Written by Nigel Philpot
Lama Zopa and Lama Yeshe were a formidable pair, travelling the world spreading their particular form of Tibetan Buddhism. They were both of similar height and stature: Lama Yeshe a fuller figure with a broad radiant smile and Lama Zopa his younger disciple, leaner and more studious in his demeanour but with the occasional wry smile.
They both came to Conishead Priory in the Lake District in
the summer of 1979; Lama Yeshe to teach Tantric Buddhism while Lama Zopa was to
deliver a course in the graduated path to Enlightenment ( Lam Rim) –the
renowned teaching of Lama Tsong Khapa who had condensed all the teachings of
the buddha into a shortened form back in the 14th Century.
On the way to his daily talks, Lama Zopa would walk from his
room, surrounded by a small group of people. He moved with a slight stoop,
looking up now and again to talk to those who approached him in his path. He
seemed to continuously pull and adjust his crimson red robes around him,
perhaps drawing comfort from his familiar dress in the face of the many
unfamiliar Western faces he was about to encounter.
He would silently shuffle into the room where we waited,
mount a rostrum built for the occasion and assume the lotus position in front
of his audience. His English was not very good; in fact it was quite broken
but, incredibly, that didn’t seem to matter. People hung on his every word, as
the importance and depth of what he was saying gradually began to sink in. It
is a very strange and wonderful experience when you suddenly realise that an
idea or thought that is quite commonplace, can be quite profound at the same
time. (Ex?) Maybe it was the simplicity and slow pace of Lama Zopa’s speech
that had the effect of making you think very carefully and deeply of what he
was saying. The sacredness of life (or of a precious human rebirth as the
Tibetans describe it) characterised by incessant change and suffering, followed
by eventual death, suddenly took on new meaning. Faced with this unavoidable
situation, one began to feel the urgency and need to DO something, to grasp the
meaning and the riddle of this human dilemma and to discover an intelligent
answer to its apparent futility. The Lam Rim or Graduated Path pointed the way.
Lama Zopa’s disjointed delivery was equally effective in
revealing the insensitivity and stupidity of some of our behaviour. In Buddhism
the life of all sentient beings, animal or human, is considered precious and a
basic tenet of practice is to refrain from doing harm to other sentient beings.
With slow, measured words, punctuated by pauses, Lama Zopa took our
imaginations to a salubrious restaurant and to a scene where two diners are
contemplating a tank of live lobsters brought to their table. His words slowed
even further as he took us through the sequence of events that sealed the
chosen lobsters fates.
“They take the lobster…..you see….take the lobster..” as he
spoke he gestured with his right arm, slowly raising his hand as he gripped the
wriggling lobster ; he paused, coughed gently and continued “ take the lobster and put it” he paused
again and began slowly lowering his arm “ put it….in…er…er…put it in..
er..boiling water.”
Yes, I see.
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This is the first in a series of pieces I will be posting to this blog. Nigel Philpott
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