I haven't used this blog in some time, I've decided to utilize the free web space to post a pet project that I worked on while conducting research and traveling in Nepal in 2004 and 2005, the life story of the great twentieth century Tibetan yogi Lozang Tsultrim, known as the Khari Lama. That way it will be easily accessible to all who are interested and will also provide a space for people to make comments and suggestions on this work-in-progress.


The great Tibetan Buddhist yogi Lozang Tsultrim

SALUTATION (Migsewa Prayer):

To Avalokitesvara, the great treasure of indiscriminate compassion,
To Manjusri, the undefiled complete knower,
To the secret Protector, the subduer of all enemies without exception,
To Tsongkhapa, the head ornament of scholars in the land of snow,
To the feet of Lozang Drakpa [Tsongkhapa], I pray.

ASPIRATION:

May the telling and hearing of this Story of Liberation
Serve to relieve all sentient beings of suffering and its causes,
Bring those wandering in the three realms happiness and its causes,
And liberate all those mired in the five afflictions into complete Enlightenment!

PREFACE:

My friendship with the Khari Rinpoche Tenzin Yonten began during the two weeks of October 2003 that I stayed at the Khari nunnery in Tramo, Khumbu, Nepal. My pretext for living there was to practice colloquial Tibetan language, but it turned out to be a much more affecting experience. At that time Tenzin Yonten, his teacher Geshe Tenzin Dargye, and the Khari nuns were deeply involved in rebuilding their main prayer hall in Tramo, and I tried to make myself useful in anyway possible, carrying stones, digging dirt, or serving tea. Having made dear friends with the practitioners there, I also became invested in the completion of their important projects. I was also deeply struck by the nuns’ motivation and devotion; they did not hesitate when asked to strap fifty kilogram bags of cement to their backs to transport from Namche Bazaar to Tramo, a three hour hike with that weight. With that level of perserverance, one can imagine how dedicated these nuns will be in future meditation retreats, when they have finished the bulk of their work and have found adequate sponsorship.

I wanted to find a way that I could truly benefit the Dharma community in Tramo, so my Tibetan language teacher, Trinley Lama, suggested that I compile stories about the previous Khari Lama. The value of preserving the memory of the Khari Lama was immediately obvious to me as well as the many lay people that have faith in his transmission. Unlike many monastic communities in larger areas and the Sherpa monasteries in Solu-Khumbu, the nuns in Tramo lack a steady source of sponsorship, prohibiting them from completing their goals. After discussion with the Khari Rinpoche and some of the people who passed me these stories, it became apparent how useful this small book could be as an opportunity to inform people of the gem that is the Khari community, and possibly allow them to more easily realize their aspirations.

This text relies almost solely on the memories of older Tibetans and Sherpas; the detail that emerged is amazing, but this is not intended to be an authoritative biography of the Khari Lama. It is a collection of stories about an important person that greatly affected the people that he came in contact with throughout his life, arranged into a narrative that I admit is imperfect. There were parts of his life that I was unable to penetrate, like details about the year or so he spent at Sera Monastery in Lhasa. Due to my lack of qualification and understanding, this collection of stories is only an attempt at presenting some of the outer stories of his life. Therefore, the “secret” stories of the life of the Khari Lama did not emerge out of the community’s collective memory, because he, like most authentic masters, never discussed his own realization unless necessary as a teaching method. This humility allowed him his happy relative poverty and obscurity, but has left an understanding of his inner realization equally obscure; for now, the secret aspect of his life will remain a secret.

Trinley Lama, who met the first Khari Lama and is related to his family, selflessly gave his time to the project to serve as an interpreter. Without his insight as a Tibetan, a Buddhist, and a scholar, the present text would contain many more flaws. He helped me sort through the inconsistencies that arose while collecting oral historical information from a variety of people; old and young, educated and illiterate. As for those inconsistencies, as Tsele Natsok Rangdrol says in "Clarifying the True Meaning:"

Of course it is impossible for any ordinary person to measure fully the virtuous qualities of even a single pore of the Buddha's body, since it defies the reach of ordinary thought. The inconsistencies and dissimilarities in the life stories of enlightened beings come about because those beings are perceived differently by the different levels of people who are to be influenced.

Having had such a vastly different cultural upbringing than a Tibetan Buddhist, if I attempted to write the biography from my own point of view, it would be deeply colored with a conditioning that would have little relevance to the Tibetan community. Recognizing that it is impossible for me to completely remove my own narrative cultural voice, I have tried to remain mindful in the whole process to keep the Khari community and their perspective in focus. When I thought that clarification to the text was necessary, I have revisited informants to obtain more details, some of which I have inserted in footnotes. Any mistakes in the information or problems with the text are due only to my own faults.

Keeping this in mind, I have taken the liberty of inserting verses from Ngodrup Gyaltsen Thogme Sangpo's timeless work, The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva. Not only was the Khari Lama in Sangpo’s lineage, but from one point of view, this entire book could be read as a commentary to the poem. The Khari Lama’s activities were truly those of a realized bodhisattva.

The motivation for this project was to create something that could serve as a source of faith and inspiration for countless practitioners in the future, as well as to aid the growing community of nuns in Tramo. In keeping with this wish, all proceeds from the sale of this small book will go directly to the Khari Gompa. I also pray that this publication will serve to inspire those who have the means and motivation, but not necessary the knowledge of how to assist this most worthy group of practitioners.

Regarding Tibetan words and names in the text, I have romanized them, trying to keep the way they sound, the Tibetan spelling, and the normal convention in mind. In order to eliminate any confusion, I have added the standard Wylie transliterations of all Tibetan names in the index of names and places, and have the transliterations of key words together with their definitions in the glossary.

May this book benefit all who come in contact with it! May any merit from this auspicious activity be dedicated to the complete enlightenment of all beings!

INTRODUCTION:

Traditional Tibetan Hagiography

Stories about past masters have continued to hold a central importance in the wisdom transmissions of all religious traditions, and Buddhisim is no exception. The ancient Jataka tales, detailing the Buddha Shakyamuni’s lives prior to his birth as the historical Buddha, have inspired Mahayana Buddhists for nearly two millennia. In many ways these stories, as well as the extensive biographies of realized masters, are didactic tales demonstrating the attitude and conduct of a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is the ideal Mahayana practitioner who aspires to become the very manifestation of the desire to lead all beings away from suffering into happiness, ultimately in the form of complete awakening out of the ignorance that perpetuates cyclic existence. In Tibetan literature, there is a significant tradition of Buddhist hagiography, or sacred biography. Referred to as namthar (rnam thar), which means "complete liberation," these hagiographies are as revered as the ancient Buddhist sutras for their ability to inspire people to follow the holy Dharma and guide sincere practitioners on the path to enlightenment.

There is a format to namthar literature, followed (either intentionally or unintentionally) in the hagiographies of Indian siddhas, throughout the hagiographies of masters in each school of Tibetan Buddhism. Generally, they are arranged in sections that cover previous lives, auspicious birth, the (often difficult) events surrounding initial refuge in the Dharma and complete entry into the Dharma through reliance on the root guru, teachings recieved, the actualization of those teachings in retreat and subsequent realization, helping others specifically through teaching disciples, and the events and signs surrounding death. Traditional compilers of yogi stories use this format, as would a lama dictating his life story to a student, although he may be humbly reticent about his own realization.

The Khari Lama’s story is not unlike those of other famous yogis, like Jetsun Milarepa, who were born as ordinary folks and experienced great troubles in their youth. After becoming disillusioned with the suffering that is inherent to the human condition they relied completely upon their root gurus, whom they considered to be Buddhas in the flesh. They were instructed in the liberating path and sent into retreat to practice and actualize the Buddha's teaching, for the benefit of all beings. After a long period of intense austerity and effort, they attained resolute confidence in their realization and were naturally compelled to leave their solitary hermitages to teach and help others.

Most Tibetan spiritual biographies go beyond the mere “outer,” or historical aspects of their subjects’ lives; the literal meanings of described events are not necessarily the final meanings. “Inner” biographies relate a more important aspect of the practitioner’s life: teachers, lineages, the teachings themselves transmitted through cycles of texts, and the actual practice. The “secret” biographies of past masters focus on their mystical experiences and realization, either in retreat or in the broader context of the postmediation session of everyday life. In this way, namthar succeeds in fulfilling historical, inspirational and instructional roles simultaneously. It is sometimes said that one can spontaneously see their true nature by reading one of these stories of liberation, or even by merely seeing the title. In this way, namthars of great masters have an empowering quality; close disciples therefore typically write them.

After weaving together oral information transmitted to me by over sixty lay and monastic Tibetans and Sherpas who had contact with the Khari Lamas, the narrative structure describe above spontaneously emerged. It is as if the namthar already existed in the collective consciousness of the community, all I did was find the pieces and put them together; it emerged organically from fragments.

Some readers may take exception to references to reincarnated lamas or accounts that may seem too miraculous to be true, dismissing them as either faith-based fantasy or fabrications designed to glamorize the memory of a teacher. I would request these readers to at least suspend their skepticism for the duration of these pages. The power of a well applied human consciousness is only beginning to be understood by Western science. For over a millennia, practitioners of Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism have dedicated their lives to perfecting specific physical forms in conjuction with exact mental visualizations, prayers and mantras, all fueled with the power of an uncompromising one-pointed motivation to assist others. Once based in an absolute experienctial understanding of the emptiness of all phenomena, these masters have found that the natural result of their immense effort is the ability to manipulate malleable reality, according to natural psychic forces. The Khari Lama Lozang Tsultrim was one of these amazing people. Having mastered the wrathful form of Jikche (Vajrabhairava), he found that through relying on the manifestation of that archetypical energy, he could extend life, heal illnesses, make predictions about the future, affect the weather, and subjugate spirits; he tirelessly employed this ability for the sake of others, as the foundation of Tantra is the altruistic mind that strives for the enlightenment of all beings.

Reincarnation

Dating from the thirteenth century, the Tibetan tulku system of enthroning young boys as the official reincarnations of deseased masters is unique among political and religious systems. Tulku literally means an “emanation body” of a Buddha or bodhisattva, and since the pre-1959 civil bureaucracy of Tibet was mainly administered by monks out of monastic loci power loci, tulkus, who were viewed as having special spiritual efficacy, also held political power. In this way, Janice Willis is correct in pointing out that the tulku system was a “tool for ensuring stability of religious authority, prestige and wealth,” as well as political power. In this way, two or three lamas would often develop rotating teacher and student roles; after the master had passed away his student would be responsible for finding and educating the reincarnation, to ensure the proper transmission of the teachings to his own future birth.

The concept of reincarnation is extrememly ancient and was widespread in traditional cultures. The Buddhists retained the prevalent belief that the consciousness continues in a new form after a post death transition, although they took exeption with the Hindu assertion of a permanent soul that incarnates as an instance of an eternal cosmic soul. Buddhist cosmology presents six realms of existence: that of the gods, the demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings. Each non-human realm is characterized by a particular negative emotion; in fact, the beings that dwell in each of these five realms are unable to even approach the liberative teachings because they are so consumed with their particular affliction. Many westerners have difficulty accepting reincarnation and the existence of the realms, but there is also a traditional understanding of the realms of existence as being pychic states of existence. For example, when a person is consumed by anger he is actually manifesting the reality of the hellbeing; not merely sowing the seeds of future birth in a hell but actually creating the hell in the space around them.

Tibetan Buddhist concepts of death and dying go beyond that which the eyes perceive, explaining the path of consciousness beyond western clinical definitions of death. The term bardo, which literally means “between,” commonly refers to the psychophysical space the consciousness finds itself when released from the body after death. However, the “between” can also be looked at in a more cyclical way, rather than putting the emphasis merely on death as an intermediary between two lives, bardo technically refers to six transitionas in the entire cycle of experience: the life, dream, meditation, death-point, reality and experience betweens. The scheme of the six betweens “is used to create in the practitioner a sense that all moments of existence are ‘between’ moments, unstable, fluid, and transformable into liberated enlightenment experience.” In this way, every aspect of living and dying is a transition from the previous moment into a new one, and is therefore ripe with infinite potential.

The death-point between is a non-dual non-conceptual state that can last from an instant to several days, and holds the greatest potential for complete enlightenment, although almost all beings pass directly through this state without recognizing the clear light nature of their mind. Most who actually recognize mind nature directly after the point of death become swept up in its characteristic great bliss, but by experiencing the empty nature of the clear light “it is said that the combination of bliss meditating on Emptiness is so powerful that it acts like nuclear fission, blasting away the remaining obstacles to the fully awakened state.”

The reality between also holds great potential for liberation, where the consciousness finds itself in various mild and fierce diety betweens. If the consciousness can realize the manifestations as a mere display of its own basic awareness, liberation results. If not, it wanders in the experience between, until finally being drawn by the power of past habitual tendency into the next birthplace. However, rather than being swept along in the self-created current of past action, highly realized beings can intentionally direct their consciousnesses to a desired conception event in order to benefit others in their next life. This intentional rebirth is validated through various signs at the time of death through the cremation ceremonies through clear skies or abrupt changes in the weather, footprints, relics found in the cremation ashes, the master remaining in meditative equipoise after clinical death, and students’ dreams and visions.

Many Buddhist stories emphasize the ordinariness that surrounds the enlightenment experiences of great masters. The simple stories of the Khari Lama that are related here also reflect that tradition; he was an unassuming ordinary man that practiced the Dharma with considerable effort in an accessible way, demonstrating that high realization is not the sole domain of special reincarnated lamas or divinely selected beings, but that when the proper causes and conditions meet, enlightenment is a natural and rather ordinary outcome.

Setting

The high region of Khumbu has been well documented as a hidden valley (sbas yul). A hidden valley is a land sealed by Padmasambhava, the tantric Buddhist master accredited with transmitting the esoteric doctrine to Tibet by establishing Samye Monastery during the latter half of the eighth century. Through the power which emerged from his completely unimpeded nonconceptual awareness he was able to hide a number of valleys thoughout Tibet and the Himalayas until the correct conditions for its opening were ripened. They existed for sincere Buddhists to seek refuge during times of great upheaval, extremely suitable for sustaining life and propagating the teachings. In accordance with this, after a group of Khampa Tibetans emigrated from Kham to Khumbu four to five centuries ago during a time of war in Kham, there has been relative peace and stability in that region.

After the communist Chinese completed their takeover of Central Tibet in 1959, Khumbu again became an important refuge for a war-striken people. Since then, tens of thousands of Tibetans have made the treacherous trek over the Himalayan Nangpa La (pass) from southern Tibet into the high glaciated valleys of Khumbu. Many have stayed and for the most part have been able to integrate into the local Sherpa economy. Others made their ways down through the juniper and rhododendron forests to settle in the steep Pharag valley, or lower in the high hills of Solu district. There, the Trushig Rinpoche has established the Thupten Chöling monastery near the Central Tibetan Government administered Chalsa Refugee Camp. The peaceful land of the Sherpas has proved a crucial venue and transit point for the preservation of Tibetan religion and culture. Even the past ten years, which has seen a tragic civil war in almost every district of Nepal, Khumbu has remained free of conflict.

More recently, Solu Khumbu has become one of the world’s premier tourist destinations. Trekking and mountaineering groups from every continent continue to flock to the pristine mountains, in order to see some of the most magnificent mountains in the world, occupied by the reputably hospitable and hardy Sherpa people. The Sherpa have become highly successful in developing friendly ecotourism to capitalize on their natural endownment. This financial success has brought modernism to Khumbu at a pace, and also has translated into preservation and development of Sherpa culture, especially of the temples and monasteries that adorn the mountainsides above the villages. In turn, some tour operators are now offering treks that follow a pilgrimage to each of the major sacred sites in the Khumbu, and increasingly foreign travelers that have come seeking other high views besides that of the Himalayas.

Many of the stories recorded below take place in Lato, “the upper area,” which is the Southwestern portion of the Central region of Tibet referred to as Tsang. The majority of people in Lato still rely on farming barley for food and mustard seed to make into oil to trade. There are also many semi-nomads that spend part of the year in villages when they are not traveling with herds of yak, goat and sheep from low early spring pastures to high summer pastures. Although the Chinese government has set limitations on the number of animals one family can own, flocks of hundreds of sheep and goats still wander the vast slopes of Himalayan plateau.

The Khari Lama is merely one of the most recent examples of a great number of amazing yogis to practice in the secluded caves that dot the valleys and cliffsides of Lato. There weren’t many expansive monastic centers in the bands of arid ranges that spread north of the Himalayan rim, but small hermitages were in great number in the humble region, that remains one of the poorest in the Land of the Snows. Phadampa Sangye, the late eleventh century founder of the Shiche (Pacification) tradition founded his monastery in Langkor near Dingri, and his disciple Machig Labdron remains the most famous female practitioner in Tibet. She developed the unique chöd practice that has become ubiquitous amongst practitioners in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The ritual offering of the body to an assembly of wrathful beings is a highly effective method for developing renunciation, great compassion and the wisdom that understands emptiness. The austere yogi Milarepa practiced all around Lato, even choosing a cave in Rongshar as his final resting place. Godragpa Sonam Gyaltsen is another excellent example of a simple yogi poet that hid his profound understanding behind a display of povety and simplicity.

Although they may have little education or formal spiritual training, most old Tibetan lay people are extremely devout, turning prayer wheels, making circumambulations of holy sites, mumbling mantras over prayerbeads, hanging prayerflags and burning incense. The people of Lato are no exception. It is difficult to find a Tibetan family home without a shrine, typically the shrines have a special room unto themselves. An important aspect of Tibetan Buddhist lay practice is the upkeep of local sacred sites and the generous support of local practioners and monastic institutions. This is accomplished through visits to monasteries and the lamas that stay there, for a variety of reasons. The Buddhist universe operates on a principle of reciprocity; food, money and other supplies are offered in exchange for advice, divinations, blessings and purifications. On a larger scale, a devotee may sponsor teachings, empowerments or the building of a stupa or temple, which results in good karma and a positive rebirth. This is not, however, the desired motivation, as all Buddhist practice, whether it be good conduct, study or meditation, should be for the benefit of all beings, not oneself. It with this attitude that the Khari Lama dedicated every aspect of his life to others, and with this attitude that we should hold in our hearts as we read the inspiring stories that follow.

Chapter 1: Becoming a Monk

Aspirations

In the Sixteenth Century, before the time of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, there was a married lama community in a village near Phadrug. There were about a hundred families living in the village at that time, led by a great practitioner named Pagpa Drongkha, the Noble of the White Family. He was a great self-made lama. After some time, that place began to be known as Drongkha, due to his great influence in the area.

After Phagpa Drongkha passed away, a boy named Sangye Tenzin was recognized as his reincarnation. Sangye Tenzin became a disciple of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s tutor, the scholarly Yongzin Yeshe Gyaltsen, and also became very learned. Regarding his wonderful student’s lineage and past life, Yongzin Yeshe Gyaltsen made an aspiration prayer, saying, “In Drongkha, a very holy lama will always be born.” One can never be sure, but perhaps due to this prayer, Lozang Tsultrim took birth in that same small village a few hundred years later.

Shelkar Chöde

Drongkha was located in Shelkar Dzong (County), and Shelkar Chöde Gompa (monastery), the White Crystal Dharma Center, served as its county seat. The gompa was located just under tall fortress walls embedded into the side of a large sacred hill, originally refered to as Queen Mountain or Drolma Mountain, due to its association with dakinis, feminine embodiments of wisdom energy who grant practitioners blessings. The mountain came to be known as Shelkar, the White Crystal, after Situ Chökyi Rinchen built a palace at the top that resembled an upside down white crystal bowl. The monastery buildings, which spread down the steep cliffs of the mountainside towards the plains below, gradually expanded until a network of various mudbrick structures enveloped the imposing rock faces.

The traditions at the gompa, which was founded in 1264, changed many times in its history. There were three schools of Tibetan Buddhism there at once, with Sakya, Bodongpa, and Nyingma monks all sharing the same monastery for studying and practicing the Dharma. At one time, there were also twenty-one different sub-schools of monks in the gompa, a very uncommon situation.

In the year 1645, the Fifth Dalai Lama completely converted Shelkar to a Gelugpa gompa. Those who were not Gelugpa were moved to the new Mandura Gompa built for them in the village below the Shelkar Gompa. Tromselwa Lekpa Dhundrup became the first khenpo (abbot) of the new exclusively Gelugpa Shelkar Gompa. He asked for permission from the government in Lhasa to expand the gompa to house more monks, so a law was made that stated that out of every three boys born to a good family in Shelkar Dzong, one had to become a monk. Since the eldest son inherited much of the family’s wealth and the youngest son was often the mother’s favorite, typically the middle son was sent to live in the monastery.

The Gelugpa bureaucracy was run through other similarly large gompas that were spread throughout the vast mountain plateau. The Dalai Lama’s government also granted large tracts of land to those other gompas to support the growing numbers of monks who were employed as civil servants in monastic seats of political power. The local people were predominantly farmers, sometimes conscripted to work gompa land in addition to their own feilds. Because of this system, some monks served outside of the monasteries as representatives of the government, collecting taxes and looking over public property in the villages.



The ruins above the Shelkar Chode Monastery in Tibet


Birth

At the end of the nineteenth century, there were about twenty farming families in Drongkha village. A man of the Gyejangba family named Dawa Phuntsok lived there with his wife Yonten, and their daughter Yangdrön Lhamo. Around the year 1889, they had a son who was named Lozang Tsultrim. Gyejangba later had two more daughters, Ngawang Drolma and Yonten, and a son Namgyal Dorje. Another son was born after that, but he passed away when he was small. However, before Lozang's younger brother's untimely passing, the parents, in accordance with the tax, sent Lozang away to Shelkar Gompa to become a monk. Little Lozang was around six years old at that time.

Lozang was a naughty monk, and did not show much interest in studying and learning the Buddhist teachings. He had some natural talent with Tibetan opera, and became very good at singing the long high-pitched melodies. He was preoccupied with playing and singing throughout his adolescence, belting out tunes as he gaily picked his way through the rocky paths that snake around Shelkar.

Education

In old Tibet, only monks and aristocratic youth had the opportunity to study, and regardless of a young monk’s lack of interest, the academic schedule at Shelkar Chöde was very rigorous. Every morning at around four all of the young monks gathered for morning prayers. Monks who had already finished their exams were only required to attend on special days like the tenth and twenty-fifth of each Tibetan month. The tenth day of the Tibetan month (ten days after the new moon) is a special day associated with Guru Rinpoche, the Tantric adept who enabled the initial transmission of Buddhism to Tibet in the Eighth Century, through the founding of Samye monastery. The twenty-fifth day is for practices associated with the dakinis. They chanted inside the gompa until six am, and were served two big bowls of salty Tibetan tea and a bowl of rice or tsampa (roast barley flour) porridge provided by the Shelkar Chöde organization. Tibetan tea is typically made by blending black tea with rock salt, yak butter, and milk, making it specially suited for the harsh mountain climate.

When they finished reciting morning prayers, all of the students went to their respective classrooms. They studied diligently for three hours, reading prayer texts over and over until they were embedded in memory. They again gathered in the prayer hall, and the monks brought pag (thick tsampa dough) for lunch, washed down with another two big bowls of butter tea. After the prayers and lunch, they returned to their classrooms for another two hours. Then they were allowed to go back to their homes or rooms, to rest and play. At around four o’clock, there was another big assembly prayer and offerings were made to protector deities outside the main assembly hall in the stone courtyard. At times for dinner the monks would be given three big dumplings, rice and tea, and yogurt in the summer months. This lasted for about an hour, and immediately afterwards they went back to class, reading over texts again and again until the evening sun dipped below the rim of the Tsibri mountain range in the west. Before being allowed to leave for the day, the little monks had to recite what they had managed to memorize that day in front of their teacher.

The preceptors kept the rules very strict. The monks had to follow “monastery discipline” during the assemblies. The venerable elder monks expected to be treated respectfully, and attempted to tightly control younger monks, often times hitting the naughty ones with sticks. There was not much time for a young monk to play, although they were released to their villages for one month in the spring and in the autumn, to help plant and harvest barley.

The new monks initially had to memorize texts for seven to nine years. The first big exam, referred to as the Kachen (Great Instruction), tested the students on 381 pages of memorized prayers that were recited at various ritual occasions throughout the year. At Shelkar, eight students sat for the Kachen exam each year, selected according to seniority. Although many monks had to wait a few years before getting a chance to sit for the Kachen exam, most monks were only able to recite about 250 pages or so when their time came. About one hundred of those pages were absolutely necessary to know, and a monk was expected to be able to flawlessly recite them.
In the monastery, there were three courses of action for monks that had completed the Kachen exam: studying Tsennyi, studying tantric rituals, and managing the monastic holdings. Upon passing the first exam, most monks directly began Tsennyi training. Every month in debate class each monk would sit for a thirteen-page memorized test. Only four monks would sit for the final test each year, called the Rabjam (All-Encompassing) exam, at which time the students debated in front of their teacher. Including the Kachen studies, the whole curriculum took at least twelve or thirteen years to complete.

After completing the Rabjam exams, some students went to Ngagpa College to study Tantric rituals. There were only about twenty-five Tantric students at Shelkar. They learned how to conduct ceremonies by making ritual cakes and mandalas, to perform fire purifications, and to play the ritual drums, cymbals, and horns.

Managing Estates

The Shelkar Chöde Gompa was wealthy with many buildings, land holdings, and patrons. Some of the monks became managers of the land holdings, and their main job was to supervise the farm work on the monastery's land, collect the grain, and sell it to make a profit for the gompa. During planting, harvest, and collection times, the monks who chose this path would walk or ride down from the high, whitewashed walls of the monastery, through the small village below, and follow narrow roads through the high mountains to the area under his care. There were two types of land managers in the Shelkar system: small managers called martza and larger ones called shikar. It was a martza manager's duty to offer one day's worth of assembly rations to the Shelkar monks five times a year for five years. Martza land parcels were only about one hundred meters square, and did not generate nearly enough revenue to offer all the monks’ rations twenty five times. Much of the offerings had to come from the manager’s family, so typically only the monks with weathy families were able to manage estates.

After passing his exams, Lozang Tsultrim moved in with a fellow monk named Lozang Jampa. They became close friends. As roomates, they looked out for each other and shared resources. Jampa went off to work as a martza in charge of a small land holding; taking care of the people and collecting revenues for Shelkar Chöde. Lozang Tsultrim was his assistant and they moved away from Shelkar Chöde for five years, often traveling between the gompa and the land holding. Both of their families supported them by making the required offerings.

After five years of managing the estate, Jampa and Lozang were appointed to manage a large land holding in a small village called Shekar. The shikar’s duty was to turn a profit for the gompa, and if he were so inclined he could do much to help the people due to the power that came with the position. Everything collected was sent back to Shelkar Chöde, and the official was paid around nine hundred kilograms of grain a year for his service. Extra grain was paid to managers with dogs and horses, as mastiffs in Tibet also eat tsampa and meat, like the people. If a monk was ambitious or had lofty political aspirations, managing a large parcel of land was the next step to gaining wealth, prestige, or promotion. After five years of managing a large estate, one could be promoted to treasurer, director, or to even higher positions like junior or senior Khenpo of the gompa.

A Sherpa man named Nyima Suntar was Lozang and Jampa’s main trading partner. During the dry seasons, Nyima led his yak caravan in Tibet from Solu Khumbu carrying chilies, rice, rice paper, wood, dye, sugar, butter and dairy products. He traded these with Jampa and Lozang for dried cheese, fat, meat, rock salt, tsampa, and wool, which he brought back to the Nepali side of the Himalayan rim.
As Lozang Tsultrim got older, he began to take a real interest in personal spiritual practice. He became tired of staying at Shelkar Gompa all of the time, and yearned for the peace and quiet of the remote hills. Shelkar Chöde was a district capital in a big village; there were people constantly ascending the hillside to visit the gompa, organize rituals, and to visit friends and relatives. Shelkar Gompa was like a small village unto itself, with its own complicated relationships, politics, and gossip. Lozang Tsultrim felt that all of the monastery's rules regarding attendance at rituals and the work schedule made it difficult for him to practice the Dharma without obstruction. As he began to take a serious interest in his practice, he developed very hermitic tendencies. Due to this, Lozang Tsultrim did not actually assist Jampa at the small estate much.

The local farmers used the monastery’s animals, compost and tools to work the land, and most of the grains were sent back to Shelkar Chöde. Lozang observed the difficult life of hard working farmers, characterized by the human sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, and death. Free from the confines of the monastery, Lozang was happier, and tried to take care of the villagers. By this time, Lozang spent more and more time making offerings, chanting prayers, practicing calm abiding meditation and compassion, thinking less and less about his own needs. Jampa attended his friend while attempting to take care of the estates. Although it is a great blessing to serve a serious practitioner, it was difficult for Jampa to manage a whole village at the same time as taking care of his friend.

Lozang did not really care for trading, buying and selling animals, and began neglecting the tax collection. Due to his loss of attachment to worldly things and compassion for the poor villagers, he actually gave some of the monastery’s property away. They were unable to make a profit for Shelkar Chöde, and created considerable debt. After eight years as a shikar manager, Lozang finally decided that it was not the best path for a monk to be involved in business. Lozang Tsultrim and Jampa’s families paid off the debts with grain, horses, yaks, sheep, goats, and other properties. This created a great difficulty for the families, and the monastic officials were also very upset.

Chapter 2: The Perfection of Renunciation

Refuge at Lingka

It is the practice of Bodhisattvas to renounce this life, since
Relatives and friends of long-standing must part, wealth and material goods
Accumulated with great effort must be left behind and the body,
Like a guesthouse, must be discarded by the guest of consciousness.

Due to the poor performance of the shikar estate, many people were angry with Lozang Tsultrim. He had few friends at Shelkar Chöde Gompa, and he did not want to return. He preferred the quiet villages, away from the busy life of a large monastery. Many of the monks at Shelkar teased him about his problems at the estate, and Lozang became weary of the world. He then realized that a human birth is too precious to waste by becoming entangled in business, trying to gain wealth and prestige. The human body is the basis for practicing the true path to liberation, and it is said that being reborn as a human is less likely than a dried pea thrown against a pane of glass sticking. Lozang saw how he had already wasted years of his wonderful opportunity to rely on a realized master. The only certainty one can have about death is that it will come, and understanding this impermanence, Lozang decended the hill from Shelkar Chöde Gompa into the village to a small branch monastery, the Lingka Gompa.

He took refuge by offering his body, speech, and mind while prostrating three times to the venerable lama who lived in the small gompa, the Lingka Kangyur Rinpoche, Jetsun Ngawang Lozang Tsultrim Gyaltsen. Lozang considered him his tsawe lama (root teacher), and completely renounced everything to devote himself fully to the practice of the Dharma. The Lingka Rinpoche, born in 1856, was a highly realized master from Phadrug Tashi Dzom in Shelkar Dzong, and was considered to be the incarnation of the White Manjusri. His tsawe lama was Ngodrup Khyungpo Rinpoche, the disciple of Khedrup Ngawang Dorje, the disciple of Yangchen Drupe Dorje, the disciple of the wondrous Ngodrup Gyaltsen Thogme Sangpo, the author of The Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, quoted in this text. Thogme Sangpo’s root teacher was Ngodrup Darmabada, the disciple of Gyalpo Nyensa Nyengyu, who learned under the great Tsongkhapa, the unsurpassed scholar in the land of the snows.

At that time, Lozang took his Gelong [full monastic] vows and offered his teacher a large empty copper water pot. Taking this as a sign, the Lingka Rinpoche predicted, “You will become just like Jetsun Milarepa,” and gave Lozang the name Gelong Namse, which means the Perfect Son (of the Buddhas). Gelong Namse remained at the Lingka gompa receiving all the essential teachings of sutra and tantra of the Gelug tradition. Gelong Namse began seriously studying and memorizing Tsongkapa’s masterwork, the Lamrim Chenmo, the Great Exposition on the Stages to the Path. He also received empowerment, oral transmission, and commentaries for the dakini Vajrayogini, and the yidam (personal meditation deity) practices of Yamantaka, Guhyasamaja, and Chakrasamvara.
The Lingka Rinpoche saw his student practicing intently and realized he was ready to apply the teachings without distraction, so he suggested that Gelong Namse go to the Chuzang Gompa for more teachings and retreat.

Retreat at Chuzang Gompa

It is the practice of the Bodhisattvas to renounce their homelands
Which condition desire like water, wavering towards relatives;
Anger like fire, spreading towards enemies; and ignorance, creating a
Cloudiness in the mind so one forgets what to accept and discard.

There was once a mountain to the east of Bodh Gaya in India, where the mahasiddha (Great Accomplished One) Shelwa spent many years in retreat. According to local legend, a part of that mountain flew to Tibet and landed in a huge poisonous lake, which was a sign of the spread of the Buddha’s teachings to Tibet. The mountain wanted to leave, but the local dakinis pegged it down with four nail-like rocks in each direction, creating four rivers around the sacred range, now known as Tsibri (Ribs Mountain). Saturated with the blessings of the eighty-four mahasiddhas and endowed by Guru Rinpoche with hidden treasures, Tsibri is a powerful place for solitary yogis to practice. During the sacred month Saka Dawa (the fourth Tibetan month), many pilgrims from the surrounding villages circumambulate the holy range, which takes about four days.

Before it was completely destroyed by the communist Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, the Chuzang Gompa was nestled in the north side of Tsibri, while the Shelkar Gompa rested in the east. Gelong Namse walked northwest upstream, and after a day’s walk he picked his way up the mountainside towards the Chuzang Gompa, set like a hidden fortress among the tall dark gray crags. Upon arrival, he offered his body, speech and mind by prostrating to the Chuzang Rinpoche, Jetsun Lozang Sangye Tenpe Dronme. Born in Khata Dreme village, Shelkar Dzong in 1892, the Chuzang Rinpoche was also a disciple of the Lingka Rinpoche. He was the fourth incarnation of Sangye Konchog, a previous khenpo of the Shelkar Chöde Gompa.

In that auspicious place, Gelong Namse continued to study and intensely practice the Lamrim. The Chuzang Rinpoche sent him into retreat in a cave on the holy mountainside. However, his reputation preceded him to the Chuzang Gompa, and he was disliked by many of the monks. During his three year three month retreat in the cave above the Chuzang Gompa, the Chuzang Rinpoche went to Lhasa. The other monks who were asked to serve him seriously neglected him, sometimes bringing him only the leftover butter at the bottom of a teacup, which Gelong Namse would lick out to survive. He trained in the perfection of forbearance for the sake of the Dharma in this way.

When the Chuzang Rinpoche returned, all of the monks lined up in a great procession to greet him. However, Gelong Namse was too weak to come out for the welcoming, so the Chuzang Rinpoche later went up to visit him in the cave. He was welcomed with a poor sight, as Gelong Namse was not only famished but covered with lice as well. He felt a great deal of compassion for the perserverant monk and invited Namse to stay in his own private temple to complete his retreat. The monks even teased the Chuzang Rinpoche behind his back, saying things like, “now lice will get into his own temple!”

During his retreat, at the Chuzang Gompa, Gelong Namse made one thousand water bowl offerings seven times a day and completed his first set of the preliminary practices to cleanse negative karma and accumulate merit. The ordinary preliminaries are reflections on the tremendous preciousness of attaining a human rebirth, the impermanence of life, the defects of the six realms of samsara (cyclic existence), and the cause and effect of action. Having internalized this first set, he next accomplished the extraordinary preliminaries of making full length prostrations while reciting a refuge prayer to the Three Jewels, generating bodhicitta (the altruistic mind of enlightenment), reciting the purificatory mantra of Vajrasattva, offering mandala (representative of oneself and the universe), and invoking the root and lineage lamas at least one hundred ten thousand times each. Due to the frigid Tibetan weather, his hands began to bruise, split and bleed from the prostrations. He remained alone and persisted despite external conditions and internal discouragement. While in his retreats he also recited over one million Migtsema prayers:

Avalokitesvara, great treasure of indiscriminate compassion,
Manjusri, lord of stainless knowledge,
Vajrapani, subduer of all enemies without exception,
Tsongkhapa, crown ornament of scholars in the land of snows,
Lozang Dragpa [Tsongkhapa], at your feet I pray.



Thangka painting of the Chuzang Gompa in Tibet

Retreat at Rongshar

It is the practice of Bodhisattvas to remain in remote places where
Afflictions gradually diminish by abandoning disturbing locations,
Where wholesome deeds naturally increase by being undistracted, and
Where clear-mindedness gives rise to conviction in the Dharma.

Following the advice of the Chuzang Rinpoche, upon completion of his retreat Gelong Namse departed in solitude for the mountains. He told no one at Shelkar Chöde where he was going, because there was a rule against monks living outside of a monastery. Had he informed Shelkar or his family that he was going, the family would have objected to his traveling far out to a dangerous border area alone, and would not have allowed him to leave. After he disappeared, the Gyejang family and Shelkar Chöde Gompa became very upset. Family members looked around for him without success, and some decided he must have died.

Gelong Namse walked towards the towering peaks of the Himalayan border with Nepal, east of the holy Lapchi mountain range to the remote Chuwar Ganden Drophenling Gompa in Rongshar, the blessed place where Jetsun Milarepa passed away. There, he relied upon the Zagalung Lama, Kunsang Chönyi Gyatso. The Zagalung Lama was born around 1856 in Kham Tragyap and did intensive meditation practices in the Zagalung (Nettle Valley) cave at Rongshar when he was young. He was a student of Tashi Lhunpo Kyilthur Lozang Jinpa, Yangchen Drupa Dorje and Ngodrup Jigme Wangpo. He used a sheepskin as a meditation cushion in his cave, and was such a dedicated practitioner that he wore a hole completely through the pelt.
The whole Rongshar area is blessed with the miraculous deeds of Jetsun Milarepa. The Zagalung Lama became a dedicated self-made lama, displaying the actions of a bodhisattva. He then built the Chuwar Gompa, a small temple in front of the meditation cave, a holy place connected to Guru Rinpoche. The people in the area began to associate him with Guru Rinpoche and called him the Zagalung Rinpoche, the Precious One of the Nettle Valley. They asked him to remain at the hermitage there for the benefit of the local people. Due to the Zagalung Lama’s enlightened activities, the Great Thirteenth Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso approved his permanent residence there as a local teacher.

The Zagalung lama transmitted the mother chöd (cutting) teachings of Machig Labdron to Gelong Namse in that auspicious place. After receiving the transmission, Namse embarked on a chodkhor, wandering to various locations associated with spirits, practicing chöd. In this way he conquered fear and accumulated a great amount of merit from his ritual offerings. Once completed, the lama gave him more teachings on Vajrayogini, as well as more detailed instructions on the Thirteen-deity Yamantaka yidam practice. He then moved to Drije Phuk, the Demon’s Tongue Cave, situated above the Chuwar gompa just below a large snow mountain. He meditated in solitude for three years and three months. After completing another set of the preliminary practices, he focused on the Thirteen-deity Yamantaka and the Vajrayogini practices, and began to become greatly accomplished with the Yidam and Dakini.

In 1931, while Gelong Namse was in retreat at Rongshar, the Lingka Rinpoche passed away. The Lingka Rinpoche had a mole on his cheek, and after his passing the monks at Shelkar Chöde Gompa had a statue of him made, but the mole was left off. After some time, as a sign of the great realization of Gelong Namse’s root teacher, the forgotten mole spontaneously appeared on the cheek of the statue. Unfortunately, this statue, along with all the other valuable Dharma articles at Shelkar Chöde, was either destroyed or looted during the Cultural Revolution.

Leaving Retreat for the Benefit of Others

Gelong Namse’s older sister Yangdrön Lhamo was married to a man named Pema Dorje, the governor of Phakri Dzong. Around 1935 he became very sick and passed away in Phakri, which was east of Dingri and north of Bhutan. Because he was an important person, the news spread and reached Namse while he was meditating in retreat. Uncertain as to what to do, he performed a mo (divination) in his cave, which indicated that he should break retreat to see the family during this difficult time. He covertly traveled the road at night. During the day he hid in the mountains and did Yamantaka practice. Although he had broken retreat for the benefit of his sister’s family, he continued his ascetic practices alone.

The family invited eight monks to the house to perform last rites for the governor, including chanting the Bardo Thödrol (Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State), to guide his consciousness through the stages between death and rebirth. The family was surprised but happy to see Gelong Namse. After he arrived to assist with the ceremonies, he went to sit at the corner of the kitchen to wash his hair. He took off his robes and the family discovered that it was full of lice because he never changed or washed. Out of compassion, he typically allowed the lice to live on him. Some of the monks saw that and were very surprised and impressed. They made exclaimations like, “Oh, practitioners really should be like that! He hasn’t attachment to anything!” In this way, he set an example of a true yogi’s lifestyle. After the rituals were completed, he returned to his retreat in Rongshar, traveling in the same reclusive manner as before.

One day, when he was practicing in his cave, his tsampa ran out. He did not know what to do, and at that time no one knew about his situation or exact location. He became a bit desperate, but he discovered the leather on his femur bone flute used for the chöd ritual. He thought that he might starve to death, so he boiled the leather and nibbled it for three days. After he had eaten it all, he remained for a while eating just nutritive spiritual pills. Rather than breaking his retreat again, he endured great hardship to practice the Dharma.

Gelong Namse’s sister Yangdrön Lhamo had a daughter named Nyima Dekyi, who later married into the Lhamdun family. Her husband, Kungo (Sir) Trinley Rapden was in charge of the Nepali Tibetan border area at Rongshar village. One day, after Namse had become very sick and weak from living on just pills, some people came by his cave in the mountains. He sent a letter with them to Trinley Rapden, and there were even lice in the envelope. The family members exclaimed, “He has no time to even clean himself, and it’s too cold to wash! It must be very difficult! He practices too much!” The family immediately sent someone to get him at his place in the mountains near Rongshar. They brought him out of his mountain retreat to Nyima and Trinley’s house in Rongshar village and served him until he was feeling better. They were surprised to find Namse in such a deplorable state, and people began to recognize him as a great renunciate who had truly given up all worldly things.

Return to Shelkar Chöde Gompa

Although Gelong Namse had broken the monastery’s rules, Shelkar Chöde invited him to stay there again, and they gave him special treatment. He had proven himself extraordinarily committed to the Dharma. They offered him his share of food without having to do his duties or work for the gompa. Since they let him do whatever he wanted, Gelong Namse built a small retreat house on the mountain above Shelkar Gompa next to a rock called Deu Dong Chan, the Monkey Face. At first he was still required to come down the hill to Shelkar each morning to attend the early morning assemblies, but after some time, Gelong Namse started concentrating on his strict Yamantaka practices that necessitated total solitude. The gompa then allowed him to skip the gatherings. By this time, the Lhamdun family supported Namse’s practice at Monkey Face rock, providing him with all of his tea, butter, and tsampa.

He completely closed himself off in his retreat house, and built a rock wall in the door so that no one could enter. The place had a small enclosure in the back with a door where he could kick his excrement out, so he never had to leave. There was only one small window on the south side that allowed light in. Close people, like family members, would sometimes climb the steep mountainside to converse with him through this window to get a divination and advice.

A monk named Palgye Raptangwa was Gelong Namse’s attendant. It was a very easy job, because all he had to do was bring water up once a week and put it into a tank above the retreat house. There was a pipe that brought in the water from the tank. Namse set it up this way so he could completely minimize his contact with other people. Palgye, the closest person to him at this time, was not allowed in at all. Namse continued doing Yamantaka practice above Shelkar for three years and three months.

During this time, Namse’s niece Nyima Dekyi came down with a mysterious stomach illness. She had become pregnant, but at the time no one knew. Amjis (Tibetan doctors) tried curing her illness through moxibustion, which consists of burning grasses near the sick location on the body to remove obstructions, to no avail. Nyima finally said, “I need to see my uncle because I’m very sick.” She was afraid that she might die. They sent a message to Gelong Namse and he came after seven days. Unlike other lamas, he did not have any possessions, and he did not bring special blessing or purification substances. Instead, he just drank butter tea and told her to rub the left-over butter grease on her stomach. He recited Migtsema prayers over the tea as he drank it. In fact, Gelong Namse continuously murmured the Migtsema prayer under his breath at all times. She rubbed the butter grease on her stomach every day, and after about two weeks, she recovered from the morning sickness. Namse returned to his retreat.


The retreat house at Monkey Face Rock.

After his retreat, Gelong Namse went on pilgrimage to Lhasa, and stayed at a man named Punsho’s house for about a month. He traveled around visiting the important holy sites in Lhasa, and met His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Retreat at Khari, the Sky Mountain

There was an old ruined gompa at a place called Khari, the Sky Mountain, about an hour’s climb from Gelong Namse’s tiny village of Drongkha. Depa Lhamdun Nyetsang, the chief of the Drongkha village, owned the land and offered it to Gelong Namse. After his third three year three month retreat, he left his retreat house above Shelkar, and continued to intensely practice in a cave above the ruins at Khari. At that time, in 1936, the Zagalung Lama, who transmitted chöd to the Khari Rinpoche, passed away.

Much of the land around the Khari Gompa’s ruins belonged to Gelong Namse’s Gyejangba family. The Khari cliffs are shaped like an upright, cupped hand. Some say it resembles a large, white, right-turning conch shell, a holy symbol indicating a lack of obstacles to the spread of the Dharma. On the west side of the mountain there was a place called Dzong, where a small Nyingmapa Gompa was perched. About a twenty-minute walk below Drongkha there were also ruins of another gompa called Gompa Karbo, the White Monastery.

An hour’s walk below Drongkha, near the river, was the larger settlement of Lhamdun, the home of Gelong Namse’s neice’s family. Across the river from Lhamdun there lived another family called Yangkhang Nga. They were quite wealthy, and they owned a water mill on the river that ground tsampa. They provided the future Khari community with tsampa for many years.

The villagers were sad about the old Khari monastery’s ruinous state, so they offered it to Gelong Namse. He was not engaged in strict solitary retreat like before, in order to allow people to see him. Although it was not a strict retreat, he stopped going beyond the line of the limited area of the Khari Gompa. During that time he began renovating the gompa for visitors to stay. After his solitary practice at Deu Dong Chan, people regarded him as a real lama, a true object of refuge. Nuns and monks began to gather in order to practice the Dharma near Gelong Namse, because he had established stabilized realization through intense effort in meditation practice.

Dzogchen Teachings

Namse’s root teacher, the Lingka Rinpoche, had already passed away by the time he was meditating in the cave at Khari. He felt that he was on the verge of understanding emptiness in all aspects of the meditation and post-meditation state, but he had no other teacher to assist him by pointing out the highest view. He then realized that the Dzatul Rinpoche could help him, so he decided to visit him for teachings on how to actualize the union of emptiness and appearance. The Dzatul Rinpoche Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, born in 1866, founded the Dza Rongphu Gompa, the Rocky Valley Monastery. He was a disciple of Trulshig Donga Lingba Rinpoche, and people referred to him as the Rongphu Sangye, the Buddha from the Rocky Valley.

On the way to Dza Rongphu Namse joined the Naptra Rinpoche Kunzang Namgyal, a disciple of Khyentse Wangpo and the Rongphu Sangye. Naptra Rinpoche was a tall Nyingma lama, born around 1885 in Kham Minyak. He was also an expert in Buddhist philosophy and was the tutor for Sakya Trichen Rinpoche, the head of the Sakya school. When Naptra Rinpoche was in mountain retreat with Trichen Rinpoche’s son, he read two texts by the Dzatul Rinpoche. He was touched so deeply he decided he had to study under the master. He left his duties in Kham and went to Dza Rongphu monastery. Dzatul Rinpoche had a dream the night before he came indicating the arrival of the Naptra Rinpoche, and upon arriving he was invited to stay to study. Dzatul Rinpoche foresaw the arrival of the Naptra Rinpoche in a dream the night before they got there, and requested the Naptra Rinpoche to stay when they had reached the gompa.

When Gelong Namse and the Naptra Rinpoche were walking through the wide rocky vallies south to Dza Rongphu, they stopped along a riverside and made tea together. Naptra Rinpoche, in the typical Tibetan style, had a very long pinky nail. When making butter tea, he used his long nail to scoop butter in each of the cups, which highly impressed Gelong Namse.

Upon arriving at Dza Rongphu, they visited the Dzatul Rinpoche, and received an Avalokitesvara empowerment from him. Dzatul Rinpoche then gave Dzogchen teachings, and said “I’m offering you the key to the Dzogpa Chenpo Longchen Nyingthig (Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Completeness),” to the Naptra Rinpoche. After the transmissions, Gelong Namse completed the preliminary practices for the Avalokitesvara empowerment that he received from the Nyingma master. In this way he was assisted in completely realizing the view.

Gelong Namse went back to Dza Rongphu Gompa many times for father chöd and Dzogchen teachings, and after the Dzatul Rinpoche passed away in 1940, he made the trip to visit the Dzatul Rinpoche’s heart disciple, Trulshig Rinpoche. The Trulshig Rinpoche, born in 1924 in Yamdrok Taklung, received all of Dzatul Rinpoche’s teachings while staying at Dza Rongphu. He was the reincarnation of the Dzatul Rinpoche’s teacher, Trulshig Donga Lingba Rinpoche.

The Dzatul Rinpoche also transmitted the Nyingmapa supplication prayer, the lama kyangpen, to Gelong Namse, which he used to open up prayers in assembly, a practiced continued to this day at the Khari Gompa. Although Gelong Namse was Gelugpa, his Dharma was completely nonsectarian, and he received many Nyingmapa empowerments and teachings from the Rongphu Sangye and the Trulshig Rinpoche. In his room he had thangkas of Tsongkapa, Guru Rinpoche, and even Kargyus masters such as Naropa. Some people even referred to him as the baren (mixed) lama, because he combined the best of the different spiritual traditions he encountered while living in Latö.

Chapter Three: Becoming a Refuge for Others

Establishing the Khari Gompa

It is the practice of Bodhisattvas to hold excellent
Spiritual friends as even more dear than their own bodies.
When relying on these excellent spiritual friends, faults decrease and
Good qualities increase like the waxing of the moon.

The people living in Latö had very strong faith in the Dharma, and made many offerings to local monasteries and sincere practitioners. The Lhamdun family continued to sponsor Gelong Namse and the growing monastic community nestled under Sky Mountain. In 1940, the practitioners who had gathered around Gelong Namse began to rebuild Khari Gompa and His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama renamed it Khari Samtenling, the Sky Mountain Island of Samadhi (deep meditative stabilization).

In order to establish a tradition of preserving the Vinaya (Monastic Discipline), Gompa Karbo was renovated for the monks, while the nuns lived at the Khari Gompa. At the beginning, there were only ten nuns, one Geshe and three fully ordained monks. All the people, lay and monastic, worked very hard to rebuild the Khari Gompa. The nuns dug and packed mud into bricks and layed them in the sun to harden. Once ready, they strapped the bricks to their backs and carried them to the site, where the monks and local men stacked them to form the walls of the buildings.

When the community members first broke ground and cleared the foundation for the gompa, Gelong Namse sat down on the ground in the middle of the building site. He immediately consecrated the land by performing an offering to Palden Hlamo and other protector deities. Gelong Namse rarely left the area and the nuns and monks staying near him did not go out and ask for donations, preferring to let the gompa slowly expand as people gave offerings. He never accumulated what people offered, but used it immediately to support the spiritual community. The people regarded him as a lama just like Jetsun Milarepa. The locals began calling him Khari Rinpoche, the Precious One of Sky Mountain, because he was as rare and precious as a wish-fulfilling jewel.

A few years later the number of residents at Khari had increased to about ninety nuns and ten monks, and the Vinaya was heavily emphasized. Some of the monks that took vows with the Khari Rinpoche at Gompa Karbo were Tsultrim Kalsang, Tsultrim Yeshe, Gelong Trinley Wangchuk, and Gomchung (Little Meditator) from Drongkha. They celebrated the Great Prayer Festival during the first Tibetan month, and performed eight two-day Nyungnay Purification Retreats during Saka Dawa, as well as during two other times in the year. The Nyungnay retreats are a period of fasting and prayer to Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, during which time lay practitioners take on monastic vows for a short period. Influenced by the example of Gelong Namse, the nuns and monks there also engaged in many retreats, some for three-year three-month periods.

After a while, Gelong Namse moved down out of his retreat cave to a small mud house at the Khari Gompa. Two nuns named Ani Chödon and Tsering Phuti cooked his meals and assisted him at that time. In actuality, all of the nuns worked together to attend to him and look after the growing community.


The Khari Samtenling Gompa in Tibet

After the Lingka Rinpoche passed away in 1931, Gelong Namse’s nephew, also named Lozang Tsultrim, was a candidate for recognition as his reincarnation. His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognized another boy, but his parents thought that Lozang was a special child that must have been a practitioner in a previous life, so at age seven they sent him to Shelkar Chöde Gompa to be a monk.

During the winter break around 1950, when Lozang was nineteen, Gelong Namse thought it would benefit the young monk’s mind if he did a retreat at Gompa Karbo. The young Lozang Tsultrim spent a month there reciting refuge prayers while prostrating. During the next Shelkar break, Gelong Namse invited his nephew to do retreat in the cave up on the Khari hillside. He instructed that it would be auspicious for Lozang to use the cave where he himself had practiced, establishing a great link between them. Young Lozang did another one-month retreat, completing about 100,000 Migtsema prayers.

Lhasa Pilgrimage

In 1954, just before the first Tibetan month, Gelong Namse went on a second pilgrimage to Lhasa. He took a direct route from Dingri. He passed through the Ae village in Lhoka County, south of Lhasa, in order to visit his great-neice Kalsang, who had a house there with her husband. At this time, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama had gone to Beijing to visit Mao Zedong, and Kalsang's husband Dhundrup Puntsok had gone with him as an assistant. Because of this, Kalsang was actually staying with the Lhamdun family in Lhasa. Regardless, Gelong Namse remained in Ae for about fifteen days, reciting the 100,000 Twenty-One Tara prayers for the benefit of the people and giving empowerments to the local villagers. He also visited Samye in Lhoka County, the first monastery established in Tibet.

After fifteen days in Ae, he traveled through the Yarlung Valley north to Lhasa, remaining for around one month. He met Kalsang and stayed with his Lhamdun relatives, and visited all of the important pilgrimage sites around Lhasa such as the Potala Palace, the Jokhang, and the three great monastic centers Ganden, Drepung, and Sera. He was unable to see His Holiness, however, because the Dalai Lama had gone to China.

Some Khari nuns, including Ani Wangmo, Ani Palchung, and Ani Ngawang Tarchen, who was the Gelong Namse’s niece, followed him by a different, northerly route to Lhasa. They visited many holy places in Central Tibet, such as the immense sacred Sakya monastery, and begged alms along the way. They stayed for twenty days in Lhasa, visiting all the great places and attending the Great Lhasa Prayer Festival. The nuns stayed in a rented house in the city. Sometimes the nuns would go to the Lhamdun family’s house to perform rituals with Gelong Namse.

He also gave a Vajrayogini empowerment to his family members in Lhasa. Kalsang was pregnant at this time, and asked him if her baby would be a boy or a girl. She already had two daughters at that time. He did not say anything when she asked. At the end of the empowerment, he passed out blessing pills. When her turn came to receive one, two stuck together by themselves as he picked them out of the pot. This was considered very auspicious, and he said, “You will have a son.” She had a baby boy after Gelong Namse returned to Khari.

He explained, “Dharma practice is very important and you should have faith. One should practice compassion as the most important thing. This body is precious because it is endowed with the eighteen leisures and freedoms, and it is because of previous good practice that we attained this precious birth. If we don’t practice well, then we’ll have difficulties in the future. To practice well we should give up the ten nonvirtuous actions and cultivate the ten virtuous ones.” He gave this kind of advice and teachings every day.

When Kalsang asked her great-uncle if the Lhamdun family would have any obstacles in the future, he recommended that the family should say 100,000 Twenty-one Tara prayers to clear any potential difficulties. One day as they were circumambulating the Jokhang in the middle of Lhasa, Kalsang offered him a large golden bracelet, weighing about ten tolas (160g). Next to the Jokang, she removed it and gave it to him as an offering to have the prayers done by him. He became so happy at that moment that he spontaneously danced a little cham (monastic ritual) dance. He used the]gold, like everything he received, to help build the Khari Gompa.

Auspicious Meeting with Tsering Wangdu

The Naptra Rinpoche, who went with Gelong Namse to receive Dzogchen teachings from the Rongphu Sangye, had a prodigious disciple named Lama Tsering Wangdu. Lama Wangdu, a talented young practitioner from Langkhor, received many teachings from the Naptra Rinpoche, including chöd teachings and initiation. Although new chöd practitioners in Dingri typically went on a one-week chödkhor, the Naptra Rinpoche was from Kham, where it was traditional to visit one hundred sites. Of his eighty students, he selected Tsering Wangdu to perform this type of long chödkhor.

Lama Wangdu walked to Tsibri, Shelkar, Phadrug, Lapchi, and other holy places in the southern Tibetan area. During his journey, a woman offered him a large sheep. It became the young Lama Wangdu’s friend, and eventually understood human language. He could even make the sheep go up stairs, sit down, or even pee on request. He eventually reached Drongkha and the Khari Gompa. He was observing silence on his chödkhor, but when he met Gelong Namse, he broke his silence to converse with the locally renowned retreat master.

When Lama Wangdu came up into Gelong Namse’s small room for an audience, the sheep followed him up the stairs. Upon entering, the sheep defecated right in front of Gelong Namse. As it was considered an offering of firewood and an auspicious sign for the future of his lineage, Gelong Namse was actually delighted! Gelong Namse named the sheep Kalsang Norbu, the auspicious jewel, and exclaimed, “Oh, this sheep is serving the lama as he goes staying at one hundred sites. This sheep is a very lucky sheep!” He then asked Lama Wangdu whose disciple he was. After replying that he was Naptra Rinpoche’s student, Gelong Namse asked, “How many disciples does he have receiving teachings?”

Lama Wandu replied, “About five hundred in Saka Dawa.”

Upon hearing this, Gelong Namse became very joyful, rejoicing in the success of the Naptra Rinpoche. Gelong Namse explained that he had received teachings with Lama Wangdu’s teacher the Naptra Rinpoche at Dza Rongphu, and that Rongphu Sangye passed the quintessential Dzogchen instructions to them at that time. He also said, “Naptra Rinpoche is a very compassionate, good lama, and maybe he is flourishing with many students because of the blessing Rongphu Sangye gave him—the key to the Longchen Nyingthig. There has never been such a gathering of this teaching here before.”

Lama Wangdu stayed two nights at Khari Gompa. On the Khari ridge there are two sacred sites associated with local deities at which prayer flags are hung. One is Tashi Öbar, the protector deity of Shelkar Gompa and Tashilhunpo. The other is a very wrathful local deity named Phagpa Khari, the Noble of Sky Mountain. On Gelong Namse’s request, Lama Wangdu practiced chöd for one night at each of these places on the cliffs. After he came down in the morning, Gelong Namse offered him some Tibetan coins and blessed Lama Wangdu on his way.

Helping Sentient Beings

What is the use of our own happiness when all mothers who have been
Kind to us since beginningless time are suffering?
Therefore, it is the practice of Bodhisattvas to generate
Bodhicitta in order to liberate all sentient beings.

There were many lamas in Dingri in those days, but the Khari Lama had become famous for healing and purifications. Tsering Chöphel from Dongpa village had chronic back pain and decided to take the painful ride to Khari with his son Yonten Gyatso. Tsering received a divination, a long-life empowerment, and water purification from Gelong Namse, who also pounded him on the back in order to drive out obscurations. Most lamas used a phurba (ritual dagger) to purify through hitting, but Gelong Namse did not have many belongings, so he performed healings by beating people with his bare hands as he recited the Migtsema prayer.

Gelong Namse then explained, “Your sickness is not bad, it is good. You are a very fortunate person.” Tsering and Yonten thought that was a strange thing to say. After a long audience with him, they stayed overnight in Khari in a guestroom just below the gompa. Since Khari Gompa was remote, Gelong Namse was very accessible to anyone who came. He took a liking to Tsering and told Yonten that he was from a very good family, and that he should serve his “very fortunate person” of a father well.
Tsering was kind, generous, and hardworking man, and acted as a caretaker for the whole village of Dongpa. After the purifications Tsering’s pain was cured, but his back was too bent to work. Therefore, he totally renounced the world and became a very dedicated Dharma practitioner. Yonten gradually gained confidence in the meaning of Gelong Namse’s claim that his father was lucky to have his illness, as it gave him the opportunity to one-pointedly practice the holy Dharma until his death.

There was also a man from Memo village named Nyima Kalsang, whose daughter Palden had become very sick. Grieved by her illness, he rushed to Khari to see Gelong Namse for divination and healing. When he arrived, the Khari community was busy making evening offerings, so Gelong Namse did not perform a divination. He raised his hands from the worn pages of his prayerbook, vajra and bell; simply tearing a strip of cloth from his dirty old shirt. He handed Nyima the cloth and a fistful of the pag (tsampa dough) he was eating to give to Palden as a blessing, and said, “Do not worry, there will be no problem, she will recover.” Upon returning to Memo and giving Palden the tattered cloth and pag, she got better that very day. Nyima was greatly amazed at the lama’s healing abilities, strengthening his faith in the Dharma.

Nyima later heard that Gelong Namse was instructing people to bring animals to Khari so that they could be spared the knife, so Nyima brought six sheep to the gompa. They released many goats, sheep and yaks that had been offered in the area, because in Tibet once an animal had been offered to and freed by a compassionate lama, no one is supposed to kill it for meat. Gelong Namse also encouraged half of his community of nuns and monks to give up eating meat, switching off each year.

Gelong Namse lived a very simple life free of possessions, and constantly recited the Migtsema prayer over his cup as he drank butter tea throughout the day. He did not recite special mantras, just that particular prayer all of the time. At the end of the day, the nuns gathered the butter grease left in the teacups to use as a leather softener. They saved the leftover liquid out of Gelong Namse’s cup to mix with clay, which they molded into little white pills that were famous for their powerful healing qualities. Depending on the strength of the faith of the disciple, if ten of these pills were put in a bottle and saved for a year, they would spontaneously multiply into twenty. This phenomenon was well known, as it happened to many people. Sometimes, he would give a fistful of the tsampa he was eating to an ailing person, and would give out little red cords or threads of his clothing as blessings. The nuns and monks also saved Gelong Namse’s hair clippings to burn in front of a sick person or animal’s nose, in order to exorcise harmful spirits.

Menphur is the area encompassing the Menkap and Phuri villages, one day’s horse ride northwest of Dingri. There was an epidemic among the sheep and yaks there that killed many of the animals, and the villagers did not know what to do. Three people came from Menphur to see Gelong Namse, because they heard about his abilities as a high lama. Gelong Namse packed a few pieces of his hair in small pieces of folded rice paper. He made many of these little packages, gave them to the people from Menphur, and instructed them to tie the hair around the animals’ necks or to burn it in front of their noses. After that, the epidemic abruptly ended in the entire area, and it was attributed to Gelong Namse’s power.

Gelong Namse also demonstrated signs of being clairvoyant. One day, five herders were searching for lost yaks around the Khari area. After a while, they went to the gompa for help. When they arrived, Gelong Namse said, “They’re hungry, give them food.” It was true; they were very hungry. They asked about the yaks and having made a divination, he said “Go to the east, you’ll find them,” and they did.

Before the Chuzang Rinpoche passed away in 1956, the Gelong Namse’s niece Lozang Dekyi suffered a terrible stroke. Her right side became paralyzed, and she was unable to speak. After visiting the Chuzang Rinpoche for purification rituals, she began to say a few words. Her family then brought her to Gelong Namse for purifications, and she recovered very well. She developed intense faith in the power of the Dharma, and later sought refuge in him and became a nun. She was very dedicated, cooking with her left hand, because her right hand remained useless. She also limped, but always attended the daily morning prayers.

There was also a young man named Tsultrim Kalsang who lived in Shalu village, about a day's horse ride from Khari. He had a fifteen year-old younger sister and an eleven year-old brother who both died from a throat illness that made them unable to eat. Kalsang was eighteen at that time and became ill with the same affliction. His family was very worried, but when someone mentioned the name Khari, he suddenly felt great faith and wanted to see Gelong Namse. He immediately went to Khari, and stayed a week receiving daily purifications.

While he was there, Kalsang asked an attendant to save the urine from Gelong Namse’s chamber pot. Every other day Kalsang drank a cup, and totally recovered after seven days. The urine did not taste salty or acidic to him; it tasted like water. He developed great faith and wanted to become a monk. He asked Gelong Namse about it, who said, “If you are going to practice Dharma, stay here. If you do not, you will have obstacles in your life.” Kalsang decided to stay and devote himself entirely to the Buddha Dharma.

Without Gelong Namse’s knowledge, some of the other nuns and monks also saved his urine, and drank it regularly. Many people who came to Khari requested urine, and were healed by it. Later, he bluntly asked Kalsang, “Did you recover by drinking my pee?” Since he was clairvoyant, he was of course aware that people drank it. He would never have given anyone his urine to drink directly, but since he didn’t empty his own chamber pot it was not really under his control and he was unable to do much about it.

Healing Trangzhung Dorje Tsering

Dorje Tsering from the Trangzhung family lived about a day’s walk from Khari in Dingri Rachu village, and was also called Pu Dola. He considered Gelong Namse to be his teacher. In 1951, when he was 21, he became quite drunk at a Losar (Tibetan New Year) party. He suddenly had a stroke, and was rendered completely incapacitated. His family became very worried, and since they knew about his strong faith in Gelong Namse, they sent messages about what the best treatment for him would be.

Dola was unable to travel to Khari, so Gelong Namse sent blessing pills and purification substances. He instructed the family not to give him medicine but to feed him the pills and to pour water mixed with the purification substances on his head while reciting prayers, starting at ten o’clock the next morning, when the lama would began praying for Dola. The family did the purifications three times daily for two weeks, pouring water mixed with the purification substances on his head. Gelong Namse indicated that after ten or fifteen days there would be a sign of recovery. At that time they should bring him to Khari, although he might be imbalanced and have great difficulty traveling, even on a horse.

The family was very worried, and doubted that there would be any sign. Initially, his situation did not improve, but on the fourteenth day, they took him out in the courtyard to sit in the sun to warm up. His sister had a small son who was playing in the kitchen, and the little boy fell down, in Dola’s view. He spontaneously started laughing very strongly; it was the first sounds he had made. The family thought that it could be a bad sign, and were going to send someone to Khari. However, Dola’s wife thought that it was the sign Gelong Namse predicted and said Dola should go, although he was unable to stretch his fingers or toes and had very little awareness. She said that since he was always thinking of Gelong Namse, he must follow the instructions of his lama, and that if something bad happened then it would be the result of his own past karma (action).

At sunrise the next morning, three escorts slowly departed with Pu Dola. As darkness was falling, they reached Gara village, about an hour from the Khari Gompa, and stayed the night at the house of Gyalpo and Nyima, two of Dola's friends. Without knowledge that Pu Dola was arriving, Gelong Namse instructed the nuns that a very sick person was visiting who needed a clean place to stay, so a nun from Gara vacated her room. He instructed that they should burn incense, and that the visitor should be brought directly to him upon arrival.

When Dola arrived, as soon as seeing Gelong Namse, he felt sadness and fell down, unable to hold himself up. Gelong Namse was happy to see him and immediately said, “There’s no danger to his life from this sickness, and he will gradually recover.” He did purification, gave blessing pills, had him escorted to the nun’s room, and instructed that he should come for purification every morning.

Gelong Namse explained that Dola would open up his mouth after four or five days. As the purifications were performed, Dola's awareness slowly returned, and he realized that he was not at home. Having had the habit of drinking a lot, he did not understand he had been sick, thinking that he was waking with a bad hangover after passing out during the Losar party! After about another ten days he could speak. He tried to get up but his left hand and left foot would not function, so he was escorted to Gelong Namse’s room. As soon as Dola came, Gelong Namse touched his head to Dola’s, which made him feel extremely happy, and said, “You had to go through a lot of difficulties because of your sickness.”

Dola replied, “I don’t remember any difficulties, I don’t even remember where I am!” He was totally ignorant.

The lama from Khari told him, “Relax, you will be alright. There’s no danger to your life, and you will completely recover.”

When he got back to the room he asked how long he had been sick and it was then that he discovered that he had been mute for a month!

Every morning Gelong Namse peformed purifications for him, and they visited every evening. He was slowly able to move his left foot, but his left hand was still completely paralyzed. After about a week and a half, Dola asked if it was permissible to go home to his worried family. Gelong Namse replied, “When you were sick, I sent messages to your family They’re not too worried, and you can go home.” He instructed him, “Don’t eat anywhere but at home and don’t go to see doctors or take medicine because it won’t help. Don’t drink, don’t visit slaughtering places or where there is red meat, don’t enter into black yak wool tents, and don’t look at clay pots or coals. I’m sending purification substances and blessed pills with you. Use them when you go home, purify your environment with incense, and get purifications from celibate monks as often as possible. You will be able to move your hand after a while, you will live long, and if your hand doesn’t heal, I take full responsibility.”

Dola's friend in Gara, Gyalpo, was very happy, and invited Dola to stay with him. Nyima had made chang (barley or rice wine) when Dola first went to Khari, with the prayer that, “If he recovers let it turn out well; if it ferments badly, he’ll turn out bad.” They insisted him to drink the chang when he arrived at Gara that evening, but he refused, due to Gelong Namse’s instructions. Gyalpo felt like Dola had to drink at least a little, so he went back to Khari to complain and asked permission for Dola to be able drink. Gelong Namse then sent Dola a used napkin and a square cut off his yellow cloth belt, and told Gyalpo to tie it around Dola’s neck so that he could drink the chang that day. He drank the chang, and the family became very happy, as it was delicious and everything was turning out alright.

Although his body strengthened, over the next six months his left arm became skinny, making work difficult, and he thought it would remain useless for his life. After about a year his left hand gained a little sensation, and when he could move his fingers, he revisited Khari. Gelong Namse said, “I told you long ago that the hand would recover and the divination said there would be no danger, so it’ll be fine.”

Dola completely recovered, and he gratefully told Gelong Namse to ask him if the community ever needed anything, especially rice, butter, or other foodstuffs. Dingri was a trade center between Solu Khumbu and Tibet, making it less expensive to buy Nepali goods there than in Phadrug, near the Khari Gompa. Because of the nuns’ difficultly in engaging in trade, Pu Dola made purchases in Dingri to bring to Khari about once a month.

Dola was later appointed pempo (village head) of Rachu. At this time, the Chinese were building a road from Lhasa to the border, and he was put in charge of arranging transportation, food and salary for four hundred migrant Chinese workers. He was thinking about resigning from the job because it was difficult, so he went to Khari for advice. Gelong Namse assured him it was all right to continue for some time. They completed the road south to Rongphu, and the Chinese began to extend it west to Kyirong. Dola was constantly uncomfortable about the way the Chinese were arresting people who were representatives of rich families. He also disliked working for the Chinese, so in 1959, he again went to Khari for advice. Dola asked for a divination about staying or leaving Tibet for a while, and Gelong Namse replied, “At the moment, stay, but keep thinking about it and when the right time comes don’t hesitate—leave for Solu Khumbu in Nepal.”

Chapter 4: Tragedy and Hope

Escape into Exile

The happiness of the three worlds, like dewdrops on the tip of a
Blade of grass, has the nature of vanishing in a moment.
Therefore, it is the practice of Bodhisattvas to strive
For the excellent state of changeless liberation.

In 1959, after the failed March 10 Lhasa uprising, the Chinese completed their military takeover of Tibet. By this time the Khari Gompa and Gompa Karbo had expanded greatly, housing around 115 nuns and 25 monks. Gelong Namse had become very well known in Latö as the Khari Lama; many people also referred to him as the Khari Rinpoche. The Chinese felt he was a threat to their authority that needed to be curtailed, as with many lamas, aristocrats and other important persons. Therefore, the Chinese army officials made plans to arrest him on the thirteenth day of the eleventh Tibetan month (December 1959). There was a Tibetan working with the Chinese as an interpreter called Thungsi (Translator) Tashi, who had faith in the Khari Lama. He learned of the plan, and a few days before the date the Chinese had set, he rode to the Khari Gompa on a horse. He left a whip and a glove at the door of the gompa, pretending that he had forgotten them. This was his secret signal for the Khari Lama to escape.

At that time, Tsultrim Kalsang, the monk that had been healed by Gelong Namse’s urine, was the chant master at Khari. Kalsang had been to Solu Khumbu once when he was about thirteen with his father. He went around asking the villageers if anyone had a horse for them to leave on. The villagers were scared, because they would be imprisoned if they were caught helping a lama escape into exile. No one offered any help.

Kalsang and his beloved teacher then went to the house of Kalsang’s father, Topchung. They requested a yak to ride. Topchung replied to the Khari Lama, “Please take my son to Solu Khumbu, I have a yak. If the Chinese discover I helped, I don’t mind going to prison.” Later, the Chinese did actually discover that he assisted them. They interrogated him and took much of his property, but Topchung was not imprisoned.

Gelong Namse, the lama of Sky Mountain, left the Khari Gompa for the final time at midnight that night, the eleventh day of the eleventh Tibetan month, two days before he was to be arrested. He departed with two monks, Tsultrim Kalsang and Gen Lamrimpa Tsultrim Yeshe. They traveled a few hours in the middle of the night to Omalung, where they met two of the nuns who had followed the Khari Lama to Lhasa on pilgrimage in 1954, Ani Palchung and the Khari Lama’s niece Ani Ngawang Tarchen.

They did not bring much, as they left in great haste and were without many possessions anyway. The Khari Lama was able to ride on the yak some of the way. They traveled mainly at night, from Omalung to Lungjhang, where they stayed a day. From there they went to Kyatrag, staying another day. They then traveled through the mountains for three days. At this point, Gelong Namse was in his seventieth year, and the winter journey was extremely difficult.

The eleventh Tibetan month is the coldest time of the year. When they were crossing Nangpa La (Pass), at an altitude of 5716 meters, it was so windy that small flat rocks were being blown about. The Khari Lama had dismounted the yak that he was on, because it was unable to carry him anymore. They walked three intense hours on the ice up to the pass. After crossing, he had to ski down the ice on his backside with Kalsang’s help. They were also without decent clothes because of their hurried departure, wearing only simple sleeveless monks’ robes. The nuns and monks searched for yak dung, made tea, cooked and fed the aging lama, whose hands were too frozen to hold anything. Tsultrim Kalsang constantly rubbed his teacher’s hands to avoid frostbite, and even carried him some of the way. The outsides of Kalsang’s forarms became a bit frostbitten.

Arrival

Six days after they left Khari, they arrived at a place called Chanyak, a small village of three or four brothers‘s families. Tenzin Norgay, the famous Sherpa mountaineer who first summited Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary on May 9, 1953, had a house in Chanyak. Tenzin Norgay’s wife, Ang Dekyi, and her father, Ang Norbu, first received them. Kalsang traveled ahead and told them that they were coming. Norbu asked if he was a holy lama, and Kalsang replied, “Yes, he’s very holy.”

Norbu replied, “Oh, I must make a good offering,” so they boiled potatoes and offered Gelong Namse a plate when he arrived. He said that he really enjoyed the potatoes although it was a little inauspicious as a first meal in Khumbu, but it was auspicious that they had received him, so he offered them a very long thanka (Tibetan scroll painting), which now hangs in Tenzin Norgay’s shrine room in Darjeeling, India. Ang Dekyi and Ang Norbu took the nuns and monks into their house for a few weeks. However, many more Tibetans continued to cross the border and they began to consider a more longterm solution.

The Khari Lama performed a divination and told Tsultrim Kalsang and Tsultrim Yeshe to walk about an hour south to Kyabrog, the Helpful Enclosure, to find a place to stay. They went to the small Sherpa gompa at Kyabrog and asked the venerable Lama Lhakpa if they could move there. Lama Lhakpa was very old and asked, “What school of Buddhism are you?” They replied that they were Gelugpa, to which Lhakpa replied, “I’m sorry, it is quite impossible for you to stay here, we’re Nyingma.”
Discouraged, they then said, “We are with one old lama who needs a place to stay.” Lhakpa said, “Ask Lama Tenzin, my son, he runs the gompa.” They went to Lama Tenzin, who recognized the sincerity of the simple lama, so he graciously offered the Khari Lama a room to support his practice.

The Chinese destroyed the Khari Gompa, and took the few valuables to China. The wood was stolen, and the roof was removed from the main hall. There was not very much to take though, because the gompa was essentially a place for retreat. Although a great amount of wealth was stored at many gompas, the Khari community never accumulated many material possessions.
The Khari Lama was very grateful for the assistance he received crossing the border. In an assembly, he said, “Without Tsultrim Kalsang I would have been dead in the mountains.” He said at other times to Kalsang, “you don’t need to do any preliminary practices to purify yourself, because you purified all obscurations when you helped me escape,” and “although there are many people to help me now, you helped me when I really needed it, so in your next life I will take you to the blissful paradise with me.”

Kyabrog

The Kyabrog Gompa was built around three hundred years ago. The lineage is hereditary, and the small gompa has been through many reconstructions in its seven-generation history. The Khari Lama borrowed a room at the Kyabrog Gompa for three years. Tsultrim Kalsang and Ani Ngawang Tarchen, as well as many other nuns and monks, attended him.

There were many Tibetans coming over the Nangpa La, and there was no easy solution. Tibetan men worked breaking stones, carrying wood, or as porters, some for mountaineering expeditions, getting paid about ten Nepali rupees daily. Some Tibetan women stitched or helped Sherpa women in their households, making four or five Nepali rupees a day. At that time a ten-kilogram sack of delicious Khumbu potatoes cost three or four rupees. In this way the Communists created a very difficult situation for many people who were not accustomed to being destitute.

Kyabrog and Thangteng, the flat expanse down towards the Bhote Khosi river, became very crowded. The nuns performed rituals for the villagers, worked as porters or servants and went around begging alms from the Sherpas in order to survive. The Sherpa people were very generous when possible, and also made many offerings of yak and sheep meat and potatoes to the nuns and monks.

At first not many of the local Sherpa people knew of the Khari Lama, but people gradually understood him to be an authentic lama. As in Tibet, his blessed pills became famous for fevers, the flu, or stomach illness, and the Sherpas demonstrated great faith, visiting him often. He did divinations for anyone who requested, and would recommend prayers or rituals for clearing obstacles. The accuracy of his divinations were well known among the people.

The nuns and monks stayed in tents all year. They experienced many hardships due to the hot daytime sun, fierce evening winds, heavy summer rains, and snowfalls. At one point there was also a smallpox epidemic in the community. Gelong Namse’s old trading partner Nyima Suntar’s grandson, who was married to the Kyabrog Lama Tsering's daughter Penputi, Au Hrita, walked from the Khunde hostpital and gave injections to the nuns and monks staying at Kyabrog. Despite these difficulties, the Khari Lama continued to teach and give empowerments, as the community supported his enlightened activities in the best way possible: by putting his teachings into practice. Since more and more Tibetans were walking over the pass to exile, ritual gatherings had to be conducted outside. At first there were about thirty-five nuns and monks staying in tents in the Kyabrog gompa’s potato field, and they set up a large tent for assemblies and teachings. The only Gompa Karbo monks there at that time were Tsultrim Kalsang, Tsultrim Yeshe, and Gelong Wangchuk. Some of the monks built a large wooden box with a window so that Khair Lama could be protected from the wind and rain while he taught.

Many attended his rituals and teachings at that time. It was the Khari Lama’s custom to always make offerings with whatever he received in order to spread the blessings and food to everyone present. In the summer of 1960, around three hundred monks, nuns, and layfolk assembled for the Khari Lama’s Lamrim teachings, which lasted about forty days. He would start teaching around nine in the morning until four or five in the evening, with a big lunch break in the middle.

In the seventh Tibetan month (September/ October), he gave full chöd teachings and transmissions to twenty-eight nuns and monks. The teachings were transmitted in three daily sessions. The first was from about eight to eleven in the morning. The second was from after lunch until around three. The third session lasted from about five to seven in the evening. He instructed the group on the correct way to beat the damaru (ritual hand drum), ring the bells, blow the bone horn, and sing the melody for the chanting. In the chöd teachings, the Khair Lama not only taught but practiced in assembly with his students. Upon completion of two weeks of teachings, the new practitioners sat in chöd retreat for seven days. After the retreat, they all went on a one-week chödkhor to remote locations around upper Khumbu. They all left as a group and gradually they were directed alone to different places.

After the teachings, many of the students went into summer retreat for a month and a half. For the retreat, the Khari Lama requested all the nuns and monks from Shelkar, Khari and Gompa Karbo to come together to pray as one assembly. During this summer retreat, the practitioners did daily Sojong (confession) practices, and remained indoors. They rules were strict, and one had to receive special permission to leave. The two monastic communities, Khari and Shelkar, conducted the 1960 and 1961summer retreats together.

When staying in Kyabrog, as a prayer for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Khari Lama had the monks read the Kagyur (Translation of the Words of the Buddha). It took about one hundred monks at Kyabrog a week to complete. The nuns read the 100,000 Twenty-one Tara prayers, as well. The fourteen nuns from Khari, the thirty monks from Shelkar Chöde, and the others from gompas of many different schools and lineages all sought refuge with the Khari Lama at Kyabrog, participating in his rituals and teachings. In this way, the practitioners perservered in the face of great hardship for the sake of the Dharma. They completed the Kagyur and Tara practice as an offering for His Holiness the Dalai Lama every year.


The stupa at Thangdo, Kyabrog is in the background

Retreat at Lomtso

The community at Kyabrog and Thangteng grew quickly over the spring, summer and autumn. As winter approached in 1960, the monk Tsultrim Kalsang returned to Tibet with the yak upon which the Khari Lama had escaped, in order to bring it back to his father. Upon his return to Kyabrog in Nepal, he found out that his Lama had left with two monks, Tsultrim Dorje and Gelong Wangchuk, to move father south into lower valleys in order to practice in a better climate. Kalsang Tsultrim followed them and met them at a tiny hermitage above the little village of Lomtso. Lomtso is about a two-day walk south of Kyabrog, just above Lukla. The owner of the shrine room, a Sherpa named Lhakpa Dorje Sherpa, allowed the Khari Lama to use it for retreat. The two monks were attending him, and soon some nuns followed and stayed there as well.

In Lomtso, the handful of nuns and monks found it difficult to obtain food and money, so they sold their gyaling (ritual clarinet) to Lhakpa Dorje. A few years later they were able to buy it back from him. The Khari Lama himself only kept about one hundred rupees at this time, and he thought that rats might eat it, so he hung his money from the ceiling with some string. Not many people were aware of his presence there, but some local Sherpas hired the nuns and monks to read texts in their homes, so they were able to get a little money. Every day, the monks offered the money or food they received to their lama. The few nuns and monks all worked together to sustain him in his retreat, by fetching water and firewood, cooking, and taking care of each other. One night, as the monks made a feeble offering, Namse explaned that, “Because of serving the lama, you will have a long and happy life, as is said in the texts.” After spending the coldest months at Lomtso in retreat, the Khari Lama and the others made the three-day hike back up the Bhote Khosi river valley to Kyabrog.

Hope in Exile

After His Holiness the Dalai Lama snuck to India in 1959, many difficulties arose for Pu Dola, the man that the Khari Lama healed from a stroke. The Chinese halted construction on the roads for more than a month, and the government decided to house the migrant Chinese workers at his residence in Rachu. Some stayed in his house; others lived in a big tent outside. In 1960 he finally decided to leave Tibet, and he escaped to Khumbu, staying in Namche Bazaar. He realized that in order to make ends meet for his family he needed to get into business and decided to trade yak tails, which were valuable at lower elevations and later as a tourist item. He hiked up to Thame to collect them and visited the Khari Lama at Kyabrog, expressing happiness at the lama’s safe arrival in Khumbu.

The venerable old lama replied in the caring way he used with everyone. “I didn’t have any problems coming to Solu Khumbu, but I was worried about you because you have family and you would have trouble coming. I was praying for you and asking people about you. Other people told me, ‘He’s working for the Chinese on the road construction,’ and I said, ‘Of course, he has to, maybe I’ll meet him again.’ I’ve been praying to meet you again and I have today so I’m very happy. Now you’re exiled with your family, so lead a new life. It will not be too difficult, but you should never commit negative actions in life. Although we aren’t able to lead our lives the way we did in Tibet, it will not be too bad. I will think of you, and if we do not meet again always think of me. Pray to and seek refuge in the Three Jewels and be humble with good conduct. Pray for His Holiness, practice virtue, and everything will come out well.” He then blessed him on his way.

They never met again.

Kathmandu Pilgrimage

In the eleventh Tibetan month of that year (January 1962), the Khari Lama departed with the two monks Tsultrim Kalsang and Tsultrim Yeshe, and two other nuns, Ngawang Tarchen and Ani Palchung, on a pilgrimage to the Kathmandu Valley, where the winters are temperate. Many other Sherpas and Tibetans go on pilgrimage or move down to Kathmandu at that time each year. There were no airports in Khumbu at that time, so they walked down through the mountains and hills. The Khari Lama was in his seventy-second year, and it was difficult for him to make his way on the steep trails. Before departing, Tsultrim Kalsang practiced “how to be a horse” and he carried his lama at difficult passes. A man named Ae Lozang had offered a horse for the journey, which carried the pilgrims’ belongings. Each evening the nuns and monks busied themselves with erecting a western-style trekking tent that had been offered to the Khari Lama, preparing food outside of it and offering it. Whenever possible, they also made evening ritual offerings to Vajrayogini on the trail. On the tenth and twenty-fifth day of each Tibetan month they always practiced the self-initiation of Vajrayogini and made ritual tsok offerings, a strict practice that continues at the Khari gompa.

On the way they made offerings at the Namobuddha stupa, where the Buddha displayed great compassion in a former life. They then stayed for ten days in a small house in front of the holy Boudhanath stupa. They made offerings to the stupa, had it whitewashed, and hung many prayer flags for the benefit of all beings. The former governor of Dingri Dzong, Omolung Kungo, lived in Chetripati, Kathmandu at that time. The aged man had great faith in the Khari Lama, considering him his root lama. He invited them to his house to perform a ritual. As the aged lama departed, Omolung cried openly, because he felt that it would be the last time they met. The former governor passed away later that year.

Many nuns and monks followed the Khari Lama on pilgrimage to the Kathmandu valley, where they visited many famous sacred sites, like Swayumbunath, Langru Lungten and Parping. They made offerings at each holy place. The Khari Lama presided over tsok offerings two times at Boudha. One was done at the old Tamang Gompa of the Chini Lama, and monks from the Nyalam Pengyeling Gompa in Swayumbunath requested the other in order to receive the transmission and teaching of the Vajrayogini self-initiation practice.

While at Parping, he gave teachings on the enlightened activities of Phelpo Phamding and Phutong Lotsawa, two Eleventh Century masters that stayed at Parping. He explained, “Every day Phelpo did Vajrayogini practices and then he attained a rainbow body. He went to the Vajrayogini Pure Realm. If you can practice this then you can attain it as well. You must circumambulate the temple three times anticlockwise, and then maybe you will meet her. She manifests as pretty or ugly, so you can’t ignore the ugly woman, because she could be Vajrayogini.”

Meeting Shelkar Monks at Phungmoche

When the Chinese came into Dingri, they occupied the district headquarters at Shelkar Chöde Gompa. They destroyed or stole everything there. Many Shelkar monks were imprisoned. In the early sixties, dozens of Shelkar monks escaped over the Nangpa La and gathered with the Khari community at Kyabrog, under the Khari Lama’s care.

The Chinese army sealed the Nangpa La, so Rapshi Sangye Trinley, who was a relative of the Khari Lama, Ngawang Sangpo, and four other Shelkar monks crossed into Nepal at Kyirong, the Happy Valley. They met Lozang Tsultrim’s eldest brother, Lozang Dorje, who invited them all to come to Kalimpong, east of Nepal. After remaining some time in Kalimpong they moved to Darjeeling for two months, where Tenzin Norgay Sherpa rented them a room below his house.

In 1962 there was a large prayer festival in Bodh Gaya, India that was led by the head of the Gelugpa School, Trijang Rinpoche, the tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness was also present, and gave an Avalokitesvara empowerment. There, the six Shelkar monks met ten other monks from their monastery, and they decided to stay together. There were also Tibetans who had been staying in Solu Khumbu who told them that many other Shelkar monks were in Kyabrog in Khumbu. They invited the sixteen monks to come up with them.

After the festival ended in early spring, they took a train to the Nepali-Indian border and walked to Solu. They arrived at the Chalsa Tibetan Refugee Settlement during the busy Saturday market. While eating lunch there, they happened to meet Gelong Trinley Wangchuk, who was doing shopping for the Khari Lama. On the way up from his pilgrimage to Kathmandu, the Khari Lama had stopped to perform a short retreat in a cave at the ruins of the old Sherpa Phungmoche Gompa, the Big Rock Monastery.

From the bazaar, the monks went to visit the Khari Lama at Phungmoche. He was in good health then, and was planning on settling down at the old gompa, as it was a suitable place for a community of practitioners. There were some other nuns and monks staying there with him as well. The Khari Lama suggested that the Shelkar monks join his future community in Phungmoche. The monks stayed in Phungmoche one night, and then walked a few days up to Namche Bazaar. On the way they stayed a night on the banks of the Bhote Khosi. There they met two Tibetan monks from the Thame area who had found out that the Khari Lama was planning to stay in Phungmoche. They were disciples of his named Gomchung and Zambala. The Tibetans and Sherpas from the Thame area did not want the Khari Lama and his nuns and monks to settle far away from them in Solu, so they went to request him to remain in upper Khumbu, rather than resettle his community at Phungmoche.

While practicing at Phungmoche, the Khar Lama was invited by the Tibetans at Chalsa to give a long-life empowerment. He stayed there for a few days and gave many teachings and advice to the new, struggling community.

The nuns and monks that were living near him at Phungmoche also requested him to return to Kyabrog. After spending two of the late winter months of 1962 practicing at Phungmoche, the Khari Lama walked for a few days with a group of nuns and monks through the Pharag Valley up to Namche Bazaar in lower Khumbu. As he arrived, there was a huge welcoming celebration. They stayed in Namche one night and then went on to Kyabrog. He sent a message to the sixteen Shelkar monks, who were staying in tents in Namche, that they should make the day’s walk west to Kyabrog to join the nuns and monks there.

Teachings

Even if one is famous, respected by many and with the wealth of Vaishravana,
It is the practice of Bodhisattvas, having seen
The essencelessness of the glory and wealth
Of worldly existence, to remain without pride.

By this time, the Kyabrog community had grown considerably. There were about one hundred nuns and fifty monks staying there, relying on the Khari Lama. All of the students stayed in tents, and there were three or four practitioners in each tent. As people made offerings to the Khari Lama, he would distribute them to everyone there. Most lamas wait until the evening after a day of prayers to give out sponsored money to those participating, but the Khari Lama saw that some nuns and monks were distracted throughout the day by thoughts of how much they were going to be paid. To make sure those participating had the correct motivation he would make the payments in the morning during breakfast after the initial prayers. In this way, many practitioners were shown what to accept and reject under his direction.

The Khari Lama gave many the reading transmission, empowerment and explanation for the Vajrayogini practice texts. He also did many empowerments for the benefit of all of the lay people. He gave transmissions for the mantras of Avalokitesvara, Guru Rinpoche, and Tara, as well as many long-life empowerments. The largest public gathering that the Khari Lama presided over was an Avalokitesvara empowerment given near the stupa at Thangdö. Thousands of the local Sherpas and Tibetans who were staying in the Thame valley came to receive empowerment from such an authentic master.

During the winter, the community completed eight Nyungnay purification retreats. The next summer, because the community had grown so large, they had separate Shelkar and Khari summer retreats at Kyabrog.

The Khari Lama was an expert on the Lamrim, having internalized all of the contemplations in the stages on the path to understanding emptiness. He kept a copy of Tsongkapa’s Lamrim Chenmo on his table at all times, the pages of which were totally worn from use, the covers disintegrated. He emphasized the sutra teachings and gave many teachings from Dharmavajra’s Lamrim commentary, although he did not have to refer to the text while he taught, due to his familiarity with the contemplations of the gradual path to enlightenment.

There was one well-known Geshe, from the Jhang Ngam Ring Gompa north of Dingri, who was also expert in the Lamrim. His name was Geshe Palden, but people also referred to him as the “Lamrim Geshe.” After the Chinese destroyed his gompa, he fled Tibet and stayed for two years at Kyabrog with the Khari community. As the Khari Lama explained the Lamrim texts, the Geshe was very surprised and amazed at the Khari Lama’s expert knowledge of Lamrim, saying “his teachings were very beneficial for me, because he was able to speak from his own experience and realization.” Geshe Palden later returned to Tibet.

In 1961, the Khari Lama also transmitted chöd practices to about sixty nuns and monks. He taught chöd from the Profound Meaning of the Melodious Lineage Chöd cycle. While teaching the swift path to cutting attachment, he explained that chöd means cutting through the two downfalls of self-grasping and self-caring. One does this in order to realize the union of skillful method and wisdom, which are bodhichitta and emptiness, respectively. He further explained that all of the Buddha’s teachings fall under the two categories of bodhicitta and emptiness. All 82,000 antidotes to the 82,000 afflictions flow like rivers into the ocean of the two. Chöd quickens the actualization and realization of bodhicitta and emptiness, and their ultimate inseparability.

The Khari Lama also transmitted and explained the practice of his personal meditation deity Yamantaka to those who were ready. He taught that deity practice will remove any obstacles for religious practitioners, and also bestows long-life on the meditator. He said many times that unlike most of his family members, he would live to eighty or eighty-one due to his Yamantaka retreats. He would also say, “I’d like to die like a bird, leaving nothing behind.” He was very accomplished in the Yamantaka practice, having practiced it in Rongshar, exclusively for three years at the Monkey Face rock, and for nine years at the Khari Gompa in Tibet.

Sometimes, if the skies were threatening hail, the locals would become worried about their crops. The Khari Lama would say, “It's not a problem,” gaze at the sky, and the black clouds would break up. Due to his accomplishment with the wrathful form, he could control the weather. Some monks would say that Yamantaka himself once appeared to the Khari Lama, while others said he was a living embodiment of the deity. He always remained very humble, though, and when he assembled with other monks, it was difficult to tell which was the lama, since he rarely used a throne.

Practice

Through having realized that calm abiding in combination with
Special insight completely destroys afflictions,
It is the practice of a Bodhisattva to train in the
Concentration that surpasses the four formless stages.

The Khari Lama’s high attainment did not come from the fortunate birth of a reincarnate lama, but through great dedication to diligent practice. It was his custom never to lie down or remove his belt, except when changing to wash. He would remain all night in meditation posture, and normally woke up around one or two in the morning to prostrate, make refuge prayers, and offer butter lamps, water bowls, and incense. He would then chant the text Calling the Guru From Afar, and do Vajrayogini and Yamantaka practices. He always made light and water offerings himself in his own shrine room, even when there were many attendants to take care of it for him. Although he never passed the teaching on to any of his disciples, the Khari Lama continued the Dzogchen practices that were transmitted to him by the Rongphu Sangye.

After spending the rest of the morning hours in meditation, he drank tea and ate tsampa porridge for breakfast. A few times a day he took tea, constantly reciting the Migtsema prayers. Through his pure perception, he considered everything an offering. Although he received many offerings, he never accumulated things, and after lunch would not take food again. These practices of his were aimed at helping others by eliminating personal attachment. Sometimes if people were coming to visit that day, he would clairvoyantly tell his attendants how many were coming from what direction so that they could prepare food for the arriving guests. He never showed off his clairvoyance, however. He always took refuge in the Three Jewels by performing divination for both major and minor decisions, praying for the illumination of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. His aim was to take advantage of every moment as an opportunity for practice.

Auspicious Reunion

On March 29, 1959, Lozang Tsultrim, the Khari Lama’s nephew who had sat in two month-long retreats at the Khari Gompa, was sent by the Shelkar monks to India to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama and report on their desperate state of affairs. He walked southeast and crossed into India through Lachen Lachung in northwest Sikkim, the same way the Dalai Lama escaped, to see his elder brother Lozang Dorje who lived in Kalimpong. At that time, His Holiness was staying in Mussorrie, so Lozang took a train west to report on Shelkar’s situation. He carried ten bags of tsampa, butter, meat, and dried cheese from Shelkar to Mussorrie as gifts for His Holiness. On the day he arrived, Lozang piled up the bags of offerings in front of His Holiness’s door. Someone topped off the small mountain of offerings with a Tibetan flag stuck in the tsampa.

Lozang was granted a special audience with the Dalai Lama alone that lasted more than an hour. He was thinking of presenting the bags of tsampa to His Holiness, reporting, and then going back to Tibet to see his family and bring them gifts. His Holiness asked him what his plans were, and what his brother had said in Kalimpong. His brother offered to let him stay with him, and His Holiness thought that was a good idea, saying that if he stayed and studied in Kalimpong it would be more beneficial for him. After that he returned to stay with his brother and studied for a year in a Tibetan government school. He was twenty-eight at that time.

From 1959 to 1962 he stayed in Kalimpong with his brother Lozang Dorje. He then heard that his father, Namgyal Dorje, and the Khari Lama had gone to Solu Khumbu, so he went there in order to visit them. He was only planning on staying a short while, and returning to Kalimpong after a brief reunion. As he was climbing the hill to Kyabrog to see the Khari Lama and his father for the first time since leaving Tibet, the community had just finished a ritual and was blowing horns, clarinets, beating drums and clashing cymbals loudly. The Khari Lama announced that it was a very auspicious sign that Lozang arrived at that moment, and that maybe Lozang would be helpful to the community in the future. The Khari Lama said he needed someone, and that if Lozang could stay and help it would be wonderful. Lozang Tsultrim remained closely connected to his endeared uncle the Khari Lama until the death of the venerable old monk.

Second Kathmandu Pilgrimage

As their third winter in Kyabrog approached in 1962, the Khari Lama departed with many nuns and monks on a second pilgrimage to the Kathmandu Valley. Tsultrim Kalsang again carried him at the difficult places on the trail as they went down to warmer weather. In the Khari Lama’s absence, the community was entrusted under the care of the Sakya master Gen Lama Tenzin Tsultrim from Kham and Aku Gechung. While in Kathmandu, the Khari Lama stayed in the house of Amdo Sonam Tsering and his Sherpa wife from Dzarok in Thamel.

One Shelkar monk, Sangye Trinley, considered accompanying him, but in Namche Bazaar he found that one of his relatives was sick, and his family requested him to stay. The Khari Lama also advised him to stay, and the sick woman soon passed away of a child delivery complication. Sangye Trinley then walked back up to Kyabrog.

The Khari Lama returned from Kathmandu to the Pharag Valley in a helicopter. Sangye Trinley, who had received a letter explaining when the Khari Lama would arrive at the new heliport in Lukla, borrowed a black horse from a Sherpa family and rode down to meet him. The Khari Lama arrived a day later. The old lama rode the horse up to the small trailside village Phakding, and Sangye Trinley walked alongside him. Phakding is stretched along the Bhote Khosi river below the steep winding ascent to Namche Bazaar, the central village of Khumbu. The next day they reached Namche Bazaar, nestled on a semi-circular ridge that surrounds a large field and the central village stupa. When they arrived, there was a huge welcoming with horns and drums, and many locals lined up to offer the Khari Lama katas (white silk scarves), make offerings, receive his blessings, and request divination and advice. They spent one night in Namche Bazaar, and then returned to Kyabrog up the Thame valley.

Chapter 5: New Beginnings

Moving to Tramo

Material offerings and gifts cause arguments among people, and degenerate the
Actions of listening, contemplating and meditating.
So it is the practice of Bodhisattvas to abandon
Attachment to the households of friends and patrons.


The Thame Valley in Khumbu District, Nepal

Late in 1962, the Khari community considered the possibility of settling in a small hamlet above Namche Bazaar called Dzarok, which means Rocky Place, due to the huge boulders that ornament the ridge. They felt the time had come to have a retreat center of their own to reinitiate their regular practice. In the tenth month of the water hare year, early in 1963, ten monks and twenty-five nuns left Kyabrog and began walking to Dzarok. Although most of them owned very little, some had already moved their possessions to tents in Dzarok. On the way to Dzarok, they stopped for lunch in Tramo, a modest Sherpa village. They sat down under the stupa in the center of the village, along the main path west to Namche. Some Sherpas approached for a blessing from the Khari Lama. While they were boiling water for tea, Walung Phurbu Sherpa abrubtly asked them to stay in Tramo, saying “Dzarok has hardly any water, so it will be a problem to have a gompa there. It would be better to live in Tramo.”

The Khari Lama performed a mo, gazed up the ridge towards the northwest, and asked, “Whose land is that?”

A Sherpa woman named Ang Nemo Hrita came forward and said, “That land belongs to me. If Rinpoche would like to stay and live here, I will offer that land to you.” The people there continued to ask the Khari Lama to stay, so the Khari Lama and the nuns and monks there decided not to go any further. The Khari Lama declared that they should build the monastery in three days, or there would be many obstacles to its completion. Accordingly, they immediately erected a small tent for the Khari Lama on a flat space where the present gompa stands. All of the nuns and monks moved into tents and caves around the area. Later, Dawa Norbu, Ang Penpa Chöte, and Nyima Hrita offered the Khari community more land around the site for the practitioners to stay. The community was also given two fields in a nearby area called Tarnga, and nuns planted and collected potatoes there. Thus, through the selfless kindness of the local Sherpa lay people, the Khari community came to settle in Tramo.

The Khari community did not have a main sponsor, and functioned only on the offerings they received. Nuns and monks immediately started coming to Tramo, enabling the quick construction of the main prayer hall. Two Sherpa men walked down from Phortse to help design and break stones for the two-pillar assembly hall. Other Tibetan and Sherpa lay people from all over Khumbu also came to help with the construction, refusing to accept payment for their labor, seeing that the hard-working nuns and monks had little to offer. They carried stones and wood, and offered radishes, potatoes, and other food items. All of the nuns and monks worked hard by breaking stones, collecting wood from between Tramo and Khumde, and carrying it up the ridge to the site. They dug a flat area out of the hillside, filled the holes with rocks for the foundation, and put up rock walls. They also mixed mud to fill and plaster the rock walls with mud and grass. Even the elderly Khari Lama himself carried stones. The Khari Lama disliked asking for money to build the gompa; he wanted to create it with what people offered out of their own motivation.

Because of the hard work of the people, they were able to finish the Tibetan style flat-roofed prayer hall in three days. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “the building looked a little rough, but there was a very good and relaxed feeling there.” After its completion, they dried and packed the mud floor and immediately performed a tsok offering. With the help of some skilled Tibetans, they laid planks for the floor, covered the walls with wood, and made shelves for the texts and the shrine. They also invited Khepa Kalden from Khumjung to paint the walls with various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and to build special shelves for His Holiness the Dalai Lamas’ picture and the Kangyur texts. He was also a statue maker and made a clay Buddha statue. On the west side of the assembly hall the artists built a life-sized Avalokitesvara with one thousand arms out of clay as a support for Nyungne practitioners.

They then built a kitchen facing the main assembly hall. After they erected the monks’ and nuns’ quarters one after another. They were small, and were completed at about the rate of one per day. The nuns and monks worked together to build them. In all, almost one hundred nuns and monks came to help establish the community. After the gompa was complete, some of the monks went back to Tibet, but unfortunately they were forced to disrobe because of the changes there.

While they were building the gompa, the Khari Lama called Au Hrita, the man who had administered small pox injections to the community at Kyabrog. At this time he had official responsibility for the Thame-Namche area. Since the Khari community had also been invited to stay in Pharak and even Solu, the Khari Lama asked if it was acceptable for them to remain in Tramo. He worried that there would be a problem with the people feeling uneasy about their presence, as the nuns and monks would come around to beg at times. He offered to readily move the community if they were disturbing the locals. Au Hrita replied that if the Khari Lama was happy in Tramo than they were very welcome to stay there. The lama also requested help with the official government documents, and Au Hrita gave them permission to cut wood.

The Khari Lama never asked for donations from the Tibetan government or western development organizations. However, when Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who first climbed Mount Everest with Tenzin Norgay Sherpa, was on one of his visits, he offered the Khari community help, and they gladly accepted his donation of a tin roof for the gompa.

Later, His Holiness the Dalai Lama bestowed upon the new Khari Gompa the name Ganden Tenphel Ling, the Joyful Dharma Island.


The stupa in Tramo

Dharma in Tramo

Sensual pleasures, like salt water, increase desire
No matter how much they are enjoyed.
So the practice of Bodhisattvas is immediately to abandon
All objects that generate a desire towards them.

After the assembly hall was completed, very few monks came to offer their hair to the Khari Lama in Tramo. However, many nuns took refuge with him and moved to the small new Khari Gompa. The community immediately started vigorous practice, and the Khari Lama continued teaching. He mainly gave teachings on the Lamrim, Vajrayogini, Yamantaka, and chöd practices. The Khari Lama stressed the importance of going into retreat to actualize teachings, as there is little benefit in a mere intellectual understanding of the Dharma. The experienced meditators at Tramo who had come from Tibet were not required to go directly into retreat, but after transmission and empowerment, new students went directly into retreat to practice. He instructed the nuns and monks not in retreat to practice by themselves in their free time.

On ritually important days like the tenth and twenty-fifth of the Tibetan lunar month, the nuns and monks offered tsoks for Vajrayogini and the chöd tsok of Machig Labdron. On these days at about four in the morning, a horn was blown to call everyone to assembly. They performed early morning prayers together for around two hours. Everyone attended, and unless an important visitor was there, the Khari Lama would always humbly make offerings with the nuns and monks. While they were served rice porridge or tsampa porridge with tea in the mornings, he discussed the Lamrim or the correct way to practice Dharma. He never talked about worldly things. They then had about a thirty-minute break, when the Khari Lama and some of the nuns and monks would go back to their own rooms and do personal daily practices. They were then called together again, and would perform sponsored tsok offerings or read texts like the Kangyur.

They were served lunch of dal bhat [lentil soup and rice], tsampa, or potatoes and tea, and had about an hour break. The communal food was always served from the lay people’s offerings. He stressed the importance of always making offerings of what was given by the lay people, and not to hoard. After the midday break, the nuns and monks gathered at the assembly hall and chanted 100,000 Tara prayers, read texts, and made different deity offerings again.

They also sat in the assembly hall for dinner at around five in the evening. They would make offerings to the Khari protectors and local spirits, such as Palden Hlamo, Gompo Chagdrug, Chögyal Namse, Tashi Öbar, Nechung, and Khumbu Yulhla. When finished, they took Sherpa stew, dal bhat, or boiled potatoes for dinner. They dedicated the merit of their main prayers for His Holiness’s long life and for the positive outcome of the situation in Tibet. After dinner, they returned to their own rooms to do individual daily practices, studies and prayers. Sometimes they did practices at night and offered Chöd tsok.

They also alternated doing one or two month retreats among the nuns and monks, mainly concentrating on the Vajrayogini sadhana. About three times a year, the community would perform eight Nyungnay retreats, which lasts sixteen days, beginning on the thirtieth of a Tibetan month. The lay community was invited to participate in these retreats, and everyone in the gompa attended, except for the cooks and managers.

The community did summer retreats for the first few years in Tramo, when there were many Shelkar Chöde monks staying there. Later, other Shelkar monks were gathering in at the Chalsa Tibetan Refugee Camp in Solu, and the Shelkar monk Sangye Trinley received a letter about their organization. He and Ngawang Sangpo asked the Khari Lama’s permission for the Shelkar monks living in Tramo to join them. He said, “Of course go, but stay until I pass away.” The other Shelkar monks staying at the new Khari Gompa then went to Chalsa, but Sangye Trinley and Ngawang Sangpo remained. Without the monks’ support, the Khari community stopped practicing the summer retreat.

The monk Tsultrim Kalsang and the nun Ani Ngawang Tarchen, both of whom crossed into Khumbu with the Khari Lama, fell in love while staying in Kyabrog. When the Khari community moved to Tramo, they disrobed and apologized. The Khari Lama said that it was no problem, and that they could still work for the gompa. The Khari Lama gave money to Kalsang when the gompa needed to buy supplies. Kalsang also managed the clothes, food, wood, and other things that were offered. His main duty was to obtain food for the community, and he often walked for four days to the Saturday markets at Chalsa to obtain inexpensive butter. He also crossed the river from Tramo to cut wood, at which time his feet and hands would become very blistered. His wife Ani Ngawang Tarchen, who was the Khari Lama’s niece and Lozang Tsultrim's older sister, took care of the kitchen and cooking. They worked very hard for the Khari Lama and the practitioners there.

Normally the Khari Lama would graciously accept the money that people offered to him and the gompa and would distribute it as he saw fit. He never accumulated money for himself, and once remarked to Tsultrim Kalsang that he would at least try to practice like Jetsun Milarepa. That the Khari Lama took responsibility for the finances of the monastery was good support for Kalsang and Ani Ngawang Tarchen’s personal practice because they did not have to burden their minds with monetary concerns. He never worried about money, but sometimes the gompa would run out of supplies and cash. On one such occasion, the he told Kalsang, “We should perform a tsok offering to distribute to the community, because some of the nuns and monks look hungry. We should borrow two hundred rupees from Walung Phurbu to offer it.”

Thinking of the difficulty created by getting into debt, Kalsang replied doubtfully, “What’s the use of offering a tsok by borrowing money?”

The Khari Lama answered his doubt, saying, “It’s no problem, someone will come to offer us something.”

Kalsang went and borrowed the money. He bought food, they conducted a tsok offering ritual, and distributed the blessed food to the community. Sure enough, that evening some people came to offer food and money to the gompa, and Kalsang was able to promptly repay Walung Phurbu.

Auspicious Connections

In the late sixties, when Lama Zopa Rinpoche was staying at the Lawudo Gompa at the Lawudo cave above Tramo, he visited the Khari Gompa a few times, excited that there was such a sincerely realized master living nearby. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the Khari Lama “was very pleased to hear that we were planning to build a monastery [Kopan] and teach Dharma. He told me, ‘you should not have narrow mind and build a small monastery because of the expenses involved. You should have a very wide, strong mind and build it as large as possible. It will be very beneficial for the Dharma.’” Lama Zopa and his teacher Lama Yeshe followed this advice, and that has turned out to be very true. When asked to pray for the new monastery’s success the Khari Lama quoted Tsongkhapa: “If the mind is noble (pure, endowed with bodhicitta, opposite to evil) everything becomes noble and successful—the place, the path, everything. If the mind is evil, everything, all your enjoyments, become evil.” He then proceeded to predict his own death to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche also organized a Nyungnay retreat at Lawudo and invited the Khari nuns and monks to participate. Those who were not too old to make the hour long hike up the ridge attended. Nowadays, since the practitioners have such faith in Lama Zopa and the Khari and Lawudo Gompas are two of the very few places for Gelukpa nuns and monks in Solu Khumbu, the Khari community continues to participate in the Nyungnay retreats at Lawudo during Saka Dawa.

After escaping from Tibet, Trulshig Rinpoche stayed at Phungmoche, and was invited to the Thame gompa. As he was coming, Tsultrim Kalsang and Gelong Wangchuk, on the Khari Lama’s request, asked the Trulshig Rinpoche to stay in Tramo on the way and give an Avalokitesvara Mani empowerment. A huge crowd of people from all over the valley assembled. He stayed for three days and transmitted the Mani mantra to at least two thousand eager Sherpa and Tibetan monks, nuns, and lay folk. The Trulshig Rinpoche sang this song in praise of the enlightened activities of the Khari Lama Lozang Tsultrim:


Nestled between mountain and flat ground
Is the balanced temperate sacred place of the Tramo Gompa.

Although known as the Joyful Dharma Island,
In reality, it is Vajrayogini's holy place.

Here is a lord, a lama protecting beings in this degenerate age,
The Bodhisattva Lozang Tsultrim,
Relying on the gompa to benefit the Dharma and all beings
In this place, appearing immaculately attractive,
He stays perfectly in the state of holy Samadhi.

Although you shower offerings of auspicious flowers to him,
In reality the lama is the noble Wisdom Mind.

I pray that you remain as long as necessary,
As these five current degenerations increase.

Although my ability to spread the impartial teachings of the Buddha,
And my power of the truth is minimal,
I offer this aspiration prayer with pure heart and mind.


The Trulshig Rinpoche’s personal assistant, Ngawang Norbu, copied the song down at that time. It was preserved in other hand-written copies at the Khari Gompa in Tramo and is often read by the nuns during prayers.

The Trulshig Rinpoche then spent the summer in Thame. At other times he came to the gompa to sponsor tsok offerings and stay for a few days with the Khari Lama. He was very fond of the flat, Tibetan style roof on the small new Khari assembly hall, and he measured its dimensions with his hands. After returning to Solu, he built Thupten Chöling Gompa, copying the style onto one of the buildings.

The Chuzang Rinpoche, one of the Khari Lama’s root teachers, passed away in 1956. In the early Sixties a young boy was recognized as his reincarnation at the Chalsa Tibetan Refugee Camp in Solu. The young Chuzang Rinpoche was born in 1959 as the Bardrok Rinpoche’s son in Bardrok back in Tibet, and was soon after brought into exile with his family. After his enthronement ceremony, the Khari Lama sent the Bandrok Rinpoche a kata with a letter saying, “My root teacher has been reborn as your son, I wish him the best in life.”

Another great practitioner, Gomchen Khampala, periodically stayed a few days at the gompa in Tramo to visit with the Khari Lama, typically on his way back from Thame to his retreat house in Khunde. Gomchen was a lay lama who also received transmissions and teachings from the Rongphu Sangye. He and the Khari Lama had a wonderful connection, having both practiced Dzogchen under the Ronphu Sangye, so Gomchen came to Tramo to visit on a number of occasions.

There was also one Sakya Lama named Tenzin Tsultrim, born in 1921 in Kham Tsawarong, who stayed at the gompa in Tramo for about five years after escaping Tibet. He was close to the Khari Lama and also a great practitioner from the Ngorba Sakya College. When the Khari Lama was away from the Khari Gompa in Tramo, Tenzin Tsultrim took responsibility for the community there. Although he was a Sakya lama, he also practiced according to the Gelugpa and Nyingma traditions. He later founded the Dongwa Chötsok Gompa in Khunde, moving there for retreat after its completion in 1972. He became known as the Gen Lama, and became greatly accomplished, remaining in thukdam for 21 days after his death.

Helping Sentient Beings

If even Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas, working for self gain,
Are seen to make efforts as if their heads were on fire,
It is the practice of Bodhisattvas to benefit all beings by
Expending joyous effort, the source of all good qualities.

As in Phadrug and Dingri in Tibet, the Khari Lama gradually became well known for his divinations in Tramo, and many people visited him for this purpose. For example, if someone was preparing to make a trip for trading purposes, the Khari Lama could tell if it would come out well or not. If it appeared that difficulties would arise, he would do prayers for the person.

Since there were more fields in Tramo, at certain times potatoes were cheaper than down in Namche Bazaar, so some people came to buy potatoes. When the local Sherpas and Tibetans came to Tramo they would often also visit the small Khari gompa to see the Khari Lama; there is a belief that by merely seeing realized masters obstacles and sickness are cleared. In the late Sixties the Khari Lama stayed in a small house next to the main prayer hall, and many people came for purifications.

The villagers would make a line outside the house and visit with the lama through the window, usually to receive some drops of blessed water from a ritual vase, poured as the Khari Lama recited the Migtsewa prayer and various other long or short prayers, depending on the person’s health and needs. The people would wipe their face with the water as it trickled down, and drink a bit of it as it flowed into a basin below them. This process was considered to have great healing powers, and if a person was very ill, the Khari Lama would give them his hair shavings wrapped in a little white cloth to wear around their necks, or to burn with incense in their bedrooms. When someone wanted an extended interview with the lama or to request teachings, they would wait and enter his small house after the others had their short visits.

A few of the nuns and monks from Tramo wanted to return to Tibet. Sangye Trinley asked the Khari Lama for a divination about going, because he had heard that that there were many Chinese around Nangpa La, and he was doubtful about the trip. The result of the divination indicated that the situation was not good, but many nuns and monks from Thupten Chöling monastery went at that time anyway. They were arrested at the border, and unfortunately some of the nuns stayed in a Chinese prison for over a year.

Spy Work

A Tibetan man in Namche named Nyima Gyalpo was collecting information for the Central Tibetan Government in Dharamsala by sending Tibetan informants back over Nangpa La to Tibet. Two Tibetan men that were trained by the CIA in the United States went to Namche through Delhi to meet Nyima, in order to start their missions into Tibet. When they arrived, the situation was difficult for the Tibetans. They came up to Namche during the day, and were escorted to Tramo by Tsultrim Kalsang and another monk. In order to avoid the suspicious eye of the Nepali police, Nyima had the agents dress up as monks and stay in Tramo at the Khari Gompa, pretending to do rituals.

While they were there as fake monks, they went to the Khari Lama to request divination about whether it was better to stay in Nepal for a bit or directly go to Tibet, and whether it was safe to do their work. He said that there were no obstacles to sending them right away, that it was not good to stay too long, and that it would turn out all right. They were able to cross Nangpa La, and everything went smoothly for two years as they stayed inside Tibet working for the Dalai Lama’s government in exile. Nyima sponsored the Khari Lama to perform the Showing the Traveler the Path prayer any time anyone went across the pass to Tibet.

Later, Nyima was thinking about recruiting one young man for the underground work. Nyima requested a divination, asking whether or not he would be reliable. The results were very good, so they recruited the man. The Khari Lama called him in to his room at the gompa, gave him a blessing, and he turned out to be a very reliable agent.

The Khari Lama wholeheartedly supported the underground activities as the wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and although he had little wealth, he would give them a little money and ask how he could be of assistance. He always said, “Oh Tibet will be free, it will be free,” when people were discouraged or frustrated. Normally, when people would visit with problems he would gently express his compassion by saying “Nyingje!” He would often say, “One day we have to leave the world like a hair coming out of butter, leaving everything behind. We should daily recite Om Mani Padme Hum and everything will turn out alright.” When giving advice, he was very impartial and high-spirited, respecting all people equally regardless of status or wealth. His special quality as a diviner was that he had the outlook of a perfect practitioner, totally selfless without pride.

Nyima Gyalpo also went to the Khari Lama about his job, asking, “Is the work I’m doing good for me?”

He replied, “In the beginning it will go all right, but in the end it will turn out difficult.” In fact, after going very well for the first few years, Nyima was arrested by Nepali police in Namche. He escaped, but was later apprehended and sent to jail again in Kathmandu. After being released through the efforts of the Office of Tibet, he went to Darjeeling. When the Khampa guerillas split into two camps, Indian intelligence was suspicious of him, so they put him under house arrest for seven days, and his movements were restricted for three years to inside of Darjeeling. The divination turned out to be very true.

There was also a woman named Pongrong Drolma from Dingri who escaped to Solu Khumbu, but her family remained in Tibet. She returned to Tibet and brought her sister back with her to Khumbu, but her mother remained. She wanted to send a Khunde Sherpa man to escort her mother across Nangpa La, and after requesting a divination regarding this, the Khari Lama said, “It looks difficult. It may be impossible to get your mother to Solu Khumbu.” Against the advice, she sent the Sherpa anyway. As it turned out, he was unable to help her.

After the Sherpa failed, she decided to try herself, and on the hike up to the Nangpa La to Tibet, she stopped in Tramo to request another divination. The Khari Lama said it was all right to try again, and that in fact, she could bring her mother back during the daytime if she wanted. Pongrong went ahead to Dingri, and assisted her mother across the border in broad daylight.

After bringing her mother to Khumbu, Pongrong Drolma fell ill in Thame with obscurations of the nerves. Her symptoms were dizziness, tiredness, and ringing in the ears, among other things. She returned to Tramo for a divination about whether she should take Western medicine or Tibetan medicine. He diagnosed her and offered to heal her through purification. While doing the purifications, he used only regular water. As he was sprinkling it on her head, she had the thought that he was doing it with just water, not using the special purification substances other lamas use. She also thought that she should bring him some of it later, because maybe he couldn’t afford it. He clairvoyantly read her thoughts and said, “You have discursive thoughts, expressing doubt. My water is more powerful than mere water.” She became embarrassed, and also developed great faith in him. She went to him twelve times every three days, and recovered very well.

Another woman named Dorje Drolma from Shalu fell ill with a terrible stomach problem. Her stomach became very swollen. She went to the Khari Lama for help, and obtained some of his urine from an attendant. She drank it daily for about ten days and totally recovered from the huge swelling. Another woman that Drolma knew had the same illness, but did not go to Tramo for help, and unfortunately died due to the sickness.

Chapter 6: Passing

Illness

Late in 1967, the Khari Lama became quite ill. He was very weak and unable to eat much at all. His legs became swollen, as he suffered from “too much water in the body” (filariasis/ elephantitis). There were many speculations that he was going to die.

The head of the new Khunde Hospital, an eye specialist from New Zealand named Dr. John, was called to see what could be done. At that time, Au Hrita, the man who helped the Khari community first settle in Tramo, had become the first Sherpa medical assistant after a crash course in medicine. They walked together to examine the Khari Lama, and Dr. John prescribed a treatment. Every day for a week, Au Hrita walked over three hours from Khunde to Tramo and back with the doctor’s orders, administering injections to the venerable old monk.

The Khari Lama recovered very well, and he offered a kata, a big thanka of the Medicine Buddha and a long life blessing to the doctor. He later named Dr. John's daughter. He also gave Au Hrita gifts of Tibetan brick tea, Tibetan rock salt, 700 rupees, and a kata.

Shortly after his recovery, in one of the prayer sessions, the Khari Lama said, “It is written that after turning eighty a crossing over occurs, and you can’t perform much good. The Buddha also passed away at eighty years.” He then stated, “I think I shall not live longer than that.”

Passing

Whatever appears is (the manifestation of) one’s own mind;
The nature of mind itself is primordially free from fabrication.
Knowing this, it is the practice of Bodhisattvas
Not to conceive the signs of object and subject.

Other than his previous illness in 1967, the Khari Lama rarely became sick. His nephew Lozang Tsultrim would often go to Namche and other villages to run errands for the gompa, sometimes staying the night in Tramo at the gompa. In September of 1969, the Khari Lama told Lozang that he should always return to Tramo before the evening time. About a month later, the Khari Lama began to display some signs of illness; at times it seemed quite serious. The Trulshig Rinpoche heard of this and made the four-day walk from Thupten Chöling to request the revered lama to remain for the benefit of others. The Khari Lama, “I don’t need to, rather it is you that needs to remain,” pointing to the great importance of the Trulshig Rinpoche to both Sherpa and Tibetan people.

Two days before he passed away, two people from Namche wanted to sponsor a tsok offering at Tramo, so the Khari Lama told them to make preparations. On that day he asked the nuns at the gompa to replace the flags, burn incense, and put up new window hangings. After it was done he said, “Now everything looks nice and clean. Everything is well.” It was as if he was making preparations for his departure, although he seemed to be doing better.

He ordered that everyone attend the long ceremony. At about three a.m. that night, on the twenty-fourth day of the eighth month of the Earth Bird year, the Khari Lama sent a nun to call Lozang Tsultrim. When he arrived, the Trulshig Rinpoche’s personal attendant Ngawang Norbu, Gelong Trinley Wangchuk, and Ani Ngawang Tarchen were all gathered with the Khari Lama. Their lama was talking normally, and they conversed for some time. He explained to them how to run the monastery after he departed. The nuns were saving some money that had been offered in order to perform ceremonies. The Khari Lama warned them against this, saying, “Do not keep that money. Use it right away; otherwise, it will become the cause of fighting and prolems.”

He said, “I am now eighty years old. Among all of the Gyejang family members, I have lived the longest life. Although I am the oldest, birth and death is still present for me, as it is for everyone.” He then performed a divination and said, “I’m a little bit unwell. I may not die, but even if I do, it’s nothing. Birth and death are for all beings.” He then motioned for Lozang to sit and said, “Please come sit next to me.” Upon sitting, the Khari Lama bent his head and placed it in Lozang’s lap for about three minutes. He straightened up into the meditative posture and reaffirmed those present, saying, “You don’t need to worry, because we have pure samaya.” The Khari Lama asked that his tea bowl be refilled with some good tea and that he be left alone. Around five a.m. he passed away, sitting in meditation.

The Khari Lama Gelong Namse Lozang Tsultrim was a totally accomplished yogi with no attachments to material or personal possessions. When he died, the nuns opened the box that contained the gompa’s money, and revealed that he only had 400 Nepali rupees in his possession. He always offered whatever he received for rituals and distributed it among the Sangha, so he had no gold, silver or other precious things, like many other lamas. Because of this, there was hardly any money for his cremation and rituals.

The Khari Lama remained in thugdam for seven days after he passed. Many people from all over Solu Khumbu, and almost all of the people in the Thame valley above Namche, came to pay respect. Since Gomchen Khampala had such a good connection with the Khari Lama, he came to oversee all of the final activities and rituals. After the Khari Lama released his consciousness from his body, he slumped over, rigor mortis set in, and they prepared him for cremation. They dressed his body in the empowerment robe, a thin ceremonial robe and a crown. In his hands they placed a vajra and bell. They also set up metal rods on the back of his neck to keep the body rigid. He was cremated next to the Khari Gompa in Tramo at about seven a.m., a week after his death.

They built a funerary stupa over the spot where they performed the cremation. Water was sprinkled on it as a purifying offering, and after seven days they opened it up. As with many other realized practitioners, the eyes were resting on the heart, sitting on the tongue, all unburned. There were also pieces of reddish colored skull and bones left. They preserved these bones for a month. Inside the skull, the brains had turned into red sindura powder, which is a sign of accomplishment in Vajrayogini practice. The front of the skull also had an emanation of Vajrayogini. They offered water to the remains daily, so the auspicious marks on the skull would emanate more clearly.

The Tibetans say that there are signs that indicate where a high lama will take his next birth. When the people at the Khari gompa removed the metal basin over which the cremation fire was made, there were two footsteps in the sand. One was big and the other was of a child, and they were facing towards the gompa. There was also a footprint discovered in stone where water was fetched for the gompa. They offered a small fire on the spot that he was cremated, and the smoke rose up into the sky and then drifted east towards Namche Bazaar.

Gomchen Khampala stayed for about fifteen days. He was a great Nyingmapa master, and he remarked, “I’m very much attracted to the enlightened activities of this lama.”

They preserved the bones for a month on the roof of the Khari Lama’s room. After that, they brought the bones down, ground them into a powder which they mixed with cremation ashes and clay. With this clay they made 100,000 tsatsas (small clay images) of Vajrayogini. They then enshrined the stone with the footprint, skull peices, and the tsatsas in a stupa built on the cremation site.

About three years before his passing, the Khari Lama wrote and sealed a letter to the community. In that letter, he explained that, “One day I will pass. You do not need to worry, and there is no need to cry. After it happens, you should stay and pray. I had this gompa built so that whatever people offered me would not be wasted. Ngawang Tarchen is my niece. When I pass she should be the main caretaker of the gompa. Whatever is left after the cremation should be thrown in a big river so that it can benefit many sentient beings.”

In accordance with the letter’s instructions, they sent the leftover ground bone to Tibet, Nepal and India. The powder was offered to the Bung Chu River in Tibet, the Ganga in India, the Tama Koshi in Khumbu, the Dudh Koshi below Tramo and into the Trisuli River in Nepal.

The Khari Lama left Lozang Tsultrim a copy of His Holiness’ biography, My Land My People, which he sent to him through a nun with the message that it might be useful to him one day. About a month after the passing, Lozang Tsultrim went to Bodh Gaya on a pilgrimage to offer butter lamps for the Khari Lama to the Mahabodhi Stupa, where the Buddha attained complete enlightenment. Lozang did not have much money, but he offered a few lamps at all of the major Buddhist sacred places he visited in India.

Through the Tibet office in Nepal the Khari community requested His Holiness the Dalai Lama to compose a prayer for the swift rebirth of the Khari Lama, which the community recited daily.

After the Khari Lama passed away, the numbers of nuns and monks staying in Tramo dwindled slowly. However, the Khari Lama’s neice Ani Ngawang Tarchen and Tsultrim Kalsang continued to take good care of the small gompa, and the Gen Lama Tenzin Tsultrim remained in Tramo as the spiritual leader of the community.


The great Tibetan Buddhist yogi, the Khari Lama Lozang Tsultrim

The Life of the Khari Rinpoche Tenzin Özer
(1970-1976)

Auspicious Birth

Soon after the cremation ceremonies were completed in Tramo, the Khari Lama’s nephew, Lozang Tsultrim, moved to Namche Bazaar with his wife, Tsering Chönzom. Tsering became pregnant, and a few months into the pregnancy, the Trulshig Rinpoche predicted through a divination that the Khari Lama would reincarnate, as the signs surrounding his cremation had indicated. There was also a Nepali Blacksmith named Kami Ram Singh who lived in Namche. He had a dream in which he saw the previous Khari Lama ride a white horse into Lozang’s house. He believed that it meant that the lama would be born to Lozang's wife.

In the Iron Dog Year, on June 22, 1970, nine months and twenty-one days after the Khari Lama died, Lozang and Tsering’s son was born in their house in Namche. They named him Lozang Tenzin, and when the boy was about two months old, a crazy Sherpa yogi named Pomtog Rinpoche arrived from Chalsa for no apparent reason. He offered a kata to the baby and said, “This is the Khari Rinpoche. You should ask His Holiness the Dalai Lama to identify him.” He was a calm baby, and would often spontaneously fold his little hands to his heart.

By the time Lozang Tenzin was in his second year, there were speculations that he was the reincarnation of the Khari Lama. Because of this, Lozang Tsultrim went to the small gompa in Namche Bazaar and held a meeting with many of the nuns and monks from Tramo. Reincarnated lamas are not normally recognized until after they begin speaking, but since they were rather certain of who he was, they sent a letter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama asking for his opinion. In the letter they sent the names of the parents, the child’s name, and other details, including Trulshig Rinpoche’s divination and Pomtog Rinpoche's visit. They soon received a letter from His Holiness confirming the boy as the reincarnation of the Khari Lama. In the letter, His Holiness gave the name Tenzin Özer to the boy. After the letter came, they brought the boy to the Khari Gompa. The Trulshig Rinpoche’s manager, Ngawang Norbu, came to represent him from Thupten Chöling Gompa, and on September 22, 1972, the Gen Lama Tenzin Tsultrim enthroned the child as the official reincarnation of the Khari Lama, and people began to refer to the boy as the Khari Rinpoche. A year later, the Gen Lama moved to his small new gompa in Khunde for retreat.

Lozang used his copy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s autobiographical book My Land My People that the Khari Lama gave him as a guide for finding and recognizing the reincarnation. In that way it proved very useful for the community, as the Khari Lama had predicted.

Early Education

In the winter of 1973, His Holiness was visiting Bodh Gaya, so Lozang Tsultrim took his family on pilgrimage to India to see him. After arriving in Bodh Gaya, they met with the Dalai Lama, and the little Khari Lama took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha by offering his hair to him. The Dalai Lama then asked Lozang if there were any good lamas in the Solu Khumbu area with whom the child could study. He advised Lozang to bring his son to study in India in the future. They stayed for the Kalachakra teachings and empowerment that year, the second Kalachakra His Holiness had held in Bodh Gaya. They also visited the ancient holy sites of Nalanda and Rajgir north of Bodh Gaya in Bihar. After leaving Bodh Gaya, they completed their pilgrimage by going to Varanasi and Sarnath, Dharamsala, Tso Pema, Kushinagar, Lumbini, and the Kathmandu Valley.

A year later, they went to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama again. He said that the child was still too young to go off to school without his parents. He advised them to bring him to Kathmandu and let him learn to read and write in a gompa there, until he was old enough to go to India for further studies. The family stayed in Dharamsala for about one month at that time.

Lozang and Tsering had two more sons, Kalden Ngodrup and Kunga Rinchen. They were born in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Since Solu Khumbu was poor and the Khari Gompa in Tramo was small, they decided it would be better for Tenzin Özer's education if the family followed the Dalai Lama’s advice and moved to Swayambunath in Kathmandu. Lozang knew traditional Tibetan tailoring, and his clothes sold better in Kathmandu than in Solu Kumbu. However, they later discovered that Kathmandu was not that healthy a place after all.

The little lama was very sharp. When he just started speaking, he could memorize ten to fifteen words at a time, and could also draw whatever he saw very easily. Whenever he encountered beggars or people killing or beating animals, he would cry out of compassion.

One scholarly Geshe, named Pelwar Geshe Rinpoche, lived at Helambu Bhaghan, north of the Kathmandu Valley. Lozang wanted to seek the Geshe’s advice about the education of his child. He brought Tenzin Özer to meet Geshe Rinpoche, together with the seven-year-old Zagalung Tulku Rinpoche, his father Tratul and their monk attendant. The young Zagalung Rinpoche was the third incarnation of the Zagalung Lama, who transmitted Machig Labdron's Chöd to the Khari Lama in Rongshar. The second Zagalung Tulku Rinpoche had died in 1965 at the age of twenty-seven in Dalhousie, India, after coming from Tibet.

It took two days to walk to Helambu from Swayambu. When Pelwar Geshe Rinpoche came down to receive them, he went out of the door to meet the small Rinpoches and offer them katas. When they entered the Geshe’s sitting room, Lozang arranged the kids. There was a high and a low cushion inside the room, and as a sign of humility Lozang placed the Zagalung Tulku on the higher seat and his own son on the lower one. The Geshe then said, “This isn’t right. The Khari Rinpoche should sit on the higher cushion.” He also said, “Lamas are very important. In the Khari Rinpoche’s case it is very good that you got the letter from His Holiness, confirming that he was the real reincarnation.”

Geshe Rinpoche advised Lozang to send Tenzin Özer to one of the three large Gelugpa monasteries, Sera, Drepung, or Ganden, in the future. However, he said that at the time the young Khari Lama was too small to be without his family, so they should remain in Kathmandu. They stayed in Helambu for one night.

As a child, the young Khari Rinpoche also met the Trulshig Rinpoche, Gomchen Khampala, His Holiness's tutor Yongzin Trijang Rinpoche, the Sekong Rinpoche, the Rato Rinpoche, the Chuzang Rinpoche and his father, the Bandrok Rinpoche, and many other lamas. They all advised him to study diligently to become a good lama.

Epilogue

After the unfortunate early passing of Tenzin Özer, the second incarnation of the Khari Rinpoche, the numbers of nuns and monks living in Tramo continued to dwindle until there were only a few left staying there. Lozang Tsultrim’s family continued to take care of and reside at the small gompa, as his sister Ani Ngawang Tarchen and Tsultrim Kalsang moved their family to Namche Bazaar.

In the early eighties, some nuns in Tramo began actively looking for the third incarnation of the Khari Rinpoche. They asked the Trulshig Rinpoche for advice, who said, “He has taken rebirth in Tibet, and must be about in his fifth year.”

The community also sent a letter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama requesting his advice. His reply, dated to the twelfth day of the ninth Tibetan month (August 18, 1984), read,

Regarding the letter requesting divination received from the Khari Gompa monastic community residing in Tramo, Solo Khumbu; I have done divination. There seems to be a rebirth of Lama Lozang Tsultrim's reincarnation, Tenzin Özer. Also, if you are able to search among those children who have reached about the age of six in the area of his [the Khari Lama’s] gompa in Tibet, it is possible to find him. I am praying for your protection and a quick meeting with him.

Having received this, two old nuns from the gompa in Tramo, Ani Wangmo and Ani Chöye, went to Tibet to search for the reincarnation and to visit old relatives. On the Trulshig Rinpoche’s instructions, they went to the nomad house of Penpa and Sonam Karil. The met the child of Tsering Chönzom there, who told them, “I live in Tramo, I have a white dog,” and said the dog’s name. He then said, “I’m going to Tramo. My gompa is there.”

Surprised by the five-year-old’s knowledge of their nunnery, the two nuns continued talking with the child and set out a few different prayer beads. One of them belonged to the Khari Lama, and they asked the boy to take one. He grabbed his predecessor's and rubbed it around in his hands. The nuns saw his mannerisms as the same as the Khari Lama’s. He called them by name, and gave them orders. The nuns, who had sorely missed their lama, became very happy and shed many tears of joy. The child then put his hand on their heads, and consoled them like a lama, telling them everything would be all right.

The two nuns returned happily to Tramo, and after relating their story to the others there, all of the nuns became very joyous and cried many times.
In the January of 1985 the boy’s father Namgyal brought him to Bodh Gaya to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Kalachakra initiation and teachings.

At that time, Nyima Gyalpo, the man who consulted the Khari Lama about his Tibetan spy operations, had become a security officer for His Holiness. Namgyal met Nyima, narrated his story and asked for advice. Nyima took them to His Holiness for a personal audience, and after a divination the Dalai Lama verified that the boy was indeed the reincarnation of the Khari Lama. He advised sending the boy to school, cut the little boy’s hair, gave him blessing pills and a long-life thread, and renamed him Tenzin Gelek.

Tenzin Gelek then went to Massorrie to study. He stayed in the Tibetan Home School, home number 27. A man named Urgyen, who was the caretaker of home number 27, looked after the boy. After having him enrolled in the school, Namgyal returned to his family in Tibet.

On February 1st, 1986, the letter was sent back with the official stamp of the Dalai Lama and a sentence recognizing Tenzin Gelek, the son of Ngawang, as the true incarnation of the Khari Rinpoche.

The Khenpo of the Shelkar Chöde Gompa, Lozang Samten, presided over the enthronement ceremony in Boudha, which was organized by the Phadrug Welfare Association. Later that year, the great Gen Lama Tenzin Tsultrim then came from his gompa in Khunde to enthrone him. Gen Lama passed away in 1993 in Khunde, at the age of 73. He remained in meditative equipoise for twenty-one days after exhaling his last breath.

The young Khari Lama Tenzin Gelek was enrolled in Sera Me college in Mysore in south India, and later renamed Tenzin Yonten, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He has spent his subsequent years following the traditional Gelugpa course of study by memorizing prayers, learning philosophical debate, and receiving empowerments and teachings, either in Sera Me, Dharamsala, Kathmandu, or at the Khari Gompa in Tramo.

After Tenzin Yonten began making visits to Tramo, girls began leaving Tibet to become nuns and practice Dharma at the Khari Gompa. In 1992, besides two seventy-year-old monks, there were twelve old nuns, and eight recently arrived eager young nuns. During the nineties, some of the nuns moved to Kathmandu to study at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Kopan nunnery, and others have passed away. Since that time about fifteen new nuns have taken the risk of walking over the Nangpa La to practice the Dharma in Tramo.

Almost all of the nuns at the Khari Gompa are from Phadrug area in Tibet, although there is one Sherpa nun. There are not many lamas living in Lato in Tibet anymore, because it is dangerous for them. The nuns therefore leave their families for Khumbu to practice Dharma intensely under a lama. It is a difficult journey, and they are grateful to have a place to stay and practice once they arrive in Khumbu.

The first Khari Lama advised the nuns to stay in Tramo and perform long retreats to recite mantras, and work for the benefit of others. Many of the old nuns have continued to do exactly this since his time. The able-bodied Khari nuns walk up to the Lawudo Gompa to participate in Nyungnay retreats there every year in the early summer. The community continues to perform Vajrayogini tsok offerings on the tenth and twenty-fifth of every Tibetan month.

In 2001, twenty nuns also made a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya in the winter. They went around Khumbu performing Chöd for donations, and also had to beg to raise enough funds. On their pilgrimage, they stayed in a rented house in Boudha for about a month. The nuns recited many Tara prayers, made offerings, and prostrated thousands of times at the holy stupa.

They stayed in tents for one month in Bodh Gaya. They attended empowerments prayer assemblies at the Mahabodhi temple there. It was the eleventh Tibetan month, so it was a cold and difficult pilgrimage. After returning to Tramo, the nuns continued to alternate doing one or two month Vajrayogini practice retreats.

For many years the nuns and local Sherpas have been unhappy about the state of the Khari Gompa, as the old assembly hall would leak in the monsoon and was far too small for the growing amount of nuns. In March 2003, after much planning, the Khari community tore down the old prayer hall and began building a much larger assembly hall that could hold the thirty nuns that currently live at the Khari Gompa. Tenzin Yonten has stayed in Tramo each year for around eight months since then in order to facilitate the construction work. He is currently splitting his time between studying, practicing, and raising money for the completion of this auspicious project, as well as the construction of a larger community kitchen, more retreat housing for future nuns, and sanitary toilet facilities.

The nuns participate in every aspect of the construction process, collecting rocks and sand at the riverside, shoveling the foundation, breaking rocks by hand to make gravel, mixing cement, sanding the woodwork, painting, as well as many other related tasks. They continue to beg in the various villages in Khumbu to support themselves and the building projects. They are extremely motivated to complete necessary renovations, so that they will have the time, space and resources in the future to begin regular studies in Tibetan, Nepali and English language, Math, Buddhist philosophy and practice. It is also their wish to be able to prepare for and conduct long-term meditation retreats above the gompa, in the future.

The Khari Rinpoche Tenzin Yonten with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

i am now posting at www.kilgoresmith.blogspot.com. i am changing because i think it will be more convenient to post pictures with blogspot and create links. i think this will be more helpful for anyone interested in what i'm up to. pictures are important, as this place is so spectacularly beautiful at times, unbelievably ugly at others.

Phakchok Rinpoche has told me that there is going to be a room in the chapagaon monastery that i can stay in, and he wants me to be an english conversation partner for the 32 monks there, and also he wants me to help organize their futbol team. fuck yeah!

so they just caught 4 suspects of the mumbai bombings in kathmandu at 2 hotels, all pakastani nationals, no details yet but al qaida is trying to claim some kind of responsibility although that is unlikely. these are just the acts of fuckers who are upset that india and pakastan are starting to get along.

and israel is bombing beruit in lebanon now. i am getting a little short with Jahweh and Allah, why the fuck can't you get along with yourself El and Al, you moron you are the same "one god," you petty ass desert deity with a seriously sociopathic split personality. see a fucking shrink!

tomorrow morning i meet the 5 american students i am flying to Lhasa, tibet with on saturday. i will then lead them around central tibet and back to kathmandu on the road. it should be fun and beautiful, as usual, and also quite striking to visit the monasteries, but now the train from inland china has made it to lhasa so there are a ton of altitude sick annoying ass chinese tourist gaping at tibetans who very obviously despise their presence, despite all the material wealth being brought to the wealthy in lhasa, many of whom are HAN and not Tibetan, all the while there are still tons of tibetan beggars on the street.

but i'm happy because i can go to samye and see the holy statues and make prostrations and pray for all the fucking morons in the world who would love to see the whole thing in flames starting in the middle east because it would validate the prophesies in their antiquated narrowminded false history of the world they like to call the Bible. how did it come to pass that once again millenialist are in power? can't we have someone who actually believes that future generations will exist make our decisions for us?

as it gets worse it gets better. as it gets better it gets worse.

you say HUNG i say PHAT, you say PHAT i say HUNG!

form is emptiness, emptiness form.

may i recognize my own mind as the dharmakaya!

so seeing the possibility of death ever looming for all of us, i've decided to post an informal will that i hope will be remembered by a few key folks so that it can be done:

those that may be around my dead body should not weep and wail, as my departing consciousness will be trying to find its way, and a tranquil atmosphere is important as i lack solid mental grounding.

someone, preferable a lama but if not a close relation, should please read through the Bardo Thodrol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, emphatically in my presence as many times as possible in English or Tibetan. I would also request that everyone associated please pray to their respective gods that i not go to heaven, other high realms, or that i may be enlightened, but rather that i may be swiftly reborn as a human to help others most effectively.

my body should be cremated, as this is the only disposal option that takes the needs of future generation into account. i wish that my ashes be spread around kisatche national forest, becoming immediate nutrient for the natural life there.

after the funeral ceremony, there should be no crying, but rather a huge party, celebrating my brief return to the basic sphere of reality. you can use some of my money to buy abita kegs, invite all your friends. and also play the song "when i die you better second-line."

my laptop should be donated to the Louisiana Himalayan Association for their computer lab in Dharamsala India.

daniel chris and elizabeth can decide what to do with the rest of my belongings (mainly books and clothes). i hope that they will be generous and spread what few things i have to as many friends as possible, as memorials.

finally, the little savings that i do have should be divided as follows:
25% should be donated to the Louisiana Himalayan Association for the continuation of their work amongst disadvantaged peoples in northern India.
25% should be donated to the Passage Project for International Education to defray the cost of student programs.
50% should be donated to the nuns at the Khari Ganden Tenphel Ling Ani Gonpa (Khari nunnery) in Thamo village Solu Khumbu district Nepal. This money should be used specifically to support those nuns who wish to remain in meditation retreats practicing for the sake of all sentient beings, but are unable to do so due to financial constraint.

this is important to think about, as every day that passes puts us one closer to the day of our death.

yesterday was spent at the jawalakhel tibetan refugee camp at a big festival celebration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 71's birthday. Happy birthday big guy!

so as usual what i had anticipated occuring has no chance of happening.

i reserved a plane ticket for the khumbu (everest region) to hike back to the nunnery i have done research at a couple of times. i was very excited to be going back, considering this time i have a computer voice recorder and camera and was set to actually get a lot done for my book.

i think that this is a black year.

the director of the passage project for international education, vidhea, the nepali woman that has been so kind to me in the past, who set me up with a great job the last two summers, introduced me to many fine people, fed me many free meals, was planning on taking her 5 summer tibetan students to tibet from july 15 to 27. i was planning on going to khumbu from july 10 to august 3. these things are not going to occur.

vidhea was diagnosed with cancer yesterday, and obviously the two weeks she'd spend traveling through the tibetan plateau without any medical care would be better spent in kathmandu having tests done. therefore i am going to take her students to tibet for her (i've done it twice before, it should be fine, although i don't know the students).

i am feeling more compelled to finishing the book on Khari Lama and also to complete the translation that i started at Rice, because

EVERYTHING IS IMPERMANENT AND WE COULD DIE AT ANY FUCKING TIME!!!

Shuchin gave me this novel to read. The first alternate history that I’ve read. Alternate history is basically science fiction about the past. We all like to mentally masturbate about what would the world be like if this had happened or this hadn’t happened, etc. It is a creative exercise in fantasy, but I also think it’s useful to think about.
The first part of the book follows a raiding party of Temur the Lame. As they push west into Europe, they ride through village after village of plague bloated corpses. As it turns out, in this narrative the black death didn’t just visit a third to a fourth of the population of the world’s Christian population, but all of them.
Upon their return, Temur orders that everyone in the party be killed and their bodies burned, as they could be carrying the plague. One escapes, and the narrative follows him, a Buddhist, as he wanders starving through the blighted land until he is apprehended by Muslim Arabian slave traders in the near east, who sell him with some Africans to Chinese.
The book follows them through China, and also into the bardo once they pass away. All of the main characters of the story reassemble in the space between death and rebirth, and we find out that they are a of one jati, or a family of reincarnating souls. They bicker amongst themselves as they wait for their judgment. The book continues in a completely different part of the world, with new characters in a new situation, with no obvious thread connecting it to the past narrative, except it begins about the time that the last one leaves off.
There are about ten stories, with full beginning middle and endings in their own right, and one may notice certain archetypal characters that recur and often repeat the same experiences of their past lives, carried by the force of past action as it collides with the wills of each character in new situations. It is a book about the consistency of experience that crosses all cultural boundaries. It also well examines whether or not we can create a new world with what past generations have left us. Is life evolving to something greater or are we subjected to a string of unrelated events we have no control of?
The specifics of what happens in world history take a secondary importance to the individuals choices to create a better, more just, equal world, regardless of what our ancestors have left us. It is a story in the end, but it is history, because after all, there is no grand narrative that runs through man’s interaction with each other, nature, and himself, but rather an aggregation of all individuals’ experience.
A must read.

yesterday i went to the monastery where my lama is and offered about 25 dollars for a fire ceremony. phakchok rinpoche, who i consider my root teacher, will perform it for the sake of lee deal, ben couch, nathan weems and julian paul green. the idea is that while their souls are still wandering in the bardo this ritual will help burn their obstacles to high rebirth and lead them hopefully back to the human realm, especially if they have the intent to come back to help humankind.

it doesn't matter that 3/4 of these young guys were christian. God hears all languages, intention is what matters when praying for the dead, not cultural specifics.

also saw most of kevin costner's film 13 days last night as i was waiting to watch italy vs germany, which was on from 1am to 3am nepal time. go italy!!!

yeah, 13 days is a really great film, probably one of kevins best. it is an intimate look at JFK during the cuban missle crisis. very historical, not over dramatic (it was really dramatic by itself without hollywood), even shows JFK popping amphetamines and drinking whiskey all the time, which he did. the movie doesn't portray the russians as evil or JFK as flawless. it does, however, seem to point to the american generals, cheifs of staff, admirals, etc, as warhawks trying to push a direct confrontation with the reds. JFK is really fighting against rash airstrikes which the cheifs want. anyway, if you are into history it is a great film to check out.

i've started making some progress as far as plans go, and have worked out a few contacts so far in Chapagaon, the village i hope to stay in this year.

Date:	2006-07-03 09:50
Subject:	death and rebirth
Security:	Public
Mood:	sleepy

it is with sadness that i make this post on the day of my arrival in Nepal. it is an auspicious day today, being a monday and medicine buddha day. but i have learned recently of the deaths of three associates, of which i will list below.
nathan weems, who also grew up at emmanuel baptist church, died in his bed in alexandria louisiana a few weeks ago. he and chris were childhood friends, and i recently posted about a conversation i had with his father, the associate pastor at emmanuel. we discussed the death of lee hamilton deal mostly.
i arrived in kathmandu this morning and immediately went to my friend ram's house, where i rented a room last summer and am staying now. a fellow tenant and friend from last summer, and a very close friend of ram's, an young american named ben couch from colorado was killed about a month and a half ago while riding motorcycles with ram and another american friend. he died instantly as he was hit head on by an oncoming truck. he had dedicated the last year of his life to studying nepali and tibetan in order to spread the compassionate action of Jesus Christ to all he met. he organized trips for fellow christian americans to experience the majesty of nepal while volunteering as much as he could. he was a very generous soul.
finally, last week my buddy galen murten informed me of the tragic death of julian paul green, a 28 year old buddhist studies phd student a uva. he was killed in a car accident in eastern tibet while collecting documentary footage for his dissertation. he lived the principles of buddhism to its full fruition, actually giving his life for the Dharma in a sense. a very nice article about him is reproduced here http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/NEWS/606300326/1062

just because we're young doesn't mean shit, we could die anytime. the only certainty about death is that it's coming, the time, place
and circumstances are total unknowns. take this to heart.

i also had the pleasure of meeting my dharma friends david and ali's twin girl and boy. ten months old now, the boy, manuel maya is like a little rocket ready for the chance to bounce around off everything once he can walk, and the girl, karina maya, a quiet reflection of her mother. they are mexican australian, and as usual, mixed is beautiful.

i've had a nice time to walk around my old neighborhood boudha thinking of mortality and randomly meeting back up with old friends.

i've made it 80 pages into Dr. Rick Strassman's unique book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule. It is a truly amazing book in many respects, but it is the closest i've ever seen to setting the biological basis for the spiritual insight of the yogis and mystics of antiquity. it also is a great explanation about what psychedelics do to the mind. will post more on this when i'm finished, but i'm taking notes because much of the material is of direct relevance to the research i've been doing the past few years regarding proprioception, sexuality and meditation.

so i've been up pretty much without sleep for about 3 days now, and am trying to make it to about 9pm so i won't be jetlagged.

Date:	2006-06-30 00:10
Subject:	my DC trip: jeep to rental SUV to Nancy's to Steve's to Metro to Dulles I A
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

Monday morning Ivan and I peeled out of the Super 8 in Dublin, Georgia bright eyed for a day of non-stop driving and an evening arrival at my uncle Carl’s outside D.C.; our spirits undaunted by weather reports of thunderstorms along the mid-Atlantic coast. The previous night’s post rain evaporation had given the southern evening a pastoral haze, but after really opening up my eyes after some morning meditation I noticed the clarity of the air and brilliant azure northern sky greeted us.
Many people entertain paranoid fantasies about the weather, and I have always been one of them. On Monday Ivan and I received a clear storm omen from the universe. We were rolling east out of Columbus Ga., and making good time when harsh irregular scraping noises told us the trailer hitch had somehow broken. We pulled into a filling station, and the Chinese cashier kindly let me commandeer his phone book. We made it to the closest auto parts store in pretty good time considering the inane way streets in Columbus skirt highways and the interstate so the driver is always finding connectors to streets but never the streets themselves. We had to drive there twice, because the AutoZone cashier forgot to put the washers we bought in the bag. Just as we were able to get the gas tank released from the back-bumper to replace the snapped bolts pinning the hitch to the Jeep, the thunderclouds that had been building to the south opened their deluge and a loud tornado warning siren began blaring from town. We rushed to cover the scattered trailer goods and were gusted over by hard wind driven rain that let up just as we finished the car work.
Onward without thought of natural narrative building. I had hoped.
We hit three storms during the morning, but Ivan balled the Jeep through them, and there was no consideration of stopping for lunch. I hardly noticed the hours go by, enraptured by the last couple hundred pages of The Years of Rice and Salt, a novel I will write about shortly. We were making good time through North Carolina, coming up to 250 miles until destination Fairfax.
After the rainstorms cleared there were many cars that had made their ways into ditches. The roads still slick. I said silent prayers for Ivan’s control of the Jeep and the small trailer we were pulling with Mattie’s stuff. Ivan suddenly exclaimed and I looked up to see the trailer tractor in front of us had slowed down considerably and was sliding into the ditch, the big trailer toppled over, quickly bringing the cab passenger side down into the wet turf. As we passed we noticed oil streaming out of the cab underside, we parked and went to the truck. A few other motorists had also hurried over to the steaming rig in the grass, and one man had already been talking with the driver and had climbed up the front of the truck and pulled open the door. Ivan encouraged me to climb up and with a moments hesitation I scampered up the top of the cab making sure not to grab the burning exhaust stack.
The driver, a tall bald black man, was moving slow and seemed very disoriented. He had managed to stand up on the passenger door and we encouraged him to climb out. We pulled him up to a sitting position. He had a large growing bump on his forehead that hadn’t begun bleeding yet because of the rapidity of the onset of swelling. He faintly asked if I’d seen what happened. I told him all I saw was his sliding out of the road. We asked him to go slow. I told him he was OK and rubbed his upper back, shoulders and neck. After a few minutes, he slowly climbed down the cab to a stopped car to rest. Soon a policeman arrived, and it was unspoken between Ivan and I that it was time to leave. Five minutes after stopping we were on the road again, wondering if the whole thing may explode at any moment. He was very badly shaken.
“Clank clankaty clank,” said the Jeep and it stalled out at the top of the I-95 NC Exit 98 overpass for the last time. We coasted down the ramp and after some cursing began walking in the hot ass sun to the Luxury Inn at the Exit 97 overpass, got a phonebook, called the tow service and started walking back to Exit 98.
Made it to Fairfax in time to stay one night with Nancy, Stephen and Andrew Rosene. Nancy is a graceful as ever, and I think the kids are some sort of wunderkind. I see Stephen as a future poet laureate and Andy will make many people very happy.

The Fulbright Orientation has been very informative, if not a little to belaboring. The reception was very nice, and the other students, researchers and senior scholars are amazing. I was pleased to discover that one of my classmates at Rice, Ian McCormick, will also be spending the year studying Tibetan Buddhism in Kathmandu as a Fulbrighter. Go Rice!

Time to Sleep.

nice weekend spent in alexandria. a younger friend (danno's exgirlfriend) was getting married. congratulations mer! the ceremony was at emmanuel baptist church, where i grew up. very open for a baptist church. i had a slightly drunken (slightly because i was drunk and he sober) conversation with the associate pastor about interfaith spiritual growth. he seemed most interested in my experiences with buddhist meditation practice. very sincere. i thanked him deeply for the support i continiue to receive there, that i've always found there. a further validation of my conviction that i've never really given up my "christian" faith, it has just grown into something much more expansive, defying labels, absolutes, reification.

along the mountain stream
an aspen grove
each tree separate in its lovliness
yet all the same plant

spent the day with byorn and chris at the clearview picadilly learning how to lay tile. always learning something new. cool thing is when i go up to the khari nunnery in khumbu nepal in july i'll have a great opportunity to use my construction skills helping to build new nun retreat houses and rebuilding their main prayer hall. last time i was really only able to lift and carry stuff, break rocks into gravel. now i actually have some skills and am looking forward to seeing how construction is different in a place with no roads, hardly any power tools.

Got some info about the South Asia Fulbright Orientation I'll be checking out in DC June 28-30. The agenda looks pretty good, and there are some panels about the normal issues plus stuff like US involvement in South Asia and Washington's perspective on the Fulbright Experience (Oh, God!). Plenty of free time to skip away as well...

If I can swing it I'll stay with my friend Steven Adam, the guy I spent my academic year in Nepal with, who works at the World Resources Institute in DC. I'm also hoping to see an Aunt and Uncle up there. Should be fun, and help me get focused. Especially since I'm leaving the day after the orientation is finished, heheheh.



the construction remains interesting because i've taken a big project on pretty much by myself. after removing the walls, some ceiling, floorboards, joists, beams and pipes from two rooms I've replaced the beams, reframed the walls and installed a new window. Going to soon reside the house there and relay the floors, then onto insulation and drywall.

its getting hot down in NOLA, dirty coast!!!