Lama Zopa Rinpoche

seemed to like us and we were able to beg food on the way. They gave us millet tsampa and
chang made from grain and so forth.
Eventually we reached Shigatse and stayed at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the monastery of the
Panchen Lamas, for about ten days. There was a Sherpa khangtsen there and we stayed in
the house of a monk from Thangme. As you know, Sherpas are expert mountain climbers
and assist in many Himalayan expeditions. One of the previous Panchen Lamas had a very
learned Sherpa teacher called Ang something (many Sherpas have Ang as part of their
name), that’s why there was a Sherpa khangtsen.
Khangtsens are places where monks stay depending on where they come from. A monk will
belong to one particular khangtsen and stay in that house and be looked after by the teacher
there. If the teacher doesn’t teach you Dharma he will guide you to somebody who can and
you will learn from that person.
So the monk from Thangme insisted very much to my teacher that he wanted me to be his
disciple but I really didn’t want to be. I don’t think he was a monk who had learned the
Dharma. He was more into business or something. His shem-thab was very black and greasy
from the butter used in Tibetan tea. And because it was so cold in Tibet, his shem-thab was
stiff and made a swishing noise when he walked. He also had a long Tibetan key hanging
from his belt. That was the dob-dob style.
Finally, the day before my teachers were going to walk the seven days from Tashi Lhunpo to
Phagri, they advised me I was to stay behind to become this monk’s disciple. I really didn’t
want to become the student of somebody who hadn’t studied Dharma.
I didn’t get any sleep that night, wondering how I could become free from him. But the next
morning as we were having tea and my teachers were preparing to leave they said I could
come with them. I was very happy.
One way to understand what happened here is that it’s karma, how what’s happening in this
life is the result of our past actions.
It took seven days to walk from Tashi Lhunpo Monastery to Phagri and every day my uncles
had to carry huge loads. I don’t remember having to carry anything myself.
After we arrived at the uncle’s house in Phagri, my uncles decided to go to Lhasa on
pilgrimage to see Ganden, Drepung and Sera monasteries and the most famous Shakyamuni
Buddha statue in Tibet, which was made during the Buddha’s time and blessed by the
Buddha, the “Jowo.” But the elder of my teachers said I might have some difficulties if I
went with them, like catching a cold or dying, so they didn’t take me. Later I saw the statue
and the monasteries, but not at that time.
I think that their decision to not take me was actually very skillful. While they were in Lhasa,
I was just hanging around, wearing a chuba that had lots of lice and lice eggs in its seams. But
while I was hanging around I had the chance to go to the many branch monasteries of
Ganden, Tashi Lhunpo, Gyüto and Gyüme Tantric Colleges and so forth. And, of course,
the monastery of the great yogi Domo Geshe Rinpoche, where I later became a monk.
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