I was looking for you all over

 I was looking for you all over

And couldn't find you anywhere

When I rested my mind in sadness

Your presence become overwhelming

Displaying phenomena dancing

 

From Angelika Siaw (Karma Phun Tso Cho Dron)

Sadhakha living in Kenya

Attendant…….

ET Guru

Waiting at the door

Falling at the door

Through the years

Of madness

To a point of kissing Angels

Loved and very distant

ET Guru shuffles off

Backstaged – intensely watching

Worlds/indifferences/demons

Confusions/contests/clarities

Of references points

Annihilated by nectar

In Londons' public houses

ET Guru

Tinkles Bell

Cremates this/that

Cycles to the Sun

&blows up with a rainbow

Camera'ed by flicking buttons.

ET Guru you are dead?

And packaged for the millions

Like the lion on the egg*

HO HUM

HA HA HA!
Amen!

Amen!

Amen!

 

 

(A lion stamp is sometimes placed on British eggs to state they are from the UK)*

 

Best

 

Rita Ashworth

Stockport UK

---

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1988 RMDC dathun - toast

"I've no independent knowledge of meeting Chogyam Trungpa in person, face-to-face."

 

In 1988 at Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center, at a banquet following a dathun (4-week sitting period) I offered a toast "to the sangha" This new word was one I associated with "family" and I offered the words to those left in the wake of such a teacher's vast activities.

 

Rather than "wake" I became curious more of an "awake" that such a teacher might have been sharing, imbuing, steeping, and serving.

 

Far more than the actions of any bodhisattva, Vidyadhara, I stead on in my life to lead to... where.

 

I read a bumper sticker .. "They can send me to college, but they can't make me learn."

 

I leave this cyberspace with a short poem:

 

I'm so, I'm so

in love with you

dharma be tried

before it is true.

 

                                               

Karma Sherab

 

 

20 years ago

we had gone to the ocean to release lobsters that would have otherwise been eaten
a ransom gift for Rinpoche's life

I never thought he would-somehow ...
anyway

there we were out on the ocean, where I loved to take walks
and extremely odd occurrence: there were tons of people there just looking at the water
for the water was full of ice
the whole harbour had filled with ice
an uncommon thing to happen
uncommon things happen when uncommon people are around

Rinpoche had been in bed for quite a long time
I was the housekeeper and had the wondrous task of cleaning his room
slowly and fully

Rinpoche was sometimes like a shaft of wheat without the kernel
all used up and shrunken
then the next day he would be "back" his body would be filled again

like the wheat kernel had been reinserted in the chaff
to be with him somehow stilled fear of dying
there was no fear

I kept my mind in a meditative state as much as possible, hoping to not disturb him
so it went
one day they took him to the hospital, another day they brought him back
I was gone for a bit and when I came back he was still sick and again in the hospital

so off we went to take the lobster to the ocean
back home for them, although a bit polluted near Halifax
people asked us what we were doing
it was a strange site, people carrying lobsters back to the ocean
luckily Joseph (Parent) knew what to say
he explained when a great teacher is ill it is an ancient custom
to release beings who would otherwise be killed
so the lobsters went back to their home

a few days later, I as sitting in the sun for it was 24 degrees
unheard of in early April in Halifax, N.S.
but then unusual things happen when there are unusual people around
my then husband, Richard, called to say: come to the shrine room
Rinpoche is dying and we are to do chants to ask him to live
off I went, not believing he could die
hadn't he just said at '82 seminary that our practice would keep him alive for 10 more years

lots of shrine candles, so many that some broke from the heat
shrine full of light
beautiful chant
heart wrenching
then a call
we all went to the court

as I walked in through the front door, I felt on the verge of loosing my mind
not just my seat
and there in full suit and tie as kasung was Silas, my son this lifetime, and he said something
something so true and to the point that it brought me back
fully present, open and willing

I was able somehow, I think due to Joudie (Westman Adolf),
to be present as they checked Rinpoche's body
they pinched his skin and felt the area around his heart
his skin was supple like a living person's and his heart warm

we stayed practicing there with Rinpoche for 5 days
5 days of being in CCL
not needing food nor sleep
just being in Rinpoche's mind

there was a nun, a French nun
she was with me practicing through all that time
I had not seen her before nor since
she said Rinpoche would be in samadhi for 5 days
and that turned out to be true

after the samadhi, we actually felt hungry and tired again

sometime within all of that practice
I acted as a guide bringing sangha who were arriving from
all over the world from the airport to Halifax to be with Rinpoche
not sure how that happened, as memory of the time is open and vast
not fitable into time and space
Many sangha and friends of sangha came to be there together in Rinpoche's mind

Rinpoche's total compassion
to the heart
all encompassing

being there
knowing that state fully, in every cell
unforgettable teaching beyond words

after the samadhi
off we went to KCL
serving Dilgo Khyentse and the four princes
sound as mantra
the trucks on the highway arising as dhamarus and bells
walking up the hill in procession
bagpipes in the fog crying to the guru
khatas
the fire
billowing smoke
in the clear blue sky
rainbows circling the sun
turquoise dragon thundering
mind stopped

outrageous things happen when outrageous people are around

may VCTR haunt us along with the dralas for all lifetimes till we realize enlightenment

- Hellen Newland, Chaplain

I was looking for you all over

I was looking for you all over

and couldn't find you anywhere.

When I rested my mind in sadness

your presence became overwhelming,

displaying phenomena dancing.

 

Karma Phun Tso Cho Dron (Angelika)

April 4- April 8, 1987

Only father guru,

I would like to say

I never doubted you.

I never mistrusted you.

I never forgot you.

I have doubted myself

a hundred times a day

I have mistrusted myself

a hundred times an hour

I have forgotten myself

with every passing moment

I have forgotten practice

I have forgotten that

without practice you don't know

when you're screwing up

I have forgotten you

Mistrusted you and

Doubted you.

You never doubted me

You never mistrusted me

You never forgot me

You always knew, you were -

You are

the very embodiment of practice

You have always known me

Nothing to doubt, mistrust, forget.

Your death makes no difference unless

You are even more present

It is easier not to doubt

Not mistrust

Not forget.

All this is my feast offering.

Accept it, only father

Please continue to

Shower me with your kindness

Please continue

Please continue

Please continue

Until in a hundred or a thousand kalpas

I may merit such unconditional regard.

 

Gail Whitacre

 

Supplication

I thought that I had left,
But I'm only in a wider orbit.
What did I learn?
What did I take with me to the world?

Your words ("Don't drop it!"), when handing me
my bodhisattva name.
The echo of a drum,
thudding like a heartbeat
through the halls of a hotel.

- Decorum Moon

I was too young, or maybe just too immature, to have been Trungpa Rinpoche's student in this life. But somehow, even before Trungpa passed away, I was very fortunate in that I met Khyentse Rinpoche and spent many months in His presence.

When the Vidyadhara passed away I dreamt I was in an a bedroom in the country with dormer windows. I imagined this was TR's retreat in in Massachussetts; he was giving an empowerment, it was just me and him. A few weeks later news of the cremation date got around, as well as Khyentse Rinpoche's itinerary to teach the Sangha. I made plans to go to Barnet with an acquaintance from Cambridge whose father was a diplomat in Asia that had been a friend of Khyentse Rinpoche for many years.

To make a long story short, because of my friend's connection, I found myself sitting behind the Vajradhatu sangha during the cremation ceremonies, in the VIP tent -- quite unexpectedly of course. To tell the truth, I was having more fun in the enormous crowd, probably too much fun for such a solemn occasion.

Front and cener was strange but beautiful -- right down to the civilized fashion in which the Vajradhatu sadhakas responded when their tent-awning caught fire. I stepped out of the VIP tent to take a few (forbidden) photos during the cremation. That was when I saw the rainbow in the blue sky.

I pointed up and said, hey, a rainbow! Pretty soon lots of people there was looking up too -- Ginsburg, Daido Roshi, Glassman (then) Sensei, Dhyani Ywahoo, many of the Sangha. And then the whole crowd, it seemed.

The Tibetan dignitaries -- too numerous to mention by name here -- seemed unconcerned, if they noticed at all. At the cremation of someone of Trungpa Rinpoche's stature -- America's Padmasambhava, Vimalamitra and Vairotsana all rolled into one -- a small rainbow in clear sky would be almost understated, if one thinks in the historical context. Since then I've seen many things more astonishing, but none whose memory lingers on as a pristine moment like this, one that defies concepts and never gets old, maybe because it almost never gets told. If not now, when?

Now all these years (and many readings of many of TR's books) later, it's hard to believe I never met Rinpoche, because no Tibetan teacher I met in America stands out more vividly in my mind's eye. This really is amazing -- all the more so, considering that many others like me, who never met Rinpoche, feel the same way.

--jpwii

p.s. The dakinis confiscated my prints and negatives, mysteriously, except for the rainbow.