Back from Retreat - Final version

As promised, Here's a bit more in-depth about the 2008 Annual Retreat with Her Eminence Mindrolling Jestun Khandro Rinpoche (along with her translator sister Jetsun-la and several nuns from her Retreat center in India, Samten Tse - I like to call the whole group "Team Mindrolling" for short :)).

I got there for the end of the "Entering the Vajrayana" portion (which, to be completely honest, related to my current practice more than the following week). She was continuing her teachings from last year about the nine yanas (10, if you include the "Samsaric yana of Gods and Men", which she did).

At one point, when talking about the Four Reminders, Rinpoche dropped this little gem:

"Many of us, w/o seeing impermanence, waste our lives doing a lot of things.
It’s now 2 weeks and a day since Lucinda died. When that happened, many of you thought briefly about your own mortality. Even if you came and wept in front of wherever, I’m not convinced it will be long lasting. Teachers die, sangha members die, you get a tumor. 70% of our sangha are dealing with some issue at this moment.
Occasionally, that other 30% are reminded that this could happen to you, but there is more thought in defying impermanence than thinking about it."

Of course, she is right about this.
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This year, the main teaching for the Dzogchen section of the retreat was a practice of Chod, or "cutting through". This is a practice of literally offering the one thing we are all most attached to - our very body - to various unseen beings. It's unique for several reasons.

Of all the various tantric methods, it is the only one -to my knowledge, anyway - that was invented in the Tibetan highlands, as opposed to being brought over from India (though there were certain aspects of the practice which were transmitted from India by Padampa Senge - who, fyi, is better known to the world as 'Bodhidharma' - yes, the same Bodhidharma who brought the essence of what became Chan/Zen Buddhism to China -no wonder there are many aspects in common between some Zen styles and Mahamudra). It's also unique because it is a clear synthesis between the Shamanism of the Bonpo tradition that was already in Tibet (/Nepal/Mongolia/etc.) with the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition. From everything I have read, the actual part of going into a samadhi (meditative absorbtion, which is in this case similar to a trance) to communicate with the Spirit world is pretty common in shamanism. Also, the use of a drum to help invoke this world is also pretty standard the world over, as is the use of a sung melody. (photo-Rinpoche's students learning to use the Chod drum, which is basically a supersized dhamaru.)

However, the genius of Machig Lapdron, the inventor of Chod (more on her shortly), was to combine these old techniques with the profound view of emptiness, as well as the specifically Buddhist aspiration to cut clinging to a "self". Basically, she bridged the two traditions to create a powerful way to cut grasping to the self, which is the biggest hindrance to enlightenment.

One other big thing was that the inventor of Chod was an actual living human female. Sadly, like most of the religious traditions on this planet, Tibetan buddhism also has an anti-female slant to the whole thing that developed over time. Shakyamuni himself said that women were just as likely as vessels for enlightenment as men. (This was after many requests, however - which is understandable, since Shakyamuni Buddha still had to live among 'normal' people, and the idea that women were also capable of being religious practitioners was very radical in it's time. It could have lead some more conservative elements to turn violent on him.)

However, as time went on, things were modified. Someone added a line to the story of the first female ordained saying 'now the span of my teachings is cut in half by you becoming a nun, so it will now disappear from the world after 1500 years'. Well, 2500 years later, Buddha's teaching is booming, so it seems that line is totally moot point. But the bias was in place. Which made it that much more remarkable when female masters did occur.

Anyway, the inventor of Chod was Machig Labdron. She created this unique synthesis, taught it to her kids (yep, she got enlightened and then made a family lineage), and it then became part of the Kagyu lineage's bag of tricks, and from there spread to all the four main lineages. Her method was so powerful and effective, no one could disagree with it's brilliance. Though people tried. Scholars came and to debate against her view, meditation and conduct all the way. She NEVER lost a debate, so she seems to have had a fairly spectacular grip of the basis and fruition of her practice.

A couple year ago, Rinpoche transmitted a short Chod practice, with one melody. It was a very good thing I brought my bass guitar this year, which came in VERY handy to try to remember the SIX different melodies used in the 40+ pages of this Chod. If I can get it under my fingers, I can remember the melody.

No, I will not be doing a CD of the Chod practice, like I did of the prayers and practices of the Drikung Kagyu (which my brother has been sitting on for the past four years! I hope he will let it see the light of day and bring some benefit to the lineage). Khandro Rinpoche is not a fan of doing traditional practices with very different non-traditional instrumentation - she feels making these profound practices into background music is a sign of the degenerate age.

She's got a point: If you want some good background music, go grab yourself some Brian Eno.

She patiently went through the practice several times. This has been one I've wanted to do -- if/when my ngondro gets done -- as my main practice for years.

The only problem is, the drum is played with the right hand. Well, I got a fracture on my right wrist in 1999, a couple months before the first Khandro Rinpoche retreat I attended. That wrist has given me problems off and on for years. Holding the drum can cause some pain, which gets MUCH greater as time goes on. Hum...maybe I will do this practice with a drum machine after all. :) (Just kidding, Rinpoche...kinda :))

Anyway, once we all do this, we should all know how to properly pacify whatever unseen beings lurk in Civil War battlefields, abandoned rail yards, old graveyards, first nation/native american burial mounds, supposedly "haunted" places, and other sites right out of "the Blair Witch Project".

Rinpoche 'asked' (can you really call instructions from one's root guru "asking" ? :)) us all to work on the Chod, as well as do the Pema Garwang (Red Chenrezig - more on that in another entry), and make sure we do a short Guru Rinpoche practice (downpour of blessings) every morning, and Protectors every night.

Other Retreat Events

Also, as previously mentioned, a 17-foot buddha statue from Mindrolling monastery in India arrived in the Port of Baltimore that week. 10 or so guys from the Retreat with no serious injuries (which ruled me and my two herniated disks out) drove down and picked up the 600+ pound (ok, 'Kilogram') statue. Here's some shots of it.

Right - The statue went up (very slowly) by truck to the main shrine room, where it will stay until the new shrine down by the lake is finished. It was balanced on the back of a pickup truck precariously.

VERY precariously.

After a lot of huffing and puffing, it got safely to the main shrine room.

Rinpoche then led us all down to the lake, where the statue will be installed.

We then went walking around the lake, and then around the land, while She explained to us her vision for different parts of the land. It's a REALLY freakin' sweet vision. :)

We ended the week with a 2 day Drupcho (extended practice) of the Vajrasattva sadhana. This was partially to mark 21 days after the death of Lucinda Peach. It was also to bless the future site of the new temple.

This was what the view was from the porch of the main shrine room at EXACTLY the time people started going in to practice. Someone seems to have timed it to start right as the sun first peaked over the mountains, which was a very nice touch.

At the end of the Drupcho, Rinpoche broke us into 4 groups, and each group did the Fire Puja part of the text in the four cardinal directions at the new temple site.

I was lucky enough to be in the group with Loppon Jann Jackson leading (right). To see her in action like that was awesome. I think she totally embodied Vajrasattva. Plus, her advice to those of us there to "not get fascinated by what you see - you've all seen rice before, you've all seen Crisco before - but instead hold the view. Remember to hold the view!" was spot on perfect.

Here's Jann at the conclusion of the puja. Damn, when people talk about "holding your seat", no one locally does it quite as well as Jann, IMHO (though several people come close :)).

While there, I stayed in the new dorm building (right), which was 'finished' the first weekend I was there. (Ok, the plumbing for the toilet and shower were not finished yet, but as Rinpoche says, we should all "be flexible".)
Gordon Ryan did a great job of ensuring this thing was built right. For fellow energy geeks, the insulation between the roof and ceiling is R-60. Even on the hottest day, it stayed comfortably cool inside the building (with no AC!)

I have had this weird feeling that some kind of karmic blowback is long overdue personally, since my practice has been going so well the last several months, which led me to go sit on the porch of the main shrine room (a converted barn) at night a few nights. There was a full moon during the Retreat (which is considered an auspicious occurance), so it was easy to see where I was walking even without my headlamp.

I still have this feeling of some impending heartbreaking event coming soon, which will really, really test what I have worked on in solitary retreat. Some may say I'm pessimistic, I'd say I'm realistic...Shakyamuni didn't say "Life is Suffering" just to hear himself speak...
(ok, so I'm using this as an excuse to show off some of my David Lynch-esque mood photography. So sue me...:))

In between all the teaching and practice, there was a bit of goofiness. (This is par for the course among the Lotus Garden sangha, as i've mentioned in previous posts).

For example, here's one of Rinpoche's best students (Well, it -is- true, Judy-la :)) starring down what appears to be the Largest Chocolate Bar in the World. This was later melted down and served to everybody on french toast...yummmmmmmm.....

Someone donated a yurt to Lotus Garden, which became the site of "Ratna in the Round", the complete one-stop shop for all your dharma supply and gift needs. Julie Heeggard, in addition to her skills in running the Baltimore Shambhala Center, also turns out to be a great slick salesperson - often crossing over (quite willingly, I'd say) into parody (I'll have to dig up a photo of the "Miracle Rocks" she was selling :) in a successful attempt to get fellow students to buy stuff to support Lotus Garden.

And, every night, people were hanging out at the Ratna Kosha, Kosha Cabana...during the day, she was doing brisk business selling ice cream. (Everything is empty, yes, but those pounds I added at Retreat from empty calories sure seem real...:))

I'll leave you with this parting shot of Her Eminence Mindrolling Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche, which looks to me could be an official photo of Rinpoche (it's going on my shrine, at least), but for (or maybe, especially because of) the happy panting presence of Ziji in the background.

That's all for now.
Oh, and in the mundane world, I have a second interview next week. We'll see what happens...

-JTR/LWWD