Seven Weeks in Tibet:
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Over the course of the next five weeks, Rinpoche went back and
forth between Kala Rongo and Korche bestowing blessings and
teachings, while several nuns from Rinpoche’s monastery in New York—Samzang,
Jinzang and Yangchen—conducted the business of running all of these
many projects. My camerawoman, Gena, and I mostly stayed at Kala
Rongo, focusing our camera on the daily activities there. During
that time, I would come to know many of these nuns, and to hear
firsthand about how their lives have been transformed, both by
having Kala Rongo as their home, and more profoundly through the
range of opportunities to study and practice the Dharma that has
been given them.
I would watch as
day in and day out the younger nuns tirelessly hauled mud and
climbed ladders to build the new retreat. I would be led by a group
of nuns up a steep mountain to reach the grazing area for the monastery’s yak herd, and return the next day with the milk for Rinpoche’s tea. I would climb the cliff leading to the cave of a nun
who has lived and practiced there for seven years, and visit the
nomadic home of another nun who will begin 1,000 nyungne practices
this fall at Rinpoche’s request. I would join the local people
gathered for the Khenpo’s “100-Day Teaching,” a periodic series of
public teachings that makes clearly evident the impact of Kala
Rongo on the local population. And all the while, I had to keep
reminding myself that only 14 years ago, this thriving community was
just empty land on the side of a mountain.
Further reflections from the comfort of home
As I sit here now, back in the comforts of my Greenwich Village
apartment, I am swirling in the
news of the fire that has destroyed
the main monastery building containing the shrine room and the guest
quarters that were my home there. It was the building that
established Kala Rongo, created with the nuns’ own hands on the
ground designated by Lama Norlha Rinpoche and Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche
to be the center of the new monastery. It is devastating news, of
course, but I am heartened by what I have been privileged to learn
first-hand: that with their seemingly boundless energy, their
uncomplaining willingness to accomplish what is asked of them, their
unyielding devotion to Rinpoche, and of course the kindness that has
been bestowed upon them by Rinpoche and the supporters of NYEMA, it
will be rebuilt.
I will be writing my check again at Losar, this time with the
memories of this journey and the faces and voices of these
individuals fresh in my head. I humbly request that you consider
doing the same.
May this be of benefit to all beings,
Bari Pearlman
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