Warm Winter Boots

In the winter of 1990/1991, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche spent the entire cold season in Bodhgaya.

He had arrived there even before I did and was comfortably installed in some large ground floor rooms in Beru Khyentse's monastery on the outskirts of the sacred Buddhist town.

It was still early in the winter season and not as crowded as it would surely become in the weeks and months ahead so I was fortunate to find a room in Beru Khyentse's monastery just doors away from where Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was staying.

No two winter seasons were ever alike in Bodhgaya. I must have spent at least ten winters there and each time I was there I had very different and powerful learning and even life-changing experiences.

I distinctly remember that the mood that particular winter was in some ways a very subdued one. Khyentse Rinpoche was not in robust health. Despite this, however, he began to give an important (for the Longchen Nyingtik lineage) cycle of teaching transmissions and empowerments to the students, monks and visiting Lamas who had gathered to receive them.

Where ever he was Khyentse Rinpoche always had a very busy schedule even if he never left his seat or his room. His days were filled with the buzz of endless comings and goings. But during that particular winter, we started to notice changes to the way things were usually happening around him.

Several new rules were announced which restricted our access to Rinpoche somewhat. This had never happened before. However, one of these new rules was rather in our favour, or at least in mine. We were told that he would not speak until after 9 am in the mornings. I liked this new rule because it meant that I could slip into his room early in the morning for a blessing and then quietly sit nearby in a corner of the room usually completely unnoticed and do my practice while he was doing his. This was always a very special time and I felt deeply blessed, grateful and fortunate for this happy circumstance.

He would sit in his wooden box with a large woollen blanket draped over his folded legs. His upper chest bare. I was always fascinated by the various appendages that he wore around his neck. Intricately carved silver and gold amulet boxes and other precious items hung there. He would lean slightly forward and they would all clang softly together whenever he moved. During these early morning hours, he would be fingering a large wooden malla ( rosary) as he mumbled various verses, chants and prayers. Nothing remarkable appeared to be happening and yet the entire room was suffused with an intangible, deep peace. For me, it felt as though I were sitting in the very centre of the universe. It was certainly the centre of my universe.

That winter I had come directly from Australia where I had gone to work for a few months. Khyentse Rinpoche usually spent his summer seasons in retreat in Bhutan and so that would be the time when I would go to the west and earn some money with which to support myself during the winter months in India and Nepal.

I had pondered long and hard over what I would bring him in the way of a gift when I returned and eventually I decided on something very practical, as was my want. I decided to get him a pair of the iconic Australian footwear known as Ugg Boots. These slippers, for they were and are essentially an indoors shoe were initially created by an Australian surfer in 1970s. They were a relatively simple design and made of sheepskin wool, supremely snug and warm.

However, Khyentse Rinpoche had very large feet, some might say, unusually large and I had to search quite a while before I found a pair that I thought would fit.

I was so excited to present these to him. I knew they would be just the thing to keep his feet all warm and toasty and I eagerly anticipated a happy outcome.

However, on the morning after my arrival, when I went to offer my greetings to the master and present my gift I quickly discovered that it was not possible to get his feet to slide into the boots.

It was not that the boots were too small, they were in fact just the right size and the biggest size that I had been able to find. The problem was in the design of the boots which meant that they rose well above the ankles to cover the entire foot and lower leg. I tried and I tried to get his feet into those boots, there was much huffing and puffing, but there was just no way it was going to happen. I hardly minded because Rinpoche sat with one hand on the top of my head throughout all of my exertions. There was a bemused expression on his face but he had sat there patiently putting up with my various and energetic man-oeuvres. But eventually, I had to withdraw.

When Rinpoche had first laid eyes on the boots he had looked well pleased and I was determined, come what may, that I would find a way to make them fit. I quickly settled on a plan to cut the front of the boots open and surely enough, his feet then slipped effortlessly in. I was thrilled and Rinpoche cast a bright and loving smile my way. I could have melted into the floor right there and then I was so perfectly satisfied and happy.

Throughout the winter months, these same boots were worn during the day and also on various outings. One can just make them out in the photo above. I could not have known then that this was to be our final walk around the sacred Stupa of Bodhgaya. Due to ill health his stay that winter was cut slightly short and soon after he had bestowed the empowerments, he returned to Nepal and then a few months later left for Bhutan.

Continue Reading in Tibetan Masters and Other True Stories

Old Friends

Khyentse Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche

There are bonds of friendship and a likeness of mind and intention that can cross beyond the confines of a single life time.

In 1988 i visited BodhGaya during the winter months.  During that time both Khyentse Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche were there.

It was unforgettable to be in the presence of these two Masters, both of whom were living embodiment's of  the essence of the Buddha's teachings.

Khyentse Rinpoche was the living manifestation par excellence of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom.   He  who cuts through illusion and maya to reveal what is true and real.  Kalu Rinpoche on the other hand was an embodiment of Compassion,  an expression of the Lord Avalokitesvara, whose thousand arms stretch out in all the directions bestowing the gifts of the heart.

I took these photos when they were saying farewell to one another. It was to be the last time they were to meet on this earth and in those bodies.  I feel that these photos convey a certain quality that expresses something that is beyond words and beyond time.  They express the kind of friendship that is rarely seen, a friendship that is without any agendas what so ever.  Untainted by expectations of loss or gain, totally free and simple in its expression.

  Friendship in the truest sense of the word is beyond time and space...

They never met again in this life

Read more in Tibetan Tales and other True Stories
Books by the Writer

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Khyentse Rinpoche

The evenings at Shechen Monastery were, for me, rather special times.  Khyentse Rinpoche would be sitting in his wooden meditation box, usually with a group of Lamas and devotees around him, his vast form glowing in an almost unearthly radiance mixed with the soft rays of the sinking sun.  

Shafts of sunlight would filter in through the yellow curtains, casting a golden light across the room. Butter lamps flickered on the altar and the smoke of incense  wafted  about in the still air.  There was a silence in those evening, an ambiance of grace that permeated the whole atmosphere.  During those hours i always had a sense of absolute contentment. In his presence, nothing was missing, the world felt utterly complete.

The atmosphere around Khyentse Rinpoche was never static, it always felt  'full'  to the point of saturation and yet, at the same time, intensely charged and deeply silent.  

His 'presence' created a most unique and dynamic space into which all manner of people from many different walks of life could come and find solace.  He never turned anyone away.  From Kings to ordinary folk from the villages, from high Lamas to simple monks, visitors would stream into his rooms from the crack of dawn until often late at night, Rinpoche, all the while, would be there in his meditation box,  giving,  giving,  giving....

This flow of giving was natural, un-contrived, and inexhaustible.  It was like a bottomless spring that gushes forth into a parched desert, and the thirsty world came to drink from these pristine,  blessed waters.

I remember one evening, after the sun had  set and there were only a handful of visitors and a few Lamas milling about in the large ante room.  Rinpoche was, as usual, in his meditation box and perusing a text, a pair of small reading glasses delicately balanced on his nose.  The silence of that moment between day and night had permeated the place with a feeling of great peace.  

Suddenly the outer door to the waiting room opened and in streamed a large melee of Westerners.  Tall ones, fat ones, thin ones, and short ones.  A whole colorful variety, dressed in all the shades of the spectrum and in fashions from as many different countries around the globe as there were numbers among them.  It was odd to see such a confusion of types float into the room in such disciplined silence and with such a focused sense of purpose on their faces.  In fact it was very striking, quite apart from the contrast that all this sudden influx bought with it...

Read more in Shades of Awareness, Part 3, 
Masters, Mice and Men

Books by the Writer