Better than SatNav

Paris, 1977

Mainly because of having just inherited a superb Citroen DS (same model as the French President’s), I got to drive HH the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa in Paris, a city he did not know. One day, he wanted, as he often did, to go and buy birds. We were told that these were sometimes reincarnations of his previous disciples, with the mixed karma of being reborn an animal but an animal nevertheless close to the Buddha. I took him to the famous Quai de Mégisseries, with its row of bird shops but he quickly perused all of them without interest. We left and he started directing me, “Left here, now right…” into completely unknown territory. After some ten minutes, I assumed he was having a huge joke at my expense (he had a wonderful sense of humour), as there was no way he could have any idea of the layout of Paris. My tangible anxiety at being totally lost changed briefly to relief and a sense of triumph when he said “Left” and I could see the street sign saying it was a cul-de-sac: joke over. Delighted, he got out of the car and walked straight into the pet shop at the end of the street and directly to the birds he wanted. Back in the car, with the birds on board and seeing me completely lost, His Holiness directed me skilfully home to where he was staying. I simply marvelled. Better than SatNav? Of course – who wouldn’t want a SatNav with the Karmapa’s beautiful voice and protective presence?

Ken Holmes,
Director of Studies,
Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery.

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Here Comes the Sun

by Linda Lewis

On the first visit of His Holiness Karmapa to Boulder, Colorado he gave us all a Vajra Yogini initiation and blessing in the main shrine room of 1111 Pearl Street, going between the spaces of hippies to touch us with his hand and implements, including the little head of my infant son Waylon.

On his second visit, I believe in 1976, my toddler son fell in love with His Holiness, wanting to go again and again to the place where he was staying on Mapleton Hill, which we called the “wedding cake house”.  My son would say repeatedly, “I want to go to see the big man with the big hat in the big house!”

On His Holiness Karmapa’s last visit to Boulder, I believe in 1980, there was to be a children’s blessing in the main shrine Room.  My son was now 6 years old.  His father had fallen asleep and, although he had said he wanted us to wake him up, he was unspeakably angry when we did so.  There was a domestic “scene” and Waylon and I were delayed.  I was really afraid we had missed the ceremony but felt inclined to go late, rather than to wallow in domestic misery.

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Liberation Upon Seeing

 

The Karmapa Picture Project

If you are interested in helping to complete this project posted on the Kagyu Monlam Website, please consider contributing any pictures, slides, or videos you may have of H.H. Karmapa.

Please contact:

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I Lived Alone in the Mountains

by Paula Breymeier
 
I lived alone in the mountains in a little cabin 20 minutes from the nearest road. The Karmarpa came to Boulder to teach at Karma Dzong, Trungpa Rinpoche’s center and I came down from my retreat home to see him.

I had always looked to the night sky and marveled at the stars and wondered “why”. I always wanted to understand the space between the stars. The Karmarpa was so wise and it seemed he might know the answer to that question. So when he met with a small group of students to answer our questions, it was the perfect opportunity to ask. But I felt very stupid and embarrassed to speak such a question in front of all the smart people there. So I just asked the question in my mind. I never spoke it out loud.

Without a word he answered my question. And he showed me how the life I was living was a lie. It was devastating. I ran out of the building as soon as I could, my eyes filled with tears. After a while I calmed down and returned to the building, my mind empty and shorn of delusion. As I entered the building, he was just leaving, tall, regal with his entourage following behind. He looked at me and instilled my heart with perfect confidence.

This has remained with me, vivid and unadulterated for more than three decades.

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A High Note

Grandfather Burt is a very secretive man with some interesting stories to tell about his meetings with His Holiness the 16th Karmapa. If we hadn’t met in a dark corridor one evening, he would never have revealed a single word. But on that auspicious occasion our minds joined and I jotted down his personal memoir.
 

‘When the 16th Karmapa was visiting one day he told me he wanted to buy some mules. What on earth do you want mules for?’ I asked him. He explained that these are not the mules we all know as mules; they are in fact a cross between a canary and a wild song bird which are noted for their enchanting song. By chance we found some breeders of ‘mules’ nearby in the heads of the valleys.

After a short journey, we knocked at the door of the Jones house and Mrs Jones invited us in. The Karmapa was in robes of course and Mrs Jones looked at him with friendly curiosity. Soon we were sitting down and having tea with the Jones’ family and soon everyone was in high spirits. Mr Jones showed us his rare cross breed collection of ‘mules’. The Karmapa selected a few birds and they were put into cages to travel home. As he opened his wallet to pay for the birds, a sudden gust of wind swirled through his wallet lifting the notes. I ran after them trying to catch as many as I could. The Karmapa was watching and roaring with laughing as I ran to and fro over the garden driven by the wind. I returned all the notes I collected to him. Thereupon he gave me one back. I looked at the £50 note which was a lot of money in those days and said no, I could not keep it. But the Karmapa insisted. After three attempts to return the money I decided it was useless to argue with His Holiness. I have kept it all these years treasuring the moment which ended on such a high note!’
Grandfather Burt smiled with delight and winked mischievously.

 
edited by Naomi Levine

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Black Crown, Black Mountains

I met the Karmapa in 1976 when he was invited to a farmhouse in the Black Mountains of Wales. If there is one event which you can say changed your life, this was it.

Karmapa occupied the throne completely. He had a spiritual dignity that made it his rightful seat, just as the lion proclaims his natural dominion. His eyes seemed to cover all directions and dimensions: the people crammed together bursting out the doorway into the sitting room,the house, the Black Mountains right out through space and time. One of his eyes was noticeably smaller than the other and seemed to move independently.

I looked at this man who seemed to see everything. His body seemed unlike flesh and blood. He was as pure as the elements: wind, water, earth, air and space. (A photograph taken of him a few years later would show a blur of multi-colored lights instead of a solid body.) His expression changed constantly like clouds shifting across the sky. Sometimes he smiled with delight like a child; sometimes he stared wrathfully black as thunder. The force of his presence alone brought a hushed silence to Karma Naro. It felt like the tiny room had turned into a cathedral-like space. A muffled sob came from behind me; I turned
round to look at Maggie, her face wet with tears.

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The Knower of the Three Times

by Rager Ossel

In 1976 I got off a truck at Rumtek Monastery. No one knew I was coming but apparently His Holiness asked a monk to go down into the fields to pick me up. The monk took my luggage as we ran uphill towards the Karmapa’s summer palace. They pulled me, ‘Come, Come,Come’. As I passed the guesthouse the jalings started. His Holiness was outside in front of the summer palace, sitting on a small throne with a wall behind him, holding the Black Crown in his hands. He waited for me to sit down in front, looked at me and then he put the Crown on his head. I had no idea about anything. That was the first meeting. It was like everything was synchronized; the timing was exact.
He entered into a deep (meditation) .. it was like we melted.. It was a meeting in which I went into his being, his world. Everything danced like that, very spontaneously.

We were going shopping for birds in the countryside of Holland driving towards a well-known breeder. En route we drove through a small village. His Holiness said stop here. We went to the door of a very simple house and rang the doorbell. The wife opened the door. I asked if they had birds. And she said yes and invited us through the house to the back yard. Her husband was there. Birds were sitting on his hands and shoulders. His Holiness especially loved golden finches. The man was at one with the birds and soon they were both talking continuously to the birds. Their sound was so beautiful; it was an experience to hear it. The man brought out a huge bird cage and placed a very ill bird into His Holiness’ hands; immediately it flew away. He put a few birds into a cage and gave it to His Holiness. So we got his birds but we never made it to the shop and we actually didn’t meet the big bird breeder at all.

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I didn’t know he spoke Italian

It was 1977, in the Château de Chaban, Dordogne, France. His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa was holding group interviews. As one of his secretaries, I was hovering outside the room in which they took place. When the party (of mixed nationalities) emerged, an ecstatic lady came straight to me saying, in a very strong accent, “I had no idea he spoke Italian … and so beautifully and so perfectly. And, it’s incredible, he spoke just about what was on my mind!” During my six months travelling with His Holiness, driving him sometimes, these instances of mind-to-mind communication, which people automatically “heard” in their own language, were so numerous as to seem “normal” after a while. It helps explain such things as why, in the Buddha’s sixty qualities of speech, he can be heard by those at the back of a huge crowd just as clearly as by those at the front.

Ken Holmes
Director of Studies
Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery

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Under Karmapa’s Black Crown

by Joost Willems

The Karmapa was due to arrive at  Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on June 11 1977. I was part of a group  organising a coach for the his party in Belgium and we all went down to Paris to receive him. I had heard  many stories  and was very curious to see him.  He came off the plane and got into a limousine driving towards the VIP reception hall. He got out of the car about 50 or 60 meters from the outside stairs  leading into the hall. I could see him getting out of the car and noticed that he was aware of the circular waves of movement created by the 120 or so people standing around his car. As he walked through the crowd up the stairs in my direction, I felt  embarrassed because I was somewhat taller than him. So I bent my knees and as he came by he brushed my bended knees. He turned his head to the left in recognition and broke into thunderous laughter while slapping my shoulder.  It was  shocking but funny and I felt relieved at this joyful meeting.

In the press conference hall he  introduced a  Tibetan lama whose rayban sunglasses made him look somewhat mafioso. He had just arrived in Paris from India. Yeshe Norbu said: “This man is going to be very important in the West”, and introduced him: “Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rrrrrrrrrrrinpoche”, emphasizing the rrrs of the last word.  He then continued: “You will hear from him in the future.”

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Maia’s story

Today, December 8th is the opening ceremony to commemorate 900 years of the Kagyu Lineage. As an offering in celebration of this momentous occasion, we are starting our series, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections of the 16th Karmapa. Most of these timeless stories took place when the 16th Karmapa was on the road, travelling from place to place, stopping where he wanted, and interacting with people spontaneously. We dedicate it to the freedom of the 17th Karmapa. May his buddha activity spread in all directions until the whole world is ablaze with the light of dharma.

 

Maia Saabye Christensen

I met the 16th Karmapa when I was 6 years old in Denmark on his first trip to the west. On my first meeting he gave the Black Crown ceremony. I remember every second of that ceremony crystal clear as if it was yesterday. There is a quality to that Black Crown Ceremony that makes it so fresh -it doesn’t fade. It’s like there have been no time layers since then. Now when I think about it in perspective I would say it was being as awake as you can be. I remember the Karmapa holding the Black Crown, every detail in the room, the sound, the smell, the way everything happened in order. When we arrived at the place there was a huge courtyard in front. The monks had been given bicycles and they were riding the bicycles in the yard. I showed them how to cycle. Then we went into a palatial hall with pillars. I remember the excitement in the voices of the people and a feeling of expectancy. There was a lot of incense in the air. The sun came in through the huge windows and made rays like angel hair. I remember how it came into the room and lit up the incense smoke. Then we went in and sat down in the midst of it all.

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