Beyond Meeting or Parting
(En route to Buddha)
Want to indulge in uncommon fun on a Sunday after dinner?
Settle into a comfy reading nook with tales of a yogini’s contemplative journey; her solitary retreats and sometimes freakish, entertaining and (always) sobering escapades through South Asia, Europe and North America. Discover the magic of the quotidian!
N. L. Drolma through the looking-glass, Sangyum Kamala’s residence, Naranthan, Nepal, March 2009
Trekking route, Solukhumbu, Nepal, Dec. 1996 (Photo by N. L. Drolma)
This blog offers excerpts from the memoir that a wily rinpoche tricked me into writing.
In 1996, I cast off the moorings of friends, art career and home in Manhattan for teachings and training with a legendary, reclusive Dzogchen master in the mountains of Nepal. Definitely a spiritual trajectory out of the box for a native New Yorker. I became a social misfit—heh-heh! And now I’m on the web forfeiting a long-kept low profile.
Drumroll, please. Strike those Tibetan cymbals! Blowwwww the conch.
Join me for landslides and an overnight in a taxi on a Bhutanese mountain pass. Face seduction in India. Retreat for three months in the south of France. Tango with death in hospital. Trek to a monastery in the foothills of Mt. Everest. Go sleepless in Hong Kong. Relocate to a mountain village in Nepal… and hole up in a summer cottage on Cape Cod for a winter of solitary retreat.
I write of inspirational encounters with revered Buddhist masters, their mind-bending teachings and unorthodox ways. (Several masters were among the last generation of yogis and scholars to undergo rigorous training in Tibet.) I also speak frankly about obstacles that arose for me in solitary retreat as well as on the road, and how such adversity in actuality can accelerate one’s spiritual maturity. May these anecdotes of my footloose travels not only smash misconceptions about spiritual practice (and renunciation), but illustrate the challenge, grace—and wild humor—of abiding by the dharma in daily life. Never give up, no matter what!
Om Ah Hung,
Khachod Dechen Ling, NYC
On a Clear Day You Can See the Pyrénées
“I can’t count mantra.” I confess this out loud in the shrine tent amid the gathering of three hundred of Sogyal Rinpoche’s senior and most devoted students from around the world. I didn’t know how to use a mala—Buddhist beads for counting sacred syllables, a method to pacify discursive thoughts. Nor did I particularly want to use the mala…
Shall We Play with Fire?
The 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…
Up, Up, and Away
This was the first time I was practicing in a Tibetan Buddhist temple among Tibetans. How could I sit there and not be distracted by their authenticity and by their impoverishment? Prayer itself was major sustenance for this community. For my own dharma practice to be meaningful, I needed to open my heart more to all beings. It wouldn’t do to simply voice prayers in the manner of a well-trained…
Winging It
I had purchased a one-way ticket to Nepal. Despite a conscientious effort to leave America with all i’s dotted and t’s crossed, it felt more like I just grabbed a toothbrush and left town the way someone might walk out of a faltering marriage—exhausted, harboring no ill feelings, wanting no material settlement, only a fresh start. Living tongue-tied among Tibetans during my initial months in Boudha was maddening, but it was utterly delightful to be free of my New York worldly routine.