Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [17]
We foreign Dharma fanatics took the train often because we needed special Darjeeling police permits to be in that restricted border zone, a flashpoint close to China, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and India. These permits required extra machinations on top of the ordinary visa hassles because the local police feared we gentle pilgrims might be spies, underground “commies,” or worse. During the yearly monsoon season, landslides typically blocked every way in to and out of the mountains for as much as a month. Sometimes the hillside washed out, and the train tracks were left hanging in the air. Traveling on that train helped us avoid the prying eyes of the visa police.
Kalu Rinpoche was a wizened old Himalayan yogi. When he was twenty-five, after a three-year retreat in his guru’s Palpung Monastery in the eastern Tibetan province of Kham, he began a solitary retreat in desolate Tibetan mountains and wilderness caves. He stayed in retreat for more than twelve years. He would have continued to live in this way, but his aged teacher, Tai Situ Rinpoche, sent for him, saying it was time for him to return to the Palpung Monastery and teach.
When I met Kalu Rinpoche, his face was lined like a road map, and he seemed ageless and timeless; another teacher of mine who knew Kalu Rinpoche when he was much younger said that he had always looked that way. Isn’t the Old Lama always the Old Lama? Kalu Rinpoche, his face full of compassion and his heart full of love, would bless even the smallest insects and animals as he walked. And he was always surrounded by the monks and nuns training under his supervision.
When Kalu Rinpoche came for a second visit to the U.S. late in 1976, I was one of his drivers and hosts. While he was teaching in Boston, we decided that he might like to see Boston Harbor, a historic place for American beginnings. In the aquarium located at the harbor, there is an enormous three-story-high tank filled with a vast number of fish, turtles, and other marine life. Lama Kalu spent most of the afternoon gently tapping on the tank with his forefinger to get the attention of the fish. Then one by one as each fish swam past, he would look into its eyes saying, “Om Mani Pedmé Hung,” the mantra of great compassion, blessing each fish and speeding it on toward higher rebirth. It was another first on the freedom trail for Boston Harbor.
In Darjeeling, each morning Kalu Rinpoche blessed a box of sand, then spread it around on the hillside with the prayer “May any living creature who comes into contact with even a single grain of this sand be blessed, protected, and eventually enlightened.” Among Tibetan lamas, of course, this is not unusual. Lama Kalu’s best friend was a Dzogchen master named Chatral Rinpoche. At the new and full moon each month, Chatral Rinpoche would go from his Ghoom Monastery down to the Darjeeling or Siliguri market where they sold live fish. He would buy as many fish as he could; then he and several monks would carry them away in buckets, bless them, and set them free in local lakes and rivers. In Tibet, of course, it is taught that animals are also sentient beings and, like humans, evolve through lifetime after lifetime. They too are endowed with Buddha-nature and the potential for enlightenment. Therefore the Buddha preached nonharming of any living creature and absolute reverence for all forms of life.
It was in Darjeeling that I came to know well my first tulku, or young reincarnated lama: He was a ten-year-old grand lama, Drukchen Rinpoche, the head of a large sect. His white-bearded guru, Thuksay Rinpoche, asked me if I would serve as the boy’s English tutor because they wanted him to be fully prepared for the future as an effective teacher. This child and his family provided me with many real insights into Tibetan life. For example, one day the young tulku turned to me