Tashi Armstrong
Retreat Facilitator
I moved to Karme Choling , a Buddhist Meditation Center under the direction of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1984 at the age of 21 and began my formal training then.
I had an initial experience of "non reference point" at 17 during an Outward Bound Sailing Program in which I did a three day "solo" on an island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. I completely failed at the survival techniques that were taught during the program but wound up looking directly at my mind with no meditation background. When I came back I noticed a difference in my experience of reality which lasted for a couple of days. In that transition I was able to clearly recognize the vipashyana experience.
The basic set-up was that after two weeks sailing around Penobscot Bay in a coast guard life boat with 10 other people I was dropped on an island all alone. I had 10 matches, a coffee can for a stove and a blue tarp for a tent. I quickly used up my 10 matches trying and failing to get my stove lit. Then I just hung out trapped with a constant awareness of my mind's ramblings for three days. I had never been without some kind of entertainment to occupy my mind, but here I was trapped with myself at 17 years old. Later, doing solitary retreat, within the context of training with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was the same kind of experience. When we do retreat it's important to not provide our minds with any entertainment-- any activity which distracts us from a direct awareness of what arises in the mind. In this way, we are locked in with an innate mindfulness. We don't need a technique--we just don't distract ourselves with some type of entertainment or diversion. We don't even read Dharma books in retreat. This is understanding what Trungpa Rinpoche talks about as "hopelessness."
The result of this three day "intentional stranding" was vipashyana -- "nonreference point experience ." Vipashyana is a sanskrit term which is translated as "clear seeing." The Tibetan term is "Lakthong" the "th" is a hard t sound which is aspirated. This term describes the result of stripping one's experience of the obscuring effect of habitual, dualistic reference point. Going back to my childhood home after the outward bound program felt weird in a particular way. This experience was unique, strange and fresh in a way I had never felt before but recognized immediately as real. Later on, as I entered into Dharma training with Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin, I began to gain some insight into this experience and how "non meditation" i.e. "touch and go meditation" reveals the essence of mind as "nonreference point experience."
"It is uncertainty in the sense of anxiety, and it's also the other one. It depends on how you practice. If you're frightened, you try to stay with your breath all the time. If your thought process takes over, you stop being with the breath and you go along with your thought process. When you suddenly realize that you're not doing either, there's a moment. That moment is like the explosive quality of the teachings. It brings you back, opens you up, settles you down and allows you to continue. It is the same ordinary experience in the transition between one situation and another. Your love affair is over, and you haven't experienced the next one. You're moving from one city to another. Someone in your family is dying, or you're dying. In all these transitions there's a gap. In that gap there is no time and space from a conceptual point of view. That is where the bodhisattvas realize shunyata, which is what they realize as the ultimate truth. When it comes down to it, we're here for a single reason, and that is to experience what is. As a teacher, I am here simply to point out from my own experience what has been taught, what has been passed down. The rest, as the Vidyadhara said, is up to you." Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin
This is what being a yogin in this lineage is about. I was introduced to the nature of mind in a powerful way through this period of being alone on the island-- which was not psychologically pleasant or comfortable in any way --and then re-entering my old habituated life. That transition was important in what I would later understand as shamatha-vipashyana training. To be clear, this experience happens to everyone moment to moment. For some reason it made an impression on me. I probably would have forgotten it except that I met Trungpa Rinpoche and the Regent a few years later and their presence and profound teachings confirmed and reminded me of that earlier experience.
Later I recognized this same experience as being "engalloped" by Trungpa Rinpoche's mind-- the "adhistana"-- energy/atmosphere of our lineage.
I received empowerments and instruction from Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin while in residence at Karme Choling from 1984-1988 and during the 1986 Vajradhatu Seminary at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado.
At one point ,in particular, in a meeting with the Vajra Regent at Karme Choling in 1985, the Regent turned to me and said, "If you want to be my friend, remember your mind is unborn, unceasing and with a nature like the sky." This was a direct transmission.
About a month earlier my girlfriend at the time had dumped me for one of my KCL friends while I was on solitary retreat. When I came back my whole world essentially fell apart. This was a common situation at KCL. Along with doing intensive practice each day we were also partying and hooking up during "days off" which happened every two weeks. It was a mandala ruled by vajra passion--which it still is. Vajra passion is actually one way to describe that energy/atmosphere of Trungpa Rinpoche's mind-- the essence of our lineage transmission. We were not monastics and were all very young. It was uplifted but very passionate and it was easy to fall in love and subsequently have your heart broken.
I waited in line for my chance to sit and visit with the Regent in front of the big rock in the Karme Choling living room. My friend, Greg Booth, had lent me his fashionable suit to wear for my meeting. I had taken my Bodhisattva Vows with the Regent that weekend. I was definitely in over my head. My initial interview had not gone particularly well. We were told how to knock on the door before we entered, and what to say. That was all out the window for me. As soon as I opened the door to my meeting with the Regent I forgot all of what I had been instructed. I just said "Hi" and stood there awkwardly. Luckily Jenny and Paul Warwick were there to fill in the introductions. I had completely blanked out. I was overwhelmed.
Now as I stood in front of the Karme Choling rock in my borrowed suit. I was feeling very nervous and uncomfortable and completely self-conscious. I watched as the Regent sat with the person who went before me --James Post-- the brother of Max Post, Karme Choling's mechanic. The Regent and James were having a great old time. They were chatting up a storm-- laughing like old friends. I thought maybe this won't be so bad. When they had finished-- James stood up and walked off. It was my turn.
I was hopeful it would be the same kind of experience. So I went forward and sat next to the Regent. He was turned away from me-- talking to someone on his right. So I sat waiting. We were surrounded by the entire community many of whom knew my embarrassing backstory-- about how my ex-girlfriend was now sleeping with my ex-friend. And how he was probably a better lover than I was. Actually, they were both there too! And I sat there growing increasingly uncomfortable in my borrowed suit. Moments that felt like hours ticked by. Then he turned to me and said those words. As soon as he said them, he turned away and went back to those other people he had been talking to.
I slowly realized that he wasn't going to say anything else to me. I shakily got to my feet and walked off-- stage left.
That was my meeting with my "personal guru" who is undoubtedly my root guru. My Bodhisattva name is Tsultrim Lamkhen-- Discipline Highway. I was 21 years old.
Another young man had moved to KCL shortly after I had. He was taking his refuge vows from the Regent. His refuge name was Trime Lhawang. We worked on the wood crew together with Peter Orlovsky. Peter would often come out to split wood for the wood boilers that heated KCL dressed only in his tighty whities and his work boots in the middle of January talking about how Milarepa generated heat through tummo practice. Peter looked like he was freezing. I thought Peter was pretty crazy but I loved him.
In tantric practice one encounters a primordially wakeful energy in the emotions which short circuits the habitual mind. I certainly did not understand this at the time conceptually, but it was a perfect preparation for meeting the mind of the lineage-- which at that time and place was embodied and manifested brilliantly by the Vajra Regent and the vajra sangha. We were all cooking together at Karme-Choling. It was a perfect karmic situation-- maybe not pschologically pleasant or comfortable, but perfect. We were all learning what sacred world actually felt like for real.
"In the state of nonmeditation all phenomena subside in that great graveyard in which lie buried the complexities of samsara and nirvana. This is the universal ground of everything; it is the basis of freedom and also the basis of confusion. Within it ,the vajra anger, the flame of death, burns fiercely and consumes the fabric of dualistic thoughts. The black river of death, the vajra passion, turbulent with massive waves, destroys the raft of conceptualization to the roaring sound of the immeasurable void. The great poisonous wind of the vajra ignorance blows with all-pervading energy like an autumn storm and sweeps away all thoughts of possessiveness and self like a pile of dust." Sadhana of Mahamudra
To this day, thinking of this situation and these people is the same transmission-- penetrating and alive-- bringing that same quality of energy/atmosphere down right now that I recognize as Trungpa Rinpoche and the mind of our lineage. I will always be thankful. That is a "vajra sangha" thing which is still how this transmission works within a mandala set-up. Nowadays as an old person, 40 years later, I long for these people with all my heart. They are, as is said in the scriptures, the best type of people-- the best friends you will ever have. They are the vajra sangha and they manifest the mandala of the guru as one taste.
May we live in the Charnal Grounds together again! This goes out to Ann, Ciel, David, John, and Kier. Most of all, of course, to the Vajra Regent/ Trungpa Rinpoche--my root guru-- the seeming author of such auspicious chaos.
I was stationed at Gade Gar as a Dorje Kasung during the preparation and parinirvana --cremation of Trungpa Rinpoche at Karme Choling. I was in residence at KCL at the time Rinpoche passed into parinirvana in Halifax and stayed throughout the entire preparation and cremation. I ,along with everyone there , received teachings from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche-- a.k.a "Mr. Universe" --after the cremation. I did guard shifts around the kudong in the main shrineroom that held Trungpa Rinpoche's body and limousine pick-ups for visiting dignitaries.
Dressed in our Town Uniform, which was a blue blazer with grey trousers, black shoes, white shirt and Dorje Kasung tie and lapel pin, we would drive to the local airport to ferry the various teachers and dignitaries who were arriving to attend the cremation. In particular, I remember driving for Eido Shimano Roshi. Just before I left to pick Roshi up, Eric Laufe ,a fellow Kasung buddy and long time resident and friend at KCL, made a joke about how Roshi may be my next guru.
Roshi was dressed in very ornate formal robes when I picked him up at the small regional airport. He had met a beautiful young woman on the plane who was a student attending Dartmouth College. Roshi asked me to drop her off at her dorm before I brought him to KCL for the cremation. They chatted in the back seat of the Lincoln Town Car as I drove. Eido Shimano told the woman about Trungpa Rinpoche's parinirvana. I just remember him saying "It's very sad, very sad." After we dropped her off, we drove to Karme Choling in silence. I would glance in the rear view mirror occasionally. Roshi sat looking out the window with his mala repeating a mantra quietly.
Roshi could not stay long and he left shortly after the cremation ceremony. I heard later that he said Trungpa Rinpoche had become a Kami-- a Shinto word which describes a type of spiritual energy. A similar word in Tibetan is "Drala".
Needless to say, we could all feel that energy in the atmosphere-- it was all-pervasive at that time radiating outward from the kudong which held Rinpoche's body in the main shrineroom. I say "we could all feel it" but, in retrospect, I think we could feel it each in our own way depending on our "diverse aspirations and capabilities". To me it just felt like Trungpa Rinpoche's mind, which was inseparable from my experience of the sangha and the Vajra Regent. It felt like Dorje Trollo/Karma Pakshi; Vajrayogini; Chakrasamvara; Ekajati; Four Armed Mahakala; Shiwa Okar; Kyudo; Ashe ; being a Dorje Kasung; Karme Choling; Halifax; Kalapa Court; Dorje Dzong; RMDC; 1986 Seminary; The Profound Treasury Retreat with Judy Lief; Vajra passion--4 Armstrong Way, West Bath, Maine this very moment. The gap... A lot of people were just incredibly horny. The first weekend I arrived at Karme Choling I drank sake and got laid. I never looked back!
The Seven Branch Offering, The Seven Aspects of Devotional Practice
I pay homage to the primordial, unaltered nature of rigpa. I offer luminosity transcending limits and dimensions. I confess within the expanse of the indivisibility of samsara and nirvana. I rejoice in the great exhaustion of all dharmas, beyond dualistic mind. Please turn the wheel of the teachings of the spontaneously perfect Dzogpachenpo, and dredge the depths of samsara. I dedicate all virtue, in the absolute state beyond subject, object, or activity.
Longchenpa
I don't recall how long Rinpoche's body remained packed in salt in the ornate box in the center of the shrinehall at Karme Choling. It most have been a full month while arrangements were made to accommodate all of the people who were coming. All the great Buddhist masters were coming: The Four Emminences of the Kagyu Lineage; Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche; Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche; Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche; Kalu Rinpoche and many more. I find it hard to believe that I was around so many enlightened masters! I wonder at how the world has changed so profoundly, especially America, since that time. I thought it would always be like that....
Every few days the senior Dapons of the Kusung-- the personnal attendants of Trungpa Rinpoche --would bring the kudong up into the attic above the shrine room and put fresh salt in with Rinpoche's body to keep it from rotting. Later this salt was packed in small vacuum tube vials and given out to students and disciples as relics to be placed on our personal shrines. I have several of these on the main shrine here along with some relics from the Vajra Regent.
I had been around Rinpoche at seminary and at seminars and retreats-- his presence was incredible. I had felt this energy the moment I arrived at Karme Choling and it always freaked me out. All the students of the Vidyadhara I met in the early 80's were never comfortable people. They were always freaked out in this same way. Even being around Kalu Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche did not have that same intensity. During this time, that energy was extremely intense and it was everywhere! 24/7 Abhiseka!
As the date for the cremation approached I invited my mother, father and older sisters to come. My mother was the only one who could make it or wanted to come. We always had a very strong connection to each other. She was the epitome of an "irish mother" and I was her only son-- it was a powerful karmic connection. It was always so close that for me it felt suffocating. Rinpoche's cremation had a profound effect on her. She had a particular love for the Sadhana of Mahamudra which my wife and I chanted to her while she lay on her death bed a couple of years ago. All she could say afterward was, "That was marvelous."
Yes, it was.
I was on guard duty and crowd control in the upper meadow where the cremation was held. There must have been several thousand people in the upper meadow attending the cremation that day. All the great masters of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages were in attendance performing sadhanas and fire puja.
As the morning mist burned off the sun blazed down on us. The sky was a clear, deep blue with no clouds. As Rinpoche's body was consumed by the fire, rainbows formed around the sun. A giant purple cloud formed over the meadow and slowly and majestically floated down the valley heading towards St. Johnsbury. It looked like a giant phurba or ritual dagger. Two very large birds were flying in the sky.
I , along with hundreds of people, saw all of this with our own eyes.
Everyone watched in amazement. After this, the ceremony slowly concluded. All those blessings that had been there while we had Rinpoche in his form seemed to have gone. It was like a cork on a champagne bottle popping out and all the contents flying away.
I remember reading a short article in Time magazine about the cremation afterwards. The tone was quite flippant and sarcastic. The author suggested that the monks had put some chemicals in the fire to produce these effects. I recall being shocked that there were people who couldn't feel this adhistana-- that they didn't have the capacity or the precious human birth. It is remarkable that these voices seem to be believed rather than the wisdom of spiritual masters like Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. There was some fellow named Stephan Batchelor who made a career out of this ignorance. Tricycle Magazine had published a big expose on Trungpa Rinpoche written by him which I foolishly responded to. If I remember correctly, it was more of a critique of Tantric Buddhism in general. Sadly, there are many people who are unable to perceive sacred world and feel that it is all some kind of cheap trick to take advantage of superstitious "religious people" --to what end I can't even imagine-- since we all die. This is why we refer to the "higher teachings" and perception of jinlap as "self secret." I'm not trying to side- step this issue with the term "self secret."
Videodhara
I remember years ago doing a fire puja and we had a VCR tape (that's how long ago it was) of the Vidyadhara Trungpa Rinpoche. Time flies. At that time I realized that video was not the same as being in his presence. It is like you are seeing a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional situation. I call this example "The Videodhara." What is missing is the experience of the radiation of "jinlap." This is the atmosphere of the mind of the lineage, rigpa. This is the primary means of transmission/recognizing the true nature of awareness in the tantric method of guru, mandala and jinlap. It's also the method of deity, mantra and dharmakaya in the higher tantras. That is why we refer to tantra as the "path of blessings." Jinlap. In the case of the "Videodhara" I saw a video of a drunken Tibetan man in a military uniform, perspiring, and talking very slowly. He had pulled out a chair for Vajrayogini to sit in. Occasionally he would pick his nose searching for an elusive booger.
"Basic healthiness is the vajrayana approach. Therefore you are able actually to cut through the original root kleshas, which is the best magic of all. Usually passion, aggression and ignorance occur through the inspiration of cheapness. You're angry, you're passionate and you feel stupified because you don't explore any of the room around you. It is very unintelligent. You don't experience any room around you, you don't experience any atmosphere. It is as if you go to a restaurant, sit at a table and eat, and then you find that your plate is the only world there is. You don't even recognize that there is salt and pepper in front of you, let alone notice the music or the decor in that particular restaurant. You just do your thing and devour it. With that point of view you find yourself sitting on your plate and consuming your little world. You are not even sitting on your chair. That is the small-world approach of passion, aggression and ignorance, which is, if we could say so, setting sun, quite definitely so. Where do setting-sun people sit? They sit on their dinner plates. On the other hand we could say, what is the setting sun notion of privacy? Sitting on your dinner plate.
That smallness is cut by the largeness of the expanse of space outside of that. Right? It is cut by the sense of vastness and openness and also by a sense of accomplishment. Magic happens at the level when we begin to loot, so to speak, the privacy of passion, aggression and ignorance. We begin to search and loot. Then, naturally and obviously, after searching and looting we begin to find quite good delight. We feel tremendous delight that finally we are able to loot, or to ransack, our stronghold with which we have had problems for a long time." Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The video of Trungpa Rinpoche is like the two dimensional experience of people who cannot perceive sacred world-- jinlap. This is what you get on a computer screen. This is the two dimensional experience Stephan Batchelor and the writer of the Time magazine piece had of Trungpa Rinpoche. They could not percieve jinlap-- the radiation of non reference point-- even sitting right in the midst of it. This is the setting sun misperception of reality. The perception of jinlap is obscured by habitual mind--sems, namtuk. Ordinary people then suppose that reality is this two dimensional, "setting sun world" rather than the Sacred World of one taste. Even practitioners who have experienced jinlap can easily forget it if they stop practicing. They rely on a two dimensional memory. Jinlap cannot be "remembered," though memory might spark the leap necessary. It is the same as remembering the present moment. You can't. Jinlap can't be captured on film, or in zoom calls.
That is why we don't do "Zoom Retreats" or "Zoom Meditation Instruction" at DMC.
What would have happened if Marpa could just do Zoom calls with Naropa rather than making his three arduous trips to India to be in the presence of his guru? Do you think it would be the same? Would there even be a wisdom lineage we can connect to today? Residential training is really the only way to enter into the Guru Mandala and receive these blessings-- whether you are a monk or a lay practitioner. It doesn't matter. Even then it is highly unlikely that anyone really "gets it". It is very rare to get it right off the bat-- but it is very important to start. Engaging properly injects auspicious coincidence into our karmic life. The cause and effect of engaging the authentic teachings means that we have entered the path to enlightenment. That is the important thing. Things develop from that.
From the point of view of Dzogchen training, utilizing the principles of guru and mandala is one of the principal ways to arrive at the realization of the view. This is what Trungpa Rinpoche created for us-- in playful interaction with a bunch of crazy western kids who seemed to all have been reincarnated tantrikas from Kham...
The six tantric yanas are a graduated path which opens the tantric disciple to this higher perception. If you don't percieve jinlap you don't pretend to see jinlap in an inauthentic way. That is what Trungpa called "idiot devotion." As a serious practitioner you continue with the path of the two accumulations until the realization of jinlap dawns on you. The completion of the 4 100,000 practices of ngondro is the proscribed method for clearing the obscurations which prevent the tantrika from perceiving jinlap. It is absolutely necessary to understand that what you percieve as jinlap is the true nature of your mind and not some external savior you are worshiping as some kind of external absolute reference point. Once you truly realize this then the need for an external guru becomes unnecessary.
After Trungpa Rinpoche died and then the big scandal with the Vajra Regent there was a lot of talk about how one needed to have a "living guru" and many sangha members went to study with other masters. I have studied with other teachers as well but I quickly realized that the transmission I had recieved from Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent was complete. The Guru is considered the pipeline for the transmission of jinlap--this is the energy of the lineage which has been transmitted from Tilopa down through Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent. This is not a vague, mysterious transmission-- it has a very unique quality and power. It is the magic of Sacred World. If you met Tilopa in person today it would feel the same as meeting Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent. That is what is transmitted from master to disciple. I did not find this same quality with other masters and lineages. Furthermore, when you receive the abhisekas of Vajrayogini and Chakrasamvara along with the Shambhala practices you become able to rouse this atmosphere directly through your practice. The practice of engaging the mandala of the Guru doesn't depend on having a "living guru." Trungpa Rinpoche created the mandala of the guru through the teachings, translations, terma and forms which he created during his life. When you enter these "practice containers" you begin to recognize the energy/atmosphere of this lineage-- that recognition is a transmission in and of itself. It is important to understand this because otherwise we throw the baby out with the bathwater-- a friend actually corrected me when I said this. He said it's more like throwing the baby out and keeping the dirty bath water! This has happened a lot recently in our lineage-- like removing the Vajrayogini shrineroom from Karme Choling or discontinuing the publication of Trungpa Rinpoche's translation of the "Kagyu Gyurtso": "The Rain of Wisdom."
So who is transmitting this? Things have become confused not because this transmission isn't available. Its because we have lost faith in Sacred World and the way to engage it properly. This is a big topic-- but basically we forgot who we are. When you meet an authentic teacher and lineage you remember who you are. Practicing according to their instructions is how we proceed on the path and how we bind ourselves to this sacred world.
Another interesting thing we do at DMC is that we adopted wearing nakpa robes during retreat. Wearing robes has become a big no no for Trungpa Rinpoche's older students and I get a lot of push back on this from them. However most of us wore many different costumes when Trungpa Rinpoche was alive-- we had Dorje Kasung marching around in military uniforms, and we were instructed to wear three piece suits when attending talks and seminars with the sangha. Trungpa Rinpoche was very fond of wearing different military uniforms and other forms of robes. The important thing to understand is that putting on an outer costume which is outside of our habitual way of dressing can create an opportunity to experience a gap in our habitual way of being. This is "vajra armor." That is the purpose of wearing robes and uniforms-- the view and method are no different from any form of Dzogchen practice. This is the approach one takes when practicing kyudo or doing the tea ceremony-- it is required to wear formal Japanese kimonos or practice gis especially if you are a serious practitioner of these arts. At this point, tantrikas without robes look and feel like amateurs or just look sloppy. People would rather practice in their pajamas or their sweat pants rather than wear the robes of tantric discipline. Then, when a Tibetan shows up wearing robes and having impressive credentials everyone bows and does prostrations to them. It is time to put on robes and realize that we hold this profound lineage. We are not amateurs. And yet putting on robes reveals our primordial nakedness. If you do a retreat here you will be given robes to wear. We all wear robes during retreat. It isn't a credential. It is part of one's discipline in retreat. There is no other option. It is the same practice as visualizing yourself as the yidam. Putting on robes is thinking of ourselves as the fruition.
"The cremation itself seemed to mark that passage of time in that the past is marked by the present moment, and the present moment points to the future. It seemed to me that, especially since his death and particularly yesterday, all of our training became obvious. And that the future is the legacy we have inherited. For myself, there's a particular legacy of the transmission of the Trungpa line and especially the teachings of meditation in the mahamudra lineage. Aside from that specific transmission, what we've recieved is a total view of the mandala principle altogether, which actually goes beyond technique, so to speak. The future is mind's projection, since it doesn't exist, at least right now. We can project what the future will be like. I think we should keep in mind the intention of our teacher, our root guru, and that intention appears to be two-fold: firstly, to free the individual from the obstacle of believing in a self, or as we say, ego, and secondly, to create enlightened world or to reveal the world as an enlightened mandala or sacred mandala."
from the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin's comments after the Vidyadhara's cremation in Lyndonville-- May 27th, 1987.
I don't remember what I did after the cremation. I think there was a large banquet that everyone was invited to in Lyndonville and I sat with my mom-- wishing I could be with my friends instead.
Later in the evening I found myself up in the meadow at the cremation ground. It felt like that scene out of Macbeth with the three witches. There was an old, crazy woman crying and saying mantras and people standing and milling about in the darkness. There was still the smell of smoke in the air and a wild wrathful energy. It was a very dark night and the wind whipped around us. It felt completely desolate, groundless. The old Norse term for this is Wyrd. I think as tantric Buddhists we would say the Dakinis and Mamos were about. It was a place beyond conventional reality. A charnal ground.
I found a charred bone in the grass and picked it up. I thought it was one of Rinpoche's relics at the time. Later someone told me it was probably a bone from the body of the Karme Choling dog--Houdini-- who had been cremated in the same area a few months before. Poor Houdini had been shot by the Game Warden for chasing someone's sheep.
Some of you may be familiar with the Buddhist story of the dog's tooth. That is what this memory reminds me of now. Who knows? Perhaps it was a sacred relic. I have no idea where that charred bone is now. I think I threw it out into the meadow, momentarily believing it was just a dog's tooth and not a sacred relic.
Somewhere around this time I became quite ill with all sorts of physical and mental ailments. There were a number of students of Trungpa Rinpoche who experienced illnesses at this time--particularly deep depression. Several people in our sangha, particularly of my generation, have committed suicide. Illness like this is generally considered to be the ripening of past karma. This type of thing does happen when you enter into training with a great mahasiddha. That does not mean that saying more mantras will necessarily make you feel better. It is important to work with the relative reality of sickness, whatever that means, by visiting your doctor. It is important to stress again and again that this path is not particularly focused on achieving psychological comfort and security. This may come as quite a shock for people involved in the therapeutic approaches favored by the contemporary mindfulness movement or various therapies popular today. I hope it does come as a shock.
Who knows? Maybe I have it all wrong!
"At this point I would like to shift our attitude from being big babies and discuss absolute symbolism. I hope you are up to it. Absolute symbolism is not a dream world at all, but realistic. As far as linguistics is concerned, absolute means “needing no reference point.” Otherwise, absolute would become relative, because it would have a relationship with something else. So absolute is free from reference point. It is wholesome, complete by itself, self-existing.The idea of absolute symbolism is also passionless and egoless. How come? Actually, as far as absolute is concerned, you don’t come but you go. It is a going process rather than a coming process, not a collector’s mentality, in which you store everything in your big bank with fat money behind it, or your big bottle.Absolute symbolism is egoless, because you have already abandoned your psychological reference point.That doesn’t mean you have abandoned your parents, or your body, or anything of that nature. So what is that reference point? It is a sense of reassurance that makes you feel better. It’s like when you are crying and your friends come along and hold you and say, “Don’t cry, everything’s going to be okay. There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll take care of you. Take a sip of milk. Let’s take a walk in the woods, have a drink together.” That type of psychological reference point is based on the idea of relative truth.
The absolute truth of egolessness does not need any of those comforts. But that is actually a very dangerous thing to mention at this point. I have my reservations as to whether I should talk about these things, and since I have lost my boss, I have no one to talk to. So I decided to go ahead and tell you.A sense of empty-heartedness takes place when we lose our reference point. If you do not have any reference point at all, you have nothing to work with, nothing to compare with, nothing to fight, nothing to try to subtract or add into your system at all.You find yourself absolutely nowhere, just empty heart, big hole in your brain. Your nervous system doesn’t connect with anything and there’s no logic particularly, just empty heart. That empty-heartedness could be regarded in some circles as an attack of the evil ones and in other circles as an experience of satori, or sudden enlightenment.
People actually have no idea what non-reference point experience is. When you begin to abandon all possibilities of any kind of reference point that would comfort you, tell you to do something, help you to see through everything make you a better and greater person—when you lose all those reference points, including your ambition, the strangest thing takes place. Usually people think that if you lose everything—your ambition, your self-centeredness, your integrity and dignities—you will become a vegetable, a jellyfish. But it’s not so. You don’t become a jellyfish. Instead, you are suspended in space, in a big hole of some kind. It is quite titillating. Big hole of suspension! It’s as if you were suspended in outer space without a space suit or rocket ship. You are just floating and circulating around the planets forever and ever. Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The parinirvana and cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a very powerful time surrounded by the vajra sangha and I was lucky to be there the entire time. It was certainly the height of his transmission to the west. It was a time of incredible blessings. From my introduction to Trungpa Rinpoche's mandala in 1984 I was drawn to and competely irradiated by these blessings. On the one hand, I think I was very lucky. On the other hand, when it was shown to me I recognized it and went towards it. That is a rare situation called precious human birth--"difficult to gain and easy to lose."
Traditionally it is taught that when a great master dies it is like the string on your mala breaking-- all the beads fly all over the place. That is why wherever we are we can connect with the Vidyadhara's mind.
I have lived continuously within Trungpa Rinpoche’s mandala from my early days at Karme Choling and at the major metropolitan centers of that mandala, including Boulder, Colorado and Halifax, Nova Scotia. I volunteered to staff the 1992 Seminary as a cook at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. Once I felt the mind of this lineage, that was all I wanted even though it terrified me. It is still like this. May I never forget the blessings of this lineage!
I have received the abhisekas of Vajrayogini and Chakrasamvara from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and the lung for the Sadhana of Guru Padmasambhava from Trime Lhawang, Patrick Sweeney. I have a samaya with both of these lamas and consider them to be authentic lineage holders of Trungpa Rinpoche's Surmang Kagyu Lineage.
I have recieved numerous transmissions and teachings from Kalu Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Phakchok Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Chokling Rinpoche and others always during large events and teachings with these great masters.
In 1994 I returned to my home in Maine because of my own ill health. Shortly after my return my father became ill with Lou Gehrig's disease. I was able to spend time with him while he declined in health. After his death I attempted to run his business-- the New Meadows Inn, which was a famous restaurant in our area. I was the third generation after my father and his father to run the restaurant and all the family karma at the time was pushing me to take it on. This was quite strange because while my father lay dying on a medical recliner in the living room of my childhood home I was filled with revulsion for the futility of samsara and applying for three year retreat! "Difficult to gain, easy to lose!"
My background as an English Major studying post-modernist poetry and Tibetan Buddhism was not the best training for a prospective restaurant manager and the restaurant went out of business after 9 years of my "management". Auspicious-- but not comfortable or pleasant! Sound familiar?
Due to the generosity of my mother, and my wife's sister and her husband we were able to purchase the small cottage rental business which had been connected to the family restaurant. Without their kindness we would never have been able to afford this property. Over the years we winterized and updated these cottages--turning them into a year round business which provided the steady income necessary to sustain a dedicated Dharma Center and to raise our two children.
In 2006 I established the Dzogchen Meditation Center/ Surmang Kagyu Retreat Center which is dedicated to engaging the pith teachings of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Osel Tendzin, Jamgon Kongtrul and Khenpo Gangshar Wangpo within a retreat setting. By that time, all of the institutions that had supported me in my training had changed beyond recognition. It was no longer possible to live in a residential dharma center in our practice lineage and train and study as a community. The whole idea of opening Dzogchen Meditation Center was to create a situation where people could train in this way. Besides, I didn't want to do anything else! That continues to be the mission of this center and my inspiration to this day. Running a Dharma Center has proven to be both very challenging and a powerful engagement with the living presence of my root gurus. It has been-- can you guess?-- neither pleasant nor particularly comfortable!
We do not rely on the income of the Dharma center in any way. It is truly a "nonprofit" business. So we are completely free to practice the teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche with no regard whatsoever to making money or being successful as a business venture. We aren't a church or educational nonprofit either. I suppose you could call us a family temple or shrine. But that gives us tremendous freedom to focus on creating a strong practice container. The residential schedule for retreats and during the three month residency is a two week schedule followed by a day and a half off. For two weeks we all follow a pretty strict practice schedule and then we have a day and a half with no schedule. You would think the main event would be the retreat-- it actually happens during the days off. This little trick was how we scheduled everything in the 80's. "Days off" was an intense experience of non reference point. How many retreat centers in our mandala do this now? None. That is so sad-- that it has been forgotten. It is a profound method. Now you know this profound method.
I was introduced to Lotsawa Eric Pema Kunsang's translations in 1990 with the publication of "Crystal Cave." His translations actually convey the "blessings", or Jinlap of the pith instructions of the great masters of the practice lineage. This is the mark of a "Lotsawa". These teachings helped give me a deeper understanding of the powerful, direct experiences I had with my root gurus the Vajra Regent and Trungpa Rinpoche. Along with 12 other participants I attended a 35 day Trinley Nyingpo retreat with Eric and his wife Tara at Gomde Denmark in 2008. They were both very kind to me. I will always be grateful and hope to see them again.
I am not a Lama nor a special person at all. If there is any doubt about this you should talk to my wife and children! I do seem to be very lucky in my encounter with this lineage and somewhat tenacious in not letting go of my connection. My job here is simply to create a practice container in which people can enter authentic training in this particular lineage and in that way be beneficial. This was the opportunity I was given as a young man.
I do not give formal transmissions to students--I am not authorized in any way to do that--but will happily recommend authentic Lamas who work within this lineage.
People who engage training here at DMC enter an auspicious situation which will confound every idea they may have about a "spiritual life." What is practiced here is real life-- which happens to be ordinary magic. Despite our best or worst intentions we end up in no man's land with the rug pulled out from under us--particularly on "days off!" This is what it is like to train in Trungpa Rinpoche's lineage. It is the same situation for me every time! Hopefully I will never get used to that.
I am not by any means some kind of spiritual master who floats above the painful or embarrassing realities of life. I am still embarrassed by myself. If I have learned anything it is how to suffer properly and not run away too quickly!
Rinpoche called this "holding one's seat." That is what residents and retreatants train in with me here. I know this is a tough sell-- but I think it is better to be honest and not sugar coat what it is like to live and train in Trungpa Rinpoche's and the Vajra Regent's mandala. People always assume spiritual practice is "relaxing" and "soothing." When you tell people you are going on a meditation retreat they think certain things. You think certain things. Finding this other reality beyond "thinking certain things" is always naked and raw. It's what we call "reality." "Things as they are." It is a very naked experience which is often accompanied by complete panic. However, meeting people on this level is quite wonderful. I hope everyone panics during their retreat here. I will not save you from this panic. Actually, this panic is the point!
I began studying kyudo --the contemplative art of zen archery-- in 1987 with Shibata Kanjuro Sensei within the mandala of Trungpa Rinpoche. I lived at Sensei's house in Boulder, Colorado for six months in 1994 helping with Sunday classes at the dojo and was an assistant instructor at many of the kyudo retreats held around North America. I hosted Sensei here in Maine for a kyudo program at our property in 2000. That year Shibata Sensei made me an instructor in his form of the Heki Ryu Bisshu Chikurin-ha school of Japanese Archery. I am no longer an active member of Zenko International. I teach what Shibata Sensei called "mind Kyudo" through annual retreats and personal instruction at Dzogchen Meditation Center. I do not teach kyudo to people who are not interested in studying meditation in the Surmang Kagyu Order.
There is a certain problem with how kyudo developed in our sangha. It is a prevalent view of the zen arts in Japan that you actually win on some level. The mistaken view is that there is some kind of perfection to be achieved and credentialed: You make the perfect shot: you make the perfect cup of tea: you make the perfect calligraphy. Everything is elegant and it is "credentialed."
I don't teach that here. When we let the arrow go there is a gap. Then we look. That is all you get in kyudo and life. That is the point.
In the past few years I have had the good fortune to meet Yeshe Trungpa, H.H. Seonaidh John Perks, the lineage-holder of Celtic Buddhism and Admiral of the Purnachandra division of the Dorje Kasung. I have served under him as Commodore in the Purnachandra and have benefited greatly from his teachings and kindness. Beginning in the 1970's and stretching almost until Trungpa's death, Admiral Perks was Trungpa Rinpoche's butler and kusung. This type of service to your guru is only read about in the life stories of the early mahasiddhas like Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa. His writings on his time with his guru manifest that same energy that I have talked about here and mirror many of my own experiences in the mandala. The difference, of course, was that he was right there with Trungpa Rinpoche-- day in and day out--dressing him, combing his hair, serving him sake. Trungpa developed his vast and profound secular mandala through his playful interraction with "Johnnie." John Perks' ability to convey this energy particularly in his book is what we call "transmission." A person who transmits this energy is a lineage holder. There should be no doubt that John Perks is/was a lineage holder of Trungpa Rinpoche's profound and outrageous manifestation of skillful means. There are quite a few of these people still around. You could look for them if you wanted to.
When not helping to facilitate retreats at DMC, I work as a carpenter/handyman. I co-manage a small hotel adjacent to the meditation center with my wife, Susan,who also was a direct student of Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent. We met at Karme Choling while she was on staff there in the 1990's and we fell in love--me at first sight-- her a few years later.
We are nakpas or householder yogins. We have two grown children and a husky named Nova. She is a "rescue" like me.
Final words-- ultimately the authentic transmission of Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings depends on creating residential retreat opportunities where people can live in a mandala of communal practice and engage the teachings of the guru- mandala principal--which is how this transmission occurs. Right now there are no communal centers functioning as they did while Trungpa Rinpoche was alive. There are no dathuns. There are no three month seminaries. There are no Vajrayana Intensive Training Sessions. There are no residential practice centers. Without these elements the sangha becomes under-cooked. The mind transmission cannot occur without a strong practice container. Even the old dogs forget the point and the whole thing degenerates further and further. That is "The Current Situation." If you would like to be a part of changing that corruption I would encourage you to come here and engage in residential training with me. Who knows, you might even turn me into a good practitioner. You may not gain anything from doing so-- as we say, there are no guarantees as there is no guarantor. I did not say that-- Rinpoche said that. But we might begin to ask why we are hanging on to expensive land centers which really don't serve this purpose? Why aren't more of the senior students turning their homes into residential retreat centers? What are you waiting for?
Between Two Places
I will meet you between
Here and there
but please remember
It might be stranger than you think
--Let's Go!
Rest your mind on the outbreath.
Cultivate bliss, clarity and nonthought
as synchronized body, speech and mind.
We should go on a road trip.
Sleep in the car
-- homeless.
Feeling the edge of loneliness
boredom,
hopelessness.
This is not a self-improvement project.
When I walk into Dunkin Donuts to pick up my coffee from Jasmin
Do I see her qualities
As they are?
This is Sacred world
-- the only one--
Proven at the nadir of this
right here.
Me and Jasmin.
Thank you. Have a nice day.
Written by an orphan son of the authentic lineage wandering alone in the Charnal Ground of Dunkin Donuts.
Birth mother and father
turned to dust
I am alone
wandering in the mountains
making friends with the strangers
I meet
bounded by the boundless
I see the light
in your eyes
.