THE LIBERTY THAT NOBODY CAN TOUCH: THOMAS MERTON MEETS TIBETAN BUDDHISM
When Thomas Merton began his Asian pilgrimage on October 15, 1968, he wrote that he was “coming home” to a place he had never been, and he rejoiced at “being at last on my true way after years of waiting and wondering and fooling around.”1 His journey was to be a pilgrimage—he chafed at mere tourism, or meeting political leaders, bureaucrats, and patrons. His real passion was to meet the meditation masters and yogis about whom he had heard so much, and to learn from them the oral traditions of meditation practice, what he called “the great affair,” as well as finding the “great compassion, mahakaruna.” (4)
As he arrived in India, he found himself especially attracted to the Tibetans he met, saying “they have a peculiar intentness, energy, silence, and humor. Their laughter is wonderful.” (65) Previously he had thought that he might investigate Hinduism, but as his journey evolved, he found Tibetan Buddhism the source of spiritual enrichment he sought.
It does seem that they Tibetan Buddhists are the only ones who, at present, have a really large number of people who have attained to extraordinary heights in meditation and contemplation. This does not exclude Zen. But I do feel very much at home with the Tibetans, even though much that appears in books about them seems bizarre if not sinister. (82)
It is not surprising that Merton's meeting with Tibetan Buddhism came so late in his life. Prior to the 1959 Tibetan diaspora that was spurred by Chinese oppression, little of substance was known in the west about Tibetan Buddhism. Certainly a few western scholars had done their best to understand the tradition, and it is clear that Merton had done his homework as best he could. Before departing for his Asian pilgrimage, Merton was already reading the available western sources on Tibetan Buddhism: the realization songs of the saint Milarepa, Guiseppe Tucci's work on Tibetan sacred art, and Desjardins' introduction.2 During his journey he also read T. R. V. Murti's book on Madhyamaka philosophy, and Conze's survey of Indian Buddhism, quoting liberally in his Journal as he read. It was clear that he also loved Shantideva's Entering the Path of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryavatara) written by the 8th century Indian saint, one of the most influential practice texts in all Tibetan Buddhism.
By the mid-1960's, Tibet began to emerge from obscurity as lamas and tulkus or “incarnate teachers”3 emerged from refugee camps to found monasteries, gompas or temples, and meditation centers. By 1968, several tulkus had already left India to study and teach in the west. One of the earliest was Deshung Rinpoche, a Sakya4 lama who in the mid-1960's taught in Seattle with Turrell Wylie at the University of Washington. (Fields 288-289) Merton had corresponded with Deshung Rinpoche through his star student, E. Gene Smith, and Deshung Rinpoche had sent Merton a copy of Gampopa's 12th century classic outline of the bodhisattva path, the Jewel Ornament of Liberation (Tharpa Rinpoche'i-gyen), based on Shantideva's classic. In India, Merton was to meet Gene Smith in Delhi at a dinner at the Canadian Embassy with High Commission James George. Smith had just begun his job with the Library of Congress in the Delhi office that was to place him as the curator of Tibetan texts as they emerged in India.
Previously, Merton's interests had been in Zen Buddhism, but after meeting Tibetans in India he felt an immediate rapport. His traveling companion Harold Talbott remembered that Merton observed that meeting Tibetans was “heart to heart” rather than “mind to mind.” (Thurston) Very quickly, Merton became especially interested in the formless, advanced meditation traditions of Tibet, especially Dzogchen.5 Dzogchen (dzogpa chenpo, or maha-ati— “great completion”) is sometimes associated with the culmination of intricate nine-leveled path of the Nyingma “ancient ones” school. (Ray 103-129) But more accurately, it is based on the single, simple point—the direct realization of the naturally abiding enlightenment within one's own experience. This fundamental experience of limitless freedom, clarity, and openness is at the heart of who we are, and Dzogchen practice merely uncovers this experience. The practitioner “descends from above” with the view—fruitional, lofty and very simple, summed up in one phrase—“All things are emptiness.” If we realize this, truly, in our moment-to-moment experience, that is all. It is said not to depend upon study, reflection, or virtuous conduct. Yet the conduct of Dzogchen “ascends from below” with humility, building a foundation for uncovering and realizing this lofty view. The conduct includes foundational practices, meditation retreats, and the practice of discipline.
The Dzogchen tradition has characteristic features. First, it relies on a personal, doubtless and intimate relationship with a qualified teacher, a master who has deep experience in this kind of meditation. Devotion to the teacher and the lineage opens the gates of the practice, and so the relationship must be one-to-one, not through books or merely casual contact. Second, Dzogchen practice requires extended and profound resting of the mind in its empty nature, without concepts, words, or movement. It is important not to fabricate anything, and to rest in naturalness, letting awareness be completely naked. Then it is possible to experience the true nature of the mind. For this reason, Dzogchen places strong emphasis upon solitary retreat. Lastly, Dzogchen is primarily about overcoming any and all bias, especially the bias toward concepts, confusion, and our personal neurosis. Its simplicity is uncompromising and vast, where bias has no capacity to dwell.
Dzogchen is truly simple, too simple for beginners or even experienced meditators. Such simplicity is different from our habitual patterns of conceptual spinning, and requires preparatory training. This means that Dzogchen practitioners usually have extensive background in study of sutra and tantra texts, ritual practice, insight meditation, and service to the teacher. This kind of preparation takes years, and if it works the practitioner develops an open, penetrating mind and heart. Additionally, these practitioners develop conviction in their own awakened nature. Then they may begin the practice of Dzogchen.
The lineages of Dzogchen masters also have their own special qualities.6 Many of these masters are not monks, but are eremitic meditators—yogis or yoginis—who practice in retreat. They may have consorts or spouses who are co-practitioners with them in Dzogchen meditation; in fact, aspects of the practice are more accessible if one has a mate. These adepts have overcome emotional difficulties and personal obstacles on their paths while engaging in long and arduous silent retreats lasting even decades. Sometimes they face severe illness or meditative illusions that might have undone them if it had not been for the stability of their practice. The great adepts are those who succeeded in their practice, able to manifest tremendous power, formidable confidence, and sometimes- outrageous directness in their beings. It is common for the Tibetan practitioner to unreasonably fear the Dzogchen adept even while feeling irresistible attraction to his or her nonconceptual naturalness and visionary power.
Such realized beings are the rare exception in Tibet, but Merton had the good fortune to meet several of them. In fact, the list of teachers he met served as a kind of “who's who” of Dzogchen masters then in exile in India. And his Dzogchen journey had many of the classic features found in the hagiographies (namthar, literally “liberation stories”) of the tradition. First he met a guru who pointed out the prerequisite for the view of Dzogchen, the change of motivation that entails the renunciation of “spiritual materialism.” Then he met two gurus who discussed the importance of the teacher and the essential nonconceptuality of Dzogchen. Next, he received basic Tibetan Buddhist meditation instruction from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He met the guru who he felt would be his Dzogchen teacher, and investigated the parameters of retreat. And then he went on a short retreat to reflect on his Asian pilgrimage, and to ask the question, should I practice Dzogchen? These stages will form the structure of the sections to follow.
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, RINPOCHE: UNDERSTANDING SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM
The only Tibetan tulku who was to speak English is the one with whom Merton had the strongest rapport, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche (1940-1987). Trungpa Rinpoche was the youngest tulku with whom Merton spoke, and the only one to have had experience living in the west. Rinpoche was a tulku of the Kagyu school, and before fleeing Tibet in 1959 he was the supreme abbot of Surmang Monastery in Kham, in east Tibet. His line of tulkus is associated with both the Mahamudra and Dzogchen lineages of meditation practice. His root teacher was Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen monastery, but he was also the heart-son of Khenpo Gangshar Wangpo, a Dzogchen master known for his manifestation of the “crazy wisdom” (yeshe cholwa) style of unconventional behavior and direct, spontaneous transmissions. Apparently, Khenpo Gangshar was a very learned, traditional master until a serious illness in his late 20's brought him close to death for an extended time. When he miraculously recovered, he underwent a complete transformation, manifesting in the direct, penetrating and outrageous way that spread his fame as a “crazy wisdom” master. It was during this time that Trungpa Rinpoche was his student. Rinpoche and Khenpo Gangshar became separated during the escape from Tibet, and it is unknown what happened to his teacher. Shechen Kongtrul died in Chinese prisons in Tibet.
After Trungpa Rinpoche successfully escaped from Tibet, he was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as spiritual advisor to the Young Lamas' Home School in Delhi in 1959. In 1963, Trungpa Rinpoche received a Spalding sponsorship to attend Oxford University, where he studied comparative religion, philosophy, history and fine arts. A Belgian Jesuit named Father DeGives was assigned as Rinpoche's tutor in Bible and western religion. As a result of DeGives' influence, Rinpoche regularly participated in inter-religious dialogues in Britain, and he enjoyed contacts with priests, imams, rabbis, and pandits he met in those years. (SimmerBrown 2004) By 1966 he had published his first English book, Born in Tibet, describing his training in Tibet and his escape with a large group of followers in 1959. In 1967, he co-founded a Samye Ling Meditation Center in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, where he was based at the time he met Father Merton.
On October 19, 1968, Rinpoche and Merton met “quite by chance” at the Central Hotel in Calcutta on the very day Merton arrived in India. In spite of the thirty-five year difference in their ages, they instantly recognized each other as spiritual confreres. During the next several days they dined together, talked, and went on excursions for the Divali holiday. In his journals Merton commented,
the important thing is that we are people who have been waiting to meet for a long time. Chogyam Trungpa is a completely marvelous person. Young, natural, without front or artifice, deep, awake, wise. I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of each other, whether around northern India and Sikkim or in Scotland, where I am now determined to go to see his Tibetan monastery if I can.. ..The newsletter he puts out is good. His own meditations and talks, from what I have seen, are extraordinary. (30)
Rinpoche had a similar rapport with Merton. In the 1971 edition of his autobiography, he wrote,
Father Merton himself was an open, unguarded, and deep person. During these few days, we spent much time together and grew to like one another immensely. He proposed that we should collaborate on a book bringing together sacred writings of the Catholic and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. (Collected Works I, 263)
In another reflection, Rinpoche commented, “Meeting Thomas Merton was wonderful; he was like a child, and at the same time, he was full of energy and life.” (Trungpa 1980, 33) Still later, Rinpoche was to conclude, “I had the feeling that I was meeting an old friend, a genuine friend.. ..[Father Merton] was the first genuine person I met from the West.” (Collected Works III, 477)
Their friendship involved deep conversations that were significant to them both. Over many gin and tonics and dinner at the Central, Merton and Trungpa Rinpoche shared their dishearten- ment about the state of spirituality in their respective traditions. Merton commented, “He has the same problems we have with ‘progressive' monks whose idea of modernization is to go noncontemplative, to be ‘productive' and academic.” (31) Rinpoche described the conversations in this way: Father Merton “was in Calcutta attending some kind of collective religious conference, and he was appalled at the cheapness of the spiritual values that various of the conference participants were advocating.” (Collected Works I, 263) And later, Rinpoche explained, “He was invited by a group that had a philosophy of spiritual shopping, and he was the only person who felt that it was full of confusion. He felt there was a sense of ignorance there, but nonetheless he joined them.” (Collected Works III, 477)
Trungpa Rinpoche's meeting with Merton happened at a crucial time in his own life. He was twenty-eight years old, and had been a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Britain for five years. He had become increasingly discouraged and depressed by the prevalence of what he called “materialism” in the west. Materialism, a gloss of the Tibetan word lalo that means “barbarian”, was the term Rinpoche used for the unquestioning pursuit of wealth that deepens, rather than alleviates, our suffering. In traditional Tibet, material greed for its own sake was deemed as pointless as hoarding wood for one's own cremation, or as bees that gather honey, only to have it taken away. (Cabezon 10) These observations were shared by other Tibetan teachers in exile.
But Rinpoche's concerns were much deeper.7 He saw that materialism had manifested not only as accumulation of personal wealth, but also infected more subtle levels of experience, and that it was a phenomenon of his own culture as well. Later he commented, “materialism and technological outlook no longer come from the West alone; they seem to be universal. The Japanese make the best cameras; it's a universal situation. Indians make atomic bombs. We are talking in terms of materialism and spirituality in the world at large.” (Trungpa 1975, 2) His deepest concerns were focused on what he called “spiritual materialism,” in which spiritual practice or life is used to promote and confirm per
sonal status, reputation, and identity. He saw this also at work in his own lost homeland, where the living practice traditions were being lost in monasteries and mountain retreats. During recent centuries, monks performed rituals for patronage, empowerments were collected like souvenirs, and sectarian rivalry flourished. Genuine practitioners were becoming as rare as stars at noontime. How could rampant greed be overcome if it corrupted the very spiritual traditions that could provide a remedy to this suffering? How could he teach the genuine dharma in Asia or the west in this corrupt atmosphere? These were the concerns that he and Merton shared.
Rinpoche was in Calcutta with his English attendant Kunga Dawa (Richard Arthure) having just come from a visit to the kingdom of Bhutan, hosted by the Queen. There he had completed a powerful month-long retreat in a celebrated cave near the city of Paro. This cave was called Taktsang, or “tiger's nest,” and is known for its close association with Padmasambhava, Tibet's “precious guru” (Guru Rinpoche), who had transmitted the secret Vajrayana teachings to Tibet in the 8th century. Rinpoche showed Merton a photograph of the cave, revealing a lovely tiered temple perched on a narrow ledge on a vertical and sheer cliff face hundreds of feet above the valley floor. He recommended it to Merton as a good place for retreat. (31)
The Taktsang retreat had been a turning point for Rinpoche. He had gone into retreat troubled by spiritual materialism, and hoped for inspiration about how best to teach and alleviate suffering.8 For the first several weeks nothing seemed to be happening, and Rinpoche fell into a depression. Then, near the end of the retreat, potent new inspiration appeared in the form of a sadhana text that arose in his mind as terma, or “discovered treasure.” (Ray 2000 113-117) The terma tradition, inaugurated by Guru Rinpoche, in
troduces in prophetic form new perspectives and teachings fresh from the heart of the lineages of enlightened gurus. They are received in visionary form by the terton (treasure discoverer) while in meditative state. Taktsang had been a renowned terma site, and for Rinpoche, this new sadhana provided impetus for overcoming materialism in meditation and life. Quickly he recorded the text in Tibetan, and creatively translated it into English with the help of Richard Arthure. While sadhanas are usually restricted texts, given only to properly initiated disciples, Rinpoche insisted at the outset that it be shared widely. When he and Merton met in Calcutta, he gave him a copy of the sadhana, signifying their close connection on these vitally important spiritual issues.9
The Sadhana of Mahamudra is known as a ritual practice that completely joins the visions of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen lineages, invoking the wrathful form of Guru Rinpoche, Dorje Trollo, as both a father of our enlightened minds and protector against the lords of materialism. 10 It suggests that the degradation of spirituality has enraged his
enlightened lineages, and that they are prepared to come to the aid of the authentic practitioner. The ultimate protection provided by this lineage is the recognition of the true nature of our obstacles—they have no more ultimate reality than the “imprint of a bird in the sky.” The degraded forces at work in the world and in our spirituality
dissolve when we see the true nature of the mind, which is the realm of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen forefathers, vast and luminous emptiness. Access to this realm is found through renunciation and devotion, merging our minds with the guru. Then spirituality recovers its vitality, openness, and joy.
This sadhana has become a favorite practice by Trungpa Rinpoche's students in the decades since 1968, and is practiced on the new-moon and full-moon days every month. It is also practiced by Buddhists of other teachers and traditions, and by nonBuddhists, for Rinpoche felt that it provided the necessary impetus to counteract the powerful forces of materialism. The opening of the sadhana speaks of signs of the degradation of spirituality in Buddhist terms, calling it the “dark age” in which “sectarian bitterness”, “intellectual speculations”, the loss of insight meditation, and “performing little ceremonies for material gain” are primary symptoms. (Collected Works V, 303) It laments that “the Buddha's teaching is used merely for political purposes and to draw people together socially;” because of this, “the blessings of spiritual energy are being lost.” The sadhana was written to “enable individuals to ask for the help [of the buddhas of the three times and the great teachers] and to renew spiritual strength.” The sadhana introduces the practitioner to the antidote to spiritual materialism, a genuine spirituality that awakens the naked and luminous mind.
While Merton did not mention the Sadhana in the published version of his Journals, it is clear that the content of their conversations set the tone for his Indian pilgrimage. He was skeptical about political or bureaucratic situations in his travels, and several times mentioned his desire to inquire about spirituality rather than politics. His passion for Dzogchen indicated the directness and purity of his spiritual interests, and the conversations he recorded detailed these interests. In his November circular to his colleagues, Merton wrote,
I can say that so far my contacts with Asian monks have been very fruitful and rewarding. We seem to understand one another very well indeed. I have been dealing with Buddhists mostly, and I find that the Tibetans above all are very alive and also generally well-trained. They are wonderful people.. ..But they are also specialists in meditation and contemplation. This is what appeals to me most. It is invaluable to have direct contact with people who have really put in a lifetime of hard work in training their minds and liberating themselves from passion and illusion. I do not say they are all saints, but certainly they are men of unusual quality and depth, very warm and wonderful people. (324)
Merton continued to speak fondly of Trungpa Rinpoche in the months to follow. They met again, briefly, a month later in Calcutta at a garden party at the Canadian High Commissioner's home.11 He remembered Rinpoche in his November circular, in which he referred to him as “interesting,” “successful,” and “talented.” On the morning of his death, in his paper on Marxism and monasticism to the Bangkok conference, Merton spoke enthusiastically of Trungpa Rinpoche, referring to him as “a good friend of mine—a very interesting person indeed,” and he expressed his desire to visit him later in Scotland. (337-338) Elsewhere in the paper, he drew from Rinpoche's advice, “From now on, everybody stands on his own feet”(338), as a key to monastic life in the contemporary age.
As for Trungpa Rinpoche, after receiving the Sadhana at Taktsang, his profile as a dharma teacher underwent a complete transformation, following the example of his outrageous Dzogchen teacher, Khenpo Gangshar. Upon returning to Scotland, he gave up his monastic robes and married a young Englishwoman, Diana Pybus. Together the left the Scottish retreat center, Samye Ling, and immigrated to North America. His teachings became fresh and direct, pointing to meditative experience and realization, and his methods were often experimental and daring. In North America, he exhibited charisma and immediacy that both attracted and frightened the hippie generation he encountered there. His English ver
nacular improved quickly, and within a few years he was traveling widely in the United States, drawing large crowds in every venue. These radical changes were shocking and unsettling to his students in the United Kingdom, but Rinpoche felt that the dharma must be transmitted without the cultural trappings and spiritual exoticism employed by many in the “spiritual supermarket” of the 1970's. When Rinpoche founded Naropa Institute (now University) in 1974, he was to establish a series of Buddhist-Christian dialogues on meditation practice in Merton's name, remembering the significance of those conversations. (Simmer-Brown 2005; 2005)
Trungpa Rinpoche became the pioneer in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and in his short life accomplished a great deal. He founded a network of meditation centers under the banner Shambhala that extends throughout North America, Europe, South America, and Japan. He founded a university in Boulder, Colorado, the largest fully accredited “Buddhist-inspired” university outside of Asia. He authored thirty-five books that have brought countless western students to the dharma. After a long illness,Trungpa Rinpoche died in 1987 at the age of 47 at his home in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
KHAMTRUL RINPOCHE AND CHOKLING RINPOCHE: THE NEED FOR A GURU
Later in Dharamsala, Merton was to meet Sonam Kazi, who served as official interpreter assigned to the Dalai Lama by the government of India. Kazi had interpreted for high-profile talks between His Holiness and Nehru, Chou En Lai, and other political leaders. Merton's meeting him was significant, because Kazi was a Sikkimese lay adept in the Nyingma tantra, especially the Dzogchen tradition of meditation. While Kazi was not then a teacher, his descriptions ignited Merton's curiosity about the living and vital
meditative traditions of Tibet. When Kazi suggested that Merton seek a Tibetan guru in the tantric lineage of “direct realization and dzogchen,” asking if he “were willing to risk it,” Merton responded, “why not?”(82) In the weeks to follow he eagerly read Tucci's writings on the mandala principle (the Tibetan “sacred systems” theory), and recorded questions about the “child mind” discovered through meditation. He reflected also on the significance of his dreams, and on Kazi's opinions about mixing traditions, worldevasion followed by some Buddhist schools, and the meaning of vows.
It is important to remember that throughout his journey Merton had to rely on whatever interpreters were available in his conversations, and those interpreters may or may not have been familiar with the meditation practices about which Merton was inquiring. It was fortunate that Sonam Kazi served as his translator in Dharamsala, with the exception of his meetings with His Holiness, because of Kazi's meditation experience. While Merton's other translators were likely not experienced in meditation, certainly his later translated meetings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chadral Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche would have included profound communications having little to do with words, as each was a celebrated adept who radiated directly the peace and diamond-like clarity of the mind.
Kazi aided in Merton's meetings with Dzogchen meditation masters near Dharamsala. Khamtrul Rinpoche Dongyu Nyima (1930-1980) was a Drukpa Kagyu master, the 8th in his line of tulkus, who was the traditional head of the eastern Tibetan branch of his lineage. One of his renowned teachers was the great Dilgo Khyentse Tashi Paljor (1910-1990) of Shechen Monastery, with whom he studied Dzogchen meditation. In 1958, Khamtrul Rinpoche received early indication of the disaster brewing in Tibet, and approached Trungpa Rinpoche, asking him to flee India with him. When Trungpa Rinpoche demurred, Khamtrul departed with a group of followers and a caravan of sacred items and texts. He was one of the only
lamas to successfully leave Tibet with the precious texts and relics of his lineage. (Trungpa 1966 138-9) In India he moved from one refugee camp to another, looking for an auspicious place to begin again. In 1969, shortly after meeting Merton, he was to establish an exile community and Khampagar monastery in Tashi Jong (“auspicious valley”), one of the earliest Kagyu centers outside of Tibet. He served as powerful teacher, monk, leader, and guide for Tibetan lay people, togdens or lay yogis, and monastics. As a Dzogchen master, he served as root guru to the well-known contemporary master, Ven. Tsoknyi Rinpoche, the son of the great Kyabje Tulku Ugyen Rinpoche of Nagi Gompa, on the rim of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.
Khamtrul Rinpoche was known as a very traditional, penetrating meditation teacher. Popularly known in the West as the root guru of the English nun, Tenzin Palmo, who did nine years of retreat in a “cave in the snow,” Khamtrul Rinpoche was described this way in her accounts of that time.12
He was a tall man, heavily built, but like many big people he was surprisingly light on his feet. He was an excellent ‘lama dancer' and a very accomplished painter as well.
Quite famous among his own people. He was also a poet and a grammarian. His presence was also very big but he was extremely sweet and gentle, with a very soft little voice. I was terrified of him. It's interesting that one felt this kind of awe. He was considered to be one of the fierce forms of Guru Rinpoche..and sometimes people would see him in that form. So I guess that's what it was. On the outside he was very sweet but you sensed this great force that was inside him. (47) When Khamtrul Rinpoche met Merton, they sat on the ground amid young tea plants and pines in a place with a fine view of the mountains, near Dharamsala. Merton wrote of their conversation:
Khamtrul Rinpoche spoke about the need for a guru and direct experience rather than book knowledge; about the union of study and meditation. We discussed the “direct realization” method....And about the need of a guru. “And,” he asked, “have you come to write a strange book about us? What are your motives?” (89)
This kind of questioning is quite traditional in the yogic schools of Tibetan meditation. Khamtrul wanted to know, why was Merton investigating meditation? He had authored many
books, and an Tibetan meditation teacher like him would not consider “research” a sufficient motivation to warrant sharing the precious oral instructions. Khamtrul Rinpoche was serving as a protector of the esoteric teachings with this line of questioning. Rinpoche was to die a decade later of diabetes at the age of forty-nine, leaving a large and prosperous community in Himachal Pradesh, near Dharamsala.13
A few days later, Merton met with yet another Dzogchen teacher, the Nyingma lama Chokling Rinpoche.14 The 3rd Neten Chokling Pema Gyurme (1928-1974) was a disciple of the great Dzogchen master Dzongzar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro of Dzongzar monastery in Tibet. After escaping from Tibet in 1959, he established a monastery in northern India, in Bir near Dharamsala. As a young man, he was a fully ordained monk, but for most of his adult life he was a yogin married to a famous yogini. Several of their children are Nyingma tulkus, each Dzogchen adepts in their own right.15 At the age of 47 he had an automobile accident on the road from Delhi and died instantly from a skull fracture, six years after his meeting with Merton.16
Harold Talbott described Chokling Rinpoche as “a way-out yogi, a very wild man who was an incredible kick-over-the-traces, irresponsible-type person, a tremendous troublemaker, and extremely rollicking in an unpredictable way, a top-flight, wonderful Nyingmapa yogi.”(18) In another Tibetan refugee camp on a tea plantation, Chokling Rinpoche asked Merton whether he believed in reincarnation before he would answer any questions about enlightenment. When Merton demurred, Chokling Rinpoche refused to give him the teachings on enlightenment he requested. Still, he did provide Merton with guidance for the next step of his journey.
Like everyone else, he spoke of masters, and the need of finding one, and how one finds one—of being drawn to him super- naturally, sometimes with instant recognition. He asked me a koanlike question about the origin of the mind. I could not answer it directly but apparently my nonanswer was “right,” and he said I would profit by “meeting some of the tulkus that are in India.” Sonam Kazi said, “You have passed the first test,” and he seemed pleased. (97)
his was the ideal next step in Merton's journey, to be tested directly about his experience of the nature of the mind. Now he was being taken seriously as an earnest pilgrim. But he must find a teacher if he would like to continue on the journey. Neten Chokling Rinpoche's testing and interrogation of Merton was excellent preparation for his later meeting with Chadral Rinpoche.
MEETING THE DALAI LAMA: LEARNING TO MEDITATE
Next, Merton was formally introduced to Tibetan Buddhist meditation. This occurred in Dharamsala as part of his official meetings with His Holiness17 the Dalai Lama and officials from the Tibetan government in exile. When Merton arrived in India, he was steadfastly opposed to meeting with His Holiness, saying “I'm not going. I've seen enough pontiffs.”(Tworkov 31) Given his years dealing with authority and obedience in the Trappist order, Merton “didn't trust organized religion and he didn't trust the big banana,” remembers Talbott. “He did not come to India to hang around the power-elite of an exiled central Asian Vatican.” (Tworkov 17) But, with Talbott's encouragement, Merton agreed to meet with His Holiness and a few top officials of the government in exile.
His first practical conversations on meditation in Dharamsala did not impress him. He met with Rato Rinpoche, a Gelukpa lama who was head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs for the Tibetan government in exile. Oddly enough, this meeting did not make the published version of Merton's journal. By Talbott's account, Rato Rinpoche spoke of calm abiding (shamatha, shi-ne) meditation, commenting especially on the phenomenon experienced by beginners of the constant presence of the “watcher.” Merton seemed unimpressed by this teaching, telling Talbott, “We know that already, and we don't want the watcher to watch it, so that's of no use to us. So let's see what is useful around here.” (Tworkov 17) The fact that Merton already understood this phenomenon indicates his familiarity with the fundamentals of meditation that must be traversed before genuine and profound practice can begin.18
He was not to receive actual Tibetan Buddhist meditation instruction until the second meeting with His Holiness. Little did he know of His Holiness' vast experience and training in the esoteric schools of Tibetan Buddhist meditation, especially Dzogchen. The Gelukpa school, of which the Dalai Lamas are the principal lamas, has not historically emphasized Dzogchen training. But, even before his escape from Tibet, His Holiness had received transmissions of Mahamudra and Dzogchen practice, and in India he continued to study with one of the most important masters of the twentieth century, Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who became one of his main teachers. The Dalai Lama has become a Dzogchen teacher in his own right. (Dalai Lama 2000) Additionally, Dzogchen perspective has introduced an ecumenical sensibility that has served His Holiness well in exile, where broad, unbiased training of this kind has helped ameliorate the sectarianism that had become rife in Tibet.19 His Holiness was uniquely qualified to introduce Merton to this meditation.
Merton's meetings with His Holiness were a delightful surprise, as was immediately evidenced when they met. Here he had met a “pontiff” who was accessible, frank, and deeply interested in meditation.
He wrote:
The Dalai Lama is most impressive as a person. He is strong and alert, bigger than I expected.. ..A very solid, energetic, generous, and warm person, very capably trying to handle enormous problems—none of which he mentioned directly. There was not a word of politics. The whole conversation was about religion and philosophy and especially ways of meditation. (101)
Years later, in his autobiography, His Holiness remembered vividly Merton's striking appearance in white robe and black scapular and wide, rough leather belt.
But more striking than his outward appearance, which was memorable in itself, was the inner life that he manifested. I could see he was a truly humble and deeply spiritual man. This was the first time that I had been struck by such a feeling of spirituality in anyone who professed Christianity. Since then, I have come across others with similar qualities, but it was Merton who introduced me to the real meaning of the word ‘Christian.' (Dalai Lama 1991, 189)
Immediately upon meeting His Holiness, Merton made it clear that his interest was Dzogchen meditation. The Dalai Lama responded with traditional, appropriate concerns. Merton wrote, “It is important, the Dalai Lama said, not to misunderstand the simplicity of dzogchen, or to imagine it is ‘easy,' or that one can evade the difficulties of the ascent by taking this ‘direct path.'” (102) His Holiness was deeply concerned that Merton establish a good grounding in Buddhist metaphysics first, especially from the Madhyamaka “middle way” school that serves as the sutra foundation of the practice.
In the second meeting, His Holiness moved right to the point, appropriate for a meditation teacher: he spoke of the mind. Here is one of the most striking scenes of Merton's Asian journey. His Holiness actually sat down on the floor and taught meditation in the customary way a student is instructed. Merton wrote, “he demonstrated the sitting position for meditation which he said was essential. In the Tibetan meditation posture the right hand (discipline) is above the left (wisdom). In Zen it is the other way around.” (112) This is where all Tibetan meditation begins, emphasizing correct posture. Talbott remembered, “he showed Merton the lotus meditation posture and the hand position and the posture of the back.” (Tworkov 19) Later His Holiness expressed surprise about what he learned from Merton about Christian meditation.
He told me a number of things that surprised me, notably that Christian practitioners of meditation do not adopt any particular physical position when they meditate. According to my understanding, position and even breathing are vital components to its practice. (Dalai Lama 1991, 189)
It is particularly striking that His Holiness sat on the floor, for as Talbott observed, in Tibet such an act would be unthinkable. Dalai Lamas are expected always to remain physically above others, seated on a throne.
After an introduction to meditation posture, His Holiness moved into the appropriate object of focus in meditation. Here we see his responsiveness to Merton's interest in Dzogchen practice, for he emphasized taking the mind itself as a meditation object. This kind of focus is not the customary one for a beginning student, who starts with emphasis on mindfulness of breathing, or of a visual object such as a stone. Another customary object of meditation is a guiding dharmic phrase or sentence, that forms a foundation for the practitioner to more deeply understand its meaning. It is customary to introduce the mind as object only after years of preliminary practice with more accessible objects.
Then we got on to “concentrating on the mind.” Other objects of concentration may be an object, an image, a name. But how does one concentrate on the mind itself? There is division: the I who concentrates.. .the mind as object of concentration.. .observing the concentration.. .all three one mind. He was very existential, I think, about the mind as “what is concentrated on.” It was a very lively conversation and I think we all enjoyed it. He certainly seemed to. (112-113)
It is difficult to get a full flavor of what His Holiness taught Merton about the mind, especially as the Journal notes the difficulties of the translator, Tenzin Geche,20 who was likely inexperienced in this kind of meditation instruction. Talbott remembers:
And he gave us very, very clear, sound meditation instructions that would be completely familiar to vipassana practitioners. He was leading up to teachings on emptiness and compassion and then went on to a gentle explanation of tantra as a field of Mahayana Buddhism that is a very, very strong practice throughout history. And then at some point he gave a summation of the schema of Nyingmapa Buddhism starting with some Theravada teachings. (Tworkov 19)
Most likely, the instruction was very introductory, with simplicity and sophistication, designed to give Merton a place to begin in his practice. No doubt the powerful atmosphere of sitting with His Holiness introduced more than words could express. As the Journal concludes the description—“at the end he invited us back again Friday to talk about Western monasticism. ‘And meanwhile think more about the mind,' he said as we left him.” (113) In his November Circular, Merton wrote of their meetings,
We spoke almost entirely about the life of meditation, about samadhi (concentration), which is the first stage of meditative discipline and where one systematically clarifies and recollects the mind. The Tibetans have a very acute, subtle, and scientific knowledge of “the mind” and are still experimenting with meditation..The highest mysticism is in some ways quite “simple”—but always and everywhere the Dalai Lama kept insisting on the fact that one could not attain anything in the spiritual life without total dedication, continued effort, experienced guidance, real discipline, and the combination of wisdom and method (which is stressed by Tibetan mysticism). (322)
While Merton greatly enjoyed his meetings with His Holiness, his interests continued to be in the areas of meditation and the yogic path. Talbott remembers Merton encouraging him to leave Dharamsala to seek a meditation teacher:
What the Tibetan tradition has to offer us is dzogchen and that's where it's at and the sooner you get out of the Himalayan Vatican the better. If you want to spend the rest of your life being trained to be a curial diplomat and reading sutras and tantras for the next forty years before you even get to start really practicing shamata [sic] go right ahead and stay in Dharamsala. But if you want to know where it's at, find a dzogchen yogi. (Tworkov 18)
KYABJE CHADRAL RINPOCHE: MEETING THE GURU
Shortly after his meetings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Merton continued his pilgrimage with a visit to Darjeeling, a hill station in northeast India where he planned a short retreat. Nawang Jinpa Rinpoche, a young Gelukpa tulku educated and ordained in Lhasa, served as his translator for this portion of his journey. (135, 181) On a daytrip near Ghoom, Merton sought out Chadral Rinpoche, a renowned Dzogchen teacher who had a small hermitage there. This November 16, 1968, meeting was significant, for Merton was to declare that this would be his Dzogchen guru.
Kyabje Chadral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche (1913- ) is one of the last great living masters of Dzogchen trained in Tibet, a holder of the “heart essence” tradition of Longchenpa (Longchen Nyinthik). Chadral Rinpoche grew up in a nomadic family in the Nyak-rong province of Kham in east Tibet and soon migrated to Amdo in the northeast with his tribal group. At fifteen, he abandoned his family to dedicate his life to dharma practice, giving up riding and traveling only on foot. His root Dzogchen teachers were all renowned
masters: Kathok Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (1879-1941), Dzongzar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro (1893-1959), and Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche (1904-1987). (Thondup 196-297) He has spent his entire life in retreats, caves, or hermitages, avoiding householder life; thus, he earned his name “chadral” that means a practitioner who abandons ordinary activities and conventional life. He has always avoided the spotlight, choosing retreat and solitude as his lifestyle. Rinpoche is not a monk, but practices as a tantric yogi, and he and his consort Kamala have two daughters.
Upon leaving Tibet, Rinpoche was the first Tibetan lama to build a three-year retreat (druppa) center near Ghoom; at the time of his auspicious meeting with Merton eight hermits had just completed a three-year retreat, with eight more just beginning. After seeking him there, Merton was to meet him at the nearby nunnery, supervising the painting of a fresco in the oratory.
Chatral looked like a vigorous old peasant in a Bhutanese jacket tied at the neck with thongs and a red woolen cap on his head. He had a week's growth of beard, bright, eyes, a strong voice, and was very articulate, much more communicative than I expected. We had a fine talk and all through it Jimpa, the interpreter, laughed and said several times, “these are hermit questions.this is another hermit question.” 21 (143)
While Merton did not note anything threatening, Harold Talbott described Chadral Rinpoche as a true Dzogchen master.
I wouldn't dream of studying with him, or anybody remotely like him, because he is totally and completely unpredictable. He is savage about the ego and he will put you on the spot and I am not prepared to up the ante to that degree..That [was] an opportunity for me to hide behind Merton's skirts and also meet Chadral Rinpoche who I'm terrified of. He could throw stones at you—as he does do—and so I [would] use Merton as a front. (Tworkov 21)
Merton immediately found Chadral Rinpoche magnetic, “the greatest rinpoche I have met so far and a very impressive person.”(143) For two hours, they spoke about Dzogchen, “the ultimate emptiness, the unity of shunyata and karuna, going ‘beyond the dharmakaya' and ‘beyond God' to the ultimate perfect emptiness.” (143) Their rapport was strong, as can be seen from Merton's description.
The unspoken or half-spoken message of the talk was our complete understanding of each other as people who were somehow on the edge of great realization and knew it and were trying, somehow or other, to go out and get lost in it—and that was a grace for us to meet one another. (143)
Chadral had questions about Christianity, wondering how a religion could be based on a man who comes back to life after death, and Merton explained the Resurrection in a kind of tantric terminology, “about the overcoming of fear and the utter and complete power of liberation which is the center of Christianity.”(Tworkov 22) This satisfied Rinpoche, who was surprised at getting on so well with a Christian. He called Merton a “rangjung sangye” or “naturally arisen Buddha”, a Dzogchen compliment indicating natural realization.
It is clear from Merton's and Talbott's comments that this communication was extraordinary. Chadral Rinpoche spoke to Merton with a rare collegiality. Earlier Rinpoche commented
that he had meditated in solitude for thirty years or more and had not attained to perfect emptiness—and Merton said he hadn't either. Later Rinpoche commented that perhaps both of them would “attain to complete Buddhahood in their next lives, perhaps even in this life, and the parting note was a kind of compact that we would both do our best to make it in this life.”(144) Merton asked him to be his teacher, and Rinpoche outlined the required four preliminary practices of ngondro22 for him, saying that he could do his retreat in a hermitage Bhutan, continuing the theme begun with Trungpa Rinpoche in Calcutta. In his Journal Merton wrote, “If I were going to settle down with a Tibetan guru, I think Chatral [sic] would be the one I'd choose. But I don't know yet if that is what I'll be able to do—or whether I need to.” (144)
Chadral Rinpoche now practices in retreat at Parphing on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. He has few students, but has a reputation for direct, uncompromising teaching, and for his emphasis on personal solitary retreat. His other famous passion is for saving the lives of animals. Annually he goes to the city of Calcutta and purchases animals destined for slaughter, and releases them. He collects donations for the entire year, and on a recent trip bought thousands of fish from the fishing fleet and released them back to the Indian Ocean. (Scales 65) In a sample teaching, he requested:
I passionately appeal to humanity at large, irrespective of nationality, caste, or religion to practice this most simple but profound virtue of compassionate love. We can praise and please our Lord Buddha in no better way than by doing all we can to save the lives of innocent, mute and defenceless animals and birds, fish and insects and thereby grant
them the precious gift of life. Moral values abjure us from taking anything which we can not give to others. We can not give life to anybody; it is the sole discretion of the Lord. So it will be shameless arrogance and heinous sinfulness on our part if we snatch life from others. It is my firm belief that if people adopt this practice by universal consensus, everlasting peace and all round happiness will descend on this earth, and human suffering in all its forms will become a thing of the past.23
Later, before departing from India, Merton had an opportunity to learn more specifics about the three-year retreat from Kalu Rinpoche (whom Merton erroneously called “Karlu”), a renowned Shangpa Kagyu master who lived in Sonada. Kalu Rinpoche (19051989) was raised in east Tibet and trained as a monk at Palpung, a great center of the nonsectarian Ri-me (ree-may) movement, with the greatest teachers of his day. At age 26, he embarked on a retreat of almost twenty years in the mountains of east Tibet, and became renowned as a
genuine yogi, very popular among the local villagers. He became one of the major teachers at Palpung monastery, mentoring great meditation masters like the 16th Karmapa, always emphasizing personal retreat and direct realization of the nature of mind. When he escaped from Tibet in 1959, he became an early meditation teacher in North America, and established the first three-year retreat center for western students. Kalu Rinpoche died at Sonada in 1989 at the age of 84. His successor was born in 1990, and was enthroned at Sonada in 1993. A vivacious young child, he is particularly fond of musical instruments.
Kalu Rinpoche established his first exile three-year retreat center in Sonada, near Darjeeling, and that was the center that Merton visited. Merton commented on Kalu Rinpoche's distinctive, birdlike appearance:
He is a small, thin man with a strange concavity in the temples as if his skull had been pressed in by huge thumbs. Soft-spoken like all of them, he kept fingering his rosary, and patiently answered my many questions on the hermit retreat. (164)
In the Journal Merton recorded the details of the retreat and schedule. Candidates were screened by Rinpoche after their foundational training, examined “on their capacity to undertake the retreat and each case is decided on its own merits.” (164) He described the progression of the ngondro (the foundational practice Chadral Rinpoche had asked him to complete) that begins the first segment of the retreat. Ngondro is followed by an initiation, and then the last two years are taken up with the Dzogchen practice itself.24 The
hermits see only their teacher—all practices are done in solitude. The hermit's day begins at 2 or 3 a.m.; tea is served at 5; the first meal is served at 11. It is clear that Merton was checking out the schedule in detail, including a question about whether firewood would be available. Kalu Rinpoche invited Merton to do his retreat there at Sonada, or to write later with his meditation questions. He also presented Merton with somewhat primitive hand-colored wood-block prints of Tibetan deities, which still hang in the
Merton Library at Bellarmine University. In his Journal, Merton concluded: “That was very kind of him. With my reaction to this climate at its best and the noise of the Indian radio in a cottage across the road from the hermitage, I guess it's still Alaska or California or Kentucky for me.” (166) By this time he had decided that an Asian retreat may not have been the best idea. This conclusion probably came from his retreat in Darjeeling the week before.
KANCHENJUNGA: MERTON'S SEVENTH MOUNTAIN25
What would have happened if Merton had lived? Would he have returned to Bhutan to do retreat with Chadral Rinpoche? Would he have pursued his earlier plans to build a new hermitage in Alaska or California, or return to Gethsemani? Would he have built a western retreat center in New Mexico, based on the meeting of Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism, as he discussed with Sonam Kazi?
There is no way of knowing exactly what might have happened to Merton if he had lived. But his retreat in Darjeeling gives clues about his digestion of the encounter with Tibetan Buddhism, especially Dzogchen. On November 17, shortly after his meeting with Chadral Rinpoche, Merton began a short personal retreat at the Mim Tea Estate in view of the majestic mountain Kanchenjunga.26 The mountain came, in his Journal entries, to symbolize that which he had sought on his Asian pilgrimage—its grandeur, its mystery, its
tendency to recede into the distance when sought and to emerge in all its immensity and power when ignored. Five days earlier, upon entering Darjeeling, he was struck by its beauty. Within days he was entranced by it, finding its loveliness hard to capture in photographs. By the first day of his actual retreat, he was tired of Kanchenjunga, relieved that it was veiled by clouds. The next day, when acknowledging his annoyance with the mountain, “its big crude blush in the sunrise,” he reflected on his entire Indian experience.
Reassessment of this whole Indian experience in more critical terms. Too much movement. Too much “looking for” something: an answer, a vision, “something other.” And this breeds illusion. Illusion that there is something else. Differentiation—the old splitting-up process that leads to mindlessness, instead of the mindfulness of seeing all-inemptiness and not having to break it up against itself. Four legs good; two legs bad. (148)
While meeting all the Tibetan lamas had been so exhilarating and significant, what was the next step? Hermit in India or Bhutan? Gethsemani? Temporary or permanent? Merton also reflected on the “real” Asia—and in the context of the famous Madhyamaka “middle way philosophy” dialectic, he knew what kind of question that was. Was Asia an illusion? What was permanent?
I want this all to be permanent. A permanent post card for meditation, daydreams. The landslides are ironic and silent comments on the apparent permanence, the “eternal snows” of solid Kanchenjunga..Nothing is to be decided; nor is “Asia” to be put in some category or other. There is nothing to be judged. But it must be cold for the lamas, at night, in their high, draughty little gompas! (150-151)
The next night, still on retreat, Merton had a dream about Kanchenjunga that seemed to indicate a shift in his perspective. In the dream, a voice said, “There is another side to the mountain,” and he saw the mountain rotated and now he was seeing it from its Tibetan side. The other side was the one that had never been seen or photographed or turned into postcards. And Merton remarked, ”That is the only side worth seeing.” (153)
Several others have found this moment of Merton's Asian journey significant; for this author, its significance has to do with the fundamental teachings of Dzogchen. The true nature of reality cannot be touched by concept or anything voyeuristic. It cannot be seen conventionally or dualistically. The true nature of reality must be discovered within our experience, and we can never really know in advance what that discovery might yield. In his Journal, Merton commented that we must step beyond the “picture postcard” way of
seeing the mountain in order to see it at all. This means that we must “go to the other side.” This is a fascinating image, very traditional as Merton would have known from his reading of Edward Conze's work on the in the Prajna-paramita-sutras. “Prajna-paramita” (“wisdom gone-beyond”) refers to the direct, nonconceptual wisdom developed in meditation that “goes beyond” the limits of conceptuality. This is the kind of wisdom Dzogchen meditation cultivates. The Heart Sutra, the most famous of the Prajna-paramita texts, closes with the mantra recitation in Sanskrit: Gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, svaha!—“gone, gone gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awake—wow!” This mantra expresses the true discoveries of Dzogchen meditation, the completely awake limitless and empty awareness that is our own Bud- dhahood.
Ironically, Kanchenjunga does have another mysterious and dangerous side. As a contemporary Darjeeling travel news site explains,
Kanchenjunga is not a calm and serene mountain as it appears to be when viewed from Darjeeling. Both ice and rock avalanches of incredible dimensions frequently thunder as they roll down precipitous slopes of this mighty massif. Last but not the least is wind of hurricane force, one of the deadliest of Kanchenjunga's weapons which plays a havoc with any intruder who ventures “to walk the heights of gods.”27
Probably Merton did not know this about the mountain. The “other side” that is not the “picture postcard” Kachenjunga was quite different from the one that Merton viewed from Darjeeling. Could he have envisioned this about Tibetan Buddhism? His beautiful introduction to the tradition might have been quite different once he actually began the pith practices. The serene beauty might have been replaced by the precipitous slopes, the hurricane force winds, and the avalanches of intensive practice that reveals the naked na
ture of reality. There is something in Merton that would have been attracted to the dangerous mystery of this. Perhaps that is the “other side” of which he spoke. Merton's reflections on Kanchenjunga did not end with the “other side” dream. Later he developed a kind of devotion for her, and sang to her as “Tantric Mother Mountain” a free soliloquy, much as Buddhist adepts sang to the Prajna-paramita the Mother of Wisdom in 5th century India:
Kanchenjunga this afternoon. The clouds of the morning parted slightly and the mountain, the massif of attendant peaks, put on a great, slow, silent dorje dance of snow and mist, light and shadow, surface and sinew, sudden cloud towers spiraling up out of icy holes, blue expanses of halfrevealed rock, peaks appearing and disappearing with the top of Kanchenjunga remaining the visible and constant president over the whole slow show. It went on for hours..The full beauty of the mountain is not seen until you too consent to the impossible paradox: it is and is not. When nothing more needs to be said, the smoke of ideas clears, the mountain is SEEN. (155-157)
Here was another glimpse of her mystery. In her absolute nature, she does not independently, inherently exist. And yet she appears, as all phenomena appear when they are seen as without inherent existence. When we actually see the beauty of the world around us, the russet oak leaves, the glisten of dew on grass, the sudden blueness of the sky, there is no duality between seer and seen. In the clarity of limitless awareness, without conceptuality, the mountain shines beautifully as the inseparability of the observer and the observed, the glamour of things as they are (yatha-bhutam). She is, inseparably, SEEN.
As he closed his Mim retreat, Kanchenjunga receded into a cloudbank for over three days, and Merton got one final glimpse on the wild taxi-ride down the main road. “A last sight of Kanchenjunga, bright and clear in the morning sun, appearing over the hills of Ghoom.a surprise.” (170) Shortly later he left India for good.
DZOGCHEN'S FINAL GIFTS: PREMONITIONS OF IMPENDING DEATH
There is another profound dimension to Merton's early Indian meetings with the Dzogchen teachers Khamtrul Rinpoche and Chokling Rinpoche that emerges once the sources are examined. Both of these great masters independently and unexpectedly presented an advanced meditation practice associated with dying and death to Merton. First, Khamtrul Rinpoche introduced Merton to the possibility of direct realization through phowa, or ejection of consciousness, at the moment of death. At that time, Merton noted in his Journal that Khamtrul Rinpoche had taught “some curious stuff about working the soul of a dead man out of its body with complete liberation after death—through small holes in the skull or a place where the skin is blown off—weird!” (89) Several days later, Neten Chokling Rinpoche first asked him if he believed in reincarnation and then, without an explicit request, gave Merton actual phowa transmission. (Tworkov 19) That two powerful meditation masters, known for their yogic clairvoyance, chose to introduce Merton to an esoteric practice associated with realization of the ultimate nature at death was significant to Harold Talbott, who years later made this observation. The reason Chokling Rinpoche taught Merton phowa practice—say I—is that he saw that Merton was going to be dead in a couple of weeks. He needed the teachings on death. He did not need teachings of karma and suffering, calming the mind, insight meditation. He needed to be taught how to dispose his consciousness at the time of death because this was the time of death for him. And Merton scribbled in his journal: “I'm not sure about all this consciousness and shooting it out the top of the head. I'm not sure this is going to be very useful for us.” 28(Tworkov 19)
This view was confirmed by Chokling Rinpoche's son Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who commented about this transmission, “Maybe Rinpoche saw what was coming and gave the transmission to help him.”29
Dzogchen teaches that there are special opportunities for direct realization at the time of death. Highly realized beings who have completely realized and accomplished their experience of the fundamental limitless awareness (rikpa) die naturally, without any concerns or conscious methods of meditation or instructions from teachers. Others who have
practiced Dzogchen and have attained a high level of stability may practice at death, following specific instructions they have been given in how to die. One of these practices is called phowa, or ejection of consciousness. At a strategic moment, the practitioner visualizes his consciousness as a white syllable “A” (in Tibetan form) and ejects it through the central channel out to merge with the realized mind of the Buddha, symbolized as a purified awareness realm. In Tibet, such a practice was viewed as a “method of
attaining enlightenment without a lifelong experience of meditation practice.”30 For the accomplished Dzogchen adept, this practice can be accomplished alone. For others, the presence of a qualified teacher at the moment of death is critical, even if one has received the transmission. It would be unusual for the transmission of this type of esoteric practice to be given to a non-Buddhist, especially one who did not directly request it. A month later while Merton gazed at the magnificent huge sculptures of the peacefully dying, reclining Buddha at Polonnaruwa, one wonders at the power of his realization and premonition there:31
Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious..The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no “mystery.” All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya.everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don't know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination (233-235).
The imagery in this observation is so full of Dzogchen themes— the sudden jerk out of habitual mind, the clarity and simplicity of the realization, the inseparability of compassion and emptiness. Perhaps Merton had found what he was looking for, the great affair, the great compassion—perhaps this was his own “great completion” of this Asian journey and of his life. On the morning of Thomas Merton's tragic death in Bangkok in 1968, he presented a paper to a Bangkok conference of Cistercian monks. One of the most striking features of this presentation was the following statement— Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity share the view
that if you once penetrate by detachment and purity of heart to the inner secret of the ground of your ordinary experience, you attain to a liberty that nobody can touch, that nobody can affect, that no political change of circumstances can do anything to..[Behind these two traditions is] the belief that this kind of freedom and transcendence is somehow attainable. (342)
Several hours later, Merton died in the bathroom of his Bangkok hotel bungalow.
Among native Tibetan communities in India and the west it is often whispered that Merton has, of course, reincarnated as a Tibetan monk. He could never, in his previous life, have left his beloved order or tradition. His fidelity to his vows and his Trappist order was too strong. Yet, they say, he saw a vision of what he might do to continue his practice in the Dzogchen tradition. Some say they know he is at this monastery, or another, a promising monk practicing the essential teachings of the “great completion” tradition. Others say he is a yogi in solitary retreat in the caves of the Himalayas. Perhaps he is even on the lower slopes of Kanchenjunga, radiating the limitless vastness of pure awareness.
NOTES
1. This reference (4-5) and the others to follow from Merton's Asian Journal are referenced only by page number from the 1968 edition.
2. It is not clear how Merton had obtained these two books by Tucci and Desjardins, as they were first published in 1969. He mentioned them frequently and included numerous quotes from them on his Asian journey, and so somehow he must have received advance copies.
3. The Tibetan tradition holds that highly realized teachers have the ability to consciously incarnate in an auspicious situation after death, continuing their spiritual journeys and their compassionate activity without forgetting the accomplishments of their previous lives. These beings are called “tulkus” that literally means incarnate Buddhas. Tulkus are commonly referred to as “rinpoche” which means “precious jewel,” signifying their high status as teachers and guides on the spiritual path. Occasionally other great teachers who have developed realization in this life are also called “rinpoche”—so it is not a term applied only to tulkus. The measure of the value Tibetans have placed on tulkus can be found in how they responded to the Chinese occupation. While they systematically smuggled texts and sacred relics and ritual implements from the country into India, they especially insisted that the living holders of the oral instructions of meditation lineages be escorted out of the country, living treasures of Tibet.
4. Sakya is one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, along with Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelukpa.
5. The other such tradition is closely related, coming from the Kagyu lineage as opposed to the Nyingma. It is called Mahamudra, or Chakchen, the “great seal.” Its methods closely parallel the Dzogchen. Merton's interest in Dzogchen grew from the influences of the western scholar Gene Smith; Sonam Kazi, the lay Sikkimese practitioner who served as Merton's interpreter in the Dharamsala area; and Lopsang Lhalungpa, who was a Tibetan translator in Delhi. For further exploration of Dzogchen, see Ray 2001, pp. 294-325; for teachings from Dzogchen masters, see Schmidt 2002 and Schmidt 2004.
6. The lore concerning Dzogchen teachers is found in sacred biographies called namthar. For a classic collection of Dzogchen namthar, see Tulku Thondup.
7. The level of Trungpa Rinpoche's concern is evident from the title of his first popular book on meditation published in 1973, Cutting Through Spritual Materialism, in which he describes the “three lords of materialism” with special emphasis upon spiritual materialism. This concern was to permeate all of his teachings, especially from the mid-1960's through the 1970's. See Collected Works, Vols. II and V.
8. Detailed descriptions of this retreat are given by Trungpa Rinpoche (1975) and by his attendant Richard Arthure (Collected Works V, pp. xxii-xxvii.) See also Midal18-24.
9. Personal communication, 2004, Richard Arthure. Also Trungpa, Collected Works V, pp. xxii-xxiii.
10. The subtitle of the sadhana liturgy expresses the full purpose of the text: “The Sadhana of Mahamudra Which Quells the Mighty Warring of the Three Lords of Materialism and Brings Realization of the Ocean of Siddhas of the Practice Lineage.” Trungpa, Collected Works V, p. 303. An excerpt of the original translation of the Sadhana appears here. For the joining of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, see “Joining Energy and Space,” Collected Works V, pp. 310-314.
11. Merton 1968, p. 129. Trungpa Rinpoche was to remain close to James George, who helped him obtain a Canadian visa as he emigrated to first Canada and then the United States.
12. Mackenzie 1998. See chapter five for Tenzin Palmo's account of meeting her root teacher. She may very well have been serving as Khamtrul Rinpoche's secretary at the time of this meeting with Merton.
13. Mackenzie 1998, p. 104-5. Tenzin Palmo describes the death of her teacher, very suddenly, and the subsequent miracles associated with his death. These are consistent with Dzogchen teachings on death and dying. The 9th Khamtrul was born in 1981.
14. There are two incarnation lines of Chokling Rinpoches in the Nyingma tradition, both traced from Chogyur Lingpa, the great terton of the early part of the 18th century. The other Chokling is Tsikey Chokling, son of the great Tulku Ugyen, Rinpoche, the Dzogchen master of Nagi Gompa on the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Tsikey Chokling is father of the “yangtsi” or reincarnated tulku of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who served as teacher of both Choklings.
15. Their children include Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche and Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, both Dzogchen masters. Dzigar Kongtrul taught for many years at Naropa University in the Religious Studies department, and now heads Mangala Shri Bhuti, a network of meditation centers and two retreat centers in Vermont and in Crestone, in Southern Colorado, dedicated to the Longchen Nyingthik teachings.
16. Gyurme Dorje, the fourth Chokling of Neten, was born in Bhutan to a poor family, was discovered as the tulku, and taken to his monastery in Bir near Dharamsala at age seven. In addition to directing his monastery, he has directed a high-profile film, Himalaya.
17. There is no Tibetan term that is translated as “His Holiness.” From the impetus of Tibetan Buddhism in exile, this term used for the Catholic Pope was used for the heads of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism—and so from the 1960's, there were always four “His Holiness'”—His Holiness' Karmapa, Sakya Trinzin, Dudjom and the Dalai Lama—they are all referred to in English as “His Holiness.” The term in Tibetan is more often given Kyabje, which means “Lord of Refuge,” which means the teacher has been recognized by his peers to embody all the qualities of enlightenment in his manifestation and his compassionate teaching. There is no legislative body that makes this decision. The term begins to be used over time, especially for the genuine elders of a tradition. So, you will notice, Kyabje is applied to several other teachers in this essay.
18. Talbott was shocked by Merton's response. At that point he was a beginner in Buddhist meditation himself, and he was surprised that Catholic contemplation had included such insight.
19. Dzogchen has been closely connected with the “non-sectarian” (Ri-me, “without bias” pronounced Ree-May) movement in Tibet that grew in strength and popularity in the 19th century. Ray 2000, 207-208; Simmer-Brown 2004.
20. Merton mistakenly spelled his name “Geshe”—but this was kindly corrected by Robert Thurman, who explained that this monk had not earned the “geshe” monastic degree.
21. Later in the Journal, Merton met Dr. Pemba, a medical doctor from Tibet, who also admired Chadral Rinpoche, but commented that he wore “unconventional clothes” because he put all money he was given into the retreat center, nunnery, and temples around Ghoom. p. 162.
22. Ngondro, or foundation ritual practices, include the completion of prostrations and refuge; the 100-syllable purification mantra; the mandala offering; and the guru-yoga practice. Each practice requires 100,000 repetitions, and the last requires 1,000,000 repetitions. Doing this practice intensively on retreat may take five to eight months.
23. See www.purifymind.com/SaveBeings.htm.
24. Merton 1968, p. 66. Kalu's retreats would have emphasized Mahamudra practice instead, but this practice is so similar, especially at the beginning, that these distinctions were probably put aside in Rinpoche's descriptions.
25. This is what Kanchenjunga is called in Mott 1984, chapter 7.
26. Kanchenjunga (28,169 feet or 8598 m tall, the world's third highest mountain) was named from the Tibetan “kan-chen-dzo-nga” that literally means “five treasures of the great snow” as it has five peaks sacred to the peoples of the Himalayas. It is located on the border of Nepal and Sikkim, just 46 miles northwest of Darjeeling. The first non-Asian climbers to reach the summit were British, in 1955, and they did not mount the very top, out of respect for Sikkimese beliefs.
27. This quote is taken from a Darjeeling news site, www.darjeelingnews.net/kanchenjunga.html.
28. Talbott's comments are limited to the actions of Chokling Rinpoche, but Khamtrul Rinpoche also taught Merton phowa. Private communication, Harold Talbott.
29. Verbal communication, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, October 19, 2003, at Drupchu teaching.
30. Sogyal , p. 232. For more information on this practice and its Dzogchen context, see chapter fourteen of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.
31. Thurston. Talbott noted the powerful influence of the reclining Buddha on Merton, but observed that most likely Merton did not realize that this was Buddha on his deathbed.
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