September 2001
In This Issue
ON THE VAJRAYANA PATH - Dzongsar Khyentse RinpocheLONGCHEN
NYINGTHIK NGÖNDRO PRACTICE RETREAT AT SSRC
DZONGSAR
KHYENTSE RINPOCHE VISITS CHAGDUD GONPA
INTERVIEW:
GYUTO MONKS' SPOKESPERSON SONAM RIDZIN
DHARMA
DATES:
-Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche's Visit
-Tsoknyi Rinpoche Visits Australia
-Dalai
Lama Attends Forum
-Namkhai Nyingpo Rinpoche's Retreat
-Hevajra Retreat
-White Lotus Children's Sponsorship Programme
-Join Gesar Springs Community
-Lama Ngawang Jinpa
DZONGSAR KHYENTSE RINPOCHE VISITS CHAGDUD GONPA
Chagdud Khadro, wife of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, describes Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's first visit to Brazil in May 2001.
Incredible though it seems in retrospect, we were concerned that we might fall asleep. During the weeks prior to Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's visit to Chagdud Gonpa Khadro Ling in southern Brazil, the sangha was driven by a powerful wish to present him with the best possible appearance - a wish thwarted by the general untidiness of the on-going construction, statue and stupa projects. Items on the work list began to be sorted with a terse, "B D or A D?" Meaning, "Before Dzongsar or After Dzongsar?" And people began to wonder aloud if they might not fall into stupified exhaustion the first chance they had time to sit down, which would be the first teaching.
Such concerns evaporated as soon as Khyentse Rinpoche arrived. Lithe and quick, he sprang from the car at the temple gate rather than waiting to be driven to the steps as we had planned. Leaning heavily on attendants, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche walked down the steps to greet Khyentse Rinpoche with the traditional Tibetan ceremonial scarf and to escort him to the shrine room where the students offered their own prostrations and scarves. The crowd who participated in this first ceremony was much smaller than the 360 persons who would assemble for the first teaching a few hours later, but for some of us versed in the continuing story of these two lamas, witnessing their reunion was profoundly moving.
In about 1945, when Chagdud Tulku was a teenager who had just completed his first three-year retreat, and Dzongsar Khyentse was His Holiness Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, one of the most illustrious masters of the twentieth century, Chagdud Rinpoche journeyed with the great Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche to request that His Holiness Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö indicate the whereabouts of two important tulkus of Tenp'hel Gonpa [in the Kham region of eastern Tibet]. Several days later His Holiness gave the Tenp'hel Gonpa lamas a letter with precise instructions about the location of the two tulkus - how far their villages were from the monastery, their ages, the names of their parents, all the information necessary to find the boys without contradiction or doubt. To this day the monastery is blessed by those infallible indications. On that occasion Chagdud Rinpoche also received from Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö Rinpoche the Rinchen Tangyud empowerments and caught his first glimpse of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was attending the empowerments.
The
auspicious connection with His Holiness Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö
continued through another meeting in eastern Tibet, many meetings in Lhasa
(Chagdud Rinpoche often accompanied his root guru Khenpo Dorje, when he
visited His Holiness) and later, with their ages reversed and the teenage
Dzongsar Khyentse recognised as the tulku of His Holiness Khyentse Chökyi
Lodrö, meetings in India and Nepal. Then, about six years ago, Dzongsar
Khyentse Rinpoche fulfilled a long-standing request and offered the empowerments
into the treasures of Dewai Dorje Sera Khadro at Rigdzin Ling, Chagdud
Rinpoche's main centre in California. This was an occasion of consummate
joy and blessing.
The
sangha in Brazil had repeatedly asked Khyentse Rinpoche to teach here
and fortunately our request coincided with his own aspiration to teach
Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara on five continents. He brought this text
alive with his examples, leading his listeners into a miasma of Indian
sense pleasures one moment and in the next stranding them in an Istanbul
coffee shop, waiting for 70 years to accomplish a single bodhisattva action.
His teachings helped move the Bodhicharyavatara off the shelf of dusty
classics and onto the bedside table, where it can be picked up for daily
guidance and inspiration.
But equally, the transmission is in Khyentse Rinpoche's own embodiment of the way of the bodhisattva. For some he is a cool bodhisattva with an appreciation for BMWs and bikinied Brazilian beach beauties, who has the ability to present teachings in "modern, dynamic language suitable for young people", as one young woman noted. For some he is a bodhisattva traditionalist, who has thoroughly trained in and upholds classical Buddhist studies, who refuses to release us from the required oral transmissions of texts and who truly believes his students can and should learn Madhyamika. For some he is an anti-theist bodhisattva and for some he is none other than the bodhisattva deity expressed through impeccable, utterly refined mudra and mantra. For some he is an irreverent bodhisattva whose comic asides target our secret doubts and hesitations. For some he is a bodhisattva player of philosophical hardball, capable of exploding any intellectual stance one might take, first choice for one's own side of the debate team. For some he is the bodhisattva son whom they would like to mother as he struggles with headaches and fatigue even as he teaches. He is the football fan bodhisattva, the film maker bodhisattva, the prankster bodhisattva, the bodhisattva with an endless repertoire who does not stray from the central core of wisdom realisation.
It's not surprising that a supreme moment of the two-day event was his offering of the bodhisattva vows. The ceremony was concise and simple, the natural outflow of the teachings, but it was so powerful and penetrating that momentarily it seemed impossible that any one of us could ever contradict enlightened intention by our actions of body, speech or mind.
Khyentse Rinpoche's teachings were wonderfully translated into Portuguese by Manoel Vidal, who also prepared the written translation of the first three chapters of the Bodhicharyavatara. Since so much depends on the quality of translation, Manoel had thoroughly prepared by listening to tapes of Khyentse Rinpoche's previous teachings and by drawing from five different texts to produce his own version of the chapters. This solid foundation of intellectual diligence was obvious, but more apparent was his heartfelt devotion to his lama. The only times the fluency of his translation failed him was with certain of Khyentse Rinpoche's jokes. Manoel made a perfect straight man for Rinpoche's cosmic comedy.
The Brazilian sangha was receptive to and rather amazed by the teachings of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. The question now is when will he come back to continue the teachings? Rinpoche hedges his promises a bit, but having been the beneficiaries of such superb good fortune, we pray with unlimited aspiration that the flow of these teachings comes to us directly, from the fountain of Khyentse Rinpoche's transmission.
