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
Appleness
That same year marked Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s arrival in America. Students in New England and elsewhere were gathering to hear Rinpoche’s dharma talks on work, sex, and money, teachings that would have helped me release a few inhibitions for sure. However, I had yet to even hear the word “dharma.” Instead, my ears were attuned to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album whose lyric Here Comes the Sun…
Could Maroon Be the New Black?
My 7:30 a.m. flight to Phaplu was on hold—its time for departure anyone’s guess—and all afternoon flights at Tribuvan were cancelled. My useless thoughts scurried across the deserted lobby and crashed into the stacked metal rows of empty baggage carts. I sat on my bags and prayed for a clerk to appear behind the Nepal Airlines check-in desk. Nepal is the ideal country for teaching Westerners patience.