Not too long ago, I reflected on which remembrance of Rinpoche, if any, to share with the sangha. A few days later this poem by the Karmapa (which I hadn’t recited in many months) popped into my mind and knew this is what I needed to share.

Pointing Out Mahamudra

Like the illusory face of this appearing world, the movement of mind is not touched by artifice; it is not altered by action, freedom, or realization. To remain in the depths of mind free of reference, is known as Mahamudra.

Notes: The Karmapa gave this verse to Lama Tenam to use in his meditation practice. Within the Kagyu lineage, the practice of Mahamudra is the deepest form of meditation. It is deceptively simple to describe and quite difficult to practice. Mahamudra practice could be described as remaining settled into the nature of mind, immersed in its nature that is awareness and emptiness inseparable, not touched by artifice, which means that there is no effort to do anything, and free of reference, which means that the mind is not grasping at anything at all. If you were working with this verse, you would first memorize it and reflect on its meaning until it became very clear. Then resting in meditation, you would float the verse in your mindstream, keeping a gentle focus, much as a koan is held. Then, after a while, you would let it go and rest in the space it has opened out, free of referent or mental activity. When thoughts arose again, you would fold them into the verse, which would become your referent again, and so you would continue, naturally shifting between resting in meditation and reflecting on the verse.236 Music In the SkyMusic_REV0709 7/7/09 12:36 PM Page 236

When I first met Lama Norlha, I was drinking heavily and was seriously considering suicide. He looked directly at me and said, “Stop drinking, don’t kill yourself and pray for karmic liberation from your family!” Wow, can I get a witness?

—

When my son was small he and his father liked to fish. I opposed it and told my son if he asked Lama about it I would respect whatever he said. My son asked Lama if it was okay to fish if they threw the fish back after they caught them. Without saying a word, Lama reached out and pinched my sons lip. He was shocked and said, “It hurts the fish!” Lesson learned.

I was at KTC on my 60th birthday this past year. I brought a piece of cake to Lama and was given a blessing and protection cord. He was not feeling well but took the time to wish me a happy birthday. A moment I will always treasure.

I have so many fond memories of Rinpoche which bring a smile to my face. One in particular I can envision so clearly that it makes me laugh out loud! We were on a road trip in Asheville, NC where Rinpoche had planned speaking engagements. Our group had stopped by a local park to eat lunch. We had been given specific dietary instructions for him by his attendants — to which we adhered. I was following a pretty restricted diet myself, but the things I could eat Rinpoche could not. The look of boyish delight when he saw what was on my plate was priceless! As soon as his attendants were distracted, he began sneaking the food off my plate. He was so thrilled! I was both concerned about providing something he wasn’t supposed to eat and tickled with how happy he was! He ate virtually my entire lunch and was so pleased with himself! Over the course of the trip, we had some terrific laughs about it. I will never forget his wonderful smile and infectious laugh!

The last thing Rinpoche asked me before he died was “Is your mind even?” — meaning is it calm or does it have a lot of ups & downs. Whenever I feel especially sad about Rinpoche’s passing I think of him asking me that, in order to calm my mind.

During 3-year retreat, when I told Rinpoche I was having trouble meditating on the illusory nature of reality, especially during the days leading up to Losar when there’s so much preparation and cleaning involved, Rinpoche asked me, “Where are those days now?” They existed only as a memory — nothing of all that remained.

Lama Norlha Rinpoche was the kindest, most compassionate, most generous, least angry person I have ever had the privilege of knowing, and I feel honored and incredibly lucky to have been his student for so many years.

As I was getting to know Lama Norlha, he was walking in the dining room and told me how if someone did something outlandish by Tibetan Buddhist terms, it would still be okay with the Lama if the intention was a pure one.

Lama Norlha hired my partner John Fuchs to do some carpentry for the retreatants before retreat. John had to do some hard work and take many things apart, dig areas up, etc. And Lama Norlha asked him “Destroy, destroy, why must you destroy?” I felt that John was like Milarepa at those times, building and taking down, over and over again…

John could be irreverent and laughed a lot and told Lama what could and couldn’t be done, and Lama Norlha would say to me, “You must beat him!” Finally, I asked the Lama, “should I really beat him?!” He walked on and shook his head smiling… John was paid a small amount per hour and he was happy to have the work at that time. A few years later Lama asked me if John was working, and I told him that he was. Lama said that after working at the monastery he should have lots of work. And he has…

A mutual friend, Tony Guida, told John and I stories of how many years ago Tony used to drive Lama Norlha around the city and they would go dumpster diving to supply some of the NYC center’s furnishings – this impressed John and I greatly. Although John, who does not like any formalized religion, had not seen Lama Norlha for many years, Lama Norlha Rinpoche never failed to ask about John.

I feel grateful to Lama Norlha Rinpoche for sharing all his teachings with me, this not very good student.

Rinpoche changed my life. There was always a level of kindness and concern about my welfare and my family’s that is difficult to put into words. And I miss him greatly.

Though some of the dates are fuzzy, I first met Lama Norlha the evening that he arrived in NYC in 1976. At some point over the next few days I took him up to the top of the World Trade Center to show him the lay of the land and followed it with a walking tour of lower Manhattan. My first impression of him was of some surprise that he didn’t seem remotely impressed by the sight of NYC from the top of the tallest building in the world. Rather, I watched his mala going full speed and imagined he that he was primarily focused on sending compassion.

Gradually, over the days and months that followed, after initial attempts to teach him better English, I and most of the folks associated with the early 19St. KTC loft learned to speak Norlha-ish.

After immediately taking charge of leading our small group in Kalu Rinpoche’s prescribed introductory practices, Lama Norlha began to initiate a gradual upgrading of the rustic accommodations – from funky bare bones – to the next low-cost step of putting up walls and furnishings and a suitable throne room with alter.

Although Lama Norlha commanded immediate respect and reverence as a teacher, I found myself increasingly comfortable with him as a ‘normal’ person who liked to joke around and who I eventually came to feel was my friend. One of my earliest memories of actually having just plain Fun with him was going out on the deserted streets and a couple of friends from the Center at night and introducing Lama Norlha to the wonderful world of dumpster diving in the neighborhood! He Loved It! We spent many a night dragging free building materials, furniture and treasures back to the loft – sometimes in the undependable elevator but, often as not, up the stairs.

Other early memories include how this same elevator could be counted upon to quite predictably break down whenever an important Rinpoche came to the loft. I still recall last minute panics surrounding such visits by Kalu Rinpoche, Dezhung Rinpoche and Karmapa, and having to watch with chagrin and some embarrassment as they each had to climb five flights of stairs along with their retinues. During one of those visits, Lama Norlha had been operating the elevator by himself and missed the fifth-floor landing on his way up and the car got stuck at the very top of the shaft. We suddenly had to drop our last-minute preparations for whichever Rinpoche was imminently expected and direct our attention to rescuing Lama Norlha from the elevator car by unscrewing or somehow breaking the bars at the top of the shaft and pulling him up and out onto the roof. Much fun was had by all!

Another time, I was called upon by Lama to take Kalu Rinpoche and his nephew to Ringling Bros Circus at Madison Square Garden, along with the older and much heavier Dezhung Rinpoche and his trickster brother, Kunsog Nyima. Everything seemed to be going fine, until I watched in horror as Lama Norla and Kalu Rinpoche and Dezhung’s brother all started trying to assist Dezhung Rinpoche to step onto a down escalator with his bad leg. For a second, it looked like they were all going to tumble down together in a tangled ball of Tibetans, but Lama somehow summoned super-human strength to keep them all erect. It was the source of much merriment and laughter for all and it was delightful to see these high Rinpoche’s laughing like children.

Other memories surround Lama’s extended summer residency in Woodstock and a visit there by Kalu Rinpoche. At that time Lama discovered that the hotel on top of the road up Overlook Mountain was for sale and discussions began about buying it for Karmapa to build a monastery.

During this period, I had moved up near Woodstock to be out of the city and closer to the action and had taken a job working as the clean-up man and goat milker at Magic Mommy Brownie bakery. For some reason, Lama found this lowly job particularly funny and over the years that followed he was fond of reminding and teasing me about my Magic Mommy association. As I still had my hippie pony tail in those days, Lama also loved to make fun of me by making the motions of ‘smoking pot’ with an Indian chillum – even though by then I was pretty much on the straight and narrow.

Lama’s jests were always done with loving affection and, though I felt that I was a failure as a Buddhist practitioner, his jokes at my expense always gave me a feeling of deep connection.

Once, while at his mother’s house in Sonada, he began pressing me to try to better understand why I didn’t like to meditate or be a ‘practitioner’. I told him, in all honesty, that I was never able to visualize myself as Chenrezig and that, in comparison to that perfect ideal, I felt like a piece of shit! Lama laughed so hard he almost fell off the balcony. While I don’t recall when he may have first invoked the phrase, it may as well have been this time that he began to tell me that I was “So Stupid!” Indeed, it became one of his fondest terms of endearment for me, and whenever such occasions were elicited for him to tell me – it always felt like the warmest and most intimate of expressions of his affection.

At some point along the way, I finally came to realize and decide that I just wasn’t cut out to be a hard-core practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. For whatever the reasons, I found that it was more important for me to learn to accept myself as I was than to strive to be Enlightened and, as a result, feel like a constant failure. Even so, while many of the original members of KTC dropped away and new, more serious, students arrived and took things to another level, I was somehow able to maintain my friendship with Lama Norlha.

Accordingly, in 1986, he invited me to accompany him when he took the first group of 3-year retreatants to India on pilgrimage. I agreed to go as a non-practicing “tourist”. This was the trip where we went to visit Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery in Sonada and stayed at Lama’s Amala’s house. On our way up into the mountains, Lama spontaneously stopped the van we were, leaped out and disappeared. Before we knew it, Lama returned with a goat in tow that he had seen about to be slaughtered and had bought as a gift to present to Amala. Someone asked, what are we going to name it? Without hesitation, he said “Earl” or, as he pronounced my name, “Or-al”. I was honored.

Traveling with Lama during this pilgrimage was a source of constant pleasure and amusement, no matter how good or bad things were going. I became increasingly aware and in awe of his adaptability to whatever the situation called for. From being a deadly serious and hard-nosed negotiator, like the time he was waiting against a brick wall to change thousands of American dollars into Indian rupees on the Kathmandu black market where he could get a better exchange rate, to humbly and almost reverentially treating any police, border guards or customs officials that we encountered as if they were the embodiment of highest authority! One moment he was a teacher and tour guide, the next he was a selfless servant and devotee around high Rinpoches.

At some point in the winter of 1987 Lama Norlha brought Amala to visit NYC. He asked me if he could bring her up to my recently rebuilt, off the grid, country cottage in the middle of the woods. I said of course. Having recently installed solar panels, with batteries and back-up generator, I was unpleasantly surprised, however, to discover that the batteries were completely dead and that the back-up generator wouldn’t charge them. No lights! No water! “No Problem”! was Lama’s response. Amala treated Suzanne like a daughter, as we spent the evening making momos by oil lamps and candles in front of the fireplace. The next morning it snowed! and Lama enthusiastically went out and down through the woods to my old spring to fetch water with big buckets. He came back with water splashing, smiling like a little boy and reported to me that he hadn’t felt like that since he left Tibet. He was full of joy.

Soon after that, as Lama was preparing to take the second? group of 3-year retreatants to India, he asked if I would like to go with him again. I said I would if he might be able to arrange for Kalu Rinpoche to perform a Tibetan wedding for me and Suzanne. “No Problem”. On our way there, however, the crowded airplane that we were taking to Patna landed in Benares at night and we found ourselves stranded on the runway for a long time. Finally, the pilot announced that it was too foggy to land in Patna and so we would be flying to Calcutta instead. I pointed out that this extra flight might cause us a big delay and Lama agreed and we somehow managed to get the pilot to agree to allow all twenty of us to disembark and unload our baggage in the middle of the runway. There we found ourselves, stranded in the night at this tiny airport with nobody around and suddenly this Luxury bus from Indian Airlines appeared without notice and took us all to stay at a luxury hotel in Benares – free of charge. “No Problem”! Of course, the next day’s 18-hour bus ride from hell, from Benares to Bodhgaya, along a pot hole infested road, in 100+ degree heat, without air-conditioning, more than compensated for our night of pleasure.

Upon finally arriving, however, it actually came to pass that Lama somehow arranged for Kalu Rinpoche to agree to marry us in front of the Bodhi tree, with both Lama and Amala overseeing the off-the-cuff ceremonies that included being covered with katas, handing out money to the longest line of beggars I had ever seen, and a great feast of momos at the end. In the days following our wedding, Suzanne and I and our friend Annie had made plans to take a little honeymoon trip to Kathmandu, where neither of them had ever been. Lama Norlha escorted us to the Patna train station in the very early morning. As we waited for the train, I asked him whether he would rather live in America or India. He responded that, if it was up to him, he would prefer India. I asked him why? He responded that “In America, everyone is coming hungry ghost!” In surprise, I asked “Even me, Lama Norlha”? He replied “Maybe, possible”. Half in jest, I asked if he would come get me? Without hesitation he looked me in the eyes and said, “I will Go With You”!

At some point during the next year, Lama turned to me one day and asked “what you do? you no monk, you no have children, what you do?” It was the first time the thought of having a child ever entered my mind. In 1990, a few weeks after our baby boy, Joshua Wyatt, was born, Lama Norlha arranged to bring a couple of car loads of nuns and monks to my country place to dig up some young tree saplings to re-plant at KTC. I handed a sleeping Joshua over to him and asked if he would give him a Tibetan name. He held him for a moment in silence and pronounced him “Karma Phuntsok.”

Since he loved my place so much, I offered Lama Norlha to use it any time he might want to take a personal retreat for himself. Although such occasion never did arrive, a few years later, Lama asked if he could bring Situ Rinpoche there to take a little vacation/break from being on the road. I said sure. When I arrived at KTC to pick up Lama and Rinpoche and his retinue of four other lamas, Lama Norlha began filling my trunk with four coolers of frozen meat! I remarked that it seemed like an awful lot of meat for just five days. He paused to consider and said, “No Problem” and left one of the coolers behind. I never did find out if they actually managed to go through all three.

The last time I went to visit Lama Norlha was a few months before his passing. I was told he was tired and in discomfort and it would need to be short. He brightened up when I came in and as he pulled my head to his he said, “Magic Mommy”!

He will always be my friend…

I have so many vivid memories. When Rinpoche and my brother Sandy first met. Rinpoche blessed my brother shortly after his cancer surgery during the weekend workshop on The Seven Points of Mind Training. This memory loves on in me and makes me so grateful and joyous.

I first met Lama Norlha in 1985 at his Cambridge MA center. Following that meeting, I would spend weekends at KTC whenever I was on the East Coast.
At first, I would just socialize with all the nuns and monks and “hang out.” Then one time during a summer visit I arrived at KTC and Lama Norlha met me as I got out of my car. He then led me to the retreat house and set me up in a room with a meditation box. He was smiling all the time. He then sent in Lama Tashi to teach me how to do prostrations and I was left there for several days, continuously doing prostrations and thinking I would not survive and not knowing when I would be “let out”. Finally, he appeared at my door with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye and I learned the lesson that when I came to KTC it was to do serious practice. I followed his advice from then on. This was the first of many lessons I learned from him, all of them having the important effect of reducing my ego pride.

We both fondly remember Rinpoche’s wonderful sense of humor, even when imparting such profound teachings. Rinpoche had a joyful, comforting presence that made us feel instantly at home, as if we knew him well beyond the brief time we were fortunate enough to learn from him. He was an excellent teacher and we are both grateful for all the teachings Rinpoche so generously shared with us.

Our family adored Lama Norlha Rinpoche. He was part of our family. My father and him were like brothers. We enjoyed walking on the beach, sitting on the deck, having dinner and there was always a lot of smiling and laughing. When my father died, Lama Norhla comforted us immensely. We feel so blessed to have known Lama Norlha and send our love to all of you who love him.

This is an anecdote about Elisabeth Deran offered by her partner of 33 years, Julie Radford:

I’ll never forget the day Elisabeth first visited KTC. When I got home from work, she couldn’t wait to tell me that she went there on an impulse that morning. She had thought about it for a long time. I’m certain that she checked the astrological tables to see if this was an auspicious day.

She was warmly greeted by a nun from Canada named Dechi. She was invited to come back for lunch, which pleased and excited her.

So as not to appear “piggy” she ate a little bit before she arrived at KTC. At lunch she met Lama Norlha and many of the nuns and monks. She wrote down their names on a tiny piece of paper that she kept in her pocket until she no longer needed it.

Elisabeth told me that day that she had found her home. She had searched for years and years. Sometimes I was jealous that she loved Rinpoche more than me, but I could see how her devotion to her mentor and friend made her extremely happy.

At a time of great personal struggle, I asked Rinpoche for guidance. He gently reminded me that all that I experience today will become the past tomorrow. He then peered into me and saw an opportunity that awaited me. He said “You, go to Bodh Gaya – this year. To the Monlam. You will not have the time in the future. Now is when you should go.” I went, and it was transformative. Rinpoche was right – medical and other challenges have prevented me from going since. Lama Norlha Rinpoche – a truly enlightened being and teacher.

My heart is full of joy, love and gratitude that precious Lama Norlha Rinpoche is my teacher.

I have received so many blessings from Rinpoche. It would be impossible to list them all, but here are a few:

The Dharma Path program and other profound teachings
Traveling in India with Rinpoche and the sangha on pilgrimage and to the Kagyu Monlam
Meeting many masters of the Kagyu lineage
Helping with the construction of the Stupa in Charlottesville, VA
Being able to complete 2 eight consecutive sets of Nyungne retreats

Rinpoche was always kind, patient and loving.

It always warmed my heart when I would see Rinpoche smile and laugh.
I remember one time when Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and Lama Norlha Rinpoche visited our center in Virginia Beach. Khenpo Tsultrim and Rinpoche were talking, and Rinpoche got laughing so hard, he almost started crying!

I pray that we may never be separated from Lama Norlha Rinpoche and the Dharma throughout all our lifetimes.

At one of the early 4th of July gatherings, we were having trouble setting up this great big, heavy tent. Lama came out to see what we were doing and watched us for awhile. It was a sunny, hot, and absolutely still day. Lama walked over to one of the tent poles and suddenly a wind came up and lifted the tent. We all scrambled to get the poles in position. The tent was up and there was no more wind. Lama smiled.

Norlha Rinpoche
Is samsara’s conqueror
The signs help prove it

A perfect rainbow
Master went to a pure realm
Padmasambhava

Like a birth mother
Most giving person I’ve known
Norlha Rinpoche

Infinite wisdom
So many different students
Guided effortlessly

Wish fulfilling jewel
All bhumis were accomplished
Chenrezig displayed

So lost and confused
The Guru shared the Dharma
Compassion defined

Elements dissolved
Guru’s journey continued
Had to stay behind

1 of the 4 thoughts
Death a mere appearance
Mind is the deathless

Pride rears ugly head
The Master mirrors our mind
Ego shown its face

Student in such pain
Rinpoche performs tonglen
Suffering is eased

His form left behind
Lama’s blessing magnified
Outside samsara’s grasp

In 1996, I was accompanying Lama Norlha Rinpoche on a teaching tour in South America. We had had a long day of air travel from Colombia to Peru followed by several hours of teaching and were finally heading home to get some dinner and rest. I was exhausted and hungry, and I’m sure Rinpoche was too. As we were walking toward the car, a woman approached us with great urgency and begged Rinpoche to come to her home to bless her dying mother. Thinking it would take too long, I suggested that Rinpoche give the woman a blessing cord to take to her mother. But Rinpoche said no, we must go, and off we went into the night, following the woman on foot through alleyways and into an old building and down several flights of stairs until we came to where the mother was. They were clearly very poor, and living in a basement. The mother was lying on the floor in a tiny room. I could see her as we approached the room and suddenly I was hit with the overpowering stench of human filth and illness. It was obvious the mother had not moved from the floor in that room for quite a while. The stench was so strong that I gagged uncontrollably and could not will myself to continue walking into the room. But Rinpoche walked right in like nothing was different, and he kneeled down by the mother, held her hand tenderly and started praying. She was sobbing in gratitude and so was her daughter. In that moment I saw the power of selfless compassion to heal inconsolable misery.

I saw many, many similar examples of Rinpoche putting others before himself and making it a top priority to help someone connect with dharma. His main concern was trying to help others find the dharma.

February 1987, my first visit to KDK in NYC. I’d heard good things about Lama Norlha and finally went to meet him. A weekend seminar, ngondro teaching, Green Tara empowerment. I was ever so impressed by this Lama who took so much time and care answering people’s questions and immediately felt at home. 31 years later I’ve remained ever so impressed with this Lama. Please bestow your blessings upon us, precious Rinpoche. Please remember us always.

I took refuge with Lama Norlha 26 years ago. He was such a great teacher. Also, such a wonderful being…

I have many wonderful memories of Rinpoche, especially when I took refuge. I remember feeling great happiness being there in his presence and going through the process of taking refuge. One memory that was incredible was when I was living in Singapore. I had been attending some Dharma classes at a temple and one of the classes I took was called “How to see your Guru as a Buddha.” This class made me think of Rinpoche and how I wanted to go back to KTC and learn more from him because this class taught me how to see him as a Buddha. On a whim, I went on the KTC website to see what was going on at the monastery. Much to my surprise, I learned that Rinpoche would be traveling to Singapore. I was so excited and made sure to attend all the days of his teachings. It was so amazing and unexpected to see him. It was as if he knew that I wanted to see him and learn more from him. To this day, this memory stays etched in my mind.

The first time I walked into KTC, on Fred Cooper’s instruction, I walked up to Lama Norlha, introduced myself and sat down to lunch. To my surprise and delight I was urged to go up to Lama for fruit. I had no idea that he would put cold, wet, ripe fruit into my hand. The sensual shock was thrilling, moreover I am allergic to mangos and I didn’t even get an itch!

I brought my cat Thomas to KTC last summer for a blessing from Rinpoche. We were all assembled outside and all of a sudden Rinpoche began throwing rice on Thomas in his mesh trolly. I can only think he had the same sensual surprise I had with the fruit, after all, no one had ever thrown rice at him as I had never been given a handful of fruit. His surprise blessings may be my favorites.

It was after my first 3-year retreat, and I had given back my robes and was preparing to go on to points unknown. That autumn, Lama Norlha Rinpoche led a group of us on a 7 week pilgrimage to India and Nepal. While at Sherabling receiving a vast and complete cycle of empowerments from Tai Situ Rinpoche that Lama Norlha Rinpoche had arranged (amazing!), I had the strong thought that I should go into the upcoming retreat. Not wanting me to rush into such a major decision, Rinpoche suggested I think about it for a week before making it firm. I did so, and when I went back to tell him I wanted to go ahead, Rinpoche agreed, saying, “by the way, I still have your robes on the shelf in my room. I’ll give them to you when we get back.” I was floored. Although he had done several rounds of giveaways to the next group of retreatants, he had kept my robes aside without ever saying a word. In that and so many other ways, he has been like a mother and father to me and so many others, and I will never forget his kindness.

My memories of Lama Norlha Rinpoche are always of his kindness and his patience towards myself and all his students. I am so grateful that I met him and had the opportunity to learn from him and be in his presence. I pray that we always meet in all our future lifetimes. Thank you Lama.

Colder now, the hill slick with ice, walking to the state road ‘neath a half moon, towing a bag of garbage behind me. Thinking of the million roads Lama Norlha walked down, joyfully carrying the weight of all our suffering. A long journey, unceasing prayer, a distant country, all beings. How hard he worked! And for how long… Now with the stars as my witness, across 400 icy miles, the full blessing of his labors Flows into my heart.

On a warm, sunny day, Rinpoche and I sat by the Stupa, facing the River. I asked him if the sky is very blue in Tibet and he said, “Very blue.” Then we circumambulated the Stupa in silence. A beautiful little while together.

One funny – and all too true – comment he made about people having trouble breathing properly for meditation is that their jeans are too tight. I think of it with a rueful laugh every time I’m not breathing properly during meditation.

THE LITTLE ELEPHANT GOD

Once Lama Norlha, George Birch and I were staying at Loren Standlee and Zisca Baum’s house named “Osel Ling” on Byrdcliffe, the original art colony and theater site on the hill above Woodstock, New York, where I often stayed in 1976-7. One morning Lama mentioned that he’d had “a bright dream” and his “little elephant god” (Dharmapala, ally?) had pointed out that the historic old hotel atop Mt. Guardian — where people including President Ulysses S. Grant had stayed in the 1800s — was a very auspicious place for The Karmapa’s monastery to be established. So we walked over that day to look at it.

It turned out to be for sale, and had a gorgeous rose garden too. Within months Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche came up to look it over, and it soon became Karma Triyana Dharmachakra — The Karmapa’s monastic seat in North America — when Chinese philanthropist C.T. Shen donated it to the Karmapa for that purpose.

When I asked Lama about his “little elephant god”, he wouldn’t say too much, only that it was his special friend and helper.

—

A PINCH OF FAITH

Once I was living with Lama in his hermitage-like hut up above Sonada Monastery, Darjeeling, West Bengal in 1975-6. It happened that we went to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim with Lama and his adopted mother, Ama Yudon, and his adopted sister Pema and brother-monk Karma Chodak. We all slept in the same large guestroom at Rumtek, for several days. It was during that visit that The Karmapa asked me to accompany Lama Norlha and the other monks from Kalu Rinpoche’s monastery to foreign lands, to help them get established at the various centers recently started in Europe and North America. I went, along with the Tibetan scholar Deni Eysseric of France (Lama Denis Deundrup).

One day there was some informal photos being taken of the foreigners and special visitors with the glorious Karmapa, at the end of the porch of the temple building. His Holiness was usually very gracious and jovial about such occasions, although he could display very different moods at other times as well. Everyone present was relaxed, beaming in the Himalayan sunlight, and having a very good time. His Holiness used to call Lama Norlha by a nickname, Lama Rilly-milly (Roly-poly), always with a friendly laugh.

I wish I could find the old photo I have of us from that day with the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa: Lama Norlha standing on HH’s immediate right, shoulder to shoulder, red robe to red robe, and then continuing arm in arm next to Lama on his right was myself, the lotsawa John Reynolds, and a couple of other people, including an American named Jessica or Jennifer who was wearing a chuba. All five or six of us Vajra-friends were smiling happily, blessed out — except for Lama, who is grimacing as if in pain the moment the picture was captured.

The next day he showed me the left side of his upper body, under his arm, where there was a good-sized black and blue welt. “That’s where His Holiness was pinching me while the picture was being taken,” he exclaimed with a wry laugh. “He has strong hands!”

Ever the doubting Thomas, I asked Lama: “Didn’t it hurt? It looks terrible! Did you mind?”

Lama just laughed and said, “You boy, what a blessing! Even getting hit by His Holiness or a stone or grain of rice thrown by him can sow the seed of enlightenment.”

—

LAMA’S DINNER PARTY

When Lama Norlha first came to NYC, to K. Dzamling Kunchab, within the first month or so he called Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in Boulder; Trinley Norbu Rinpoche, in Manhattan; Karma Thinley Rinoche, formerly a secretary of the Sixteenth Karmapa, in Toronto; and Khenchen Dezhung Rinpoche, up near Harlem on 125th Street where he lived with his brother Amchi-la Kunzang Nyima, a Tibetan doctor. Within that first year, Lama had met them all. He was especially close to Dezhung Rinpoche, who completely bowled us over by his gracious kindness and generosity as well as his erudition and complete and total devotion to the grand old yogi from Kham, our guru the Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche (as he was called in those days).

The American yoga-style vegetarians who lived or hung around at the nascent fifth floor Dharma Center KDK on West 19th St. were a little shocked when they found Lama Norlha, Dezhung Rinpoche and his brother the doctor having a special dinner one evening, consisting of one of their favorite Kham (Eastern Tibet) delicacies, called “sha kimba”. They were eating frozen raw ribs — purchased by themselves at the local grocery store, from the frozen meat department–along with homemade meat broth and making a grand old lama dinner party out of it, laughing and telling stories as if the broth was spiked with spirits.

And I remember thinking, “These lamas know how to live and be at home and at ease wherever they are. Even being poor, disenfranchised refugees, alone in the New World and without knowing much of the local language, they are just having the time of their lives!”

And I was reminded of the story where Lord Buddha tells his right-hand monk Ananda, “Spiritual friendship is half of the holy life.”

The best thing I’ve ever done is taking refuge with Lama Norlha at KTC on February 16, 2008. My funny remembrance is Lama Norlha patting his shaved head and telling my (balding) husband that he was “halfway there” himself (smile).

Lama Norlha was one of the nicest and kind Lama you could ever meet. I remember visiting the monastery for the first time on how he welcomed my friend and I with his beautiful smile and warm heart sharing a blessed piece of banana after we lunch not to mention his teachings which were blessings in which will be with me until I meet him again!