A Thye Dorje, all, always.
A Shamar, unlimited.
(ver original article)
1. The smile of the lamas
The first images that came out of the Himalayas in 1959, when China took over Tibet, caused stupor. The great lamas went into exile, the destruction of an ancient Buddhist culture began, their programmed impoverishment, their humiliation and genocide; however, the lamas smiled.
¿Because?
They knew that Tibet was not, In fact, but a beautiful mirage.
That its consistency, to put it with the conventional metaphor of Tibetan Buddhism, it was that of a rainbow. One more figure in the free game of the mind.
like themselves. like us all. like everything.
What really mattered to them is pure and indestructible: the ultimate nature of all things, buddhahood. Well seen —or seen like this—, everything that happens around us, here, now —although in reality there is neither here nor now—, inside and outside of us —although there is not even “inside”” nor “outside”” nor “we”—, es dharmadatu: an expression of buddhahood itself. Emptiness.
Even, Of course, Tibet and its destruction.
Emptiness.
Hence the smile of the lamas. Hence your happiness. Or your undisturbed bliss.
2. Buddha is me
A picket of red guards nailed the beloved Rinpoche to the walls of his monastery. His disciples, forced to witness torture, they cried. The red guards spat: “abjure Buddha and we will unnail you”.
The disciples begged him: “¡Things! ¿What are they, but words? ¡Nothing! ¡Vive, Rinpoche, to teach us! ¡do it for us!”
Buda, which just means awake, who has realized the ultimate nature of himself and of all things, the emptiness, it's not god, is not a god; it's not, neither, this or that person, in particular: is the conscience, empty herself, of emptiness.
Buddha is emptiness and emptiness is Buddha.
“¿How could I deny Buddha??”, the teacher said, nailed to the wall, “If Buddha is me”.
That was Rinpoche's last teaching.
3. The gong of the monasteries
Tibet is a country as big as China itself, or more, and at different times had a profound influence on her; He even subdued her.
A country that in the mid-20th century was almost depopulated, with huge areas practically uninhabitable; concentrated in their monasteries, scattered, on its fragile rice terraces, in their herds of yaks, of goats, in the tents of their nomads.
Silence. Isolation. During long winters, mountain passes remain closed. In the distance you can hear the tinkling of goat bells.
And the gongs of the monasteries.
Since arriving in the Himalayas, in the 7th century, of his own guru Rinpoché Padmasambava, the one who was born from the lotus, the monasteries, gompas, Tibetans —now spread throughout the world— are delivered to the transmission, from teacher to disciple, of Vajrayana Buddhism: the path of the vajra, the weapon that cuts through everything, the ego, the minds, the phenomena, the times, the conscience…
It is the path of instant realization of the nature of mind —that is to say, buddhahood— thanks to the teacher's compassion and openness, maturity, the disciple's devotion.
An inexplicable transmission, conceptually and literally, extraordinary. Therefore, secret. It has its origin in the third cycle of teachings given in his maturity by Siddartha Gautama himself., Buda, on Vulture Peak, in India, around the 5th century BC.
Historically, the Vajrayana can be traced, faithfully, since the 2nd century AD; from the Mahasiddhas —those who achieved the greatest achievements— from India. In particular, from Saraha, whose flow of fulfillment and compassion may have been encrypted —beyond history and time, that are nothing but an illusion— a Dorje Chang: the one who holds the dorje.
Since the transmission is direct, from teacher to student, over time Vajrayana Buddhism of Tibet, just like the snow in the mountains —to say it with the traditional metaphor—, descends into different streams, when the sun melts it, but it's still the same water, the same snow, separated into four lineages or schools.
All this to express purity, the vitality and antiquity of the Vajrayana lineages of Tibet, what gives meaning to their monasteries —It is what is seen in his mural paintings, what is heard in your prayers, what his monks aspire to—.
It is true that, in thirteen hundred years, monasteries achieved unprecedented influencetranstable in Tibet; that lineages and monasteries fought among themselves to prevail; that some became bureaucratized and created courts, around the lamas; that it came to civil war; that the conflicts with Mongolia, China and Nepal were, many times, in wars and invasions.
It's samsara, ordinary reality, the kingdom of desire.
The impressive thing is that, through samsara, has been leaked, pura, intact —I would say, boiling—, the transmission of buddha. Tibet is, also, the land of great achievements, of the great lamas: of the living Buddhas.
4. ¿Because?
Nobody knows exactly why, the day after he seized power in China, Mao Tse Tung decided to hold, first; invade —not in such a surreptitious way— and after nine years, conquer Tibet.
Some think it did it because of its water or some minerals. Maybe they have some importance today; I don't think it was that much 1950.
No other reasons are guessed, outside of “just because”.
From his first interview with Mao, as remembered by the Dalai Lama, I retain a phrase: “We are superior”, Mao spat.. I see Mao with an atavistic mentality, of Mandarin and a historical resentment towards the Tibetan civilization, with which China had competed for centuries. Your purpose, as becomes clear with time, It was not the looting or exploitation of resources, even if they were human. His conquest had no military relevance either., nor commercial.
It was useless.
The only thing manifest is his will to humiliate and destroy.
Maybe China is now getting some benefit from tourism?… ¡that you come to admire, precisely, to that Tibetan civilization!
Chinese guards smoke, They spit and smash their cigarette butts on the floors of Lhasa's lhakhangs., where Tibetans make prostrations… And Beijing tourists take photos.
It's the only benefit, tangible, to China.
A humiliation and a destruction, at the hands of teenage paramilitaries —the red guards—, in the name of a future —“scientifically” predicted— which very soon resolved into the major ecological and cultural catastrophe of China today; a “socialism”” with extensive “special zones”” labor slavery; an unusual bureaucratic despotism, only comparable to the measureless voracity of its corruption; a megalomaniac state, with a cartoonish desire to dominate the world, which could well resolve into a nuclear deflagration.
Tibet could be the whole world.
5. The dandelion
For the Tibetan lamas, The Chinese invasion was the push to share their knowledge, your transmissions, his lineage, with the whole world.
They made their self-criticism: Tibet had remained isolated for too long; locked in his gompas; in a poetic, an art, of astonishing delicacy and depth, whose center was, invariably, the Buddhadharma.
Now, it was clear to the lamas, To preserve the Buddhadharma it was necessary to disseminate it in the world: the Chinese invasion would have been, so, like the breath that disperses the dandelion seeds.
And in the middle of the decade of 1960, los rinpoches, geshes and khenpos of Tibet, They began to interact with a world they did not know. To learn other languages, to look for interpreters, to train translators. To understand.
and the world, in turn, I didn't know them. Many in the West thought —maybe they think—, that tantra, the highest —so to speak— from Buddha's teachings, it was a sexual practice. For your part, some lamas claimed, in the midst of his teachings in Scandinavian countries, that the earth was flat, "Yeah, Yeah, like the palm of my hand”.
The anecdotes have no end. What was impressive was the openness of spirit of the lamas to understand the contemporary world. And vice versa: The Dalai Lama made an immediate impact and became one of the icons of the 20th century. A monk with a clear and easy laugh, of an unusual absence of prejudice, who understood today's incomprehensible world and never proselytized —able to dialogue with cutting-edge scientists, with the most powerful political leaders, with the most radical artists, with the most influential religious leaders, with those who lead rebellion movements, with the plain man—; the political representative of a lost country, invaded and destroyed, who does not feel hatred or resentment towards China. a simple man, smiling, capable of including everyone in a deep, fresh compassion.
Un Bodhisattva.
I wasn't the only one.
The world did not see, so, to Tibetan Buddhism as something particular, sino universal. It gave him the opportunity to refresh his perspectives —in science, in the day to day, in the intimate and the public—; I saw in him what philosophy and religions had lost.: the ability and will to transform, to oneself and the world.
And the lamas began to have good students, in East and West.
Like Larousse's motto, Dandelion seeds were scattered “to all the winds”. At the end of the day, The treasure of Tibet was not reduced to a culture, to a territory, to some buildings, to some objects —that they had, like everyone, the consistency of the moon's reflection in a pond—: It is the Buddhadharma, the pulsating transmission of Vajrayana.
China's governments became obsessed with the Dalai Lama: they sanction, like police of the world, with abrupt trade measures to the countries that receive it. The tiny Tibetan government in exile, a McLeod Gang, a distant peak of northern India, in the Himalayas, is experienced as a strategic threat for which —according to them— It is already the first world power.
Beyond, The Chinese governments know that the strength lies in Tibetan Buddhism and they have wanted to adulterate it, pervert it: They kidnapped the Panchen Lama, when I was a child; intervened in the recognition of the reincarnation of Karmapa.
Yet, The roar of the snow lion is heard throughout the world. and it is, so to speak, viral. Although there are few who listen to it and even fewer who take advantage of it.
Maybe it's always been like this. Adherence to Samsara —the gangs— it's huge.
Conrad Toasted, Tibetan monk painting a stupa
6. Stupas
The small monastery of the hamlet where Lopon Sechu Rinpoche was born, in Bhutan, in 1918, stands on the edge of a cliff.
Far below you can see the clouds, among untouched forests.
The morning I visited it was full of child monks, who laughed and played loudly: the old monastery, of heavy wooden staves, was full of life.
Member of the royal family, Lopon Sechu led the life of a yogi; He went to look for his teachers in Tibet and Nepal, at a time when roads were paths traveled on foot, on the edge of the abyss.
And he became the favorite disciple of the sixteenth Karmapa.
When China began the invasion of Tibet, Lopon Sechu was approaching forty years old and was a simple and extraordinary man.: one of the most admired and respected lamas of the 20th century, beyond the Himalayas. He went into exile in Nepal, where the king —hindu— recognized him and made him one of his most influential advisors.
in 1959, when it's all over, Lopon Sechu became one of the most effective strategists of the exile: from Kathmandu helped many, big and small, to leave Tibet: we must give these lands —he told the kings of Nepal, from Sikkim, from Bhutan; a Nehru y a Indira Gandhi, They didn't know who was who in Tibet—, to build their monastery; let these others follow to India; those, open a center here, near the stupas of Boudha or Swayambhu.
When the first Tibetan exodus happened, during the sixties and seventies, Lopon Sechu was one of the lamas most convinced that it was necessary to spread, in the whole world, Vajrayana knowledge, preserved by the four lineages of Tibet.
His strategy was, at once, canonical and effective: build stupas. before dying, Siddhartha Gautama, Buda, gave instructions on how to build them— a very ancient tradition of funerary monuments from the steppes and the Himalayas— of Buddhadharma: that is to say, how to establish physical presence, real, of the mind, the body and the word of Buddha.
Each stupa is dedicated to one of the eight acts, older or younger, of Buddha: one of them is having taught his mother, in the sky of 33. To these they consecrate —activate— large slats: Bodhisattvas.
At the end of the 1980, Lopon Sechu began building the first stupas outside Asia; They were the last and necessary foundation, according to your vision, to sow the Buddha Dharma in the world.
Maggie Lhenert Kossowki had been one of the closest supporters of Solidarnosc and Lech Walesa in Gdansk, in 1980, when I was a student at university. At the end of that decade, met Lopon Sechu in Warsaw, during Rinpoche's first tour in Europe and decided to follow him. Maggie was beginning her thirties; no one knows how she organized herself with her husband, the architect —also stupa builder— Wojtec Kossowsy and his two daughters, Anya and Galu.
Maggie helped Lopon Sechu build all the stupas of his life.
At the beginning of the century, Rinpoche and Maggie had built, in East and West, stupas dedicated to all acts of Buddha, minus one: Lhabab Duchen, Lopon Sechu Day.
Valentina Tostado, The top of a stupa
7. Kathmandu
A group of pilgrims from Mexico and Colombia visited Lopon Sechu —and his inseparable Maggie— in the late nineties, in Kathmandu: ¿What can we do, Rinpoche, in Colombia, torn by civil war? —some ladies asked him.
Build a stupa —responded Lopon Sechu.
Beatriz and Bertha, from Mexico, who were part of the group, They assumed the council as their own and upon their return to a country also torn by violence, They looked for Marco Antonio Karam, founder, in 1989, from Casa Tibet México; the third representation of the Tibetan government in exile —it is worth saying, embassy: The first was in New Delhi and the second in New York.— and dharma center.
Lopon Sechu assumed the leadership of what would be called, onwards, Peace Stupa, in Avándaro and decided to dedicate it to Lhabab Duchen: the day of his birth. The cycle was closing. Rinpoche died in 2003, when the stupa was just a project.
¿Who would assume the spiritual direction of the stupa? Shamar.
in 2005, The Buen Corazón association and Casa Tibet began the work. Shamar sent Lama Jampa to Mexico, an admirable monk, which was located in the Hong Kong Dharma Center.
In March of 2006, the stupa —first in Mexico and perhaps in Latin America—, It was finished in a leafy forest. Shamar decided to send Karmapa, which then had 23 years, for his consecration —and was officially received by the Mexican government.
Many things happened during the consecration: large rings appeared in the sky; remained stable for a long time, while Karmapa gave the Bodhisattva vow and were recorded in hundreds of photos and videos; the cameras captured —without the eyes seeing it— lightning, like laser, that came out, vertical, recto, from the stupa, that great black birds circled, flying, how to make koras.
after a while, without looking for it, even imagine it, I was invited to work in India as a cultural attaché of the embassy: I instantly knew it was Karmapa.
Upon arrival I asked Karmapa the meaning of those signs., during the consecration of the stupa: "it's natural —said—; occurs when the teacher opens up to his students and the students, to the teacher”.
