Re: Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa by Diana Mu
Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 11:17 pmPart 2 of 2
That night, when I finally lay down for a few hours, I dreamed that I was with Rinpoche in a palace. There were four gates in the four directions: blue in the east, yellow in the south, red in the west, and green in the north. It was one large room with the four gates and many pillars. Rinpoche and I were in the center of the palace. He was dressed like a young prince. He was wearing a crown inlaid with jewels and he had a beautiful necklace and earrings. We were making love. (In the dream, he had a huge penis.) The atmosphere was luminous. He had no color and no personality. There was only intense energy. He was facing east, and we were making love lying down and standing up. Then I awoke.
Hundreds of people came to the Court to practice over the next few days. We did all of the practices that Rinpoche had given us throughout the years. Much of the time, people did the sitting meditation practice that Rinpoche had stressed as so important. We also did the Sadhana of Mahamudra, which he had discovered in Bhutan in 1968; the Vajrayogini Sadhana, which he had transmitted to so many students; and the Werma Sadhana, the Shambhala practice that he had written when we were in Mexico.
When a very realized lama dies, they say that the heart of the teacher remains warm for several days while the teacher remains in a state of samadhi, or meditative absorption. I had always been a skeptic about this. However, every day I would put my hand underneath Rinpoche's robes and feel his heart center. It remained warm. Initially, I tried to explain this to myself, thinking that the clothing was keeping Rinpoche's body warm. Then I realized: there's no obvious source of heat here, and the clothing was not going to keep a cold body warm. However, for three days, the heart center stayed warm. Also, there was never any rigor mortis with the body, which is quite unusual.
On the third day, I put my hand on Rinpoche's chest and it was cold. This was the sign that the samadhi was over. At this time, fluids also began to escape from his body, which is another indication that the samadhi has ended.
The Vajra Regent had wanted to accelerate the cremation. He thought that it should be done as soon as possible. He was in touch with His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche to see when Khyentse Rinpoche could come over and perform the funeral ceremony. Khyentse Rinpoche said that he wanted to wait seven weeks before the cremation. The Regent did not want to postpone the funeral that long. However, he could not overrule Khyentse Rinpoche's wishes. So plans were made to hold the funeral at the end of May, and we used traditional Tibetan Buddhist methods to preserve Rinpoche's body, again according to the instructions that are prescribed for the treatment of the body of a great teacher. Rinpoche had left the outline of these instructions in his spiritual will, which he had composed during the Mill Village retreat. For the details, Marty, Mitchell, and Jim consulted with several lamas who knew what to do.
A special coffin had been built to hold Rinpoche's body after the samadhi was broken. At that time, his body was put in the coffin for transportation down to Karme Choling. Karl Springer arranged to charter a special jet from Air Canada, and he got permission to transport the body across the Canadian-U.S. border. The jet was designated TLGD One. It was a large plane that would hold about 150 people. The coffin was in the front of the plane, and Rinpoche's family and many of his close students rode down on the plane. We flew directly into the airport in Burlington, Vermont, where a hearse picked up the coffin. We rode in a motorcade to Karme Choling, which is about an hour away.
I stayed at Bhumipali Bhavan, the house where Rinpoche and I had stayed so many times, with Mitchell and my children. Taggie was still in India, and we didn't bring him over for the funeral. Everyone else was there. The Sawang had his own house near Peacham.
Two Tibetan lamas accompanied us to Karme Choling to assist with the ongoing preparations of the body for the funeral. Lama Ugyen had been a student of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He had been working with the Nalanda Translation Committee for a number of years. Lama Ganga flew to Halifax from Los Angeles to assist us. The traditional method involves preserving the body in salts prior to the cremation. Rinpoche's body was placed in a special box in the center of the shrine room at Karme Choling. The body was kept in an upright posture, as though seated in an armchair, and the box was covered in satins and brocades. Elaborate shrines were constructed on all four sides of the kudung, or "body relic," with candles and incense burning on the shrines throughout the day and night. Many of Rinpoche's uniforms and other clothing and personal objects were also displayed in the four directions surrounding the kudung. At the beginning and end of practice periods, students could come up and circumambulate the body and look at his belongings. There was always an honor guard in the shrine room, with several of the Dorje Kasung standing at attention on the sides of the kudung and others posted at the entrance to the room.
You could come in and practice at any hour of the day or night; people wandered in or signed up to practice at different times. There were also large group practices throughout this period. We did the Sadhana of Mahamudra and the Werma Sadhana at certain times, and people gathered to practice the vajrayogini Sadhana together.
There were thrones and seats for the various lamas and dignitaries set up in the four corners of the shrine room as well. Throughout the month, many Tibetan teachers came to pay their respects and to practice in the shrine room. In the evenings, a visiting teacher would often give a talk. There were four main teachers from Rumtek whom the Karmapa had empowered to carry on the lineage after his death. One of them, Shamar Rinpoche, was not able to attend the funeral itself, but he was one of the first visiting teachers to arrive during the intervening weeks and he did various ceremonies in the shrine room there. He also gave a talk one evening. The other three, Jamgon Rinpoche, Situ Rinpoche, and Gyaltsap Rinpoche came for the cremation itself.
Buddhist teachers from other traditions also came to Karme Choling, some briefly and some for an extended stay. Kanjuro Shibata Sensei, the archery master and bow maker to the emperor of Japan, who had made a very close connection with Rinpoche and our sangha, was at Karme Choling for almost the entire time. He worked on painting the purkhang, the structure in which Rinpoche's body would be cremated. Purkhang literally means "corpse house" in Tibetan. It had the appearance of a small stupa. The Sawang's mother, Lady Konchok, also was there. She worked on many of the preparations for the funeral. She had first come over to visit Rinpoche and the Sawang in 1986, after a separation of many years. She was becoming a beloved part of the community, and it was wonderful to have her there.
My mother spent several weeks at Karme Choling. She brought two of her closest English friends with her, Jack and Alex, whom Rinpoche had earlier nicknamed Thomson and Thompson, from characters in the Tintin comic books.
The Regent oversaw many of the arrangements for the funeral, and I have to say that he spared no expense. A number of major donors had given money for a trust fund that was originally intended as an endowment for Vajradhatu. There was provision, however, to use the funds for cases of extraordinary need. The Regent felt that the funds from the trust should be used for the cremation, and I think we all agreed. Vajradhatu flew many people from all parts of North America, as well as from Asia and Europe, to Vermont and paid for hotels or rental houses for many of the dignitaries. A movie crew filmed all of the preparations, as well as the cremation itself, and a corps of photographers documented the funeral and the weeks that led up to it. The Dorje Kasung set up an encampment up the hill from the main Karme Choling building, close to the site where the cremation would take place, in a big open meadow. About 150 members of the Dorje Kasung lived there for over a month. They provided all manner of service: guarding Rinpoche's body in the shrine room, providing drivers and other help for the family and invited guests, and helping in many, many other ways.
As I mentioned, a small circular building, called the purkhang, was constructed for the cremation in a meadow above the main buildings at Karme Choling. This structure was large enough so that Rinpoche's body could be elevated in the upper portion, with openings on all four sides at the height of his head. Below this was an area where the fire would be built. The purkhang was decorated with gold leaf and other pigments. In the four corners surrounding it, large platforms were erected. Thrones were built for His Holiness, the Kagyu teachers, and other officiating teachers. There was also space on one of the platforms for the family, the Regent, the members of the board, and other senior students.
During the last few years, after the Mill Village retreat, Rinpoche had officially appointed a group of seven women as his heart companions, or sangyum, which is usually a term reserved for the guru's wife. He had asked the sangyum both to be his personal attendants and companions during the last years of his life and to help provide leadership in the community. He had envisioned them overseeing the board of directors, and he considered them to be part of his family. So they were to be seated with us as well.
All of them came to Karme Choling and helped with the practice and other preparations. Karme Choling itself was filled to the rafters. Many of the regular residents generously moved out of their rooms into tents in the fields surrounding the main building, while the sangyum, the board, and other senior students -- many of whom had brought their whole families -- were given rooms in the house. There was a whole wing of Karme Choling set aside for families with young children. The place was packed. I have already mentioned the dreams that I had before Rinpoche died. I continued to dream about him. Sometimes one has dreams that are obviously just the product of one's discursive thoughts. Other times I have experienced lucid dreams, where I have self-awareness within the dream. In that situation, there's almost a voice in my head that says to me: "Look at this; this is it." There's some sort of reality and texture that is very different in a lucid dream. While I was staying at Bhumipali Bhavan, I had a few dreams that felt significant to me. Once, after I had gone to sleep, I woke up in my dream to find myself in the bedroom, in my dream body. Rinpoche was sitting in the room, which looked exactly the way it did when I was awake. Rinpoche was in the chair by the shrine that we always had in the bedroom. He was naked, sitting as he often did with his left leg bent at the knee, his left foot resting on the other knee. I said to him, "So here you are. What's going to happen to you? Are you going to be reborn?" And he replied. "No, not now." He said, "I think I have to rest for awhile. I'm going to go and rest in the dharmadhatu." (The dharmadhatu is a realm without form; the big, impartial space of dharma.) This dream felt very sweet and ordinary, as though he were simply explaining the situation.
Several weeks before the cremation ceremony, Khyentse Rinpoche arrived from Bhutan. I remember him coming in the door at Karme Choling. He was such a wonderful old man: tall, massive. He was having a little trouble walking at that point. His knees weren't good, and he leaned very heavily on his attendants. I don't know how old he was exactly, perhaps around eighty. He was definitely getting on in age. You could see how exhausted he was after his long journey. He was still so gracious and kind to everybody. He gave all of us who had assembled a blessing, and he made a few remarks about how good it was to be with Trungpa Rinpoche's students, and how he was going to provide guidance to us in the days to come. Then he went upstairs to a special room that had been prepared for him. It was a large room usually reserved as a secondary shrine room, which was turned into a combined bedroom and sitting room for him. The next day, after he'd had a chance to rest, he began to check into all the arrangements that were being made. Over the next weeks, he would come down every day and practice with people in the shrine room. However, he spent a lot of time in his quarters upstairs, where he would receive people for private meetings and small gatherings.
I started to visit him every few days, which he encouraged. He told me that I should never hesitate to come to see him if I had anything to discuss. It was amazingly generous of him. He would sit cross-legged on the huge bed with his mala, his rosary, in his enormous beautiful hands. The whole room felt luminous to me, golden, whenever I went to see him. I found it a tremendous relief to spend time with him during this period.
I was able to discuss many issues with Khyentse Rinpoche. In particular, he wanted to know if I had had any dreams about Rinpoche. He thought these might be helpful in finding Rinpoche's reincarnation. I told him that I wasn't sure there would be an incarnation that we could find. Given Rinpoche's immersion in Western culture, I wondered at that time if there would be a tulku in the traditional sense. I told him that Rinpoche had told me and many of his other students that he was planning to be reborn as a Japanese scientist in Osaka. Khyentse Rinpoche said, "You shouldn't worry. Trungpa Rinpoche might have many rebirths. There might be many incarnations. It's like when you look at the moon reflected in a bowl of water. If you look in more than one bowl at a time, you may see many, many reflections. But all are reflecting the same thing." He continued, "Trungpa Rinpoche can be reborn in many different manifestations. That's possible." I didn't really understand that, and I still don't, I have to say. But this is what he said.
He also told me that the dream in which Rinpoche and I were making love was in the middle of the Chakrasamvara palace, which had never occurred to me. He said that Rinpoche was the manifestation of Chakrasamvara in that dream, and that the interpretation of the dream was that I was Rinpoche's true consort.
He also told me that any problems in my relationship with Rinpoche, which had occurred at the end of his life, were completely repaired, and that the dream was also symbolic of this. He gave me advice on how to raise my sons and promised to help educate them as they grew older. He talked about how Trungpa Rinpoche was like his son, and that they trusted one another completely, and that therefore he would definitely do whatever he could to help me and to help our community. He asked me to write and tell him about my dreams after the cremation ended, which I did. He told me that I should question Trungpa Rinpoche in the dreams about where he was going to be reborn. I tried to do this, but I didn't find anything out that was that helpful.
As the weeks went by at Karme Choling, Khyentse Rinpoche's wisdom in allowing seven weeks between the death and the cremation became evident to me. I think it was absolutely necessary for people to have this time to process what had happened. In the days after Rinpoche died, I remember feeling how strange it was to be alive when he was dead. It seemed very strange that I could still walk on this earth when he did not. For all of us, his death was not a simple issue of burying somebody and getting on with your life. He was the reference point of everybody's life. Meeting him and. studying with him was the most precious thing that had ever occurred in the lives of his students. Now, in the future we would all have to sort out our entire lives without him. It's difficult for me to know how to talk about this. However, I can truly say that we needed the time, those weeks, to prepare for the cremation.
The ceremony itself took place on May 26, 1987. Thousands of people came for the ceremony. Early that morning, I arrived from Bhumipali Bhavan dressed in a Tibetan chuba, and my sons were also dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing. We had rust-colored chubas made for the three boys. I had one that was dark green. Mitchell was dressed in his khaki uniform. He was one of the eight Dorje Kasung who carried the palanquin containing Rinpoche's body in the procession from the shrine room at Karme Choling up a path that wound through the woods to the clearing where the cremation would take place. Among the others were the Kasung Kyi Khyap, David Rome; the Kasung Dapon, Jim Gimian; and the Kusung Dapon, Marty Janowitz. These four marched in front. In the back of the palanquin were four other senior Dorje Kasung: Hudson Shotwell, Suzanne Duquette, Jan Wilcox, and Dennis Southward. Barry Boyce held a huge umbrella on a long pole that hung above the kudung, providing a canopy.
The procession was led by a lone piper, who played "McPherson's Lament" and a mournful tune he had composed for the occasion. Behind him came a small group of Tibetan monastics as well as Western monks and nuns from Gampo Abbey, the monastery Rinpoche had started in Nova Scotia. Then there was a large contingent of the Dorje Kasung, followed by the body in the palanquin carried by the eight students. Then came the rest of the Dorje Kasung marching very slowly, extremely slowly. Behind that was a procession of people who had been particularly close to Rinpoche, led by our family, including the four boys and me. The Regent, Lady Konchok, my sister and her husband, the sangyum (female companions), the board of directors and their wives, and others all marched in the procession. Khyentse Rinpoche and the other high lamas who were going to lead the ceremony were already up the hill on their thrones when we approached. The entire procession passed under a large wooden gate, which had been erected for the occasion, and slowly approached the purkhang. The four pallbearers then placed the body in the purkhang.
When we completed the climb up the hill, we took our seats. I was seated with the Regent and the Sawang on a wooden platform close to the purkhang. The other members of the family, the sangyum, members of the board, and other close students were also nearby. Khyentse Rinpoche was seated on a throne on the main platform to the left of me. He was leading the practice and his seat directly faced the purkhang containing Rinpoche's body. Before the practice itself began, everyone assembled there was invited to circumambulate the purkhang in a clockwise direction and to offer a white scarf, a khata, as they walked past the front of the stupa. The Sawang, the Regent, and I led the offering procession. We were told to try to throw our khatas through the ornate window opening in the front of the purkhang, through the little hole where you could barely see Rinpoche's face screened from view but sort of peeking out. I remember that my khata went right into that opening. There were thousands of people attending the funeral, so it took quite a long time for this khata offering. From time to time, the honor guard around the stupa would have to remove the hundreds and hundreds of white scarves that were accumulating on ropes strung in front of the purkhang.
It was tremendously colorful up there in the meadow. I noticed how beautiful the purkhang was, ornamented with its gold designs and with the Mukpo colors: brilliant white, bright red and orange, and deep blue. These colors were used in the Mukpo family emblems that adorned the corners of the monument. While everyone was walking around the purkhang to pay their respects, I had the opportunity to look out and see the thousands of people who were assembled there. It had been cool and misty in the early morning, but the sun burned off the mist, and it was a brilliant sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky. People were standing or sitting on chairs and blankets they had brought with them, and the crowd spread out across a great expanse. There were also tents for special guests and invited dignitaries. James George was there, the Canadian High Commissioner to India and Nepal, whom Rinpoche had met in the 1960s. Ato Rinpoche was there from England. Several Zen teachers with whom Rinpoche was close also attended the funeral. There were many dignitaries who had come to his cremation.
After everyone completed their circumambulation, we began the ceremony itself. The main text that the Western students used was a fire offering connected with the vajrayogini Sadhana that Rinpoche transmitted to so many of us. All of us practiced this together. His Holiness and the other Tibetan teachers practiced a number of other fire offerings in Tibetan. After the practice had gone on for some time, the fire for the cremation was lit. According to tradition, no one who had known Rinpoche could light the fire. So they had to search for someone with no physical connection to him. One of the monks from India, I believe, performed this service. At a certain point, which was a different point for different people in the audience, I think almost every one of us broke down. It was impossible not to weep, not to be overcome with the tremendous sadness of this moment. As the flames were lit, a cannon was fired off, and for many of us, that was the moment when the tears started. Not surprisingly, many of us wore our dark glasses that day. While the flames were burning, Shibata Sensei and three of his senior students performed a traditional ceremony, which is done when an emperor dies. At the four corners of the purkhang, they plucked empty bows and then offered straw sandals to the fire.
When the fire offerings were finished, there was one announcement, the only announcement during the entire day. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Shambhala Anthem." We sang as we wept.
At the end of the afternoon, as the fire subsided, after the body had been consumed in the flames, we looked in the sky and there was a succession of rainbows. The most dramatic was a circular rainbow that circled around the sun in the sky above the purkhang. It was absolutely circular and quite vivid. This was written about in the press as an amazing phenomenon. A white cloud in the shape of an Ashe appeared, and three hawks circled and circled. Other small clouds in the sky looked to many onlookers like tigers, lions, garudas, and dragons. They too were tinged with rainbow light at one point. Two of the senior teachers accompanying His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche later interpreted some of the auspicious signs: fog in the morning, which was neither too high nor too low, and which hung like a protective parasol over the area; then the rainbows, then the clouds shaped like khatas, ritual scarves; and finally the three hawks, dakinis or celestial maidens, who had taken the form of birds and were welcoming Rinpoche.
After the formal part of the cremation had ended, I remained up in the meadow to have the opportunity to talk with people. It was very moving to see and speak with so many of the people who came to the cremation ceremony. I realized even further what a profound impact Rinpoche had had on people's lives. Speaking with people who were so filled with love and sadness, it was impossible not to be affected.
Several days after the cremation, I had to go back up to the meadow. This time there were very few of us. Traditionally, several days after the cremation of a great teacher, there is a ceremony where the purkhang is opened and the bones and ash are removed. As Rinpoche's consort and his wife, I was expected to accompany the lamas up to the purkhang. Someone opened the section where Rinpoche's remains were, and they told me that I should be the first one to reach in and pull out a bone. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, a young teacher who was being trained by His Holiness, was in charge of this ceremony. As I looked into the purkhang, I saw a pile of charred bones. I hadn't expected to be so shocked, but it was very traumatic. I kept thinking, "I never thought I'd see you in this condition. I never thought I'd see you like this." While I was peering into the stupa, somewhat stupefied, Dzongsar Rinpoche said, "Go on, go on." He handed me a khata, and I had to lean in and draw out a bone, which I finally did. Then the rest of Rinpoche's bones were taken out. Some, including a section of his pelvis and part of his skull, were preserved to be placed in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya that we were planning to build at RMDC. Many others were pounded down to make tsa-tsas, which are small sculptures in the shape of stupas that are made from various substances including the bone relics and ashes of the teacher. Later, these would be given to various of Rinpoche's disciples and to the many meditation centers he founded, as objects of veneration to be kept on the shrines in each center. Some of his major disciples were also given one of his teeth to keep as a relic. One of these was later placed in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya.
'During the seven weeks between Rinpoche's death and the cremation, we could ride on the energy of the situation most of the time. We were carried along by all the work that needed to be done to prepare properly for the cremation. Khyentse Rinpoche's presence also buoyed people's spirits. During the weeks that led up to the cremation, it was almost as if the power of Rinpoche's energy kept him alive for us. With the conclusion of the cremation, there was a huge deflation. His presence had definitely moved on.
Everyone was left with the realization that now they had to live their lives without the support and presence of Rinpoche. There was a quality of emptiness and loss. Something unfathomably precious had been lost from this world. Something amazing had passed through this world and now was gone.
At the end of the spiritual will that Rinpoche wrote in 1984, he said,
I know that for me, I will continue to long for him, as long as I have breath. I am left, however, not only with a broken heart but with a tremendous appreciation of my life. I remember one evening sitting with him in a restaurant by the water, and he said to me, "You know, you should appreciate this. This is our life. This is our marriage. It won't be like this forever." I laughed him off a little bit. Now, in retrospect, I realize that he was saying something profound about impermanence and the importance of appreciating one's life. I learned from him to appreciate the world as sacred.
As his wife of seventeen years -- in a marriage that not only had tremendous highs but also had its low points, which were not easy -- I can attest to the fact that Rinpoche was not an ordinary human being. His actions cannot be imitated, neither should they be interpreted by conventional reference points. Rinpoche had no other motivation in his life than to enrich the lives of others and to make the world a better place. He gauged all his successes in those terms. His sole motivation was to enrich the lives of others and create a world in which others could flourish.
He taught me that in order to save the world, one must begin with oneself. One of the main thrusts of his teachings was to trust oneself and to rely on one's own basic sanity. I have tried to take that teaching to heart. He devoted his life to showing others that path. His every moment was devoted to helping other people. To be able to live one's life with a fraction of the wisdom and compassion that permeated his would make one an exceptional person.
As the model of sanity and compassion in my life, he continues to guide me. Throughout my life, I continue to question myself as to how he would want me to handle one situation or another. He is no longer outside of me, so when I turn to him, I turn to my own wakefulness. He will always be my gold standard.
There is a song that Rinpoche loved by Robert Burns. It is called "The Winter It Is Past." He owned a treasured recording of the Scottish vocalist Jean Redpath singing this melancholy ballad. Later, one of Rinpoche's students, Jane Condon, used to sing it to him in a beautiful soprano voice. Sometimes when I think of him, especially when I long for him, I hear this song in the background:
That night, when I finally lay down for a few hours, I dreamed that I was with Rinpoche in a palace. There were four gates in the four directions: blue in the east, yellow in the south, red in the west, and green in the north. It was one large room with the four gates and many pillars. Rinpoche and I were in the center of the palace. He was dressed like a young prince. He was wearing a crown inlaid with jewels and he had a beautiful necklace and earrings. We were making love. (In the dream, he had a huge penis.) The atmosphere was luminous. He had no color and no personality. There was only intense energy. He was facing east, and we were making love lying down and standing up. Then I awoke.
Hundreds of people came to the Court to practice over the next few days. We did all of the practices that Rinpoche had given us throughout the years. Much of the time, people did the sitting meditation practice that Rinpoche had stressed as so important. We also did the Sadhana of Mahamudra, which he had discovered in Bhutan in 1968; the Vajrayogini Sadhana, which he had transmitted to so many students; and the Werma Sadhana, the Shambhala practice that he had written when we were in Mexico.
When a very realized lama dies, they say that the heart of the teacher remains warm for several days while the teacher remains in a state of samadhi, or meditative absorption. I had always been a skeptic about this. However, every day I would put my hand underneath Rinpoche's robes and feel his heart center. It remained warm. Initially, I tried to explain this to myself, thinking that the clothing was keeping Rinpoche's body warm. Then I realized: there's no obvious source of heat here, and the clothing was not going to keep a cold body warm. However, for three days, the heart center stayed warm. Also, there was never any rigor mortis with the body, which is quite unusual.
On the third day, I put my hand on Rinpoche's chest and it was cold. This was the sign that the samadhi was over. At this time, fluids also began to escape from his body, which is another indication that the samadhi has ended.
The Vajra Regent had wanted to accelerate the cremation. He thought that it should be done as soon as possible. He was in touch with His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche to see when Khyentse Rinpoche could come over and perform the funeral ceremony. Khyentse Rinpoche said that he wanted to wait seven weeks before the cremation. The Regent did not want to postpone the funeral that long. However, he could not overrule Khyentse Rinpoche's wishes. So plans were made to hold the funeral at the end of May, and we used traditional Tibetan Buddhist methods to preserve Rinpoche's body, again according to the instructions that are prescribed for the treatment of the body of a great teacher. Rinpoche had left the outline of these instructions in his spiritual will, which he had composed during the Mill Village retreat. For the details, Marty, Mitchell, and Jim consulted with several lamas who knew what to do.
A special coffin had been built to hold Rinpoche's body after the samadhi was broken. At that time, his body was put in the coffin for transportation down to Karme Choling. Karl Springer arranged to charter a special jet from Air Canada, and he got permission to transport the body across the Canadian-U.S. border. The jet was designated TLGD One. It was a large plane that would hold about 150 people. The coffin was in the front of the plane, and Rinpoche's family and many of his close students rode down on the plane. We flew directly into the airport in Burlington, Vermont, where a hearse picked up the coffin. We rode in a motorcade to Karme Choling, which is about an hour away.
I stayed at Bhumipali Bhavan, the house where Rinpoche and I had stayed so many times, with Mitchell and my children. Taggie was still in India, and we didn't bring him over for the funeral. Everyone else was there. The Sawang had his own house near Peacham.
Two Tibetan lamas accompanied us to Karme Choling to assist with the ongoing preparations of the body for the funeral. Lama Ugyen had been a student of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He had been working with the Nalanda Translation Committee for a number of years. Lama Ganga flew to Halifax from Los Angeles to assist us. The traditional method involves preserving the body in salts prior to the cremation. Rinpoche's body was placed in a special box in the center of the shrine room at Karme Choling. The body was kept in an upright posture, as though seated in an armchair, and the box was covered in satins and brocades. Elaborate shrines were constructed on all four sides of the kudung, or "body relic," with candles and incense burning on the shrines throughout the day and night. Many of Rinpoche's uniforms and other clothing and personal objects were also displayed in the four directions surrounding the kudung. At the beginning and end of practice periods, students could come up and circumambulate the body and look at his belongings. There was always an honor guard in the shrine room, with several of the Dorje Kasung standing at attention on the sides of the kudung and others posted at the entrance to the room.
You could come in and practice at any hour of the day or night; people wandered in or signed up to practice at different times. There were also large group practices throughout this period. We did the Sadhana of Mahamudra and the Werma Sadhana at certain times, and people gathered to practice the vajrayogini Sadhana together.
There were thrones and seats for the various lamas and dignitaries set up in the four corners of the shrine room as well. Throughout the month, many Tibetan teachers came to pay their respects and to practice in the shrine room. In the evenings, a visiting teacher would often give a talk. There were four main teachers from Rumtek whom the Karmapa had empowered to carry on the lineage after his death. One of them, Shamar Rinpoche, was not able to attend the funeral itself, but he was one of the first visiting teachers to arrive during the intervening weeks and he did various ceremonies in the shrine room there. He also gave a talk one evening. The other three, Jamgon Rinpoche, Situ Rinpoche, and Gyaltsap Rinpoche came for the cremation itself.
Buddhist teachers from other traditions also came to Karme Choling, some briefly and some for an extended stay. Kanjuro Shibata Sensei, the archery master and bow maker to the emperor of Japan, who had made a very close connection with Rinpoche and our sangha, was at Karme Choling for almost the entire time. He worked on painting the purkhang, the structure in which Rinpoche's body would be cremated. Purkhang literally means "corpse house" in Tibetan. It had the appearance of a small stupa. The Sawang's mother, Lady Konchok, also was there. She worked on many of the preparations for the funeral. She had first come over to visit Rinpoche and the Sawang in 1986, after a separation of many years. She was becoming a beloved part of the community, and it was wonderful to have her there.
My mother spent several weeks at Karme Choling. She brought two of her closest English friends with her, Jack and Alex, whom Rinpoche had earlier nicknamed Thomson and Thompson, from characters in the Tintin comic books.
The Regent oversaw many of the arrangements for the funeral, and I have to say that he spared no expense. A number of major donors had given money for a trust fund that was originally intended as an endowment for Vajradhatu. There was provision, however, to use the funds for cases of extraordinary need. The Regent felt that the funds from the trust should be used for the cremation, and I think we all agreed. Vajradhatu flew many people from all parts of North America, as well as from Asia and Europe, to Vermont and paid for hotels or rental houses for many of the dignitaries. A movie crew filmed all of the preparations, as well as the cremation itself, and a corps of photographers documented the funeral and the weeks that led up to it. The Dorje Kasung set up an encampment up the hill from the main Karme Choling building, close to the site where the cremation would take place, in a big open meadow. About 150 members of the Dorje Kasung lived there for over a month. They provided all manner of service: guarding Rinpoche's body in the shrine room, providing drivers and other help for the family and invited guests, and helping in many, many other ways.
As I mentioned, a small circular building, called the purkhang, was constructed for the cremation in a meadow above the main buildings at Karme Choling. This structure was large enough so that Rinpoche's body could be elevated in the upper portion, with openings on all four sides at the height of his head. Below this was an area where the fire would be built. The purkhang was decorated with gold leaf and other pigments. In the four corners surrounding it, large platforms were erected. Thrones were built for His Holiness, the Kagyu teachers, and other officiating teachers. There was also space on one of the platforms for the family, the Regent, the members of the board, and other senior students.
During the last few years, after the Mill Village retreat, Rinpoche had officially appointed a group of seven women as his heart companions, or sangyum, which is usually a term reserved for the guru's wife. He had asked the sangyum both to be his personal attendants and companions during the last years of his life and to help provide leadership in the community. He had envisioned them overseeing the board of directors, and he considered them to be part of his family. So they were to be seated with us as well.
As the 33rd anniversary of my Sangyum ceremony passes, I am filled with devotion to the great guru who duped us all and the rapist culture that has defined his legacy. I pay homage to the omniscient one who managed to make thousands of people believe he was enlightened and that this way of being was something to aspire to. I pay homage to the sangha who made it their mission to keep the truth about how he really lived and died secret. I pay homage to the dharma that was built on the belief that elevating narcissists who claimed to have so much more knowledge than the rest of us would result in the blinding bright light of enlightenment. I pay homage to the students who devoted their lives and often their livelihoods and their intelligence to a deeply disturbed sociopath. I pay homage to the Mukpo lineage -- which began some 40 or 50 years ago, built on the ravings of a madman who appointed a child molester and murderer to hold his seat. I pay homage to the men who drove that sick bastard, tom rich, around the back alleys of cities late at night looking for prostitutes when the secret was out about his deadly infection and he was too arrogant and addicted to power and sex to care about the men he was infecting. I pay homage to the trees and the greenery and so on. I pay homage to Doctor Death who succeeded in allowing this “master” to kill himself with alcohol, cocaine and forced vomiting. I pay homage to my sangyum sister wives who are probably experiencing some pain and anger due their own ignorance about being used as a sex slave by the great enlightened one. I pay homage to his two sons -- Gesar and Osel, -- who grew up to be violent, abusive sex offenders like their father.
I pay homage to Tagi -- a true innocent here, who’s mother gave birth through the haze of a fifth of scotch and a scalding hot bath. I am sorry his life was ruined the moment he was born to her. I am sorry that she chooses to spend her money on horses rather than her son and that Tagi now lives in a state-funded group home. I am sorry the Mukpo’s think disowning Gesar means they must disown his child, who didn’t get even a birthday card from this heartless, rich family. I pay homage to the ministers and acharyas and shastris and Kalapa board members who managed to cover up Osel’s crimes for 25 years, silencing and kicking his victims aside with false friendships and trinkets. I pay homage to the women acharyas, including Pema, who want this man to come back and continue robbing the coffers of an organization that claims to be founded on kindness and compassion. I pay homage to the women enablers who sold their sisters down the river in order to maintain some seat of import in this rape culture of sham.
But from my heart, and for real, I stand 100% with the victims of Osel Mukpo. I am broken hearted for everyone who has taken their lives along the way, especially for those who were under the spell of this false idea of enlightened society. I pledge to keep telling my truth, regardless of the deep hatred that comes my way from current defending members of the sham organization. I forgive my younger 23-year-old self for thinking we were all on some grand mission to bring the dharma to the heathen hordes of small people who needed to find a greater meaning in their lives. Please, I hope everyone who is questioning this gets help and support from outside of the cult. You are so much more than this perverted idea of crazy wisdom.
-- An Anniversary Recollection of my Sangyum Vows, by Leslie Hays
In 1984, after his retreat in Mill Village, which John Perks wrote about in his book, Chogyam Trungpa (CT) decided to marry some more women....At first, the Rigdens said he should take three more wives, so in order of weddings that would have been Karen Lavin, Cynde Greives [Grieve], and Wendy Friedman....But as time passed they upped the number to five. That’s when I met him. I was number five and I was groomed to be attractive to him by the father of the children I nannied for. During the summer of 1985, after our wedding, CT apparently fell in love with Ciel, and she became number 6. Agnes Au followed about four or five months later, I think, bringing the total number of wives to 7. But just to be on the safe side, they had 250 copies of the marriage licenses made....
I need to say here that Ciel first slept with CT when she was very young, 13 or 14 years old. Of course people will deny this but it is the truth. She told me herself. I doubt anyone out there has the guts to back me up on this, however. Most still want to believe he was omniscient and powerful and not some pervy, rapey asshole who preyed on children. If your daughter was sleeping with the king of the universe at that age, would that be OK?...
CT was not the only powerful man to reach out to Ciel -- her love affair with Mitchell Levy began when she was 16. WE ALL KNEW -- JESUS CHRIST WE ALL KNEW....
Ciel married CT on her 18th birthday. I was at the wedding, as were the other wives, and I remember her parents brought Polish caviar and vodka, or maybe it was champagne. Her father made a toast, saying he gave his daughter to CT completely, that he trusted him with all of his heart and soul, and that he was honoured to become part of the family, or something similar. CT toasted him back as his father in law and thanked him for his kindness or generosity or something. (Folks can you imagine?) The wedding was a very big deal that summer. Of course, only people who had attended Assembly were invited to this event.
-- The Life and Death of Chogyam Trungpa's Child Sex Slave: Ciel Turzanski [Drukmo Nyima], by Leslie Hays [Drukmo Dashen]
All of them came to Karme Choling and helped with the practice and other preparations. Karme Choling itself was filled to the rafters. Many of the regular residents generously moved out of their rooms into tents in the fields surrounding the main building, while the sangyum, the board, and other senior students -- many of whom had brought their whole families -- were given rooms in the house. There was a whole wing of Karme Choling set aside for families with young children. The place was packed. I have already mentioned the dreams that I had before Rinpoche died. I continued to dream about him. Sometimes one has dreams that are obviously just the product of one's discursive thoughts. Other times I have experienced lucid dreams, where I have self-awareness within the dream. In that situation, there's almost a voice in my head that says to me: "Look at this; this is it." There's some sort of reality and texture that is very different in a lucid dream. While I was staying at Bhumipali Bhavan, I had a few dreams that felt significant to me. Once, after I had gone to sleep, I woke up in my dream to find myself in the bedroom, in my dream body. Rinpoche was sitting in the room, which looked exactly the way it did when I was awake. Rinpoche was in the chair by the shrine that we always had in the bedroom. He was naked, sitting as he often did with his left leg bent at the knee, his left foot resting on the other knee. I said to him, "So here you are. What's going to happen to you? Are you going to be reborn?" And he replied. "No, not now." He said, "I think I have to rest for awhile. I'm going to go and rest in the dharmadhatu." (The dharmadhatu is a realm without form; the big, impartial space of dharma.) This dream felt very sweet and ordinary, as though he were simply explaining the situation.
Several weeks before the cremation ceremony, Khyentse Rinpoche arrived from Bhutan. I remember him coming in the door at Karme Choling. He was such a wonderful old man: tall, massive. He was having a little trouble walking at that point. His knees weren't good, and he leaned very heavily on his attendants. I don't know how old he was exactly, perhaps around eighty. He was definitely getting on in age. You could see how exhausted he was after his long journey. He was still so gracious and kind to everybody. He gave all of us who had assembled a blessing, and he made a few remarks about how good it was to be with Trungpa Rinpoche's students, and how he was going to provide guidance to us in the days to come. Then he went upstairs to a special room that had been prepared for him. It was a large room usually reserved as a secondary shrine room, which was turned into a combined bedroom and sitting room for him. The next day, after he'd had a chance to rest, he began to check into all the arrangements that were being made. Over the next weeks, he would come down every day and practice with people in the shrine room. However, he spent a lot of time in his quarters upstairs, where he would receive people for private meetings and small gatherings.
I started to visit him every few days, which he encouraged. He told me that I should never hesitate to come to see him if I had anything to discuss. It was amazingly generous of him. He would sit cross-legged on the huge bed with his mala, his rosary, in his enormous beautiful hands. The whole room felt luminous to me, golden, whenever I went to see him. I found it a tremendous relief to spend time with him during this period.
I was able to discuss many issues with Khyentse Rinpoche. In particular, he wanted to know if I had had any dreams about Rinpoche. He thought these might be helpful in finding Rinpoche's reincarnation. I told him that I wasn't sure there would be an incarnation that we could find. Given Rinpoche's immersion in Western culture, I wondered at that time if there would be a tulku in the traditional sense. I told him that Rinpoche had told me and many of his other students that he was planning to be reborn as a Japanese scientist in Osaka. Khyentse Rinpoche said, "You shouldn't worry. Trungpa Rinpoche might have many rebirths. There might be many incarnations. It's like when you look at the moon reflected in a bowl of water. If you look in more than one bowl at a time, you may see many, many reflections. But all are reflecting the same thing." He continued, "Trungpa Rinpoche can be reborn in many different manifestations. That's possible." I didn't really understand that, and I still don't, I have to say. But this is what he said.
He also told me that the dream in which Rinpoche and I were making love was in the middle of the Chakrasamvara palace, which had never occurred to me. He said that Rinpoche was the manifestation of Chakrasamvara in that dream, and that the interpretation of the dream was that I was Rinpoche's true consort.
He also told me that any problems in my relationship with Rinpoche, which had occurred at the end of his life, were completely repaired, and that the dream was also symbolic of this. He gave me advice on how to raise my sons and promised to help educate them as they grew older. He talked about how Trungpa Rinpoche was like his son, and that they trusted one another completely, and that therefore he would definitely do whatever he could to help me and to help our community. He asked me to write and tell him about my dreams after the cremation ended, which I did. He told me that I should question Trungpa Rinpoche in the dreams about where he was going to be reborn. I tried to do this, but I didn't find anything out that was that helpful.
As the weeks went by at Karme Choling, Khyentse Rinpoche's wisdom in allowing seven weeks between the death and the cremation became evident to me. I think it was absolutely necessary for people to have this time to process what had happened. In the days after Rinpoche died, I remember feeling how strange it was to be alive when he was dead. It seemed very strange that I could still walk on this earth when he did not. For all of us, his death was not a simple issue of burying somebody and getting on with your life. He was the reference point of everybody's life. Meeting him and. studying with him was the most precious thing that had ever occurred in the lives of his students. Now, in the future we would all have to sort out our entire lives without him. It's difficult for me to know how to talk about this. However, I can truly say that we needed the time, those weeks, to prepare for the cremation.
The ceremony itself took place on May 26, 1987. Thousands of people came for the ceremony. Early that morning, I arrived from Bhumipali Bhavan dressed in a Tibetan chuba, and my sons were also dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing. We had rust-colored chubas made for the three boys. I had one that was dark green. Mitchell was dressed in his khaki uniform. He was one of the eight Dorje Kasung who carried the palanquin containing Rinpoche's body in the procession from the shrine room at Karme Choling up a path that wound through the woods to the clearing where the cremation would take place. Among the others were the Kasung Kyi Khyap, David Rome; the Kasung Dapon, Jim Gimian; and the Kusung Dapon, Marty Janowitz. These four marched in front. In the back of the palanquin were four other senior Dorje Kasung: Hudson Shotwell, Suzanne Duquette, Jan Wilcox, and Dennis Southward. Barry Boyce held a huge umbrella on a long pole that hung above the kudung, providing a canopy.
The procession was led by a lone piper, who played "McPherson's Lament" and a mournful tune he had composed for the occasion. Behind him came a small group of Tibetan monastics as well as Western monks and nuns from Gampo Abbey, the monastery Rinpoche had started in Nova Scotia. Then there was a large contingent of the Dorje Kasung, followed by the body in the palanquin carried by the eight students. Then came the rest of the Dorje Kasung marching very slowly, extremely slowly. Behind that was a procession of people who had been particularly close to Rinpoche, led by our family, including the four boys and me. The Regent, Lady Konchok, my sister and her husband, the sangyum (female companions), the board of directors and their wives, and others all marched in the procession. Khyentse Rinpoche and the other high lamas who were going to lead the ceremony were already up the hill on their thrones when we approached. The entire procession passed under a large wooden gate, which had been erected for the occasion, and slowly approached the purkhang. The four pallbearers then placed the body in the purkhang.
When we completed the climb up the hill, we took our seats. I was seated with the Regent and the Sawang on a wooden platform close to the purkhang. The other members of the family, the sangyum, members of the board, and other close students were also nearby. Khyentse Rinpoche was seated on a throne on the main platform to the left of me. He was leading the practice and his seat directly faced the purkhang containing Rinpoche's body. Before the practice itself began, everyone assembled there was invited to circumambulate the purkhang in a clockwise direction and to offer a white scarf, a khata, as they walked past the front of the stupa. The Sawang, the Regent, and I led the offering procession. We were told to try to throw our khatas through the ornate window opening in the front of the purkhang, through the little hole where you could barely see Rinpoche's face screened from view but sort of peeking out. I remember that my khata went right into that opening. There were thousands of people attending the funeral, so it took quite a long time for this khata offering. From time to time, the honor guard around the stupa would have to remove the hundreds and hundreds of white scarves that were accumulating on ropes strung in front of the purkhang.
It was tremendously colorful up there in the meadow. I noticed how beautiful the purkhang was, ornamented with its gold designs and with the Mukpo colors: brilliant white, bright red and orange, and deep blue. These colors were used in the Mukpo family emblems that adorned the corners of the monument. While everyone was walking around the purkhang to pay their respects, I had the opportunity to look out and see the thousands of people who were assembled there. It had been cool and misty in the early morning, but the sun burned off the mist, and it was a brilliant sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky. People were standing or sitting on chairs and blankets they had brought with them, and the crowd spread out across a great expanse. There were also tents for special guests and invited dignitaries. James George was there, the Canadian High Commissioner to India and Nepal, whom Rinpoche had met in the 1960s. Ato Rinpoche was there from England. Several Zen teachers with whom Rinpoche was close also attended the funeral. There were many dignitaries who had come to his cremation.
After everyone completed their circumambulation, we began the ceremony itself. The main text that the Western students used was a fire offering connected with the vajrayogini Sadhana that Rinpoche transmitted to so many of us. All of us practiced this together. His Holiness and the other Tibetan teachers practiced a number of other fire offerings in Tibetan. After the practice had gone on for some time, the fire for the cremation was lit. According to tradition, no one who had known Rinpoche could light the fire. So they had to search for someone with no physical connection to him. One of the monks from India, I believe, performed this service. At a certain point, which was a different point for different people in the audience, I think almost every one of us broke down. It was impossible not to weep, not to be overcome with the tremendous sadness of this moment. As the flames were lit, a cannon was fired off, and for many of us, that was the moment when the tears started. Not surprisingly, many of us wore our dark glasses that day. While the flames were burning, Shibata Sensei and three of his senior students performed a traditional ceremony, which is done when an emperor dies. At the four corners of the purkhang, they plucked empty bows and then offered straw sandals to the fire.
When the fire offerings were finished, there was one announcement, the only announcement during the entire day. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Shambhala Anthem." We sang as we wept.
At the end of the afternoon, as the fire subsided, after the body had been consumed in the flames, we looked in the sky and there was a succession of rainbows. The most dramatic was a circular rainbow that circled around the sun in the sky above the purkhang. It was absolutely circular and quite vivid. This was written about in the press as an amazing phenomenon. A white cloud in the shape of an Ashe appeared, and three hawks circled and circled. Other small clouds in the sky looked to many onlookers like tigers, lions, garudas, and dragons. They too were tinged with rainbow light at one point. Two of the senior teachers accompanying His Holiness Khyentse Rinpoche later interpreted some of the auspicious signs: fog in the morning, which was neither too high nor too low, and which hung like a protective parasol over the area; then the rainbows, then the clouds shaped like khatas, ritual scarves; and finally the three hawks, dakinis or celestial maidens, who had taken the form of birds and were welcoming Rinpoche.
After the formal part of the cremation had ended, I remained up in the meadow to have the opportunity to talk with people. It was very moving to see and speak with so many of the people who came to the cremation ceremony. I realized even further what a profound impact Rinpoche had had on people's lives. Speaking with people who were so filled with love and sadness, it was impossible not to be affected.
Several days after the cremation, I had to go back up to the meadow. This time there were very few of us. Traditionally, several days after the cremation of a great teacher, there is a ceremony where the purkhang is opened and the bones and ash are removed. As Rinpoche's consort and his wife, I was expected to accompany the lamas up to the purkhang. Someone opened the section where Rinpoche's remains were, and they told me that I should be the first one to reach in and pull out a bone. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, a young teacher who was being trained by His Holiness, was in charge of this ceremony. As I looked into the purkhang, I saw a pile of charred bones. I hadn't expected to be so shocked, but it was very traumatic. I kept thinking, "I never thought I'd see you in this condition. I never thought I'd see you like this." While I was peering into the stupa, somewhat stupefied, Dzongsar Rinpoche said, "Go on, go on." He handed me a khata, and I had to lean in and draw out a bone, which I finally did. Then the rest of Rinpoche's bones were taken out. Some, including a section of his pelvis and part of his skull, were preserved to be placed in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya that we were planning to build at RMDC. Many others were pounded down to make tsa-tsas, which are small sculptures in the shape of stupas that are made from various substances including the bone relics and ashes of the teacher. Later, these would be given to various of Rinpoche's disciples and to the many meditation centers he founded, as objects of veneration to be kept on the shrines in each center. Some of his major disciples were also given one of his teeth to keep as a relic. One of these was later placed in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya.
'During the seven weeks between Rinpoche's death and the cremation, we could ride on the energy of the situation most of the time. We were carried along by all the work that needed to be done to prepare properly for the cremation. Khyentse Rinpoche's presence also buoyed people's spirits. During the weeks that led up to the cremation, it was almost as if the power of Rinpoche's energy kept him alive for us. With the conclusion of the cremation, there was a huge deflation. His presence had definitely moved on.
Everyone was left with the realization that now they had to live their lives without the support and presence of Rinpoche. There was a quality of emptiness and loss. Something unfathomably precious had been lost from this world. Something amazing had passed through this world and now was gone.
At the end of the spiritual will that Rinpoche wrote in 1984, he said,
Altogether we are happy to die. We take our joy along with us. It is unusually romantic to die:
Born a monk,
Died a king--
Such thunderstorm does not stop.
We will be haunting you, along with the dralas.
Jolly good luck!1
I know that for me, I will continue to long for him, as long as I have breath. I am left, however, not only with a broken heart but with a tremendous appreciation of my life. I remember one evening sitting with him in a restaurant by the water, and he said to me, "You know, you should appreciate this. This is our life. This is our marriage. It won't be like this forever." I laughed him off a little bit. Now, in retrospect, I realize that he was saying something profound about impermanence and the importance of appreciating one's life. I learned from him to appreciate the world as sacred.
As his wife of seventeen years -- in a marriage that not only had tremendous highs but also had its low points, which were not easy -- I can attest to the fact that Rinpoche was not an ordinary human being. His actions cannot be imitated, neither should they be interpreted by conventional reference points. Rinpoche had no other motivation in his life than to enrich the lives of others and to make the world a better place. He gauged all his successes in those terms. His sole motivation was to enrich the lives of others and create a world in which others could flourish.
He taught me that in order to save the world, one must begin with oneself. One of the main thrusts of his teachings was to trust oneself and to rely on one's own basic sanity. I have tried to take that teaching to heart. He devoted his life to showing others that path. His every moment was devoted to helping other people. To be able to live one's life with a fraction of the wisdom and compassion that permeated his would make one an exceptional person.
As the model of sanity and compassion in my life, he continues to guide me. Throughout my life, I continue to question myself as to how he would want me to handle one situation or another. He is no longer outside of me, so when I turn to him, I turn to my own wakefulness. He will always be my gold standard.
There is a song that Rinpoche loved by Robert Burns. It is called "The Winter It Is Past." He owned a treasured recording of the Scottish vocalist Jean Redpath singing this melancholy ballad. Later, one of Rinpoche's students, Jane Condon, used to sing it to him in a beautiful soprano voice. Sometimes when I think of him, especially when I long for him, I hear this song in the background:
Oh the winter it is past and the summer's come at last
And the small birds sing on every tree
Their little hearts are glad but mine is very sad
For my lover is parted from me
Oh the rose among the briar by the water running clear
Has charms for the linnet and the bee
Their little hearts are blessed but mine can know no rest
For my lover is parted from me
For my love is like the sun, in the firmament does run
Forever constant and true
But his is like the moon that wanders up and down
And every month it is new
All you who are in love and cannot it remove
I pity the pains you endure
For experience makes me know that your hearts are full of woe
A woe that no mortal can cure.2
