Shabkar's Guest: the Breath of the Dragon

The Mahamudra Retreat, December 2003

This was to be my first experience of guestmastering for John. I had guestmastered for others; notably for Hilary, but this was assisting the 'big cheese'. It had the formal label of 'training', even though all retreats; in whatever capacity one participates in them, are training. I was really looking forward to it, but I was also slightly apprehensive. Normally when I sit a retreat with John there are other 'senior ' people, old hands, if you will, acting as a buffer between him and me. This time there would be just John and me, although Pam's comforting Cook's presence was solid and familiar. So, what was all that about? I suppose it was partly that I don't really know John that well, and this, despite coming to Maenllwyd for years and spending a month in China with him. I suppose I kept John separate. Hmmm. But also I didn't really know what was expected of me beyond bashing several pieces of wood together at various times of the day and night. Anyway, 'not knowing' is always potentially a good place of learning.

So I arrived early, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to find that John had already set the place up. We had some chit-chat and later I voiced my 'lack of knowing'. "Look, you'll just have to tell me what you want me to do, because I don' t know how you work this." So, that was fine.

First job, help Pam unload the car of consumables. Second job, look out for arrivals and be welcoming. Desperately trying to memorise first names. Everyone was listed by surname on the sheets. I carried a piece of paper with me all week with both people's first and surnames on it, to try and remember them. We were expecting a full house and most of them were new to me. The form of the retreat was new as well, my first Mahamudra. I arrived with visual memories of Chimid Rigdzin Rimpoche and aural memories of bells and drums and Phurbas being plunged into sand. Some people arrived late, having got lost. This was the opportunity to be Mother Hen and check that they were OK and set up for the morning. We opened the retreat. Everyone sat well.

First night I was anxious about missing the alarm and awoke several times in the night, pressing the bright, blue, back-light on my watch to check the time. One of these checks was a few minutes before the alarm and so I got up and started lighting lamps. It's amazing how clumsy one is at the start of a retreat, crashing about without a good economy of movement. And how that lack goes when one settles into the place, the routine and the mind. I could see lamps already going in the house. John was ready for the off.

Crack, crack, crack. Three strikes on the Han. Get up, you lot! We've got stuff to do! Shufflings, coughs, groans. Poor lambs. Some looked as though they hadn't slept. Exercises, tea, sitting, chanting, breakfast. Some of them had not slept at all. Time for some gentle rearrangement of bed spaces and distribution of earplugs and reassurance. No, really, you'll sleep better tonight. You'll be so tired that you'll just drop off. This said with fingers crossed that what worked for me might also work for them. Oh dear. I cared about these people. Was that right? How to attend to their stated needs without interfering in their process? And a workmaster to integrate with as well! That was novel. Actually it made things easier as there were fewer people asking for information; how to, where is, when shall, why?

Then there was 'my' retreat too. In the "Why am I here?" session, I had said that I had come to help out, that I loved the place and remembered things here and so on. But actually, I had picked this retreat for a purpose, even though that purpose only became manifest when I was on the ground, so to speak.

I had come to ride with Tibetan dragons. I didn't even know what that meant, but Maenllwyd has often held a sense of dragon-nature for me. If I rationalise it, I can probably attribute it to the hills, the wind, the fires and the smoke. But there is something more primeval about it than that. Some sense of what is beyond the usual sights, sounds and smells. Where even one's own insignificance disappears in the cavernous, smoky nostrils of "what is" in the face of the 10,000 things. Some ride!

So we started to go through Tipun's notes and do some mind calming. People settled into their jobs at various rates, some more easily than others. Some were fighting with their 'not wanting'. I was worried about the new axe handle coming away from the axe-head until one of the wood guys said that he'd trained as a chippy and handling axes was the first thing that they had learned. OK. I can leave it. Just let things take their course. Just let things take their course.

On the first day's walk, I stood under a birch tree looking at the hundreds of fallen leaves. I wanted to weep. It was a representation of the vast numbers of fallen humanity. Fallen angels, all of us suffering together. Unfettered compassion. Look! This is how we are! The hills in the frozen winter sunlight, setting into pinks and violets against the greens, with an almost full, translucent moon. Compassion just "was", there. Pain, beauty, peace, cold, colours, just there regardless of whether anyone noticed.

It froze one night. The next day everything had that sparkly quality and looked different to its usual format. During that day's walk, I wandered down the lane to see whether the ditches had frozen. Near an icy cleft in the woods, I stood for a time and watched a small, brown, sparrow-like bird with a fluffed up grey breast and a white rump as it busily searched through leaf litter. It picked over each individually. It was focussed and industrious. Not that one, not that one. Nor that one. Looking, looking with attentive searching. It seemed like a metaphor for meditation. The sheep and birds seemed undeterred by my presence. Good. Perhaps I was treading more lightly on the earth, both in terms of my feet and my mental and emotional presence.

The visualisation was amazingly strong, as was the 9-step breathing. I could feel the movement of what? Something more than just attention. Something visceral. Third eye fizzing, buzzing, bubbling. And four armed Chenrezi so palpably present. Moving from thumbs to palms to beads to flower so easily. Where did these other arms come from? Or why had I never noticed them before?

On one walk I had some kind of blockage. How could I fit this Chenrezi into my heart? Even as the size of a drop of blood, when my heart is so full of attachment? I was missing someone badly. There was not exactly a sense of 'I'm not good enough', but more, 'Look how my life and the way I live it restricts how open I can be to the practice'. But Chenrezi as an archetype, is not limited by my physicality. What is impinged upon is my willingness to accept the archetype in the form of the representation. If I release, just let go and stop trying, stop controlling, then there is no resistance to the acceptance of that gentle smile on his face. Yes, of course we can merge. There is nothing to merge. There is only remembering. Of course there is non-judgemental acceptance and empathic relation to the joys and sufferings of all. Of course. How else could it be?

The landscape was achingly beautiful in the December winter sunlight. I was interested by John's talk when he mentioned Daido Loori's studies on the love of nature. Was the landscape at times, too perfect to look at? Was there too much love? Could such a state exist? Where was the open heart then? Perhaps that is 'holding on’ again. The heart, as metaphor, lets in and pumps straight out. No holding on. I watched two ravens cavorting in the air. They were flying in complete synchronicity. Twisting and turning, gaining and losing height, always absolutely together, watching, following, responding with motion. I was moved by the sight in a way that I find difficult to express. It was another metaphor, but it was more perfect than mere metaphor. Is this Dharma learning? This degree of closeness and response? This fusion of physicality and attentiveness? Is this what yab-yum thankas represent? Is this why one should be so careful of choosing a teacher?

I was shocked, really, by the sheer physicality of the practice. One time I experienced my chest opening out and the body mass from the ribs upwards becoming insubstantial and seeming to be some kind of crystal light sensation. Then both disappearing, no movement, no pain, no sensation. Just completely open. The bell rang and summoned and I did not want to come back, but knew that I must.

John was ill on the retreat and lost his voice briefly. I read from the words of Shabkar, Tibetan monk of Bird Island in the inland saltwater lake of Kokonor in what is now Qinghai Province in China. I loved his words. So clear. So direct. So exact. Shabkar became the translator for me. Shabkar had been there, done it and made sense of it for himself (and as he says for the benefit of others). All this physical experience. All these people doing their thing. And me in the middle of it all. All and nothing. Nothing much.

I have to say that I didn't crack compassion. I was still pissed off when things went wrong when I hadn't made my instructions clear enough or whatever. The minor irritations were still getting to me. But I could tell that something was working away inside me about all of this. Something indefinable that was going to make a difference in the long term. That was why I decided to go with the empowerment. It is something that I need. If people around me are lucky, maybe it will make me a little kinder! It was another of those experiences that one can' t make sense of yet. Maybe it will dawn on me in three years time as these things do. In the meantime, I'll listen for the rustle of dragon scales and make prostrations of gratitude for the teachers and the teachings.