On the Path of the KarmapaA work in progress
Back StoryI first approached a meditation center with great reluctance. Ten years ago, I felt shy and kind of embarrassed about my interest in meditation, particularly being in proximity to chanting which I thought of as some weird Third World affectation. Modalities such as therapy, drugs (prescribed and recreational), the usual litany of Western dysfunctions and self-medications were no big deal to talk about and, of course, pursue.The orange paint and thangkas in Tibetan centers can be a bit much. However, the uber-precision in the Zen scene echoed a bit too closely to my experience with control freaks who'd made rationalization a high art form so I got used to the orange paint. I've never liked portrait photographs: looking beatific on demand doesn't quite work for me. But unscripted shots carried a sense of special moments. My favorite shrine photo was an "action" shot of the Sixteenth Karmapa, who I knew nothing about at the time, who exuded an easy and natural joy. The unraveling of whatever mental knots from practice led to getting pulled into the tractor beam of dharma over time. When the high tech market melted down, I found myself with an excess of time, energy and churning discursiveness that became a fertile ground for conceiving and mapping some original projects.
Apparently unemployable at the time, I stopped trying to tell the stories of enterprise software. It made perfect sense to spend scads of money, throw my belongings in storage and resume my restless, gypsy ways. It was interesting that my exposure to analytics and optimization technologies heightened my comfort level to ask questions about how one relates to their mind. B. Alan Wallace and Matthieu Ricard sometimes refer to "optimization" in their works. The algorithmist and Chief Science Officer where I used to work frequently talked about how less robust mathematical methods would introduce biases and distortions, undercutting the quality of conclusions. Along the way, I started crossing paths with benevolent Stanford mathematicians in the Buddhist world and on its periphery. In one meeting, Alan Wallace was the guest of a former Stanford Business School professor, a self-described "freelance mathematician." Another time, I visited a prison dharma group and the person I wound up talking to the most was a one-time math professor at Stanford. Turns out that he'd also been a former professor and employer of my old boss, "The Algorithmist." Connections so disparate and weird that the Tibetans call them tendrel, auspicious coincidence. The "You for real?" file gained new entries.
The 25th anniversary of the Sixteenth Karmapa's passing or parinirvana was two years out at the time so I began seeking out the great Kagyu teachers. All very simple and matter of fact. When you focus entirely on the logistical and content requirements, what it will take to execute what is implied in the premise, you can lose sight of the outlandishness of what you're proposing. Or so I've been told.
I quickly found out that the subject I'd thought merited a serious assessment in light of an impending, important anniversary to Westerners was the single most precious, sacred subject to many of my prospective participants. That then cast the light back upon me: Who are you? Why exactly do you want to do this? Are you a practitioner? Who is your teacher? More advanced levels from people in the entourage included: you know, we all have to live with ourselves and only we can know our true motivations regardless of what we say to others.
Khandro Rinpoche was my first interview. Deceivingly diminutive, she gets your attention the way a hand grenade or an archer probably would. Let’s just leave it at that. Earlier in the day I'd scouted a quiet room at the retreat house, mapped out the furniture and electrical sockets, done some pre-production. She was interested in what I was doing, then got enthusiastic. "We’ll talk in front of the retreat. Everyone should hear this."
Rinpoche wrapped the day's/night's teaching with a lesson in Tibetan language. In rhetoric classes I'd read how the ancient Greek orator, Demosthenes, would belt it out at seaside so he could project over the crash of waves and presumably not be tarred and feathered by the locals. Similarly, you learn Tibetan at high volume, repeating cacophonous syllables. In a class of 60 or 75 people, it is simply an ungodly, screeching racket. They tell you in film classes to start by keeping things simple. Running three cameras, routing multiple microphones through a mixing board, doing an interview with a rowdy dignitary, and doing so in front of an audience on the road is not simple. At the end of the Tibetan ca-ca-cahing, my friend, Alden, suggested that we all break for 10 minutes so we could set the room. Rinpoche was on a roll. "No break, let’s go now." Or we could set up right then. We put a mike on Rinpoche and asked her to say something into it for a sound check. "Cah! Cah! Cah!" It wasn't French, but what is? Still, that's not fun to hear in Sennheiser headphones. I white-balanced my camera. I could hear a voice. Alden was calling to me. My sense of time and space was coming undone. I looked at the people around me to my left to see whose mouth was moving. One mouth, nothing, another mouth and so on. Gaia pointed to my right. Alden's mouth was moving. I nodded at something she seemed to say. My out-of-body experience was nearly complete. Let's talk about Tibetan history. We did four more sessions over the next week. The rhythm evolved from "go to the bright light" and thoughts of next-of-kin to remembering what it was to play as well as to bob and weave. I moved from restricted breathing and hopes of survival to taking in the generations of discipline that preceded my contact with Shrine Room G, the converted garage at the retreat center in Virginia, the enormity of a thousand year-old culture brought to me by people on foot over the Himalayas in flight from invading armies bent on genocide. And there was the utter power, poignance and dignity of His Holiness, the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. Hearing of this person was breathtaking. After my bourgeois roughing it in a tent for ten days, the mission was clear. The story and context of His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa needed to be properly told through the voices of the people most close to him. With some new knowledge, particularly about what not to do again, I began to do more research and write many lists. You know you're ready to move forward with complete commitment when you can say, "It's not going to suck more than what I've already been through." That is how "irreversible confidence" translates in California.
The original abbot at Rumtek was Very Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche. The Karmapa discovered Rinpoche as a tulku. Whenever you see pictures of Rinpoche or get to see him in person, he has an enormous smile, a joviality, a big-heartedness to him that registers even if you're at the back of the room. He is the senior teacher of the Karma Kagyu lineage.
Rinpoche was willing to initially speak to me when he was coming to teach in San Francisco. I would meet briefly with him at a local Kagyu center and hopefully work out arrangements to speak in greater depth in Asia. I arrived at the center and was brought into an essentially empty room. There was just Rinpoche seated on cushions. No real furniture to speak of. No translator in the room. I scanned for a palm tree, a ficus, something. "Hullo," Rinpoche said. That joviality I referred to earlier— that was someplace else. Today, he was all business. I felt an inexplicable surge of compassion for every gazelle and wildebeast on the plains of the Serengeti. I offered my prostrations and khata then introduced myself. I resumed breathing. Very Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche was a big hitter, no joke. The discussion of "why" did come up, more discreetly than it usually comes up with people of the entourage. Again, it was simple thing, so I thought, it was important, it was a genuine need and I could see what needed to be done: it would be interesting and fun. We agreed to talk in India. Then he thanked me. So that became my big contemplation for the morning as I made my way on the freeway, late as usual. Soon after, I was off to India. Interviewing Rinpoche is simply a privilege. How else do you describe hearing about the decline and fall of Tibet from a living witness, not to mention receiving Karmapa's escape route? Like the John Muir Trail and the path of Lewis and Clark, I hope this path will be traveled by many who will appreciate its significance, what it cost, what it brought.
Later, the book A Cave in the Snow would be published about her life, which focused on her extensive experience of solitary retreat. It's probably a modest dimension of Tenzin Palmo's relevance to the dharma, particularly as encountered by Westerners. It was off to Himachal Pradesh in northern India that I headed.
We chatted but she'd made arrangements for her periodic head shaving, which she was going to have done in a bit. Tenzin Palmo said something to the effect of, What's the point in having a discipline if you're not going to follow through on it? Have to keep up the example for the other nuns and all.
Ani-la has a remarkable combination of extreme vividness and vivaciousness with genuine humility, the sort that honestly keeps in mind her first hand contact with the activities and accomplishments of masters that will be seen as historically significant. In other words, Tenzin Palmo was enormously fun to talk to. After becoming Chogyam Trungpa's first Western student while living in England, she was one of the first Westerners to encounter Tibetan Buddhism in India in the early sixties. In those first years, Westerners went from being perceived as noble born, given the former British ruling class, to basically being viewed as useless drug addicts as Westerners later arrived in the form of wandering hippies. She and her mother traveled by rail, third class, in the mid-sixties to visit HH Karmapa XVI in Calcutta... in the days before Aquafina. Forty years later, I would get food poisoning at the Kathmandu Hyatt and flop around for 30 hours in living hell/bardo so my appreciation of the Western dharma pioneers knows no bounds. In 1967, when Tenzin Palmo took novice ordination at Rumtek from HH Karmapa XVI, he did the Black Crown ceremony for the occasion.
Unfortunately, the first time I went to Nepal, Rinpoche's brother-in-law had just died. I went to his monastery in Swayambuth and met with his attendant where I found this out. Rinpoche was in mourning and would be doing puja, doing a million mantras. The lama told me that I should check back the following Tuesday. Rinpoche was at Tsurphu Monastery with HH Karmapa XVI before the fall of Tibet, was part of the traveling party with Karmapa in 1958, and has continued his practice for what is almost 50 years since the fall of Tibet. Part of me felt that I should be in utter and absolute, dumbstruck awe but was most taken by the ordinariness and naturalness that one practices in times of adversity, the living fact that dharma is life, life is dharma.
I went back to Nepal a year later since the time was not right for us to meet. Before I went to Asia the second time, someone that had been around the dharma most of his life told me that Tenga Rinpoche was the inspiration for Yoda of Star Wars fame. If you look up online inspirations for Yoda place they somewhere modestly behind Elvis sightings and other pop folklore. Still, Yoda is genuinely iconic, even in the fast food letdown that the Star Wars franchise became. Rinpoche has some characteristics that very well may have you saying, "An option is not, this dark side of the Force. Practice you will or expendable you become." I received an audience with Tenga Rinpoche. Besides bringing my three pounds of high octane American (Peet's) coffee for myself, I took bags of chocolate-covered cherries and also blueberries as presents. The instant I offered the chocolate-covered blueberries, like when you lock your keys in the car, I remembered that most of the elder statesmen, Tibetan masters are diabetic. Immediately I heard Khandro Rinpoche's voice in my head saying, "He was fortunate enough to meet with the great Loppon of Rumtek then put him in a diabetic coma." Inside, I recoiled in horror at the prospect. I asked and yes, indeed, he is diabetic. I had to have the chocolate back. Profuse apologies, can I bring those back with me and bring you something else very nice tomorrow? He noted that there were many very young monks at the monastery and they'd love chocolate. Hard to argue with bodhisattva logic.
When I offered Rinpoche a khata and he blessed me, he raised his arms overhead, which no other teacher has done. Even after feeling his enormous kindness, an undeniable ambient power was in the air. My martial arts instincts badly wanted me to drop into kamae. Be ready, as the fencers would say, "en garde". And then it was time to exhale.
I was on a filmmaker roll, have this David Lean-Francis Ford Coppola thing going on... interesting angles, incandescent sun illuminating the grandeur of Rumtek and such. However, I knew first-hand that helicopters could be quite loud. When I was in school, I had a neighbor that was a police officer. His house got broken into and some of his weapons were stolen. That caused a cop full court press. I had an alibi and was my doing my Spanish homework. However, part of the response was a low circling helicopter overhead with a spotlight for half an hour. It didn’t take much in my pre-meditating, easily distracted days to go off-track, but feeling the rotor whop-whop in your thoracic cavity will mess with your samadhi, I don’t care who you are. You're sitting there, minding your own business, pondering imponderables, doing some realizing, and then there's helicopter guy overhead doing laps. Bodhisattvas or not, I could see where that might be obnoxious or at least lose me goodwill in filming on the grounds of Rumtek. Still, some helo footage would help. I asked The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche about it when he was in town. As a former resident of Rumtek and attendant to Karmapa, he could clarify protocols, appropriateness, etc.
It wasn't that it would be rude, he said, the real issue was that "both the Indian and Chinese governments would consider that a national security situation and stop you." OK. Blink. Blink. I'm going to start taking some notes now. My one-pointed concentration kicked in. When you're a trained film professional, inadvertently causing national security situations goes in the Bad column. Aspiring filmmakers should repeat this point frequently, 108,000 times minimum.
One remarkable day, His Eminence Gyaltsap Rinpoche a Kagyu Regent, told me about his spiritual father, HH Karmapa XVI. Soon afterwards, 400 Kagyu monks cranked up their debate training in the courtyard immediately below us.
Normally, I let a lot slide. I'm a fan of juxtapositions. They're usually hysterical and I'll take laughs wherever I can find them. For example, I keep my interview tapes in a Metallica shoe box. I love it. Short of inserting a note that said "Filmed in Beirut," the sound conditions would have been a complete disaster. That was good for a couple of hours break. In California, a senior student of Chogyam Trungpa, Judy Lief, told me about the build up to the Karmapa's first tour of the United States in 1974. She was the guest in a home that was quite lovely but had an inconsolable wiener dog that became the most persecuted creature ever if it was not with us. I had a nemesis. There are a couple more wiener dog whimpers and collar clinks to pull from the audio track.
I wanted to film the stages of dawn hitting Rumtek, which implies some pre-dawn travel. Not really being high functioning myself before 10, if I say pick me up at 5:00 am it needs to happen. It's not opening bid. I finished my traveling cup of coffee on the way to Rumtek. The traveling cup follows the return-to-consciousness-in-alien-time-zone-on-the-other-side-of-the-world cup. I was getting more of the poor me, poor me, more rupees rap when we spooked a leopard on the road to Rumtek. Hard to miss in the headlights. Long tail, check, spots, check, big dang cat, check. I rolled up the window. Going forward, I assured my complaining driver that my friend, the leopard, would be happy to assist. Repeat after me: Purina Leopard Chow. The spring, the bound, in its step was extraordinary. Different rules of gravity seemed to apply to it somewhat like the use of light in Vermeer's paintings is just different than in most other paintings. Another time, Tenzin Palmo, the second Western woman ordained as Tibetan nun, would tell me of a dream that she had describing how she understood "Karmapa-ness." I was paying attention. This was huge. Some knucklehead in the courtyard was working on his car... then periodically honked his horn. We finished the take and I headed outside, mentioning something about strangulation. "Patience" was Ani-la's stern rejoinder. I'm the first to admit that I kind of suck as a Buddhist. Then in Nepal, as Tenga Rinpoche described Karmapa's escape from Tibet, what it meant, those young monks that received the chocolate covered berries earlier in the week began singing songs of future realization in the courtyard three floors below us. Quite a lovely item for post, one that gets cleaned up, not pulled. |
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Research for a book led me to ask people questions about their experiences with the Great Masters. The expected tales of maximum chill down in the presence of His Intergallactic Magnificence appealed to my cliched notions of "The East." But then a new consistent line came up: Karmapa could utterly terrify teachers who in turn could have me snap to attention. Now that was interesting.
Tendrels were a major theme in my life and a major theme in teachings I'd received from Khandro Rinpoche so Tendrel Films I became.
More… familiar levels included being screamed at by a variety of attack-dog, presumably compassionate, administrators, travel agents, security personnel, and whomever freakin' else…. India, California, Nova Scotia, Nepal, New York: I assure you, people are people, turf is turf. To borrow from Led Zeppelin, the work remains the same. As a lifelong ne'er-do-well, I not only have experience but great comfort in overstepping boundaries, lighting up the lives of bureaucrats and having them go through their paces. All in a day's work. Respect the skillz. Yo. 
Huh? Or we can talk in front of the whole retreat.
I sent his peeps an email describing my project and myself. By this time, I was subletting an apartment, doing some short-term software work and prepping to go to India and Nepal. I eventually got an email back from someone writing under the name of Thrangu Rinpoche, who I assumed was a translator or attendant. It wasn't like Rinpoche would really have a Yahoo account.
Rinpoche is a treasure trove of history, context and so much more. 
You can take the lady out of England but you're not taking the England out of the lady. Her electric shaver shorted out and we wound up having our first introductory chat as she had her head shaved with a straight razor. So that was a first for me….
Sometimes, I think it terms of practice being a tool, it has utility. Food, water and air are not tools. Calendars are tools.
In our interview, Rinpoche told me of the escape from Tibet that he shared with Karmapa, his take on Karmapa’s first trip to the West in 1974 and other, just stop-you-in-your-tracks anecdotes and insights. History aside, there was this warmth, something nonchalant, radiant and staggering. I felt that if votes were being taken for the "Single Kindest Person in the World," I would have no hesitation in my heart.
Since there was helicopter service from the Bagdogra airport in eastern India to Gangtok, Sikkim, getting aerial images of Rumtek looked feasible. Should just be a matter of rupees.
He was wise. He was experienced with both Eastern and Western cultures. He understood.
Not the "I refute you thusly" or "You have not substantiated the relationship between Premise A and Premise B" or "Au contrere" variety but the uniquely Tibetan training in discourse that involves shouting, extensive jumping about, clapping, the waiving of beads. Quite the feat to behold, particularly through headphones.
While being driven to Rumtek from eastern Nepal, my driver kept trying to clip me for more rupees after I'd already given him an envelope of serious imperialist cash. Not rhino money (Nepali), not moose money (Canadian), not Indira money, but big Ben Franklins.