What Is It All About?

What Is It All About? Kathmandu, Nepal February 1991 JDut you couldn't be enlightened!" the Rinpoche said emphatically. "Why not?" I asked. "Because you can't read my mind, fly through the air or appear in ten places at the same time." "But Rinpoche, that has nothing to do with enlighten- ment!" I exclaimed. The Rinpoche, a stocky man in his early forties, got up out of his chair and sat in the chair next to mine. Putting my hands in his own, he pulled me very close to him so that our noses were almost touching. With his bright, shining eyes staring directly into mine, he seemed to try to overwhelm me with his intensity. "Also Andrew," he said, "you mustn't go around saying you're enlightened." Not moving, looking directly into his eyes,

said, "Rinpoche, I never said I was enlightened." What h It All About? 'M know," he insislcd. "You musln'l go around saying you're enlightened, hs not right." Repeating mysell, I said, "Rinpoche, I never said I was enhghtened." Repeating himself yet again, he said a lliiid lime, "You mustn't go around saying you're enhghtened." Again I responded, "Rinpoche, I do not go around say- ing I'm enhghtened. But if people ask me questions, I can't deny my own experience." As left the Rinpoche's house and walked out into the bright morning light of the Kathmandu Valley, I was struck by the beauty of the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayan mountain range in the distance. On the taxi ride back to Thamel on the other side of Kathmandu, I recalled that one of my female students who had formerly been a disciple of the late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche had been asked by him one night to go to bed with the Rinpoche 1 had just been speaking with. In fact, she had been third in line for him on a night of drunken escapades. We drove back to our hotel through the mud, dust and stench of the dirty Kathmandu streets. As the taxi humped along, scratched my head and wondered, as had so many times over the years since IcI begun leaciiing, "W hal is it all about?"

had recently finished three weeks leaching in :\u ( 'nc()Mcii(i()/uj/ Relationship lo Life Bodhgaya in northern India, the site of the Buddha's awak- ening, and was now spending two weeks in Kathmandu meeting Tibetan lamas and rinpoches. went to Kathmandu that year because while in Bodhgaya, an English woman who had come to my teachings several times had told me that my teachings were very similar to the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. She then arranged for me to meet one of the greatest living expo- nents of Dzogchen, Chatrul Rinpoche. The Rinpoche was an extraordinary and beautiful looking man in his late sev- enties who had spent over thirty years in retreat. 1 was inspired by our meeting and he encouraged me to come to Kathmandu to see him again. At that point in my life, my ongoing investigation into the nature and expression of enlightenment had created a very tenuous situation in my relationship with my own guru, the now well-known H. W. L. Poonja. Over a five-year period, 1 had become gradually more and more confused by the discrepancies in his conduct with me and others, and the concerns this raised compelled me to try to find answers to some very difficult questions. Questions such as: What is the relationship between Love and Truth? What is the relationship between spiritual awakening and human conduct? At that time, even though 1 was reeling from the endless inconsistencies and ensuing confusion that seemed to be the expression of enlightenment in my own guru and in so many modern masters, 1 had not yet fully come to Whal hit All About: terms willi the fad thai my own pursuit of sanity and unwillingness to compromise my integrity would soon lead to I he dissolution of my relationship with my own teacher and would propel me into ihc unknown like never before. An Umomhtional Relationship to Life