My Eight Main Teachers — part 5
Alright then, onto Kachu Rimpoche — I don’t think you’ve heard of him — Kachu Rimpoche. Actually I met Kachu Rimpoche before I met Khyentse Rimpoche, and at that time, when Khyentse Rimpoche was in the area — Kalimpong, Darjeeling and Sikkim — he was Khyentse Rimpoche’s chief disciple. In fact it was he who suggested I should ask Khyentse Rimpoche for tantric initiation. He said You’ll never get another chance like this, he is the greatest of all the living Nyingmapa lamas.
Kachu Rimpoche himself was an incarnate lama, or tulku, and he was of Tibetan origin — I think southern Tibetan origin — and at that time he was the abbot of the Pemayangtse Gompa in Sikkim. In Sikkim they follow the Kagyupa form of Tibetan Buddhism, also the Nyingmapa form of Tibetan Buddhism. And Pemayangtse Look, he knows what he’s doing; be patient
— but patience was one of the last things she was willing to practise. In fact, she used to come to me for advice. She was about 45, I was only about 27 or 28, and there she was coming to me for advice; this very voluble, excitable, active French woman. So one day she said Oh Bhante, what should I do?
She was very upset, she was always getting upset, quarrelling with people, and getting dissatisfied. Very red in the face, very irate! What shall I do?
So I said Ani-La, you’re doing very well. There’s just one thing you’ve got to learn
. Oh yes what is it? I’ll go and do it straight away.
There’s just one thing. You’ve got to learn to do nothing.
Oh, she exploded. I’ve got so much to do, so many books to study, and all these animals to look after — Do nothing?
Oh, she hit the roof.
Anyway that’s by the way. It was from her I heard about Kachu Rimpoche, and she had met him, she’d bumped into him in Sikkim. What happened was this. She was just wandering in the jungle in Sikkim. She was in quite a distraught state, and even had thoughts of suicide, as she often did — but that’s another story. Anyway, she came to a clearing, and sitting in that clearing there was a monk, a lama. Of course she was dissatisfied with Dhardo Rimpoche, so thought Oh, a new guru. How wonderful.
So she went up to him and got into conversation with him — she could speak Tibetan — and he explained that he was the new abbot of Pemayangtse Gompa, he’d just come down from Tibet to take charge of the monastery. According to Tibetan custom, he had to enter the monastery on a certain auspicious day. That day hadn’t quite come, so he was just waiting in this little clearing. He had a little tent and he was waiting for the day when he could make his official entry. So she thought Oh this is wonderful, this is providential.
Then he started asking her about herself, as was the custom: who are you, who ordained you, etcetera. She said Oh, I’m a French woman, ordained by Dhardo Rimpoche
, and then he asked Well, what practice are you doing? What meditation practice?
she said Oh, I’m doing such and such
, and he said No you’re not, you haven’t done that practice for six months.
And it was true. Of course she was deeply impressed by him and became his disciple; and then in due course became dissatisfied with him as well. But anyway that’s another story. So having heard about him I was quite keen on meeting him, and he did come to Kalimpong and we did meet. And I sometimes used to function as his interpreter, not in Tibetan which I didn’t know, but in Nepali as he knew some Nepali. And I remember there was an American couple who wanted to meet him, so I invited him and I invited them for lunch. It was before I got the vihara, it was another place I had, and they asked all sorts of questions, you know what Americans do — they ask all sorts of questions. And he was replying to these questions, and some of these questions were quite tricky, they were about Nirvana. But then I suddenly realized he was replying to these questions without waiting for me to translate, and he didn’t know a word of English. I could only conclude that there was some sort of telepathy going on. I didn’t have to translate. They asked their question and he without knowing a word of English, replied. So that quite impressed me; and as I said it was he who urged me to ask Khyentse Rimpoche for tantric initiation. He often used to come and stay with me, both before and after I received those initiations. I must say he was quite a meditator. I think out of all the — apart perhaps from one I’ll mention later on — he was the one most committed to meditation. He was a great meditator. And he relied very much on the inspirations he got from his meditation, he’d act on any inspiration which came to him in the course of his morning meditation. I remember one particular incident. He was staying with me, and this was when I had the Tri Vardhana Vihara, he was staying with me and one morning at breakfast he said to me Sangharakshita, in my meditation this morning, I saw on the roof of your vihara a banner of victory. You’ve got to put a banner of victory there
— you know one of these big Tibetan banners of victory. He’d seen it in his meditation and it had to be acted on. So he went off to the bazaar, saw the carpenter, got a wooden frame made, went to the cloth merchant and got the different coloured silks, then went to the tailor and had it all stitched together, then put it up himself on the roof of the vihara with all the necessary little ceremonies and offerings; and there it was, there it remained, until I left Kalimpong. And that was very typical of him: he’d see things in his meditation and he’d act upon them. After I’d been given these initiations by Khyentse Rinpoche, I was as it was handed over to Kachu Rimpoche and he so to speak took charge of me. He gave me the four foundation yogas, he started me on them; he also gave me the Padmasambhava initiation, and various other initiations. I must say that though he gave me these initiations, he remained very much a friend. He was a very cheerful, very lively, very unassuming person. He was very warm-hearted — but he was a bit rough if you know what I mean. He wasn’t very polished like most of my other teachers, not very elegant, a bit rough and ready. But very good-hearted, very warm-hearted, very generous, very communicative. And with a rather earthy sense of humour. And deeply, very deeply devoted to Khyentse Rinpoche and the Nyingmapa tradition. I remained in touch with him until I left Kalimpong.
Some of you may have seen his picture in Life magazine because I’ve mentioned the Maharaja of Sikkim — I knew two Maharajas of Sikkim — the last one who succeeded his father you may know married an American lady. And there was a big controversy about it, somebody wasn’t very happy — but anyway after the father’s death the crown-prince became the new Maharaja and his wife became the Maharani, there was a big religious ceremony, a sort of coronation; and he as the head lama of the royal monastery performed the ceremonies which were featured in Life magazine; and he, Kachu Rimpoche, appeared in his big pandit cap. But anyway I remained in touch with him and he died some years ago in Sikkim. So that’s Kachu Rimpoche.