memories with such specificity and nuance. It’s like shiny minnows removed briefly from the waters for consideration before release again.
sacred and profane or is it profane and sacred? or is it sacred profanity.? . poli orea
brilliant, refreshing, beautifully crafted norbu nuggets of apparitional hallucinations of memories strung together to form a most potent malla. The namthar re-conceived in contemporary voice. Poetically clever.
CAN’T WAIT TO READ MORE
Best writings I have ever read in my life. It is hard to convey what I am trying to ..
The way that I met the dharma, the projections I had about what it meant to be on the ‘path’ to be a ‘practitioner’ have constantly changed over time..
From a very idealist, puritan, small minded sort of view as a naive teenager, to ..
Well, somehow in meeting more and more lama’s whom did not meet my expectations, who were free, who were daring to be honest, who shared stories that I thought taboo- Who didn’t cause in me an endless rejection and condemnation of my own intimate feelings of life.
When these kind of stories are heard, in an honest way, without just idealistic poetic speech, the good, the bad, the happy the sad, there is also a humanity seen. Being a practitioner becomes no longer some concrete fixed image, of A yogin in a cave, or a monk in shedra. In showing the humanity, and down to earthness that also goes hand in hand with the amazing, and profound dharma actitivites.. The rigid concepts and projections get some air to breathe, and on a heart to heart level, a total connection and resonance with the words. Nothing short of liberating.
Great and fun reading! Kadenche La. For a rare historic clip of Rinpoches grandfather Drubwang Sonam Zangpo and check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez2U8FBjd30
Be sure to check out all of Arnaud Desjardins amazing historic film material of the first Lamas from Tibet in India and Bhutan. Those can be seen in english here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op1wigNCjOc
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUo73cx05OY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUo73cx05OY
Thanks Adam
Awesome
Amazing insight dear Rinpochela, i pray i meet you one day in flesh.
My heart was trembling reading 1.Episode. beautiful and special. _()_
Thank you, Rinpoche! I remember when I first encountered you in Boulder as a kasung in the 80s. We had the car ready to roll, but when you got in all of sudden you were out of the car. I had never seen anything like this in my years of service to the Kagyu lineage via Chogyam Trungpa. There was no way you were going to sit on a brocade next to HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. We didn’t know what to do. Finally you pushed the brocade aside and we were off to Naropa for teachings. E Ma Ho! How glorious. I was absolutely intrigued and have been ever since, hearing you speak makes my heart skip a beat.
At first I felt so emotional going through Rinpoche’s biography or story but nearing to completion of story reading, I got certain encouragement within me. Even such great Rinpoche went through all those hardship, who am I in this life in this world. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing such precious and unimaginable story.
Heartwarming?
Thanks for making me feel less bad about being a horny gomchen with no underwear. As you once told me: even “Natural Born Killers” want to be happy.
Thank you Rinpoche for so much beauty and candor!
Amazing, fascinating reading, Rinpoche…there is a justified melancholy in you recollection of those early years. Sad.
An incredible story. And I used to think I knew a lot about you! Thank you Rinpoche – for teaching me that I am a Buddhist & for the last 33 or so years
You wake me up!
How things change in an instant! It is still a bit shocking, even after seeing it again and again. It becomes amusing after a while, how the mind struggles with “surprises”…I am glad you were recognized…somebody has to do your job…and I am not qualified. Hehehe!
Dear Rinpoché I love you from the bottom of my heart; I should like to read you everyday as I know that writing is also healing
I am deeply touched to be carried with you and your words, stepping outside of your grandfather’s home, the colors, the sounds, the scents. I feel the rain upon an excited child in awe of the arrival of the rare truck. So sweet to hear of your quiet internal knowing the truck had come for you. The honesty of your humanity has always inspired me deeply. Thank you. Peace
Rinpoche, what about creating a film out of this?
how daring
of so many
be you
scary
be you
fairy
be you
phantom
be you
love
Please la don’t publish this comment but I think in the sentence “I believe Father Mackey actually wrote something in his biography about that day.” The word biography should be autobiography? Likely this has been pointed out.
With prayers for Rinpoche’s long life.
Rinpoche I know it is my lack of merit that has left me weeping like an infant with no one to hold onto or running after an engine too powerful for me to keep up with, as my Lama seemed to go too fast too far away, and disappear from view – so humbly I prostrate to the illusion on the screen of my reality that so clearly and suddenly reflects his compassion for my (sadly unavoidable at this time?) sense of loss. May we continue to accumulate the merit for your love to remain embodied before us on this Earth for a very long time.
Administrator…Thank you so much for sharing Rinpoches biography, I was longing to hear long time ago,Finally done
_(())_ _(())_ _(())_
i thought being a renaissance man myself at this day and age is what makes me think I’m special.
Thank you for always breaking my delusions ever since I read your “What Makes You Not a Buddhist” book, Rinpoche.
I really wish that I woukd meet you one day and be your student.
I pray for your health and long life
_(())_ _(())_ _(())_
Our present form of life is owing to our past lives, so let us strive to create meaning future life drawing values from the traditional wisdom of the past.
Wow so excited for this…. thank you Rinpoche….. for everything…. my life feels useful in the presence of your Dharma…. Gautama…. all
its a grate job. thanks to administrator. m in process of making collection of rinpoches books. for me it will be a grate gift to buy this kind of book.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for sharing these incredible stories with us. I am in awe of your insight, your humour and your wisdom. May you live long and may I be reborn within your close circle and receive teachings directly from your heart.
What were your views on Christianity at this time, and why did you have them?
Thank you Beloved Rinpoche for sharing with us your biography. I love the way you write. Thank you for your love and care for us.
Thank you beyond earth and sky precious Rimpoche. Although I lacked the merit to meet Rimpoche in person, however, it is not exhausted as Rimpoche often comes to my dream giving me your profound teachings. May you never attempt to leave but continue liberating deluded beings like me.
Dear Rinpoche, I once had the chance to ask you a question in Cazadero, CA. Even though I tried to be honest and admitted being arrogant during our exchange, because of your unpretentious reply it came to me that I could not really be honest with you or myself. Even though it is not like I got cured by this meeting, I did not forget your kindness and straight instruction pointing to your legs in the seated posture as a way of telling me: you know how to come back when you are being arrogant. Thank you for your humanity Rinpoche. You showed me directly in a way you sensed would reach me. I hope you write a lot more episodes. Really enjoy reading it.
***Keybudhampa choglu Chabsucheo***
Long live your eminence for the well being of all sentient beings***
Administrator, note 1 does not merely means a “lay practioner” in the way that most of us think. It should be translated as “yogi” or at least as “lay yogi practioner”. It is much closer to the meaning. Gomchen literally means “Great meditator” but it doesn’t means that all “gomchen” are meditators. It is just like when we call any monk of lama but it doesn’t means they are “gurus” or “unsurpassable masters” as the literal translation means.
Dear Vajra,
With reference to your comment on “lay practioner”, while I have observed gomchens of Tashigang, Pemagatshel & Samdrupjongkhar practice meditation sometimes, the gomchens of Kuretoed from where Rinpoche originates usually only prayer and perform rituals.
Therefore, I feel the word has not been misused in this context where as you are talking about literal translation which in actual might misinterpret it.
How good it is written, Your Holiness.
I am now that grandparent with my grandson, longing for him to know the dharma and be on the Path as early as possible. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing your memoirs.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was born in 1910 in Denhok Valley in the Kham region of Eastern Tibet. As a young boy, he suffered a serious injury by stumbling into a cauldron of boiling soup and was bedridden and depressed for months. At this point the melancholy boy decided to enter the monastic life, and his health gradually improved.
Every word both points to something then dissolves any chance of fixation on it. This soothes my soul. Thank you for your magic rinpoche.
Rinpoche,
no matter what the Guru drinks, I look blissfully forward to read this new book.
By reading I can hear your gentle voice vibrating my lucky bones.
Honestly,I trust in time to be in your physical presence.
Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha.
May al sentient beeings be happy.
There is to be apart
and there´s not to be apart …
May all live in peace
Gate gate paragate parasamgate
bodhi soha
Would like to embrace this little guy, who once had to leave all behind.
From the bottom of my heart, may you live Long and happy, Yangsi.
When I visited Bhutan with my mother a few years back she noticed a young boy (apprentice monk?) who ran down into the Paro Dzhong courtyard to walk with us for a little bit. My mother is quite observant and she told me she thought he looked quite sad and lonely. I recalled I didn’t want to be send to boarding school when I was young either–I cried when she had read me the part of Thumbelina’s dead swallow when I was 3 or 4. How does one decide if one has a calling when they are so young? And what if it’s not a calling one wants as they age? To walk away in a culture where is held in high esteem is not the easiest thing to do especially when it has ramifications beyond oneself. This isn’t just a conundrum with young monks, but other professions that may require actions one is not really in-sync with. Perhaps being true to oneself is the best a person can do.
So inspiring to read you Rinpoche, thank you so much. So much poesy in your vision, so humanly and touching. Praying for your long life.
Crossing the Guru-bridge with nostalgia turns our sad heart into the ultimate.
om a hung
I obviously do not go on the SI website enough, as I just discovered this article. Thank you Rinpoche for this little insight into your life. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to knowing anything about you outside of a teaching. You are an incredible guru and a wonderful human being. I am so fortunate to have met you, even though I am a crap student in return. Thanks!
While we ought not to be skeptical about the wonders of magic, how do we tread the line of not being overly superstitious, or dwelling in blind faith?
How do we balance the two n reconcile the innocence of believing in magic against naive blind faith?
Happy birthday, dear Rinpoche
may you be healthy and well,
continue, as long as it takes
till all beings have crossed
the ocean of samsara
With a lightstream from Europe
***
So lovely, i hope i had the luck to BE a butterfly when you were a butterfly, a bird when you were a bird as i have now the luck to BE a human and met your story, your teachings and the dharma.
You may just have triggered a strong desire to write an anonymous memoirs of my apparitions and hallucinations.
– at your lotus feet
brilliantly done, and delivered Norbu La
Que interesante leer estas situaciones tan relevantes en la vida de Rinpoche, es motivo de felicidad poder conocerlas, gracias Rinpoche por compartirlas. saludos desde Bogotà -Colombia.
Rinpoche, my father too used pear soap and I had the same experience of smell induced nostalgia.
I would like to point out that smell from the bhutanese paint came from glue which is made from cow hides. As a preparatory step to making glue, the cow hide is soaked in water for extended period of time that almost putrefys it.
Thank you.
It is March of 2020, the Corona Virus epidemic and everyone is fighting, praying and looking out for ways to prevent from getting it. Deep inside for I was kind of happy for I was getting ample, time to read-pray-contemplate. So in this matter one of my dharma friend suggested me to go to this site and read Rimpoche’s blog, and no doubt I was super excited, for I always wanted to know more about Rimpoche la. He always had that some kind of attraction that I was always attracted to Him. And after going through His first page, I have already been smitten by His way of narrating His story. Eager to go through the rest. Prayers for His Long Life and good health.
Muchas Gracias!!!! por compartir momentos de su vida Rinpoche.
Thank you so much Rinpoche for sharing la.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
So interesting hearing your childhood Rinpoche. It reminds me so much of your uncle Shenphen Dawa Rinpoche telling about his childhood and education in Christian schools in India. SDR told me some quite horrendous stories about being beaten by the nuns. The Protestant school that he went to later was kinder but there was Still beatings.
Flower of heaven, what a suitable name for Rinpoche.
Thank you for all your teachings and sharings and for your inspiring and beautiful mind.
🙏❤🙏
Could Rinpoche say more about his birth here in the first episode? To give more of a feeling of the place which no longer exists. Were there any premonitions and was he born in the morning? Does he have any memories before he was 5 years old? Thank you for this incredible style of autobiography where so many have the opportunity to assist you in shaping the book. So unique.
P.S. I served Allen Ginsberg lentil soup in his room when I was cook at a Zen monastery. Even though I knew who he was, no time to talk about poetry.
Incredible shaping of the movie as well. Mind blowing really. Thank you for your generosity, patience, imagination, film making ability, humor, borrowing of material, creating and destroying stories, hit on the head with the shoe, capturing the beauty of Nepal, the weaving of the old and new. Hope you get to do your Buddha movie next.
I am blessed to read your story.
I humbly appreciate you Rinpoche.
Gratitude always Rimpoche!
Episode 1 – read it with tears and laughter… beautiful, rich, funny and sad. never met but feel connected through your books.
Took me back to a memory. Once on flight in Africa coming home to Bhutan, was reading your book and there was this harley davidson biker like man sitting next to me, going home to australia after many years of living in Africa with his family. We got talking. He came to Africa when he was 18 as part of a youth missionary visit and stayed. That day, as always, i was reading and could not hold in my laughter. I guess he thought me weird laughing. I tried to explain. I tried to explain Bhutan and my little knowledge of Buddhism. He started crying all of a sudden. I am not sure what i said but this is how i feel again today. Connected. Sad and Happy all at the same time.
Children are very resilient, especially when they have a loving, supportive adult that cares for them and in whom they can trust. You also adapted and made many friends. My sense is that this experience has given you strength you otherwise wouldn’t have had, so I’m glad you had the opportunity and used it well.
Aren’t there tests or challenges a young person must pass before being recognized as a tulku? Curious about how that occurred for you.
I don’t know why my eyes full of tears while I am reading this essay. Anyhow Thanks for sharing.