I remember my first personal encounter with a Tibetan Buddhist master. This was after I had heard His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in Amherst in the fall of 1984, my senior year at Smith. Four consecutive days of teachings at the chapel at Amherst college. Attendance was limited to religion students and a handful of others. At first Robert Thurman was translating and after a day or two he was replaced by Alan Wallace, who was then still a monk.
With a whisper and a giggle, His Holiness, I recall, would often correct Robert Thurman that first day of what I remember were teachings on the Abhidharma, The Treasury of Higher Knowledge. Completely new to me.
Perhaps Thurman was a touch obfuscating in his confident choice of English technical terms trying to capture wildly foreign concepts. And so he was promptly replaced by Alan Wallace, who seemed to have made of himself an open vessel as he translated without a moment's hesitation gently and fluidly: without an academic affect. He seemed a bit of a space alien to me: I noticed that he seemed to lack any fascination with himself, his experience, the scene.
With a whisper and a giggle, His Holiness, I recall, would often correct Robert Thurman that first day of what I remember were teachings on the Abhidharma, The Treasury of Higher Knowledge. Completely new to me.
Perhaps Thurman was a touch obfuscating in his confident choice of English technical terms trying to capture wildly foreign concepts. And so he was promptly replaced by Alan Wallace, who seemed to have made of himself an open vessel as he translated without a moment's hesitation gently and fluidly: without an academic affect. He seemed a bit of a space alien to me: I noticed that he seemed to lack any fascination with himself, his experience, the scene.
Some 2 years later I encountered Gen Lobsang Namgyal, who had newly arrived in the USA through the invitation of a philosophy professor at the University of Iowa, with the help of Geshe Lhundup Sopa of Wisconsin. From his escape to India in 1981 to his arrival in the US he was working at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.
I was in the meantime working in Boston. He arrived in Iowa City, my home town where my parents lived, in August or September, 1986. About a week before I met him someone's brakes stopped working at the top of the hill facing my first floor apartment in an old house in Somerville, MA. I received a call from my housemate at work that there was a gaping hole the size of a car in the living room of our apartment. My Smithie housemate was already headed for Marblehead. Long story short I returned to Iowa City later that week.
Gen Lobsang Namgyal had come out of Tibet in 1981, after making Drapchi prison his two decade retreat place. I met him on September 21, 1986 at a public talk at one of the university buildings. There were maybe thirty people in attendance. There was no question in my mind as to his realization. It seemed obvious and indisputable by his ease and radiance, his humility and love. And his eyes which appeared to be taking in much more than shapes and colors.
I was in the meantime working in Boston. He arrived in Iowa City, my home town where my parents lived, in August or September, 1986. About a week before I met him someone's brakes stopped working at the top of the hill facing my first floor apartment in an old house in Somerville, MA. I received a call from my housemate at work that there was a gaping hole the size of a car in the living room of our apartment. My Smithie housemate was already headed for Marblehead. Long story short I returned to Iowa City later that week.
Gen Lobsang Namgyal had come out of Tibet in 1981, after making Drapchi prison his two decade retreat place. I met him on September 21, 1986 at a public talk at one of the university buildings. There were maybe thirty people in attendance. There was no question in my mind as to his realization. It seemed obvious and indisputable by his ease and radiance, his humility and love. And his eyes which appeared to be taking in much more than shapes and colors.
He might have had great dialectical and philosophical learning, which he did. He might also have been versed in all four lineages of Tibetan Buddhism in both the open and private teachings, which he also was. His father, a Tibetan physician and devout practitioner, would tie the bell and dorje to his three-year old's small hands and the boy would pronounce his rituals without reliance on texts. When Genla and his brothers were a little older: his father asked each of them: which lineage would you like to focus on this time?
Genla fell outside the lines of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Once when I asked him about so-and-so being a tulku he quietly said: everyone's a tulku.
But it was his absolutely fully burgeoned bodhicitta presence that took my breath away, and his refusal to take credit for it in the least. He had zero self-reference. Zero concern for defending an image; what people thought of him or didn't think of him. He was not guided by mundane motives of any sort. And yet he could create a disturbance wherever delusion manifested.
He was completely dedicated to others and expected or demanded nothing of them, either subtly or manifestly. He never seized, claimed, or grasped anything through the sieve of a self. He only worked with what came before him, responding with the totality of his clear presence.
He respected other teachers of all traditions, but declined when invited to be a resident Lama at any of the Dharma center franchises, some of which eagerly wanted to claim him as theirs.
He just wanted to practice and teach Dharma. In that sense he was uncompromising and firmly undaunted when pushed to defer to the authority of others. At the same time he manifested awesome respect and devotion toward his Teachers, visible in his body language, carriage, and speech. He defended Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once when certain orthodox monks began denouncing him, saying: and what have you done to further the Dharma in the west as Trungpa Rinpoche has done? Can you write like him in English?
Perhaps it was his broad-mindedness that made institutional affiliation impossible for him. He recognized the difference between allegiance and devotion.
I remember he was trying to read Freud and Jung with the help of his translator. He was curious, interested, and wanted to speak to westerners on their terms, fully appreciating their experience, instead of trying to force westerners into a mindset that ended at the borders of Tibet, but was often subsequently imported through lack of careful distinction between Buddha Dharma and unexamined cultural habit.
I often wonder if his ability to distinguish Dharma from cultural habit was due to the hardship he underwent at Drapchi, which included various forms of torture. Never once did he blame the Chinese for his experience; nor did he demonize the Chinese. Once he coolly remarked that if you want to understand what happened to Tibet in the 20th century, "reflect on karma, and then read about 7th century China-Tibet relations." He had the sort of mastery that made mediocrity, posturing, and cultural identification more clearly visible. He had actual equanimity.
Genla had zero interest in material acquisition but appreciated ball point pens and loved to play with them; he was delighted that such a tiny ball could be manufactured and could create such an easy line of continuously flowing ink. He lacked the slightest materialistic hunger for nice things that so many newly arrived immigrants fall for when reaching American shores.
He was, in effect, renounced in the way described in the Lamrim. He understood the reasons. It's not that people should not have nice things. It was just that Genla's absolute freedom from attachment and focus on Dharma were entirely authentic and profoundly impacting. He constantly re-gifted. A gift came in the morning and he was giving it away in the afternoon. I found this hilarious and inspiring at the same time.
I remember the first teaching: his very faded socks had many holes. I found this unspeakably moving.
Once he lost his wallet, and the person driving him around to search for it was told with great joy, "Someone need it! Werrrry wery good! No need find wallet!!"
After a teaching in Iowa City, I thanked him, using my newly purchased English-Tibetan dictionary that I had ordered from Iowa Book and Supply. He said: Not me; Buddha Sakyamuni.
Genla fell outside the lines of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Once when I asked him about so-and-so being a tulku he quietly said: everyone's a tulku.
But it was his absolutely fully burgeoned bodhicitta presence that took my breath away, and his refusal to take credit for it in the least. He had zero self-reference. Zero concern for defending an image; what people thought of him or didn't think of him. He was not guided by mundane motives of any sort. And yet he could create a disturbance wherever delusion manifested.
He was completely dedicated to others and expected or demanded nothing of them, either subtly or manifestly. He never seized, claimed, or grasped anything through the sieve of a self. He only worked with what came before him, responding with the totality of his clear presence.
He respected other teachers of all traditions, but declined when invited to be a resident Lama at any of the Dharma center franchises, some of which eagerly wanted to claim him as theirs.
He just wanted to practice and teach Dharma. In that sense he was uncompromising and firmly undaunted when pushed to defer to the authority of others. At the same time he manifested awesome respect and devotion toward his Teachers, visible in his body language, carriage, and speech. He defended Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once when certain orthodox monks began denouncing him, saying: and what have you done to further the Dharma in the west as Trungpa Rinpoche has done? Can you write like him in English?
Perhaps it was his broad-mindedness that made institutional affiliation impossible for him. He recognized the difference between allegiance and devotion.
I remember he was trying to read Freud and Jung with the help of his translator. He was curious, interested, and wanted to speak to westerners on their terms, fully appreciating their experience, instead of trying to force westerners into a mindset that ended at the borders of Tibet, but was often subsequently imported through lack of careful distinction between Buddha Dharma and unexamined cultural habit.
I often wonder if his ability to distinguish Dharma from cultural habit was due to the hardship he underwent at Drapchi, which included various forms of torture. Never once did he blame the Chinese for his experience; nor did he demonize the Chinese. Once he coolly remarked that if you want to understand what happened to Tibet in the 20th century, "reflect on karma, and then read about 7th century China-Tibet relations." He had the sort of mastery that made mediocrity, posturing, and cultural identification more clearly visible. He had actual equanimity.
Genla had zero interest in material acquisition but appreciated ball point pens and loved to play with them; he was delighted that such a tiny ball could be manufactured and could create such an easy line of continuously flowing ink. He lacked the slightest materialistic hunger for nice things that so many newly arrived immigrants fall for when reaching American shores.
He was, in effect, renounced in the way described in the Lamrim. He understood the reasons. It's not that people should not have nice things. It was just that Genla's absolute freedom from attachment and focus on Dharma were entirely authentic and profoundly impacting. He constantly re-gifted. A gift came in the morning and he was giving it away in the afternoon. I found this hilarious and inspiring at the same time.
I remember the first teaching: his very faded socks had many holes. I found this unspeakably moving.
Once he lost his wallet, and the person driving him around to search for it was told with great joy, "Someone need it! Werrrry wery good! No need find wallet!!"
After a teaching in Iowa City, I thanked him, using my newly purchased English-Tibetan dictionary that I had ordered from Iowa Book and Supply. He said: Not me; Buddha Sakyamuni.
