"This meditation-rock of Drigung..."

NOTE: The next few entries are back-dated (is this what I am trying to say??). I just got back from Drigung-til where there was no Internet access (thankfully).

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
10:39 pm, Drigung Valley

Earlier this afternoon, we arrived at Drigung and our tents were already all set-up. The Windhorse folks are amazing. I'm happy to be back. The mere sight of the Drigung-til when we passed the turn-off to Terdrom brought a deep joy and gratitude.

After a couple of hours at the campsite, getting ourselves into tents, checking out the site (lots and lots of wild-flowers blooming this year) and enjoying tea, we went up to the monastery. It was packed with people as this is the annual cham (monastic dance) festival. Samten Puntsok, the director of the monastery – a tall, stately but also kind and soft-spoken monk, probably in his forties, received us. While the rest of the group looked around, Bhuchung-la and I went up to the smaller guest room and were served butter-tea by Samten Puntsok. Within a few minutes, Balok Rinpoche came from his retreat-house above the monastery. It was really good seeing Balok Rinpoche again. He has been up here at Drigung-til teaching the monks basic Tibetan grammar and Mandarin Chinese and of course, he will be dancing one of the major parts in the cham that will take place tomorrow. Rinpoche looked good – he has put on some weight, in a good way. He had with him a monk who’s learning English as well as two other young Tibetans who are currently helping with his and his father’s projects. He introduced me to them and we had a nice time chatting. I didn’t stay too long since it was getting late and the group was tired and some were suffering from altitude sickness – the monastery is around 14,000 feet.

It’s late and the barking of dogs can be heard from a distance. Perhaps they’re in the village further up the road or perhaps they might even be from the monastery way up on the ridge. Drigung Valley, where we are camping, is a little over 13,000 feet and Drigung-til Monastery sits perched on a ridge, another 800 or even a thousand feet above us. So here I am, sitting in my single-person tent, typing away.

I’ve just finished watching a DVD featuring the recent development and growth of the Drigung Kagyu Lineage under the leadership of the two co-heads of the lineage – the Drigung Kyabgons. The rest of our group had gone to bed early. But I remembered having the DVD with me and my iBook was all charged-up and I thought, why not? Huddled together in the kitchen tent with our guide, driver, cook and helpers, we watched for a little over an hour. There was lots of footage on an important lama who they cannot openly talk about and cannot have pictures of (you-know-who)… It was a bitter-sweet experience. I suddenly felt like a complete outsider in that tent as I realized that no matter how much I think I revere this person and the effect I feel he has on me every time I see his picture or video footage of him, I recognized in that tent tonight that I have no idea what he truly means to the Tibetans. May the Holder of the White Lotus, the Buddha of Compassion, live long for hundreds of kalpas!

They’ve kindly set up my tent a little away from the rest of the group (not that I needed that at all!) but most heartening is they’ve set it up so that I’m facing the monastery directly – the only tent facing that way. Kyobpa Rinpoche’s (founder of Drigung-til in 1179) words “This meditation-rock of Drigung is inseparable from me in the three times” keep coming up in my mind. And I think I experienced the reality of those words today. I think.