The Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa - Contd.
The following is a personal appreciation of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa,
by Ken Holmes, from his book "Karmapa", published by
Altea
Saving the Lineage
After the initial turmoil of flight, a new reality
was starting to take shape for Tibetans in India and the Himalayan kingdoms,
living in refugee camps such as the one at Baxa. Some of the first contacts were
made with sympathetic westerners, such as the now famous Freda Bedi, and an
understanding of the world at large, into which they had been projected, began
to form. The main task in the Karmapa's hands were to ensure the continuity of
his lineage through the education of the young tulkus in his charge and the
transmission to them of the many teachings and techniques of the Kagyu tradition, and
to establish the temples and retreat centres needed for Kagyu Buddhism to
continue. Yet, in another way, he simply continued to do what Karmapas have
always done. The Sixteenth Karmapa sometimes shocked his followers, who saw him
as a living Buddha and one of the most important people in Asia, by declaring in
total sincerity, "I am simply a monk". Unattached to any country, any people or
any thing—a friend and example for everyone—it was his duty as a monk to give
teachings and nurture the dharma wherever he might be. This also explains the
example he set by supervising the construction work at Tsurphu, right up to the
imminent arrival of the Chinese. He doubtless knew what was to come and some may
wonder, "why bother?". He was pointing to the sacred duty of doing all one can,
every day, in a positive way. Thus his followers had made the good karma of
building temples for absolutely as long as it was possible so to do and, from a
Buddhist perspective, that good karma would be their best companion in times and
lives to come.
In 1964, following a successful petition for reinstatement made to HH the
Dalai Lama by the unofficial Shamar incarnation, the latter was enthroned by HH
the Gyalwa Karmapa as the Eleventh Sharmapa. His reincarnation had also been
born into the A-toop family and the young boy had been at Tsurphu and fled Tibet
with the Karmapa but official recognition had been impossible in Tibet itself as
Shamarpa incarnations had been banned by edict of the central Tibetan government
from the late eighteenth century onwards, following accusations of
war-mongering.
A new seat
By 1966 the construction of the new Rumtek was completed and
the relics brought out from Tsurphu were installed. On Tibetan New Year's day
(losar) HH the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa officially opened his new seat called,
"The Dharmachakra Centre, a place of erudition and spiritual accomplishment, the
seat of the glorious Karmapa". This was to be the hub from which Kagyu dharma
spread throughout the world and, step by step, the traditional monastic calendar
of special prayers, lama dances, summer rains retreat and so forth was
reinstated in that centre-point to ensure the correct spiritual dynamic for the
years ahead. Rumtek, the mandala with the Karmapa at its centre, became a very
special place, described by many as "the monastery wreathed in a thousand rays
of rainbow light".
In Sikkim itself the foundations of Kagyu dharma were established.
Traditional texts were, studied, ordinations performed, tulkus found and
enthroned, retreat centres built and texts carved onto wooden blocks for
xylographic printing. The kindness of the Bhutanese royal family gave
hospitality to his tradition in Bhutan also, with the gift of a palace and a
large piece of land, upon which to establish a major monastery. Gradually,
contacts were made in India and Nepal. At one point, His Holiness had a vision
that the construction of many temples and monasteries close to the great stupa
at Bodhnath in Nepal (which at the time had little except for the stupa, a
temple and a few shops) would greatly help the spread of pure buddhadharma
throughout the world. Mainly due to the Karmapa's inspiration, many teachers
have established monasteries and temples there and it has become an important
focus of Tibetan Buddhism.
Reaching out to the world
In 1967, the first Western Tibetan Buddhist
centre, named "Samye Ling" after Samye, the first great monastery of Tibet, was
established by Trugpa Tulku and Akong Tulku in Scotland, under the Karmapa's
auspices. Through the early seventies several other centres emerged in the West
and in 1974 the Karmapa set out on his first world tour. I had the pleasure of
meeting him at that time and of preparing his arrival in Scotland and France.
The way had already been prepared by the visits of the Very Venerable Kalu
Rinpoche, whose monks first blew the earth-shaking long horns (ra-dong) and
oboes (ja-ling) of Tibet in Europe. His Holiness' visit set the seal on the
beginnings which had taken place. Accompanied by tulkus, a full entourage of
monks and Freda Bedi, who was now the Buddhist nun Sister Kechog Palmo, "mummy"
to the Tibetans, he performed the Vajra Crown ceremony in Western lands for the
first time and gave empowerments and dharma advice. In hindsight, that first
visit was the milestone which marked the true arrival of the Kagyu tradition in
the world at large.
A great wave of inspiration followed in its wake and His Holiness
returned again for a fuller visit in 1977, this time with many more, new centres
to visit. This was a very extensive world tour. He visited centres in four
continents and met heads of state, heads of religion, elders of many traditions
and people from the world of arts. Sometimes in dharma centres, sometimes in
huge public spaces holding crowds of many thousands, he performed the Vajra
Crown ceremony, gave empowerments, ordinations, bodhisattva vow and refuge and
many blessings to people of all faiths. On looking through hundreds of
photographs of these visits, the striking feature is the contagious joy and
happiness of His Holiness wherever he went. One of the few English words he knew
was "Happy?": a question he posed gleefully after giving Refuge or Bodhisattva
vow. His joyful, yet nevertheless powerful and authoritative, presence gave many
people new to vajrayana the first real chance to meet a perfect guru, free to
show the blissfull liberation of his enlightenment.
During this tour, my wife and I had the honour of accompanying him for
six months, I as a visa-seeking cum centre-preparing cum chauffeur factotum for
the European stage of his tour, organised by Akong Tulku Rinpoche, and Katia as
promoter of a major new monastery and dharma centre, to be built on land in
France's Dordogne, donated by the inventor Bernard Benson. In travelling at his
side during that time, through many different countries, I saw him time after
time awaken the fundamental goodness and spiritual potential in people. It was
like being with the morning sun as it passes over the earth, warming the ground,
nourishing life everywhere and opening millions of flowers. Never had any of us
met anyone who radiated so much fundamental goodness and joy, who spoke with
such natural authority and fearlessness and whose every gesture was the living
demonstration of mindfulness, compassionate care for everyone and lucidity. All
paled next to the shimmering natural intelligence that he embodied and that
seemd to permeate every place in which he stayed.
We had the particular pleasure of helping him buy and look after the
birds of which he was so fond. I saw breeders amazed as their normally fearful
and hard-to-catch birds went peacefully to the Karmapa. But especially we saw
the birds which died stay erect for days in a peaceful glow of meditation on
their perches, instead of dropping to the cage floor, as is normal. Some said
these birds were reincarnations of former disciples, who through some bad karma
had this lesser body but who through their devotion were born into his presence.
Enlightened activity
Under the Karmapa's overall guidance, the tulkus
and rinpoches of the Kagyu tradition developed the interest shown by Americans,
Europeans and people in South-East Asia in the centres which they had been
invited to establish. His Holiness dedicated himself to preparing what would be
essential for the proper future growth of this interest, ensuring the education
of the younger reincarnated lamas he had recognised, nurturing the growth of the
sangha, and sponsoring the printing, collection and translation of the main
scriptures and prayers. During his life he ordained many thousands of monks and
recognised more than a hundred tulkus. In particular, he sponsored and
distributed to many centres a complete reprint of all the Buddha's teachings
(tripitaka) and the main classical commentaries on them; some 300 volumes of
scripture in all.
At one point early in his life, while still in Tibet, His Holiness had
written a very telling poem, predicting his leaving Tibet. In it, he uses the
analogy of the cuckoo which, in Tibetan folk culture, is known as the king of
birds; a welcome bird whose call heralds the warmer weather. It is the bird that
grows up in another bird's nest and the Karmapa, referring to himself as the
cuckoo, obviously foresaw his own going to India. During the latter part of the
Sixteenth Karmapa's life, people were already impressed by the accuracy of this
prediction. Now it is seen to have had a double meaning, as the subsequent
Karmapa goes to yet another nest and, significantly, a cuckoo landed on the
tent, in which the Seventeenth Karmapa was being born, and sang its song.
Miracles
A great guru is the mirror not only reflecting his individual
disciples' needs but the general status of things in the world. When their
bodies take sick, it can be viewed as being their purification of the sufferings
in the world and in their disciples. They also set the example of how to relate
to sickness. However, there is no one interpretation of such things, as they are
the emanation of cosmic purity within our lives, showing anything that can help
us to learn. However, this type of "interpretation" could all be seen as just
wishful-thinking, were it not for the miraculous power over the body shown by
the Karmapas.
The Sixteenth Karmapa left footprints in rocks on many occasions and in
many countries. One day poisonous snakes swarmed from a rock and covered him
whilst he was bathing in the Tarzi hot springs, yet he danced joyfully,
unharmed. He once tied a heavy sword blade into knots. In his presence, normally
antagonistic animals got on well with each other. When photographed with a
single plate camera at Rumtek, during an empowerment, he appeared almost
transparent. Thorough checking of the negative and a giant print made from it
showed that double exposure or any other normal explanation was impossible. At
other times the Karmapa had made rain for the Hopi Indians and had stopped
droughts, once by bathing on a chosen spot, whence a spring burst forth. His
Holiness also left a footprint in the waters of a Tibetan lake, which can still
be seen, as a constant footprint depression in the water, summer and winter. The
stories of the physical wonders of the Sixteenth Karmapa, witnessed by
Buddhists, are many but perhaps the most striking events were those which took
place around his death, for these were witnessed by amazed non-Buddhist
physicians in an Illinois hospital.
Passing
During the 1970s, the Karmapa started to show signs of cancer.
At one point, this became life-threatening and he was operated upon. After a
remission, there was a gradual recurrence, complicated by the fact that his
symptoms came and went, totally disappeared or manifested as something
completely different in a way which confounded regular analysis. He was
undoubtedly unwell yet is was as though his body were joking with the machines.
His illness was to end in death at the American International Clinic in Zion,
near Chicago, Illinois.
Many inexplicable things happened during that Chicago time. A medical
record of them was kept by the Indian army physician, Dr Kotwal, who had
accompanied His Holiness medically for many years. When the immortal enlightened
mind of the Sixteenth Karmapa left its physical shell, his body remained in
gentle meditation for three days, during which time the heart centre remained
very warm and the skin supple. This was attested to by the doctors despite all
the other clinical symptoms of death. Amazed, some of the medical staff visited
the holy place of his room, to witness the impossible. Only after three such
days did the usual manifestations of death appear. His Holiness body was flown
back to India and cremated in grand ceremony at Rumtek. During the cremation
ceremony, each of the four main rinpoches made a mandala offering. When it was
the Tai Situpa's turn, he approached the northern gate of the cremation urn to
offer the tsampaka flour mandala and saw something fall from the blazing body
onto the base of the inner pyre, near the gate. Unsure what to do for the best,
the Tai Situpa quickly sent a monk to ask advice from the Very Venerable Kalu
Rinpoche, who was most experienced in such things.
Some five minutes later, the monk came back through the crowd with a
message from Kalu Rinpoche that it was something very sacred and should be
removed and kept as a relic. It was His Holiness' heart, now partially charred.
This was enshrined in a golden stupa at Rumtek and has become a Kagyu lineage
relic; an object of deep veneration. Some of the bones found among the ashes had
self-formed images of the buddhas on them and there were many small
crystal-relics, known as rin.sel. Such occurrences—the heart, the self-formed
images and rinsel—were also witnessed at the passing of the very first Karmapa,
Dusum Chenpa. Some days after the cremation, Jamgön Kongtrul Rinpoche noticed a
baby's footprint in the northern quarter of one of the mandala arranged for the
cremation. Perhaps the Sixteenth Karmapa was already leaving signs of the
direction of his next emanation.
One duty of a great spiritual teachers is to discourage disciples from
taking their presence for granted. Lord Buddha's passing into nirvana was a
formidable teaching given to remind his followers of their own responsibility,
to themselves and others, to practice and not to be always carried on the wave
of another's spirituality. Lord Buddha's parting words were, "All composite
things are impermanent; strive with earnestness" . In the passing away and
reincarnation of the Karmapa, it is very important for each disciple to learn
about impermanence and to pray sincerely and whole-heartedly for the master to
reincarnate. Those deep prayers help shake them from the mental lethargy which
is a meditator's enemy; the expectation of having everything "handed to one on a
plate", the feeling that someone else will do the necessary. It is important for
each person to participate in the calling out for that pure mind to grace the
world again. Death is, and will always be, a Buddhist's greatest teacher and it
was a painful lesson for many people, including westerners, when the Sixteenth
Karmapa, and indeed their other beloved teachers, died.
Reincarnation
The years of uncertainty, longing, praying, reflection
before the reincarnation is found bring much maturity to the mind, helping one
to appreciate more fully each moment to be spent with fine gurus in the future.
Meeting remarkable teachers is a result from excellent past good karma, and it
is vital to keep generating the karma in the present in order to make such
meetings happen again and again in the future. In this process, motivation and
heartfelt prayer play a central role.
Marpa the Translator brought the Kagyu dharma to Tibet. His Holiness the
Sixteenth Karmapa brought it to the world, turning the wheel of dharma on all
its levels and immaculately establishing the right conduct, meditation and
wisdom which are the three mainstays of the Buddha's teachings.
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16th Karmapa, Part
One, Kagyu
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