EPISODE FIFTEEN: Crushes
We get infatuated by some of the most unlikely people and this is because of those karmic connections. Many times we become infatuated by people who will destroy us. We just fall for those things, like a mosquito jumping to the electric zapper. Other times we get infatuated by people who take us in the right direction. Sometimes we have karma to be infatuated by people who both destroy us and lead us in the right direction, which isn’t a bad thing. And sometimes you are the object of the infatuation and without trying you might destroy them. Or you might lead them in the right direction.
I have had so many crushes in my life. And like a lot of people, I often had crushes on people who I’d never met, people who were elusive, out of my league, or completely off limits, like the mother of the Rinpoche I mentioned before. Such are the workings of karma. Ironically, I may have had more crushes than most because I was not supposed to have crushes. I was supposed to be a lama, an incarnation, a tulku, above ordinary human beings. The people surrounding me wanted to protect me from distractions. They thought it was their duty to distance me from the objects of crushes and to make sure I viewed women as hindrances, at best, and as possible obstacle makers. I guess the human mind is prone to wanting what is prohibited because none of this managed to sway me. I have always been curious about women and romance. The forbidden fruit is the sweetest.
My tutors gave me very contradictory views about women. Most of them really denigrated women and painted them as villains, especially the monastic tutors who were practicing renunciation of household life. They personally did everything they could to avoid desire and the distractions of relationships and since that was how they lived their lives, they naturally preached it, like a vegetarian promotes vegetarianism. It was their habit. It was what they did. I suppose that if I was a woman Rinpoche, they might have preached men are distractions, just like nuns are supposed to think. On the other hand, a few of my tutors, who were yogis, taught me that denigrating women was a defect. I remember one of my tutors, a yogi named Lama Kunga, who was a disciple of Lama Gangshar, told me that even a single lock of a woman’s hair had billions of cities of dakinis.
Yet it seems that all over the world, especially in Asia, there is this cultural attitude that women are inferior. Even today at certain monasteries, especially in places like Bhutan, women are barred from certain protector shrine rooms like the Mahakali room. It is understandable for a monastery to exclude women, since it’s like a boys hostel. But it is ironic that they prevent women from entering the Mahakali shrine in particular because Mahakali is the most supreme woman herself. I believe this is absolutely a cultural thing that is staining the Buddhadharma.
My tutors were especially wary of western women, “Ingie girls” they called them. They just didn’t know how to relate to them walking around with their light hair, blue eyes and fair skin, wearing revealing clothes like jeans. The lamas were used to seeing Tibetan girls in fluffy costumes that looked like big blankets with shy downcast eyes. Even the long skirts Western women wore could be suggestive. It was their body language, the way they looked directly in your eyes, because that’s the polite way to do it in the west. So in the eyes of the lamas Western women were dangerous and the warnings never stopped. They were convinced that tulkus were being ruined by Ingie girls. But statistically that’s not true. Many more tulkus ended up running off with Asian women. But there was this kind of prejudice.
With all this propaganda that desire was not good and women should be avoided, I had to learn to pretend that I wasn’t interested. I learned how to be discrete. Even though I was meticulous when we went out—always on guard, careful not to look at women and to appear disinterested when they approached me—my tutors and the older monks would tease me endlessly and insinuate that I was eyeing girls. For a growing child, this cultivated a sense of embarrassment around the topic of women.
I think it would be beneficial if the tutors and guides gave young lamas and tulkus a tutorial on sex education and gender issues. They could continue to explain about the distractions involved, but they could also train how to respect women and how to communicate with the opposite sex. This is totally missing in tulku training today.
The next most prohibited thing after women was the cinema. Looking back, I can sympathize with my tutors for being so wary of films, especially Indian films, which were full of romantic storylines and songs, planting ideas in the minds of young monks and rinpoches. Many of these older monks probably had never seen men and women dancing and hugging until they went to a film. Even though in those days there was no kissing, let alone explicit scenes, it was outrageous to them. Many tulkus, monks and Rinpoches were susceptible to that fantastical realm. They really could imagine themselves having a romantic partner dancing in the rain, rolling around in the flowers. Of course I ended up becoming swept up in that that too.
One of the biggest struggles the discipline masters and abbots faced was preventing the younger monks from sneaking out to the cinema and watching films. There is a very funny story of Chatrul Rinpoche, who was starting his meditation center in Darjeeling in the 1970s, catching his monks who’d sneaked out to the cinema in the evenings. If Chatrul Rinpoche found out, he would come into the theater in the middle of the film and shine a bright electric torch at the audience looking for his monks so he could drag them back to the center.
One of my first and strongest crushes was the Indian actress Zeenat Aman. I was living in the chapel at the palace of Sikkim, surrounded by tutors and attendants. I lived upstairs and downstairs was Khandro Tshering Chödron. The bathroom was also downstairs. The only time I was allowed out of my room was when I went to the toilet. Occasionally I was allowed to leave the chapel and walk around the palace. This was a sign that my tutors were in a good mood. Going out to the movies was unthinkable.
At times, Khyentse Labrang would do big pujas and monks would come from different places. This was my chance to meet some younger monks and they told me about the Bollywood films they had seen and the risks they took to go. There were so many films that they talked about. There was one called Bobby. And a film called Laila Majnu but the one I was most interested in was Satyam Shivam Sundaram starring Zeenat Aman. I had no chance to go see it, I could only hear about it from the monks. I must have begged them to tell me the story so many times, again and again. Each monk had a different version so it never got old. A few of the monks managed to smuggle in a few photos of the films stars and offered them to me. Now this was dangerous, much more dangerous than comic books. I had to hide these photos in special places, so much so that I hardly had a chance to even look at them. Just knowing that I possessed the images somewhere gave me a thrill. There were other popular actresses like Hema Malini and Madhu Bala, but I was a staunch Zeenat Aman fan. Call it karmic link, karmic debt, there was a sense of loyalty toward her, it felt wrong to look at pictures of other actresses.
When Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Dudjom Rinpoche were conferring transmissions, we would have to listen to the text being read. It could sometimes take 10 hours per day and we were not allowed to fall asleep. I have to confess, many times my mind was filled with cinematic stories. Oftentimes, I would cast myself as the romantic hero, rolling in the flowering fields with Zeenat Aman. I still have that habit but instead of singing in the rain, nowadays it’s more serious like imagining I’m sitting in the oval office as the president of the United States, solving the problems of the world.
My karmic link with Zeenat Aman exhausted when a karmic link to another woman bloomed. I somehow obtained a photo of a European girl and Zeenat was totally forgotten on the spot. Only many years later I found the girl in the photo was Italian actress Claudia Cardinale. This crush never really stopped. Even today when I commission thangkas of Tara and Vajrayogini, I ask them to fashion them after Claudia Cardinale.
It was Claudia Cardinale’s photo that lead me to the most severe punishment of my childhood. Despite all the warnings, admonitions, and scoldings, women and cinema crept into my life. I never heard the end of the lectures and scoldings after they found her photo in my floorboards.
Even though I can never claim myself as an accomplished spiritual person, at least I have a connection to the Buddha and the dharma. I like to think that through my crushes on Zeenat Aman and Claudia Cardinale they might also be connected to the Buddha and the dharma eventually.
As always, I always waited irrestibly to your next episode (this one).
Thank you Rinpoche La, I guess everyone can relate to this.
“First that that we notice,..switch to the next thought” that makes all the difference, although not spiritually i guess.
Looking forward for the next, always.
Thank you Rinpoche La.
Everyone need to love and to be loved.
Couldn’t help smiling, going through the lines of rinpoche la. Enjoyed reading every bit of it. Thank you so much la.
This article is helpful in paying witness to the ‘all to human’ side to male tulkus and monastics. However, the word ‘crush’ in English is generally understood as something not very serious…a light thing which one has from afar and is often never revealed or declared. As such, a monk having a crush would be harmless. However, obsessive infatuation with a woman, by a monk, where the woman is pursued, porn and sexual photos of the monk are sent to her and she is begged to send naked photos of herself, and where she is told many times that the monk or lama is madly in love with her would not fit the word ‘crush’ well at all.
The point to remember in terms of the person who is the object of the lama, or monk’s, ‘crush’ is, is it leading them in the right direction or not? Away from attachment and desire and suffering or further into it?
Women (and men) look to Buddhist lamas (monks or not) as a source of refuge and wisdom. Taranatha clearly states that a lama should have a higher level of realised qualities than a follower. So the question here is should people be following any lama or monastic who romantically and sexually actively engage followers (mainly male lamas with female followers) or not? The blind leading the blind is never really advisable is it? As you acknowledge, crushes can become very destructive indeed to all concerned if they are based on ego desire and attachment and not on genuine love and compassion.
Thank you for your honesty Rinpoche! I love your stories on this blog.
With much devotion,
Kirsten
Thank you Rinpochhe for sharing your biography
Rinpoche, thank you for sooo much for sharing la Rinpoche…it was absolutely beautiful la.😍🙏🙏🙏💐💐💐
Thank you so much Rinpoche! I feel very relieved to know my passionate love for Guru Rinpoche is healthy! I love him so, SO much, I must kiss his statues. I even kissed the statue at Pharping and the one in Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s room. I never felt so happy! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Thank you Rinpoche. Love your story. Love how you always tell it like it was. Look forward to the next story. 🙏😍
A very refreshing read for these times! Many thanks for sharing, Rinpoche
I too wish tulkus were given adequate sexual education (as you mention how to respect and communicate with women should be taught to all monks, but for some tulkus also practical things, like how to use a condom etc.), so when they do manage to escape the labdrang/monastery guards, they don’t fall right into the new (family/child) prison cell of responsibilities. They should know that if they make that mistake with Western women, they will be held responsible – we will track you down so you can live up to your responsibilities… you’ll end up dreaming of your boring monastery life in no time or you’ll make another (family) prison break that (given the current climate) will leave you with noting more but a ‘just another tulku who can’t keep it in his pants’ label… such a waste for some tulkus with good education and good potential!
Never missed Rinpoche’s episodes even once. Those are very beneficial for my own spiritual development. Thanks
😁 My first star crush was David Hasselhoff when I was about 6 years old, because of the show Knight Rider that was playing on tv at that time in my country. I somehow got hold of a small picture of him, I scribbled “I love you Michael” (his character’s name) on the back of the photo and I hid it in one of my toys. One day my parents found it by accident and although they were so amused and felt that my crush was just so very cute, I wanted to die of embarassment. For me it was no joke, I loved that man and I was going to marry him someday! 😂😂😂
Yes Rinpoche, Claudia Cardinale is a good choice and for sure she might be connected to the Bouddha and why not the dharma…
“Only a single wish dare I have: Destroy my whole being till I no longer have the burden of longing for you…”
THANK YOU ***
Now I know on whom I`m always reminded by looking on the 21 Taras
Thank you, dear Rinpoche, I loved this story. I have a real bad crush with someone and I feel that it’s a karmic link of sorts.
Of course when I was lucky to meet you I was crushed by the bright energy you radiate! At first I didn’t know how to handle it and processed in the most human of ways, but now I can only begin to understand all the ways in which this opened the floodgates of the dharma.
Best regards, please come back to Mexico soon. We’ll have your mariachi ready.
Thankyou Rinpoche I was going to marry Paul Macartney when i was 6 years old and somehow it didn’t work ,but I fell in love with so many people (they never knew of course),so beautiful ,I’ve been married for 46 years(not to Paul M )so have seen the decline so to speak,those youthful hormones or ignorant ideas are seemingly full of promise ,its a kind of relief when you bob over the hill and calm down ,what a wonderful energy though ,i see all young people like gods now in full prime and strangly enough in a way i also see them as kind of suffering from youth ,an illness that passes but not without leaving some scars
Wonderful story with salient points; thank you R La! 🙏🏽💕
&& tee hee – The Pink Panther 1963 (your princess as a Princess) 🙏🏽💕🍷
Thank you Rinpoche for your honesty and true confession. Why not educate both sex education and monastic training for renunciation? Let karma ripen from awareness vs. ignorance. My mother was a sex educator. There is so much pain and suffering from ignorance of sexuality and lack of support for normal healthy sexuality. You have been blessed to have been trained and to be strong to reveal your mind amidst all the conditioning. So grateful for your presence this lifetime.
Zeenat and Claudia do share several features…Good taste no doubt 😁😂🤣😅😇🙏
Society is not just made up of men, but when it comes politics, religion and certain others, there is significant over-representation and that brings bias with it (a type of “group think”) especially in societies where women are treated as second class citizens. It’s difficult to tell others how to act when one doesn’t lead a similar life. No one gets to be who they are without help from others, both known and unknown. Much of buddhism plays a significant role in teaching one to control their minds. However controlling one’s mind in a very cloistered protected environment is very different than the realities of life in a fast-paced modern world. Why, perhaps, there is so much fascination with the aura of tulkus in the west. The rarified air of the mountains also brings a certain infatuation of things that are different and a penchant of perhaps a simpler life.
“We are very reliable chelas of Indian masters.”
When your life is full of stuff maybe that’s then what you are idolizing: that simple lifestyle, that shangri-la dream, the otherness. I have been to Hunza in Pakistan last year. What looks like paradise to the visitor is himmense ardship for the locals as soon as winter is coming.
When your life is full of stuff maybe that’s then what you are idolizing: that simple lifestyle, that shangri-la dream, the otherness. I have been to Hunza in Pakistan last year. What looks like paradise to the visitor is himmense ardship for the locals as soon as winter is coming.
To me personally a guru who in his teachings refers to parts he wasn’t supposed and probably never has seen or interacted with due to his monastic discipline doesn’t work. I admit I too see little credibility in western students who do so.
In order to balancing out what by definition needs be balanced – emtiness and bodhichitta, it would be so precious to leave antiquities behind in the past and see more females on the thrones. As much as pharmaceutical research made for 50 years plus the mistake to test medication on males only and assume it works identically on females, male gurus should not assume that the good way to understand aspects of the dharma or the tantra is identical for male and female students.
…. seem so narrow such youth in such circumstances.
Theres only one way – samsara exit.
Western youth out of monastic conditions, narrowed by consumer society and social downfall … one way –
following you to samsara exit.
Oh gosh, words are falling into this gender-gap, cultural-gap, disappearing deep down.
May we feel unity.
I am simply helplessly and truly infatuated by this Manjughosha manifestation who blatantly confess the truth when most strive to hide. Thank you ‘beyond earth and sky’ for the new episode. Simply thrilling and awakening la _*(***)*_
I used to think there was something wrong with me, falling in love willy nilly with beautiful dharma practitioners. Mostly unavailable of course. Now I know the truth: I actually have fantastic taste! Liberated. HAHAHA Thank you Rinpoche!
Every culture, political persuasion and ideology pretends that the “correct” attitude, the proper way to behave is well known and obvious. No one admits their secret, the overwhelming power such infatuation holds over us. Even though the sadhanas say the dakini, the master of desire, is the source of all accomplishment, we allow ourselves the authority to criticize others. We pretend with feigned confidence. In truth we’re paralyzed fools with secrets we could never share. We pretend to be practitioners, but still protect ourselves from Vajrasattva’s penetrating truth serum. We are liars and hypocrites who justify our own actions and criticize others. No one wants to admit, even for an instant, the grip that unguarded passion really has had over us.
Philip Richman, THANK YOU
Dear Philip, could you explain what is meant by the dakini being the master or desire? Maybe I should meet her!
It is very interesting to think about how someone can both destroy us and lead us in the right direction. I recently had that experience. It is very confusing but the benefit of being led in the right way definitely has been so so eye-opening, so worth it, even taking into account the heartache and other painful things! Thanks heartbreaker <3 <3 <3
Standing in line with bags and cammeras …
big laughter is coming out of my temporary femal mouth
– for shure, I would have taken a picture of it likely
“Make shure that your shoes are not stolen by someone”
– unsurpassable ! This one I fixed 😉
It is beyond me to understand how many lifetimes, probably countless,it takes to create these karma links which can appear so irrational yet so strong.
I come again to put another comment tonight and I hope you will see it Rinpoche.
I’m sorry for my very bad english… But I just want to say here that I was educated by nons and monks in a very strict way during several years very far away geographically from my parents (I just saw them one time every two years just for 3 weeks).And then I came back in France with my grandparents who were also very strict.But I am not here to tell my life.
Just to say how life is so strange.it is funny to see how blind spots are so strong (I think about your masters and your education Rinpoche).
Well I often thought to become a nun because my only aspiration was to become an actress or a dancer which was, for my family, a very very bad thing. I was borned in 1959 and for my parents it was completely stupid to think like this.
So,as you Rinpoche, I only had a lot of dreams.
But I strongly believe in karmic links and it makes me hope to meet you in my next life on a shot location or in a temple. Who knows? 🍀
Thank you Rinpoche for your teachings I always follow on YouTube. Thank you for your movies and your books.
🙏Thank you so much.🙏 🙏
so funny! I’m so lucky to be able to read these one after the other … thank you!
_()_
<3
wonderful!
Hing ghi dhami kay layra kardincheyla rimpoche!
My karmic connection destroyed me and led me in the right direction. I rejoice that I accumulated enough merit in my past to be where I am today.
Gratitude always
This made my laugh. Thank you Rinpoche!
Episode thirteen has no comment row, so I post it here: when Buddhism came to Tibet it mingled with the shamanism present there. Bön and Vajrayana influenced each other. Please don’t denigrate Bön, it contributed many very valuable practices to what Tibetan Buddhism is now. As to what dzogchen is now, there additionally is the Gandhara influence, not sure it came over the silk road. I am no Historian but my gut feeling tells me that Garab Dorje’s insights dodn’t come to the Tibetan plateau via India and with quite some immediacy.
Rinpoche what a delightful post, thank you! I gasped when I read Zeenat’s name. I was a gawky teenager when Yaadon ki Baaraat was released. Zeenat strumming a guitar, singing “chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko” was etched in my mind for months. Her casual sensuality was incredibly liberating for a young girl from a fairly conservative home. I wanted to swing my hair about just like her! I have to say that I continue to admire the lady. She discovered Instagram rather late but is a sensation all over again, for her superbly candid and thought-provoking posts.
I do think it would be a rather impoverished life, without crushes.