Altruistic World Online Library

Chapter 11: Commentary

During this time, when not attending to Rinpoche or matters of the Court, I was practicing the "meditation sadhana of the Glorious Coemergent Mother Vajrayogini." It was integrated in my everyday life like the sadhana had never begun nor ever ended. With Rinpoche throwing up red blood into the white sink, white on the outside, red on the inside, it was vast and spacious. In the middle of it is a lotus, corpse, and sun disk seat.

Look, look at your own mind.
Mind itself never existed.
This nonexistent mind
Is the great wonder of the variety of appearance.
Mind is merely appearance.
That mind of all sentient beings
Is the wisdom of great bliss,
Incomprehensible complete non-thought,
Appearing in the nature of that luminosity
For the desires of many sentient beings,
A variety of skillful means are sown.
By a variety of illusory activities
The warrior behaves like a lion,
Attaining the incomprehensible state.
This is the blessing of the Jetsun Mother.
The lineage gurus are like a variety of jewels
For the benefit of the worthy ones.

I repeated those lines over and over many times, having no realization of what they meant. But the series of visions in California dissolved my kleshas,39 enabling me to realize the blessings of the Jetsun Mother and the lineage gurus on a very experiential level Everything fell away at one point, even anything that I had understood about what was called Buddhism. The experience was so stunning that I became frozen, rather like having seen the head of Medusa. Rinpoche pointed this out to me. I longed for the comfort of just being in his company. I longed for our conversation without words. Like the moon, I longed to be in the warmth of the sun. I could teach, but I didn't know anything.

At this point, I think I could have stopped and become just a Pratyekabuddha person -- that is, someone who seeks enlightenment just for himself. Not that I was enlightened, but the path was continuing. What kept me from taking that route was the total generosity and unconditional love I had been given by my teachers, Trungpa Rinpoche, Khyentse Rinpoche, and His Holiness, Karmapa. My com­passion was very primitive and reserved for only a few.

Although it was shocking at the time, I later appreciated Rinpoche's wisdom in telling me to go out on my own and to become a servant. This was the training I received in how to serve others. Through many trials and tribulations I learned from the people and beings that I served how to make the offerings that they wanted, not the offerings that I wanted to give them. Thus I began to have more compassion for the whole situation -- any situation.

Sometimes people would ask me questions about what had happened to me. When I began to explain, I found myself explaining experiences in Buddhist terms, because that's what I had been taught. It was the only explanation that made any sense in relationship to the story. So Buddhism returned as a path. I had attended seven of the twelve or so three-month seminaries that Rinpoche had given. But because of my ignorance and confusion, I retained little or no knowledge of the teachings. So for the next ten years after Rinpoche's death, I read and reread all the seminary transcripts. I also studied and read many other related Buddhist texts. In the beginning, I advanced very slowly in my knowledge and understanding. But I would go over them again and again. Then, gradually, I found I could understand some of the concepts.

When I became angry, depressed, disillusioned, confused, or fearful of how to proceed, my teachers were always there in my thoughts and in my dreams. It was as if we had never parted. And through them I found the compassion that I had so much wanted to give to others and that had eluded me for so long.

Now I am an old man with long white hair and I walk with a slight limp, sometimes supported by a wooden cane. My personal secretary, who is also a student of mine, is typing this manuscript on a computer. we are sitting together in a small cottage overlooking Merrymeeting Bay, in the state of Maine. From within emptiness, in the sky before us, innumerable forms of the chief Jetsunma and her retinue descend. As they dissolve into the top of her head, joy and power increase. From their speech comes a garland of consonant mantras, red and white. As they dissolve into her throat, energy and power increase. From their heart comes a stream of bodhichita, of the nature of the five wisdoms. As it dissolves into her heart, the wisdom of bliss and emptiness is born in her being. The devis dissolve each into each and they become inseparable. That is the inner offering. Then in the supreme palace of mahamudra there resides bodhisattva Caryamati. That is only a name, only a sign, mere sophistry. just as all dharmas have no reality, my very mind is groundless, rootless, beyond the extremes of conditions. Although many things occur, realize the appearance and mind as the nondual ungraspable dharmakaya. That is a description of the indescribable fourth abhisheka.40

There is a world beyond the one our projections and habitual patterns manifest. we act rather like the dog with the blindfold. Rinpoche always said that if the blindfold were to be removed too suddenly one would die of a heart attack. The sight of the real world, the total groundlessness and spaciousness, would cause such instant, terrifying fear that our hearts would burst. There is still even in this dark age, an enlightened lineage of beings and you are being invited. to join with them. Perhaps you will have to surrender some of your stuff-whatever you've collected. But if you have within you the desire to explore, to see, to hear, to taste, or smell to experience the universe, then you should be like a patient with an incurable disease and seek a teacher to become your doctor. Please, do not waste a minute to begin that endeavor.

There are many groups of people that form around the idea of studying the Buddhist teachings without a teacher. This is rather like going to a restaurant and attempting to eat the menu. I realize that it is done with the best of intentions, but still the possibility of having your trip exposed or transformed without a teacher is at best zero. There is no possibility of lineage here, which is the continuum of the heart of the Buddha. From a morality point of view one could become a Brahmin, or follower of the rule, which is not the ultimate point of the Buddhist teachings.  

_______________

Notes:

39 Kleshas are habitual patterns or neurotic clingings.

40 From the sadhana of Vajrayogini.

Afterword

OUT OF THE CELTIC SLIME, LOTUS SEEDS GROW AND BLOSSOM. THE BUDDHA HOLDS UP A FLOWER AND SOMEBODY SMILES. PURE DHARMA WITHOUT CREDENTIALS THEN ARISES.

The following days were somewhat like being in a slow-moving dream world where the boundaries between being awake and being asleep were quite fuzzy. Rinpoche's body was moved from Halifax to Karme Choling in Vermont, where it was kept in a casket of salt until the day of his cremation on May 26 of that same year. Hundreds, if not thousands, of his students were present. Personally, I still remained in a quasi-dream-like state. I wore my Shambhala naval uniform and I remember thinking my hair was too long.

During the cremation ceremony a rainbow formed around the sun. There were other lights that flashed in the overcast sky. There was cannon fire, bagpipe music, and Tibetan horns. I kept repeating to myself, It is over. But I could not formulate what "it" was that was over. Nothing seemed to have changed very much. Somehow, the ghost of Rinpoche was inside me and there was no thought of separation. Looking back, one might say I was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. But I don't remember being all that stressed out. It was just that Rinpoche was in my mind all the time, wherever I was or whatever I did.

"The foundation of samaya41 is communication of the heart," Rinpoche would say. It seems that there has to be some heart connection with one's teacher. I remember my first meeting with Rinpoche. I felt a tremendous feeling of love just being in his presence. I don't know whether this was coming from him or from me or whether it just existed. The fact is that there was some undeniable connection which caused an openness of the heart essence. During my years with him, that connection remained as the ground even though my mind wandered from doubt to pissed-off-ness to anger. Those reactions were because I wanted to possess the teacher or to make logic out of his teachings.

While I worked with Rinpoche, his method was to focus my mind by having me pay attention to the myriad details of both the household in which we lived and his personal service. Every task had to be done in a specific way, whether it was making the bed, putting a new toilet roll in the bathroom, putting the exact amount of toothpaste on his toothbrush, combing or brushing his hair in a certain manner, handing him items, brushing his shoes, dressing him, cooking his meals, packing his clothes, or driving the car. Even answering his questions about what was happening in the mandala around him, or at least my perception of it, needed to be done exactly. I was in a very precise world.

Within that framework things could expand. Perception opened. Rather than organizing my world, the world existed and was sending messages. A plant doesn't organize the sun to send rays for it to grow, but nevertheless it receives the rays and it grows. It's quite a simple arrangement. There is some kind of openness beyond the obstacle of personal projection. Within that openness messages can be received.

My attempts to find some habitual pattern that I could count on in Rinpoche were all failures. Working with his mind was experiencing basic unconditioned space. At first this greatly alarmed me because I had no idea of how he managed to attain such a state. Through practice, study, and being his personal attendant I began to have flashes of realization that indicated my basic mind was the same as his.

Rinpoche rarely told me what to do concerning my relation­ships with others. However, he implied that I should relate to basic goodness. Since I was extremely sensitive to even the smallest comment he would make I didn't have to puzzle over queries. There arose in me a tremendous sense of longing which sometimes I felt could be satisfied by loving another. But my loving was too attached to my aloneness. I began to see how the interrelatedness of actions created a universe, and at times I experienced openness, softness, and the tremendous bliss of being free from habitual grasping.

People felt that I was crazy. Actually "crazy John Perks" became a joke. But since John Perks was a fabrication, then "just craziness" seemed to operate. It operated from the ground of not really having to do anything. Somehow the whole universe managed quite well without my consistent projection. I'm not sure how it managed to do this since I had previously thought I was the creator.

All the stories that I have written concerning my association with Rinpoche show that he was consistently undermining my reality and showing me that "form is emptiness and emptiness is no other than form."42 Sometimes I think that while my mind did not actually get it one hundred percent on the spot, my body retained the memory. And my heart was such that it could not give up or, for that matter, could not go back on itself. The heart was intermixed with the space of dharma, which was his mind.

After Rinpoche's death I traveled to New York City where I was interviewed and offered employment as a butler to Bill Cosby and his family. During my work for the Cosby family, thoughts of Celtic Buddhism still seemed quite remote and somewhat silly. I had images of being put ashore on some Celtic island, alone, wearing robes, and told to start a Celtic Buddhist center. Not knowing anyone or even able to speak the local language, this seemed to be a ridiculous project.

One day, while riding on the 5th Avenue bus, I looked down and saw a pair of black ebony hands with ivory nails. I realized at once that these were the hands of Maitreya Buddha, even though they were attached to the body of a middle-aged African­-American woman. I did not want to leave the bus and continued to look at her hands until she got off at 168th Street.

I began to see Buddha in other people at different times of day and night. This was like being haunted and would occur whenever I was just sitting or not involved in any activity. During nighttimes I continually had dreams of Trungpa Rinpoche, mostly that he was not dead but was hiding out with some other sangha in an unknown location.

Around this time, it was revealed to the sangha that the Vajra Regent, Osel Tendzin, had contracted AIDS several years prior and it had been kept a secret from the community. He had also had multiple partners and sexual relationships. The issues and feelings of deception caused tremendous emotional splits in the community. The political upheavals and enmity on all sides was pervasive, turning friend against friend. My relationship to the Vajradhatu community after Rinpoche's death was already tentative because he had instructed me to leave and be on my own. The situation with the Regent pushed me out even further.

While many old friends invited me to come and give talks at local dharma centers, they usually received letters from the Vajradhatu administration warning them against letting me speak. It seemed I was regarded as some type of renegade, for reasons which were unclear to me. I just assumed it was spiritual politics, as usual. Happily, those warnings were ignored by many of the local administrators. Nevertheless, any move that I made toward becoming involved with Vajradhatu was seemingly repulsed. It was as if Trungpa Rinpoche's mandate for me to go out on my own continued to manifest.

He had asked me to write about how we worked together. After my daily work with the Cosbys, I would retire to the one-bedroom West Side apartment where I lived with my wife and son and I would sit in the corner scribbling into countless notebooks with mottled black-and-white covers. None of it made much sense.

Once, a friend and I were measuring a room for a new car­pet. Standing, I held the tape to my heart. My friend on the other end said, "This is the lineage," and I had an immediate vision of the lineage going back to the Buddha. What my friend had actually said was "This is the length." I had another friend who went to consult a famous psychic, and as she was leaving, the psychic said to her offhandedly, "Oh, by the way, Celtic Buddhism is the right thing to do. People will think it strange at first, but it will last a thousand years."

Even with the felt presence of Trungpa Rinpoche and these continual visual and mental reminders of Celtic Buddhism, I stubbornly refused to do anything for many years. I didn't know how to start or even if I wanted to start. Even considering what to do about Celtic Buddhism became completely irritating. Once, in a fit of rage I threw a vase against the wall saying, "I refuse to do this until I have received certain signs." Within a week I received all the signs I had requested. The problem was that I felt that only people like Tilopa, Naropa, or Marpa start lineages, not an idiot like me who had little intellectual understanding of the dharma. Most of the time I couldn't remember whether there were three noble truths or four noble truths.

In 1989 I made a small attempt and registered the name Celtic Buddhism as a nonprofit organization. Then I didn't do anything for months. After a few more years I rented a room in an old office building, set up a shrine, and advertised with handout leaflets naming myself as the Venerable Seonaidh, which is Gaelic for Johnny. For several months I sat alone in the shrine room, and gradually people began to trickle in.

I gave a talk at the first Buddhist Conference in America. I found myself talking about Trungpa Rinpoche because I didn't know anything about Celtic Buddhism. Here I met the Zen Master Kobutsu, alias Kevin Malone. I made him a Celtic Buddhist lineage holder, hoping to dump the load on someone else. It didn't quite work out that way, as all he did was to encourage me to fulfill my reluctant mission.

Then I began to meet people who were actually interested in the Celtic aspect and its relationship to Buddhism. I began to give dharma talks based on the work of Trungpa Rinpoche. Together with my students, we relived the happenings and the teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche and I had experienced. In the beginning the aloneness was awesome, made poignant by loving relationships with students who I actually considered to be companions on the path to liberation.

Slowly, Celtic Buddhism is being established. For me it means rethinking everything that had occurred during my years with Rinpoche and all he had taught me. Every small detail has had to be examined and reexperienced precisely. There has been quite a lot of skepticism and opposition from traditional Tibetan Buddhist groups to the development of a new lineage. But when they were asked, some realized Buddhist teachers began to help, mostly by saying, "You were with Trungpa Rinpoche long enough; you should know what to do."

The technicalities of teaching -- all ceremonial aspects -- have been easy. What I lacked for a long time was the confidence to accomplish what my teacher and I had worked on together. But finally I have given up looking for confidence and just do it.

Because of my teachers -- Trungpa Rinpoche; His Holiness, Karmapa; and Khyentse Rinpoche -- I had a great attachment to Tibetan Buddhism. Because of my duty to Celtic Buddhism I had to give up my attachments. This was quite a painful process, which took many years to accomplish.

At the time of writing this book I have a small group of companions in this endeavor, most of whom I have now spent several years with. We are on the threshold of expansion. Together we have learned quite a bit concerning Celtic Buddhism. I consistently work with my recollections of Rinpoche's teaching and my experience with him in defining Buddhism and its relationship to the Celtic Buddhist mandala. We have started a center, the AnaDaire Celtic Buddhist Center, and plan to further our study and practice of Buddhism and its relatedness to Celticism and how the two could combine to help all sentient beings achieve enlightenment.

In the study of Buddhist dharma, our basis is the Prajnaparamita Sutra (the Heart of Sutra.) We always come back to Prajnaparamita. If one were to choose one practice and study it, the Prajnaparamita would be that practice. Other meditation practices we are involved in are shamatha vipashyana, tonglen, Vajrayana Deity Yoga, Chod, and Dzogchen.

In the Celticness we find a great field of shamanistic practices. We are working with these -- using dream, intuition, auspicious coincidence, and information of experiences where Buddhism was intermixed with local religious traditions.

In some sense we always have to go back to square one in our relationship to Buddhism or Celticness. Rinpoche always said to me, "Keep it simple." I always endeavor to do that while at he same time allowing my companions a large field of exploration for their personal experiences. In this lineage, personal path or individuality of personal path intermix with that of the sangha. Sometimes people are impatient with other peoples eccentricities on the path of enlightenment. Rinpoche continually used our eccentricities to point out the intolerance of others. At this stage our group is quite homogeneous, but when expansion occurs, problems will arise and one will have to relate to one's practice of meditation and heart of compassion.

We are called the Crazy Heart lineage of Celtic Buddhism -- "Crazy," because from the aspects of nonduality a person. might appear crazy to a logical mind. This would be rather like the reaction you might have if a flower started to speak to you. You would either think you were crazy or it was crazy. "Heart" is the connection with the lineage, which are the Buddhas and bodhisattvas (or enlightened beings) who have preceded us, are with us in the present, and will appear in the future. We are "Celtic," because our relationship to the experience of being alive was transformed into mythology, dream, art, science, history, literature, and spirituality as an essence that came to be known as Celtic, another cultural aspect that is interrelated with other groups of beings and their expression -- such as Tibetan, African, or Asian. "Buddhism," is because we are followers of the teachings of the Buddhas.

Personally, I have no fixed or clear idea about how Celtic Buddhism will finally manifest. My own personal feelings are that it should take a long time to form itself and then, I hope that having formed itself, it should benefit beings rather than become an inhibitor to their exploration of the universe. In other words, it should become the umbrella as well as the rain itself.

Rinpoche: "Johnny, have you ever been to Iona?"

Johnny: "Iona! You mean the island in Scotland? No, Sir."

Rinpoche: "You should go there after I die."

Johnny (alarmed): "You are not going to die!"

Rinpoche (reassuringly): "No, of course not; we will grow old together. Perhaps sometime you could go to Iona and read the Sadhana of Mahamudra in the cathedral."

Johnny: "Why?"

Rinpoche: "The air is very clear there. You will like it."

Johnny: "Okay, Sir. I'll do it."

Rinpoche: "Great! Let's drink to that."

They both drank sake.

In the summer of 2002 Johnny read the Sadhana of Mahamudra in the cathedral watchtower next to Saint Columba's shrine on the island of Iona. I realized again: Rinpoche manifested as Saint Columba and Johnny as Diarmait, his servant.

Iona is an island in Scotland. It is 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles across.


Iona Abbey

The island only has two major settlements, Baile Mor and the Iona Community. There are about 170 permanent residents, but 500,000 visitors each year.


Ferry at the slipway

The monastic community on Iona was founded in 563AD by Colum Cille (St. Columba) from Ireland, who was driven out of his homeland, Ireland, in the 6th c. and settled on the Isle of Iona, with his monks; the nearest point to Ireland from which he could not see his homeland. This was the home of Celtic Christianity for six hundred years until King David suppressed Celtic Christianity in the twelfth century. Iona remained a major pilgrimage site until the reformation when the island was sacked and the community scattered. In the early twentieth century, the abbey was rebuilt and a new monastic community has begun here, providing much of the tourism for the island.


ancient cross in the churchyard of the abbey.

-- Iona, by wikivoyage.org

History continued to repeat itself throughout the ages. The sound of that loving relationship would never end.

In the glorious display of all beings,
stretching into the limitless universe,
never created, never ending.
From a billion suns,
which are the heart centers of all the buddhas,
resonates the sound of mantra. The gift of dharma,
given in total awareness,
love and compassion.
Seen in the fall of a leaf,
movement of grass,
crash of thunder,
unexplained flight of monarchs,
eyes of dragonfly,
foot of ant.
Through ignorance, anger, possessiveness, fear,
illusionary obstacles of all kinds,
simplicity of what was experienced,
lineage of continuous endless compassion,
 illusion of self is realized. Union of samsara and nirvana manifests.
Inexplicably,
there is nothing to understand.
There is only
Prajnaparamita.

"Are these awards and appointments fact or fiction?" I asked.

"Both," he answered.

***

EDICT

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby installs YESHE TUNGPA, JOHN A. PERKS as KUSUNG DAPON Proclaimed and Sealed at The Kalapa Court, the Seat of the Kingdom of Shambhala, by the profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa, the glorious Dorje Dradul, in the year of the Earth Horse of the sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the twenty-seventh day; March 5, 1978.

***

AWARD

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Dharmaraja Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby awards YESHE TUNGPA, JOHN PERKS, O.L.K., M.M.M.H, THE KUSUNG DAPON for merit in the service of the Dorje Dradul's military THE IRON WHEEL OF THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA Proclaimed and sealed at the Kalapa Court by the Heavenly-appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shambhala, in the year of the Earth Sheep of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day: February 27, 1979.

***

THE KALAPA COURT
APPOINTMENT

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Dharmaraja Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby admits JOHN ANTHONY PERKS, O.L.K. for outstanding contribution to the Culture of the Kingdom of Shambhala THE ORDER OF ELEGANCE OF THE KINGDOM OF SHAMBHALA Proclaimed and sealed at the kalapa Court by the Heavenly-appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shambhala, in the year of the Iron Monkey of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day: February 17, 1980

***

THE KALAPA COURT
PROCLAMATION

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Dharmaraja Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby creates YESHE TUNGPA JOHN ANTHONY PERKS, O.L.K., O.E. WARRIOR of the Most Radiant and Perky ORDER OF THE LION OF KALAPA PROCLAIMED AND SEALED at The Kalapa Court by the Heavenly-Appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victoriouis Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shambhala, in the year of the Iron Bird of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day, February 5, 1981

***

THE KALAPA COURT
APPOINTMENT

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Justs Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Dharmaraja Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby appoints YESHE TUNGPA, JOHN A. PERKS, O.L.K., O.E. to the office of CHAMBERLAIN PROCLAIMED AND SEALED at The Kalapa Court by the Heavenly-Appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shambhala, in the year of the Iron Bird of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day: February 5, 1981.

***

THE KALAPA COURT

Bonnie Johnny Forever Meeting with you is a test of one's gallantry Meeting with you is so tempting That I want to grow old with you. So we could be strong together. Discovering such a bonnie Johnny Is equal to meeting living basic goodness. It is one of the best treasures that the Mukpo family discovered. We would like to welcome you as part of our family Please join and stay with us As the Chamberlain, the Kusung Dapon Or for that matter, just basic bonnie Johnny. May the Rigden Fathers protect you. Happy Birthday. Our love and affection to you on this occasion And for many years to come.

-- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
March 13, 1981  

***

DORJE KASUNG
APPOINTMENT

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Makkyi Rapjam Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby commends SIR JOHN A. PERKS for exemplary loyal service and historic contribution in the office of first Kusung Dapon of the Dorje Kasung of the Kingdom of Shambhala and hereby appoints him to the office of TSOMAK DAPON, COMMODORE Of the Purnachandra Division of the Dorje Kasung of the Kingdom of Shambhala PROCLAIMED AND SEALED at The Kalapa Court by the Heavenly-Appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shabhala, in the year of the Water Dog of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day: February 24, 1982.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he spent much of his time at sea on his personal fleet of ships as "Commodore" of the Sea Organization, an elite, paramilitary group of Scientologists.[8][9] Some ex-members and scholars have described the Sea Org as a totalitarian organization marked by intensive surveillance and a lack of freedom.[10] His expedition came to an end when Britain, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela all closed their ports to his fleet. -- L. Ron Hubbard, by Wikipedia

***

THE KALAPA COURT
APPOINTMENT

In the name of the Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Rigden, his glorious Sakyong on earth, the Dharmaraja Dorje Dradul of Mukpo Dong, hereby designates SIR JOHN A. PERKS, THE KUSHAP KYI KHYAP for very devoted and outrageous service to The Kalapa Court GARUDA OF KALAPA PROCLAIMED AND SEALED at The Kalapa Court by the Heavenly-Appointed Profound Brilliant Just Powerful All-Victorious Sakyong Mukpopa Dorje Dradul of the Kingdom of Shambhala, in the year of the Water Dog of the Sixteenth Rapjung, the first month, the first day: February 24, 1982.  

About the Author:

John Riley Perks, born in 1934, experienced in early childhood the bombing of England during World War II, which is written about in the manuscript. He went to university in England and immigrated to America in 1950. He started a commune and school in the Adirondacks which has been written about in the book Pagan Time by Micah Perks, published by Counterpoint in 2001. He met Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1973 and became his butler, attendant, and personal secretary for seven years. After this he became a butler for Bill Cosby for five years, Senator Jay Rockefeller for one year, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Acker for five years, and Mrs. Harris Farnstock [Fahnestock] for three years. Presently he is a Buddhist teacher at the AnaDaire Buddhist Center in Vermont and is currently writing a new book about Celtic Buddhism. John Riley Perks is married, has eight children, and lives in a cottage by the sea in Vermont.