My Last Trip to Lawudo, Spring 1977

by Nicholas Ribush

First published in the Love Lawudo Newsletter

The story of my second trip, 1974, finished with “The Lamas arrived in India from Australia towards the end of October and went to Mussoorie for a short break. Rinpoche got back to Kopan in the first week of November while Lama stayed in India for a while longer.”

The next two years were quite eventful for me. For most of 1975 I circumambulated the globe with Lama and Rinpoche on their second world tour. At the end of that year I co-founded Wisdom Publications with Lama and he formally established the FPMT. For the next month or so, nine of us met most evenings to discuss how to actually structure the organization. In 1976 we published our first book, Wisdom Energy, and in the spring the IMI sangha were kicked out of Nepal and went to Dharamsala, where we established the Inji Gompa, a little monastic situation for Western monks and nuns. In November, we returned to Kopan for the eighth Kopan meditation course, led by Marcel Bertels. I continued developing our publishing activities, living very happily and comfortably in the little geodesic dome that Tom Vichta and Pete Northend had built after the fifth course.

Then, at the beginning of January 1977, Lama called me to his room and said he thought we needed a center in Delhi and wanted me to go down to establish it. Not quite what I had in mind, but dutifully, off I set. That story is beyond the scope of this article, but after a few months in India trying to get my head around how to start a center in a big city devoid of FPMT students with no money, I went back to Kopan to go to Lawudo with Rinpoche, who himself had just returned after a few months in the USA.

Around the end of May, Rinpoche, Lama Pasang and I flew to Syangboche, just above Namche Bazaar, and walked down to the town, where everybody wanted a piece of Rinpoche. He really was a celebrity.

We stayed the night in a nice guesthouse owned by the parents of one of the young Kopan monks and the next morning made our way to Lawudo, about a three-hour walk. At Mende, just below Lawudo, Rinpoche was greeted by his mother, Amala, and sister, Ven. Ngawang Samten, and about twenty local monks, nuns and laypeople with tea, khatags and incense, along with the ten or so Western sangha and laypeople who had already arrived at Lawudo for the annual Saka Dawa nyung nä. Then we all completed the short climb up to Lawudo.

We were expecting a big crowd for the nyung nä, and as I looked around my mind went to…excrement. The current toilets were totally inadequate, which meant people would be urinating and defecating all over the hill. What we needed, I thought, was a new facility. So, without really consulting anybody, I took the initiative to build one. Looking out from the gompa porch I selected a site to the far left of the terrace in front of the gompa, which was conveniently located and had a nice drop beside it.

Unbeknownst to me, Anila Ngawang Samten, who was actually the Lawudo manager, hated the idea (and I now see why), but with the help of Jill Gillies, an Australian student, I set about building this thing. It turned out fairly well, certainly usable, but I’m sure that as soon as we left Anila destroyed it completely!

A less controversial preparation was putting up a new dar chö (prayer flagpole).

As expected, the nyung nä was very well attended and, as usual, blessed by the angelic chanting of the wonderful Thamo [Khari Gompa] nuns.

I had done a couple of Lawudo nyung näs previously, but somehow this one is the most memorable.  Maybe it was the toilet. But more likely it was the five days’ teachings Rinpoche gave from June 2 through 5. We did not record them but Ven. Thubten Chodron took excellent notes, which were subsequently edited by Ven Ailsa Cameron and are now available for all to see on the LYWA website. Lawudo nyung nä teachings, 1977.

One day during this time, Rinpoche called me up to the cave and said that several students had asked him for his guru mantra and he didn’t have one, so could I help him create it. I was somewhat taken aback at the request, but as you can imagine, extremely honored to be asked. Rinpoche said he wanted to base it on Lama Yeshe’s, which was om ah guru vajradhara muni shasana sumati jñana sarva siddhi hum hum (see Big Love, p. 1185), which was in turn based on Lama Tsongkhapa’s: om ah guru vajradhara sumati kirti siddhi hum hum. After a little back and forth, we came up with om ah guru vajradhara muni shasana kshanti sarva siddhi hum hum, as in Sanskrit, Rinpoche’s name, Thubten Zopa, is muni shasana kshanti.

A few days later, it was time to return to Kathmandu. Lama Pasang had organized the flight down to leave from the airport at which we had arrived, Syangboche. Rinpoche, Lama Pasang, Jill Gillies and I arrived in good time, but it was so cloudy that the plane could not land, a common occurrence at that time of year. We could hear the small plane circling above the clouds but after about half an hour, it left, and so did we—back down to Namche, where we spent the night.

The next morning, we went back up to the airport for the same thing to happen. Clouds, circling, leaving. This time Rinpoche’s mo indicated we should not go back to Namche but remain at the airport. There was a small, completely bare, shed-like building at the edge of the runway that became our new home, so we settled in there as best we could. Some Sherpas who had come to see Rinpoche off went back to town and brought us some food and tea, and we spent the night there.

Early the next day, I woke early to see Rinpoche striding up and down the runway, mala in his left hand, right hand in the wrathful mudra above the crown of his head, looking at the sky and chanting loudly. After an hour or so we heard the plane again, but this time, as it got above us, the clouds suddenly parted and the plane quickly descended. With the pilot urging us on, we climbed aboard as fast as we could and off we went. Nobody was happier than me. One night in that shed was more than enough.

A couple of hours later we were back at Kopan. Rinpoche was scheduled to meet Lama in England in July; I was due to go to Australia to conduct the first of a series of “Kick the Habit” courses: meditation against drug dependence. So far, I have never gotten back to the beloved Lawudo.

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