Allen's Park summer 1971

I hitch-hiked up to Rinpoche's house in Four Mile Canyon in early July 1971 to catch a ride up to the first summer seminar in Allens Park along the Continental Divide. I got a ride in the back of a truck delivering supplies with, among others, a tall colorful talkative fellow named Alan Marlowe who said he had just returned from Thailand where he had been practicing in a monastery as a Buddhist monk.


I have many vivid memories of those 10 days which were extremely formative in my 21-year-old life and emerging Buddhist path. Rinpoche's teachings were utterly unfathomable and equally captivating. Marv Ross was taping the talks, and immediately after each teaching I would listen to them with his headphones to try and comprehend what Rinpoche had just taught us. We also had discussion groups in the afternoons. But I was still utterly bewildered by the material (even though I had studied Kant and Hegel as a philosophy major at UCLA two years earlier).


Karma Dzong -- with Jonathan Eric's inheritance -- was about to purchase the land near Red Feather Lakes which Rinpoche soon christened Rocky Mountain Dharma Center (and Sakyong Mipham renamed Shambhala Mountain Center many years later). The Pygmies were planning to move up there later in the summer, and I planned to move there, too. There was some discussion about me camping with them in the mountains above Boulder until it was time to move up to "the land." But one of the Pygmy guys said it wouldn't work out because I was not deferential enough to men.


The camp at Allens Park had some horse stables, and one afternoon I decided to go riding. The horse bolted away up the mountain carrying me along with him. As we raced past Rinpoche's cabin Lady Diana came running out and yelled at me "Kick him! Control your horse!" I managed to stay upright, but it was a wild ride. A foreshadowing of things to come...


Chris Keyser

Berkeley, Calif.