The day September 11, 2001 started beautifully for me. It was personally a very significant day as well. Pad-nor Rin-po-che, my Tibetan Buddhist master, has been giving a series of teachings in Trier in Germany. It was, I think, his second visit to Germany. Previously, I have ended up translating for all kinds of Tibetan masters giving teachings in Germany. I have had the opportunity to meet very compassionate and intelligent ones, but also those who were not. I translated for them admittedly for very lowly motives. I needed to earn some additional cents to help my wife to support us and our studies in Germany. At the news of my own master’s teaching program in Germany, I agreed to go to Trier to translate for him because I could not bear the thought of someone else translating for my master. So I went and I had a wonderful time in Trier with him.
I initially believed that my master is one of the many persons closest to me whose hearts I broke. Some of us might argue that we cannot break hearts of Buddhist masters. He, like many of the Dharmic teachers, friends, and students, had put much hope in me. My relatives, too, had put much faith and hope in me. They already envisioned me on a Dharmic throne, wearing a red and pointed paṇḍita’s hat (paṇ zhwa), and expounding Dharmic treatises. But it was not meant to be so. I completed my studies in ten years (instead of nine because I had to spend one year exclusively teaching). Once I reached the zenith, my initial goal, I felt empty and lonely. So it seems that the journey has indeed been my destination! What I thought would be my destination turned out to be actually deserted. My teachers and colleagues respected me. So did my students. Family members and relatives gave me the best treatment they could give; the best seat, the best cushion, the best food, the most comfortable bed, and so on. I started to take things for granted. I could sense that I was tending to become complacent, spoilt, arrogant, and more importantly I saw a greater risk of becoming intellectually and spiritually stagnant. The water needed to flow in order that it does not become stagnant and a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I needed to launch a new journey. Of course, one alternative, spiritually even a better one, would have been to spend the kind of life that Mi-la-ras-pa spent. I was certainly not ready for or capable of that. The other alternative would be to have the freedom to continue studying. The thought of this alternative, in fact, caused my heart to skip.
During those ten years, I also confronted several health problems. Consequently, I became very physically weak, skinny, and dark. When I met my brother, a master himself, in this health and shape, he showered me with praises obviously to console me. He said my weak health was a strong sign of hardship that I underwent for the sake of gaining knowledge of Buddhism. His statement reminded me of a picture of his shrivelled self taken while practicing the Six Yogas of Nāropa. Coupled with poor physical health, I also sensed a feeling of inexplicable melancholy and emptiness (not in the sense of Buddhist śūnyatā). I did not see clear purpose or meaning of life. You were surrounded by people and yet you felt lonely. You could confide all your Dharma-related feelings to the Three Jewels but certainly not those that do not concern dharma. Was I losing interest in maintaining the impulse of my life?
One Sunday, some friends and students have organized a picnic in a forest at the bank of the river Cauvery called the Deer Park. Present among us was also my wife, who was then a student who had come to study in the monastery. I happened to discuss with her about my desire to pursue further study of Buddhism so as to understand the root of Tibetan Buddhism and to study Buddhism from a completely different academic perspective. The naturalness and supportive nature of her reaction and her concrete suggestions suddenly gave me a realistic prospect of setting a new goal and setting out for a new journey. I suddenly saw a real possibility in getting the chance to continue studying. Life seemed to have a purpose, a meaning after all. This realization lent me a spark of light in my heart. It gave me some joy and strength.
So after completing my studies, I just left. I came to the monastic seminary on my own accord and I left it on my own accord. As one of my teachers had said, the door was open in both directions. True enough, in the beginning I just walked in and in the end I just walked out. But honestly I was guilt-ridden. I thought I have disappointed my master, teachers, friends, students, and relatives. But I felt that at some point in time they would forgive me and I would be able to normalize my relation with them. So whenever my master or one of my teachers visited Europe, I approached him. I must very honestly state that my master and other teachers were like the biblical Prodigal Father to me. Their tremendous kindness and warmth melted my heart away and brought tears of joy and gratefulness. Their compassion cured my guilt-consciousness. It created a state of inner serenity and security.
In Trier, I spent a great deal of time with Pad-nor Rin-po-che. I felt completely drenched in his affection and compassion. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I went to him because he was supposed to give an interview to a local newspaper in Trier, and I was supposed to translate for him. The young journalist, who obviously had nothing to do with Buddhism, was so nervous in front of Rin-po-che that his hands and voice were shaking. It was a chaotic and haphazard interview and after he left, Rin-po-che said: “Poor thing, his interview did not go very well, did it?” Rin-po-che then gave me a golden ring, which he told me to give it to my wife. It was for me, for us, an ultimate sign of having forgiven me and of his acceptance and endorsement of my new mode of life.
Rin-po-che and his entourage were supposed to fly from Frankfurt to Heathrow and I from the small airport in Trier to Hamburg. Since I had enough time, I decided to accompany Rin-po-che and his entourage and see them off in the International Airport in Frankfurt. So all of us drove towards Frankfurt. While waiting for the flight and while monks were strolling around in the airport, I sat at the feet of Rin-po-che, we talked about all kinds of things including about the young generation of monks and nuns. He seemed particularly proud of the young incarnated masters such as Karma sKu-chen-rin-po-che, Gyang-khang-sprul-sku, and sMug-sang-sku-chen whom he had raised. Never before did I feel so much radiation of affection and feeling of optimism. Rin-po-che could be stern and fierce like Vajrapāṇi but on that day he rather appeared to be Avalokiteśvara. Since there was still some time left and since the monks were hungry, Rin-po-che suggested that all of us ate something. So we went to a nearby restaurant and ordered some food. I sat next to him. I recall him saying: “My monks are picky about food but I eat whatever I get.”
Soon there was a final call and Rin-po-che and his entourage went in. I took leave of Rin-po-che. He firmly held my head with both his hands and murmured something for sometime. I tried to suppress tears welling in my eyes. I stood there until Rin-po-che looked back for a final time and disappeared around the corner beyond the checkpoint. Three friends from the Center in Trier, the organizers of the teaching event, and I drove back to Trier Airport. It is a very small airport. Previously, there used to be no rigorous screening done there. But as I went through the gate, I and my bag were checked and screened rigorously. I just thought to myself, “Strange!”
As I waited at the gate to board the plane, I saw that someone sitting next to me received a telephone call. I myself had at that time no mobile phone. I did not know what the person at the other end of the line was saying but I overheard him saying: “Schrecklich (i.e. Terrible)!” It is nothing unusual for a German to say something of that kind, but I still thought: “Poor man, he must have received an unpleasant piece of news.”
We finally boarded the plane. It was a dazzlingly beautiful day. The sky was blue. I got a window seat. As I gazed through the window, I could not help thinking of all the experiences that I had with Rin-po-che in Trier. I thought to myself: “Where could he be now? Already in Heathrow?” As I thought of him, I felt a sense of contentment, relief, joy, and yet a deep pang of sadness and melancholy. But the feeling of happiness dominated my feelings of sadness.
The plane landed uneventfully and since it was a domestic flight I could quickly come out of the airport and I straightaway took a taxi home. For political correctness, the taxi driver was a German with Afghan origin. Normally I do not feel obliged to strike a small polite conversation with the taxi driver. But I was light-hearted and in high spirits. So I asked him very casually: “How has Hamburg been doing?” He looked pale and said: “Something very terrible happened in America!” He tried to explain but was not very coherent or intelligible. As I arrived home, I saw my wife and a German friend of hers hooked to a small TV set. They were deeply shaken, shocked, and chocking with tears. The full extent of the news slowly emerged and once again it became clear to me that no other creature can be more compassionate and civilized than human beings, and no other creature more hateful and barbaric than human beings.
September 11, 2001 turned out to be auspicious and ominous for me at the same time. Auspicious because never before had I been able to feel the enormous affection and compassion of my master. Ominous because the day also meant that I would never see my master again because before I could see him again, he passed away in India in 2009.
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