Shall We Play with Fire?
“The guru is someone who tells us the truth, someone who tells us what we need to hear…guru is just the ultimate bad news for the ego.”
—Dzongsar J. Khyentse Rinpoche
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Alak Zenkar Rinpoche with Dodrupchen Rinpoche at Dzogchen Bearer, Ireland 1991 (Photographer unknown)
Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, 2019
Alak Zenkar Rinpoche Tubten Nyima, NYC 1993 (Photo by N. L. Drolma)
Sogyal Rinpoche introduced me to Alak Zenkar Rinpoche in September 1993—on my birthday. What prescience and a gift second to none!
Alak Zenkar Rinpoche was new to New York and I was instructed by Sogyal Rinpoche to offer him assistance. Zenkar Rinpoche is a preeminent tulku in the Khyentse lineage, a world renowned lexicographer (The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary), a formidable editor, and one of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist scholars of our times. But when we met, I didn’t know any of this so I didn’t feel intimidated and was charmed upon making his acquaintance. Zenkar Rinpoche’s humility outshines all definitions of the word—a quality said to be the mark of a supreme master of Dzogchen. In subsequent meetings with Rinpoche, his unbeatable smile unfailingly blanketed me with happiness.
One day while we were standing on a street corner waiting for the red light to turn green, Zenkar Rinpoche described to me the streetlights in England, and how there are “little men in boxes” that tell you when to stop or go. In an engaging childlike manner, Rinpoche then enacted for me the stiff, exaggerated arm and leg movements of an automated stick figure. I thought to myself, He’s my kind of lama—soft-spoken, uninhibited and without a shred of affectation.
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Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, guest speaker, Light of Berotsana Conference of Translators 2008 (4:03)
“Shall we play with fire?” asked Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, his tone lilting and playful, in answer to my offer to prepare him a cup of tea. On my previous visit, I triggered a fire in his host’s kitchen. That day with Zenkar Rinpoche began innocently enough with packing up his books and other items for his flight back to London. For our tea break, I filled the kettle, turned on the stove and left the water to boil, expecting it to whistle. I didn’t know that Rinpoche’s hosts customarily used the oven shelving as storage space for things that should not be stored in an oven. The kettle whistle didn’t work, but the smell of smoke did as it wafted into Rinpoche’s bedroom.
“Oh, the tea must be ready,” I said like a stiff windup doll. I ran into the kitchen and saw flames licking the air above the stove. Zenkar Rinpoche emerged from the bedroom and entered the open living space. He stood there, cool as can be, just taking in the scene, and watched me do my fire-dance.
“Excuse me, Rinpoche, perhaps ... no perhaps—I better call the fire department!”
In no time at all, a sturdy band of men clad in their fire-proof hats, fire coats, and heavy boots trudged into the apartment. Touting ax, water hose, and other paraphernalia of their life-saving trade, they were prepared to put out a much bigger fire. This would be an easy job for them—and for me, a happy ending to what felt like an all-too-vivid, somewhat embarrassing, lucid dream.
Zenkar Rinpoche teased me about teatime for some time after that.
On another bright autumn day in the city with Rinpoche, I learned what can only be learned viscerally in an informal setting with one’s teacher and not from any book or public talk.
We had just been seated at a commodious Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side and were scanning the menu when The Unbelievable Happened: a mendicant who we passed by on our way to the restaurant entered the restaurant and made a beeline for our table. He stood before us in thunderous silence.
I turned to Zenkar Rinpoche and said, “I’ll take care of this, he’s come for me.” I gave the man a few dollars. He looked away as he pocked the cash without saying a word, and headed for the exit.
How did I know the man came to solicit a handout from me and not Rinpoche? I had to own the unkind thought that flitted across my mind when I first saw him sitting on the sidewalk and didn’t give him anything.
When, if ever, has a street person followed you into a restaurant? Oh, Zenkar Rinpoche is indisputably a wisdom magician—bodhicitta personified.
N. L. Drolma, age 27, wanting to throw off the shackles of a conservative upbringing but lacking skillful means and unaware of the buddha-dharma.
We met for lunch in New York, we met for lunch in London, we met for lunch in Vancouver. Lunch with Zenkar Rinpoche was always, inescapably, a dharma teaching if I was alert and open to taking it that way. Once, in all earnestness, I asked Rinpoche if he could please tell me the one thing about myself that I most needed to work on, to change. “Ohhh...” Rinpoche’s lightly aspirated snicker and roll of his eyes suggested I should be so lucky as to have only one or two habits that most warranted redress. In that moment of monosyllabic frankness, I flushed beet red for sure.
My definitive meltdown occurred on a transatlantic phone call with Zenkar Rinpoche two years later. It was a pivotal moment that required searing introspection, and which led me to purchase a one-way ticket to Nepal. (More about that in Episode 10.)
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To cultivate a firm understanding of dharma and integrate it into daily activities, it was obvious that I needed to devote considerably more time to formal practice and study. The pandit’s path of a learned scholar is suitable for those who possess an analytical mind and a predilection for detailed study. My karma, however, ushered me onto the yogin’s path and the simplicity of the wanderer or “kusulu,” which is the Tibetan term for someone who is content to do only three essentials: eat, sleep, and poo. Thus, I had to simplify my ways. A thorny process of unmasking was inevitable.
Inspired by a wealth of teachings and guidance, I embarked on my first solitary retreat of twenty-one days in the Netherlands, in late fall of 1994 (An episode about the wonder and weirdness of that experience will be posted in the weeks ahead). Previously, I committed to intensive three-month international retreats in the south of France at Lerab Ling during the summers of ’92, ’93, and ‘94 and ten or more group retreats that required flying cross country to various spots in California as well as zig zaging by car and train along the East Coast to Connecticut, upstate New York, Maryland, Washington D.C, and Pennsylvania. The dharma whirlwind was exhilarating. But I had to learn how to relax with it all and be wary of “spiritual materialism,” the invidious trap practitioners are prey to that boosts the ego instead of dismantling it.
Commodification of meditation these days via mindfulness apps is a prime example of spiritual materialism. (How long do you think it will take TikTok dharma to anoint itself ?)
Red Tara (Kurukullé) painting by Glen Eddy
I continued to live and practice in New York City through autumn of 1993 when right as I was heading out the door to a Red Tara empowerment, Sogyal Rinpoche called, inviting me to travel with him for an unconventional year of retreat. This was exhilarating, heart-pounding news. The initial stop on our itinerary would be Dzogchen Monastery located in the Tibetan refugee settlement of Kollegal, South India. I had less than three months to pack up life in NYC for this journey, my first ever to Asia.
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Vajrayana Buddhism is not for the fainthearted, nor for anyone who needs a fixed schedule or definite plan.