What Happened Before Tibet Happened #3
What Happened Before Tibet Happened #3
Two Months of 1992
If this were a TV series, this would be the “previously on They Keep Telling Me I Should Write my Memoir” recap. If this is the first “episode” you are reading, I would suggest you back up at least to learn about The Four Things Iʻd Never Done and Intuition-Omens-and-Over-the-Top-Synchronicities.
Because the trip I made to Tibet in 1992 was the start of the big, over the top, cannot make this shit up synchronicities in my life. And this is what happened before Tibet happened.
The year is 1992. At this point in my career at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company I had the assignment from hell, a short-term gig that was offered to me both because they knew I had the analytical mind and cast iron stomach for it, and also because they knew it was a career-killer and I didnʻt care. Part of my deal in saying yes was that at the end I would take my entire annual five weeks of vacation all at once before discussing my next assignment. My plan was to use that time to fulfill one of my Four Things Iʻd Never Done: Trek in the Himalayas.
The assignment dragged on, mainly because I was committed to insuring every member of my team of twelve had a rewarding new placement. After several postponements, the travel company I was working with informed me that monsoon season was coming up and my only option if I needed to wait until May would be Tibet.
I liked the idea. But by then I was already doing one of my other Four Things Iʻd Never Done; Iʻd been doing ceremony with my Lakota/Dakota family and it did not feel right to travel to Tibet with a regular trekking company. I wanted an option where I could be sure my journey would respect Tibetan cultures and spiritual traditions. I mentioned this to my friend Jennifer who did publicity for the New York Open Center. She told me about an upcoming workshop with a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, (now Lama) Tsultrim Allione. The weekend workshop was on the chod practice; the Friday night lecture was about a trip Tsultrim had led to Tibet the year before. Perfect! We signed up for all of it.
Friday night. The slides of the trip had my heart racing. After the presentation I introduced myself to Tsultrim and explained that I was hoping to find someone leading a similar trip and wondered if she would be returning. For the first time I experienced that penetrating Lama Tsultrim look, the one where sheʻs looking at you but not really at your physical body, sheʻs looking at something else. Your aura? Your karma? Your soul? I have never asked.
“Iʻm not going this year but I have a friend who is traveling to Tibet in May. I do not have her contact information with me, but I will bring it for you tomorrow. Sheʻs an environmental artist making a World Wheel of healing sculptures at destinations on a single line of latitude and Tibet is her next stop.” she offered. “Thank you, that sounds amazing,” I replied, “but I want you to know that I am a Wall Street banker. Do you think she would want me to travel with her?”
Lama Tsultrim continued that unnerving gaze for the space of a long pause. “Oh yes,” she continued, “She will.”
According to the journal in which I took notes on the workshop, the following day I did not feel like walking anywhere at the lunch break. Jennifer said to me, “The book you lent me that you havenʻt read yet is against the wall. Why donʻt you read it while we are out?” The book was The Feminine Face of God, which that day I bought at the Open Center bookstore thinking how amazing that in the almost two decades since Iʻd designed and taught a college course on Women and Religion, there were now whole sections in bookstores on the topic.
I flipped through the pages of the paperback, opening at random to page 176, Vijaliʻs story. I read ten pages of the authorsʻs interview with a woman who had been the youngest Vedanta nun in the United States, then left to go to college, married, and was living a conventional life as an artist whose works sold in expensive galleries, when she started having kundalini rising experiences. I read on. She returned to the spiritual life and while the authors were looking forward to more conversation, Vijali was preparing for her next project – a journey around the world doing environmental art and performance in twelve locations!
I began trembling, tears streaming down my cheeks. At that moment Lama Tsultrim and her entourage of students reentered the room and stared at me. I could not find words. I simply held up the book with my left hand and pointed to it with my right index finger. “Ah, Vijali,” Tsultim commented calmly, “Thatʻs a very good sign.”
A few weeks later Vijali came to New York and we met to discuss logistics over cups of tea. She would pick up where she had left off in India, then we would need to travel to Nepal, waiting in Kathmandu until the Chinese government issued our visas to enter Tibet. She had already connected with the China-approved travel company that would arrange to take us to Shoto Terdrom, the remote valley where she envisioned doing her work. She explained it is a place associated with Yeshe Tsogyal, perhaps the most important historical female master teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, a student and consort of Padmasambhava. They spent time at Shoto Terdrom as principal consorts.
I told Vijali I could make a financial contribution to the project, and we had an entire department at the Bank that took care of passports and visas for our business travel. They had always been very helpful with my vacation travel as well and I was sure they could help.
Vijali explained that her biggest puzzle was the detour she wanted to make on the way. She had been studying with Lama Sogyal Rimpoche. Among those to whom he dedicated his recently published work, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, was a woman known to be one of the most highly realized living practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, Khandro Tsering Chodron. Khandro lived at the temple at the former Royal Palace in Sikkim. Vijali explained Rimpocheʻs brother still lived in Gangtok and could arrange to take greetings and gifts to her. But she had no idea how to organize the detour to Sikkim.
Sikkim? Her biggest puzzle was Sikkim?
“I think I can help with that,” I said, barely above a whisper as I struggled to regain my composure.
There was a young man at the Bank who had worked on a project for me. At first I thought it was cute that his training program classmates called him “Prince Palden”. But as it turned out, Palden actually is the Prince of Sikkim, son of the last King, Palden Thondup Namgyal, and American Hope Cooke. When I called Palden to ask if we could have lunch so I could pick his brain, he suggested meeting after work as he did not feel comfortable discussing my request in the officerʻs dining room.
Palden knew exactly who and what I was talking about, confirming that Khandro was still in residence at the palace temple. He showed me the red silk cord around his neck, usually hidden by his suit and tie. It was a protection cord from his brother, a monk at a monastery in Gangtok. He confessed he worried that it showed through white shirts and sometimes took it off.
At that moment a full glass of water on our table simply shattered.
“I think you should wear it,” was all I could say as the server rushed to help us clean up the mess.
There were many stops on my journey from New York City to Sikkim. I had a change of planes in San Francisco airport. In 1992 you could still go to an airport and spend time with someone who was passing through. I was buying a house in Manitou Springs, Colorado with two friends, one of whom I had yet to meet in person (another story!) Cynthia Chang, student of Tibetan Buddhism, second generation acupuncturist, born in Hawaii and living in San Francisco, came to the airport to meet me with gifts: a red silk protection cord blessed by her teacher, and Present Moment, Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh – a book that sits on my nightstand to this day.
From there I flew first class to Bangkok and stayed one night in an international chain hotel with Lifecycle equipment in the gym. But on Saturday May 9th the layers of identity started getting stripped away. An economy class flight and airport bus took me to the sensory overload of Calcutta and a tattered but friendly hotel. In my journal I wrote “It took me two walks to convince myself this is the nice part of town.”
My ticket said Flight 221 left for Darjeeling at 1:10 pm the next day. But after breakfast my intuition kicked in and I left right away, arriving at the airport at 11:20 am and barely catching my flight which actually was leaving at 11:40 am. Thank you, Intution.
A van took me from Darjeeling to Gangtok, Sikkim, where Vijali and videographer Karil were to join me at the hotel Palden had recommended. At dinner, Vijali was distraught. She had misplaced the slip of paper with the address of Sogyal Rimpocheʻs brother Thigyal Lakar. But she did have the business card of a Tibetan man with whom she chatted on the bus, and he had told her he recognized the address. So in the morning, we walked to his shop, and he gave us directions to “Elephant Mansion.”
Thigyal Lakar and Khandro Tsering Chodron at Elephant Mansion, Gangtok, Sikkim. Photo credit: Vijali Hamilton.
As we approached the building matching his description, we saw a man in a suit and tie standing with a woman in a sweater on the roof. We ascended to the fifth floor and knocked on the door of Thigyal Lakarʻs apartment. The woman we had seen him with on the rooftop was Khandro! Apparently she never leaves the temple but that morning had asked to be taken to pay her respects to a lama who had just passed away at Rumtek monastery.
Over cups of tea, we agreed to a plan. Khandro invited us to interview her on camera at her lodgings at the Palace, but outside visitors are not allowed, so Thigyal would have to open a back gate once he was inside and sneak us in. And – he was a neighbor of the man Palden had asked me to call, so by the time we finished our tea, all our objectives had fallen into place, and we would be ready to leave the following day for Kathmandu.
This is long already but there is one more synchronicity story I want to tell from our journey up until we crossed into Tibet.
Me (left) and Vijali on our day in Sikkim 1992. Photo Credit: Karil Daniels.
We had about a week to wait in Kathmandu. We visited Swayambhu. We saw the Kumari. Vijali began to teach me. She showed me how to do prostrations correctly. We had traditional dresses made to wear in Tibet. She bought me prayer beads, identical to hers except for the color of the string. And finally Vijali gave me a mantra and we vowed to each repeat 100,000 mantra for the liberation of Tibet during the 20 days we would be in Tibet.
But I felt restless in the city and longed for clean air. We agreed that I could taxi to a village about 100km to the east, on the road to the border. I would stay at a hostel there and hike, then Vijali and Karil could pick me up in a couple of days when our driver and guide were assigned to take us into Tibet.
At the lodge I was offered a dorm room at the top of the three story house, a room with two windows and view of the Himalayas. It cost 35 rupees a night (around 70 cents) and I could have it to myself.
In the morning I planned to hike to an important Buddhist site, where the Buddha offered himself to a hungry tigress. But as I ate breakfast I began second-guessing myself. How big a hike can I handle? Is it ok to hike solo? “Goddess, it is in your hands,” I prayed.
Soon two American men appeared with daypacks. I met their eyes – the eyes smiled. It turned out they were also going to Namo Buddha, a little recreation on their day off from the long retreat they are on, as serious practitioners who have lived for many years in Nepal and India. Completely congenial company for the six hour hike. We parted ways when the bus back to Kathmandu passed the village of Dhulikhel where I was staying. I promised to send Bobby a note from Tibet and to call Davidʻs friend when I returned to New York.
This sweet footnote only became significant a couple of years later.
When I returned to NYC and took a job that required me to commute to Brazil, I accomplished two of my Four Things I Had Never Done. I lived in another country; and I made friends with a bunch of artists, some of whom were represented by Dechen, a young woman with whom I connected because she was Buddhist and traveled to India and Nepal to study. A couple of years passed. My time in Brazil had ended, but my friendships had not. I heard from my friends that Dechen married an American she met on her travels and was living in the United States.
My friend Dechen Warren as we were hanging out at the beach during Carnival 1993.
One evening the phone rang in my apartment on St Lukes Place in the West Village (remember land lines?). “Oi Beth, e a Dechen!,” I heard. We exchanged excited greetings. Dechen tells me she is living with her husband David in Boulder, Colorado but had to call Brazil to get my phone number. Am I sitting down?
Then she tells me she was looking through one of her husbandʻs photo albums and saw a photo that caught her interest. There were three people in the photo: her husband and his close friend – and a woman. “Who is that woman?” she asked David. “I donʻt know really. Just an American woman we hiked with in Nepal one day,” he answered. “No...” Dechen laughed, “You wonʻt believe this but that is my friend Beth who I know from Brazil!”
They are still a couple. Still practicing Buddhists. They live in Thailand now, and we stay in touch via Facebook.
This was one of the early examples of how the fabric of connection in my life from those years would continue to weave through the decades to come.
And that is some of what happened in the weeks before Tibet happened.