by Marco Pallis
The marriage stirred up a great deal of conflict among students at Samye Ling, who were unable to understand the significance of it. The conflict became intense. One individual, by the name of Christopher Woodman, showed particular delight at this conflict. Mr. Woodman was so inspired by the prospect of jealous warfare against myself and Diana that he attempted to convince the London Buddhist Society and other Buddhist organizations in Britain that my sense of dedication should be regarded as that of a neurotic criminal.
Matters having reached such a point, I invoked again and again the inspiration of Dorje Trolö Karma Pakshi. I even consulted the I Ching, which indicated that one should cross the great water. I did not want to waste further time in waging war, but rather felt determined to proceed in my work of propagating the dharma. In view of this, and the meager potential for genuine Buddhism in Britain at this time, I decided to journey to the American continent.
America was fresh and unknown territory for me, although there were some people there to whom I was known. Born in Tibet had been published in the United States in 1968. In 1969 Meditation in Action, drawn from a series of talks at Samye Ling, was published by the English firm of Stuart and Watkins. A young American bookseller by the name of Samuel Bercholz saw it during a visit with the publisher and was immediately inspired to bring it out in America. Meditation in Action appeared in the United States as the first book published by Shambhala Publications, in the autumn of 1969, just a few months before my arrival. The response to it was very positive. One indication of this was an invitation from a group at the University of Colorado to come to Boulder and teach. Also, a number of American students who had been at Samye Ling had left for the United States before me as a vanguard to prepare for my arrival. They had purchased a 434-acre farm in northern Vermont, to which they gave the name Tail of the Tiger.
With the invitation from Boulder and the news of the establishment of Tail of the Tiger, added to the growing inhospitableness of our situation in Scotland, Diana and I departed for America. My physical disability and her youth made the journey, and what lay ahead of us, all the more exciting. On the airplane from Glasgow to Toronto, we talked of conquering the American continent, and we were filled with a kind of constant humor. As we did not yet have a visa to enter the United States, we proceeded to Montreal, where we spent the next six weeks living in a small apartment. Students from Tail of the Tiger came up to visit, and I also responded to several requests to teach in Montreal. In May of 1970, we obtained our visa and entered the United States.
At Tail of the Tiger we found an undisciplined atmosphere combining the flavors of New York City and hippies. Here too people still seemed to miss the point of dharma, though not in the same way as in Britain, but in American free-thinking style. Everyone was eager to jump into tantric practices at once. Traveling to California on a teaching tour set up by Tail of the Tiger and Mr. Bercholz, I encountered many more free-style people indulging themselves in confused spiritual pursuits. The saving grace of this visit was the warm hospitality offered me by Mr. Bercholz and his colleagues in Shambhala Publications, which was located in Berkeley. At the same time, I realized that the energy behind people’s fascinations was beginning to lighten and that America held genuine possibilities for receiving the dharma. Meeting the students of other teachers was especially disappointing. These students seemed to lack any understanding of discipline, and purely to appreciate teachers who went along with their own neurosis. No one seemed to be presenting a way of cutting through the students’ neurosis. One outstanding exception to this situation was Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and his students, whose presence felt like a breath of fresh air. I would have more contact with them later.
Vidyadhara the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, February 1977.
PHOTO: ANDREA CRAIG.
Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin.
PHOTO: BLAIR HANSEN.
Left to right: Trungpa Rinpoche, His Holiness the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, and Jamgön Kongtrül of Palpung.
PHOTO: JAMES GRITZ.
Diana Mukpo riding dressage.
I returned to Tail of the Tiger where I presented my first long seminar in this country, consisting of seventeen talks on Gampopa’s text The Jewel Ornament of Liberation. This was followed by a similar seminar on the life and teachings of Milarepa. During this period Diana returned to England to try and fetch my eight-year-old Tibetan son, Ösel Rangdrö, who had remained behind in the care of Christopher Woodman. To our surprise, Mr. Woodman refused to let him go, deciding to hold him as a captive. A court case followed which resulted in Ösel being temporarily sent to live at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Sussex. Here I visited him for ten days in the autumn of 1970. It was not until the following year that we were able to bring Ösel to live with us in America.
From England, I flew directly to Denver, Colorado, where I was received by the University of Colorado group. They provided initial hospitality, putting me up in a cabin in Gold Hill, an old mining town in the mountains above Boulder. After a few weeks, I moved to a larger house in Four Mile Canyon near Boulder, where Diana joined me. Both of us took a strong liking to the city of Boulder, its fresh air, its manageable size, and of course its mountains. I began to teach and a community of students began to gather, renting a house on Alpine Street to which I gave the name Anitya Bhavan, “House of Impermanence.” Gradually the feeling of the students was changing and I saw definite potential for transforming them from homegrown dilettantes into genuine disciplined people.
As the enthusiasm for meditation practice and study grew, so did our membership. A group of students of Swami Satchidananda’s Integral Yoga Institute first hosted us, then joined us, and we took over their practice facilities on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. One California disciple of Swami Satchidananda, a young American of Italian background, came to me with an invitation to attend a World Enlightenment Festival. He was known as Narayana, a colorful personality with lots of smiles, possessing the charm of American Hindu diplomacy. From the first, I felt some definite sense of connection with him.
In March of 1971 Diana gave birth to a son. Witnessing the birth, I was filled with a sense of delight and of the child’s sacredness. His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave him the name of Tendzin Lhawang, and I added Taktruk, meaning “tiger’s cub.” Later he was recognized by His Holiness Karmapa as the rebirth of one of his teachers, Surmang Tendzin Rinpoche.
The energy and openness of the students now began to unfold quite rapidly, and we formally established a meditation center in Boulder under the name of Karma Dzong, “Fortress of Action.” In addition, after a certain amount of searching, we purchased 360 acres of land west of Fort Collins, Colorado, which we called the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. The first students who moved on to this land were a group of young and quite innocent hippies who called themselves “The Pygmies.”
During this period I traveled a great deal. On my second visit to California, I was able to spend more time with Suzuki Roshi, and this proved to be an extraordinary and very special experience. Suzuki Roshi was a Zen master in the Soto Zen tradition who had come to America in 1958 and founded the Zen Center, San Francisco, and Zen Mountain Center at Tassajara Springs. He was a man of genuine Buddhism, delightful and profound, full of flashes of Zen wit. In the example of his spiritual power and integrity, I found great encouragement that genuine Buddhism could be established in America. His students were disciplined and dedicated to the practice of meditation, and on the whole presented themselves as precise and tidy. Mrs. Suzuki also I found to be a wonderful woman who was very generous to both myself and Diana.
When Suzuki Roshi died in December of 1971, I was left with a feeling of great lonesomeness. Yet his death had the effect on me of arousing further strength; his genuine effort to plant the dharma in America must not be allowed to die. I did, however, feel especially keenly the loss of the possibility of exploring further the link between Tibetan and Japanese culture. Since coming to the West, I have become increasingly
fascinated with aesthetics and the psychology of beauty. Through Suzuki Roshi’s spiritual strength and his accomplishments in the arts of the Zen tradition, I felt I could have learned much more in these areas.
During this period my presentation of the dharma to students was based on the practice of pure sitting meditation, the traditional shamatha-vipashyana technique presented by the Buddha. Students maintained a daily sitting practice, as well as taking intensive solitary and group meditation retreats. The other major element in my teaching was continual warnings against dilettantism, spiritual shopping, and the dangers of spiritual materialism. The enthusiasm and trust of students all over America continued to accelerate, with the result that local centers for study and practice sprang up in different parts of the United States and Canada. To all of these centers we gave the name Dharmadhatu, meaning “Space of Dharma.” Now, inspired by the strength of my encounter with Suzuki Roshi and by the genuine friendship of my own students, I decided to establish Vajradhatu, a national organization with offices in Boulder to oversee and unify the present and future Dharmadhatus. Narayana became an early member of Vajradhatu’s board of directors.
Alongside the traditional teachings and practice of Buddhism, one of my principal intents was to develop a Buddhist culture, one which would transcend the cultural characteristics of particular nationalities. An early step in this direction was the establishment of the Mudra theater group. It developed out of a notorious theater conference which we hosted in Boulder early in 1973 bringing together our students and members of various experimental theater groups from around the country such as the Open Theater, the Byrd-Hoffmann, and the Provisional Theater. Amid the variety of demonstrations and exchanges taking place among the participants, my personal style and uncompromisingness had both positive and negative effects; in any case, all of the participants became highly energized. Following this conference, I presented to our own Mudra theater group the notion of training body, speech, and mind rather than immediately embarking on conventional performances. I introduced a series of exercises based on Tibetan monastic dance and the oriental martial arts which focused on the principles of center and space and their mutual intensification and diffusion. Members of the Mudra group have maintained a regular practice over the years and are now at the point of presenting performances to the public, which they have begun with two short plays of my own composition.
The Mudra approach to theater has a parallel in the Maitri project, which also got under way at this time. The idea for it arose from a discussion that Suzuki Roshi and I had had concerning the need for a therapeutic facility for disturbed individuals interested in meditation. The Maitri approach to therapy involves working the different styles of neurosis through the tantric principles of the five buddha families. Rather than being subjected to any form of analysis, individuals are encouraged to encounter their own energies through a meditation practice employing various postures in rooms of corresponding shapes and colors. A major facility for these practices, the Maitri Center, is located on a secluded, ninety-acre farm outside of New York City.
In May of 1973 my third son, Gesar Arthur, was born. We named him after the two great warrior kings, of ancient Tibet and England. Later he was recognized by Khyentse Rinpoche and His Holiness Karmapa as the rebirth of my own root guru, Jamgön Kongtrül of Sechen.
As students became more completely involved with practice and study, I felt there was a need for more advanced training in the tradition of Jamgön Kongtrül the Great and of the Kagyü contemplative order. A situation was needed in which a systematic and thorough presentation of the dharma could be made. Accordingly, I initiated the annual Vajradhatu Seminary, a three-month intensive practice and study retreat for mature students. The first of these seminaries, involving eighty students, took place at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the autumn of 1973. Periods of all-day sitting meditation alternated with a study program methodically progressing through the three yanas of Buddhist teaching, hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana.
This progress through the three yanas was also manifested in the development of the community itself. Through the strict discipline of sitting practice, students were encouraged to develop warmth and a greater compassion toward themselves. Beyond this, it was necessary for them to have compassion toward their world and to share what they had learned with others. Working for the benefit of others is at the heart of the Buddhist approach, particularly that of the mahayana. I began to appoint some of the older students as meditation instructors to work with newer ones. These individuals are instructors in a very strict sense; their role is not to theorize or analyze but just to transmit what they themselves have learned and understood.
Going further in our effort to expand communication with others, we evolved the plan of establishing the Naropa Institute. The purpose of this institute is, first of all, to provide a vessel for the development of bodhisattva activity among both teachers and students. It emphasizes the discipline of learning and the appreciation of our heritages of both the Orient and the Occident, grounded in meditation practice and commitment to personal development. The first session of the institute in the summer of 1974 attracted over two thousand students. Among other prominent teachers who participated, perhaps the most colorful was Ram Dass; the interplay between the two of us during the course of the summer was delightfully humorous. After a second highly successful summer in 1975, Naropa Institute adopted a year-round degree-granting program.
By this time my relationship with my students had become entirely natural, and the flow of communication between us was effortless. There was a need, however, for them to witness other teachers of our lineage. In the autumn of 1974, with perfect timing, His Holiness Karmapa made his first visit to the West. Arriving in New York, he traveled across the country visiting each of our main centers. While at Tail of the Tiger, at my request he gave it the new Tibetan name of Karmê Chöling, “Dharma Place of the Karma Kagyüs.” In spite of a certain amount of uncertainty and clumsiness on the part of the students, His Holiness was extremely pleased with them and with what I had accomplished. Many people had the great fortune of participating in the Vajra Crown ceremony as well as several abhisekas which His Holiness performed. The visit served as a landmark to confirm that the dharma had actually taken root in the soil of America. His Holiness issued a proclamation confirming the existence of Buddhism in America and the fulfilment of my role as a Vajra Master, further empowering me as Vajracharya, a spiritual master of the highest level.
Following the first Vajradhatu Seminary I had transmitted to a small group of close students the preliminary practices of the vajrayana. With the introduction of these practices, along with the enormous inspiration to devotion aroused by the visit of His Holiness, the true vajrayana style of surrender combined with complete discipline began to show through in our sangha. One example of this was that the contingent of voluntary bodyguards who had served His Holiness requested after his departure to remain active on a permanent basis, to assist me personally and to prevent any interruptions to our work.
By now Vajradhatu had become one of the foremost Buddhist institutions in America. Its growth had been natural and unforced, but in order to accommodate such large-scale work, it became clearly necessary to employ a number of the students as a permanent staff. In the beginning most of these administrators were complete amateurs. Coming to their work purely as practitioners of meditation, they learned from their experience, step by step, and developed increasing administrative capabilities, combining efficiency with a wakeful sense of humor. Narayana has been an outstanding example of this process. Another is my private secretary, David Rome, who has been a reliable companion and confidant to me for the last four years and has helped a lot in inspiring my work.
During all of this time my wife Diana has been a considerable source of encouragement to me, as she has involved herself with dharma practice and the care of our children. Also, she has revived an interest from her own childhood in horses, which has led to her be
coming a student of the classical school of equitation known as dressage, exemplified by the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. She has made extremely rapid progress in working up to the level of Grand Prix, and the two of us share a keen interest in the art of horsemanship.
All in all, my sense at each point on the way has been one of trying very hard at first, then relaxing and thinking to the future. By now, I feel, the major obstacles have been overcome and there is a sense of having achieved what was envisaged. No doubt there is much more work and many adventures still awaiting me, and for these I feel prepared. Whatever I have done has been guided by the blessings of Jamgön Kongtrül, and his presence is closer now than ever before. There is a constant sense of gratitude to my tutors and of appreciation for the Tibetan wisdom which was imparted to me, everything from how to pitch a tent to the attainment of enlightenment. I feel young and old at the same time.
In order to impart this wealth to so many people, and to ensure that everything will not stop at my death, it is necessary to have one person as an inheritor, someone whom I can train and observe over a period of many years. For a long time it was in my mind to appoint Narayana to this role, and in the summer of 1976 I did so, empowering him as Dorje Gyaltsap, Vajra Regent. Assuming the refuge name which I had given him several years before of Ösel Tendzin, “Radiant Holder of the Teachings,” he took on his heavy responsibility, feeling burdened by it but tremendously inspired. Six hundred people attended the ceremony of his empowerment. There was a wide range of reactions; mostly, people were deeply moved that a future holder of the lineage could be an American.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.