The Laughing Lama
We are congregated, on a recent Saturday, in an unlikely temple. It is a smallish suite on the first floor of the Uptown Bank on Broadway, where the furnace kicks in too often with a too-loud blast. At the door of the suite, a long-haired, batik-clad woman held a glass jug. As we filed past her, she tipped into the palm of each hand a puddle of a brilliant orange yellow liquid she identified as a purifying saffron water. We were to drink it and then dab the remainder on the crowns of our heads. The color was misleading; the water didn’t taste like saffron. It didn’t taste like much at all. When we entered, we added to the neatly aligned rows of shoes and began a civil search for an unoccupied foam cushion.
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The ritual in which we’re about to participate is named for White Tara, the deity whose blessings are to be invoked. Tara is said to be the female emanation of the Buddha. In Tibetan tradition, she has a special two-pronged concern for health. Emotionally, she eliminates mental pain; physically, she protects against untimely death. Tara is said to be so compassionate and nurturing that when taking her vows to practice the bodhisattva way of life–denying herself Nirvana to work to save others–she defied the patriarchal mind-set and chose instead to remain female. For taking this pioneering road, she is well loved by Western Buddhist practitioners. Now she stands before us, in the form of a large colorful poster, a luminous halo at her back and a flower in her hand, to liberate our minds and bodies.
Rinpoche also happens to be the great-nephew of the 13th Dalai Lama. At 59, he is a contemporary of the current, the 14th, Dalai Lama, and one of the last lamas, or teachers, to be fully educated in Tibet before the Chinese occupation. He was among an elite group of 16 monks to study with the enlightened tutors of the Dalai Lama.
It turns out that there’s a bonus for all those unwilling (suffering from one or more of the eight fears?) to shell out cash for this event. By extension, Rinpoche says, our presence will have a positive impact on all of Chicago. “At least we can make sure there will be no tornadoes–just kidding!”
But Rinpoche wasn’t always so keen on his assignment to root the dharma, most simply stated as Buddhist teachings, in our country. Though today he speaks with pride about his ten-year American citizenship, he arrived here not entirely of his own volition. Like many Tibetans, he faced the harrowing trek over the Himalayas to India to escape the Chinese in 1959.
I decided to ask him about his wild past. Did he ever feel guilt over it? “I don’t believe in guilt,” he said. “It is a perception of the mind. You must be conditioned to feel it. When there is no conditioning, there is no regret. Guilt is about hopelessness and I never felt hopeless.”
