My strongest memory was when I first met Rinpoche. He came to Rigdzin Ling to give some very precious teachings. I had never met him before and there was a lot of excitement in the air building up to the day he arrived. And his presence far exceeded the excitement preceding. He was… if I were to imagine the Buddha in person, that was Rinpoche.
His mind was like space, is like space and his compassion was limitless. His love, equanimity, impartial view towards all beings and all situations: that was Rinpoche. His teachings were about how to embody that. It was his wish that all his students could embody limitless equanimity and compassion in a vast state of mind. That is what I learned from Rinpoche, to abstain from harming in any way, to practice virtue in every way and to tame my own mind.
[As told by a student]
August 2008 marked ten years since we were blessed by getting to know Rinpoche during the inauguration of Curitiba’s Dordje Ling. In the beginning, the center was located at my place, as me and my family offered with all of our hearts our common room so that we could quickly inaugurate a Gonpa.
Due to his wonderful energy, we wanted to be near Rinpoche forever, even if we could only look at him. We had a lot of fun, for instance, when we went to pick him up at the airport and we lost him. We ran in every direction, desperate and frustrated we had lost sight of him. Then we saw a small crowd watching something a police officer described as “an old lady riding the glass elevator:” There was Rinpoche, absorbed, going up and down in the elevator. We just stood there watching, because he seemed to be enjoying that a lot. On another occasion, in the same airport, Rinpoche challenged our haste to get to an event on time, stopping to eat a cheese salad burger, “exactly like the one in the ad on the panel” that the diner exhibited. It was so cute.
We also had fun when we went to Mueller shopping mall. He liked everything; he would get into every store and do the mudra of mandala offering. Eventually, he got into a store, tried on a jacket and liked it. I bought it for him and he left the store wearing his gift, almost running through the halls, looking like a happy child.
On a Monday, we decided to take him for a city tour, but I did not know that most landmarks were closed on Mondays for cleaning and service. In spite of that, there were few places we could not visit. Wherever Rinpoche would arrive, doors would open. The employees on duty made sure he could go in.
At Parque Papa João II (John Paul II Park), the employee who opened the gates was reading an article about the event in a local newspaper just then, with a picture of Rinpoche. The man was so happy he asked for Rinpoche’s autograph on the newspaper.
Parque Papa João Paulo II was the place Rinpoche enjoyed the most. It was built in honor of the Pope when he visited Brazil for the first time. Located in Curitiba, it has rustic houses built with hardwood tree trunks. Rinpoche asked Lama Norbu to examine the buildings in every detail. It was so moving, there was so much good energy that to this day I cannot forget it.
Another thing Rinpoche enjoyed greatly were barbequed ribs. My Husband, Celso, cooked especially for him. The ribs are put on the barbecue a day in advance so that when it is eaten the meat simply melts off the bone. At the end of a beautiful teaching, around midnight, he came down from the Gonpa and, beautifully sat in our kitchen, he started to eat. He liked it so much he asked my husband how to do it and had Andréa write down everything.
At the end of a different teaching, we sat on a porch annex to the Gonpa and just laughed and laughed with Rinpoche and his jokes. He laughed most. We could do nothing but enjoy all that love, compassion and joy he conveyed.
Those were two wonderful years, leaving unforgettable memories and transforming everyone’s lives. They transformed them for the better because, when we remember those experiences, even though we miss him so much we ache, we feel happy simply because we met Rinpoche.
[as told by Sumaia]
I lived a couple of years at Chagdud Gonpa Khadro Ling and for a long time Rinpoche, through his wisdom, kept me silent. He didn’t let me ask any questions and he was always wrathful to me. One day he invited basically all the students who lived in Khadro Ling to go up and talk to him. After speaking with me for a while he asked me if I had any questions. I had one question about a teaching that he commonly gives and he replied with the most beautiful answer I have ever received.
That night I went back to my room and I sat and I meditated according to his instructions. It was just like the sun shining where before it had been only dawned. That night I cried, not because I felt sad but because no words would be able to express the kindness that he showed me not only in that moment but through all the moments I lived with him.
[as told by Ségio Senna]
When I think about Rinpoche, I think about a Buddha. When I gave him my last goodnight, I know I gave my last goodnight to a Buddha. As I grew to perceive him with an increasingly purer regard, my need to be near him grew accordingly. And do you know what my heart saw in his eyes? Compassion.
Since the first time Rinpoche looked at me until his last goodnight look, he always radiated compassion. He was a living Buddha radiating compassion. His compassion still radiates, because a Buddha never dies. We still have the sangha-body. His voice cannot be heard coming directly from him, but we have his precious teachings; and his mind, well, it still radiates blessings in all directions.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for having fished me out of this ocean of suffering and for telling the truth, thus sowing in me the seed of illumination.
[As told by a student]
I never had the guts to just go there and talk to Rinpoche. I thought I didn’t have enough merit and I didn’t know what to say. So I always considered myself as a spectator of his skilled ways. I remember coming here and thinking that Gonpa was quite arid compared with my vision of what a spiritual center should be. People always seemed to be moody. On top of that, I always said silly things and this unnerved people even more.
One day during practice – I don’t remember what it was – I was so jealous of everyone, because they had their little drums and their vajras and I didn’t. I was so jealous. I was generating so much non-virtue during practice and, soon after the session, Rinpoche said: “I really don’t know everyone here, I don’t know their names. However, I know everyone through their feelings, through what they feel. Sometimes I may confuse their names, but I know everyone and they have to be careful during practice in order not to be jealous of the other practitioners.” And I was still thinking things such as “people work too much, can’t they see they are being exploited?” The thoughts coming into my mind were quite Marxist, quite out of place.
Then Rinpoche said: “Some people have a wrong kind of compassion towards those who work for the Dharma. It is a wrong kind of compassion, it is mistaken, and it does not generate virtue.” In short, he destroyed everything I was thinking. And I wondered: “Is he sending me a message?” I always thought his messages were addressed to me.
There is another story I witnessed. It happened to my brother. It is an example of how his speech touched people on many different levels, just like the speech of the Buddha touches every individual student in a different way. Rinpoche had Buddhic speech. Today I know that, but at the time I felt I was paranoid.
If I’m not mistaken, it happened during a Ngondro retreat. At the end of a teaching, Rinpoche said people should not be proud of their practice, but that they shouldn’t hide their qualities from themselves either. If they did that, they wouldn’t be recognizing their own worth, of their minds, of their precious human bodies. And he said something else Lama Sherab refused to translate. And he said: “Translate it, you can translate it, go on.” And Lama Sherab said: “Rinpoche says he may be old and he may reek, however, he is a bodisatva, he acknowledges that. Maybe he is not a great bodisatva, but he does acknowledge he is not great.”
Recently, when karma movements brought me back to practice, I was talking to my brother and he said: “Once, during teachings, I was distracted, I lost the train of thought during the teaching and started to think ‘Gosh, Rinpoche is so old. Does he ever take a bath?’ ”
[As told by a student]
I was with Rinpoche working on the preparations for a Essence of Siddhi Drubchen and, while we did that, I lamented my hardships. And him, with his endless patience, tried to make me understand that “this is samsara, we are all human beings and, therefore, we all have our faults.” I, however, was in the habit of going on with that “poor me” talk.
One evening, Lama Tsering brought a plaque with a singing fish on it that would move his head when you pressed a small button. She proceeded to show the fish to Rinpoche and, since I was around, I heard the fish singing Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t worry, be happy.”
We laughed a great deal. When she left, Lama Tsering left the fish on the table by the main door of the house. The next time I came to Rinpoche to complain about “poor me”, he was silent, very serious, and he said with these exact words: “You there go… fish pull… and…” and we both laughed hard! Of course: “Don’t worry, be happy!”
Even today, when my mind starts to attach itself too much to the apparent reality of samsara, I remember this scene and try to do it: “Don’t worry, be happy.”
[as told by Ângela Spolidoro]
I first met Rinpoche in 1996, however, I was never able to talk to him during the events I attended at Khadro Ling. I would always get close to him and wonder: “Why can’t I talk to him? I probably don’t have enough merit. Deep down, however, I’m afraid he is going to yell at me.”
But then, a time came when I wanted to talk to him so badly. In 2002, my father passed away. A month before Rinpoche. Then I decided: “I’m going there; I need to talk to Rinpoche.” He was going to give Powa teachings, and it was during the same weekend in which he passed away. When I got there, he was not feeling well. During the breaks, I would look at him, at Lama Sherab, and I told myself: “Oh, they are so tired, this is not fair. Lama Sherab is so pale, and Rinpoche is not well. What should I do?” I had to talk to him, I wanted to ask him about death; I had seen my father die, after all.
Then, during the retreat, my gaze and Rinpoche’s locked in a way so unique that I felt he told me: “We don’t need words.” For me, that was enough. I quieted down and, soon after, he passed away.
For I while, I was very sad because I hadn’t spoken to him. Then I mentioned to Khadro that I always found it so difficult to talk to Lamas, that I felt I was wasting their time. And she said Lamas were there just to do that, to help.
After Rinpoche left, I started to feel that his presence was much stronger. So much so that I didn’t feel the need to go to Khadro Ling as much any more. On a Sunday morning, I was doing prostrations at the temple and the person who was supposed to welcome visitors wasn’t there. People started to arrive and I thought: “Should I interrupt my practice? What should I do?” At that moment, I felt as if he was in front of me, and I asked: “Rinpoche, what should I do?” And the answer was natural, I felt as if he had said: “Turn this into a part of your practice.” I immediately stooped my prostrations and went to help those visitors with all love and care.
I’m telling you this, however, to explain that the fact that he is not here physically doesn’t mean that he is not here with us at all, and this is something quite powerful.
[As told by Nice]
A great master gives each one of his students the medicine they need to wake up and take off the glasses of illusion. There are those who received from him the warmth of a smile, a call for intimacy. Because my karma was so hardened, it required wrathful treatment: icy looks, words that would reveal things that made me weak with shame.
One day we crossed each other at the back entrance of the temple. I humbly bowed when he passed. He looked at me and, for a brief second, as quick as the twinkle of a star, he let me glimpse an endless sea of love, deep and extraordinary. I was frozen, stunned, as you are when you glimpse something exceptional. It was a window into the infinite, greater than what my narrow mind could bear. His response to my awe was lowering his eyelids, thus closing the curtain. Everything was common once again.
If there is a wish I constantly repeat, is that I want him to give me another chance; I want him to let me bathe this feeling of missing him in that immeasurable sea of love.
[As told by Yvone Vieira]
I was taking part in a Dzogchen retreat and my mind was lost in outer space. I couldn’t understand anything Rinpoche said and, on top of it all, we went to his room to receive some instructions. And, oh my, those instructions were really sophisticated. Lama Sherab was translating, but even then I couldn’t understand what he meant. I was really worried. First, I couldn’t understand his English so well, and then, when the translation into Portuguese began, I couldn’t understand that either!
While we were there, he took a small music box shaped as a gramophone, it was really tiny. And every time he stopped giving teachings and the translation began, he would pick up the music box and wind it. Then he put it to his ear and listened to the music.
At first, I thought that was weird. Then I started to realize he was offering an alternative version to those among us who did not understand the instructions very well. At every break, while the translation into Portuguese was being made, he would wind up the music box and listen to it again and again.
He wasn’t only enjoying the sounds, he was meditating with them. He was showing us the practical version of all those over-sophisticated teachings. I started to relax and realized he was actually giving us an alternative, so that we could understand the teachings in a non-verbal way. That was exactly what I needed at that moment.
Throughout the teaching, he did that same movement during many breaks: he would stop talking, wind up the box and meditate. I think I relaxed in the process because I realized there was something I could understand within all the complicated teachings.
When I left the practice, I was certain that I had understood everything that was essential to be conveyed. Once again, I bowed before him. I saw how extraordinary he was, beyond our understanding. I’m sure that was the teaching that has marked me the most in this life, as a most beautiful manifestation of compassion giving us an opportunity for understanding, even if our minds are in no shape to do anything else.
[as told by Nenung]
Meeting Rinpoche was just like coming home. I had finally found my master. When you find your master, you feel calm, serene; you feel you know why you are here. You know you came here to help beings to relieve their suffering.
And Rinpoche taught us about that all the time. He was an example of compassion. He dedicated every thought he had to all beings. Once he said, “Whenever you recite the Tara mantra, think of all the times you have recited it and also dedicate every recitation to the benefit of all beings.” Then I realized that each time he said “Om Tare Tam Soha” he was trying to benefit all beings. And he said he would put all the Tara statues he ever made in this mantra. So that all beings could benefit from every simple statue he had made throughout the years.
[As told by Ângela]