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Lama Gongdue – Beyond the Butter Lamps

Lama Gongdue – Beyond the Butter Lamps

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Explore the spiritual journey of Yeshey and Surojit as they travel to the Ringhim Gumpa in Mangan, Sikkim, to witness the sacred Lama Gongdue puja conducted by His Holiness Dodrupchen Rinpoche.

It was four in the morning, still dark and quite cold when Yeshey and Surojit came down from their hotel rooms to the road where PG was waiting for them in his car, with the engine running. The moment they got in, he drove off towards the Mangan hilltop to the Ringhim Gumpa. It was late autumn and the chill was manifest, though Mangan town is at a modest altitude of just a little above 3,000 feet in the lap of the Himalayas.

PG was in a bit of a hurry, though he drove carefully enough up the cobbled hilly tract that was just about motorable. PG’s hurry was because he was not only one of the Zinda or sponsors of the monastery but was central to what was slated for the next two days: the Lama Gongdue puja.

“Man, this is the most important puja in Sikkim. It encapsulates the essence of all the pujas in the state,” someone had told Surojit when he had asked about Lama Gongdue, but he had not been able to explain much more than that. So, as the sturdy car bumped and bounced up the hill road, Surojit did not really know what to expect. 

The important thing, as far as he could see, was that the topmost living saint of Nyingma Buddhism, His Holiness Dodrupchen Rinpoche was coming to conduct the finale of the eight-day puja. 

His Holiness Dodrupchen Rinpoche
His Holiness Dodrupchen Rinpoche

Just outside the compound of the monastery where the motorable road ended, the three of them stepped out and started walking the short distance to the two permanent structures opposite the main monastery building. To their left, a hut was lit up by one thousand butter lamps. In that hour when the sun was still wriggling out of its bed on the eastern horizon, the thousand yellow lamps exuding the fragrance of burning butter ushered in a feeling of sanctity in Surojit’s being. Yes ‘being’, for it went much beyond the mind and thoughts and comprehension, or even of any sense of devotion.

Beholding butter lamps burning was not new to Surojit; but that dawn it spelled quietude, and without his realising it, perhaps prepared him for what he was to behold over the next two days. 

 ***

As the day broke, PG told Surojit: “Boss, that barrack on the right is where all the men are putting up, so you can dump your staff and join us for tea.” Surojit entered the barrack: a bare dormitory, with thick carpets, spread on the floor and blankets kept for people to cover themselves from the cold, and the devotees had put their meagre bags wherever they could. Some of the men had already sat up and were yawning and stretching somewhat noisily, driving the lethargy out from their bones after drinking and playing cards till late the previous night. They were a bit surprised to see a person who was obviously a non-Sikkimese enter and dump his bag there. But no one asked him anything. Sikkim is home to anyone who wants to feel homely in a Buddhist state.

Outside, it was a bit like a village fair. The first light of dawn had broken through the clouds, and a hint of Mount Khang Chen-dze-nga could be seen towering above on the side opposite the gumpa. There were people all over sitting on aluminum chairs, mostly men, for the women were busy preparing tea for everyone in the large kitchen, which had three huge hearths with a wood fire constantly burning.

Surojit found PG had changed his clothes and was sitting in a monk’s maroon robe and sporting an Australian hat. The man’s entire demeanour was that of a ‘who-cares’ loveable rascal, with a sharp, cackle, a squawking laugh that a chicken might make. But PG’s exterior – that of a seemingly carefree mahjong-playing ‘gambler’, but one who gave away all the money he won to someone in need – hid a very deeply spiritual person. Surojit had come to know him well over the past three years.

“Come Boss,” PG hailed Surojit and dragged another aluminum chair next to his. Surojit sat down. 

PG was a Lepcha. His father, the late Dr L Tenzing, had been the first qualified doctor of Sikkim. PG himself had been educated at Delhi University, and his spoken Hindi was liberally and merrily sprinkled with all the devastating north Indian invectives. 

He adjusted his specs above his nose. “I tell you, if you desire anything from the core of your heart, it will come to you for sure. Look at this,” he said, picking up a corner of the monk’s robe. “I had been dreaming of having a robe like this for years. Never got to make one, though. But this morning after we came here, someone gifted this to me,” PG said and burst out into his typical cackling laughter, which perplexed Surojit: how can a man take such a good fortune quite so jovially?

***

Some Bhutia girls, all from the nearby villages which could be glimpsed through the forest foliage all around the surrounding hills, came serving tea in tumblers innovatively made from bamboo freshly cut from the groves nearby. There were other similar groups of girls spread over the compound. Some of the girls were really pretty, but then, Surojit recalled the spiritual injunction that when you come to a puja, all the men and women are deemed to be devatas and devis – gods and goddesses – who you must honour.

Meanwhile, Yeshey came and told Surojit: “Sir, a very high lama is in his room, should we go and meet him?” So off they went to the first floor of the monastery where the venerable monk, known for his singular scholarship, was seated on a meagre bed wearing a yellow blouse and deep maroon robe. He had apparently been studying some sacred texts before Surojit and Yeshey entered the room.

The room was poorly lit, but neatly arranged. Burning incense gave it an air of solemnity. The simplicity of a true lama’s life was striking.

Surojit asked him about the mystery of the mantra, Aum Ma Ne Pe Ma Hung Rhi. The Rinpoche spoke to them caringly, tenderly, almost as if to small children. He explained the entire concept of the Six Realms into which anyone can be born, a scheme of things in which devatas can be reborn also in the lowest realm, and sentient beings from the lowest realms can rise up to the highest one.

The six realms were those of the gods, humans, titans, animals, the realm of the ever-hungry ghosts, and that of condemned creatures in hell. These sentient beings were represented in the syllables Aum Ma Ne Pe Ma and Hung; the term Rhi was the empowerment of humans. Rhi empowers humans – and humans alone – to pray for the liberation of all sentient beings from the cycle of births-desires-deaths-rebirths. 

“The preciousness of this human birth is that, of all those in all six realms, we alone have been blessed with the power to pray for the liberation of others. But depending on how we use this life, we can be reborn as a devata or a condemned creature. Nothing is permanent,” he said.

Surojit had learned of this earlier from another huge scholar of Nyingma Buddhism. But now this Rinpoche said something very interesting: “Do you know that your existence in the realm of the devatas is no guarantee of remaining like that forever? Even devatas feel disturbed and unhappy. Sometimes they can smell an odour coming from their bodies, and they realise they are about to die, and then they worry about which realm they will be reborn in. Nothing is permanent, you see!”

True, realised Surojit when the perspective was made clear. If any form of life in any realm was to always remain there, the entire idea of Six Realms, Karma, and endless cycles of rebirth would come to naught. And if that happens then, philosophically speaking, the idea of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, who extricated themselves out of this cycle of rebirth, would amount to just an imagination. 

And the value of human existence in that context was huge, which could be seen in the lines of prayer flags with the Mahamantra written in them, fluttering in the winds and praying for the deliverance of all sentient beings.

The two of them then asked the Rinpoche about the deities in the Ringhim Gumpa, but he explained that was in the province of the lamas who have been practicing there for ages, and it would be better for Surojit and Yeshey to find all that out from them. 

Indeed, the two of them had earlier stood at the gate of the monastery hall and had tried to figure out what was inside. But there was no electricity, and only a few butter lamps cast their lights on the deities, creating unfathomable shadows of dakinis and deities on the walls. Once in a while, as the flame from the lamps flickered slightly in a breeze, the images seemed to slowly dance on the walls, making these look eerie and mysterious. But there was no answer to what PG had said about the powers of the deities here in this gumpa.

***

The Ringhim Gumpa in Mangan was till 2002 a rather non-descript monastery, little known, or practically unknown to spiritual tourists. It lay at the top of the hill, and was small, lacking in the outward glamour of such monasteries as Pemayangtse, Tashiding, or Phodong. And yet, by virtue of several factors, it is one of the very powerful monasteries.

Ringhim Gumpa in Mangan, Sikkim
Ringhim Gumpa in Mangan, Sikkim

Surojit asked Dorje Lopen, the principal, or Acharya, of the monastic school and head of the gumpa about this. 

The significance of the Ringhim Gumpa, he said, is that at the centre of the altar is Guru Rinpoche’s footprint. Now, such footprints or hand imprints of Guru Padmasambhava are very rare and signify a religious spot’s high spiritual status. On the left side of this footprint is the idol of Tandin, and on the right are the idols of the various Dakinis. 

“Our gumpa was created after the Guru left his footprints at that spot. Guru Rinpoche himself had predicted that in our gumpa, very highly learned scholars would come and practice their tantra and dhyan, or meditation of Mahayana Buddhism,” the Acharya explained. 

“The deities by the Guru blessed in our gumpa are Bring Takchhen, Maling Takchhen, and Drenchen. Bring Takchhen presides over weather elements water and air; Maling Takchhen protected all the villages landslides, floods or earthquakes; and Drenchhen is for safeguarding the Dharma.”

 ***

As they left the Acharya’s chamber, they heard three gongs. That was lunch being announced. They climbed down the stairs and came upon the compound. It was strange, however, that though it had been sunny when they had entered the lama’s chamber, by now, within a short while it had become dark. The wind was slowly picking up speed, and the sand and leaves were swirling at the ground level.

They sat in two chairs next to PG in his monk’s maroon robe and Australian hat. He was one of the top zindas, but he had no airs about him whatever. And so over lunch, they continued chatting.

“You know, this guy is crazy,” PG said about Dodrupchen Rinpoche. “His seat is the Phurba Choedten or Do-drul Choedten in Deorali in Gangtok.

When he starts his high prayers on special occasions, strange things happen. First, it starts drizzling…”

At this point Yeshey hummed in her muted, lilting voice, addressing Surojit: “It is called Chhinlap, Sir… when something very holy is about to commence, or some very sacred person is coming, this sim-sim-pani or mild drizzling starts.” 

PG’s apparently casual reference to Dodrupchen Rinpoche as “this chap” and calling him “crazy” had shaken the simple, devout Bhutia lass, but she soon realised that for PG, it was just his typical manner of speaking: in his soul, PG had the highest reverence.

“Yeah,” continued PG. “As and when the prayers enter higher phases, lightning starts appearing inside the gumpa, but mind you, it is a strange kind of lightning… it just moves horizontally across, not from the top towards to the earth. And after the lightning comes hail.”

Surojit was hearing all this, half amazed, half amused. Reverence and devotion were fine human values, but to say that nature follows a lama’s prayers – however high a spirit he may be – and that lightning all the time moves horizontally because of his rituals was, well….

 ***

Lunch was a simple fare of two kinds of vegetable curries, rice, and lentil soup, but it tasted heavenly. Maybe because it was cooked in wooden hearths which lends food a sweet aroma, Surojit thought; or maybe because it was prepared with love by all the volunteers for the devatas and devis assembled at the monastery for the puja. Surojit recalled that his mother always said that if you cook anything for someone with love, it is going to taste terrific.

By the time lunch was over, though, there was a sense of restlessness in the air. The zindas started assembling near the entry point where the Rinpoche’s car would stop. Mobile phones became busy, calling to find out where Dodrupchen Rinpoche was and how far his car had reached. 

Meanwhile, Mount Khang Chen-dze-nga, which had shone brilliantly throughout the first part of the day, had vanished behind the dense clouds. 

Mount Khang Chen-dze-nga
Mount Khang Chen-dze-nga

In the buzz of mobile phone calls, it was heard that Pema Namgyal was driving up the Rinpoche from Gangtok, and in the monastery compound, the zindas were told at each point how far they had reached. 

Pema was quite the opposite of PG: very jovial, ever smiling, but not loud. He had inherited his depth of spiritualism from his own father, the late Netuk Lama, who had a string of activities that benefitted both monasteries and monks, especially those of Tashiding Gumpa. Given that background, Pema was perhaps the fittest in chaperoning Dodrupchen Rinpoche.

 ***

Soon, devotees started queuing up on both sides of the hill path from the point where the car would stop. No one shepherded them, and yet, there was no scrambling, no hustling by anyone to get a vantage spot to get as close to the Rinpoche as possible when he comes.

His Eminence Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche, his teeth darkly stained with betel leaf juice, was standing next to where Surojit and Yeshey were. Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche was the fourth reincarnation of the Gomchen lineage, or Great Hermits, from Lachen in North Sikkim. He was giggling all the time like a child and for no discernible reason. 

“Big saints often behave like small children, Sir,” Yeshey, who had some knowledge of such things, whispered to Surojit. 

Standing there waiting for His Holiness, Lachen Rinpoche explained one aspect of Vajrayana Buddhism. Manjushri is the Bodhisattva that combines knowledge and compassion. “Simply having knowledge is not enough, unless one combines it with compassion,” he said. “Compassion makes one share knowledge, and that is how knowledge grows,” he said. 

Surojit found this quite profound. Unless you have compassion and share knowledge, your own knowledge will get stunted and stymied. Is it the same knowledge that humans were unique in being able to liberate beings from the other five realms that endowed them with compassion? Was it an ever-rising spiral of knowledge-compassionhigher knowledge and so forth? Philosophically, at least, that seemed to be a viable position.

 ***

The wind was picking up speed slightly and the leaves on the hill path swirled ever faster. But Surojit noticed that neither the wind nor the dust nor the dry leaves, rose above the knee length of the devotees queuing up, most with khadas in their hands, some with burning incense sticks as well. The great reincarnation of Terton Sangey Lingpa was about to arrive.

Meanwhile, inside the hut that housed the butter lamps, three ladies were lighting them up, and not very far away, the Sang, or the juniper stems and leaves were being burnt, filling the ambience with an air of peace, piety and sublimity that Surojit had rarely experienced. 

Suddenly, it started drizzling. It was more like a fine spray of water rather than drops of rain that wetted your hair or clothes, and Lachen Rinpoche’s childlike joy seemed to be gathering further gush. The drizzle was just that wee bit, as if to cleanse the air, just like the burning Sang smoke was to purify the ambience.

“Chhinlap, Sir, Chhinlap,” Yeshey whispered about the drizzle. 

Suddenly the call came through that Pema’s car was just winding up the hill. The musicians, resplendent in their gorgeous dresses and yellow-plumed headgears, started playing the Dung-Chen, Gya-ling, Khang-ling, Sil Nyan, Kar-dung and Choe-Nga. The sound of the music was coming up the hill, and soon the musicians could be seen. They too walked up in a queue, heralding the arrival of Dodrupchen Rinpoche. 

Pema reverentially brought the car to a very gentle stop. And the drizzle too stopped, as if by cue. And at that instant, as the door on Dodrupchen Rinpoche’s side of the car opened, and he was being helped down from the carat that instant, the cloud lifted, and a blazing, silver Khang Chen-dze-nga stood up in the sky, jutting out through the layers of clouds, the ensignia of divinity.

The musicians began their slow procession towards the gumpa compound. Dodrupchen Rinpoche walked by ever so slowly, his right hand slightly raised in what Surojit guessed must have been a blessing in his mind for every sentient beingthe fourth reincarnation of Terton Sangey Lingpa. And the reverential devotees followed him at a slight distance.

He finally entered the special quarters that had been set up for him. 

And from the time he entered the quarters, the drizzle started again, this time slightly stronger. By then, the Khang Chen-dze-nga too had been engulfed by the dark clouds once again. The skies, the wind, and the mountain had all paid their obeisance. 

Yeshey and Surojit loitered around the compound waiting for PG to take them back to the hotel, because that evening was only the onset, the real puja would be the next day. 

Surojit went up to the window of the room where His Holiness was blessing devotees. One by one they came, palms folded, bowed their heads in front of him, and were blessed.

Surojit felt a sting of desire: “Oh… if only I could be…” He could see scenes of devotion inside the room, with people trying to get a chance of being personally blessed by His Holiness. 

Dodrupchen Rinpoche had a sort of feathered wand with a peacock plume in his hand. He sometimes would touch a devotee’s head with the wand, but sometimes he also put his hands lightly over the heads of some; and in rare cases, he took the devotee’s head in his hand and touched it gently with his own head.

Surojit stood there watching all this for a short while. But just as he was stepping away from the window, someone tapped him on his shoulder from behind. “Agya PG is calling you and her,” the man said, pointing towards Yeshey. 

PG calling them? But why? In a haze of perplexity, the two were ushered inside the Rinpoche’s room. They bowed their heads, kneeling in front of him, and he blessed them. It was something Surojit had never even dared to dream of, but PG had managed it for the two of them somehow!

“If you desire anything from the core of your heart, it will come to you.”

 ***

“What did I tell you?” PG later asked Surojit after the blessings were over and they had come out to the open compound once again. “Today you only saw the wind and the drizzle. Wait for tomorrow… ha ha ha….” And soon after, he drove down to Mangan town to drop Yeshey and Surojit at their small but clean and warm hotel, after which he himself left for his own lovely, somewhat quaint home.

At the hotel’s reception desk, Surojit ordered two plates of mutton curry and two plates of boiled rice and green salad, asking the hotel boy to reach one such set to “Yeshey Madam’s Room”. He went to his own room, relieved himself, and pressed the bell. When the room boy came, he ordered a bucket of steaming hot water for a bath at sharp three the next morning.

Then he sat down and started his first drink. As the raw rum burnt down his throat, he brought out his packet of Gold Flake Kings, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up.

It was a good feeling, but it was also just at that moment when he realised he had felt no urge, not even once, for a smoke throughout the fifteen hours since he had left the hotel earlier that morning, all the time observing things in the Ringhim Gumpa! 

Was it some mystical factor, because Guru Padmasambhava had forbidden smoking? Was it an autosuggestion that he should not smoke inside a religious campus? Or was it that he was too engrossed watching everything that he could soak up, and smoking had not come to his mind?

 Surojit smiled an uneasy smile to himself…

 ***

At ten past four the next morning – still in his room – he could hear the angry honking by PG. The hotel boy had brought the bath water almost twenty minutes late, so Surojit had been stuck. And yet, he was going for a puja and it was necessary to take the cleansing bath. 

By the time he could rush down, Yeshey was already sitting in the car and PG was gnashing his teeth. Surojit knew very well it would be no good offering him any excuse, and in any case, PG hardly ever retained his anger – which itself was rare – beyond a few minutes.

Soon, the car stopped atop the hill, and in the semi-darkness, they walked past the hut with the butter lamps. 

The meagre electric bulb was already on inside the quarters of Dodrupchen Rinpoche.

The lights were on also in the barracks meant for men and women devotees. Everyone was getting ready as early as they could. The workers in the kitchen were starting the wooden hearths. It would be tea time very soon.

Surojit looked up at the sky. It was overcast, and the moon was making one last attempt before daybreak to take a look at the earth through the dense cloud. Dawn would soon arrive, though not in a golden chariot, not this day, the finale of Lama Gongdue Puja in Ringhim Gumpa. Surojit was a tad worried about the dark clouds hanging low above the mountains.

 ***

“Lama Gongdue is the highest puja in Sikkim,” PG had told Surojit.

As the Acharya explained: “This puja sums up and channelises the knowledge and spiritual prowess of all the Dharma Gurus of Trikal, that is, of all ages. Gongdue is the terchhen of Terton Sangey Lingpa, who was the first ever terton (1000 to 1080 CE). And Dodrupchen is the fourth incarnation of Sangey Lingpa.”

Surojit knew, of course, about the terton system. Guru Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal – the highest known woman tantric practitioner of Niyngmapa, the original school of Tibetan Buddhism – had hidden a large number of spiritual treasures that would be discovered at appropriate times for the benefit of all sentient beings. Those treasures are called terchhen, and the treasure-finders were the tertons. Sangey Lingpa was the first of them. The terchhens could be hidden on land, in water, or sometime in the minds of the tertons as dreams, or even recollections from their past births.

By Mahayana Buddhist tradition, Terton Sangey Lingpa was ordained to discover the greatest of all terchens, the Lama Gongdue text.

 The Acharya continued: “The reason why Lama Gongdue is so important is that Guru Rinpoche had prophesied (termed lungten) that this puja will help ensure peace in Bayul Demajong, now called Sikkim, and if there is peace here, then there will be peace in the entire universe. The most significant pujas in Sikkim are Kagyet, Gongdue, and Phurba, but of all these, Lama Gongdue is the most significant and powerful puja.” 

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***

“Now you will see the fun start,” PG told Surojit as the three of them sat down for some khabjey and the hot, syrupy milk tea served in the innovated bamboo tumblers, just as Dodrupchen Rinpoche was preparing for his main puja. 

What PG meant by ‘fun’ was the sequence of rain, lightning, and hail as and when Rinpoche enters deeper levels of the puja.

By that morning, Surojit’s skepticism about some saint’s prayers unleashing natural phenomenon had been somewhat shaken, after having witnessed the Chhinlap of the previous evening during the arrival of the Rinpoche. And yet, he still felt a lump of doubt in his throat.

Someone came to call PG to handle some accounting issues and he left Yeshey and Surojit with a cackling laugh, telling Surojit: “And your next month’s salary is mine, boss, if this does not happen!”

Surojit did not check what time it was, but it started drizzling. Dodrupchen Rinpoche was still inside his quarters when in passing Surojit and PG met for less than a minute.

Surojit told PG: “It is raining, so how will His Holiness come out to conduct the puja?” PG bared his teeth in a mischievous smile and said: “The rain will stop when the time comes,” and he swiftly moved towards the makeshift office in the compound.

Outside the monastery building, a large marquee that could seat two hundred people, at least, had been set up. Those were seats on the ground, with choktse tables in front that held copies of the scripture, a butter lamp, and a tibu the ritual bell. These seats were for the lay lamas. Suojit had heard that because Dodrupchen Rinpoche would be coming, there had been quite a stiff competition between lamas of various monasteries to get invited to participate in the 2002 Lama Gongdue puja.

Besides these seats, however, there were also three raised, ornate platforms of around four feet square at the centre. While the practicing lamas sat along the periphery of the marquee, the thrones at the centre faced the monastery.

Surojit entered the marquee. Lachen Rinpoche and Khye Rinpoche were there in their seats already. The lamas were reciting from the Lama Gongdue scriptures. It was a resonant hum that itself seemed to calm the heart, though for Surojit, the actual words were unintelligible. He just marvelled that despite the mantras being in Tibetan, he did recognise one Sanskrit mantra he knew from childhood: Sarva Mangala Mangalye Shivey Sarvartha Sadhikey Sharanye Trayambikey Gauri Narayani Namastute

(The One who is the giver of refuge, with three eyes and a shining face; salutations to you Oh Narayani). 

Outside, a sizeable group of devotees and zindas were at the door of the Rinpoche’s quarters. Surojit had no idea what was going on inside. Yeshey and he managed to grab two chairs and watched a steady stream of devotees starting to gather, though they were still not allowed to enter the marquee. The two of them watched all this from under the shed of the men’s barrack.

Suddenly the conch shells and tingsha, the Tibetan horn, sounded, heralding that the time of Dodrupchen Rinpoche to join the prayers had come. And Surojit found that the rain had stopped. Just as PG had predicted it would be ‘at the right time’, though Surojit had taken that with a pinch of pepper powder, so to say. 

His Holiness was escorted inside the marquee, and though Surojit could not see what was happening inside it, presumably he had sat on his throne and started conducting the main prayers. 

Surojit and Yeshey heard two devotees, who seemed to be fairly learned, talking about what was going on inside. “Wang is going on,” said one. The second gentleman said, “But most people think of wang as the blessing after the puja, though it is actually the permission to conduct the puja before it begins.”

Apparently, the one who conducts the puja needs to start with seeking permission from the deity to do so, which is a special tantric ritual. It was quite noticeable that during wang, the rest of the lamas were silent. But shortly thereafter, the humming of mantras started. The drizzle continued.

A little after the exalted soul had started his own rituals, the rain started getting heavier.

By then, there were close to five hundred people lined up outside the marquee to get a view of the great puja. But they would have to wait. Which they did, queuing up along a bamboo-made corridor leading to the single entry point. 

Yeshey found one of the ladies serving refreshments and got themselves two tumblers of piping hot tea; which helped much in the rain and growing cold. 

From time to time the musical instruments rang out from inside the marquee, followed by the deep rumbling of mantras being uttered by the lamas. Surojit had been told that the penultimate ritual would be reading the scriptures with all the two hundred lamas tying themselves up in khada after khada joined together, but that would take some time to come.

It gradually seemed to Surojit that there was almost a competition between a deliberately inclement nature and determined human devotion; between the intensity of the rain and the number of devotees gathering outside in an increasingly long queue. For surely, the intensifying rain could not deter more and more devotees from arriving, and soon there seemed to be at least two thousand or more of them. The queue stretched from the entrance of the marquee right down to much below the hut with the butter lamps.

They stood braving the autumn rain, some standing under the plastic sheet cover that the volunteers had by then strung above the bamboo corridor; some held their umbrellas tenuously in the face of fiercely blowing wind; and some just stood there getting drenched. 

But on not a single face was there a semblance of gripe, of any sense of suffering. No one complained about why the organisers had not made ‘proper’ arrangements. There were simply two thousand people feeling blessed to attend such a puja.

To be honest, admitted one of the zinda, “This is the first time that Lama Gongdue is being organised here in Mangan’s Ringhim Gumpa, and we had never expected such an outpouring of devotees”.

Suddenly, a deafening thunder cracked, and a streak of pure white lightning raced across the sky, absolutely horizontally. Yeshey too had noticed it. Gradually, the flashes of lightning started becoming more and more frequent, and without fail, they were racing horizontally across the sky. And there were no red or blue streaks, as is usual, but they were all pure white ones.

Surojit was dumbfounded!

And then finally came a torrential hail storm, so intense that it seemed most of the temporary bamboo-and-plastic structures would collapse. And yet, the devotees stood there, their numbers increasing by the minute. Which meant that they had been drenched by the rain and possibly struck by the hailstones on their way up the hill. But still, they refused to stop coming. They were responding to some inner call.

Surojit had never seen such a terribly strong hailstorm. Nor had he seen such a determined number of devotees. At one point, the blue plastic covering above the bamboo corridor gave away, unable to bear the load of the hailstones collected on top. The compound was white by then, covered by the hailstones.

While Surojit and Yeshey were watching all this from their slight shelter, PG was passing by and gave a victorious “Say, what” smile. But Surojit stopped him and said: “Don’t worry. This will stop when the time comes for the Rinpoche to come out for his lunch break. I am sure.” 

PG bawled at him: “Oh! So now you are telling me, is it?” and letting out a loud guffaw, he quickly went off on his errand, the smile of vindication broadening on his face.

The rain did stop. 

Dodrupchen Rinpoche slowly came out and went to his quarters, helped and followed by mostly lady devotees who had so far been preparing his lunch and cleaning up the room. 

The distance between the marquee and the quarters was not more than a few score feet, but the melting hailstones had made the ground dangerously slippery.

Surojit took a quick look inside the marquee. Two thapos, or young trainee lamas, were reciting the scriptures, for the prayers of the puja cannot stop, so someone or the other had to keep reciting the mantras till the rest of the monks reassembled after their lunch.

But Surojit also got a glimpse of Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche, who had slumped in his seat, sprawled over the small table that held his scriptures and ritual objects. Surojit was first appalled: It seemed Rinpoche could have been drunk, or fallen asleep. 

It was neither. Lachen Gomchen Rinpoche had entered another layer of existence due to the intense prayer, a form of meditation that Surojit knew was called “Samadhi”, or the passion of communion with the highest power. A point in time when apparently all external existence and human connections cease.

Surojit also observed that a black cat was constantly walking around the marquee, exactly following the sitting arrangement of the lamas, but when in its circumambulation, it came to the seat of Lachen Rinpoche, it took a short detour as if to avoid the presence of the high lama. This happened at least six or seven timeswho was the cat in its last birth? Why was it going about everywhere but avoiding Lachen Rinpoche? Maybe there was nothing at all to this. But still, it all seemed so strange.

Sometime after lunch, the rain stopped again and Dodrupchen Rinpoche joined back the prayers inside the marquee. It was a little after that, that the devotees were allowed to enter the marquee to receive their blessings from Dodrupchen Rinpoche. One by one they passed him by and he touched them with his wand, giving them not just a feeling of being blessed, but also giving them a story of bliss that they could share with their children and grandchildren. 

Outside the compound, every person was wearing a bright smile. Ringhim Gumpa and those protected by its deities – Bring Takchhen, Maling Takchhen, and Drechen – had never seen anything like this. And not just Mangan dwellers but also hundreds who had come from far-off places of Sikkim. No one had expected Dodrupchen Rinpoche to be in that almost ramshackle monastery which had till then barely been on the map of spiritual tourism of Sikkim. No one had expected some prayer as exalted as the Lama Gongdue to be performed there.

The Bhutia girls were busy serving tea to all who they could. It was a different fairno tea-and-snack kiosks, no outer expression of mirth, no alcohol going down throats that had been feeling parched. That is why the smiles were so radiant, felt Surojit, for he had seen other religious ceremonies in other gumpas. This was a different level of blessing.

Later that afternoon, however, there came a piece of news that saddened everyone. They all had thought that the Rinpoche would stay at the monastery that night and leave the next morning. So when it suddenly became evident that preparations were on for his imminent departure, there were muted whispers of disappointment. Some even tried to plead with the zindas. 

But it was explained that not only did the Rinpoche have important work the next day at his Phurba Choedten, but after the massive puja, the physically frail octogenarian needed proper rest. Besides, the Rinpoche himself had expressed a desire to get back to Gangtok. 

So very soon, it was Pema again at the wheel, and slowly the Scorpio climbed down the hill, finally vanishing at a turning of the hill road.

Full image of Heruka Details from the Lama Gongdu Cycle
Full image of Heruka Details from the Lama Gongdu Cycle

NOTE: This story is based on true events and experiences. 

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