"From Tsum Valley to the Rubin Museum: the Life of a Conservator of Sacred Buddhist Art" with Ann Shaftel - Director of Treasure Caretaker Training
The life of a conservator within a traditional monastery is different from when she works in museums. This lively and personal talk will trace the work of a conservator of sacred art, and is richly illustrated with images from monasteries and museums.
Ann Shaftel is fellow of the International Institute for Conservation and American Institute for Conservation, member of Canadian Association ofProfessional Conservators, ICOM and ICOMOS.
Since 1970, Ann has worked in conservation of Buddhist art with monasteries, dharma centers, museums, universities and communities. Most of this is done in association with the Treasure Caretaker Training, a non-profit organization.
This Preservation of Buddhist Treasures Resource is a free, online reference with practical information for the preservation of thangka, texts, and other sacred art. It is done in direct response to questions asked by monastics. Preservation workshops in monasteries are ongoing in Nepal, Bhutan and India. Her work is advised and blessed by Buddhist teachers
Manjushri London Centre has changed its name to Jamyang Meditation Centre with effect from July 22, 1990. “Jamyang” is the Tibetan form of the Sanskrit “Manjushri,” name of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, so the meaning remains the same. The change has been effected in order to distinguish this center from Manjushri Institute at Ulverston in Cumbria.
The assumption of the new name coincided with a grand consecration ceremony carried out under the direction of Sangra Jampa Rinpoche, a renowned lama of Drepung Loseling Monastery of Lhasa and South India, and leader of the team which discovered the reincarnation of the great Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche. This double event thus marked a new beginning for the centre and its community. It was celebrated in style on Sunday July 22 with a packed consecration puja to bless the center’s main Buddha Shakymuni statue, the center itself, and all its other statues and sacred objects.
July 22 was chosen as a most auspicious day, as it was Buddha Shakyamuni day according to the Tibetan calendar (obtaining 100 times merit increase for all virtuous activities carried out on that day) and there was also a total solar eclipse (10,000 times merit increase). It was also the day of the new moon, and the sun entered Leo.
Preparations had been made for several weeks, with a team of volunteers rolling up 67,500 copies of prayers, making incense and collecting relics and sacred and precious substances, all to be packed inside the statues according to traditional methods.
After the morning puja there was a buffet lunch in the garden, followed by an afternoon tea party with Jampa Rinpoche, Mrs. Kelsang Y. Takla (representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for UK and Scandinavia) and Glenn H. Mullin(author of a series of books on the Dalai Lamas) amongst the guests of honor. A large number of Tibetans from the UK Tibetan community and other important guests from other centers and Buddhist traditions also attended.
Sangra Jampa Rinpoche gave a short account of the consecration ceremony to the gathering, explaining in detail how, in the face of the wholesale destruction and desecration of representations of the Three Jewels by the Chinese communists in Tibet, he was very happy to be able to bless and consecrate new statues like this in the West. He concluded by saying that he strongly felt that the ceremony’s purpose had successfully been achieved, because, as he said, “the buddhas and bodhisattvas and other enlightened beings had definitely come down and taken up residence in the statues here today.”
Messages of good wishes and congratulation received from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Khyongla Rato Rinpoche in New York, and the center’s resident teacher Geshe Namgyal Wangchen, currently in India, were read out, and the following message was also received from His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
“On the auspicious occasion of the renaming of the Manjushri London Centre as Jamyang Meditation Centre and the consecration of its principal statue of Buddha Shakyamuni, and other representations of the Three Jewels, I send all of you my best wishes. I am happy to know of your continuing efforts to improve the center’s facilities and extend its activities and, appreciating your aspiration to be of benefit to the people in your part of the country, I offer my prayers that all your virtuous wishes will be fulfilled.” (signed) Tenzin Gyatso
Jamyang Meditation Centre will continue running the same regular program as Manjushri did previously, and in addition there will be more great lamas coming to visit and teach in future months. For up-to-date information please call the centre at 10 Finsbury Park Road, London N4 2JZ, tel: 071 -3 59 1394.
Items Sealed Inside the Buddha Shakyamuni Statue
The 27 Name-Mantras of the Buddhas: 2,500 copies each of the following scriptures:
1. head mantras 2. throat mantras 3. heart mantras 4. highest yoga tantra 5. His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s name mantra 6. Kyabjes Ling and Trijang Rinpoches’ name mantras 7. Shakyamuni Buddha name mantra 8. LamaTsong Khapa name mantra 9. Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) name mantra 10. Chenresig mantra 11. yoga and charya tantra mantras 12. kriya tantra mantras 13. Tara mantras 14. long life deities; and the three leaders’ (Vajrapani, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri) mantras 15. five sections mantras 16. sutra mantras (Prajnaparamita Sutras) 17. Essence of Dependent Arising mantra 18. Shakyamuni and the previous Buddhas’ mantras 19. requesting prayer, composed by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, 20. Migme Tseway prayer 21. verses of auspiciousness 22. wealth gods mantras 23. Dharma protectors’ mantras 24. purifying mistakes mantras 25. hundred-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva 26. Lotus mantra
Religious Relics:
From His Holiness the Dalai Lama: three stupas made from his hair, specially sent for this consecration; his inner offering-pills; sand from his Kalachakra mandala; a piece of his robe; his mani and phurbu rilbus; protection strings, blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which had also circumambulated Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar. From Lama Je Tsong Khapa: seven clay impressions of his tooth relic at Ganden Monastery; his hat thread; his body washing pill; rice grains and water from his cave at Okra. Other relics: pieces of tsa-tsa made by Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal. Salt from Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, and threads from his robe. Piece from robe of Je Rinpoche at Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. Inner offering pills of Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. Hair from Kyabje Tsong Rinpoche. Hair from Kyabje Tsong Rinpoche, & tsa-tsa made from his ashes. Relics from: Lama Thubten Yeshe, Panchen Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen, Tehor Kyorpen, Rinchen Tsotel. Tehor Kyorpen head hair. Chong Rinpoche part of Yamantaka statue. Piece of Panchen Sonam Dragpo’s bootstrap. Text from Tsaparang Western Tibet. Vajra from ceiling of Demchog Mandala Temple, Tsaparang. Tsa-tsa from Tsaparang, Tsimbiling and Tholing Gompas. Nechung rice. Kumbum leaves. Tendurilbu. Rinchen chenma. Mandala sand.
Other Items:
Fifteen meters of yellow cotton cloth to wrap around the prayers and relics. Incense made from: needles from scots pines of Wellyn Garden City, London Christmas trees and Alice’s rosemary bush, (these were plucked, baked, chopped and ground into 45kg of powder at the center). Also incense from: Mount Kailash in Tibet, Lawudo Gompa in Nepal, and the Tibetan Medical Institute in Dharamsala, India. Kusha grass and long life grass. Wealth god mandalas. Dried flowers and stones from Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet. Dried fish from Lake Manasarovar. Water from Lake Manasarovar. Five-colored sand from shores of Lake Manasarovar at Sera Lung Gompa (Eastern Gate). Flotsam from Lake Manasarovar. Tibetan saffron from Barkhor market, Lhasa. Best quality Spanish saffron. A selection of semi-precious stones.
I was raised in the Mormon religion, which I’m grateful for. They really emphasize kindness. It’s a very loving religion.
I met and married my husband Ross in 1970 and moved to Canada where we bought some property. He got in touch with his old friend Glenn Mullin, who told him that two jewels were coming to the West. These jewels were Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa. We went to see them with our oldest daughter Lara, who was one year old at the time – it must have been 1975.
Ross stayed at the teachings and I went up to Boulder Creek and took care of Lara. We really connected with the teachings, so we sold our land in Canada and bought property with some friends out by Vajrapani Institute. In 1977 I was pregnant with Arwen, and Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa came again. We went to their Vajrapani course and that’s where I met most of the people who are my Dharma family.
We ended up buying a parcel of land and donated 30 acres of it. This acreage became Vajrapani Institute. Most of the people who came up to that retreat helped build the center. That was twenty years ago and we’re still building!
Arwen was born at Vajrapani and she had about 30 of Lama Yeshe’s students at her birth to welcome her into the world. After her I had Lise, who I named after Lise-Lotte Kolb, and then I had Chana. Lama Yeshe gave all the girls Tibetan names: Lara is Wisdom Goddess, Yeshe Lhamo, which is very much like her. Arwen is Yeshe Osel, Wisdom Clear Light; Lise is Yeshe Dawa, Wisdom Moon. When I was pregnant with Chana, Lama Yeshe said, “His name shall be Vajrapani!” We couldn’t think of an American name for her so we kept her as Chana Dorje (Tibetan for Vajrapani).
My kids are my light, they really are. The way I’ve watched them grow: I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The way they are so loving and trusting, and how easy it is to connect with them, and the way they believe in people. They recognize when someone is being real. I think growing up in the Dharma community has been really precious for them in terms of getting examples of respecting life and teachings of loving-kindness. They felt love from everywhere and have gone out into the world really hopeful.
I certainly don’t feel like Ross and I raised them alone. They were in a really loving structure with a lot of purpose – watching them turn into loving human beings is such a joy. Ross has been a really good father to them.
I can’t really talk about my experience as a mother without going into my addictions. You don’t really feel grateful while you’re in the middle of it, but going through alcoholism and growing out of it, I can see that an addiction is clinging to our delusions. It’s totally not being in control; my delusions were totally driving me. I’m really grateful because I’ve seen the thing that got me through is love and compassion. People tell me it took a lot of courage to do what I did but courage took on a new meaning for me – it means doing what I have to do and there’s no choice. Everything that I learned about Dharma was called upon at that time to pull me out.
When I was in my addiction I hurt other people and I hurt myself; the people I probably hurt the most are the people I care about the most and care about me the most. One thing about my children is that they knew when I was back quicker – they forgave me and could see when I was truly back, and they were glad. That gave me a lot of strength because it validated me. I didn’t have to stay away too long in their eyes.
The first time I went into the addiction was in 1991 and after that I was sober for five years. I didn’t stay plugged into the program, though, because I felt the Dharma teachings were enough and I had wonderful friends. A lot of people didn’t even know I had a problem because I only drank in the evenings. The kids were smaller, Ross was away working and my father was ill. There were a lot of pressures and I drank in the evening like a lot of other people just to loosen up and relax.
After a while I felt like I had a bit of a problem with it and that I should cut back. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have any control. I felt like I was less of a mother, less of a wife, less of a friend.
The five years that I didn’t drink were good, but due to other circumstances surrounding me I was in a situation that I didn’t know how to deal with so I ended up drinking again. For a while our family fell apart.
The biggest thing [my lama] helped with is with regards to all the things I wanted to do, thought I should do, but felt I had failed, and he put it a nutshell: “The best thing you can do for anybody else is be an example.” I think it’s like the serenity prayer they use in the twelve-step programs: “God, grant me to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I think a lot of us spend a lot of time trying to fix the things we can’t and ignoring the things that are right in front of us that we need to fix.
I look back and remember thinking that being an example is so on-going. What can I do now, today? It’s not like that; I think that’s the one that hit home the most. Being an example is what gets the most results. Now my kids are proud of me, and my Dharma community has welcomed me back. I’ve inspired people.
In reality, though, I’m not doing anything. I feel in my heart that I’m trying to follow the teachings the best I can; I’m trying not to beat myself up for what I don’t do. Recovery programs say, “One day at a time,” which totally correlates with the Dharma. I feel like when you suffer and hit a real bottom you have to develop compassion because you have to love yourself.
I think my kids were the ones who welcomed me back the fastest. When I was in LA for His Holiness’ teachings, I told my daughter Lara that while she has said she learned a lot from me and my mistakes and that I’ve been a role model for her, the thing that amazes me now is that my daughters are becoming role models for me.
I’ve seen them come through a different childhood than I did where they were surrounded by lamas, and I see how much they have benefited from that exposure.
I think they benefited more from seeing Lama Yeshe’s example than from things he said. When mothers go to a puja and their baby fusses, they think it’s the loudest noise, and all everyone hears is their baby crying. Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa seemed to carry on without ever getting ruffled. They were always kind and giving and accepted children as they are. I’ve also watched my kids get really still and peaceful when they’ve been fussy. All Lama had to do was touch them and look at them and they recognized it.
Now I see them giving back and helping others, and they seem to have a foothold. I feel grateful for the foothold I had when I was growing up, and I see them with an even better foothold and more capability to benefit people.
Buddhism uses the simile of a blue lotus to represent events of extraordinary beauty, wonder and magic. The blue lotus appears but rarely, and always as an omen of great enlightened activity, of a turning point in human civilization, when someone of incomparable spiritual genius appears and inspires mankind to break free from its habitual circular patterns of movement and stretch upward to new horizons of experience. When Lama Yeshe walked this earth, blue lotus flowers blossomed everywhere.
I first met him in 1972. It was a warm October morning in Dharamsala, and I had been studying meditation in the Tibetan Library for several months. Word went out that a great Tibetan lama from Nepal was in town, and that Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s junior tutor, had asked him to give a talk on Dharma to Western students. Fifty or so of us – the entire Western student body in Dharamsala at the time – waited in the teaching room for him to arrive. The door opened, and we beheld a small elf-like creature standing there, a wide and somewhat mischievous smile lighting up his face, his eyes twinkling like the first evening star.
I say he was physically small, but it took some years of knowing him to decide on the matter. That first day it was impossible to tell. One moment he seemed incredibly tiny, and the next to completely fill the doorway. I had the impression that he was looking exclusively at me, but later learned that each of us had the same sense of being the exclusive focus of his attention.
And then he began to move. It wasn’t a walk, really, because his feet didn’t seem to be in action. It was somewhere between a shuffle and a glide, carrying him across the room to the teaching throne. He sat down, looked at us again, and began to chant the muni mantra.
Words cannot express the sound that emanated from him. It was as though each individual sound wave was an explosion, as clearly defined as a wave on the ocean, and as explosive as a firecracker going off an inch from my ear. My body started shaking so hard that I thought an earthquake had struck. I don’t mean that metaphorically. Dharamsala is an earthquake zone, and I had already experienced several tremors during my residency on the mountain. It was so intense that I had to put my hands on the floor to steady myself. Earthquakes can be scary things. “Calm yourself, Glenn,” I said to myself. “Dharamsala tremors usually last only a second or two.” But it continued.
The lama sat there chanting, seemingly oblivious to the danger we were in. I wanted to jump up and shout an alarm, to scream out words saying that we should all leave the building before it was flattened. I tossed my eyes to the water bowls on the altar to check how intense the quake was. To my amazement, the water was utterly still. I looked back at Lama Yeshe. His eyes were on me, like suns blazing across a thousand universes.
Well, I thought to myself, so this is what Tsongkhapa meant when he said that, on meeting with the guru, some people clutch at their breast in fear.
Buddhism uses the simile of a blue lotus to represent events of extraordinary beauty, wonder and magic. The blue lotus appears but rarely, and always as an omen of great enlightenment activity, of a turning point in human civilization, when someone of incomparable spiritual genius appears and inspires mankind to break free from its habitual circular patterns of movement and stretch upward to new horizons of experience. When Lama Yeshe walked this earth, blue lotus flowers blossomed everywhere.
I first met him in 1972. It was a warm October morning in Dharamsala, and I had been studying meditation in the Tibetan Library for several months. Word went out that a great Tibetan lama from Nepal was in town, and that Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s junior tutor, had asked him to give a talk on Dharma to Western students. Fifty or so of us – the entire Western student body in Dharamsala at the time – waited in the teaching room for him to arrive. The door opened, and we beheld a small elf-like creature standing there, a wide and somewhat mischievous smile lighting up his face, his eyes twinkling like the first evening star.
I say he was physically small, but it took some years of knowing him to decide on the matter. That first day it was impossible to tell. One moment he seemed incredibly tiny, and the next to completely fill the doorway. I had the impression that he was looking exclusively at me, but later learned that each of us had the same sense of being the exclusive focus of his attention.
And then he began to move. It wasn’t a walk, really, because his feet didn’t seem to be in action. It was somewhere between a shuffle and a glide, carrying him across the room to the teaching throne. He sat down, looked at us again, and began to chant the Muni mantra.
Words cannot express the sound that emanated from him. It was as though each individual sound wave was an explosion, as clearly defined as a wave on the ocean, and as explosive as a firecracker going off an inch from my ear. My body started shaking so hard that I thought an earthquake had struck. I don’t mean that metaphorically. Dharamsala is an earthquake zone, and I had already experienced several tremors during my residency on the mountain. It was so intense that I had to put my hands on the floor to steady myself. Earthquakes can be scary things. “Calm yourself, Glenn,” I said to myself. “Dharamsala tremors usually last only a second or two.” But it continued.
The lama sat there chanting, seemingly oblivious to the danger we were in. I wanted to jump and shout an alarm, to scream out words saying that we should all leave the building before it was flattened. I tossed my eyes to the waterbowls on the altar to check how intense the quake was. To my amazement, the water was utterly still. I looked back at Lama Yeshe. His eyes were on me, like suns blazing across a thousand universes.
Well, I thought to myself, so this is what Tsong Khapa meant when he said that, on meeting with the guru, some people clutch at their breast in fear.
Two and a half months later I left Dharamsala on pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy places. The first planned stop on my itinerary was Bodh Gaya, the place of Buddha’s enlightenment. Before leaving I asked my philosophy teacher, Geshe Ngawang Dargey, if there was anything in particular that I should do while in Bodh Gaya. Geshe-la replied, “The Dalai Lama’s senior tutor, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, will be giving some special teachings there. Visit him and ask his advice.” Therefore shortly after arriving I made my way to the main temple and requested an audience with Kyabje Rinpoche. The meeting was set for the next day. I entered the room, offered the traditional three prostrations, and popped the question. Kyabje Rinpoche picked up his little box with his divination dice, threw the dice a few times, and then replied, “In a few days I’m giving tantric initiation into the Yamantaka mandala. If you think you can do a few of the mantras everyday, come to it.”
I didn’t know much about tantra at that point in my spiritual career, but the thought of receiving initiation of directly from the Dalai Lama’s senior tutor, a lama legendary for his learning, wisdom and accomplishment, spurred me to take on the commitment. No translation was to be provided, so we five Westerners who were being permitted to attend the two-day ceremony would be more like sleeping dogs than active participants. This didn’t dissuade us. At the end of the first day Kyabje Rinpoche had a young monk tell us that we should all watch our dreams that night, and that they would be significant. I knew nothing about the Yamantaka Mandala until that evening, and had never even seen a photograph of it; yet from the moment of falling asleep until I awoke the next morning I received a most intense and remarkable introductory course. And it strongly involved Lama Yeshe.
The dream began with me sitting in a room reading a book. I remember being in a rather mundane state of mind in the beginning, but by the time I came to the end of the first chapter my sense of presence had undergone a distinct transformation. At one point the entire universe suddenly dissolved into light, and there was just me sitting in a chamber of light, my eyes locked in awe to the words on the pages. Each passage filled me with a wave of ecstasy, like being tickled within every cell in my body by a feather made of light that swept up and down. I would read a passage, and then be so overwhelmed with a sense of profundity, wonder and awe that the joy would wash over me like a great wave, totally encompassing every aspect of my being. The joy was so intense that I rolled over and over on the dream floor, laughing like a mad man and clutching the book to my breast as though my life depended upon it. The night seemed like a million eons, as I plunged deeper and deeper into the text, alternating between reading and being overcome by an ecstasy that hurled me into a realm of uncontrollable laughter and bliss. Again and again billions of Yamantakas would fly at me like snowflakes driven by a wild wind, melt into me, and fill me with joy.
By early dawn I had almost completed the book. Somewhere in the process the bliss and awe became so intense that my entire being seemed to contract into a single impulse, as though I were the smallest, most dense speck of substance in existence. This seemed to last for an immeasurable period of time; and then again millions of mandalas dissolved into me, followed by a massive explosion. The only image that conveys the experience is that of having an atom bomb of bliss explode at the center of one’s body, with no loss of consciousness. My body expanded outward at an incredible speed, until it filled the vast extent of space. I had the distinct sense in my dream of having achieved enlightenment.
It occurred to me that I did not yet know the authorship of this most astounding book I was reading. There were a few pages left in it, but I could not contain my curiosity, and skipped to the colophon at the end. The words stated, “Composed by Lama Thubten Yeshe.”
In the morning I awoke, and my dream enlightenment evaporated. Nonetheless I had the distinct sense that a subtle shift in my center of gravity had taken place.
Such was my second encounter with Lama Yeshe.
For the remainder of the twelve years that I lived in Dharamsala I met Lama many times. He usually came to town twice a year: once in the spring to attend the Dalai Lama’s annual Losar teachings and initiations; and then again in the autumn in order to make meditation retreat. He always met with the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama’s two gurus in order to seek their advice on his own teaching activities around the world.
During the 1970s His Holiness would give one public discourse in the main temple in Dharamsala, and then a more exclusive tantric teaching in his private chapel. His teaching style in the private discourse would be to stop at subtle passages and challenge the senior abbots, tulkus and geshes to debate with him on possible interpretations. One year he taught Tsong Khapa’s commentary to the Heruka Chakrasamvara Tantra, entitled Throwing Light on Hidden Meanings. One particular passage brought him to a halt, and he called for interpretations. None of the dozen or so attempts that were forthcoming seemed to impress him, and he easily dispensed with them by means of a few debate movements. After half an hour or so His Holiness chuckled and said, “Well, we have the abbots of both Gyume and Gyuto tantric colleges here, but nobody seems to be able to figure out this line.” He then suggested that for the moment the interpretation offered by Bakula Rinpoche be tentatively accepted, but that everyone should regard the point as unsettled. He then continued with his reading.
Lama Yeshe was not an abbot, tulku or geshe, and therefore was not seated in a front row. Nonetheless he waved to His Holiness in order to indicate that he wanted to offer a suggestion on the matter. “I think it’s just a spelling mistake,” he said.
His Holiness asked, “Well then, where is it?” Nobody answered, and so eventually His Holiness commented, “If we can’t say what the mistake is, then we can’t say it’s a mistake. We might just as well go back to Bakula’s interpretation.” He then again began to read on. A moment later Tara Tulku waved at His Holiness. “I agree with Lama Yeshe,” he said. “It’s a spelling mistake.” Tara Tulku then proceeded to point out how it was the participle ni, located between the auxiliary verb and main verb, and that this should read as mi. Mi is a negation, thus 100% turning the meaning of the sentence from a positive to a negative. His Holiness burst into laughter, looked at Lama Yeshe and said, “Today this yogi from Nepal has put all our greatest scholars to shame.”
I relate this story because during his life Lama Yeshe became renowned as a great meditator and mystic; but in scriptural learning he could stand with the best.
In 1977 I went to visit Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in order to check a few obscure points in a text I was translating. When I arrived at his house his attendant told me, “You can go in, but keep the audience to about half an hour, because he has a monk in with him at the moment.” I entered Kyabje Rinpoche’s room, and was delighted to see that the visitor monk was none other than Lama Yeshe. I put a dozen or so questions to Kyabje Rinpoche, and he answered all of them without difficulty. Then one passage came up on which he expressed doubt. He asked Lama Yeshe for his opinion. Lama at first hesitated to speak, for Kyabje Rinpoche was the Ganden Tripa, the official head of the Gelugpa, and thus the final authority on matters of scriptural interpretation; but Rinpoche would have none of it, and began forcing Lama to argue with him on the passage. Then for fifteen minutes they both forgot my presence, and spun off in a traditional debate on the passage. They then burst into laughter; Lama looked at me and said, “It probably means…,” and gave me their conclusion.
After my audience I sat and meditated in the field above Rinpoche’s house. A couple of hours later Lama came walking along the path. His health looked terrible, and he leaned heavily on his cane as he moved. He saw me, and came over and sat with me. At the time we were all worried about his health; he had had a bad heart for years, and in 1974 some doctors in America had told him that if he didn’t have an operation he would be dead within three months. He had telegrammed Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche for advice, and had been told that it was better for him to rely upon his meditation. I asked him how his health was holding up. He laughed and replied, “In 1974 the American doctors told me I’d be dead in three months. When I went back the next year they looked at me and said, ‘What! You again! You not dead yet?’ They said the same thing when I visited them in ’76, and then again this year. So I don’t know. Something seems to be keeping me alive.”
A few weeks later I visited him in his meditation hut at Tushita on the mountain above Dharamsala. He was just completing a retreat. When I entered the room he stood up on his bed, jumped over the table in front of it as nimbly as would a twelve year old boy, rushed over to me, and touched my forehead to his. “I tell you a secret baby,” he said. “The more meditation, the more happy.” His walking stick was nowhere to be seen. He stuffed my pockets with some Hayagriva healing pills that he had made during his retreat and sent me on my way.
My physical encounters with Lama were always magical, enlightening and inspiring. They remain as vivid as though they had occurred only a few hours ago. Each one of them left me with some lesson in spiritual living. Yet even more remarkable were his appearances in my dreams.
Perhaps the most amazing was a dream that occurred the last day of my first Yamantaka retreat. In my dream I was sitting on my meditation cushion, when I heard a sound from the far corner of the room. I looked over, and there was Lama. He was dressed in his yellow under-robes, and looking at me intensely. A black nun entered the room, and the two began caressing each other. I was utterly shocked, for they both were ordained, and thus held vows of celibacy. He glanced over at me again, his eyes burning into me like sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass. Then, without looking away, he slowly pulled the nun toward him, and the two sat in sexual union. His gaze never left me for a moment, but his face began slowly to transform, becoming every more passionate and wrathful, until he had become Yamantaka. The black nun similarly transformed, although she wasn’t paying any attention to me at all. Both of them were emitting deep growls of laughter. Then he very slowly and intently placed one of his hands to his face, inserted two fingers into one of his eye-sockets, and ripped out the eyeball. The empty socket blazed with light, and droplets of blood spilled out from it. The other eye held its gaze intensely upon me. Then he reached out and placed the extracted, bloody eyeball in my hand. It was hot, and melted into my palm.
I awoke from the dream, my body covered in perspiration. I looked down at the palm of my right hand. A blister the size of a marble had formed where the eyeball had been placed.
The great beings, it is said, live for as long as the meritorious energy of the trainees remains strong. When the meritorious energy wanes, they pass away in order to give an example of impermanence to their disciples, and to inspire the world with a sense of the transmission of responsibility from one generation to another.
Lama’s passing certainly was a combination of the two. In Europe there was bickering in one of his Dharma centers, even squabbling over property rights. As the scriptures put it, it was a bad omen, “… like a vulture in a peacock garden.” I was passing through London in late 1983, when the bad omens were at their worst. Those close to Lama were extremely worried, but there seemed to be no way to turn the flow of events.
Geshe Rabten, one of Lama’s childhood gurus, was approached by one of Lama’s Australian monk disciples for a divination on the matter. Geshe-la replied, “If he lives until the new year sunrise, he’ll live for another twelve years.” Geshe-la recommended that a number of prayers and rituals be done in order to increase merits and mitigate obstacles. Unfortunately the monk mentioned this to Lama, who commanded him not to have the rituals done. He passed away shortly before the new year sunrise.
Later when the Australian monk related the story to Lama Zopa, Lama Zopa wept and said, “How I wish you would have spoken to me about Geshe Rabten’s advice, and not to Lama.”
Yet even the darkest clouds also have their blessings, bringing shade from the hot sun and releasing rain that brings new life and beauty to the planet. I happened to be in Dharamsala some two and a half years after Lama’s passing, when a young Spanish boy was first brought to Dharamsala for testing and certification as Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation. He was only fourteen months old at the time, and had just learned to walk. When he was brought to the house of the late Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, where I had witnessed Kyabje Rinpoche and Lama debate over a scriptural passage almost a decade earlier, the child spontaneously prostrated to Rinpoche’s throne. On entering the temple room at Tushita where Lama had frequently received people in audience, the child instantly ran up to the altar and, from among the many images on the altar, picked up the statue that had been Lama’s favorite. He then proceeded to walk around the room and touch it to the heads of all who were present as an act of blessing them, much in the same manner as Lama had frequently touched it to the heads of those who had come to visit him.
A traditional Tibetan account of a great master usually concludes by saying something to the effect that the deeds of the mighty bodhisattvas are beyond ordinary comprehension, and that what can be put into words is like the drops of water on a blade of grass compared to the waters of the oceans.
This certainly was true of the life of Lama Yeshe. One could easily write a 1,000 page book on the subject of a single meeting with him. He was born of humble stock, and was never recognized as a tulku; but he became a teacher to tulkus. He completed his geshe studies, but chose quiet meditation on the mountains over the prestige that results from standing for the geshe exam. He held no exalted position in the Tibetan spiritual hierarchy, but rose to become a mahasiddha in a garden of siddhas. His life was an example of the purity, freedom, power and dignity that is aroused by application to the Buddha’s teachings, and he dedicated it to the attempt to inspire these qualities within others.
Contrary to popular opinion, the world’s oldest profession most probably is not prostitution. It is war. Since time immemorial, humans have relied upon violence and the straight-on attack as the quickest solution to a prickly problem.
Glenn H. Mullin. Photo by Trinley.All world religions speak of world peace as an ideal, and sometimes even as an achievable quality in certain periods of human history. However, like most spiritual traditions emanating from India, Buddhism does not think that the present era qualifies for that luxury. We live in the kaliyuga, or Dark Age, when violence and conflict are norms of human society rather than exceptions to the general rule.
For that reason Buddhism has always placed its emphasis upon an attainable individual peace, or nirvana, rather than an unattainable pie-in-the-sky world peace. As the eighth century Indian master Shantideva put it, “One can never remove all thorns from the world, nor cover the entire world with leather to make it seem less thorny. However, by covering one’s own foot with a leather sandal it is as though all the world has been covered with soft leather, and all thorns removed.” He goes on to say that this “leather sandal of the mind” is nothing other than the inner peace established through cultivating a mindset deeply founded upon gentleness and non-violence.
It may seem that Shantideva’s approach is somewhat egocentric, and that it ignores the seemingly bigger problem of social responsibility. However, the present Dalai Lama suggests that concentrating on one’s own inner peace is also an effective method of contributing to world peace.
As he put it in Kindness, Clarity and Insight, “World peace depends upon individual peace. We cannot have world peace without the individuals who live in the world first becoming peaceful. Therefore the best way to help establish world peace is to cultivate a peaceful mind within oneself. This will then extend outward, and will positively impact family and friends. This in turn increases the peace of the community, and that contributes to the peace of human society in general.”
Does this mean that Buddhism has nothing to say about social institutions and their impact upon the emergence of a peaceful society?
Not at all. There is also plenty of Buddhist literature with advice on how the powers that be can establish those kinds of infrastructures that would encourage peaceful living. However, these remain secondary, and can only work effectively when the individual takes responsibility for his or her own peaceful nature.
The problem is that, when an individual lacks the foundations of inner peace, the presence of outer peace merely leads to boredom; then in turn the bored and idle mind naturally becomes frustrated and irritable, and ends up creating conflict with others as a form of distraction …
The complete article is available as a PDF download.
A few years ago I was speaking with a Tibetan friend living in Canada, when the topic of life as a refugee in a foreign land came up. He, like most Tibetans living abroad, had left his homeland several decades earlier because of the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet. I asked him what he missed most about the old country.
“Khorwa,” he replied. “The walk-around. Over here there is nothing even slightly resembling it. For us, the morning and evening walk-arounds of our local sacred sites were highlights in our day. In addition, we would make occasional walk-arounds to more remote sacred places, and once a year undertake an even more distant one. And then there were the once in a lifetime walk-arounds, when we went to remote places like Mt. Kailash and Lhamo Latso, the Oracle Lake.”
Anyone who has lived with the Tibetans in Asia can relate to his nostalgia. One is usually awakened at five in the morning by the sound of feet scurrying along the roads and paths, and the hum of prayers being quietly recited to the rhythm of turning mantra wheels. It is long before sunrise, but everyone is wide-awake and off to their favorite local walk-around.
When I lived in Dharamsala, for example, the favorite was the two-mile path that began in the village, circled the stupa in the center of town, ran down to the left past the Tsennyi Labtra, circled the mountain on which the Dalai Lama’s house stands, came back around the mountain to the Namgyal Dratsang Monastery, and returned to the village from there.
The path circling the mountain was especially significant to those who used it regularly, for every nook and cranny had its own story to tell. A small stupa at one place contained tsa-tsa with ashes of a deceased friend; at another stood a flat mantra stone that was once offered to celebrate a child’s birth; and at another was a hut filled with small clay statues, reminding everyone of the year the Nechung Oracle had warned of a danger to the Dalai Lama’s life, and recommended that the Tibetan community collectively accumulate tens of millions of mani mantras as a means of eliminating the hindrance.
Some people walked alone while doing this khorwa, using the time period for private thoughts and reflections, reciting their prayers and mantras as they went. Others walked in small groups: family or friends sharing a few spiritual moments together, chatting and perhaps even giggling and gossiping as they went. Young people walked, some meditatively and others simply hoping to capture a furtive glimpse of a potential lover. Falling in love is always wonderful, but falling in love at a sacred place is especially auspicious. And the very old hobbled around the path on their canes, hoping to generate a bit more merit and wisdom before the Lord of Death came calling.
This same ritual was repeated at the end of the day, although this time more leisurely. The early morning khorwa had been conducted with a pressed intensity, for everyone had to get back for the long day’s work. The evening event was more of a celebration and an unwinding.
Every city and village in Tibet had its local walk-around. Larger cities such as Lhasa had a number of them: short neighborhood walk-arounds that became interconnected for longer khorwa on especially auspicious days, such as Saka Dawa or Ganden Namchu.
However, whereas the khorwa in Dharamsala tells the story of the Tibetans in exile from the early 1960s until the present time, and only carries a significance that operates within this very limited dateline, the sites in Tibet are repositories of knowledge going back to ages before written history began. This knowledge is not mere information, such as a list of famous people who had meditated there or visited the place at some time or another, but is a force that operates simultaneously on a number of dimensions …
(09560_sl-3.JPG) Sister Max, Judith Diane Short (Priya), Glenn Mullin, Roberta Mandel, Tushita Retreat Centre, Dharamsala, India, 1977. Mullin, Roberta Mandel, Tushita Retreat Centre, Dharamsala, India, 1977.
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1977, Glenn Mullin, LYWA Collection, Max Mathews, Priya (Judith Diane Short), Roberta Mullin (Mandell) If you have any information about this photo, please send an email to photos@lamayeshe.com. Thank you!
Lama Glenn Mullin is a Tibetologist, Buddhist scholar, and teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation. He divides his time between writing, teaching, meditating, and leading tour groups to the power places of Himalayan region. He studied and received vital lineage transmissions from over thirty-five of the greatest masters of the time from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Glenn Mullin has authored more the 30 books on Tibetan Buddhism, many of them focused on the lives and translations of the works of the lineage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The following article is from the Spring, 1989 issue of the Snow Lion Newsletter and is for historical reference only. You can see this in context of the original newsletter here.
Life in a Tibetan Monastery in Exile By Hilary Shearman
The tour of eight Drepung Loseling monks, Sacred Music, Sacred Dance completed its seventh successful month of performances in North America and continued for another month and a half on before heading for Europe. The lamas' performances have created a tremendous surge of interest in the Dharma and in Tibet.
How "Sacred Music, Sacred Dance" Tour Started
Three years ago Glenn Mullin and I were able to successfully coordinate a small tour of the Gyume Tantric College in Canada, in cooperation with Snow Lion Publications. As a result of this we were asked by Doboom Rinpoche of Tibet House, New Delhi, if we would consider doing something else, on a larger scale.
Both Glenn and I were excited at the prospect and decided that the rich tradition of sacred dance was something as yet unknown to western audiences. With that in mind we made a quick tour of some of the great monasteries of Tibet, now settled in Karnataka, South India.
Celebrating Losar at Tibetan Monasteries
Our timing was perfect, as being Losar, Tibetan New Year, many of the monasteries have elaborate dance rituals to send off the old year and herald in the new with auspicious fanfare. We were able to witness an amazing variety of dance styles and costuming, all accompanied by the deep blasts of the long horns and shimmering of cymbals, common to all the rituals.
Choosing Drepung Loseling
In the final outcome, none of those monasteries which we had visited were chosen, but considering all the possibilities, the multi-faceted styles of Drepung Loseling seemed the most appropriate, and perhaps due to Doboom Rinpoche's devotion to his own monastic tradition, this group was selected.
Creating Foster/Sponsorship for the Monks
One of the most beneficial side effects of the tour has been the large number of people who have agreed to foster-sponsor a young monk from Drepung Loseling monastery. We set in process a scheme whereby anyone wishing to write to a young monk and share in the responsibility of his daily welfare could send a donation directly to the monastery, in the amount of $15 or $20 per month, depending on the age of the monk.
This needed the details and photo of every child involved in order to be implemented, and it was suggested that I should make a quick trip to South India and help with the process. I purchased a Polaroid camera and a vast quantity of film at a special charity rate, and made hasty arrangements to travel.
Arriving to the Monastery
My arrival at the monastery was unannounced. Telephone calls from Delhi had been ineffective and on my arrival at the tiny airport of Belgaum I hired a taxi to drive me to Mundgod, three hours away. We bounced along at a stately pace of fifty kilometers in that wonderful legacy of British India, the Ambassador, and honked and swerved to avoid the alarming number of trucks, ox-carts, tractors and hay-wagons one encounters on rural Indian highways.
Finally the taxi turned onto a fairly deserted road and after few kilometers we could see the traditional carved and painted Tibetan archway through which one passes into Tibet. This transition is remarkable; the landscape is the same, but now four story Tibetan temples, with golden deer and Dharmachakra adorning the roofs, appear as if in a dream. Prayer flags flutter in the soft breeze and the narrow road is crowded with monks walking, or riding bicycles, their maroon and saffron robes changing the colorscape dramatically.
Though unannounced, I was immediately welcomed, my luggage taken from the taxi and I was led upstairs to the main office of the administrator, Dakpa Topgyal. We became a good working team right away and decided we should photograph as many young monks as possible for the next few days. We started quite early the next morning and having decided on the coolest place to set up, (the temperature would be reaching 40-42 degrees Celsius by mid afternoon), we started the process.
400 Photos in Two Days
The children would line/crowd up and give their name, age etc. to Dakpa and one other monk, one writing in English, the other in Tibetan, and then I would take the photograph.
Naturally, a photo to any child is fascinating, but Tibetans, in particular, love to have their photos taken. It is a cross between a thrill and a threat, somehow exciting, and when the camera actually spits out the photograph, that seals the experience. It was one of the most joyful times of my life, seeing all these quite solemn little faces breaking into a look of sheer incredulity as it took place.
The Tibetan smile is renowned the world over, and to have the privilege of capturing four hundred of them over the next two days was like being given a magical elixir.
Daily Life at the Monastery
During the course of our activities the daily life of the monastery was progressing all around us.
There were nine hundred and fifty monks in Drepung Loseling, two-thirds of whom are under the age of twenty.
Every morning they rise before dawn, and assemble outside the main prayer hall, sipping their first cup of Tibetan tea for the day. At the sound of the gong signalling sunrise, they all move swiftly into the temple aisles and the daily prayers begin.
Halfway through the sound of small, pounding feet can be heard, as the very young monks who have been assigned tea duty for the day run back and forth between the main kitchen and the temple, wildly swinging large teapots. At this time each monk is also served with a large, flat fried Tibetan bread, which is breakfast.
During the rest of the morning the young monks attend school where they are taught mathematics, English, Tibetan and science subjects, the older monks study the five main divisions of Buddhism, according to age and in a systematic style. Lunch follows at 11:30, which is more Tibetan tea, and another flat round bread.
The hot hours of the afternoon at this time of the year are for rest and personal chores, followed by more studies. Later on, when the rains come in June, the routine is much different, with all the monks being required to work in the fields, tending the crops of maize and rice. This is for six hours a day, until Sept.
Cultivating the Land
The rice crop is mostly all consumed by the monastery, but the maize is their only cash crop which is sold as animal fodder. The money is one of the main supports for the institution, and a failed crop (which has happened in recent years due to drought), can be disastrous.
When the Tibetans were given this land by the Indian government it was wild, jungle-type terrain. The monks had to clear the land and prepare it for cultivation. Many wild animals lived here, and those years were exceptionally hard. They are still bothered by wild pigs, and one of the jobs the monks dislike the most is to stay up all night, guarding the maize from these voracious creatures. The monks still have to do their other work as well so it becomes very exhausting.
Reciting Buddhist Texts and Tibetan Debate
Evening comes and after their daily dinner of rice and dal and Tibetan tea, there are more prayers or chanting and recitation of scriptures.
Everywhere the sound of shrill little voices can be heard, reciting text by memory, which is a fundamental practice for all monks.
By mid-evening when the heat subsides, the debate courtyard starts to fill up, and the subjects which have been studied that day, are tested and tried in heated debate. The sounds of whoops and shrieks and hard hand claps accompany this mass of voices, challenging each others' understanding of the intricacies of Buddhism.
This continues until past midnight, and every night I would fall asleep to this mass of sound outside my room.
Monastery Hardships
The life in the monastery is hard, and there is serious deprivation in terms of diet, medicine, facilities and general hygiene. Disease is very hard to contain, with a variety of skin problems, intestinal infestations and, more seriously, 5% of the monks suffer from tuberculosis, for which they have to receive constant medical attention.
Many monks do not have proper rooms: they inhabit old cow stalls or makeshift huts leaning up against other buildings for support. Walls are bamboo covered with plastic; beds, rough wooden platforms. This has come about due to the enormous quantity of monks and young boys who keep arriving from Tibet.
The existing facilities were constructed by grants from the government to provide for two hundred and thirty monks. Now there are nine hundred and fifty.
As Dakpa said, There is a Tibetan proverb which says, 'Now I must stand on my own two feet, even though my belly is heavy and swollen.'
As an administrator, he is keenly aware of the shortcomings of the existing facilities.
Performing Sacred Music, Sacred Dance
The monks who are performing Sacred Music, Sacred Dance are also keenly aware of the plight and conditions of their fellow monks in South India.
Sharing the Dharma
Their amazing tenacity in maintaining a grueling pace on the road, travelling for hours in a small van with large quantities of equipment, constantly being on demand, yet never failing to have a smile or a word of encouragement for anyone who wishes to talk to them, can only be fueled by the desire to help their monastery survive, so that those who are able to leave their strife-torn homeland will be able to find a real refuge in the Three Jewels, to have the freedom to study and practice the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Giving Support to the Monks
Anyone who would like to help the monastery in some way, like:
Foster/sponsoring a young monk Contributing to the Building or Medical Fund
For more information contact: Canada-Tibet Friendship Society
Glenn Mullin is the author of over thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, many of which have been translated into a dozen foreign languages. His earlier titles focus on the lives and works of the early Dalai Lamas. Other titles of his elucidate practice traditions such as Lam Rim, Lojong, the Six Yogas of Naropa, Kalachakra, and so forth. He has been an international teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation for the past twenty-five years.
Glenn lived in Dharamsala, India, for some fifteen years. There he studied under twenty-five of the greatest masters of Tibet, including the Dalai Lama and his two main gurus.
Glenn now divides his time between writing, teaching, and leading pilgrimages to the power places of Tibet.
