Batteries

Sometimes it's not late nights anymore. Sometimes, it goes all the way up to noon.

I don't think Rinpoche sleeps, ever. I think he runs on batteries, and when he goes into his bedroom to sleep, he actually just plugs into a wall socket and stays very still so that we think he's sleeping.

It was all the same when we went to visit Gangchen Rinpoche in Italy. I don't think he ever slept the entire week that we were there. He could even come down to the retreat centre at 7 in the morning to give us a tour of the protector chapel AND grant us an interview. We felt like very sleepy samsara lowlifes in our morning doziness.

The Buddhas have boundless energy - well, wouldn't you, if you had a Rainbow Body too!

Exposed!

Last night, Rinpoche told me that Joeyhad written a book.

I stood there, in front of him with a tray in my hand, and did what was most natural to me. I paused, and said, "Eeeeewwwwww."

I wasn't even pretending to be disgusted but I guess it all came out very funny because Rinpoche laughed and laughed and laughed until it looked like he might burst out of his shirt.

"You're so jealous!!!!!!!!" he said, and then the rest of the evening was about how to rub it in to me that Joey had written a book and I hadn't. Yet. I so did not like Rinpoche right then.

Well, the Buddhas sure know how to hit the spot. It made me spend the rest of the night thinking about what I'd really been wasting my time on these past few months, and wondering why I really hadn't come up with a book yetl.

Earlier in the week, I had said to him that I wished all the time that if I couldn't be a liaison, then at the very least, I could be as efficient and beneficial as them.

He said, "What makes you think you can't be a liaison?"

I was trying to formulate the right answer in my head because I always want things to sound right. So I didn't say anything for ages as I came up with something intelligent and profound.

You can't trick the Buddhas though, they see right through you.

The silence, was, after all, an accurate reflection of the fact that I was caught off-guard; it showed that I had been thinking about being a liaison.

What I thought was a profound pause was only fodder for a Buddha's laugh. Rinpoche roared and said, "OH MY GOD! EXPOSEEEE! You've been thinking about this, haven't you! We know what you really want now! OH MY GOD, you're EXPOSED!!!"

I've had all my insides pulled out in the spotlight this week - all my little jealousies, and all my little dreams.

After the ribbing, Rinpoche said again, "Well, you know I'm not going to give you any hints so don't take it that way, but I'll answer you with a question: What makes you think you can't be?"

I finally answered; I gave up with trying to sound intellectual. I said I didn't think I had time management or discipline, like what JP had pointed out. I didn't even try to deny it this time - it was true after all.

Rinpoche thought about it for awhile, and then said, "No, I don't agree. I don't think so at all."

But he didn't say anything else after that so now I'm all flustered and frustrated and confused.

Still, I guess once you've been flipped inside out and you really realise that he knows you better than you know yourself, you figure it isn't even worth being flustered, frustrated or confused about.

a few hours later

.... when I was still asleep, I received a text message. Rinpoche was already up and about and running around on his Buddha-charged batteries.

"Dear Paris, are you okay? Did you have enough rest? Have you had anything to eat?"

Of all the things that a Guru has to think about, he still remembers sleepy, tired me and takes time out to ask if I'm okay. And all before I'd even gotten out of bed.

I couldn't reply until a few hours later because I didn't get up until 6pm. I apologised for a late reply and confessed how much of a pig I was for sleeping for so damn long.

I'm not sure that if that makes me look honest, or just terribly attached to sleep.

Chocolate raisins

I think JP might have killed me over a couple of chocolate raisins last night.

Because of preparations for the retreat land blessing, he hasn't had any sleep for the past week. Neither has Rinpoche of course, but that doesn't stop him from bouncing about with that endless sort of energy he has stored up everywhere.

After the prayers at the retreat, Rinpoche decided to take one of his oldest friends and sponsors out to dinner, and then through a very long tour of the centre and all its departments. He kept saying, "Oh, we only have this and this place to go to, and then that's it! We can go home." I don't know why I always manage to believe him when he says that and get excited for bedtime, when actually we all know that it will last at least another 6 hours.

Anyway, the long tour didn't end until about 5am, after which we proceeded back to the ladrang for supper. BK, the girl who is able to propel her way through several days without sleep (perhaps she is a Rinpoche too!) found pizza and heat it up to eat.

I thought I might hide myself in the kitchen and eat with her but Rinpoche called me out to talk about Gaden and the retreat land. So I didn't get to the eat the pizza until later. When I finally did get to eat the pizza, someone had laid it all out on a fancy tray with cutlery. I had thought to just eat it on the go, but when it's all laid out and you're sitting in front of Rinpoche, you just shut up and eat it. JP glared at me and said, "Hurry it up because we have to go."

It doesn't really make a difference though because as long as Rinpoche feels like hanging out, it doesn't matter how fast you scoff down that pizza.

At about 8 in the morning, Rinpoche dug through the fridge and pronounced loudly, "Paris, do you want chocolate raisins!" I figured, we can't go home until he finds his own snack and eats it so I may as well eat the chocolate while I can.

When I said, "Okay!" to the chocolates, JP turned around and gave me the dirtiest, ugliest look I'd ever seen on his pretty little white face. I swear I'd never felt so guilty eating chocolates.

Rinpoche was exhausted TOTALLY but as is part of all the training and the sort of elastic divine energy that he tries to get us all to foster, he stayed up. He pushed himself, and us, and the very least we could be thankful was, was the chocolate raisins to keep the fuel going.

Why the late nights, Rinpoche?

It was 8am that morning and I really just couldn't tahan anymore. I loved it but I was tired as FUCK.

We were talking about David and making him stay up late. So I asked Rinpoche, yah, by the way, why do we have to stay up so late?

I thought it would make sense to ask, considering Rinpoche himself was exhausted.

He said that for some people, he makes them stay up because he wants them to work (especially for the people who like evade work and responsibility, and when you resist the Lama persists, til you break down that barrier).

I was thinking, but I do my work what, why am I here?... Or maybe I don't???

I asked, Sometimes your mind is willing but your body just isn't. So how?!?!

And he explained that, as with all things, it all goes back to the mind. That when he was with his Lama, Gangchen Rinpoche, they slept only one or two hours a night, and it went on for weeks like that. Nobody fell sick then, even though they all had to just keep on going.

They say that if you do get sick, it would then be for a good reason - that you have gotten sick not just from partying or whatever, but from doing work to benefit others. Then sickness becomes a form of purification of karma. Then there are the few extraordinary ones, like BK, and Gangchen Rinpoche's assistant Cosy, who don't ever get ill, tired or grumpy.

But I wonder if maybe sometimes your body just wants to have a break!

Why Dharma?

I've just moved into a house with two friends from my Dharma centre and already there is drama - of both the Dharma and samsara kind! It got me thinking about what it really means to be working and living so closely within a Dharma world - what practice is all about, the ins and outs, the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of working in Dharma and being a student in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. So here's this blog to journal that journey.

Its title means exactly that... late nights with a Rinpoche. Often, very late! But those are always intimate sessions, where it's just Rinpoche and about 5 or 6 of his students, sitting in his dining room eating supper.

It feels like hell but as you struggle to keep our eyes open at 4 in the morning and your Rinpoche is "forcing" you awake with a Dharma teaching, you are pushed to your fullest potential, you learn and ultimately, you begin to transform towards something more positive.... which is what Dharma is all about.

You don't think it's possible at the time, and you really just wish Rinpoche would stop talking and go to bed so you can too, but within the lateness and sleepiness is a preciousness that I wouldn't ever exchange for pillow time.