June 2008
The maroon fence outside my window is a favorite resting spot for birds. Sometimes they sing a song, but usually they just sit for a moment or two, maybe groom themselves a bit, and then they’re off to the next thing. In April there was a parade of Carolina wrens, usually en route to the new house with some fresh nesting material. In May, the wrens could still be heard in the distance, but the fence belonged to song sparrows. Now the sparrows are rarely seen or heard, and a pair of catbirds seems to have moved in. (One is meowing on the fence as I write. Nope…now it’s gone. Postscript from end of June: the catbirds are now gone, and the blue jays have taken over.) One evening awhile back, when I was feeling momentarily dispirited, a shy wood thrush, usually heard from far off in the woods, stopped just long enough to sing its magical song.
Whenever a catbird lands on the fence, in the back of my mind there is always the hope that it will sing. If lunch is buckwheat and parsnips (it happens), I wish it were something else. If it’s Thursday after lunch (housecleaning day) I wish it were Friday (incoming mail day). The weather could be warmer…or cooler…or a little less humid. The chanting could be smoother…or more in tune…or faster…or slower….My mind could be free of thoughts…or at least full of better quality ones. What exists that could not be improved!
I have come to suspect that samsara, a.k.a. cyclic existence, this prison of confusion and suffering, might be defined simply as the state of wanting things to be different. Could it be that as soon as we wake up and see things as they are, and are able to rest peacefully in that without wishing them otherwise—whether we are walking on the beach or at work on Monday morning with a bad-tempered colleague—bingo!
In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, of which the Vajrayana is a part, that is not quite the whole story. In order to reach full awakening, we still need to develop and carry out the motivation to help all other beings attain the same state of peace and ultimate happiness.
Still…if only I could rest in the present moment without wishing for a slightly different present moment…then everything would be perfect!
June 2008
Three-year retreat is the best possible place to be; and most of the time it feels like the best possible work to be doing, and I am very mindful of how lucky I am to have this rare opportunity.
But it also has its challenges. Right now, in late June, it’s very hot. It’s hard to get up before 4:00 a.m., and sometimes it’s hard to stay in the same seat doing the same practice hour upon hour, day after day. At this point, nearing the end of our first six months, the initial novelty has worn off and we are facing many more months of hard work without a lot of the comforts and escapes we used to take for granted. I sometimes feel like I’m “in the weeds,” my friend Anne’s copy editing term for being in the middle of a tough project with no end yet in sight.
The biggest challenge so far: retreat is pretty much designed to paint your ego into a corner. On a daily basis, I fail to live up to my own standards, in terms of both practice and interpersonal relations. As each day connects a few more dots in my devious ego’s outline, sometimes I feel temporarily discouraged, and there are days when I want to run and hide in a closet.
A few inspiring books have helped me through the difficult moments, e.g., the chapter on patience in The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa, Shantideva’s The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Ngulchu Thokme’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Thubten Chödron’s excellent book Working with Anger (which draws upon some of these very sources, and puts them into a Western perspective), and Mingyur Rinpoche’s brief account in his book, The Joy of Living, of his difficult first year of retreat, and how he overcame his own personal challenges through intensive application of the very meditation methods he was being taught.
When Lama Norlha Rinpoche was here to teach a couple of weeks ago, as he was leaving the shrine room, he stopped to look at a beautiful calligraphy by Tai Situ Rinpoche that hangs above the stairwell. Someone asked Rinpoche what it says, and he answered, “Ro nyam.” Asked what that means, he said, “Equal taste.” Asked to explain equal taste, he said: “Happiness and suffering are the same.”
He told us that in Tibet, practitioners would rub something soft, such as an offering scarf, against one cheek, while simultaneously rubbing something abrasive, like sandpaper, against the other, to try to get a first-hand glimpse of ro nyam.
Rinpoche often instructs us to examine our mind when we are very happy or very unhappy, and locate the part of the mind that feels the same no matter what, that is unaffected by passing emotions. I have found that instruction very helpful, both before retreat and in it. It’s an experiment anyone can do. If we just put to use the parade of emotions that march through our minds all day long, maybe we can skip the sandpaper!
May 2008
In its thirty years of existence, KTC Monastery has hosted many great Lamas, including the Dalai Lama, the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Kalu Rinpoche (under whose guidance KTC was founded), Tai Situ Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Thrangu Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, and many others. Just to read their names confers blessing!
On May 19, 2008, we hosted an especially historic visit: the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje, stopped here for a glorious morning on his first visit to the West, in the midst of a whirlwind two-week tour of the US. (New York City; Wappingers Falls, NY—that’s us; Woodstock, NY—his official seat in the US.; Boulder, Colorado; and Seattle). We spent weeks preparing to receive him, and by all accounts it was a splendid event. (We just got to see the part in our retreat house.)
Just 22 years old (a year older than my daughter), the Karmapa first attracted worldwide attention when he made a daring escape from Communist-controlled Tibet to India at the end of 1999, at age 14. He’s been in India ever since, and we’ve been awaiting our first chance to meet him.
It was a particularly poignant moment, as it was his previous incarnation, the Sixteenth Karmapa, who, along with Kalu Rinpoche, urged Lama Norlha Rinpoche to come to New York City in 1976 and undertake the monumental task of establishing the first traditional three-year retreat program in North America. Lama Norlha Rinpoche was with him in Chicago shortly before he passed away there in 1981; he had visited KTC in 1980, as preparations for the retreat were gearing up, but was no longer with us when the first, historic retreat actually began in June of 1982.
After a welcoming ceremony in the main house, an informal talk in a tent outdoors to an audience of more than 300 members of KTC and its affiliated centers (including Jeffrey, Anne and Marguerite from KSC-NH), and a walk down the hill to bless the recently completed foundation of the new Maitreya Center and the stupa that overlooks the Hudson River, the two retreat houses were the last stops on his itinerary.
He spent about ten minutes in each retreat house—first the men’s retreat, Naro Ling; then the women’s retreat, Nigu Ling. At Nigu Ling, we played a traditional welcome on the various Tibetan instruments—conch, cymbals, drum, reed horns and long horns— even though we have barely begun learning them (I played the drum, the easiest one). Then we followed him upstairs to our tiny shrine room, where we served him traditional tea and sweet saffron rice, performed a symbolic mandala offering ceremony, and chanted some prayers. He inspected each of us closely from his seat during all this, which only took about five minutes. Then he made a few remarks, partly in English and partly in Tibetan translated for us by another renowned teacher, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche; and wished us well in our practice. As he was leaving, he shook each of our hands—not a traditional blessing, but a very special one.
We were told that upon taking his seat in the main shrine room at the beginning of the visit, he immediately asked in which direction the retreat houses lay. In his previous incarnation, he had a strong interest in this project, but six cycles of retreat were completed and the seventh begun, and he himself traveled from one lifetime to the next, before he was finally able to see the results. In fact, we are the first Western retreatants he laid eyes on. He promised that he will be back for a longer visit, and we hope it will be soon.
Like his predecessor, the young Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa radiates warmth, charisma, confidence, and wisdom. In his presence, it is impossible to look anywhere but at him. He speaks with humility, and has a playful sense of humor; we heard frequent laughter from the tent during his talk, and were told that, in honor of the unseasonably cold, windy weather that day, he began by welcoming his audience to Tibet.
He is already a very accomplished meditation master and teacher. Some of his early teachings, beginning in his teens, are included in Michelle Martin’s biography of him, Music in the Sky, which also includes a harrowing account of his escape from Tibet. I found these teachings quite moving and wonderful, along with a recent teaching on compassion in the summer 2008 issue of Buddhadharma Magazine, which features his photo on the cover.
In addition to forging an auspicious connection with this powerful young spiritual leader, the Karmapa’s visit also served to remind us what a breathtaking thing it is to be in the presence of an authentic realized master. At Kagyu Thubten Chöling, we have the great good fortune to live every day in the presence of a realized master, who has been patiently teaching us, through words and example, for more than thirty years. Sadly, it is easy to take such an experience a little bit for granted when it is so readily available. Seeing the Karmapa reminded us how very lucky we are.