Re: Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa by Diana Mu
Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:58 am
TEN
During most of my childhood and early adolescence in England, I had been a rider. From the first moment I got on a pony as a small child, I felt deeply connected to horses and to horsemanship. My early training was in jumping and cross-country riding. When . I was in boarding school, we were also allowed to go out on fox hunts. I never went to the kill, but I would go out in the early part of the hunt with my pony, Blaze. Later on I did "eventing," which involves competitions or events in three phases, consisting of a simple dressage test, a cross-country test, and a jumping competition. As a teenager, I always hated the dressage component. I found it boring. In England in those years there was very little interest in dressage, so I had little exposure and no real feeling for it.
After my first two years at Benenden, I sold my pony. I didn't ride at all at Kirby Lodge. In fact, I didn't take up riding again until Rinpoche and I moved to Colorado. When Taggie was a baby, I would sometimes go riding at a local stable for an hour or so. I broached the subject with Rinpoche of whether I could buy my own horse. At that time he said that he didn't think it would be a good idea. It might make us look wealthy, which we certainly were not, and people might think that we were throwing money around. He was afraid that people would disapprove of him as a spiritual teacher if they thought that we were living a wealthy, aristocratic sort of life. He asked me to wait. I let the idea go for the time being, although I continued to ride occasionally.
During my pregnancy with Gesar, as I've mentioned, I rode from time to time. When Gesar was a few months old, Rinpoche told me that it would be all right for me to buy a horse. At that time, I had started taking riding lessons with Haze Kennedy, an Australian woman who taught at a stable north of Boulder called Hidden Valley Ranch. From our house in Boulder Heights it was a short drive to the stables. There was a young thoroughbred mare available for purchase and I found her particularly appealing. She was a light bay by the name of Fleur. Rinpoche renamed her Mirage.
I did some jumping competitions with Mirage, and I rode her in some hunter classes. After a few months, my riding instructor approached me with a proposal. She had a slightly older horse that was a more experienced jumper and had some training in dressage, and she herself wanted a young prospect. She asked me if I would be interested in a trade. Her horse was a saddle-bred-thoroughbred cross by the name of Mr. Chips. I agreed to make the trade because I thought it would be helpful for my education as a rider. I felt that I could learn from a horse that knew more than I did.
Mr. Chips was large, a sixteen three hand liver chestnut, a big horse with a wonderful temperament.1 He was sensitive and responsive and willing to work. Rinpoche began calling me Mrs. Chips because I started spending so much time at the barn. I competed Chips in some jumper competitions, and I did quite well in the lower jumper classes with him. Then I decided to ride him. in a three-phase novice event in Colorado. I scored well on the cross-country and the stadium jumping, but I did poorly in dressage.
In order to improve as an all-around rider, I decided to take time off from jumping and concentrate on learning more about dressage. In fact, I decided to devote a year to it. At the end of that year, I fully intended to go back to jumping as my main riding discipline. I began by taking dressage lessons from Haze Kennedy on a regular basis, three times a week. She had some elementary dressage training and was a good instructor. I found that I looked forward to my time at the barn as a break from the hectic, chaotic life that I had with Rinpoche and the children.
At that time, a Hungarian rider by the name of Charles de Kunffy was coming to Colorado on a regular basis to teach dressage clinics. He had been a member of the Hungarian three-event team. I took several of his clinics and then started to show my horse in lower-level dressage events. In a short time, I discovered that I was becoming absolutely fascinated by the art of dressage.
Dressage itself is a French word that simply means "training." The origin of classical horsemanship goes back more than two thousand years. Greek warriors trained their horses so that they would be supple and maneuverable in battle. The earliest surviving treatises on dressage were written by Xenophon, a great Greek general who employed what we would now call dressage training techniques to improve the performance of his horses in battle.
There is no exact equivalent for the word dressage in the English language. Dressage is the deliberate, gymnastic training of the horse over a long period of time, making use of the horse's natural movements and gaits, so that the horse becomes highly trained, agile, and extremely strong while still maintaining the beauty and flexibility that one sees in the natural movements of animals loose in the field. Dressage is a joining together of horse and rider. It is not just that horse and rider work together physically, but a meeting of minds must take place if the training is to be successful. Part of the attraction of dressage is that it produces and depends on such intimate and thorough communication between horse and rider.
The Romans did not have much use for this approach to horsemanship, and during the Dark Ages, the art of dressage was almost completely lost. The armor worn by knights was so heavy that it was impossible for the horses to maneuver with agility. What was needed for medieval battles were sturdy horses that could move in a straight line carrying their knights into combat. The subtlety of dressage was useless in these situations.
During the Renaissance, beginning in the fifteenth century, dressage flourished once again. It was rediscovered in Italy, where the first riding academy in Europe dedicated to the classical art of horsemanship was opened in 1532 in Naples. Noblemen came from all over the continent to learn the discipline of riding, and it soon spread to France, Spain, Germany, and England. It became the fashion to have a small dressage arena attached to all the major courts and noble households of Europe. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which Rinpoche and I had visited together in 1975, is the premier example of the classical approach to dressage that developed during the Renaissance. It was built in 1735 as the manege, or arena, attached to the Hapsburg Palace in Vienna, but the school itself predates the building by almost two hundred years, making it the oldest school of dressage still functioning today. Archduke Maximilian, son of emperor Ferdinand I, introduced Spanish horses in Austria in the sixteenth century. The first Spanish horses were given to the Hapsburg family as part of a dowry. They were interbred with local horses at Lippiza, producing the distinct Lippizan breed. It is the stallions from this breed that are used exclusively in the Spanish Riding School.
As I pursued my novice training and learned more about the history of dressage, I felt that I was making a link to a noble discipline, which I wanted to thoroughly explore and master. At a time in my life that was difficult, with the painful realization of the situation with Taggie, it was extremely helpful to have this growing connection to something so uplifted and profound.
Around this time, I purchased a thoroughbred stallion, which we named Vajra Dance. He was from the bloodlines of a famous racehorse named Native Dancer. Vajra Dance had apparently been purchased by a syndicate for a large amount of money. He was competed on the racetrack circuit, but he turned out to be very slow. Then he fractured his sesamoid bone in his left front leg and had to be retired from racing. He was sold for very little to a gentleman living in Sonoma County, California, who gave the horse some training, and the horse had shown an aptitude for dressage. I purchased him to upgrade to a better mount, one that would be more appropriate for dressage competition. I brought the horse back to Colorado, and working with Haze and in clinics with Charles, I learned to ride many dressage movements on him.
When Rinpoche and I visited the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, it spurred me on to involve myself more deeply in my training. Around this time, Charles de Kunffy told me that he felt that I had natural talent and feel for the horse, and I began to sense that this might be the case. I became increasingly committed to fully pursuing the discipline of dressage.
After Taggie left for Karme Choling, I looked into spending an extended period of time studying with Charles. He was headquartered in northern California, where he had been teaching riding at a school for gifted children, and he invited me to come out and work with him. At that point I felt it was impossible for my riding to progress beyond a certain point with the limited resources in Colorado. I discussed this with Rinpoche, telling him that I felt that I was not going to be able to get fully trained riding three times a week at Hidden Valley Ranch. Rinpoche was quite encouraging. He was traveling a great deal and understood that I needed to pursue my own discipline. He supported my need to develop myself in this way.
Dressage was just starting to be appreciated and practiced in the United States at this time, so it was difficult to find a qualified teacher. I went out for two months to train with Charles. Initially, I brought Gesar with me, but the child-care arrangements were very complicated there, so after a few weeks, I sent him back to Boulder. We arranged for a nanny to help care for him in Boulder while I was gone.
I dove into the riding situation in California, and it was a very healing time for me. I spent all day at the barn, and with Charles giving me instruction, I was able to make quite good progress in my riding.
At the end of the two months, I returned home and continued riding on my own. In late February 1976, Rinpoche and I went to Mexico on holiday, accompanied by John and Karen Roper. John was a lawyer and a member of the Vajradhatu board of directors. This time, we went to the village of Patzcuaro, a charming town on the edge of Lake Patzcuaro, several hours south of Guadalajara. Louise and Roger Randolph, students of Rinpoche's from Oklahoma, owned a small vacation house there, with a beautiful walled garden and several other cottages on the property. They were very generous to Rinpoche and me -- and to the Buddhist community as a whole. Earlier, Roger had donated a large parcel of land in southern Colorado to be used as a retreat center. Rinpoche named it Dorje Khyung Dzong, after the retreat center at his monastery in Tibet where he had spent so much time as a young man.
Roger and Louise gave us the use of their house in Mexico many times. On this, our first trip there, we had a delightful holiday. Rinpoche liked to go to the open market in Patzcuaro to buy food for dinner. You also could bargain for beautiful copper plates and bowls there, which were locally made. We sometimes went to a hotel on the main square for dinner. They served a soup there that Rinpoche loved, called Sopa Tarasca, named I believe after the Tarascan Indians whose capital was located on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro. Apparently the recipe was created originally around 1960 by one of the chefs in the area. The tomato broth has a dark chili added to it that gives it a smoky flavor, and pieces of tortilla are broken up and put into the broth.
I brought along my saddle from home, thinking that I would be able to go riding in the village. John Roper thought this was ludicrous and that it was a complete waste of energy to haul the saddle around with us. However, I found a stable near the house and was indeed able to ride almost every day.
When we returned from Mexico, Rinpoche jumped back into teaching and traveling. He was also busy making preparations for the arrival later that spring of His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with whom he had a heart connection from their time together in Tibet and later in India.2
Back in Boulder, I found myself unsatisfied with my riding regimen. I wanted to devote myself to dressage and training myself as a rider during this period of my life, in addition to being a mother and wife. I told Rinpoche that I was interested in moving to California to study with Charles for a year or two. I could take Gesar with me, and we could come home for extended visits as often as possible. Initially, Rinpoche was a bit shocked, and he seemed conflicted about whether it was a good idea, as was I in some respects. It was not common for a woman with young children to do something like this in this era. Perhaps it would not seem so extreme today. However, I felt it was the right thing for me to do. Rinpoche said, "I'm going to lose my wife if you do this." I replied, "No, it's not a question of you losing your wife. I just want to get proper training. You're traveling so much these days that I don't need to stay here all the time. I need an opportunity to realize my discipline to the fullest potential." I told him that if I wasn't able to pursue the discipline 100 percent; I was going to give it up. I wasn't going to do this unless I could do it properly and completely. After we discussed the situation for a while, he said, "Sweetheart, if this is what you need to do, it's fine. Go ahead." From that time onward, he was completely supportive.
Within quite a short period of time, I had rented a house in Lafayette, California, near Walnut Creek, and Gesar and I moved there. He went to preschool in the neighborhood, and I found a stable near the house where I could keep Vajra Dance. Charles came several times a week to give me riding lessons, and I was able to work with the horse myself on the other days.
Somewhat to my surprise, although I missed Rinpoche, I felt very satisfied having my own life and my own household in California. In a certain way, it felt as though a cloud had been lifted in my life. I didn't feel that there was a problem in my marriage or my relationship with Rinpoche, but I did feel that it was almost impossible for me to have any kind of sewed life in Boulder. It was so difficult to raise a family in the midst of everything that was happening there, and it was even more difficult when nobody outside of the family seemed to appreciate how hard it was.
In that era in Boulder I did have some close friends as well as my relationship with Rinpoche to sustain me, but that was not always enough. There was another side to my relationship with people in the Buddhist community. At times, there was an element of jealousy toward me on the part of some of Rinpoche's students. I was married to him, and in some ways, as his wife, I was the closest person to him. People were extremely hungry for the teachings, and sometimes I appeared to stand in the way. of their unfettered access to my husband. I was often complacent about this because I felt content in my life with Rinpoche, so I was able to relax, have my family, and ignore a lot of things. The early seventies was my time to have my family and my children with him. At the same time, there was a growing dichotomy between Rinpoche's role as a teacher and his role as my husband and the father of our children. This became most apparent at the time that Taggie left our household. I wanted something, a commitment of time, from Rinpoche in the domestic realm, and I could have almost nothing. This was frustrating.
But, at the same time, I didn't develop my riding career out of a conscious desire to get away. I simply became fascinated by dressage and I loved horses. But studying dressage did allow me to develop my own space and my own life. I think, to tell you the truth, that pursuing my own profession was the only way that our marriage was able to survive. On the one hand, there was the unconditional nature of our love and our relationship. On the other hand, to a very great extent; Rinpoche belonged to his students. He belonged to the dharma. There was never a question about that. I had to make peace with it.
Once Rinpoche understood the genuine nature of my commitment to riding, he encouraged my independence and helped me to grow with my own discipline. He was incredibly supportive, and he never complained again about my being away because of my riding career. He didn't seem threatened by it or concerned. His encouragement helped me to find the sense of freedom and enjoyment at this time in my life. I was still so, so sad about Taggie. I dreamed about him a great deal. But I began to move forward and to put my life back together.
I was barely settled in the house in Lafayette when Khyentse Rinpoche arrived at the end of April for a two-week visit to the Bay Area. He had already been in New York and was going on to Boulder after he left California. Rinpoche had told me stories about him for many years, and I was aware that he held him in the highest esteem. I would say that Rinpoche had a bit of a spiritual love affair with Khyentse Rinpoche. When you saw the two of them together, they seemed extremely close.
Interestingly, His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche and his party arrived in Berkeley before Rinpoche did. He had already greeted His Holiness in New York and spent time with him there, and he was committed to teaching a seminar at Karme Choling before coming out to Berkeley. I think it was very telling that he let other people do the advance work for His Holiness's visit. Rinpoche felt that his students could greet Khyentse Rinpoche and host him properly until he arrived. This was a measure of how much trust he put in his students and how far he felt they had come in just a few years.
After the Karmapa's visit in 1974, Rinpoche kept certain organizational features of that visit intact. For one thing, he felt that the students who had provided security for the Karmapa's visit and had been his drivers were both benefiting from this discipline and also creating a strong container in which the teachings of the Buddha could be presented with proper respect for and recognition of their power. Rinpoche originally gave the name Dorje Kusung, or "vajra body protectors," to this group. Later, they became known as the Dorje Kasung, which means the "protectors or guardians of the command or the sacred word" -- which refers to the Buddhist teachings. He asked several people to assume leadership roles within this new organization in Boulder, and he charged them with protecting the physical space at Dorje Dzong (the name he gave our national headquarters in Boulder) and with protecting and serving himself and his family, as well as visiting teachers. He also began to develop local chapters of the Dorje Kasung in other centers. Wherever Rinpoche taught, after His Holiness Karmapa's visit, members of the Dorje Kasung were present as his personal guards, or guardians, and they also created a sense of boundary when he taught, positioning themselves in various parts of the shrine room where he was speaking. Some people found the presence of the Dorje Kasung threatening, and they mistakenly thought that either these people were armed, which was ridiculous, or that they were trained to be aggressors. In fact, their function was much more as peacekeepers. There would be more developments in this realm as time went along.
In 1976, when Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, members of the Dorje Kasung provided service to him and his party and also to Rinpoche and our family. Once again, they put together the motorcades for the visit, as they had done for the Karmapa, and they were on duty in His Holiness's household as well as at Rinpoche's house. When His Holiness was scheduled to be at the center in Berkeley or San Francisco, the Dorje Kasung would drive him there, greet him at the door, and provide an unobtrusive presence in the hall where he spoke or conducted a ceremony.
To prepare for Khyentse Rinpoche's visit, Rinpoche sent out several students as an advance team, including Michael Root and Tom Rich. At this time, Rinpoche had made an announcement to the Vajradhatu staff in Boulder that Tom Rich would be empowered in the summer of 1976 as his regent. This was still supposed to be a secret, but gossip has always traveled fast in our community, and most people were aware that Tom Rich was going to playa very important role in the future of Rinpoche's teaching.
My house was about a thirty-minute drive from the Berkeley dharmadhatu, where Khyentse Rinpoche would be teaching. It was not feasible for Rinpoche to stay with me throughout the whole visit since he had many events to attend or conduct in Berkeley and San Francisco. The members of the dharmadhatu rented a nice house for him in the Berkeley Hills. I sometimes stayed with him there, and he spent time at my house in Lafayette.
Part of the preparations centered on transforming the home of Sam and Hazel Bercholz into a residence for Khyentse Rinpoche. They had generously offered the use of their house for 'this purpose. Once again, as had been done for His Holiness the Karmapa, walls were covered In satin, brocades put on chairs and made into bedspreads, shrines constructed and installed. People were now becoming a little more familiar with this approach to hosting a Tibetan teacher, and although it was a huge undertaking, it went fairly smoothly. Once Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, Ani Pema Chodron (now the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey and the best-selling author of many books on Buddhism) was among a group of students who often served at His Holiness's residence in Berkeley Hills. She had taken her ordination as a novice nun in 1974 and was one of very few Western monastics in our community at this time. She was very cheerful and always willing to help with things around the house. This is the first time I that I can remember meeting Pema.
There were also many preparations at the Berkeley dharmadhatu. More shocking to people was that Michael and Tom also wanted Rinpoche's rented house to be dolled up a great deal.
It was one thing to make all this fuss for His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, but why did my husband need such fancy accommodations? No one suggested satin, but Michael and Tom made it clear that the house's weary couches and slightly broken down overstuffed chairs wouldn't do, nor would it work to use its Indian bedspreads on either the bed or the walls. Furniture was borrowed and rented, floors scrubbed, art borrowed and hung on the walls, and the house was transformed from a middle-class intellectual's frumpy home to something of another order.
The idea was also introduced that Rinpoche would be dining more formally, and that good china, silver, and crystal were needed for his household. Jacquie Giorgi, a woman in the dharmadhatu, had been given Lenox china and silver as wedding gifts, and she agreed to loan everything. Inexpensive crystal glasses were purchased, along with a set of Oriental dishes for Japanese and Chinese food service. People were invited to sign up to serve meals at Rinpoche's residence and to help out around the house in other ways.
I myself was a bit surprised by all this, watching it at a distance, since Rinpoche and I had never lived this way in Boulder. Apparently this experiment had gotten under way in New York the previous month when Rinpoche was there to teach several seminars and host His Holiness. Rinpoche stayed in an elegant apartment in Manhattan, and his household had been much more elaborate than anyone remembered from the past. Rinpoche seemed to be taking another leap or embarking on yet another path, putting together the beginnings of what would soon become the Kalapa Court, as our home was known from the summer of 1976 on.
As the date for Khyentse Rinpoche's arrival loomed, it was clear that His Holiness's household would not be ready in time. I volunteered to have him stay at my house for several days while the transformation of his residence was completed. On the day of Khyentse Rinpoche's arrival, Gesar and I drove with people from the dharmadhatu to the airport. Sam and Hazel were in the welcoming party from the dharmadhatu, along with Tom Rich, David Rome, Michael Root, and others representing Vajradhatu. We all greeted His Holiness as he stepped off the plane at the San Francisco airport. A tall, stately gentleman with penetrating eyes and a huge smile, Khyentse Rinpoche traveled in robes, but they were layman's robes since he was a married lama. His wife had stayed behind in Bhutan. He was accompanied by his daughter, Chime Wangmo, his grandson Rapjam Rinpoche, and several other attendants. His bearing and presence were noble. He beamed, and people melted around him. I felt immediately drawn to him.
After a welcoming ceremony at the Berkeley dharmadhatu, His Holiness was driven to my house in Lafayette. I gave him Gesar's bedroom, and Gesar and I slept together in my bedroom across the hall. His daughter and grandson were put up somewhere else, as my house was simply too small for all of them. With Khyentse Rinpoche came an entourage of drivers, attendants, cooks, and other dharmadhatu members. I made mamas for His Holiness, which are Tibetan dumplings that Rinpoche had taught me how to prepare. They are a great· favorite with Tibetans and quite delicious. The newly trained servers brought the food out to us with shaking hands. His Holiness took it all in stride. I think he would have been happy with a simple family-style meal, but he graciously accepted the awkward pomp and circumstance that was offered.
For the remainder of the time that he stayed with me, the hordes were banished. His Holiness had his. translator, Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche, stay with him so that he could communicate with me. We provided a single Dorje Kasung member and driver to help. out at the house. Everyone else cleared out, so it was a quiet and delightful time for me being in the presence of this greatly accomplished teacher.
The day after Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, I invited him to come to the stables with me, and he spent several hours watching me ride. He loved the horses, and seemed to enjoy himself. He came out to the stables several times. When I think about it now, realizing what a truly great man His Holiness was, I marvel how I took the whole situation for granted.
One morning while he was staying in the house, I came out of my bedroom, and His Holiness and his attendant were sitting cross-legged on the floor in the narrow corridor between the two bedrooms. He motioned me to sit down across from him. I came and sat down on the floor near him. He was sitting in front of a little heating grate. I sat on the other side of the grate. After a little while, through his translator he said to me, "I'm sorry. I have to give you some difficult news." I inquired, "What is it?" He said, "I had a dream last night. Your son Gesar is the incarnation of Sechen Kongtru." Then he said, "I know this may be very difficult for you, but this is my dream, and we should enthrone him right away."
I have to say I was somewhat shocked. He was telling me that Gesar was the reincarnation of my husband's own teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, who had died in prison in Tibet around 1960. Somehow, being in Khyentse Rinpoche's presence, I was able to accept what he was saying and to take it in stride. Like Rinpoche, he commanded the space in such a way that you felt completely at ease and able to set aside normal, habitual patterns and reactions to things, at least for a while. So I just took this in, and we. proceeded to talk about the plans for how to accomplish the enthronement ceremony in Berkeley.
As soon as I could, I excused myself and phoned Rinpoche with this news. He also seemed to take it as somewhat matter-of-fact, and he seemed quite pleased and excited. We talked about having the enthronement ceremony as soon as possible, within the next few days, as soon as possible after Rinpoche's arrival from the East Coast.
Then, of course, I had to break the news to Gesar. He also seemed to think it was a fine idea, although I wasn't sure if he understood what I was telling him. He was barely three at the time. Much later, he told me that as a child he had many memories of life in Tibet, so I think he had always sensed something and now it was making sense to him why he had these sorts of flashbacks.
One thing that was curious was that Rinpoche had scheduled a public seminar to be held in Berkeley on the weekend right after His Holiness left for Boulder. It had been entitled -- months in advance -- Empowerment." This seemed remarkably synchronistic.
A date for Gesar's enthronement was set, and the next day His Holiness moved to his own residence in Berkeley, where he was joined by his daughter Chime and his grandson Rapjam Rinpoche. His Holiness was already scheduled to conduct several public ceremonies for the members of the dharmadhatu. It was decided that a few days following those ceremonies, he would enthrone Gesar as Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen.
About a year earlier, the dharmadhatu had moved into the second floor of an office building in downtown Berkeley that was owned by the Odd Fellows of Berkeley, a group somewhat like the Freemasons. In fact, it was their headquarters. They still kept one or two offices and a large hall for their own ceremonies, but they leased us a smaller hall, which held, about 150 people. The Berkeley center is still in that space today.
Throughout Khyentse Rinpoche's visit, I was trying to juggle my commitments in the riding world with the events in the Buddhist world. One day I drove up to Santa Rosa, which was about two hours north, to look at a horse that I was interested in buying. I had to speed back to get to the dharmadhatu in time for a ceremony that afternoon. I have always been an absolutely wild driver. I was driving my truck, a silver Dodge Ram Charger, and going at least ninety miles per hour. Suddenly I saw lights flashing in my rearview mirror, and I realized that I was about to get pulled over by the police. I was afraid that I would get a big ticket and certainly be very late for the events in Berkeley. So I started braking and putting my other foot on the gas at the same time, to make the truck's movements look very erratic. Then I leaned down and pulled off the gas pedal.
In that truck there were two buttons that attached the pedal to the base; It had come loose before, so I knew about this. Then I pulled over and stopped, obtrusively holding the pedal in one hand. When the state trooper approached the car, he looked quite stern. I pretended to be completely hysterical. I told him the gas pedal had jammed, so that the only way I could stop the truck was to pull it off. I kept saying, "I thought I was going to die! I thought I was going to die!" I threw myself on the steering wheel. The trooper was quite concerned, and he was incredibly nice to me. He said, "Please calm down. Everything's going to be okay. Don't worry. I'm going to help you." Then he asked me if I thought I could drive, and I told him I thought I'd be okay. I didn't want him to see how easy it would be to reconnect the gas pedal, so we tried controlling the gas pedal by pushing on the little metal thing on the end, and it seemed to work okay. He said, "Okay, I'll lead you to the nearest gas station, and they can help you there." When we got to a gas station, I waited for him to leave, and then I put the gas pedal back on and took off. I arrived just in' time for the beginning of the event.
To prepare for Gesar's enthronement ceremony, some women in the dharmadhatu who had experience sewing had made him a tiny set of Tibetan monastic robes to wear. A small throne was hastily constructed for the ceremony, from plywood covered in cotton batting, topped with satin and brocades.
Gesar had to have his hair cut short for the ceremony. Rinpoche told me that I didn't have to shave his head, but I made such a mess of his hair when I tried to cut it that we ended up shaving it anyway. When he returned to preschool after this event, some of the children teased him about his bald head, hut he didn't take much notice.
I might have worried that something terrible would happen to Gesar, based on the experience with Taggie, but I didn't really believe that tulku disease was the source of Taggie's problems. I knew that Gesar was a strong individual who could handle whatever came along. Rinpoche and I both felt that he would be fine. When Rinpoche got to town, he stayed out at the house in Lafayette with us for several nights so that we could all be together and adjust to His Holiness's recognition of our second son as a tulku. While Rinpoche was there, he Came to the stables, where he met Charles de Kunffy for the first time. He had wanted to meet the man for whom I had moved to California. Charles was completely taken with Rinpoche and wanted to visit him in Berkeley at the first opportunity.
The day of his enthronement, Gesar and I were driven by members of the Dorje Kasung to the dharmadhatu in Berkeley. He was dressed in his little monks' robes, and he looked adorable, I must say. He was beaming the entire time. When we got there, His Holiness was on a throne in the shrine hall, already making preparations. Rinpoche had also arrived ahead of us, having come from his house in Berkeley. There were several hundred members of the dharmadhatu assembled in the shrine room. When we got to the entrance of the meditation hall, everyone stood up and Gesar walked in, very much a little gentleman, with me right behind him. He sat on his little throne and I sat in a chair next to him for most of the ceremony. At one point when he became restless, I had to sit up on the throne and he sat on my lap. Rinpoche was seated on a chair next to the thrones for His Holiness and Gesar. Rinpoche looked incredibly happy throughout the whole thing. Osel was also there to witness the enthronement. He was in boarding school at the Ojai Valley School near Santa Barbara at this time, a school founded on, the teachings of Krishnamurti and Rudolf Steiner. He was maturing into a much more confident and outgoing young man.
The enthronement of a reincarnate teacher is a traditional ceremony. His Holiness performed the liturgy in Tibetan, with a translator explaining to all of us what Khyentse Rinpoche was doing and saying. He presented Gesar with certain ritual objects, and he gave ,him a series of blessings and empowerments. To keep him quiet during the whole thing, His Holiness would lean over and feed Gesar candies. He had quite a supply with him to dole out! I also had a stash of sweets in case more were needed. His Holiness also gave a talk about the relationship between the Kongtruls and the Trungpa tulkus and how they had been close during each generation, with one being the teacher to the next, and vice versa, as new generations were born. At the end of the ceremony, everyone was invited to come up and present a white scarf to His Holiness and another to Gesar as an offering, and Gesar blessed everyone by putting his hand on their heads, which is also traditional. Rinpoche and I were the first ones to offer scarves and receive our son's blessing. Then everyone else filed up. Gesar behaved magnificently during all of these proceedings, and he seemed to take to the whole situation quite naturally. Of course, children love attention" and he was definitely the center of attention that day!
The day after the enthronement, Khyentse Rinpoche departed from the San Francisco airport. Everyone had been deeply affected by his visit and by his extraordinary presence, so it was a touchingly sad good-bye for us all. We felt that in meeting him we were meeting the heart of the Tibetan tradition in which Rinpoche had been raised, and to have that coming so personally into our lives was very moving.
For the next several weeks, Rinpoche was teaching a lecture series at the Berkeley dharmadhatu. One night I went out to a club in San Francisco with Charles and Rod, a good friend of his. Around eleven o'clock I suggested that we drop in on Rinpoche. Charles was worried that Rinpoche would have already gone to sleep, but I assured him this was extremely unlikely. So we dropped by, without any notice. When we got there, Rinpoche was sitting in the living room, impeccably dressed in a suit, surrounded by a group of about a dozen students who were also very well dressed. They were having drinks before sitting down to a formal dinner. Rinpoche was delighted to see us and insisted that we stay for dinner.
We sat down to a lavish meal in the dining room. There was an exquisite linen tablecloth and beautiful linen napkins, and the food was served on the very nice Lenox china that was on loan. In the middle of the table was a large ornate silver candelabra. There were five or six servers, who served each course, kept the wine flowing, and cleared our plates from one course to the next. Charles couldn't believe that Rinpoche ate like this every night. I couldn't believe it either, but I didn't let on that this was any different than a typical night in our household had ever been.
Charles was enchanted. As the evening progressed, I could see that Rinpoche had a few designs on Charles. He wanted to know everything about Charles's riding background. Rinpoche also started to intimate that Charles might make a very successful career iu Colorado by starting a school there with me. I realized that he had my interests at heart -- wanting to see my career go forward and wanting me to connect with powerful people in the dressage world -- and also that he might have an idea about how to bring his wife back to Colorado at some time in the future!
Throughout the month, Rinpoche continued to court Charles, and Charles remained absolutely enamored of Rinpoche. At the very end of the month, just before Rinpoche went to Santa Cruz, he invited Charles, Rod, and me for a banquet at the house. During this month, Rinpoche had Max King, one of his students who was an excellent Chinese cook, preparing all of his meals. Rinpoche arranged for Max to make a roast suckling pig for the banquet. Max had never cooked a whole animal like this before, but he consulted a number of chefs and was able to make a delicious meal that was also magnificently presented at the dinner table. Charles was absolutely beside himself. He was a pretty sybaritic individual, and Rinpoche really got to him with the roast suckling pig. It was beyond the beyond of what he could imagine someone doing in their own home. I must say it was quite a tour de force on Rinpoche's part.
At the end of the month Rinpoche returned to Boulder, and I stayed on in Lafayette. Around this time, Pat Cate joined our household as Gesar's nanny. She was the mother of Kelsey, the child who had tragically died at the 1975 seminary. Kelsey had been her only child, and she was still very much in mourning for him. I saw her at one of the events at the dharmadhatu in Berkeley, and I could feel her pain. My heart went out to her. I particularly sympathized with her because of my feelings for Taggie. Rinpoche and I talked about it, and he thought it would be a good thing for her to be part of a family and to have some positive contact with a young child. I invited her to live with me and help with Gesar. She stayed with us on and off for a number of years. When she remarried, her husband, Tom Adducci, also joined the household.
Pat became quite involved in our life day to day. I remember that once she had to break up a terrible fight between Gesar and me. I put him to bed at the end of a particularly trying day, but he absolutely would not stay down. He kept getting up while Pat and I were trying to have dinner. Finally, I said, "If you get up one more time, I'm going to spank you." He got up again, and I swatted him. Gesar being Gesar, he hit me back. He was absolutely indomitable, even at that age. He was just three years old, and I couldn't control him at all, even with physical force. We really started going at it, and Pat had to separate us. She put Gesar to bed, and I stayed out of it.
Gesar was strong willed from day one, and becoming a tulku didn't put a dent in that. He could be quite naughty at times. Gesar was terribly cute, but he was a wild man at that age. At the house in Lafayette, I received a new checkbook in the mail one day. Gesar woke up in the wee hours of the morning and ripped all the checks out and laid them on the living room floor. He then took paints from his room and proceeded to paint not only the checks but the whole carpet in the living room of our rental house. Perhaps this was the first sign that he had inherited some of his father's artistic talent, but I didn't appreciate what he had done at all. During the summer, I took Gesar to Boulder with me to see Rinpoche for a few weeks. While I was home, Rinpoche invited Charles to come for a visit as well. Rinpoche definitely was still courting Charles and pushing the idea that he should start a dressage academy in Boulder. Charles, however, resisted. He wanted to remain in California and wasn't ready to make such a big move. He had just invested in property in southern California, where he hoped to have a successful training school. I also think he was a little intimidated by Rinpoche and the scene around him, and not sure what he would be getting into if he moved to Colorado.
At the end of the summer, when I went back to California to continue my dressage training, Gesar and I moved down to Charles's property in Hesperia, which was in the high desert in southern California. Charles had recently opened his school there, where he felt he could do. more intensive training of both horses and riders. I only stayed for a short period of time, a matter of months, because I was becoming increasingly. frustrated with my riding. I was training intensely, but I wasn't getting the scores that I wanted in competition. I began to feel that there were major holes in my training. I was already competing Vajra Dance at the upper or international levels of dressage, having worked very hard on his training. Still, although the horse was showing at these levels, I didn't feel that my own training was anywhere near complete. Charles would tell me that I shouldn't be so fixated on my scores. However, I felt that they were reflective of my ability and knowledge.
I knew that something was missing. On an ongoing basis I was not scoring nearly as high as I should, based on the time and effort I was putting in and the feedback I was getting from Charles. When I didn't do well in an event and was upset, Charles would just say to me, "Well, a lady would come back after not doing well at a show, have a glass of sherry, and forget about it."
Over time, considerable tension developed between Charles and me about my training. Nevertheless, I enjoyed spending time with him, and I valued his help. I also felt obligated to help him build up his school. He became concerned about being able to make the mortgage payments on the property because it turned out that not enough people were willing to study with him in that remote desert location. He became very stressed out and developed high blood pressure. We continued to have serious disagreements. Finally, I reached a decision that I couldn't get the training that I needed m this situation. I decided to return home to Boulder for a while until I could sort out what the next step for my dressage career might be.
During most of my childhood and early adolescence in England, I had been a rider. From the first moment I got on a pony as a small child, I felt deeply connected to horses and to horsemanship. My early training was in jumping and cross-country riding. When . I was in boarding school, we were also allowed to go out on fox hunts. I never went to the kill, but I would go out in the early part of the hunt with my pony, Blaze. Later on I did "eventing," which involves competitions or events in three phases, consisting of a simple dressage test, a cross-country test, and a jumping competition. As a teenager, I always hated the dressage component. I found it boring. In England in those years there was very little interest in dressage, so I had little exposure and no real feeling for it.
After my first two years at Benenden, I sold my pony. I didn't ride at all at Kirby Lodge. In fact, I didn't take up riding again until Rinpoche and I moved to Colorado. When Taggie was a baby, I would sometimes go riding at a local stable for an hour or so. I broached the subject with Rinpoche of whether I could buy my own horse. At that time he said that he didn't think it would be a good idea. It might make us look wealthy, which we certainly were not, and people might think that we were throwing money around. He was afraid that people would disapprove of him as a spiritual teacher if they thought that we were living a wealthy, aristocratic sort of life. He asked me to wait. I let the idea go for the time being, although I continued to ride occasionally.
During my pregnancy with Gesar, as I've mentioned, I rode from time to time. When Gesar was a few months old, Rinpoche told me that it would be all right for me to buy a horse. At that time, I had started taking riding lessons with Haze Kennedy, an Australian woman who taught at a stable north of Boulder called Hidden Valley Ranch. From our house in Boulder Heights it was a short drive to the stables. There was a young thoroughbred mare available for purchase and I found her particularly appealing. She was a light bay by the name of Fleur. Rinpoche renamed her Mirage.
I did some jumping competitions with Mirage, and I rode her in some hunter classes. After a few months, my riding instructor approached me with a proposal. She had a slightly older horse that was a more experienced jumper and had some training in dressage, and she herself wanted a young prospect. She asked me if I would be interested in a trade. Her horse was a saddle-bred-thoroughbred cross by the name of Mr. Chips. I agreed to make the trade because I thought it would be helpful for my education as a rider. I felt that I could learn from a horse that knew more than I did.
Mr. Chips was large, a sixteen three hand liver chestnut, a big horse with a wonderful temperament.1 He was sensitive and responsive and willing to work. Rinpoche began calling me Mrs. Chips because I started spending so much time at the barn. I competed Chips in some jumper competitions, and I did quite well in the lower jumper classes with him. Then I decided to ride him. in a three-phase novice event in Colorado. I scored well on the cross-country and the stadium jumping, but I did poorly in dressage.
In order to improve as an all-around rider, I decided to take time off from jumping and concentrate on learning more about dressage. In fact, I decided to devote a year to it. At the end of that year, I fully intended to go back to jumping as my main riding discipline. I began by taking dressage lessons from Haze Kennedy on a regular basis, three times a week. She had some elementary dressage training and was a good instructor. I found that I looked forward to my time at the barn as a break from the hectic, chaotic life that I had with Rinpoche and the children.
At that time, a Hungarian rider by the name of Charles de Kunffy was coming to Colorado on a regular basis to teach dressage clinics. He had been a member of the Hungarian three-event team. I took several of his clinics and then started to show my horse in lower-level dressage events. In a short time, I discovered that I was becoming absolutely fascinated by the art of dressage.
Dressage itself is a French word that simply means "training." The origin of classical horsemanship goes back more than two thousand years. Greek warriors trained their horses so that they would be supple and maneuverable in battle. The earliest surviving treatises on dressage were written by Xenophon, a great Greek general who employed what we would now call dressage training techniques to improve the performance of his horses in battle.
There is no exact equivalent for the word dressage in the English language. Dressage is the deliberate, gymnastic training of the horse over a long period of time, making use of the horse's natural movements and gaits, so that the horse becomes highly trained, agile, and extremely strong while still maintaining the beauty and flexibility that one sees in the natural movements of animals loose in the field. Dressage is a joining together of horse and rider. It is not just that horse and rider work together physically, but a meeting of minds must take place if the training is to be successful. Part of the attraction of dressage is that it produces and depends on such intimate and thorough communication between horse and rider.
The Romans did not have much use for this approach to horsemanship, and during the Dark Ages, the art of dressage was almost completely lost. The armor worn by knights was so heavy that it was impossible for the horses to maneuver with agility. What was needed for medieval battles were sturdy horses that could move in a straight line carrying their knights into combat. The subtlety of dressage was useless in these situations.
During the Renaissance, beginning in the fifteenth century, dressage flourished once again. It was rediscovered in Italy, where the first riding academy in Europe dedicated to the classical art of horsemanship was opened in 1532 in Naples. Noblemen came from all over the continent to learn the discipline of riding, and it soon spread to France, Spain, Germany, and England. It became the fashion to have a small dressage arena attached to all the major courts and noble households of Europe. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which Rinpoche and I had visited together in 1975, is the premier example of the classical approach to dressage that developed during the Renaissance. It was built in 1735 as the manege, or arena, attached to the Hapsburg Palace in Vienna, but the school itself predates the building by almost two hundred years, making it the oldest school of dressage still functioning today. Archduke Maximilian, son of emperor Ferdinand I, introduced Spanish horses in Austria in the sixteenth century. The first Spanish horses were given to the Hapsburg family as part of a dowry. They were interbred with local horses at Lippiza, producing the distinct Lippizan breed. It is the stallions from this breed that are used exclusively in the Spanish Riding School.
As I pursued my novice training and learned more about the history of dressage, I felt that I was making a link to a noble discipline, which I wanted to thoroughly explore and master. At a time in my life that was difficult, with the painful realization of the situation with Taggie, it was extremely helpful to have this growing connection to something so uplifted and profound.
Around this time, I purchased a thoroughbred stallion, which we named Vajra Dance. He was from the bloodlines of a famous racehorse named Native Dancer. Vajra Dance had apparently been purchased by a syndicate for a large amount of money. He was competed on the racetrack circuit, but he turned out to be very slow. Then he fractured his sesamoid bone in his left front leg and had to be retired from racing. He was sold for very little to a gentleman living in Sonoma County, California, who gave the horse some training, and the horse had shown an aptitude for dressage. I purchased him to upgrade to a better mount, one that would be more appropriate for dressage competition. I brought the horse back to Colorado, and working with Haze and in clinics with Charles, I learned to ride many dressage movements on him.
When Rinpoche and I visited the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, it spurred me on to involve myself more deeply in my training. Around this time, Charles de Kunffy told me that he felt that I had natural talent and feel for the horse, and I began to sense that this might be the case. I became increasingly committed to fully pursuing the discipline of dressage.
After Taggie left for Karme Choling, I looked into spending an extended period of time studying with Charles. He was headquartered in northern California, where he had been teaching riding at a school for gifted children, and he invited me to come out and work with him. At that point I felt it was impossible for my riding to progress beyond a certain point with the limited resources in Colorado. I discussed this with Rinpoche, telling him that I felt that I was not going to be able to get fully trained riding three times a week at Hidden Valley Ranch. Rinpoche was quite encouraging. He was traveling a great deal and understood that I needed to pursue my own discipline. He supported my need to develop myself in this way.
Dressage was just starting to be appreciated and practiced in the United States at this time, so it was difficult to find a qualified teacher. I went out for two months to train with Charles. Initially, I brought Gesar with me, but the child-care arrangements were very complicated there, so after a few weeks, I sent him back to Boulder. We arranged for a nanny to help care for him in Boulder while I was gone.
I dove into the riding situation in California, and it was a very healing time for me. I spent all day at the barn, and with Charles giving me instruction, I was able to make quite good progress in my riding.
At the end of the two months, I returned home and continued riding on my own. In late February 1976, Rinpoche and I went to Mexico on holiday, accompanied by John and Karen Roper. John was a lawyer and a member of the Vajradhatu board of directors. This time, we went to the village of Patzcuaro, a charming town on the edge of Lake Patzcuaro, several hours south of Guadalajara. Louise and Roger Randolph, students of Rinpoche's from Oklahoma, owned a small vacation house there, with a beautiful walled garden and several other cottages on the property. They were very generous to Rinpoche and me -- and to the Buddhist community as a whole. Earlier, Roger had donated a large parcel of land in southern Colorado to be used as a retreat center. Rinpoche named it Dorje Khyung Dzong, after the retreat center at his monastery in Tibet where he had spent so much time as a young man.
Roger and Louise gave us the use of their house in Mexico many times. On this, our first trip there, we had a delightful holiday. Rinpoche liked to go to the open market in Patzcuaro to buy food for dinner. You also could bargain for beautiful copper plates and bowls there, which were locally made. We sometimes went to a hotel on the main square for dinner. They served a soup there that Rinpoche loved, called Sopa Tarasca, named I believe after the Tarascan Indians whose capital was located on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro. Apparently the recipe was created originally around 1960 by one of the chefs in the area. The tomato broth has a dark chili added to it that gives it a smoky flavor, and pieces of tortilla are broken up and put into the broth.
I brought along my saddle from home, thinking that I would be able to go riding in the village. John Roper thought this was ludicrous and that it was a complete waste of energy to haul the saddle around with us. However, I found a stable near the house and was indeed able to ride almost every day.
When we returned from Mexico, Rinpoche jumped back into teaching and traveling. He was also busy making preparations for the arrival later that spring of His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with whom he had a heart connection from their time together in Tibet and later in India.2
Back in Boulder, I found myself unsatisfied with my riding regimen. I wanted to devote myself to dressage and training myself as a rider during this period of my life, in addition to being a mother and wife. I told Rinpoche that I was interested in moving to California to study with Charles for a year or two. I could take Gesar with me, and we could come home for extended visits as often as possible. Initially, Rinpoche was a bit shocked, and he seemed conflicted about whether it was a good idea, as was I in some respects. It was not common for a woman with young children to do something like this in this era. Perhaps it would not seem so extreme today. However, I felt it was the right thing for me to do. Rinpoche said, "I'm going to lose my wife if you do this." I replied, "No, it's not a question of you losing your wife. I just want to get proper training. You're traveling so much these days that I don't need to stay here all the time. I need an opportunity to realize my discipline to the fullest potential." I told him that if I wasn't able to pursue the discipline 100 percent; I was going to give it up. I wasn't going to do this unless I could do it properly and completely. After we discussed the situation for a while, he said, "Sweetheart, if this is what you need to do, it's fine. Go ahead." From that time onward, he was completely supportive.
Within quite a short period of time, I had rented a house in Lafayette, California, near Walnut Creek, and Gesar and I moved there. He went to preschool in the neighborhood, and I found a stable near the house where I could keep Vajra Dance. Charles came several times a week to give me riding lessons, and I was able to work with the horse myself on the other days.
Somewhat to my surprise, although I missed Rinpoche, I felt very satisfied having my own life and my own household in California. In a certain way, it felt as though a cloud had been lifted in my life. I didn't feel that there was a problem in my marriage or my relationship with Rinpoche, but I did feel that it was almost impossible for me to have any kind of sewed life in Boulder. It was so difficult to raise a family in the midst of everything that was happening there, and it was even more difficult when nobody outside of the family seemed to appreciate how hard it was.
In that era in Boulder I did have some close friends as well as my relationship with Rinpoche to sustain me, but that was not always enough. There was another side to my relationship with people in the Buddhist community. At times, there was an element of jealousy toward me on the part of some of Rinpoche's students. I was married to him, and in some ways, as his wife, I was the closest person to him. People were extremely hungry for the teachings, and sometimes I appeared to stand in the way. of their unfettered access to my husband. I was often complacent about this because I felt content in my life with Rinpoche, so I was able to relax, have my family, and ignore a lot of things. The early seventies was my time to have my family and my children with him. At the same time, there was a growing dichotomy between Rinpoche's role as a teacher and his role as my husband and the father of our children. This became most apparent at the time that Taggie left our household. I wanted something, a commitment of time, from Rinpoche in the domestic realm, and I could have almost nothing. This was frustrating.
But, at the same time, I didn't develop my riding career out of a conscious desire to get away. I simply became fascinated by dressage and I loved horses. But studying dressage did allow me to develop my own space and my own life. I think, to tell you the truth, that pursuing my own profession was the only way that our marriage was able to survive. On the one hand, there was the unconditional nature of our love and our relationship. On the other hand, to a very great extent; Rinpoche belonged to his students. He belonged to the dharma. There was never a question about that. I had to make peace with it.
Once Rinpoche understood the genuine nature of my commitment to riding, he encouraged my independence and helped me to grow with my own discipline. He was incredibly supportive, and he never complained again about my being away because of my riding career. He didn't seem threatened by it or concerned. His encouragement helped me to find the sense of freedom and enjoyment at this time in my life. I was still so, so sad about Taggie. I dreamed about him a great deal. But I began to move forward and to put my life back together.
I was barely settled in the house in Lafayette when Khyentse Rinpoche arrived at the end of April for a two-week visit to the Bay Area. He had already been in New York and was going on to Boulder after he left California. Rinpoche had told me stories about him for many years, and I was aware that he held him in the highest esteem. I would say that Rinpoche had a bit of a spiritual love affair with Khyentse Rinpoche. When you saw the two of them together, they seemed extremely close.
Interestingly, His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche and his party arrived in Berkeley before Rinpoche did. He had already greeted His Holiness in New York and spent time with him there, and he was committed to teaching a seminar at Karme Choling before coming out to Berkeley. I think it was very telling that he let other people do the advance work for His Holiness's visit. Rinpoche felt that his students could greet Khyentse Rinpoche and host him properly until he arrived. This was a measure of how much trust he put in his students and how far he felt they had come in just a few years.
After the Karmapa's visit in 1974, Rinpoche kept certain organizational features of that visit intact. For one thing, he felt that the students who had provided security for the Karmapa's visit and had been his drivers were both benefiting from this discipline and also creating a strong container in which the teachings of the Buddha could be presented with proper respect for and recognition of their power. Rinpoche originally gave the name Dorje Kusung, or "vajra body protectors," to this group. Later, they became known as the Dorje Kasung, which means the "protectors or guardians of the command or the sacred word" -- which refers to the Buddhist teachings. He asked several people to assume leadership roles within this new organization in Boulder, and he charged them with protecting the physical space at Dorje Dzong (the name he gave our national headquarters in Boulder) and with protecting and serving himself and his family, as well as visiting teachers. He also began to develop local chapters of the Dorje Kasung in other centers. Wherever Rinpoche taught, after His Holiness Karmapa's visit, members of the Dorje Kasung were present as his personal guards, or guardians, and they also created a sense of boundary when he taught, positioning themselves in various parts of the shrine room where he was speaking. Some people found the presence of the Dorje Kasung threatening, and they mistakenly thought that either these people were armed, which was ridiculous, or that they were trained to be aggressors. In fact, their function was much more as peacekeepers. There would be more developments in this realm as time went along.
This year of building the kingdom:
Dealing with the four seasons,
Studying how millet grows
And how the birds form their eggs;
Interested in studying how Tampax are made,
And how furniture can be gold-leafed;
Studying the construction of my home,
How the whitewash of the plain wood can be dignified,
How we could develop terry cloth on our floor,
How my dapons can shoot accurately
-- First Thought Best Thought, 108 Poems, by Chogyam Trungpa
The Boulder guru keeps a household protection squad, known as the Vajra Guard. They are the Beefeaters of Buddhism. When the guru goes out in public, so do they. (In between times, they meditate.) The rumor is, they're armed with M-16's. Others say it's submachine guns.
-- The Great Naropa Poetry Wars, With a Copious Collection of German Documents Assembled by the Author, by Tom Clark
It was a flowering such as had never been seen before. Naropa University opened its doors. Every major city in the United States and Europe had a Vajradhatu meditation center and ambassadors were sent out from the Court of Shambhala. When the Prince gripped my arm for support he guided me through the halls, streets, and airports. His step was sure and firm. It was as if I were the crippled one instead of him. The Court was filled with activity.
In one week I had a schedule of over 150 volunteer servants: guards, drivers, cooks, cleaners, nannies, gardeners, servers, secretaries, shoppers, and waiters. All were wanting to participate in the flowering energy that filled the Court, which made it indeed seem to stretch over several miles with a park in the center on the top of a great circular mountain. What had been created was an openness where everything could be explored. We were encouraged to practice, study, and investigate our inner and outer worlds and examine any resulting pain or pleasure.
In the midst of this creative turmoil the Prince challenged me on my military propensities with a casual remark made into the bathroom mirror one morning.
"When we take over Nova Scotia, Johnny, you will need to attack some of the small military bases there."
''Attack military bases!" I said with surprise. "Me?"
"Well, not alone," smiled the Prince, still looking into the mirror examining his freshly brushed teeth. "You could have a commando unit of Jeeps and halftracks." He was looking at me in the mirror as he continued, "You had a halftrack once, didn't you?"
"Yes," I replied, remembering the olive drab army vehicle I owned at the farming school I once ran, seemingly a hundred years ago.
"Well?" the Prince's voice sounded.
My mind activated like a World War II movie as our intrepid band in Jeeps and halftracks raced along the curved snake-like back roads of Nova Scotia toward the unsuspecting enemy. My khaki wool uniform blended with the green countryside, I gripped the metal frame of the Thompson machine gun in my capable hands. On my head was the red beret bearing the Trident badge and the motto "Victory Over War." I smelled the engine oil fumes mixing with the flower perfumes of the country lane as we whipped along on our desperate mission. The sun glinted on our bayonets, or wait, perhaps it was night ...
"Well?" asked the Prince again.
"Oh, oh," was the reply, as I returned from the battle to the bathroom. "Yes, yes, Sir," I said. "We could do that."
"Good," continued the Prince. "You might have to kill one or two.
Kill one or two? What's that mean-kill one or two? was my silent response.
"But I thought we are not supposed to kill," I said, somewhat alarmed.
"Just a few resisters," said the Prince.
Resister, what the fuck is a resister? ran through my mind. Out loud I asked, "Resister? What kind of a resister?"
"Someone may resist enlightenment," stated the Prince.
"Oh, those. Well, yes, we could take care of them," I reassured him.
"Good, good," said the Prince, turning to leave the bathroom. As he opened the door he concluded with, "Well, Major Perks, perhaps you could put all of that together."
I spent the next several hours studying Army surplus catalogs and The Shotgun News. At the local gun store I picked up copies of Commando and SAS Training Manuals. I made a list of equipment and concluded that this "invasion" was going to be costly. I went to the Prince.
"Where will we get the money to organize this armed commando force, Sir?" I said, almost saluting.
"Perhaps we could steal the equipment," he suggested.
"Wow," I exclaimed. "You mean like a covert operation." The words and idea thrilled me.
"Exactly," said the Prince. ''And we need a code name for it." He contemplated for a moment and then said, "How about Operation Deep Cut?" As I turned the words over in my mind he continued, "Yes, what is needed here is a surgical strike."
I excitedly repeated the code name, "Operation Deep Cut, covert operation Surgical Strike." This was going to be worth killing just one or two!
"Yes," said the Prince with delight. "Buy some books on tactics and strategy. We should all study them. And you, Major Perks, will be in command." I could hardly wait to take my leave and get started on the campaign. I put on my military hat, saluted the Prince, and ran out of the room, tripping and falling down half the stairs in my haste. The Prince's head popped out of his sitting room doorway. ''Are you okay, Major?" he called down to me.
"Yes, Sir, fine, Sir. I just missed a step," I replied, pulling my uniform straight.
"Good," he said. "Jolly good, jolly, jolly good. Carry on, Major." I saluted again and rushed down the remaining stairs.
I could not wait to tell the other officers in the military about my secret mission. They were all amazed. "Have you told David yet?" was Jim's response. "Not yet," I replied. David was the Head of the Military, now that Jerry had dropped out. I could not fathom why the Prince had chosen David for this position. David was a very unmilitary, slight of build, a Jewish intellectual. He looked more like Mr. Peepers in a uniform -- nothing like Montgomery or Patton.
"I bet his balls shrivel up like raisins when I tell him about this," I scoffed. Indeed, David was quite alarmed at my description of "killing one or two resisters."
"Let me talk to Rinpoche before you do anything," he said anxiously, falling back in his chair.
"Okay," I said, adding with a tone of command, "go ahead, but it's all set. The Prince said so."
Later the Prince called me into his sitting room. I explained that David seemed hesitant about killing a few resisters.
"Oh, he's such a Jewish intellectual," said the Prince.
"Why, that's exactly what I think," I agreed.
"Really?" said the Prince, looking at me with curiosity. "Good, jolly good. You carry on, Major. I'll take care of David and tell him you have a free hand." I left hurriedly to tell the other officers the latest news on my secret commando operation....
Lady Diana, the Prince's wife, had confiscated his Scottish Eliot Clan kilt some months back because she felt he did not look good in Scottish regalia. It was rumored that the missing kilt was hidden at the mother-in-law's house.
"What we need is a practice run," said the Prince to me one morning. "Major, here's a job for your new commando group. We will invite Diana and my in-laws to the Court for dinner and while everyone is here your group will retrieve my kilt."
I saluted with a very big "Yes, Sir" and ran off to inform my comrades-in-arms.
The mother-in-law's house was situated in a small field near the edge of town. On the night in question we waited in our darkened limousine on a side road by the Court. There were four of us, dressed in black. We watched in nervous excitement as the mother-in-law's car pulled up to the Court. and the occupants entered the building. "Let's go," I commanded in a hushed military tone, and the driver sped toward our goal. Near the house he shut off the headlights and silently rolled to a stop in the shadows. We rolled out into the grass ditch and crawled on our bellies across the lawn. I pushed at one of the dining room windows. It opened and I was halfway through when Walter hissed, "The front door is open."
It was too late, however, as I was already pinned in the open window frame by the top window which had slid down on my back. My legs were dangling outside and my arms and head were inside the dining room. The others entered the dark house in a more upright fashion and hauled me through by yanking on my arms....
Triumphantly we returned to the Court. Dinner was finished and dessert was about to be served. I placed the kilt on a silver tray and presented it to the Prince and the seated guests. Lady Diana cried out laughingly "Oh no, Darling" to the Prince, who beamed and gave me the thumbs up sign. The other guests were delightedly amused.
In the following weeks we undertook other commando operations with odd code names: Operation Awake, Operation Blue Pancake, Operation Secret Mind, and Operation Snow White. "Why Snow White?" I asked the Prince. "Because she has to be woken up," was the reply. That made no sense to me. Why did you need to wake up a military operation when we were already totally awake and combat ready? I labeled the answer as crazy and added it to the collection.
During this time I started to have flashbacks to my childhood during the war. I had dreams of the bombing, the bodies in the yellow shrouds, the news footage of concentration camps. I began to feel confused about which was real, my remembrances of things past, the present military operations and the Court, or the future takeover of Nova Scotia. My uneasy feelings returned as did the panic attacks.
I did the same old stuff to avoid confronting any of it. I immersed myself in work, sex, entertainment, alcohol, and food. I knew I was okay, if only I could get myself together. I poured out my woes to the Prince, who was no help. In fact, he did not seem to understand at all and was quite unsympathetic. The more I freaked out the more demands he made on me....
"How are things going for the military encampment?" he asked....
-- The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant, by John Riley Perks
One of the most notable religious leaders of India about 1500 A.D. was Kabir. In his system Hinduism and Islam mingle. Nanak, who founded the religion of the Sikhs, is only one of a number of teachers who drew their inspiration from him. Kabir vigorously condemned both idolatory and caste; and he had great influence all over North India. In the Bijak, a volume of his religious verse, there is a poem which pictures the fighting yogi and his irregularities very vividly:-- [23]
1. O brother, never have I seen yogi like this: puffed up with pride he walks, caring for nothing.
2. He teaches the religion of Mahadeva (i.e. Siva) and therefore is called a Mahant.
3. In market and street he sits in the posture of a yogi; he is an imperfect Siddha (saint) a lover of Maya (the illusion of the world).
4. When did Dattatreya [24] attack his enemies? when did Sukadeva [24] lay a cannon?
5. When did Narada [24] fire a gun, or Vyasadeva [24] sound a horn?
6. They who fight are of little wisdom; shall I call such men ascetics or bandits?
-- The Fighting Ascetics of India, by J.N. Farquhar, M.A., D. Litt. (Oxon.)
In 1976, when Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, members of the Dorje Kasung provided service to him and his party and also to Rinpoche and our family. Once again, they put together the motorcades for the visit, as they had done for the Karmapa, and they were on duty in His Holiness's household as well as at Rinpoche's house. When His Holiness was scheduled to be at the center in Berkeley or San Francisco, the Dorje Kasung would drive him there, greet him at the door, and provide an unobtrusive presence in the hall where he spoke or conducted a ceremony.
To prepare for Khyentse Rinpoche's visit, Rinpoche sent out several students as an advance team, including Michael Root and Tom Rich. At this time, Rinpoche had made an announcement to the Vajradhatu staff in Boulder that Tom Rich would be empowered in the summer of 1976 as his regent. This was still supposed to be a secret, but gossip has always traveled fast in our community, and most people were aware that Tom Rich was going to playa very important role in the future of Rinpoche's teaching.
My house was about a thirty-minute drive from the Berkeley dharmadhatu, where Khyentse Rinpoche would be teaching. It was not feasible for Rinpoche to stay with me throughout the whole visit since he had many events to attend or conduct in Berkeley and San Francisco. The members of the dharmadhatu rented a nice house for him in the Berkeley Hills. I sometimes stayed with him there, and he spent time at my house in Lafayette.
Part of the preparations centered on transforming the home of Sam and Hazel Bercholz into a residence for Khyentse Rinpoche. They had generously offered the use of their house for 'this purpose. Once again, as had been done for His Holiness the Karmapa, walls were covered In satin, brocades put on chairs and made into bedspreads, shrines constructed and installed. People were now becoming a little more familiar with this approach to hosting a Tibetan teacher, and although it was a huge undertaking, it went fairly smoothly. Once Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, Ani Pema Chodron (now the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey and the best-selling author of many books on Buddhism) was among a group of students who often served at His Holiness's residence in Berkeley Hills. She had taken her ordination as a novice nun in 1974 and was one of very few Western monastics in our community at this time. She was very cheerful and always willing to help with things around the house. This is the first time I that I can remember meeting Pema.
There were also many preparations at the Berkeley dharmadhatu. More shocking to people was that Michael and Tom also wanted Rinpoche's rented house to be dolled up a great deal.
It was one thing to make all this fuss for His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, but why did my husband need such fancy accommodations? No one suggested satin, but Michael and Tom made it clear that the house's weary couches and slightly broken down overstuffed chairs wouldn't do, nor would it work to use its Indian bedspreads on either the bed or the walls. Furniture was borrowed and rented, floors scrubbed, art borrowed and hung on the walls, and the house was transformed from a middle-class intellectual's frumpy home to something of another order.
The idea was also introduced that Rinpoche would be dining more formally, and that good china, silver, and crystal were needed for his household. Jacquie Giorgi, a woman in the dharmadhatu, had been given Lenox china and silver as wedding gifts, and she agreed to loan everything. Inexpensive crystal glasses were purchased, along with a set of Oriental dishes for Japanese and Chinese food service. People were invited to sign up to serve meals at Rinpoche's residence and to help out around the house in other ways.
I myself was a bit surprised by all this, watching it at a distance, since Rinpoche and I had never lived this way in Boulder. Apparently this experiment had gotten under way in New York the previous month when Rinpoche was there to teach several seminars and host His Holiness. Rinpoche stayed in an elegant apartment in Manhattan, and his household had been much more elaborate than anyone remembered from the past. Rinpoche seemed to be taking another leap or embarking on yet another path, putting together the beginnings of what would soon become the Kalapa Court, as our home was known from the summer of 1976 on.
As the date for Khyentse Rinpoche's arrival loomed, it was clear that His Holiness's household would not be ready in time. I volunteered to have him stay at my house for several days while the transformation of his residence was completed. On the day of Khyentse Rinpoche's arrival, Gesar and I drove with people from the dharmadhatu to the airport. Sam and Hazel were in the welcoming party from the dharmadhatu, along with Tom Rich, David Rome, Michael Root, and others representing Vajradhatu. We all greeted His Holiness as he stepped off the plane at the San Francisco airport. A tall, stately gentleman with penetrating eyes and a huge smile, Khyentse Rinpoche traveled in robes, but they were layman's robes since he was a married lama. His wife had stayed behind in Bhutan. He was accompanied by his daughter, Chime Wangmo, his grandson Rapjam Rinpoche, and several other attendants. His bearing and presence were noble. He beamed, and people melted around him. I felt immediately drawn to him.
After a welcoming ceremony at the Berkeley dharmadhatu, His Holiness was driven to my house in Lafayette. I gave him Gesar's bedroom, and Gesar and I slept together in my bedroom across the hall. His daughter and grandson were put up somewhere else, as my house was simply too small for all of them. With Khyentse Rinpoche came an entourage of drivers, attendants, cooks, and other dharmadhatu members. I made mamas for His Holiness, which are Tibetan dumplings that Rinpoche had taught me how to prepare. They are a great· favorite with Tibetans and quite delicious. The newly trained servers brought the food out to us with shaking hands. His Holiness took it all in stride. I think he would have been happy with a simple family-style meal, but he graciously accepted the awkward pomp and circumstance that was offered.
For the remainder of the time that he stayed with me, the hordes were banished. His Holiness had his. translator, Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche, stay with him so that he could communicate with me. We provided a single Dorje Kasung member and driver to help. out at the house. Everyone else cleared out, so it was a quiet and delightful time for me being in the presence of this greatly accomplished teacher.
The day after Khyentse Rinpoche arrived, I invited him to come to the stables with me, and he spent several hours watching me ride. He loved the horses, and seemed to enjoy himself. He came out to the stables several times. When I think about it now, realizing what a truly great man His Holiness was, I marvel how I took the whole situation for granted.
One morning while he was staying in the house, I came out of my bedroom, and His Holiness and his attendant were sitting cross-legged on the floor in the narrow corridor between the two bedrooms. He motioned me to sit down across from him. I came and sat down on the floor near him. He was sitting in front of a little heating grate. I sat on the other side of the grate. After a little while, through his translator he said to me, "I'm sorry. I have to give you some difficult news." I inquired, "What is it?" He said, "I had a dream last night. Your son Gesar is the incarnation of Sechen Kongtru." Then he said, "I know this may be very difficult for you, but this is my dream, and we should enthrone him right away."
I have to say I was somewhat shocked. He was telling me that Gesar was the reincarnation of my husband's own teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, who had died in prison in Tibet around 1960. Somehow, being in Khyentse Rinpoche's presence, I was able to accept what he was saying and to take it in stride. Like Rinpoche, he commanded the space in such a way that you felt completely at ease and able to set aside normal, habitual patterns and reactions to things, at least for a while. So I just took this in, and we. proceeded to talk about the plans for how to accomplish the enthronement ceremony in Berkeley.
As soon as I could, I excused myself and phoned Rinpoche with this news. He also seemed to take it as somewhat matter-of-fact, and he seemed quite pleased and excited. We talked about having the enthronement ceremony as soon as possible, within the next few days, as soon as possible after Rinpoche's arrival from the East Coast.
Then, of course, I had to break the news to Gesar. He also seemed to think it was a fine idea, although I wasn't sure if he understood what I was telling him. He was barely three at the time. Much later, he told me that as a child he had many memories of life in Tibet, so I think he had always sensed something and now it was making sense to him why he had these sorts of flashbacks.
One thing that was curious was that Rinpoche had scheduled a public seminar to be held in Berkeley on the weekend right after His Holiness left for Boulder. It had been entitled -- months in advance -- Empowerment." This seemed remarkably synchronistic.
A date for Gesar's enthronement was set, and the next day His Holiness moved to his own residence in Berkeley, where he was joined by his daughter Chime and his grandson Rapjam Rinpoche. His Holiness was already scheduled to conduct several public ceremonies for the members of the dharmadhatu. It was decided that a few days following those ceremonies, he would enthrone Gesar as Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen.
About a year earlier, the dharmadhatu had moved into the second floor of an office building in downtown Berkeley that was owned by the Odd Fellows of Berkeley, a group somewhat like the Freemasons. In fact, it was their headquarters. They still kept one or two offices and a large hall for their own ceremonies, but they leased us a smaller hall, which held, about 150 people. The Berkeley center is still in that space today.
Throughout Khyentse Rinpoche's visit, I was trying to juggle my commitments in the riding world with the events in the Buddhist world. One day I drove up to Santa Rosa, which was about two hours north, to look at a horse that I was interested in buying. I had to speed back to get to the dharmadhatu in time for a ceremony that afternoon. I have always been an absolutely wild driver. I was driving my truck, a silver Dodge Ram Charger, and going at least ninety miles per hour. Suddenly I saw lights flashing in my rearview mirror, and I realized that I was about to get pulled over by the police. I was afraid that I would get a big ticket and certainly be very late for the events in Berkeley. So I started braking and putting my other foot on the gas at the same time, to make the truck's movements look very erratic. Then I leaned down and pulled off the gas pedal.
In that truck there were two buttons that attached the pedal to the base; It had come loose before, so I knew about this. Then I pulled over and stopped, obtrusively holding the pedal in one hand. When the state trooper approached the car, he looked quite stern. I pretended to be completely hysterical. I told him the gas pedal had jammed, so that the only way I could stop the truck was to pull it off. I kept saying, "I thought I was going to die! I thought I was going to die!" I threw myself on the steering wheel. The trooper was quite concerned, and he was incredibly nice to me. He said, "Please calm down. Everything's going to be okay. Don't worry. I'm going to help you." Then he asked me if I thought I could drive, and I told him I thought I'd be okay. I didn't want him to see how easy it would be to reconnect the gas pedal, so we tried controlling the gas pedal by pushing on the little metal thing on the end, and it seemed to work okay. He said, "Okay, I'll lead you to the nearest gas station, and they can help you there." When we got to a gas station, I waited for him to leave, and then I put the gas pedal back on and took off. I arrived just in' time for the beginning of the event.
To prepare for Gesar's enthronement ceremony, some women in the dharmadhatu who had experience sewing had made him a tiny set of Tibetan monastic robes to wear. A small throne was hastily constructed for the ceremony, from plywood covered in cotton batting, topped with satin and brocades.
Gesar had to have his hair cut short for the ceremony. Rinpoche told me that I didn't have to shave his head, but I made such a mess of his hair when I tried to cut it that we ended up shaving it anyway. When he returned to preschool after this event, some of the children teased him about his bald head, hut he didn't take much notice.
I might have worried that something terrible would happen to Gesar, based on the experience with Taggie, but I didn't really believe that tulku disease was the source of Taggie's problems. I knew that Gesar was a strong individual who could handle whatever came along. Rinpoche and I both felt that he would be fine. When Rinpoche got to town, he stayed out at the house in Lafayette with us for several nights so that we could all be together and adjust to His Holiness's recognition of our second son as a tulku. While Rinpoche was there, he Came to the stables, where he met Charles de Kunffy for the first time. He had wanted to meet the man for whom I had moved to California. Charles was completely taken with Rinpoche and wanted to visit him in Berkeley at the first opportunity.
The day of his enthronement, Gesar and I were driven by members of the Dorje Kasung to the dharmadhatu in Berkeley. He was dressed in his little monks' robes, and he looked adorable, I must say. He was beaming the entire time. When we got there, His Holiness was on a throne in the shrine hall, already making preparations. Rinpoche had also arrived ahead of us, having come from his house in Berkeley. There were several hundred members of the dharmadhatu assembled in the shrine room. When we got to the entrance of the meditation hall, everyone stood up and Gesar walked in, very much a little gentleman, with me right behind him. He sat on his little throne and I sat in a chair next to him for most of the ceremony. At one point when he became restless, I had to sit up on the throne and he sat on my lap. Rinpoche was seated on a chair next to the thrones for His Holiness and Gesar. Rinpoche looked incredibly happy throughout the whole thing. Osel was also there to witness the enthronement. He was in boarding school at the Ojai Valley School near Santa Barbara at this time, a school founded on, the teachings of Krishnamurti and Rudolf Steiner. He was maturing into a much more confident and outgoing young man.
The enthronement of a reincarnate teacher is a traditional ceremony. His Holiness performed the liturgy in Tibetan, with a translator explaining to all of us what Khyentse Rinpoche was doing and saying. He presented Gesar with certain ritual objects, and he gave ,him a series of blessings and empowerments. To keep him quiet during the whole thing, His Holiness would lean over and feed Gesar candies. He had quite a supply with him to dole out! I also had a stash of sweets in case more were needed. His Holiness also gave a talk about the relationship between the Kongtruls and the Trungpa tulkus and how they had been close during each generation, with one being the teacher to the next, and vice versa, as new generations were born. At the end of the ceremony, everyone was invited to come up and present a white scarf to His Holiness and another to Gesar as an offering, and Gesar blessed everyone by putting his hand on their heads, which is also traditional. Rinpoche and I were the first ones to offer scarves and receive our son's blessing. Then everyone else filed up. Gesar behaved magnificently during all of these proceedings, and he seemed to take to the whole situation quite naturally. Of course, children love attention" and he was definitely the center of attention that day!
The day after the enthronement, Khyentse Rinpoche departed from the San Francisco airport. Everyone had been deeply affected by his visit and by his extraordinary presence, so it was a touchingly sad good-bye for us all. We felt that in meeting him we were meeting the heart of the Tibetan tradition in which Rinpoche had been raised, and to have that coming so personally into our lives was very moving.
For the next several weeks, Rinpoche was teaching a lecture series at the Berkeley dharmadhatu. One night I went out to a club in San Francisco with Charles and Rod, a good friend of his. Around eleven o'clock I suggested that we drop in on Rinpoche. Charles was worried that Rinpoche would have already gone to sleep, but I assured him this was extremely unlikely. So we dropped by, without any notice. When we got there, Rinpoche was sitting in the living room, impeccably dressed in a suit, surrounded by a group of about a dozen students who were also very well dressed. They were having drinks before sitting down to a formal dinner. Rinpoche was delighted to see us and insisted that we stay for dinner.
We sat down to a lavish meal in the dining room. There was an exquisite linen tablecloth and beautiful linen napkins, and the food was served on the very nice Lenox china that was on loan. In the middle of the table was a large ornate silver candelabra. There were five or six servers, who served each course, kept the wine flowing, and cleared our plates from one course to the next. Charles couldn't believe that Rinpoche ate like this every night. I couldn't believe it either, but I didn't let on that this was any different than a typical night in our household had ever been.
Charles was enchanted. As the evening progressed, I could see that Rinpoche had a few designs on Charles. He wanted to know everything about Charles's riding background. Rinpoche also started to intimate that Charles might make a very successful career iu Colorado by starting a school there with me. I realized that he had my interests at heart -- wanting to see my career go forward and wanting me to connect with powerful people in the dressage world -- and also that he might have an idea about how to bring his wife back to Colorado at some time in the future!
Throughout the month, Rinpoche continued to court Charles, and Charles remained absolutely enamored of Rinpoche. At the very end of the month, just before Rinpoche went to Santa Cruz, he invited Charles, Rod, and me for a banquet at the house. During this month, Rinpoche had Max King, one of his students who was an excellent Chinese cook, preparing all of his meals. Rinpoche arranged for Max to make a roast suckling pig for the banquet. Max had never cooked a whole animal like this before, but he consulted a number of chefs and was able to make a delicious meal that was also magnificently presented at the dinner table. Charles was absolutely beside himself. He was a pretty sybaritic individual, and Rinpoche really got to him with the roast suckling pig. It was beyond the beyond of what he could imagine someone doing in their own home. I must say it was quite a tour de force on Rinpoche's part.
At the end of the month Rinpoche returned to Boulder, and I stayed on in Lafayette. Around this time, Pat Cate joined our household as Gesar's nanny. She was the mother of Kelsey, the child who had tragically died at the 1975 seminary. Kelsey had been her only child, and she was still very much in mourning for him. I saw her at one of the events at the dharmadhatu in Berkeley, and I could feel her pain. My heart went out to her. I particularly sympathized with her because of my feelings for Taggie. Rinpoche and I talked about it, and he thought it would be a good thing for her to be part of a family and to have some positive contact with a young child. I invited her to live with me and help with Gesar. She stayed with us on and off for a number of years. When she remarried, her husband, Tom Adducci, also joined the household.
Pat became quite involved in our life day to day. I remember that once she had to break up a terrible fight between Gesar and me. I put him to bed at the end of a particularly trying day, but he absolutely would not stay down. He kept getting up while Pat and I were trying to have dinner. Finally, I said, "If you get up one more time, I'm going to spank you." He got up again, and I swatted him. Gesar being Gesar, he hit me back. He was absolutely indomitable, even at that age. He was just three years old, and I couldn't control him at all, even with physical force. We really started going at it, and Pat had to separate us. She put Gesar to bed, and I stayed out of it.
Gesar was strong willed from day one, and becoming a tulku didn't put a dent in that. He could be quite naughty at times. Gesar was terribly cute, but he was a wild man at that age. At the house in Lafayette, I received a new checkbook in the mail one day. Gesar woke up in the wee hours of the morning and ripped all the checks out and laid them on the living room floor. He then took paints from his room and proceeded to paint not only the checks but the whole carpet in the living room of our rental house. Perhaps this was the first sign that he had inherited some of his father's artistic talent, but I didn't appreciate what he had done at all. During the summer, I took Gesar to Boulder with me to see Rinpoche for a few weeks. While I was home, Rinpoche invited Charles to come for a visit as well. Rinpoche definitely was still courting Charles and pushing the idea that he should start a dressage academy in Boulder. Charles, however, resisted. He wanted to remain in California and wasn't ready to make such a big move. He had just invested in property in southern California, where he hoped to have a successful training school. I also think he was a little intimidated by Rinpoche and the scene around him, and not sure what he would be getting into if he moved to Colorado.
At the end of the summer, when I went back to California to continue my dressage training, Gesar and I moved down to Charles's property in Hesperia, which was in the high desert in southern California. Charles had recently opened his school there, where he felt he could do. more intensive training of both horses and riders. I only stayed for a short period of time, a matter of months, because I was becoming increasingly. frustrated with my riding. I was training intensely, but I wasn't getting the scores that I wanted in competition. I began to feel that there were major holes in my training. I was already competing Vajra Dance at the upper or international levels of dressage, having worked very hard on his training. Still, although the horse was showing at these levels, I didn't feel that my own training was anywhere near complete. Charles would tell me that I shouldn't be so fixated on my scores. However, I felt that they were reflective of my ability and knowledge.
I knew that something was missing. On an ongoing basis I was not scoring nearly as high as I should, based on the time and effort I was putting in and the feedback I was getting from Charles. When I didn't do well in an event and was upset, Charles would just say to me, "Well, a lady would come back after not doing well at a show, have a glass of sherry, and forget about it."
Over time, considerable tension developed between Charles and me about my training. Nevertheless, I enjoyed spending time with him, and I valued his help. I also felt obligated to help him build up his school. He became concerned about being able to make the mortgage payments on the property because it turned out that not enough people were willing to study with him in that remote desert location. He became very stressed out and developed high blood pressure. We continued to have serious disagreements. Finally, I reached a decision that I couldn't get the training that I needed m this situation. I decided to return home to Boulder for a while until I could sort out what the next step for my dressage career might be.