Alas, even though I am Buddha, this Buddha is cocooned like a silkworm. My silky cocoon is endless, delicate, and colorful. This cocoon is mind. And I am stuck with this mind, just as I am stuck with a bent ear and a mole on my upper lip. I suppose for the bent ear and the mole on my lip, I could go to Seoul to have them altered to near perfection. As for altering or removing mind, it’s altogether a different matter.
If this mind stayed idle, frozen, it would be a different ballgame, but that’s not the case. This mind keeps on painfully cognizing, irritatingly noticing, frustratingly feeling, agonizingly knowing, uncontrollably judging, hopelessly confirming, and deceptively empathizing, on and on, incessantly. This mind also keeps on leisurely misunderstanding, easily making misassumptions, blindly miscuing and simply missing the Buddha all the time. This mind is like a domesticated monkey who knows all the tricks his captor has taught—to dance and to do somersaults—but who doesn’t seem to have a clue how to take off the leash that binds him. Wouldn’t it be better to be a stone or a piece of wood? That is if we could choose. I don’t even want to be a Philip K. Dick android, even they suffered from something akin to empathy.
I may have painted a picture of the mind as something deluded and uncooperative, even malicious, but all is not lost. The mind can be useful. As much as the mind is a cocoon, the mind is also the path that will lead to the Buddha. It is the mind that does the longing for the Buddha. It is the mind that admires the Buddha. When the mind is cornered by suffering, the mind longs to be awakened and be free. When this mind interacts with the world, from the moment it enters until it exits, it does so through seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling, and knowing, leading to myriad games, colors, shapes, and hues. And like a murderer leaving a bloodstain, as mind pervades and conquers the world, the mind always leaves an imprint.
As subtle as it may be, when the mind dances through the cognizance of smell, it carves the deepest imprint. It’s not tangible, yet leaves such a strong impression. Even after decades have passed, every time I use Pears soap, memories of Lama Sonam Zangpo, my mother’s father, come alive. I can’t remember what his towel looked like, but this scent of Pears is so vivid. And the smell of burning juniper, mugwort, and incense remind me of him making offerings every morning. The smell of barley reminds me of the evenings when he offered sur. Among the recipients of this offering are beings called terang. They are believed to be goblins whose suffering is an addiction to hiding people’s belongings as a prank. They get so intertwined by this prank playing that they forget to eat for eons and they are always hungry.
My grandfather was a yogi. He never owned a big house. He moved around constantly. I remember in one of the homes he lived, he stayed in a room so small the bed barely fit inside. Next to his bed was a wall and the wall had a small portal from which he could look into the adjoining room where everything happened. People would sit there and receive teachings from Lama Sonam Zangpo through this hole. If he was to meet dignitaries or other visitors, he did so in the same way. They could barely see him through that hole.
It is believed that he never really lay down to sleep like a normal human being, which I cannot confirm because I was always asleep before him. Early in the morning when I woke up he would already be sitting doing prayers or meditating or commissioning a painting or whatever else. Everything happened from his bed. Toward the end of his life, he barely walked around. Early in the morning when we all woke up, his attendant Tsokola would bring a large pail filled with luke warm water and he would wash his face right on his bed using Pears soap. That’s the only soap I remember him using.
Now, after 50 years, even when I see the brownish translucence of a bar of Pears soap, I can recall the smell and I am taken right into that tiny room in Hontsho, Thimphu, or even to an earlier place called Kulikata. Also the smell of cows and cow dung always takes me back to my childhood as our family owned a few cows. And coriander, ginger and chili, take me to Dewathang and memories of my grandmother making Bhutanese chili salad.
Obviously not all smells bring good memories. Even after all these years, every time an Indian truck barrels by, the clouds of exhaust bring unpleasant memories I have of travelling from Phuntsholing to Thimphu in the back of the truck. I made this journey several times many years ago and it would take three days; a journey that can now be achieved in just four hours. But maybe that smell of exhaust is so unsettling because soon after I was recognized as a tulku when I was a young child, I had to bid farewell to my grandparents. They walked with me for a day to the nearest road where a flatbed truck awaited. Through a cloud of exhaust, we drove off, as the image of my grandmother crying on the roadside receded.
It is believed that all the greatest masters have a distinctive scent. Their discipline of not harming and diligently always helping others is so strong that it manifests as a fragrance: the fragrance of right conduct. This mysterious scent could be detected in Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s room. Of course, many other scents from different substances filled the room. The endless rituals and initiations performed there required burning so much incense. Kyabje Rinpoche was one of the biggest propagators of the incense from the Mindroling tradition. He also used all different kinds of soaps and moisturizers. There was always Nivea cream in a blue tin and tubes of Boroline. But this distinctive, indescribable fragrance did not come from any of these olfactory substances. Wherever he manifested, be it a taxi in Kathmandu or on a bench in an Indian train station, this fragrance could be traced, at least for a short time. It permeated his robes. Years after he passed away, I remember going into his chambers at Shechen Monastery in Boudanath and I would try to inconspicuously sniff his bed.
Recently, I went to La Sonnnerie in France, where Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche had given so many teachings and where his bed is still kept as if he’s just gone out for a short visit. I entered the room and placed my head on the bed and instantly, nearly thirty years later, the memory of the smell came back. Probably it was my mind playing tricks. Nevertheless, this memory of a smell was enough to bring back the reminder that, no matter how I roam in this delusion, I am the Buddha. I am the Buddha.
If one knows how to use the cocoon, to unravel the thread and use it as a guide, it can lead us to the awakened state. Emulating the great Saraha, I pay homage to the jewel-like mind, cocoon that it may be.
Featured Image: Buddha TV by South Korean artist Nam June Paik
