October 28, 2003

refuge and empty teachers

I’ve waited for nearly two years. I asked lamas and they maybe didn’t think I was ready or something. But on Sunday (10/26/03), I took formal refuge. It was a nice ceremony in San Francisco at Tse Chen Ling with Geshe Ngawang Drakpa. My Dharma name is now Ngawang Tashi. [When you take refuge you get your teacher’s name and an additional name — sorta like how we do it in the United States with surnames.]

Later that day and yesterday I felt pretty down. Bad headache, stomach ache, etc. I think I was burning up all that bad karma or something. Plus I’ve had a lot on my mind...

One day over lunch I was sitting with a coworker and we got to talking about Geshe Michael Roach. He asked how I felt about some recent news (of which I knew nothing about). If you are a student of Geshe-la’s then maybe you should spend some time reading his open letter that was sent to the lamas, then read the Worldview response, then read the lama’s responses. It will be better if you do it in this order and find out things in that order. [They are in Adobe PDF format, by the way.] If you already know about this or you aren’t a student of Geshe Michael’s then maybe you won’t want to spend all that time, but the following poem will probably not mean much for you.

So, this coworker asked, but I didn’t know anything about it. I sought out these answers on my own and then composed this “poem”:

Everything of value I learned from him.
He taught of keeping your morality,
To free you from getting old, sickness, death, and having to be reborn.
By keeping these vows you can come to understand reality.
Nothing works the way we think it does,
Everything works because of your kindness to others.
He brought the books of a culture nearly lost into full view for all,
Translating them in a beautiful way,
Preserving them in many ways.
Taught me to learn this language,
Though, through no fault of his, it’s taken me a long time to learn.
Taught me to meditate on important things,
Though, through no fault of his, it’s taken me a long time to learn.
Taught me to give service to the great, holy lamas.
Now I work for one of the great Dharma centers of holy Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Though, through no fault of his, it’s taken me a long time to get here.
When I heard about his trainings at the great retreat,
I must admit I was a little shocked.
I must say that I was a little hurt.
I felt a bit of sadness.
Then I didn’t know what to feel.
I quickly jumped to his defense:
Look at the tankhas and the union of the two.
It’s not for you or I, but who’s to say it’s not for him.
I thought and struggled with it more.
Finally, just recently, I found his open letter to the holy lamas.
I read it carefully, I understood it’s meaning.
If it’s true, and I cannot know for sure,
What I have learned has been from a great holy guru.
A spiritual guide of the highest form.
Since I cannot know the answer,
As I am just an ordinary being,
I will take the guru’s word as such.
And as a thinking, analytical, questioning person,
I will likely keep searching for answers,
Searching for truth and searching for true realizations.

posted @ 9:56 PM

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