Dear Simon of our heart!

It is so sad that you are gone, we need you so much! We need you all the time but now you left this realm. We love you, dear Friend, and we will always love you. In this way you are not gone. You are alive in our hearts.

Dear All, thank you for you contribution to the tribute to Simon. It is so fantastic to read it. It is such a relief. If anybody has something more to write about, please do it, do not hesitate. You know, just do it. It is a good thing to do. It brings joy to some people. At least it will be a great joy for me to read about Simon again.

For the first time I saw him in SMC, RMSC at that time, when he was attaining one of those Very Important Meetings with Rinpoche. Then you just see those guys passing unless you know them personally and then they might stop for a minute to say hello. I really met Simon in London where he was teaching Drala level. That was a real magic. I was translating this program in Polish for my girlfriend. Our flight back to Warsaw was scheduled too early so we were about to miss the last talk. At that time I could not say that we were good friends with Simon but I had the feeling that it would be good manners to say good bye to the teacher. We did not announce ourselves and at the time we had to hit the road I knocked at the door of the teachers room. We thought if he would be there that would be great, if not we would not bother him. But he was there like waiting for us, sitting in his chair completely present. What a pity he said that you have to go. So if you are not going to be here for the last talk I'll tell you what this is going to be about: at this point we started to cry and we were crying till the end of our meeting… I don't know why. Later on one of our friends and teachers, Tomek Pietrzykowski, had the idea that people in Poland who are ready should go to the SY/VY Seminary in Chile. I thought that it was crazy idea but it was a good chance for me to help those who were helping me before and I went to staff the seminary as the translator with the arrogant idea "that this is their seminary, since I did mine in 1999". By now it is clear for me how brilliant this idea was. Also Simon's first talk flipped my whole image about what was going to happen: maybe for the first time I realized what the seminary was about. I will be grateful to Simon, to Tomek and all staff members and the participants of this seminary in Cuncumen till the end of my life. Don't ask me why if you were not there with all of us, if you did not join this fiesta. It is too difficult to explain. If you would like a hint have some Carmenere wine and listen to some good music like Omara Portuondo, e.g. El hombre que me ame, spend a whole month dancing, jump in the swimming pool at 2 a.m. I'm not going to make it any ethnical here. On the other hand I guess it is sooooo precious to meet the local drala of Latin America to understand the gift Simon had for us. I say "local" just to track it to begin with. In essence it is universal, because it is joy and love or love and joy, whatever you like. For me it was somehow more present there. How does it sound for you, friends? You know, all those things were there already but maybe just for me and few other people Simon evoked this, he gave a name to it or he just sent us his smile when we were being… let's say … eccentric about the whole thing. Anyway we could relax.

I think that the most important thing I have to say is that Simon understood in the best possible way, in a very encouraging way that we really all have the basic goodness or the Buddha nature. He did not just assume that. It was a simple fact for him and I guess we were trying to live up to it – is it correct English? With Simon we had the feeling that the basic goodness had not to be sent from Lhasa, Halifax or SMC. He was just going to celebrate it with us. Simon had no trace of any postcolonial mentality like telling us something we could not possibly know . He did not try even to proclaim anything. His gentle presence made us discover the basic goodness exactly there where it always was. This is a real Shambhala for me and Simon made it possible. So even if I'm European and I heard about it in London, Paris, DCL, I really experienced it fully not sooner then in Cuncumen with all my Vajra brothers and sisters who were attaining this program. What more can I say… Our house is open to all his friends. We believe that meeting each other is a good way to celebrate that we've managed to meet him in our live and then he'll be with us.

Rinpoche! Thank you very much for such an excellent Acharya! Walter! Thank you for Chronicleproject.com! Simon! Thank you for Simon!

Roman & Malgosia, Warsaw, Poland

Roczny1@yahoo.com