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Discussion (continued)
Paricipant: Well, if prefaces are in order — Lady Rich, the Vajra Regent was spoken of at the Vidyadhara's request as the co-founder of Shambhala Training and behind every great man, there's a great woman, so perhaps we could say that Shambhala Training could be 25 percent due to you. [Applause.] But even if it was only 2.5 percent, it would be much more than anyone else here. And I think it's way more than that. Patrick, when you talked about how devotion cannot be legislated…I'd like to make a slogan out of that. For me, it was a cord right to the Vidyadhara, right to the Vajra Regent and to the Vidyadhara. I recognized that and it brought tears, not just because of the intelligence of this statement but because it was a cord for me in that moment. And I guess my hope for our Kingdom is that healing accelerates; and I feel it happening here. But also that complexity increases, which is also a way of saying diversity. And that statement of “devotion cannot be legislated” is really crucial. And I want to say something, not to divert attention, but to speak from my own heart. Because I've sat here with you, studying with Reggie Ray, who's not here. But I feel devotion to Reggie as a colleague and also to Reggie as a student, for the clarity of his mahamudra teachings. So there's a complexity in his situation, and I wanted to bring it here so that it isn’t forgotten.
Participant: I was part of the beginning of knowing the Vajra Regent and, part of the 20 million debates and discussions that went on about what went on. And it's been years really. It feels like lifetimes. I never really knew what President Reoch did [laughter]. But if you really never do another thing, the fact that you broke this ice, which I thought was maybe unfathomable, I really want to thank you for all of us. [Applause]
Participant: I’d like to acknowledge an important part of what started to make this happen. And that is Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. The Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche asked Khenpo Rinpoche if he could study Six Dharmas with him. And Khenpo Rinpoche said, yes, of course, we will do it at Patrick's retreat center. [Laughter] And so there was this amazing event where Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche came to Ojai and they wined and dined, and there was a retreat at Pullahari, a retreat center in California, where Patrick offered the Sakyong his house, and Khenpo Rinpoche and his entourage and Patrick were living in a hotel nearby. And Rinpoche gave teachings and then Patrick and the Sakyong would go visit the wine country, and go out to wonderful dinners. And so the friendship between Patrick and the Sakyong rekindled, I believe, at that time. They had always been friends. And I just want to say that, you know, there's a lot of sharpening of intelligence that happens through political, strategic maneuvers. But what really is important, and I respect Richard Reoch for his amazing ability to do that skillfully, and as the Sakyong was saying yesterday, how to make decisions, is to know what to accept and what to reject. And that's very helpful. But what it always comes down to is the heart connection. And I feel that this heart connection between Patrick and the Sakyong is really what is the most important thing here. And Patrick's obvious devotion to the Sakyong. What amazes me each time I go to Ojai is that you're entering a little Shambhala in the Ojai Valley and it's pristine. They do things so well. Just as the Vajra Regent did. And also, the level of practice. These people are practitioners. And that's what I feel Patrick and Lady Rich have done for 15 years, they’ve practiced. They've held their seat and practiced and I have tremendous admiration for that. [Applause]
PS: Thank you. It's a very important point, I think, for both Lady Rich and myself, which is to express fully our love for the Sakyong. The Sakyong and I had so many journeys together over a 20 year period of time. And as I said on May 29th in Ojai when we celebrated the beginning of the rapprochement, without the Sakyong we would all have dissolved long ago. He has held the gyü, he's held the continuity, he's held the command of the Vidyadhara, and at the same time, he's had to go through his own growth process. As I put it in Ojai, we've watched him transform from a prince into a king. We've seen the external empowerments, but as a friend, I've seen a psychological, developmental growth within him. The princely concerns have fallen away, and he's actually been willing to completely join heaven and earth and create Shambhala vision, create the Kingdom. He's pulling together and holding so many different subjectivities, so many different worlds, and he does it well. He and I have known exactly what the situation has been for 15 years and we've been able to talk without having to necessarily bring it to a point of definite resolution. We've been able to continue to sustain our friendship. At times it's been frustrating. But, seeing him up on the throne, entering into the mandala of the Rigden, then there's no doubt. He's actually, you know, achieved cross-over. [Laughter] He's gone into that realm - or he's able to go into that realm. And I realize I want to follow him there. [Applause]
Participant: I don't really know you that well, but I've always thought you were a really sweet person. [Laughter] From what I've heard since I came into the room — I came in a little late — it seems like the working out of the process is really important. I think politics is just communication, and communication is a process. You speak and someone replies and you answer and say what you think and then you say, “Are you okay?” The Kingdom of Shambhala is not a cartoon world — it's real and this is a real process that we're going through. I think, seeing you here, it seems like things are going fairly well. [Laughter] And you know there's lots of commentary that probably doesn't mean squat. So I think the process is going well.
PS: Thank you.
Participant: Well, I'm feeling now that if anything else happens in the next few days, I'd better just dissolve into a bunch of atoms because this is amazing, and I'm so happy. But I have a question. With the things that you've said, and the communication with the Sakyong, and everything, where do you stand in terms of lineage? The Vajra Regent picked you, and then the Sakyong became the Vajradhatu and the Shambhala leader, so how do we view you, I mean, in terms of lineage, if you can answer?
PS: I'll make an initial absolute statement. Which is what the Vidyadhara said in 1975, I believe, after the Halloween incident. I'll put it to you this way. It was a controversial situation, right? And his answer was, “there's no party line.” There's no party line. There's no party line. But I can describe to you what happened to me and why I'm sitting here.
The Vajra Regent was Trungpa Rinpoche's Vajra Regent. He had the responsibility of maintaining the administrative structure. He was President of Vajradhatu and co-founder of Shambhala Training. He also was the Vidyadhara's dharma heir, and as such, the Vidyadhara instructed him to pass that lineage on in the same way that Tilopa passed it to Naropa and Naropa passed it to Marpa, etc. In other words, not in the manner of a tulku transmission but in the manner of teacher to student. If you look at the Vidyadhara's will, and you look at David Rome's addendum to that will, then it says it very clearly there. It also says that if the Vajra Regent were to make a mistake, or to screw up, that he should be dismantled. David Rome then asks, “what does that mean? Should he be destroyed or held down?” And some people interpret that comment as being the basis upon which they can then invalidate the Vajra Regent's right to pass Trungpa Rinpoche's lineage on. The Vajra Regent never felt that that was the case. The Vajra Regent asked me to be his successor in a formal ceremony in the same way that the Vidyadhara asked him to be his Gampopa. The Vajra Regent instructed me that the basic archetypal dynamic of our relationship would be the relationship of Tilopa and Naropa. He presented me with The Life and Teachings of Naropa, offered me a khata, and asked me in a very formal way to be his dharma heir and lineage successor. That was about a year and a half before he died. For the next 18 months, I went through a process of trying to meet his mind. During that time he bestowed upon me the Vajrayogini Abhisheka, at which time he bestowed the Vajracarya Abhisheka on me in a direct way, actually giving me his practice implements. And at that point, saying it had been done — that the process of training had reached a certain point where basically he had transmitted the lineage to me.
My samaya is to continue that. Whether people in Shambhala can accept that or not is really their journey. No party line. I can't tell anybody — I will not tell anybody — what to believe. I come here as a result of my friendship with the Sakyong. I'm doing the best I can to maintain the samaya I made to the Vajra Regent. That I would carry forward his lineage and in particular transmit the Kagyü mahamudra teachings, both the tantra mahamudra and essence mahamudra, as in the yidam of Vajrayogini, and the practices of mahamudra/shamatha and vipashyana. That's the lineage he passed on to me. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not about politics. He didn't want me to be a copyright holder or a seat holder. He wanted me to be an authentic human being through these disciplines. And he wanted me to try and pass that lineage on to another human being. He said if I went back on that vow that I would be destroyed by the protectors of this lineage, and I would be destroyed by the inauthenticity in my own heart. Every time I've tried to waiver, every time I've tried to take a step back and not lean in to it [clicks fingers], it's been very painful. Much more painful than coming here. [Laughter] Much. This is easy compared to what it was like to run away. So for me, it's choiceless. For you, you have all the choice in the world. No party line. If you have a connection to the Regent, you have a connection to the Vidyadhara, you have a connection to what I'm trying to do, that's great. Then we can have a friendship and see. No party line. Can't be.
Participant: When I had the great pleasure to be the guest of the Ojai sangha last year, I was able to meet many people. It was a very strong bond that I felt, and it was heartbreaking to me that our communities were not in greater touch. So with all the talk about yourselves and the Vajra Regent, and all the talk recently about our societies, I was hoping you could say a few words about the Ojai community.
LLR: I'd like to use this opportunity to personally let you know of my gratitude to Patrick for his staying with the Ojai sangha, establishing Satdharma, holding the community together and practicing, practicing, practicing, studying, studying, studying, working, working, working; extending to other great teachers, bringing Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso closer to us, and all the rest of it. Someone earlier described how many of the former ambassadors came to Ojai, first to stay nearby and serve the Vajra Regent, and to be a part of his process, that Patrick has already shared. I’d just like to say how absolutely impossible the situation would have been without those people. Thank you.
PS: You know, there are two basic categories in the Ojai community. There are people who have come in as my students, who have come in recently. And then there are the senior students. And I think, and some of them are here tonight, I think some people feel betrayed a little bit about how things have gone. There is definitely some anger and resentment. Because we've put a great deal of energy, a great deal of time, and a great deal of money, into hosting the Sakyong and bringing the rapprochement process to a point of very definitive and definite departure. And it did get derailed. Not permanently, hopefully, but it definitely did. And people honestly reacted to that. But there's also, I think, a great deal of trust that it was the right thing for Lady Rich and I to come here, despite our concepts. So it's flickering, co-emergently, like that.
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