Getting ready

Hoy, el día de la ceremonia de cremación de Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoché, transcribo el texto que escribí en mi grupo de escritura de los lunes (después de un mes de ausencia) porque hablo de la pérdida del maestro de mi maestro, que hoy duele un poco más.

I am not ready to start writing for 20 minutes. It seems ages have passed since the last tieme I did writing practice. It wasn't that long ago, a little more than a month, but my hand feels stiff and so do my words. How can you get ready for anything when things change so unexpectedly all the time? Where I live we don't really get ready for the change of seasons, becasuse change, in that respect, is not so dramatic. Yes, temperatures vary a bit and there might be rain or draught, but that's basically it. Maybe being ready for change is the smart move. Change is the one thing you can count on. How do you prepare for change? Not clinging is a good strategy. Not clinging to things as they are now, especially when you like them a lot, because when they change (and they will), you will suffer. Not clinging to the idea of the things you don't want, because they are bound to happen at some time or other, and then, you will suffer. My teacher's teacher, that is my guru's guru, died more than a month ago. He was 90 and hab been sick for some time, several years actually, so his passing was something that had been in our minds, but still, finding out about it was a shock, a complete and utter shock, as if the world had turned into a different place altogether. "Please, don't leave us behind", we used to sing in a longevity supplication and here we are left behind, in a relative sense anyway.

I remember when I was reading the Harry Potter saga several years ago, and I came to book 6, The Half-Blood Prince, and to the end of book 6 and the death of Dumbledore. I was not ready for that. I was shocked. I was devastated and I couldn't stop crying. It felt as if I had lost a member of my family, my father or a beloved grandfather. And I couldn't tell my son what was going on, because he was also reading the saga, but he must have been a couple of books behind me. Losing Khenpo Rinpoche felt like losing Dumbledore but much more intense. Intense and sad in a differente way, which is hard to put into words.

I had never experienced the loss of a guru, of a spiritual teachr before. Passing into parinirvana is the technical term, which points to their mind being completely free of any fetter binding it, their mind being enlightened and completely opern, spacioius and available for us, the disciples left behind to connect with it without any obstacle if we can relate to our own spaciousness and freedom. So practices are carried out as a sangha, intensively, during 49 days following the parinirvana, to mix our mind with the guru's mind. Words fall way too short to describe the expereince. It is something like an expansive sadness. A sadness that opens up the heart instead of closing it up. A sadness that goes beyond our usual physical limitatins. A sadness that can manifest as tears and can manifest as joy.

Khenpo Rinpoche visited Mexico in 2006, that is 18 years ago. He came with his heart disciple, my teacher, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and with two attendants Ari, who cared for Khenpo Rinpoche,  and Amita, who cared for Ponlop Rinpoche. Images of that time have been floating around me these days as I practice and grieve and connect with a deep gratitude for the guru's teachings.

Y cierro la entrada (que quizás tenga una continuación, o no) con unas fotos de mis maestros en tres momentos diferentes de su realación y con mi corazón de devoción.

Mis gurus preciosos

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y la luna llena el día de la cremación
y parinirvana del Señor del Dharma Gampopa