compassion. But really, it is very easy to be genuine. Compassion is conjoined with seeing clearly, and the more we see how things really are, the more we realize how messed up almost everybody is. You see the desperation in people’s eyes because we are so locked in our ignorance. Even if somebody looks outwardly very affluent and happy and fine, we realize that they are still so vulnerable because they are acting from their ignorance and their ego-clinging: they are living far below their true potential, as almost everybody is. Acting like a little chicken—not understanding that we are all each truly a phoenix—is so sad.
We have this incredible potential as human beings—we have buddha nature—but look what we do with it. This is the underlying truth of compassion—it is when we realize the enormity of our dilemma, and how so few people are really sincerely interested in finding a way out. Even when they think they are. They may want to find a way out, but there are so many other things happening. Maybe tomorrow, they say. Opening to this underlying truth is to open to true compassion, and this is not mere pity or idiot compassion.
In England in the early 1960s, I became a Tibetan Buddhist of the Kagyu tradition. And so I was very happy to meet Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Kagyu lama. He came to England with Akong Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche was going to study at Oxford University, but when he first arrived he stayed with a middle-class family. They invited me and my mother to go and meet him, which we did. In those days, of course, there were very few people interested in Tibetan Buddhism. This was in an era when mostly Theravadin Buddhism was practiced, and Zen and Tibetan Buddhism were looked on with suspicion. Trungpa Rinpoche didn’t have many friends. The two Kagyu lamas arrived and they were put in Oxford and then what—there was John Driver, who was a Tibetan scholar who was there to help them, but they had very few friends. As a result, one weekend they would come to visit us in London and at the next weekend my mother and I would go to Oxford. In this way we got to know them quite well.
Trungpa Rinpoche was very interesting because he was nothing like what I imagined a lama should be. And yet I felt he was the real thing. I didn’t know quite why, but I had met several lamas by this time, and I felt that somehow he had a certain quality which the others did not have.
And then Trungpa Rinpoche said to me one day, “Well, look. You might not believe this, but actually in Tibet I was quite a high lama and I never thought it would come to this. But please, can I teach you meditation? I must have one student!”
So I said, “Okay, if you feel like this.”
None of us imagined that he would go on to have such an incredible influence on introducing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and with such brilliance. Because in those days, his English was very limited; he struggled to express concepts beyond the range of his language. But he ended up with a facility in English that was so brilliant and innovative. He used the language to convey what he needed to express.
Tibetan lamas are educated to be extremely traditional. What is emphasized in their training is memorization and the ability to reproduce the words of former masters eloquently. Your own thoughts are not really appreciated unless they mirror the thoughts of the lineage lamas. Innovation is not appreciated on the whole. It’s fascinating to see how many of the younger Tibetan lamas have taken their understanding of the Dharma and interpreted it anew for the very different minds which they meet in the West. I think it shows their sheer brilliance and the depth of their genuine understanding of the Dharma. They are offering their own genuine realization through extraordinary words which have no equivalent in Tibetan. And of course Trungpa Rinpoche led the way.
It is also interesting to see what happens when some of these lamas who are very innovative
We have this incredible potential as human beings—we have buddha nature—but look what we do with it. This is the underlying truth of compassion—it is when we realize the enormity of our dilemma, and how so few people are really sincerely interested in finding a way out. Even when they think they are. They may want to find a way out, but there are so many other things happening. Maybe tomorrow, they say. Opening to this underlying truth is to open to true compassion, and this is not mere pity or idiot compassion.
In England in the early 1960s, I became a Tibetan Buddhist of the Kagyu tradition. And so I was very happy to meet Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Kagyu lama. He came to England with Akong Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche was going to study at Oxford University, but when he first arrived he stayed with a middle-class family. They invited me and my mother to go and meet him, which we did. In those days, of course, there were very few people interested in Tibetan Buddhism. This was in an era when mostly Theravadin Buddhism was practiced, and Zen and Tibetan Buddhism were looked on with suspicion. Trungpa Rinpoche didn’t have many friends. The two Kagyu lamas arrived and they were put in Oxford and then what—there was John Driver, who was a Tibetan scholar who was there to help them, but they had very few friends. As a result, one weekend they would come to visit us in London and at the next weekend my mother and I would go to Oxford. In this way we got to know them quite well.
Trungpa Rinpoche was very interesting because he was nothing like what I imagined a lama should be. And yet I felt he was the real thing. I didn’t know quite why, but I had met several lamas by this time, and I felt that somehow he had a certain quality which the others did not have.
And then Trungpa Rinpoche said to me one day, “Well, look. You might not believe this, but actually in Tibet I was quite a high lama and I never thought it would come to this. But please, can I teach you meditation? I must have one student!”
So I said, “Okay, if you feel like this.”
None of us imagined that he would go on to have such an incredible influence on introducing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and with such brilliance. Because in those days, his English was very limited; he struggled to express concepts beyond the range of his language. But he ended up with a facility in English that was so brilliant and innovative. He used the language to convey what he needed to express.
Tibetan lamas are educated to be extremely traditional. What is emphasized in their training is memorization and the ability to reproduce the words of former masters eloquently. Your own thoughts are not really appreciated unless they mirror the thoughts of the lineage lamas. Innovation is not appreciated on the whole. It’s fascinating to see how many of the younger Tibetan lamas have taken their understanding of the Dharma and interpreted it anew for the very different minds which they meet in the West. I think it shows their sheer brilliance and the depth of their genuine understanding of the Dharma. They are offering their own genuine realization through extraordinary words which have no equivalent in Tibetan. And of course Trungpa Rinpoche led the way.
It is also interesting to see what happens when some of these lamas who are very innovative
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