04/23/2023
This poem has to do with reincarnation and the “crazy wisdom” nature of Drukpa Kunley, who saw that the abbot they were traveling to visit had just died and was very soon going to reincarnate as a cow in a nearby field. He tried to prevent that by attempting to impregnate the nun so as to create a human vessel for the abbot’s mindstream to enter into, but he was too late. The inherent irony here is that who appears to be devout and stainless is, in fact, not, and the one who appears to be a scoundrel and rogue in fact is stainless. I wrote this as a reflection for those who may have a tendency to judge the actions of Great Beings and to consider perhaps it is foolhardy to do so, particularly regarding recent events.
‘i drukpa kunley’
for all sentient beings
lho ontul rinpoche once said
at my breakfast table.
i nodded and he said
‘you know drukpa kunley?’
once upon a time the great mahasiddha
was walking along a wayward
mountain path, a local very
venerable young nun at his side, so devout
in her devotion to the three jewels
white tara could occasionally be seen
hovering like a cloud in the serene
mandala of her gaze, the spring air full
of the scent of hyacinth, mountain yak
scrambling up hillsides at every corner,
on their way to a local monastery
to see about the health of its abbot,
a very portly old monk whose gout
they’d heard was about to get the better
of him, the phurba of drukpa kunley’s beard
parting the wind, a lightning compass
pointing the way. who could have said
what would happen next when this great
mahasiddha, this madman of Bhutan, would then begin
to tear the clothes off this most pristine
of nuns, a model of adherence to the precepts
of the Thus-Gone-Ones, whose robes were always
well-pressed like the best parchment, whose smile
exuded the magnificence of Prajnaparamita’s lotus
floating weightlessly overhead. at first she didn’t know what
was happening. were her clothes on fire? she couldn’t
fathom what it was he seemed about to do:
to violate her vow as though she were
less than a piece of cow-dung at their feet.
a swarm of bees came to gather in a halo
around the sun over his head, cow-bells
a symphony in the distance, her innermost
robe about to come off when drukpa kunley
suddenly stopped, picked himself up, and brushed
off his ngakpa skirt, a corolla of om
mani peme hung spiraling upward from
his crown. ‘what was that!’ exclaimed this nun holding
fast to her last remaining robe.
‘you see that cow down there in that pasture,’
said the madman of Bhutan, his lips pursing
into a frown. ‘and that bull not far off?’
she looked up at him bathed in a brilliant light.
‘the abbot genden chophel just died and entered
into her and i was trying to prevent that’
— ngakpa khampa dorgyal
april 19th, 2023
