While finishing my master degree in English and American Literature in 1975, I took Buddhist refuge while engaged in a Zen retreat. I attended Chögyam Trungpa’s Naropa Institute in 1976 - 77 and studied Beat Poetry with Allen Ginsberg and Ann Waldman. Moving to New York City late 1977, I met my root Guru, Deshung Rinpoche Kunga Tenpai Nyima and became a founding member of Jetsun Sakya, New York City. Soon, His Holiness Kyabje Sakya Gongma Trichen came to also bless and direct our center. While there, He gave us the Cause Hevajra, Vajrayogini, Sapan Manjushri Guru Yoga, Vajrapani Bhutadamara, and many other tantric initiations and teachings.
Around that time, many luminaries of Tibetan Buddhism, both East and West, visited His Eminence Deshung Rinpoche at Jetsun Sakya. Foremost among them was Tibetan Historian Dr. Shakapa, a young Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche fresh from his studies in London, and HH Dakshen Rinpoche of the Phuntsok Podrang, and many Western scholars like Alex Wayman and Mathew Kapstein.
We were also closely instructed both by Geshe Jamspal and Dr. Douglas Rhoton in Sanskrit and Tibetan grammar, studying such texts as Shantideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. At that time they were both earning their PhD’s in Indic Studies at Columbia.
During the late seventies and early eighties, our sa-way lama, Deshung Rinpoche, taught us replete Mahayana teachings through the Precious Lamdre’s exoteric first portion, the nong sum. These teachings were later to be published as, ‘The Three Levels of Spiritual Perception.’ He was aided by the superb translator, Sonam Tenzin (Dr. Douglas Rhoton), who had also been one of His Holiness Sakya Gongma Trichen 41st’s earliest English teachers and translation collaborators. In fact, many of the sadhanas we practiced after immediately receiving tantric initiations from both His Holiness Gongma Trichen and Deshung Rinpoche were tranlated by him. But it didn’t stop there, he had a whole shipping chest filled with with translation projects, finished and unfinished, such as seminal works in Buddhist logico-epistemology taught within the Sakya, and many works in general written by Sakya Pandita and Gorampa Sonam Senge. A popular Sakya Tibetan Lotswa, just the other day, was praising Sonam’s translation of a particular of Pramana text.
Through these two Sakya lights, His Eminence Deshung Rinpoche, with his his encyclopedic knowledge of Dharma, and Sonam Tenzin Douglas Rhoton, who faithfully conveyed his profundity in English, we were given a very firm base upon which to begin receiving a thoroughgoing instruction on Foundation (Ngöndro) Practices.
Around this time, we’re also blessed with Vajrayogini and White Tara visitations by their modern day emanations: Jetsunma Chime Luding, of the Droma Palace, and Dagmo Kusho, of the Phuntsok Palace. Both of these prominent Sakya Dharma teachers are renowned in the West for their teaching accomplishments and at least two popular books: ‘The Sakya Jetsunmas: The Hidden World of Tibetan Female Lamas’ and ‘Princess in the Land of Snows.’
From Dagmo Kusho and her uncle, H.E. Deshung Rinpoche, we received the White Tara initiation and teachings. And, indeed, it did seem like we were in the vitalizing presence of White Tara. Upon Jetsunma’s arrival in New York City, we immediately felt her warmth and quiet charisma. Once you began to know her though, you discovered a wealth of practical wisdoms and common sense guidance. Some years later, she began giving the extensive Naro Khechod cycle of initiations and teachings, over and over again, amassing a large flock of ardent followers from everywhere.
Before Rinpoche completed his one hundred million Mani retreat and Ngong Sum teachings at Jetsun Sakya Center, New York, I was extremely fortunate to do the Sakya monks’ traditional first retreat, Vajrapani Bhutadamara, and then Ngöndro Practices under him. As a bonus, a boot camp-like assist for prostrations, and how to do a proper number of them each session, was provided by his dear friend, the Venerable ‘Lama Nor-li’ who came to eat lunch with us several times a week. Closely associated with Kagyu-pa master Khenpo Katar, of Woodstock’s renown Karma Triyana Dharma Chakra gompa, I was both honored and hard-pressed at the same time.
In 1980-81, I received the Precious Lamdre Lobshey from the peerless Vajra Master, His Holiness Kyabje Sakya Gongma Trichen 41st in a mandala of twenty-five predominantly non-Tibetan or Himalayan disciples in Puriwala. Among them was the legendary Ani Tenzin Palmo, perhaps the first ordained Western Tibetan Buddhist nun, who spent twelve years in a cave, and three more in an isolated retreat. She kindly translated the Fourteenth Root and Nine Branch Vajra vows for us. For the afternoon review class, none other than Chögay Trichen Vajradhara was our instructor, with Lama Chödak and Jay Goldberg translating.
Toward the end of that Lamdre, His Holiness called me into his room upstairs at the Puriwala Gompa and requested me to help the monk Lama Pema Wangdak come to New York City and takeover Deshung Rinpoche’s position there. While we would all miss Rinpoche greatly, I was happy to do this, and it led to a lasting friendship, even through the travails of Indian and American immigration processes. There were numerous trips to Delhi, first with Pema-la and me, and then, many more with the necessary help of one Jay Longacre.
The now ‘Khenpo’ Pema arrived ready to start stewarding our center and its ready members. After many meetings with founding board members of Jetsun Sakya, the challenging working out of ‘the care and feeding’ of a resident Tibetan Lama, the center eventually evolved into the Vikramasila Foundation, under Khenpo-la’s persistent efforts, and the apartment a core of us founding members purchased for his residency, then becoming the foundation’s respectable Manhattan address. Basing himself mostly out of New York, and becoming a real ‘New Yorker,’ Khenpo Pema went on to accomplish many great things, such as inventing a system of Brail called ‘Bur-yig’ for the numerous blind who read Tibetan. He’s also responsible for a trove of Dharma translation projects and the donated acquisition of a large tract of land, in Upstate New York, for a future Sakya retreat center. And received numerous honors such as a PEN Award, and an invitation to dine at the White House, during the Bush administration, celebrating foreign nationals’ achievements.
In the mid to late eighties, the heads of the two Sakya sub-sects were also to teach at Jetsun Sakya: the immaculate Ngor lineage holder Luding Khenchen Vajradhara and Tsar lineage legend, ‘lama of lamas,’ Chogye Trichen Vajradhara. Between them, we fortunate,
first wave, American East Coast Sakyapa received Naro Khechari wangkor with an extensive five or seven day commentarial teaching, Kalachakra, Chakrasamvara, select initiations from Sakya’s Thirteen Golden Dharmas, transmission with stone relic blessing of the tightly held Dawden Zawa, with commentary, etc.
But even years before these last two modern era Sakya Masters majestically appeared before us, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, on September 3rd (my birthday) 1980, preemptively transformed Jetsun Sakya, New York City, into a place of peerless refuge.
In 1986, after receiving a call from Deshung Rinpoche’s brother Doctor Nima to help them buy musical instruments and religious item for the soon to be built Tharlam Monastery in Boudha Nepal, I met them in Bangkok ahead of time and arranged a shopping tour with a ‘fixer.’ Before boarding the plane for Nepal, I tucked all the funds, over ten thousand dollars, raised from Rinpoche’s teaching in New York, Taiwan, and elsewhere, down my pants. Arriving at Trivauni Airport in Katmandu, sure enough the security people checked Rinpoche and his brother for foreign currencies and let me just pass by. In Boudha, Tarik Tulku organized and held a monlam for the building of Deshung Rinpoche’s post-diaspora Tharlam Monastery, inviting Dilgo Khentze and enough monks to number one hundred. Khenpo Kalsong, abbot and creator of His Holiness Gongma Trichen’s North American residence, was assisting in much of these ten day proceedings, where Samanthabadra’s King of Prayers was recited one hundred times a day for ten days by a hundred participants, ninety-nine of them robes sangha. Almost forty years later those blessings would fruit at the 2024 Lamdre, taught by Lama Sakyapas, 41st and 42nd. The key organizer behind this was Deshung Rinpoche IV, and he certainly did his predecessor proud by all standards.
Picking up my Tibetan language studies in 1999, after a twenty years hiatus, I was fortunate to meet Sampho Rinpoche, son of a minister to His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama, who had secured a plum job years earlier as a gardener in Central Park. He taught me how to capably decode Tibetan once and for all. He also taught me the four forms of writing Tibetan script: proper Uchen, or ‘Big head,’ and three forms of Ume. While these are not necessarily calligraphy, when done correctly, as Rinpoche did with a very sharp pencil, it absolutely became so.
When I told Sampho Rinpoche that His Holiness Sakya Gongma Trichen 41st was staying with Khenpo Pema at a sponsor’s New Jersey residence, he asked to meet Him. Very soon they did meet and one interesting comment Rinpoche made to His Holiness was that he doesn’t teach the Dharma outright. I knew exactly what he meant. By weaving into his lessons on fluent reading, precise writing, and correct pronunciation, the quotes from Tibetan meditation masters, especially Jetsun Milarepa, taught his fortunate students a great deal about the Dharma’s common and uncommon gifts.
Around my 49th birthday, the Dharma world I’d been so carefully tending—or so I thought, turned on its head and many inauspicious things occurred. First, there was a personal problem between the Tibetan tudor I sponsored when Sampho Rinpoche moved to Colorado, that created a rift in my relationship with the president of a Tibetan society group in Manhattan. This was precipitated by my shrine room catching on fire, which had to be extinguished by my elderly landlady. Afterward, a black cobwebbing covered the altar, left from heavy smoke of a melted plastic base to a lotus candle bought in Chinatown.
Also at this time, Khenpo Kalsang requested me to hire and boss an electrical contractor to work on the old building that came with the property that would later be the North American residence and Gompa of the 41st Sakya Lama and His family. I remember around this time as well, Khenpo Kalsang commenting, “How can you live outside of the monastery?” Or something similar to that.
Did he known of my problems at home, I thought? Not too long after that, at one of the of the planning committee meetings for that difficult undertaking, which required massive funds from donors and extensive architectural planning, it was reported (I was not there) Khenpo-la blurted out an apology for not doing enough. Clearly he been doing too much, and soon after had an aneurysm that left him near speechless and physically decimated unto this day. This was less than ten years after Sonam Tenzin, our beloved translator and mentor passed away in an untimely fashion. From the highest levels it was rumored, on account of such difficulties, perhaps there was a giant naga, very displeased, living in New York Harbor. Who’s to say there wasn’t?
Getting caught up and quite lost in my highly competitive career as a movie makeup artist, as well as having opened a lackluster Queens accessories retail store, I happened upon His Holiness Gongma Trichen one day sitting all by himself at one of a series of Sakya teachings sponsored by the Chinese in Flushing Queens. He smiled, called out my given English name, and warmly shook my hand, instantly cooling the angst and redirecting my misdirection that had taken hold for nearly a decade. This began a gradual turning around of my worldly involvements and reassertion of my tantric sadhana practices. Ironically, it was the very unassuming nature of His Holiness’s demeanor in that rarest of meetings that neutralized my skepticism and pulled me back into a more authentic, less ego-driven Dharma path. It had been, very simple, a supremely ordinary handshake that spoke the Sakya view of the non-differentiation of samsara and nirvana.
Many things appeared to change for the Sakya and myself after that. The three necessary ingredients of ripened Buddhist aspirations, compassion, wisdom, and power, arose in the previously struggling Tibetan Buddhist school under the persistent, perspicacious vision of His Holiness. And in the 2017 coronation of His Holiness 42nd Sakya Trizen, at the sprawling Puriwala compound, I saw and heard His Holiness 41st make the biggest change in the millennial long history of the Sakyapa order. The very nature of its succession was changed from lasting an entire lifetime and alternating between one palace to the other (i.e., a candidacy amongst cousins) to alternating every four years. Inside the gompa, at the beginning of ceremonies when I presented a khatak to His Holiness, he remarked, “Hasn’t everything really changed here since 1981?” Indeed, it certainly had.
A Lamdre was held at Tsechen Kunchab Ling, the residency and gompa in Upstate New York, Walden, the very next year and a previous six week retreat on Hevajra paid off for me while attending. Though I’d been mostly sick with something like bronchitis during it, I was able to accumulate over 60,000 of the long root mantra recitations. There was a most interesting sign while I sat relaxed in a lawn chair looking out at the Walden lush green grounds and the Jetsun Gongma Nga arose in mind and vision. Then a pigeon pooped on my head. It’s then I remembered what my failed business partner from Flushing said about such occurrences, and a warmth of certitude filled my body, accompanied by a silly grin that lasted for hours.
The pandemic arrived shortly after, but fortunately I’d already moved out of the hard-hit Jackson Heights and into Cambodia some years before. “If not now, when?” I thought upon my return from that Lamdre, which was my fourth, and then commenced the basic Vajrayogini retreat of three months, three weeks, and three days. During that time, while I did catch a glimpse of the deity’s profile and midriff while in union with Viravajradharma, whom I also saw, albeit fleetingly, I still completed the mandatory time. Returning to Walden for His Holiness’s extensive month long Naro Khachodma teachings, shortly after, I also caught the Beyond Thought live transmission while circumambulating the gompas’s exterior while His Holiness gave the transmission inside. Later, that afternoon while in audience with Him, I presented a book on the ruins of Angkor Wat and told Him that’s where I now lived. He commented, “don’t you miss your Vajra brothers and sisters?” I replied evasively that Vajrayana had been practiced there eight hundred years before.
But about missing vajra siblings, he been right again, and after completing a nine-and-a-half month Hevajra retreat in my Siemreap apartment, I started gravitating to India and Nepal where Vajrayana teachers and disciples are plenty. It began in January 2023 by attending the cremation ceremonies held for Luding Khenchen Vajradhara, at Ngor Ewam Choden, where afterward I completed my Hevajra retreat by doing a fire puja, in the Tibetan language, similar to what had just been given for Luding Vajradhara parinirvana.
Just now, after leading the translator’s class at Sakya College in Dehradun, it struck me the dream I’d nursed for decades about coming here and studying Buddhist texts, some interwoven with difficult transliterated Sanskrit, and others replete in recondite classical Tibetan philosophic terms—requiring riveting exchanges with learned lamas for faithful translations into English—had finally come true. And perhaps because I’d been busy teaching, and not just strictly attending classes, as I previously imaged I would be, I hadn’t recognized the joyous fulfillment until right now.
It’s a dream, one at times quite challenging, I must attribute to both Lama Rigzin Lotsawa, who introduced and recommended me to the college’s abbot, Khenchen Jamyang Jinpa, and also to my first Sakya mentor, the much accomplished, Sonam Tenzin Lotsawa. It should also be remembered that, along with His Holiness 42nd, the Manjushri-like Khenchen Apey, and the Venerable Migmar Tsering, Dr. Douglas Rhoton (Sonam Tenzin) and Professor Leo Pruden, a preeminent Abhidharma translator and scholar, also contributed greatly to the creation of this premiere shedra, know as Sakya College and Monastery, the first of its kind in India.
And while it’s been the biggest change of my mature life—I just turned 74 here—it’s been by far the most rewarding. It also answers a question I had about why Sonam Tenzin, out of the blue, charged Khenpo Pema and me, not too long after his arrival in New York from India, in translating the Heart Sutra under his watchful eye. I now believe he foresaw a time I would need this on my resume to come here.
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