Akong insisted that Rinpoche should come down for meals rather than eating in our room. Rinpoche often preferred to spend time alone while he was recovering from his accident. He was going through a lot of personal trauma -- much of which had to do with his relationship with Akong. It was not very pleasant for him to come downstairs, as you can imagine. He also didn't keep normal hours -- which was true throughout much of his life. Often he was not awake when dinner was being served, but he would be hungry late at night. If I came to a meal, Akong would not allow me to take a plate upstairs to Rinpoche. Akong used to say, "He can't have food if he doesn't come down and get it." Rinpoche absolutely refused to give in to this kind of intimidation. Eventually, I got an electric frying pan and started to cook for Rinpoche in our bedroom. I knew almost nothing about cooking, but I learned how to cook meat for him in the frying pan. Although many Buddhists, especially in Southeast Asia, are vegetarian, Buddhists in Tibet could not have survived without meat in their diet. Rinpoche was always a meat eater, and I gave up my somewhat idealistic approach to diet when I married him.
It is said that if we eat evil food, if we consume the flesh and blood of beings who were once our mother or our father, we will, in a future life, take birth in the hell of Screaming, which, of the eighteen, is one of the hot hells. To the extent that we once consumed their flesh, so now red-hot clubs of iron will be forced into our mouths, burning our vital organs and emerging from our lower parts. We will have the experience of endless pain. And even when we are born again in this world, for five hundred lives we will take birth in monstrous and devouring forms. [4] We will become demons, ogres, and executioners. It is said too that we will be born countless times among the outcasts, as butchers, fishermen, and dyers, or as carnivorous beasts thirsting for blood: lions, tigers, leopards, bears, venomous snakes, wolves, foxes, cats, eagles, and hawks. It is clear therefore that, for the gaining of high rebirth in divine or human form, and thus for progress on the path to freedom, the eating of meat constitutes a major obstacle.
Most especially, we have been taught that the primordial wisdom of omniscience arises from bodhichitta. Bodhichitta in turn arises from the roots of compassion and is the final consummation of the skillful means of the six paramitas. It is stated in the tantra The Perfect Enlightenment of Bhagavan Vairochana: [5] "The primordial wisdom of omniscience arises from bodhichitta, which arises from the roots of compassion and is the fulfillment of the entire scope of skillful means." It is therefore said that one of the greatest obstacles to the birth of bodhichitta in our minds is our craving for meat. For if great compassion has not arisen in our minds, the foundation of bodhichitta is not firm. And if bodhichitta is not firm, we may well claim a hundred times that we are of the Mahayana, but the truth is that we are not; we are not Bodhisattvas of the great vehicle. From this it should be understood that the inability to eliminate the desire for meat is an impediment to the attainment of omniscience. For this reason, all those who practice the Dharma -- and indeed everyone -- should strive, to the best of their ability, to forsake this evil food, the flesh of their parents.
Some people will object that it is said in the teachings that one only encounters the karmic result of actions that one has actually committed; no result accrues from actions not performed. In accordance with the law of karma, therefore, if one eats the meat of animals that one has not seen to have been killed for one's consumption, if one receives no report that they have been killed for that purpose, and if one has no suspicion that they might have been so killed, no fault is incurred. "It's quite all right," they will say. "We had no hand in the killing of this sheep (or whatever other animal may be concerned). We can be sure therefore that the karma of killing will not ripen upon us; it will ripen on the killers."
This argument needs to be examined closely. Let us imagine that there is a homestead in the vicinity of a large monastery where the monks eat meat. The inhabitants of the homestead calculate that if they kill a sheep and sell its best meat in spring to the monastic community, they will make a profit on the sheep since they will keep its tripe and offal, head, legs, and hide for themselves. And the monks, knowing full well that the sheep has been slaughtered and its meat preserved, will come and buy it. The following year, the family will kill more sheep and sell the meat. And if they make a good living out of it, when the next year arrives, there will be a hundred times more animals slaughtered, and the family will get rich. Thus by trying to enrich themselves through the killing of sheep, they become butchers. They will teach this trade to their children and their grandchildren and all those close to them. And even if they do not actively teach it to others, other people will see their wicked work. They in turn will become butchers doing acts of dreadful evil, and they will set in motion a great stream of negativity that will persist until the ending of samsara. Now all this has happened for one reason only: the monastic community and others eat meat. Who therefore behaves in a more consistently evil manner than they?
If there is no meat eater, there will be no animal killer -- just as in Nepal and India, there are no tea merchants because nobody drinks tea there.6 The meat eater participates in the evil action of the animal killer. And since the meat eater's action is negative, it is quite mistaken to claim that its fully ripened effect will not be negative also. The Buddha has defined as evil any action that directly or indirectly brings harm to beings. And since what he says is true, it is clear that the eating of meat most certainly involves more injury to beings than the consumption of any other food. For this reason, the Kalachakra-tantra and its commentary both declare that, of the meat eater and the animal slayer, it is the former that has the greater sin. This being so, those who still contend that the fault of meat eaters is not so severe, or that they are not as guilty as the butcher, or indeed that they are entirely innocent, are being extremely rash. But right or wrong, why must they have such eating habits? My own belief is that they would be far better off if they could only rid themselves of their dependency.
Again, let us consider the case of a small monastery where the monks are poor and have no money, or else are thrifty and tight-fisted, or else are followers of the ancient Kadampa lineage, consuming only the three white foods. It would never even cross the minds of the lay people living nearby that they might kill animals so as to supply the monks with meat. It is said moreover that the mark of a virtuous action is that it brings direct or indirect benefit both to oneself and others. I believe therefore that if one wishes to commit oneself to an ongoing habit of goodness, there is nothing better than the resolve to abstain from meat. Those few monks who do actually have compassion should keep this in their hearts!
When a lama who eats meat goes on his summer or autumn alms tour, all his faithful benefactors think how fortunate they are that he will visit their house. "He's not just any old lama," they say. "He's an incarnate tulku! We must make him a good meal." Being aware of his eating habits, they slaughter a sheep and offer him the best cuts. The benefactors, for their part, make do with the entrails and think to themselves that the sheep came to a good end. How fortunate to be killed for the lama's dinner! And they tell each other it was right to put the sheep to death and that the sheep was really one of the lucky ones. But when it comes to their next life, the killers will find out how lucky they are!
By contrast, when the visiting lama does not eat meat, not only do the benefactors kill no animals, they hide whatever meat they have and go the whole day without it. They eat other food instead, sweet potatoes, for instance, curd and so on, so that both lama and benefactor keep themselves pure and unstained by negativity-while the sheep, for its part, stays alive and well! Let us pray that all lamas behave like this. For if they display wrong actions, other lamas and incarnations who follow after them will imitate them, and the net result will be that in summer and autumn, lamas and benefactors will join forces in planting the seeds of evil action at the very moment when they turn the wheel of Dharma! Bad for themselves and bad for others, this is the source of nothing but suffering in this life and the next. What else can one say but lama konchok khyen, "O Lama and the Three Jewels, think of us!"?
Then there are other people who say, "Je Tsongkhapa and his heart sons, and other learned and accomplished masters of the past, have taught, on the strength of quotations from the scriptures, that according to the vows of Pratimoksha one is allowed to eat meat that is pure in the three ways. But nowadays," they continue, "benighted Dharma practitioners, hermits and the like, talk a lot of nonsense about this and forbid the eating of meat. They are black demons, trying to deprive the monks of their food. On the contrary, it is by eating meat that the monks keep up their strength, the better to practice the Dharma. And anyway, if the sangha were not supported in this way, it would be as if their share of food were being given to butchers and ordinary people instead-which would be an extremely vicious and inconsiderate state of affairs. In any case," they conclude, "however many times people say that meat should not be eaten, the fact is that if monks and nuns are not allowed to eat meat (unstained by negativity), it follows that ordinary people should not be allowed to eat it either. And there are many good reasons for allowing Dharma practitioners to eat meat."
People who talk like this not only eat meat on their own account; they also advocate it in formal exposition and in private conversation. It is as if demons were advising them on what to eat. For all the Buddhas of the past have declared with one voice that it is on the basis of Pratimoksha that one must cultivate bodhichitta, the characteristic attitude of the Mahayana. By training in the causal vehicle of the paramitas and thence in the resultant vehicle of the Vajrayana, one must at length become the vajra holder of all three vows. Accordingly, we who practice the Dharma now, by following and serving our teachers, first take the vows of Pratimoksha, and then by gradual degrees we exercise our minds in bodhichitta, aiming for the practices of Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Path and Fruit, Pacification, and Cho. But even if we do not manage to get this far, I think that there is no one who, having taken refuge and bodhichitta, does not renew the associated vows every day.
If people take the vow early in the morning, in the presence of the Buddhas and their teacher, to cultivate bodhichitta both in aspiration and action, pledging themselves to the ways of the Bodhisattvas; and if, by the afternoon, they are harming beings-not of course directly but nevertheless indirectly-by saying that it is permissible to eat meat (consciously ignoring what the Buddha has repeatedly taught in the context of the Bodhisattva precepts-that meat, the outcome of harm done to others, should not be consumed), it can only mean that, gorged on meat, such people have lost their wits and are babbling in delirium. For this cannot be the view of a sane person. What a wonderful contrast if instead they can honestly say, "I am practicing the teachings of the sutras and the tantras, and I am sure that my conduct is unstained by faults."
Now, from the point of view of any of the three vows, when there is an important need and benefit for others and oneself, there are many special permissions that allow what is normally proscribed. [7] But it is a mistake to think that such dispensations are granted easily, without specific need. It may be objected that Khedrup Rinpoche taught, on the basis of reasoning and scripture, that it is permissible to eat meat that is pure in the threefold way. And people will no doubt refer to his book The Outline if the Three Vows and tell us to study it.
To be sure, we should attend to this matter with intelligence and care. There is not a single syllable of the Buddha's scriptures that the lord Khedrup has overlooked. He took them all to himself as personal instructions. He demonstrated by reasoning and scripture that the sutras and the tantras are in perfect harmony and mutually support each other, thus presenting the whole range of the Buddha's teaching as a coherent path. But when on one occasion, he said that for someone who has taken the Bodhisattva vow, the teaching of the Lankavatara-sutra [8] does not contradict the Pratimoksha precepts (which sanction the consumption of fish and the flesh of cloven-hoofed animals), he was merely presenting the view of those who said that to eat with desire the kind of meat prohibited in the Pratimoksha was allowed to people who had taken the Mantrayana vows. This view, however, he went on to refute.
Indeed, the eating of meat has never been permitted for those who have taken the Bodhisattva vows. On the contrary, it is clearly said that for them the consumption of meat is forbidden. This being so, those who are addicted to meat and who shift the burden of responsibility onto Lord Tsongkhapa, his heart son Khedrup, and other teachers of the past, by claiming that they allowed it, are very far from compassion, the mental soil in which the aspiration to supreme enlightenment is cultivated. They have no karmic connection with the Bodhisatttva precepts, high, medium, or low. So let them go ahead and say what they like-that they are eating meat because they are Shravakas or because they are tantrikas. And we will see what happens to them in the end!
Some people may object that, although meat eating is indeed wrong, the texts of both sutra and tantra say that if one recites the name of the Buddhas or certain mantras and dharanis, or if one performs a short meditation on the yidam deity together with the recitation of the mantra, the fault is purified. No wrong action is thus performed. Moreover, they say, if one does all this while concentrating on the slaughtered animal, the latter will be benefited and may even be considered fortunate, karmically speaking. Granted, they continue, when ordinary people kill goats, sheep, and yaks and eat their flesh with the blood still warm, their actions are wholly wrong. But when Dharma practitioners eat meat, and when they recite over it the words of the Buddha, charged with blessings as these are, the animal itself is greatly benefited. Therefore, they conclude, it is fine to eat meat, provided one does not have an excessive craving for it. And they also excuse themselves by saying that people and circumstances practically oblige them to eat meat.
But such people are to consider as follows-then they will understand. In the past, the compassionate Buddha said in the first turning of the wheel of Dharma that negative actions should be avoided, virtuous actions should be performed, and at all times one should have a good, kind heart. The Buddha did not, as part of his original teachings, say that Dharma practitioners could and should eat meat. He gave no guarantee that by the recitation of his words (mantras and so on) meat eaters might be preserved from evil. It is best therefore to refrain completely from eating meat.
Why then did the Buddha speak about the possibility of purifying the evils involved in the killing of animals for meat, in the consumption of meat, and other negativities? In fact, he was referring to the negative actions accumulated in one's past lives, from beginningless samsara till the present, while one was sunk in ignorance. Even more, he was alluding to the actions performed earlier in one's present existence, when one had no other means of sustenance or was overpowered and oppressed by ignorance, craving, and aversion. But now, if one recognizes one's evil behavior for what it is; if one confesses it with a regret as powerful as if one had just swallowed deadly poison; and if one has a strong purpose of amendment, vowing never to repeat one's mistake even at the cost of one's life; if one recites the names of the Buddhas, mantras, and dharanis, and if one makes tsa-tsas, performs circumambulations, and so on (which, of the four strengths of confession, is the "strength of remedial practice")-one's evil actions will indeed be purified. This is the teaching. [9]
The Buddha said time and time again in the sutras such things as: "My followers should give up all evil actions that directly or indirectly injure others." One may disregard his words; one may consciously lead others to commit evil in provisioning oneself with meat. One may think, "There are always skillful means in the sutras and tantras that counteract the evil so that I shall still be pure of stain." And one can let oneself off the hook by telling oneself that there are substances to be placed into the animals' mouths and words that can be whispered in their ears and impressed upon their minds so that they will not remain in the lower realms. But to do all this reveals a complete failure to grasp the meaning of the Buddha's teaching. It is a perversion of the Dharma. To behave in this way is to act like the Chinese Muslims10 who are outside the Dharma. For their clerics say that a great sin is committed if other people kill sentient beings but that if they do the killing, there is no sin. And since, they say, the slain creatures have thus encountered their religion, it will be better for them in the future. I have heard that these clerics take sheep by the neck and kill them by cutting off their heads. If this is true, there is absolutely no difference, in action and in intention, between such people and the kind of Buddhists we have just been describing. Henceforth, therefore, those who wish to eat meat should, in addition to their earlier justifications, take a few lessons from the Muslim clerics and study their tradition! They might learn a thing or two! Perhaps it will do them good and they will escape defilement!
Just look how a cat behaves. It catches a mouse and is thrilled, thinking that it is going to kill it. But then, almost as if taking pity on the mouse, the cat lets it go and plays with it-although this is certainly no game. Later, after amusing itself for a long time, it takes the mouse in its mouth, carries it off into a comer, and devours it. This is exactly what some Dharma practitioners do! They pretend to have compassion for the goat or sheep that is about to be killed, praying for it and reciting lots of mani mantras. Then, when the animal is killed and its flesh cooked, they take it away with them to some private place where no one can see them, and they gobble it down ravenously. Lots of people do this kind of thing. I heard once about a cat that had caught a mouse and was carrying it off. But then the cat thought to play with it. When it let the mouse go, the mouse escaped and hid under an upturned basket lying nearby. The cat sat there looking under the basket, mewing softly, all sweetness and compassion. But when the mouse ran still deeper into its hiding place, the cat got all upset, looking up and down. Everyone around just burst out laughing! This is just how some modern Dharma practitioners behave! They put on a show of compassion and recite lots of manis as the sheep is being killed. But if the moment of death is long in coming, they get fretful and agitated. Whenever I am confronted with such a farce, I think that not only the Buddhas in the ultimate expanse must be laughing, but ordinary people in the world must be very amused too, when they hear about the antics of certain Dharma practitioners! Even so, if people do generate some sort of compassion and recite mantras, I do in fact think that it is of some benefit to them, even if it is not much use to the dead animal!
This whole question may be summed up by saying that, for good and compassionate practitioners of Dharma, the question as to whether one is stained or unstained by negativities is quite irrelevant. Sincere practitioners feel a natural, visceral compassion for the slaughtered goats and sheep as if they were their old mothers. They will have nothing to do with killing them for the sake of meat. On the contrary, they save life eagerly; they ransom animals set aside for slaughter and release them. Otherwise, it is like trying to punch someone who is not there. Showing compassion for animals after they have been killed and the meat is being eaten-reciting mantras for the animal's sake-is nothing but a silly game. The people who do this kind of thing may appear fine and sympathetic in the eyes of the ignorant, but when you look closely, there is nothing to recommend their conduct, either in action or intent. If people t"vist the meaning of the Buddha's words and act evilly as we have described, this is not the fault of the Buddha's teaching. It is rather that the immaculate doctrine has been distorted by the actions and intentions of others-with the result that it becomes indistinguishable from the teachings of non-Buddhist heathens. If only we could all act in such a way that this does not happen!
Generally speaking, the Buddha's doctrine naturally makes for the welfare and happiness of beings. As it is said in the prayer, "May the Buddha's doctrine, source of every joy and benefit, remain for long!" Consequently, if human beings and animals living in the vicinity of those who say they are Buddhists coexist in happiness and peace, it is a sign that the Buddha's teachings are present. But if the reverse happens and there is harm and strife, this shows that there is no doctrine near. Nowadays, however, on the pretext of collecting for the monastic community, certain monks inflict great hardship on the villages and their inhabitants, whether human or animal. [11] It is heartbreaking to see. But here, I'd better not say too much. Anyway, nobody will listen. What is more, if I point out the personal faults of Dharma practitioners in high places, they mostly respond "vith angry words. And there is a danger that those who really are powerful might catch me and cut my mouth apart "vith a knife. So I'd better watch my step. In any case, people who are really sincere and compassionate vvill be helped by even the little I have said. On the other hand, no matter how much one speaks to people who are destitute of moral conscience and a sense of propriety, the result will be nothing but trouble for the speaker. In which case, as the proverb goes, "Shut your mouth is the best advice."
Our Teacher, great in compassion and skillful means, made a first rule about meat eating for the Shravakas who had taken Pratimoksha vows, specifying that the flesh of one-hoofed animals (horses, donkeys, and so forth), as distinct from the meat of cloven-hoofed animals (yaks, cows, and sheep), was not to be eaten. Later, he made another rule saying that, apart from meat that is pure in the three ways, all flesh products are proscribed. And then, in connection with the bodhichitta vow, and considering that there is not a single being who has not been our kind parent, he forbade the consumption of any kind of meat whatsoever, including the flesh of animals that have died of natural causes. It was said by the Kadampa teachers of old that the first two rules, formulated in the Pratimoksha context, were taught in the beginning for the sake of those who had an intense craving for meat. The Buddha knew that if the consumption of meat were totally prohibited from the start, such people would be unable to embrace the Buddhist teachings. Once they had entered the Dharma, however, and as their minds had been refined-and of course for the Bodhisattvas-the Buddha set forth the principle of total abstinence from meat. What the Kadampas said is very true. When the Buddha turned the wheel of the Dharma of the great vehicle, many Shravakas elevated their minds, and many of them generated bodhichitta, the supreme mind of enlightenment. They then abstained from the consumption of flesh. Consequently it is a mistake to think that all the Shravakas were meat eaters.
The great being, the second Buddha, Lord Tsongkhapa, says repeatedly in his collected writings, and proves his words with reasoning and quotations from the scriptures, that if one understands the line of demarcation between what is permitted and what is proscribed, one will understand that the sutras and the tantras all speak with a single voice. In the context of the three vows, he explains that specific need takes precedence over prohibition. Therefore, if there is good reason for it, and in order to benefit greatly both oneself and others, it is permissible not to abstain from meat and other sense objects such as alcohol and a consort, but rather to enjoy them as an ornament of ultimate reality. But this does not mean that one is allowed to enjoy such things in the ordinary way and in the absence of perfect justification. As Lord Khedrup says in his Outline of the Three Vows, "All those who generate the mind of supreme enlightenment, Bodhisattvas of the great vehicle-how wonderful it would be if they abstained from every kind of meat. Even at the Pratimoksha level, except for meat that is pure in the three ways, no meat eating is permitted. Even in one's dreams one should never claim, because one craves for it, that meat eating is permissible."
These days, however, one only ever sees the meat of animals that have been slaughtered for food. It's rare indeed to come across meat that is pure in the three ways. And rarer still are the practitioners who have no desire for it. It would surely be better, therefore, if the loudmouths who go trumpeting the acceptability of meat eating were to reflect instead upon the measure of their faults!
Not only is the eating of large quantities of meat bad for one in the long term (for one's future lives); it is an obvious fact that, even in the present life, there are many who perish due to the toxins that meat may contain. Many times do we see and hear that when Dharma practitioners tell their benefactors that they need some meat, the latter go off and kill a sheep. And when the bursars in the monasteries say that they have big festivals coming, twenty or thirty sheep are bought from the nomads and are slaughtered in the autumn. This is a common occurrence in monasteries large and small. The result is that when one goes on pilgrimage to a monastery, intending to make offerings and pay one's respects, one is confronted by the spectacle of stacks of carcasses, before one has even seen the images of the enlightened beings. Now if this does not deserve to be called "wrong livelihood," then tell me what does! You "Dharma practitioners" who fail to see the direct and indirect injury done to the lives of goats and sheep, are you blind? Is there something wrong with your eyes? And if you are not blind, don't try to pretend that you don't know anything about it!
-- Shabkar: Food of Bodhisattvas. Buddhist Teachings on Abstaining From Meat (Excerpt), by Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol
To take care of Rinpoche's needs, I sometimes would steal food from downstairs. Akong kept the pantry locked, and he kept the keys with him. I would hide in the kitchen and wait for Akong to unlock the door to the pantry, which was a long narrow room. When Akong would walk to the back of the pantry, I would run in, grab things off the shelves, and take them upstairs to our bedroom. Sometimes Rinpoche and I would go into town to shop. If we could get a beef tongue, which he particularly enjoyed, I would boil it for him in the room.
Things between Rinpoche and Akong reached a point where they were barely speaking to one another. One day some major donors were coming to Samye Ling. Rinpoche was very turned off to the idea that Akong was putting on a fake front for these wealthy people so that they would give money. He didn't feel that genuine, spirituality was being practiced at Samye Ling at that point, and he thought that under the surface the whole situation was corrupt. Just before the donors arrived, while Akong was downstairs waiting to greet them, Rinpoche went into Akong's bedroom upstairs and completely destroyed Akong's personal shrine with his walking stick. Then he went and urinated all over the top of the stairwell, after which he lay down and passed out at the top of the stairs. He had had a lot to drink that afternoon, perhaps to work himself up to doing this. The whole event was extremely shocking, to me and everyone else there. But at the same time, because we had been treated terribly by Akong, I felt okay about it. Akong's way of controlling the situation was to use passive aggression. In his mind, there was always a good reason why he did this to us or that to us. It was very hard to get through to him.
Rinpoche didn't explain his actions to me, but I personally felt that destroying Akong's shrine and then making a big stink, literally, was Rinpoche's way of sending a message to Akong that he couldn't ignore. The sacredness of the situation there was being destroyed and the atmosphere was rotten for us at that point. Looking back now, I think that Rinpoche was willing to go to extreme ends to expose the hypocrisy he saw. Based on other things he said about Akong, I feel that Rinpoche was trying to wake him up. Of course I can't speak for Rinpoche and I don't know what was going on in his mind, but that was definitely the feeling that I had about it at the time.
Rinpoche's behavior was at times outrageous. I think this was probably the first time I had seen this side of him so graphically displayed. On the one hand, he was absolutely brilliant. On the other hand, his behavior could be so unconventional that he seemed rather crazy at times. It was like two sides of a coin: brilliant, or wise, on one side; unfathomable, or crazy from a conventional viewpoint, on the other. Of course, there's crazy and then there's crazy. As far as I'm concerned, in my entire association with him, he never did anything to harm another human being. He used to use the term "idiot compassion" to refer to being kind to someone when something more drastic was called for. He was never guilty of that! At times, he could be black and wrathful, but it was always with the agenda of waking people up. He would push people so that they would recognize their self-deception. His mind and actions were fearless and often quite fathomless. There were certain times when it was difficult to understand the motive behind his actions. Those things usually became clarified for me, and I think often for others, with time.
The situation at Samye Ling was becoming unbearably claustrophobic for us, to say the least. One morning Rinpoche suggested that we go to Glasgow to have a holiday and escape the dark atmosphere at the center. We checked into a nice hotel there and had a lovely time. Every night we would eat in the steak house nearby, which was a real treat for us compared to scrounging food at Samye Ling. When it came time to pay the bill, we realized that we didn't have enough money with us, so we had to go to the bank. The people at the hotel were very nice about this. We took a taxi to the bank. When I checked our balance, I was shocked that there was so little money in the account. I realized that we had forgotten to deposit one of Rinpoche's royalty checks for Born in Tibet, so there actually wasn't enough in the account to pay our hotel bill. We decided to take a taxi all the way back to Samye Ling, which was more than an hour's drive. The plan was that I would get the check, deposit it in our bank in Lockerbie, and wire the money to the hotel. Unfortunately, we didn't phone the hotel to let them know what we were doing. It never occurred to either of us that this would be a problem. I don't know if Rinpoche fully understood how the banking system worked in England, since most of his finances had been handled by Akong. For my part, I was a naive teenager.
By the time we reached the bank in Lockerbie with the check, the bank was closed. So we went back to Samye Ling for the night. The next morning, I took a taxi with Rinpoche into town. We deposited the check, and I wired the money. Then we went to the pub for lunch. We were there eating lunch when the Glasgow police arrived and arrested us for not having paid the hotel bill. We were put in the back of a black Mariah and driven to Glasgow.
They took mug shots of us at the police station. Rinpoche refused to let me call anyone about what had happened. He knew that Akong would use this event to humiliate us and fuel his view that Rinpoche had gone off the deep end. After the police booked us, we were put in jail. We had to spend the night in separate cells, filthy cold jail cells with ratty blankets and a broken toilet seat in the corner. I begged to be with Rinpoche, but the jailer said that I couldn't be in the same cell with him. He had only recently recovered from the complications of his accident, and I feared that he would become ill again because of the cold. Finally, the jailer agreed to give him some of my blankets.
The jailer asked me about my background and where I had been to school. I told him that I had gone to Benenden, and he said, "I've heard of Benenden." Then he said, "Why have I heard of Benenden?" And I said, "Probably because Princess Anne went there." And he replied, "Yes, that's right." It was hard for him to believe that an English girl who'd been at school with Princess Anne was being held overnight for not paying her hotel bill.
It was a bleak, bleak night, an absolute low point. It seemed that no matter what we did at this time, we were going to encounter terrible difficulties. The next morning we were taken to court. After I explained to the magistrate what had happened, he released us. We went back to Samye Ling, and no one ever knew about our night in jail. It would have been just the confirmation that Akong needed to reinforce his opinion of Rinpoche and me. The next day we received a telegram saying that all charges had been dropped because the hotel had received the money. So there were no lasting repercussions.
However, at this point, we realized that we needed to get out of Britain as soon as possible. During this period, Rinpoche would sometimes wake up in the night, experiencing some sort of panic. I actually don't know if it was panic exactly. He would wake up and he couldn't breathe. Sometimes, he would seem to be in another realm, I would almost say, and I would sort of have to bring him back by talking to him and insisting that he come back and listen to me. He told me that I was able to provide ground for him, which helped him to stay on the earth, somewhat literally. I don't want to psychoanalyze Rinpoche, but I think this was a very difficult period for him, in many ways. It was a momentous decision to leave behind his Tibetan identity and to strike out in the world. I think he was absolutely fraught with loneliness and sometimes with despair. At this point he didn't know how well things would go in America. He didn't know what was going to happen. To me, Rinpoche was the ultimate warrior. He was willing to jump off the edge of the cliff, not knowing where he would land.
On the other hand, he also had tremendous dedication to his world. Even though others might abandon him, he never wanted to abandon anyone else. For quite a while, even though it had been such a bad scene in Scotland, Rinpoche continued to talk about returning to Great Britain after the lecture tour in America. He had incredible loyalty to people there, even to Akong, whom he hoped would eventually open up to Westerners and come to appreciate the way in which Rinpoche wanted to live and teach. I, however, was convinced that we should leave for good. I told him that we weren't coming back. I was quite vocal about this, saying that the scene in Scotland was not a healthy situation for us. After our night in jail, Rinpoche didn't resist at ill. He consulted the I Ching, using yarrow sticks, which is the traditional method, and it indicated that "it furthers one to cross the big water." This was the turning point for us.
Years later, at a public event, he made a spontaneous toast to me, thanking me for helping us to get out of Great Britain: "You have cheered me up many times. In the past, I have gone through all kinds of depressing occasions and dungeons and an unspeakably unliberated world, pure and simple, a world that was not purified at ill. We went through that together, with you leading the way ahead of me. I appreciate that very much. You are an extremely brave lady, I must say. Such an extremely kind lady and an extremely resourceful lady as well, she managed to get us to this goddamned place called America!"3
Unfortunately, there were still obstacles to our departure. Earlier, Rinpoche had obtained a multiple entry visa to the United States. While we were making our final plans, we went to the American consulate in Glasgow to get information. When Rinpoche presented his British passport at the desk, the person behind the counter took it and stamped a huge "cancelled" across the visa. We were shocked. We discovered that Christopher Woodman had been to the consulate and told them dreadful stories, saying that Rinpoche was unfit to go to the United States.
Ever since our marriage, Rinpoche's relationship with Christopher and his wife Pamela had degenerated. After the wedding, we never went back to Garwald House, and we had barely seen the Woodmans. It seemed that Christopher and Pamela were jealous of the intimacy between Rinpoche and me. Also, Christopher in particular seemed to have developed tremendous anger and what seemed like a complex about controlling Rinpoche or reforming him. Rinpoche said that in part it was the result of the confusion generated by his falling-out with Akong, which forced students to take sides in this dharmic controversy. However, he also referred to it as a problem that sometimes arose for students in relating to their teacher, a phenomenon that he described as "hunting the guru." He had witnessed this personally in Tibet, when some of Jamgon Kongtrul's main students decided that their guru needed to be reformed. Rinpoche wrote about this in the first epilogue to Born in Tibet, which he wrote soon after we left Scotland for North America. He said there:
When a guru makes a great change in his life, it is often an opening for great chaos among the pupils who regard him as an object of security. Very few are able to go along with the change .... My marriage to my wife Diana took place in January 1970. This brought a ... reaction among the more possessive followers who regarded their guru as "lover." They began what may be called "hunting the guru." When this occurs the person is no longer open to teaching. The ego game is so strong that everything nourishes it and the person wants only to manipulate, so that in a sense he kills the guru with his own ignorance.
This situation reminded me of the time when Jamgon Kongtrul's disciples tried, with the best of intentions, to reinterpret with their scholarly research Jamgon Kongtrul's own words in order to show him their real meaning. They attempted to help him out with tremendous violence and feelings of superiority. This Ignorance of one's real purpose can be called the basic twist of ego.4
Christopher Woodman seemed to be "hunting" Rinpoche in this way. He convinced himself that Rinpoche should not be allowed to go to America. His stated purpose for containing him was that he seemed to think that Rinpoche was a disturbed individual who needed to remain in England. I think, in fact, that Christopher was very frightened about losing Rinpoche. However, his attempts to hold onto Rinpoche only drove a wedge between them. Later there would be further repercussions. For the time being, we had to decide what to do now that Rinpoche's visa had been cancelled.
Without him having a valid visa, we weren't sure that we could get into the United States, but Rinpoche still wanted to book tickets to New York He thought we might be able to gain admission. So we decided to proceed with our plans to leave.
However, we needed money for the tickets. We barely had enough to cover a few nights in a hotel in Glasgow. How could we possibly come up with the money to travel to America? Having no other choice, we decided to go to Akong and ask him to please give us the money for our plane tickets. I volunteered to approach Akong on our behalf, as he and Rinpoche were barely able to be together in the same room at this time.
Although Rinpoche's activities generated most of the income at Samye Ling, Akong kept complete control of the finances, and he gave Rinpoche almost no money for his personal account. Akong refused to give us the money, but he said that he would "loan" us the funds for the tickets if Rinpoche would sign over the seals of his lineage. These were the official marks of Rinpoche's position in Tibet. There were seven seals, some of them dating back centuries. Among them were two seals that were given to one of the early Trungpas by the emperor of China. Leaving them behind was like being stripped of his authority. Certainly, this was the message that Akong seemed to be sending, although ultimately Rinpoche's authority had nothing to do with any outer trappings. Akong also demanded that Rinpoche leave behind other religious treasures that he had carried with him from his monastery in Surmang. They included a gold statue of a protector, or mahakala, that was very precious to him, small statues of Milarepa and Padmasambhava, and other important relics. He had been able to bring only these few small but significant objects from Tibet, and now Akong demanded that we leave many of them at Samye Ling. We convinced him to let us bring some of these along with us, but all others had to remain with him. When you consider that the vast majority of the art and religious treasures at Rinpoche's monastery had been destroyed, it was quite devastating for Rinpoche to be asked to leave behind the last few things that connected him to Surmang. Akong was not even from the Surmang monastery, so for him to take control of the Surmang seals and treasures was quite outrageous.
I was so upset that I called my uncle -- the same uncle who took us out for lunch after we married -- and told him this terrible thing was happening. He was completely unhelpful and unsupportive. He was a lawyer, so I'd been hoping that he might give us some assistance, but he just said, "Too bad for you." So Rinpoche left the seals from the Surmang monastery with Akong, and we used the money to get our tickets. It was not until 1975 that we were able to recover them.
Even though the situation was so negative and circumstances seemed so difficult, Rinpoche had a sense of promise about what was to come. As he w-rote later, "I do not believe that there is a divine Providence as such, but the situation of karma and the wildness of Khenpo Gangshar and Jamgon Kongtrul directed me to cross the Atlantic with my wife in the spring of 1970."5
As we made preparations to leave, we secured a promise from Akong to take care of Rinpoche's son until we were able to send for him. Osel did not have a British passport, and with our visa difficulties, we could not bring him with us. As well, we had no money for a third ticket. I wish that he had been able to accompany us, as there were terrible difficulties bringing him over later on.
Finally, in early March 1970, the day arrived for us to depart. We had only been at Samye Ling for a little more than two months, but it seemed an eternity. In the taxi on the way to Prestwick Airport, for some reason that I absolutely could not fathom, Rinpoche decided that he wanted to stop off at the pub in Langholm, very close to Samye Ling, for lunch. I was completely. beside myself because there were only two flights a week to New York from Glasgow. He got mad at me for harassing him, so I gave in. Of course, with our luck, we got all the way to Prestwick and missed the flight. We had to go back to Samye Ling for four more days. However, we made it on the next flight. Looking back on it, I think that perhaps Rinpoche realized, more than I did, that in leaving Great Britain, he was saying his final goodbye to an important part of his life. He was saying goodbye to Akong, who had been his heart companion in the escape. from Tibet. He was saying goodbye to England, where he had mastered the English language, made many discoveries about Westerners and their relationship to mind, and made his first connection with Western students. So he took his time in leaving, frustrating as that was for me.
Rinpoche left Scotland with a ritual dagger, called a phurba, strapped to his midsection with a long scarf. A phurba is supposed to cut through obstacles and assassinate ego on the spot.
[Spottswoode] The name is Spottswoode.
-- Team America, directed by Trey Parker, Creator of South Park
This was one of the treasures from his monastery in Tibet that Rinpoche refused to surrender to Akong. He left Great Britain with at least this one piece of his heritage intact. It had belonged to the founder of Buddhism in Tibet, Padmasambhava. Rinpoche often carried it on his body in those days, almost as if it gave him the strength and protection that he needed to make this change in his life. It being a very different era, it didn't set off any metal detectors or alarms at the airport.
On the plane we were both very cheerful and, as Rinpoche wrote later, "We talked of conquering the American continent, and we were filled with a kind of constant humor."6 We flew into New York, hoping to enter the United States, but we were told that without the proper visas we wouldn't be admitted. However, since we were both British citizens, we were allowed to continue on to Canada. We took a flight to Toronto. We had finally arrived in the New World.
Looking back on the dreadful times we endured in Great Britain, part of me would like to forget about the whole thing and that part of me says, "Why tell people about these black times?" But then I remember what Rinpoche said about this. As my husband wrote, just a few months after we left:
Upon being asked to do an epilogue for the new edition of Born in Tibet, I began to think about the nature of these last years. Their most outstanding quality has been the strength of the teachings, which have been a constant source of inspiration during this time in India, Britain, and America.
Adapting to these new ways of life after the colorful and simple quality of Tibet, where people were so in touch with their natural environment, has been truly a great adventure. It has been made possible by the continually active presence of Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen and Khenpo Gangshar, my teachers. They taught me about a basic sanity that has nothing to do with time. and place. They taught about the neurotic aspects of the mind and the confusion in political, social and other structures of life, which are universal. I have seen many fellow Tibetans as well as Westerners drawn into these problems.7
So in fact, I realize that it's very important to remember what happened in the last days at Samye Ling, because it was such an important lesson. It is a constant reminder to me of the pitfalls of spiritual practice.
