“So after he walks away, the ‘banker’ waddles to the shore and dives — no, cannonballs into the river, you know, the classic fat-guy move! That killed us. And my friend starts to imitate him, cruel, but funny. (The guy’s far away enough that he can’t hear.) Vare are you frome? How deed choo learn of diss place? ‘San Franciskie! Did you drove or did you flew?’ Remember that character Eugene Levy did on SCTV? I busted a gut but it still felt… wrong. We took a nap and I managed to shake it off. I figured I’d see ‘sombrero’ later and make things right. Or not.
“The first lecture was in the evening. A beautiful hall, just stunning. And I felt great—you know, that magical feeling you get before hearing a dharma talk. I was rested and had put the earlier minor debacle behind me. Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche comes in, filled with light, with this chestnut energy. You know what he’s like: mischievous-looking but warm, and at the same time very serious too. Like a frog, a frog prince. You just love him right away. His translator was by his side — the Rinpoche spoke English but not very well, at least that’s my memory. That was my impression. My friend was wearing his silent-retreat sticker, at last! For all the world to see! And the tulku said, ‘Ask yourself, after five years of practice, ten years—fifteen, twenty—“Do I treat my enemies in the same way that I do strangers and friends?” Yes or no?’ That hit a nerve for me, in terms of our encounter with the fattie. Because it was still gnawing at me, I kept replaying the tape during his talk, you know, our bad behavior, my bad behavior. My participation in it. Just reflecting on it throughout the talk…
“Anyway, he went on about the ‘nine sublime qualities of an authentic dharma master’—how the foremost teacher is the one who exposes your faults. I really felt he was doing that with me right then! He talked a lot about death. I remember him saying there were two hardships put before us: those related to poverty, disease, adversity — and those related to luxury and fame, popularity and ease. That hit a righteous nerve too. He said fame and luxury were the far greater adversaries, and when I heard that, I thought whoa. He said that if fame, wealth, or position — if good fortune comes naturally, try to accept it, the impermanence of it, so that when it goes, it doesn’t hurt too much. Because we may die suddenly, he said. ‘While talking or walking, happy, angry, or sad.’ I’d heard those concepts before, but this time they sunk in. They really stayed with me.
“A lot of the tulku’s chants began with the word ‘Kyema,’ which for me was new. The translator said it meant sadness, weariness, wariness, some sorrow. The way he put it was, ‘Oh. Oh my! Okay.’ He was fuckin’ brilliant, that translator. I’d sat for many satsangs, many talks and lectures, before and since, but this guy was unforgettable. You know, I usually have to try and get past the translator — they’re obstacles, or perceived obstacles, because most of the time they’re… not so wonderful. And that can become part of the experience, part of the teaching. Of the workshop, the weekend, whatever. Navigating through and around those guys is almost like a meditation in itself because your mind grabs onto whatever you feel their inadequacies are and it impedes you, it tries to subvert you from listening to the guru. And I accept that. Most of the time! You know, if they’re nervous or hyped up or just plain scared… I’ve seen it all. And sometimes they’re not fluent in the language, they’re filling in or just doing the best they can, like everyone else. That’s a pretty big burden. But this one was different. Clearly, he’d been with the Rinpoche a long, long time. Traveled the world with him. I assumed he was a serious student of his as well, that would be pretty common. So fluid, so elegant, but… scientific. Poetic! He was, like, the Glenn Gould of translators! Chökyi Nyima would talk for, say, five minutes at a time, and then he’d pause, with this devilish smile on his face, you know, like he was challenging the guy — but playful. ‘Translate that!’ And the guy did, you know, no problem, just seamlessly summarized. Even my ‘silent’ brother was flabbergasted.
“That night, in our log cabin — we were right on the river — my old friend was in a somber mood. I thought it was because of the Rinpoche’s talk. Because so much of it was about death and impermanence, and I had the idea that Meghan might have been ‘weighing heavily’ on his mind. But it was something else… and at the end of each talk, getting further into the weekend, he became more and more quiet and reflective. I was pissed at myself for not having as rich an experience as he was having! Then he said something that took my breath away. Completely leveled me.
“He asked if I had noticed anything ‘unusual’ about the translator. Right when he said that—bam! — I knew: the translator was the ‘sombrero’! Sancho, Fatso, Dutch Boy! Schmucko the Tourist! The cannonballing ‘banker’… groomed and hatless, he’d been unrecognizable in his cantaloupe-colored robes. And I just kind of took in that new reality. Just sat there, shaking my head and tripping on it, and when I looked up I saw that my friend was in tears. He looked like a saint in the middle of having a vision—the tears were coming from a well so much deeper than a place of contrition or embarrassment. Tears from some distant place… some—river.
“That fucked with us hard, because the translator and his teacher were the same — the same! No difference. No difference. We’d pissed on them both in that encounter by the water. In the very first hour we were there! Pissed on the teacher! That really got me, but it hit my friend like a ton of bricks. He finally took off his little ‘Silent’ sticker, I don’t know why, because it wasn’t like he was going to talk to anyone anyhow — and nobody was going to talk to him either. People pretty much keep to themselves on retreats, writing in their journals, meditating, what have you. I think he did it out of respect. He was raw and open now, but very contained—something shifted in him. I could see it, feel it. Something shifted in me too, though not as dramatically.