THE BACK STORY

I’ve just returned from five sublime days of dharma teachings by my beloved Rinpoche, who in the midst of clarifying complicated text also managed a hugely splendid empowerment as well as several smaller pujas on the side. Over 200 people sat at his Tibetan feet, soaking up profound instructions for passing through samsara to nirvana and on to the pure realm beyond, praying for no stop lights or breakdowns on the way. I came away with a full heart, a wiser mind and a strong conviction that the most important lesson dharma students need to hear at events like this is actually: please watch your back.

 

This is a reminder that many of the deities we are told to emulate have an extra face to stay aware of what’s going on behind them. I can’t imagine they would play bumper cars on the shrine room floor like all the folks who show up supposedly to practice putting others before themselves, but stand up in a crowded room and, without bothering to look over their shoulder to see if any one might be back there, start prostrating as though they are the only person present. The first morning of this particular program, I made the three hand gestures and was leaning forward to go to the floor when a woman in front abruptly backed up and filled the whole of space. I rocked backwards, grabbed the chair to stop wobbling and fell into it because there was nowhere else to go. The first afternoon, the man in front of me backed into the space beside my chair as though nobody behind him existed, and prevented me from sidling out to prostrate. That’s when I decided there ought to be a sign on all Bodhisattva thangkhas that says: Look both ways before uncrossing the feet.

 

Watch your back also means a bodhisattva, when choosing a seat, would probably care a lot about possibly obstructing whoever might be behind them. They would not necessarily, like the tallest men in the room, inevitably rush to sit in the front row, obliviously preventing everyone in all the rows behind from seeing anything but them. At this event, the three Caucasian giants blocking the view really stood out like skyscrapers because most of the folks behind them were far shorter Chinese. Their inconsideration was culturally embarrassing.

 

Unfortunately, they had nothing on the 5’8” woman with the really, really big hair —a Niagara Falls of multi layered, mid back length, frizzy black tresses—who, every time she sat down, insistently reached up to fluff it up higher and wider. The afternoon I sat behind watching this expansion practice, I developed the maddest urge to reach into my purse, pull out my little pocket picture of Rinpoche and tape it to the back of her head to turn it into a thangkha, so I could at least see his face while he was teaching. I thought this kinder than pulling all her hair back from the roots into a super tight pony tail so I might get a glimpse of him for real. And to tell the truth, I didn’t have a rubber band as handy as that picture.

 

Of course, these are gripes and perhaps petty to boot, but they lead straight to the bigger problem of not politely looking behind to notice, in the forward flow of time and relation to the teacher, other people have appeared. Robert Thurman likes to shout in his stentorian way, we insidiously think of ourselves as “the one, the only one, the most important person in the room.” We tend to think the door to Dharma locked once we ourselves walked in, blissfully ignoring the fact that “younger siblings” kept on coming also to bask in the glow of the guru, to become as integral to the sangha as we did. Zealous or devout as practice might appear, it seems to be painfully hard to reach the realization of not being the one and only child, to rouse enough generosity and/or confidence to freely share the teacher.

 

In fact, it’s such a bitch to transcend jealousy, pride and clinging to him or her, don’t bogart the Buddha looks like the toughest of all teachings. I found this out years ago when I spent the majority of a ten-day retreat catching the tears of a model meditator severely distraught at being shut out of its executive hierarchy specifically because she’d had first dibs on its Rinpoche way back when nobody else recognized his grandeur. Being first once seemed to have instilled in her a divine right to first place every time, for despite being an authorized teacher of mahamudra and the truth of impermanence, she couldn’t get over being passed over as the sangha rolled on taking on new members. She was crying and kicking about being replaced instead of honored.

 

I crashed into that feeling about five years ago when suddenly I was shut out of the inner circle of a coterie that ran a particular annual retreat. For several years, at its behest, I ran the kitchen for Rinpoche, and in the process, fussed like a mother over the care and feeding of his attendants. Consequently I developed a strong personal relationship not only with my teacher but with important monks. Inner doors of the sangha opened, and I got quickly to its epicenter. It was heady.

 

After being repeatedly asked to cook, I presumed to have the lock on the job, so it came as a colossal shock to find myself ignored the next time around, not only passed over but deliberately shut out with a gesture of grand slam. I had no access to the teacher and couldn’t even talk to “my” monks. I went ballistic, into the full frontal suffering of rage. Wanting to kill those nasty organizers for keeping me from “my people”, that year I went through the ten Dharma days smoldering and snarling, as though what had happened to me was far more important than what Rinpoche had come to say.

 

It took almost three years to move past what had been an organizer’s personal vendetta, to see at least that others were getting the opportunity given earlier to me. I told myself there was nothing wrong with this per se. It was simply their turn to connect with the greater sangha, and I was supposed to have immeasurable joy and equanimity over their wondrous opportunity. Impermanence had stepped out front and center to wave at me, knocking me over with its hurricane strength, and I needed to pull myself together.

 

The grumps and grunts of trying to grant leeway subsided slowly, their demise hastened in Kathmandu by the discovery that old relationships were almost as good as new. There was no way they could be altered by interlopers because I’d been keeping them alive by other means. I’d gone from feeding those monks to feeding all three hundred children in the school one of them had become principal of, and setting up a massive kitchen garden at the monastery another was now in charge of. Realizing my relationships depended only on me, on my generosity, helped relax resentment, de-intensify begrudging others their fair space. Not perfectly, but a lot.

 

I went to this last retreat to upgrade, for I knew full well I was going to be just another Caucasian face in a predominately Chinese crowd, one that knew absolutely nothing about my sangha relationships or contribution “cred.” Those folks were all come-latelys doing their own thing, in this case all the work to set up a splendid retreat for my benefit. I needed to salute, not scorn, them. I got off the plane reminding myself I had come to Vancouver for the teachings and not for monopolizing monks. I had come to be just another grain of sand, and test what Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche said two weeks before about real humility arising only out of a confidence true and pure enough to be devoid of pride. 

 

It was awesome. For starters, this was a perfect place to see what happens when someone really does glom onto the guru, ludicrously signaling “mine! Mine! MINE!” Angelically rich Chinese benefactresses seem to share the stubborn trait of staking and broadcasting their sponsorship claim by physically attaching themselves to whichever Rinpoche they’ve selected. So there was one, marching to the blare of longhorns, in and out of the shrine hall right behind Rinpoche and before all his monks, so that we were bowing simultaneously to him and her inseparable. Seeing flamboyant pride so ignorant of what Khyentse Rinpoche was trying to say about never a boast or brag was an ideal teaching about letting go. 

 

I also got spotted by the four among the dozen monks who knew me from the past. In their magically discreet way, they plied me with gifts and quiet entrée to Rinpoche. I had surprise reunions with dharma brothers and sisters, and as people overheard us talk, word of our contributions to Rinpoche’s charities somehow circulated. Strangers began to nod as I passed. “Holy shitake!” I told myself. Merit for maintaining this chill-out practice is manifesting. This stuff really works!

 

On the final afternoon, when I came back from lunch to take my seat, one of the monks I knew and one of the Chinese worker bees energetically intercepted me. With matching smiles, they pointed to the makeshift storeroom, telling me to hurry and put on one of the Tibetan dresses in the nearest suitcase. I had been chosen for the grand ceremonial long life offering that closes these retreats. It’s an honor usually bestowed on the most valuable players. I would not upon arrival have given even the smallest odds to me, yet the next thing I knew, I was in a bright red brocade chuba and a golden yellow shirt. With everyone in that room’s eyes on me, I was slowly walking, to the chanting of a dozen monks, down the aisle toward Rinpoche’s throne, steps behind the great and glorious Chinese lady bountiful. 

Just that morning I had told Rinpoche his blessings were enormous and endless. Now I knew that not even all the sentient beings in the universe pushing in from behind me could dilute them. I could take as practice the mantra,  walk-ins welcome.

~Sandy Garson
"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/

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