Early in December, at least two hundred Brazilians and more than a hundred North Americans traveled to Katok Ritrö retreat center in Nepal for H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s cremation. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and coming together for the ceremonies was like reuniting with dear family members—all of us gathering to be with our beloved Rinpoche.
We Westerners stayed either in Pharping, about an hour’s drive down the mountain from Katok Ritrö, or in Boudhanath, even farther away on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Each morning, we piled into buses and jeeps, which would slowly wend their way up the mountain. Anyone who got off to a late start could see the caravan of buses high above, moving slowly along the switch backs. The road was extremely narrow and deeply rutted, and on the first day, it became apparent that the buses weren’t going to make it to Katok Ritrö. A local bus, apparently abandoned on the side of the road long ago, prevented us from making a hairpin turn. Nepal doesn’t have towing service, so the only solution, needless to say, was to cut off the overhanging roof of the house across the road. Someone negotiated with the owner of the house, and for 3,000 rupees (about $42), he agreed to simply tear down as much of the roof as was necessary for the buses to get by. (For that sum, the owner can easily replace the roof and have a lot left over—a rupee goes a long way in Nepal.)
Besides Chagdud Rinpoche’s students, many Tibetan monks and lamas attended the practices at Katok Ritrö; as a result, not all of us could fit into the temple. Anticipating the large crowd, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche had set up a series of huge colorful tents, in which people could take turns sitting. In these tents, too, we ate breakfast and a gourmet lunch every day and drank sweet tea on every break.
For five days before the cremation, we did a White Vajrasattva practice in the shrineroom, where Rinpoche’s embalmed body had remained for a year in an ornamented enclosure. Some people wondered if we were doing the practice for Rinpoche’s benefit, but as Jigme Rinpoche explained, we were practicing in order to purify our own karma. If students want to create the interdependence necessary for the guru to reincarnate as their teacher, their minds as well as their connection and commitment to the guru—their samaya—must be very pure. Their relationship with each other must also be harmonious. To ensure this, students engage in purification practice when their master dies.
Thanks to Rinpoche’s training, we Westerners were able for the most part to keep up with the Vajrasattva sadhana. (We had an English version of it and were somewhat familiar with the practice, having done it for a week the year before.) A lama from Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery acted as umdzé, or chant master. The many monks in attendance played musical instruments, served as shrinekeepers, and chanted with great enthusiasm (especially the protector pray ers—the monks had a catchy, syncopated way of playing the drum and chanted with the same zeal as fans at a soccer match).
Presiding at the ceremonies was Kyabjé Moktsa Rinpoche, supreme head of Katok Monastery in Tibet. Throughout the practice, he showed a genuine and personal concern for the wellbeing of Chagdud Rinpoche’s students. He greeted each of us in turn with a warm smile as he offered us some dudtsi, or consecrated medicine. He was kind, even playful, yet extremely powerful. His face had a luminous quality that made you wonder if his body were actually solid.
Seated next to Moktsa Rinpoche, and the focus of much of his attention, was Chagdud Rinpoche’s grandson, Tulku Orgyen. Also present were three tulkus from Tromge Ling (Rinpoche’s family monastery in Tibet), one of whom was the incarnation of Tromge Trungpa Rinpoche, a great Tara practitioner and Dzogchen master.
On the day of the cremation, many more people set out for Katok Ritrö, including a large number of monks and nuns from monasteries in Boudhanath and Pharping. As soon as the long trail of buses and SUVs made its way past Pharping, everything came to a halt. A truck had broken down, and we were told that the road would be impassable for two and a half hours. Rinpoche’s cremation was meant to take place at an appointed time—there was an astrologically auspicious moment on this full moon day—and, in addition, Moktsa Rinpoche had to get back to Boudhanath to begin a three month long series of empowerments.
One of the lamas who would be officiating at the cremation, H.E. Chokling Rinpoche (the incarnation of the great treasure discoverer Chokgyur Lingpa), got out of his car and, gesturing with cell phone in hand, announced that he was going to call the traffic police. “Not to worry,” he said. “With this many blessings, there will be obstacles.”
Nonetheless, fearing that the auspicious moment would pass (and a little skeptical about the efficacy of the Nepali traffic police), people poured out of the buses and started climbing the mountain. Some hiked up the road, while others followed monks and nuns along shortcut trails through the valleys and up the mountainside.
By the time the truck was fixed, many people had made it all the way to Katok Ritrö; many others were close to having made it. They were exhausted but exhilarated, certain that somehow this had all been part of the plan and gratified to have made the effort to get to the ceremony, even if it meant a grueling walk up the mountain.
Chagdud Khadro, who had also walked, said that Rinpoche would be laughing now. And something I read later gave me an idea of what Rinpoche might have been up to. In his autobiography, Lord of the Dance, he described a visit to his guru Tulku Arik after a twenty year separation. He, Khadro, Jigme Rinpoche, and the rest of the entourage rode their horses only partway to Tulku Arik’s mountain retreat hut. Then Rinpoche told everyone to dismount and walked up the final distance to the hut “as a respectful gesture to Tulku Arik and as a method of purification.” On this special day, Rinpoche was, as usual, not losing an opportunity for his students to purify their karma and create merit.
By the time everyone arrived at Katok Ritrö, Rinpoche’s body had been removed from the enclosure. The body was wrapped in cloth, its contours recognizable. A ritual crown had been placed on Rinpoche’s head, which was wrapped in red cloth. One by one, we entered the temple and circled the body, paying our respects. Some of us sat for a while with Khadro, crying.
The grief, and the intensity of it, was unexpected. When Rinpoche died, my initial reaction had been one of grief, but it had quickly given way to an experience of Rinpoche’s all pervasive presence and blessings. Tromge Trungpa had once said to Rinpoche, “When a lama dies, he attains enlightenment. This is the time to pray for blessings, not to cry, for there is great spiritual increase in that moment.” And Rinpoche himself had said, “When the teacher passes away, it’s rather like the sun setting. It seems that the sun has disappeared, but we’ve simply lost sight of it from the perspective of where we stand on the earth. Just as the sun passes from our view when the earth turns, when the karma between a teacher and a student changes, we can no longer see the teacher, even though he’s not really gone.”
For a year after Rinpoche’s passing, it really did feel as though he hadn’t gone. His presence was stronger than ever; he had never seemed more accessible. But then, seeing his body in the shrineroom, I was overwhelmed by the realization that his physical presence, his unique personality, had come to an end. My mind was filled with memories of him and his incomparable qualities as a teacher, and I longed for him to be back among us in his physical form.
After a while, the body was lifted onto a palanquin, and a group of lamas and students carried it outside, circumambulating the temple, then proceeding to the courtyard. There, they lowered Rinpoche’s body into a structure (called a dung-khang) that had been built specifically for the cremation.
Four lamas, each at a shrine and accompanied by a group of monks, were positioned around the dungkhang. They performed four different practices simultaneously, the sounds of drums and horns, bells and conches, and chanting filling the air in every direction. At a certain point, the fire was lit, and each lama performed a fire puja in which traditional substances were offered through small openings on each of the four sides of the dungkhang. As the fire burned, our grief intensified—but so did Rinpoche’s blessings. Our hearts were raw, but wide open and full of love, and so were our minds.
As each fire puja came to an end, the openings were closed with bricks and mortar and sealed with a paper mandala. The flames turned to smoke, and the courtyard was enveloped in thick, white smoke, lending an ethereal, otherworldly cast to everything. As a friend said, breathing in the smoke was like breathing in Rinpoche himself.
When the ceremonies were over, Jigme Rinpoche, Kha dro, and Jigme Rinpoche’s mother, Karma Drolma, made offerings to the lamas, monks, and nuns. Then, while the fire blazed with a startling intensity, many of us lingered by the dungkhang, offering one last katak to Rinpoche, recalling the incomparable kindness of our guru, and blending our minds with his enlightened mind.
—Lama Tsultrim
Early in December, at least two hundred Brazilians and more than a hundred North Americans traveled to Katok Ritrö retreat center in Nepal for H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s cremation. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and coming together for the ceremonies was like reuniting with dear family members—all of us gathering to be with our beloved Rinpoche.
We Westerners stayed either in Pharping, about an hour’s drive down the mountain from Katok Ritrö, or in Boudhanath, even farther away on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Each morning, we piled into buses and jeeps, which would slowly wend their way up the mountain. Anyone who got off to a late start could see the caravan of buses high above, moving slowly along the switch backs. The road was extremely narrow and deeply rutted, and on the first day, it became apparent that the buses weren’t going to make it to Katok Ritrö. A local bus, apparently abandoned on the side of the road long ago, prevented us from making a hairpin turn. Nepal doesn’t have towing service, so the only solution, needless to say, was to cut off the overhanging roof of the house across the road. Someone negotiated with the owner of the house, and for 3,000 rupees (about $42), he agreed to simply tear down as much of the roof as was necessary for the buses to get by. (For that sum, the owner can easily replace the roof and have a lot left over—a rupee goes a long way in Nepal.)
Besides Chagdud Rinpoche’s students, many Tibetan monks and lamas attended the practices at Katok Ritrö; as a result, not all of us could fit into the temple. Anticipating the large crowd, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche had set up a series of huge colorful tents, in which people could take turns sitting. In these tents, too, we ate breakfast and a gourmet lunch every day and drank sweet tea on every break.
For five days before the cremation, we did a White Vajrasattva practice in the shrineroom, where Rinpoche’s embalmed body had remained for a year in an ornamented enclosure. Some people wondered if we were doing the practice for Rinpoche’s benefit, but as Jigme Rinpoche explained, we were practicing in order to purify our own karma. If students want to create the interdependence necessary for the guru to reincarnate as their teacher, their minds as well as their connection and commitment to the guru—their samaya—must be very pure. Their relationship with each other must also be harmonious. To ensure this, students engage in purification practice when their master dies.
Thanks to Rinpoche’s training, we Westerners were able for the most part to keep up with the Vajrasattva sadhana. (We had an English version of it and were somewhat familiar with the practice, having done it for a week the year before.) A lama from Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery acted as umdzé, or chant master. The many monks in attendance played musical instruments, served as shrinekeepers, and chanted with great enthusiasm (especially the protector pray ers—the monks had a catchy, syncopated way of playing the drum and chanted with the same zeal as fans at a soccer match).
Presiding at the ceremonies was Kyabjé Moktsa Rinpoche, supreme head of Katok Monastery in Tibet. Throughout the practice, he showed a genuine and personal concern for the wellbeing of Chagdud Rinpoche’s students. He greeted each of us in turn with a warm smile as he offered us some dudtsi, or consecrated medicine. He was kind, even playful, yet extremely powerful. His face had a luminous quality that made you wonder if his body were actually solid.
Seated next to Moktsa Rinpoche, and the focus of much of his attention, was Chagdud Rinpoche’s grandson, Tulku Orgyen. Also present were three tulkus from Tromge Ling (Rinpoche’s family monastery in Tibet), one of whom was the incarnation of Tromge Trungpa Rinpoche, a great Tara practitioner and Dzogchen master.
On the day of the cremation, many more people set out for Katok Ritrö, including a large number of monks and nuns from monasteries in Boudhanath and Pharping. As soon as the long trail of buses and SUVs made its way past Pharping, everything came to a halt. A truck had broken down, and we were told that the road would be impassable for two and a half hours. Rinpoche’s cremation was meant to take place at an appointed time—there was an astrologically auspicious moment on this full moon day—and, in addition, Moktsa Rinpoche had to get back to Boudhanath to begin a three month long series of empowerments.
One of the lamas who would be officiating at the cremation, H.E. Chokling Rinpoche (the incarnation of the great treasure discoverer Chokgyur Lingpa), got out of his car and, gesturing with cell phone in hand, announced that he was going to call the traffic police. “Not to worry,” he said. “With this many blessings, there will be obstacles.”
Nonetheless, fearing that the auspicious moment would pass (and a little skeptical about the efficacy of the Nepali traffic police), people poured out of the buses and started climbing the mountain. Some hiked up the road, while others followed monks and nuns along shortcut trails through the valleys and up the mountainside.
By the time the truck was fixed, many people had made it all the way to Katok Ritrö; many others were close to having made it. They were exhausted but exhilarated, certain that somehow this had all been part of the plan and gratified to have made the effort to get to the ceremony, even if it meant a grueling walk up the mountain.
Chagdud Khadro, who had also walked, said that Rinpoche would be laughing now. And something I read later gave me an idea of what Rinpoche might have been up to. In his autobiography, Lord of the Dance, he described a visit to his guru Tulku Arik after a twenty year separation. He, Khadro, Jigme Rinpoche, and the rest of the entourage rode their horses only partway to Tulku Arik’s mountain retreat hut. Then Rinpoche told everyone to dismount and walked up the final distance to the hut “as a respectful gesture to Tulku Arik and as a method of purification.” On this special day, Rinpoche was, as usual, not losing an opportunity for his students to purify their karma and create merit.
By the time everyone arrived at Katok Ritrö, Rinpoche’s body had been removed from the enclosure. The body was wrapped in cloth, its contours recognizable. A ritual crown had been placed on Rinpoche’s head, which was wrapped in red cloth. One by one, we entered the temple and circled the body, paying our respects. Some of us sat for a while with Khadro, crying.
The grief, and the intensity of it, was unexpected. When Rinpoche died, my initial reaction had been one of grief, but it had quickly given way to an experience of Rinpoche’s all pervasive presence and blessings. Tromge Trungpa had once said to Rinpoche, “When a lama dies, he attains enlightenment. This is the time to pray for blessings, not to cry, for there is great spiritual increase in that moment.” And Rinpoche himself had said, “When the teacher passes away, it’s rather like the sun setting. It seems that the sun has disappeared, but we’ve simply lost sight of it from the perspective of where we stand on the earth. Just as the sun passes from our view when the earth turns, when the karma between a teacher and a student changes, we can no longer see the teacher, even though he’s not really gone.”
For a year after Rinpoche’s passing, it really did feel as though he hadn’t gone. His presence was stronger than ever; he had never seemed more accessible. But then, seeing his body in the shrineroom, I was overwhelmed by the realization that his physical presence, his unique personality, had come to an end. My mind was filled with memories of him and his incomparable qualities as a teacher, and I longed for him to be back among us in his physical form.
After a while, the body was lifted onto a palanquin, and a group of lamas and students carried it outside, circumambulating the temple, then proceeding to the courtyard. There, they lowered Rinpoche’s body into a structure (called a dung-khang) that had been built specifically for the cremation.
Four lamas, each at a shrine and accompanied by a group of monks, were positioned around the dungkhang. They performed four different practices simultaneously, the sounds of drums and horns, bells and conches, and chanting filling the air in every direction. At a certain point, the fire was lit, and each lama performed a fire puja in which traditional substances were offered through small openings on each of the four sides of the dungkhang. As the fire burned, our grief intensified—but so did Rinpoche’s blessings. Our hearts were raw, but wide open and full of love, and so were our minds.
As each fire puja came to an end, the openings were closed with bricks and mortar and sealed with a paper mandala. The flames turned to smoke, and the courtyard was enveloped in thick, white smoke, lending an ethereal, otherworldly cast to everything. As a friend said, breathing in the smoke was like breathing in Rinpoche himself.
When the ceremonies were over, Jigme Rinpoche, Kha dro, and Jigme Rinpoche’s mother, Karma Drolma, made offerings to the lamas, monks, and nuns. Then, while the fire blazed with a startling intensity, many of us lingered by the dungkhang, offering one last katak to Rinpoche, recalling the incomparable kindness of our guru, and blending our minds with his enlightened mind.
—Lama Tsultrim
Early in December, at least two hundred Brazilians and more than a hundred North Americans traveled to Katok Ritrö retreat center in Nepal for H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s cremation. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and coming together for the ceremonies was like reuniting with dear family members—all of us gathering to be with our beloved Rinpoche.
We Westerners stayed either in Pharping, about an hour’s drive down the mountain from Katok Ritrö, or in Boudhanath, even farther away on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Each morning, we piled into buses and jeeps, which would slowly wend their way up the mountain. Anyone who got off to a late start could see the caravan of buses high above, moving slowly along the switch backs. The road was extremely narrow and deeply rutted, and on the first day, it became apparent that the buses weren’t going to make it to Katok Ritrö. A local bus, apparently abandoned on the side of the road long ago, prevented us from making a hairpin turn. Nepal doesn’t have towing service, so the only solution, needless to say, was to cut off the overhanging roof of the house across the road. Someone negotiated with the owner of the house, and for 3,000 rupees (about $42), he agreed to simply tear down as much of the roof as was necessary for the buses to get by. (For that sum, the owner can easily replace the roof and have a lot left over—a rupee goes a long way in Nepal.)
Besides Chagdud Rinpoche’s students, many Tibetan monks and lamas attended the practices at Katok Ritrö; as a result, not all of us could fit into the temple. Anticipating the large crowd, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche had set up a series of huge colorful tents, in which people could take turns sitting. In these tents, too, we ate breakfast and a gourmet lunch every day and drank sweet tea on every break.
For five days before the cremation, we did a White Vajrasattva practice in the shrineroom, where Rinpoche’s embalmed body had remained for a year in an ornamented enclosure. Some people wondered if we were doing the practice for Rinpoche’s benefit, but as Jigme Rinpoche explained, we were practicing in order to purify our own karma. If students want to create the interdependence necessary for the guru to reincarnate as their teacher, their minds as well as their connection and commitment to the guru—their samaya—must be very pure. Their relationship with each other must also be harmonious. To ensure this, students engage in purification practice when their master dies.
Thanks to Rinpoche’s training, we Westerners were able for the most part to keep up with the Vajrasattva sadhana. (We had an English version of it and were somewhat familiar with the practice, having done it for a week the year before.) A lama from Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery acted as umdzé, or chant master. The many monks in attendance played musical instruments, served as shrinekeepers, and chanted with great enthusiasm (especially the protector pray ers—the monks had a catchy, syncopated way of playing the drum and chanted with the same zeal as fans at a soccer match).
Presiding at the ceremonies was Kyabjé Moktsa Rinpoche, supreme head of Katok Monastery in Tibet. Throughout the practice, he showed a genuine and personal concern for the wellbeing of Chagdud Rinpoche’s students. He greeted each of us in turn with a warm smile as he offered us some dudtsi, or consecrated medicine. He was kind, even playful, yet extremely powerful. His face had a luminous quality that made you wonder if his body were actually solid.
Seated next to Moktsa Rinpoche, and the focus of much of his attention, was Chagdud Rinpoche’s grandson, Tulku Orgyen. Also present were three tulkus from Tromge Ling (Rinpoche’s family monastery in Tibet), one of whom was the incarnation of Tromge Trungpa Rinpoche, a great Tara practitioner and Dzogchen master.
On the day of the cremation, many more people set out for Katok Ritrö, including a large number of monks and nuns from monasteries in Boudhanath and Pharping. As soon as the long trail of buses and SUVs made its way past Pharping, everything came to a halt. A truck had broken down, and we were told that the road would be impassable for two and a half hours. Rinpoche’s cremation was meant to take place at an appointed time—there was an astrologically auspicious moment on this full moon day—and, in addition, Moktsa Rinpoche had to get back to Boudhanath to begin a three month long series of empowerments.
One of the lamas who would be officiating at the cremation, H.E. Chokling Rinpoche (the incarnation of the great treasure discoverer Chokgyur Lingpa), got out of his car and, gesturing with cell phone in hand, announced that he was going to call the traffic police. “Not to worry,” he said. “With this many blessings, there will be obstacles.”
Nonetheless, fearing that the auspicious moment would pass (and a little skeptical about the efficacy of the Nepali traffic police), people poured out of the buses and started climbing the mountain. Some hiked up the road, while others followed monks and nuns along shortcut trails through the valleys and up the mountainside.
By the time the truck was fixed, many people had made it all the way to Katok Ritrö; many others were close to having made it. They were exhausted but exhilarated, certain that somehow this had all been part of the plan and gratified to have made the effort to get to the ceremony, even if it meant a grueling walk up the mountain.
Chagdud Khadro, who had also walked, said that Rinpoche would be laughing now. And something I read later gave me an idea of what Rinpoche might have been up to. In his autobiography, Lord of the Dance, he described a visit to his guru Tulku Arik after a twenty year separation. He, Khadro, Jigme Rinpoche, and the rest of the entourage rode their horses only partway to Tulku Arik’s mountain retreat hut. Then Rinpoche told everyone to dismount and walked up the final distance to the hut “as a respectful gesture to Tulku Arik and as a method of purification.” On this special day, Rinpoche was, as usual, not losing an opportunity for his students to purify their karma and create merit.
By the time everyone arrived at Katok Ritrö, Rinpoche’s body had been removed from the enclosure. The body was wrapped in cloth, its contours recognizable. A ritual crown had been placed on Rinpoche’s head, which was wrapped in red cloth. One by one, we entered the temple and circled the body, paying our respects. Some of us sat for a while with Khadro, crying.
The grief, and the intensity of it, was unexpected. When Rinpoche died, my initial reaction had been one of grief, but it had quickly given way to an experience of Rinpoche’s all pervasive presence and blessings. Tromge Trungpa had once said to Rinpoche, “When a lama dies, he attains enlightenment. This is the time to pray for blessings, not to cry, for there is great spiritual increase in that moment.” And Rinpoche himself had said, “When the teacher passes away, it’s rather like the sun setting. It seems that the sun has disappeared, but we’ve simply lost sight of it from the perspective of where we stand on the earth. Just as the sun passes from our view when the earth turns, when the karma between a teacher and a student changes, we can no longer see the teacher, even though he’s not really gone.”
For a year after Rinpoche’s passing, it really did feel as though he hadn’t gone. His presence was stronger than ever; he had never seemed more accessible. But then, seeing his body in the shrineroom, I was overwhelmed by the realization that his physical presence, his unique personality, had come to an end. My mind was filled with memories of him and his incomparable qualities as a teacher, and I longed for him to be back among us in his physical form.
After a while, the body was lifted onto a palanquin, and a group of lamas and students carried it outside, circumambulating the temple, then proceeding to the courtyard. There, they lowered Rinpoche’s body into a structure (called a dung-khang) that had been built specifically for the cremation.
Four lamas, each at a shrine and accompanied by a group of monks, were positioned around the dungkhang. They performed four different practices simultaneously, the sounds of drums and horns, bells and conches, and chanting filling the air in every direction. At a certain point, the fire was lit, and each lama performed a fire puja in which traditional substances were offered through small openings on each of the four sides of the dungkhang. As the fire burned, our grief intensified—but so did Rinpoche’s blessings. Our hearts were raw, but wide open and full of love, and so were our minds.
As each fire puja came to an end, the openings were closed with bricks and mortar and sealed with a paper mandala. The flames turned to smoke, and the courtyard was enveloped in thick, white smoke, lending an ethereal, otherworldly cast to everything. As a friend said, breathing in the smoke was like breathing in Rinpoche himself.
When the ceremonies were over, Jigme Rinpoche, Kha dro, and Jigme Rinpoche’s mother, Karma Drolma, made offerings to the lamas, monks, and nuns. Then, while the fire blazed with a startling intensity, many of us lingered by the dungkhang, offering one last katak to Rinpoche, recalling the incomparable kindness of our guru, and blending our minds with his enlightened mind.
—Lama Tsultrim
Early in December, at least two hundred Brazilians and more than a hundred North Americans traveled to Katok Ritrö retreat center in Nepal for H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s cremation. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and coming together for the ceremonies was like reuniting with dear family members—all of us gathering to be with our beloved Rinpoche.
We Westerners stayed either in Pharping, about an hour’s drive down the mountain from Katok Ritrö, or in Boudhanath, even farther away on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Each morning, we piled into buses and jeeps, which would slowly wend their way up the mountain. Anyone who got off to a late start could see the caravan of buses high above, moving slowly along the switch backs. The road was extremely narrow and deeply rutted, and on the first day, it became apparent that the buses weren’t going to make it to Katok Ritrö. A local bus, apparently abandoned on the side of the road long ago, prevented us from making a hairpin turn. Nepal doesn’t have towing service, so the only solution, needless to say, was to cut off the overhanging roof of the house across the road. Someone negotiated with the owner of the house, and for 3,000 rupees (about $42), he agreed to simply tear down as much of the roof as was necessary for the buses to get by. (For that sum, the owner can easily replace the roof and have a lot left over—a rupee goes a long way in Nepal.)
Besides Chagdud Rinpoche’s students, many Tibetan monks and lamas attended the practices at Katok Ritrö; as a result, not all of us could fit into the temple. Anticipating the large crowd, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche had set up a series of huge colorful tents, in which people could take turns sitting. In these tents, too, we ate breakfast and a gourmet lunch every day and drank sweet tea on every break.
For five days before the cremation, we did a White Vajrasattva practice in the shrineroom, where Rinpoche’s embalmed body had remained for a year in an ornamented enclosure. Some people wondered if we were doing the practice for Rinpoche’s benefit, but as Jigme Rinpoche explained, we were practicing in order to purify our own karma. If students want to create the interdependence necessary for the guru to reincarnate as their teacher, their minds as well as their connection and commitment to the guru—their samaya—must be very pure. Their relationship with each other must also be harmonious. To ensure this, students engage in purification practice when their master dies.
Thanks to Rinpoche’s training, we Westerners were able for the most part to keep up with the Vajrasattva sadhana. (We had an English version of it and were somewhat familiar with the practice, having done it for a week the year before.) A lama from Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery acted as umdzé, or chant master. The many monks in attendance played musical instruments, served as shrinekeepers, and chanted with great enthusiasm (especially the protector pray ers—the monks had a catchy, syncopated way of playing the drum and chanted with the same zeal as fans at a soccer match).
Presiding at the ceremonies was Kyabjé Moktsa Rinpoche, supreme head of Katok Monastery in Tibet. Throughout the practice, he showed a genuine and personal concern for the wellbeing of Chagdud Rinpoche’s students. He greeted each of us in turn with a warm smile as he offered us some dudtsi, or consecrated medicine. He was kind, even playful, yet extremely powerful. His face had a luminous quality that made you wonder if his body were actually solid.
Seated next to Moktsa Rinpoche, and the focus of much of his attention, was Chagdud Rinpoche’s grandson, Tulku Orgyen. Also present were three tulkus from Tromge Ling (Rinpoche’s family monastery in Tibet), one of whom was the incarnation of Tromge Trungpa Rinpoche, a great Tara practitioner and Dzogchen master.
On the day of the cremation, many more people set out for Katok Ritrö, including a large number of monks and nuns from monasteries in Boudhanath and Pharping. As soon as the long trail of buses and SUVs made its way past Pharping, everything came to a halt. A truck had broken down, and we were told that the road would be impassable for two and a half hours. Rinpoche’s cremation was meant to take place at an appointed time—there was an astrologically auspicious moment on this full moon day—and, in addition, Moktsa Rinpoche had to get back to Boudhanath to begin a three month long series of empowerments.
One of the lamas who would be officiating at the cremation, H.E. Chokling Rinpoche (the incarnation of the great treasure discoverer Chokgyur Lingpa), got out of his car and, gesturing with cell phone in hand, announced that he was going to call the traffic police. “Not to worry,” he said. “With this many blessings, there will be obstacles.”
Nonetheless, fearing that the auspicious moment would pass (and a little skeptical about the efficacy of the Nepali traffic police), people poured out of the buses and started climbing the mountain. Some hiked up the road, while others followed monks and nuns along shortcut trails through the valleys and up the mountainside.
By the time the truck was fixed, many people had made it all the way to Katok Ritrö; many others were close to having made it. They were exhausted but exhilarated, certain that somehow this had all been part of the plan and gratified to have made the effort to get to the ceremony, even if it meant a grueling walk up the mountain.
Chagdud Khadro, who had also walked, said that Rinpoche would be laughing now. And something I read later gave me an idea of what Rinpoche might have been up to. In his autobiography, Lord of the Dance, he described a visit to his guru Tulku Arik after a twenty year separation. He, Khadro, Jigme Rinpoche, and the rest of the entourage rode their horses only partway to Tulku Arik’s mountain retreat hut. Then Rinpoche told everyone to dismount and walked up the final distance to the hut “as a respectful gesture to Tulku Arik and as a method of purification.” On this special day, Rinpoche was, as usual, not losing an opportunity for his students to purify their karma and create merit.
By the time everyone arrived at Katok Ritrö, Rinpoche’s body had been removed from the enclosure. The body was wrapped in cloth, its contours recognizable. A ritual crown had been placed on Rinpoche’s head, which was wrapped in red cloth. One by one, we entered the temple and circled the body, paying our respects. Some of us sat for a while with Khadro, crying.
The grief, and the intensity of it, was unexpected. When Rinpoche died, my initial reaction had been one of grief, but it had quickly given way to an experience of Rinpoche’s all pervasive presence and blessings. Tromge Trungpa had once said to Rinpoche, “When a lama dies, he attains enlightenment. This is the time to pray for blessings, not to cry, for there is great spiritual increase in that moment.” And Rinpoche himself had said, “When the teacher passes away, it’s rather like the sun setting. It seems that the sun has disappeared, but we’ve simply lost sight of it from the perspective of where we stand on the earth. Just as the sun passes from our view when the earth turns, when the karma between a teacher and a student changes, we can no longer see the teacher, even though he’s not really gone.”
For a year after Rinpoche’s passing, it really did feel as though he hadn’t gone. His presence was stronger than ever; he had never seemed more accessible. But then, seeing his body in the shrineroom, I was overwhelmed by the realization that his physical presence, his unique personality, had come to an end. My mind was filled with memories of him and his incomparable qualities as a teacher, and I longed for him to be back among us in his physical form.
After a while, the body was lifted onto a palanquin, and a group of lamas and students carried it outside, circumambulating the temple, then proceeding to the courtyard. There, they lowered Rinpoche’s body into a structure (called a dung-khang) that had been built specifically for the cremation.
Four lamas, each at a shrine and accompanied by a group of monks, were positioned around the dungkhang. They performed four different practices simultaneously, the sounds of drums and horns, bells and conches, and chanting filling the air in every direction. At a certain point, the fire was lit, and each lama performed a fire puja in which traditional substances were offered through small openings on each of the four sides of the dungkhang. As the fire burned, our grief intensified—but so did Rinpoche’s blessings. Our hearts were raw, but wide open and full of love, and so were our minds.
As each fire puja came to an end, the openings were closed with bricks and mortar and sealed with a paper mandala. The flames turned to smoke, and the courtyard was enveloped in thick, white smoke, lending an ethereal, otherworldly cast to everything. As a friend said, breathing in the smoke was like breathing in Rinpoche himself.
When the ceremonies were over, Jigme Rinpoche, Kha dro, and Jigme Rinpoche’s mother, Karma Drolma, made offerings to the lamas, monks, and nuns. Then, while the fire blazed with a startling intensity, many of us lingered by the dungkhang, offering one last katak to Rinpoche, recalling the incomparable kindness of our guru, and blending our minds with his enlightened mind.
—Lama Tsultrim
Early in December, at least two hundred Brazilians and more than a hundred North Americans traveled to Katok Ritrö retreat center in Nepal for H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s cremation. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in years, and coming together for the ceremonies was like reuniting with dear family members—all of us gathering to be with our beloved Rinpoche.
We Westerners stayed either in Pharping, about an hour’s drive down the mountain from Katok Ritrö, or in Boudhanath, even farther away on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Each morning, we piled into buses and jeeps, which would slowly wend their way up the mountain. Anyone who got off to a late start could see the caravan of buses high above, moving slowly along the switch backs. The road was extremely narrow and deeply rutted, and on the first day, it became apparent that the buses weren’t going to make it to Katok Ritrö. A local bus, apparently abandoned on the side of the road long ago, prevented us from making a hairpin turn. Nepal doesn’t have towing service, so the only solution, needless to say, was to cut off the overhanging roof of the house across the road. Someone negotiated with the owner of the house, and for 3,000 rupees (about $42), he agreed to simply tear down as much of the roof as was necessary for the buses to get by. (For that sum, the owner can easily replace the roof and have a lot left over—a rupee goes a long way in Nepal.)
Besides Chagdud Rinpoche’s students, many Tibetan monks and lamas attended the practices at Katok Ritrö; as a result, not all of us could fit into the temple. Anticipating the large crowd, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche had set up a series of huge colorful tents, in which people could take turns sitting. In these tents, too, we ate breakfast and a gourmet lunch every day and drank sweet tea on every break.
For five days before the cremation, we did a White Vajrasattva practice in the shrineroom, where Rinpoche’s embalmed body had remained for a year in an ornamented enclosure. Some people wondered if we were doing the practice for Rinpoche’s benefit, but as Jigme Rinpoche explained, we were practicing in order to purify our own karma. If students want to create the interdependence necessary for the guru to reincarnate as their teacher, their minds as well as their connection and commitment to the guru—their samaya—must be very pure. Their relationship with each other must also be harmonious. To ensure this, students engage in purification practice when their master dies.
Thanks to Rinpoche’s training, we Westerners were able for the most part to keep up with the Vajrasattva sadhana. (We had an English version of it and were somewhat familiar with the practice, having done it for a week the year before.) A lama from Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery acted as umdzé, or chant master. The many monks in attendance played musical instruments, served as shrinekeepers, and chanted with great enthusiasm (especially the protector pray ers—the monks had a catchy, syncopated way of playing the drum and chanted with the same zeal as fans at a soccer match).
Presiding at the ceremonies was Kyabjé Moktsa Rinpoche, supreme head of Katok Monastery in Tibet. Throughout the practice, he showed a genuine and personal concern for the wellbeing of Chagdud Rinpoche’s students. He greeted each of us in turn with a warm smile as he offered us some dudtsi, or consecrated medicine. He was kind, even playful, yet extremely powerful. His face had a luminous quality that made you wonder if his body were actually solid.
Seated next to Moktsa Rinpoche, and the focus of much of his attention, was Chagdud Rinpoche’s grandson, Tulku Orgyen. Also present were three tulkus from Tromge Ling (Rinpoche’s family monastery in Tibet), one of whom was the incarnation of Tromge Trungpa Rinpoche, a great Tara practitioner and Dzogchen master.
On the day of the cremation, many more people set out for Katok Ritrö, including a large number of monks and nuns from monasteries in Boudhanath and Pharping. As soon as the long trail of buses and SUVs made its way past Pharping, everything came to a halt. A truck had broken down, and we were told that the road would be impassable for two and a half hours. Rinpoche’s cremation was meant to take place at an appointed time—there was an astrologically auspicious moment on this full moon day—and, in addition, Moktsa Rinpoche had to get back to Boudhanath to begin a three month long series of empowerments.
One of the lamas who would be officiating at the cremation, H.E. Chokling Rinpoche (the incarnation of the great treasure discoverer Chokgyur Lingpa), got out of his car and, gesturing with cell phone in hand, announced that he was going to call the traffic police. “Not to worry,” he said. “With this many blessings, there will be obstacles.”
Nonetheless, fearing that the auspicious moment would pass (and a little skeptical about the efficacy of the Nepali traffic police), people poured out of the buses and started climbing the mountain. Some hiked up the road, while others followed monks and nuns along shortcut trails through the valleys and up the mountainside.
By the time the truck was fixed, many people had made it all the way to Katok Ritrö; many others were close to having made it. They were exhausted but exhilarated, certain that somehow this had all been part of the plan and gratified to have made the effort to get to the ceremony, even if it meant a grueling walk up the mountain.
Chagdud Khadro, who had also walked, said that Rinpoche would be laughing now. And something I read later gave me an idea of what Rinpoche might have been up to. In his autobiography, Lord of the Dance, he described a visit to his guru Tulku Arik after a twenty year separation. He, Khadro, Jigme Rinpoche, and the rest of the entourage rode their horses only partway to Tulku Arik’s mountain retreat hut. Then Rinpoche told everyone to dismount and walked up the final distance to the hut “as a respectful gesture to Tulku Arik and as a method of purification.” On this special day, Rinpoche was, as usual, not losing an opportunity for his students to purify their karma and create merit.
By the time everyone arrived at Katok Ritrö, Rinpoche’s body had been removed from the enclosure. The body was wrapped in cloth, its contours recognizable. A ritual crown had been placed on Rinpoche’s head, which was wrapped in red cloth. One by one, we entered the temple and circled the body, paying our respects. Some of us sat for a while with Khadro, crying.
The grief, and the intensity of it, was unexpected. When Rinpoche died, my initial reaction had been one of grief, but it had quickly given way to an experience of Rinpoche’s all pervasive presence and blessings. Tromge Trungpa had once said to Rinpoche, “When a lama dies, he attains enlightenment. This is the time to pray for blessings, not to cry, for there is great spiritual increase in that moment.” And Rinpoche himself had said, “When the teacher passes away, it’s rather like the sun setting. It seems that the sun has disappeared, but we’ve simply lost sight of it from the perspective of where we stand on the earth. Just as the sun passes from our view when the earth turns, when the karma between a teacher and a student changes, we can no longer see the teacher, even though he’s not really gone.”
For a year after Rinpoche’s passing, it really did feel as though he hadn’t gone. His presence was stronger than ever; he had never seemed more accessible. But then, seeing his body in the shrineroom, I was overwhelmed by the realization that his physical presence, his unique personality, had come to an end. My mind was filled with memories of him and his incomparable qualities as a teacher, and I longed for him to be back among us in his physical form.
After a while, the body was lifted onto a palanquin, and a group of lamas and students carried it outside, circumambulating the temple, then proceeding to the courtyard. There, they lowered Rinpoche’s body into a structure (called a dung-khang) that had been built specifically for the cremation.
Four lamas, each at a shrine and accompanied by a group of monks, were positioned around the dungkhang. They performed four different practices simultaneously, the sounds of drums and horns, bells and conches, and chanting filling the air in every direction. At a certain point, the fire was lit, and each lama performed a fire puja in which traditional substances were offered through small openings on each of the four sides of the dungkhang. As the fire burned, our grief intensified—but so did Rinpoche’s blessings. Our hearts were raw, but wide open and full of love, and so were our minds.
As each fire puja came to an end, the openings were closed with bricks and mortar and sealed with a paper mandala. The flames turned to smoke, and the courtyard was enveloped in thick, white smoke, lending an ethereal, otherworldly cast to everything. As a friend said, breathing in the smoke was like breathing in Rinpoche himself.
When the ceremonies were over, Jigme Rinpoche, Kha dro, and Jigme Rinpoche’s mother, Karma Drolma, made offerings to the lamas, monks, and nuns. Then, while the fire blazed with a startling intensity, many of us lingered by the dungkhang, offering one last katak to Rinpoche, recalling the incomparable kindness of our guru, and blending our minds with his enlightened mind.
—Lama Tsultrim
