Welcome back everybody to the Denver's Ocean podcast.
I'm here once again with Joseph Wagner.
And today we have a very special guest, Lama Dawa, a new friend
of Joe, and he's going to introduce him and tell us all
about him and his Dharma history.
And I think we have a lot of fun stuff to learn today.
Thanks, Damien. Hello, everyone.
I would like to say I'm very grateful to welcome Romadawa
Zangpo to our little podcast. I had the good fortune of
meeting Lomadawa a few weeks ago through another person in our
regular Denver's Ocean Group. Had met him in Cristo in
Colorado, kind of the hub of Vajriana in Colorado some years
ago and said you, you guys should get to know each other.
And he happens to live only 45 minutes from here or so.
So we had T and now we're becoming friends and I feel very
grateful. MO Madal is a is a student in
the Cogu lineage primarily and did a three-year retreat under
the auspices of Kalu Rimpoche in the 80s and has been teaching
and practicing ever since then. And it's just a great honor for
us to have him here on our podcast.
So thank you for coming and thanks for making time.
Really grateful. Totally my pleasure.
This is fun, thank. You.
Well, so maybe you can just give us a little history about your
Dharma history and your practice and your teachers and, you know,
the usual spiel. Sure.
The The Short version, of course, took Refuge 1980.
Prior to that, I was reading Buddhist literature of all
kinds. Prior to that, of course, on the
sort of general spiritual quest, reading spiritual literature
from around the world and, and nothing clicked until I found
Buddhism and then it was, you know, Grand Slam.
And so I know I was Buddhist and I went to decided with my
partner. She encouraged me, we went to
Boulder to go to Naropa Institute and we thought maybe
chugging Trump or Rinpoche would be our connection.
We liked his books didn't pan out.
He was not my connection. I knew I was Buddhist.
I knew I was Tibetan Buddhist, and in my heart of hearts, I
knew I was a Kagyu. And that was just my DNA, my
spiritual DNA, and I just knew it.
And I was ready to take refuge. And I thought, this is great
because Chogram Champa is a renowned master and very
important, of course, in bringing Buddhism to the West.
And he was a Kagyu Tolku, So it seemed perfect.
So I was getting prepared. They prepare you in that
tradition to take refuge. And the person that was assigned
to me to kind of prep me, everything was going fine.
And then he got to a point where he said, and because Chugum
Chungpur Rinpoche is going to be your preceptor, that means you
take him for your to be your root guru.
Well, I knew that was not kosher and I was not going to go there.
So with sort of a heavy heart, I said, well, deals off.
You know, Long story short, I ended up going to Portland, OR
and to go to chiropractic school of all things.
And as soon as I got to Portland, I saw a flyer on a on
a street lamp and it was for a Dharma center.
And I thought, well, I'll check it out.
And when I walked in, I know I was home.
It was a Calu Rinpoche center. Prominently positioned above the
shrine was very old black and white pictures.
On the left was the 16th gallon Karmapa and on the right was the
Dalai Lama. And we started doing Chen Ray Z
practice. That was their core practice
that had been given to that center by Calorie Boucher on a
previous visit. This was 1980.
That spring Llama Lodru from San Francisco, who had been sent to
the West by Keller Rinpoche and the 16th Karmapa.
He came to Portland and I took refuge with him in April of 1980
and been on that track ever since.
Sometime in the early 80s, Kellerin Poche came.
Actually, I should back up. That fall of 80, His Holiness
16th Karmapa came to on a tour to the West and he came to
Portland, OR. We hosted him for a couple days
and also I went to San Francisco and saw him the very first time.
I laid eyes on him from a great distance.
He was about this tall because it was he was so far away, but I
saw him come out on the stage. It was a pro black, a black
crown ceremony and that was it. As soon as I saw this figure,
this big, from way far away, I knew that this was a fully
enlightened Buddha in the flesh, and and more than that, that he
was my root teacher, my root guru, and that this was it.
Nobody, no ordinary human being could even move like that.
The way his body moved, even from that distance, with the
elegance and gracefulness and majesty, it was clear he was
king of the universe. I mean, it was so obvious.
It was so obvious. So I was still going to
chiropractic school. But Calorimpache came several
times, you know, the Milarepa of our of our era.
And it was declared that he had given his permission for a
three-year retreat to be held in Oregon.
We had retreat property outside of Eugene.
My hand went up immediately. I knew if I didn't do a
three-year retreat, I'd regret it my whole life.
So that retreat started in 1986, August 1st, very important date,
and it ended in December of 89. I didn't want it to end.
I had recurring dreams of being back in the second three-year
retreat. That's it.
After that, you just practice, practice, practice.
Keep going, you know, keep deepening and trying to really
embody the teachings, of course. So that was my journey in a
nutshell. Wow, beautiful.
Tell us a little bit about your three-year retreat if you don't
mind. Like what did follow the
standard plan from from Jung and Comptroller?
Was it a different style? It was.
How did that go? Many of our listeners probably
aren't familiar with the way a three-year retreat unfolds and
and what that really means in the Tibetan tradition.
Would be awesome if you talk. Right.
So briefly, a lot is considered to be sort of secret, self
secret. We don't talk too much about it,
but structurally, for one thing, yes, jump in control.
The great is the Llama who in Tibet really instituted 3 year
retreat tradition that went to the calorie Pochet who was the
great was appointed retreat master in Paupong in eastern
Tibet and come and he created that even when they went into
exile into India, of course. So we would wake up at, I think
it was, I want to say 4:00 AM, but I think it was 3:00 AM
everyday. We had our own, our own small
room, about a 10 by 10 with our own shrine and a box.
We had to build our own meditation box to sit in because
you do your whole retreat sitting up in meditation
posture, even sleeping. We had nine men and there was a
retreat for the women on the property that was separate, so
we never interacted with them. But there were seven women that
completed the retreat. We had the exact same
curriculum. Of course, both sides, the men
and women both had a, a cook who was responsible for doing our
laundry and so on, even getting our mail and and all that kind
of stuff. But we had, the way it's set up
is we did 4 tons. A ton is the Tibetan word for a
meditation session. We would do 4 tons a day.
The first one it whether it was 3 or 4:00 AM in our room.
Then we would meet for a morning practice which included Green
Tara. We had breakfast back in our
rooms for a few hours, so like that.
And then there was an evening group get together to do a
Mahakala protector practices and so on.
And then the the monthly schedule was also punctuated by
periodic feast ceremonies on the 10th day, the 15th day,
etcetera, like that Vajio Guinea day and like that.
So it was very, very traditional.
The requirement was that we had to be able to read Tibetan
because those days nothing had been translated, not in terms of
three-year retreat texts. Since then.
In recent years, yes, but back then we were kind of the Guinea
pigs. We're not the first three-year
retreat set up by Caloran Pochet.
There were a couple prior ones that were done in France, but we
were one of the 1st and so someone experimental in a way.
But Caloran Pochet appointed a retreat master for us that came
from his monastery in India in West Bengal.
Sonoda is the name of Calvin Peshe's home monastery.
And Salama Sang Singh came over from India, spoke some English
but not that much about us, maybe a little more than I spoke
Tibetan, but kind of comparable. And he guided us through the
curriculum would change every few, let's say every few weeks
or months, we would do a practice, then complete that,
then go to another practice, another practice and go through
the three years. We kind of culminate with the
six yogas of well, we did Naropa's six yogas and Naguma's
six yogas. So for those of you who don't
know, Naguma is kind of the equivalent of Naropa for the
Shanpa Kagu. And this retreat was
predominantly Shank Pakagu, but we had a lot of Karmakagu as
well. And in my heart of hearts,
because of that, I'm a hybrid. I do both Karmakagu and Shank
Pakagu practices to this day because of my connection with
the Karmapa lineage and 16th Karmapa and now the 17th Karmapa
almost identify more as a Karmakar you.
But we don't need to split hairs or make too many distinctions.
You know, Buddhism is Buddhism. Nature of mind practices is not
something we need to put labels to, particularly whether even
whether we called Sobchand or Mahamudra essentially same
thing, just a different slightly different path, slightly
different terminology to get there.
So that's kind of a condensed version.
Wonderful, I. Have a question?
About so you said you you were encouraged by your partner so
I'm wondering, you know like me included, had thought about
doing 3 year retreats in the past but always had a
relationship of some kind which I felt made that impossible.
So I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing, if it's not too
personal, how you negotiated that?
Well, yes, it's personal, but it's fine.
I'm have no problem divulging we were together for seven years.
We got married and then we basically agreed to go our sort
of different journeys. And so we weren't.
We were together, but not really together.
She was my liaison with the outside world.
Through the three-year retreat. We did write letters back and
forth. There were no phone calls
allowed. three-year retreat. This is before cell phones and
Internet. Wonderful days.
And so she is very, very supportive.
Completely. There was no no problem as far
as that goes. Speaking of problems, how did
the three-year retreat go? I have many friends who did
retreat either in France or in Asia and it seems that the the
over overarching sense of three retreats done by westerners is
unending troubles. How did yours go?
I'm just curious maybe. Maybe it went really well and it
would be inspiring for everybody.
That was the warning and I had heard similar stories, a lot of
interpersonal kind of conflict, things like that.
I can honestly say 100% say no issue.
Wow. No.
Amazing. I don't know the blessings of
calorie pochet, Karmapa lineage, literally no conflicts.
There were, I say a couple guys that they potentially had their
potential was there to be challenging.
I made a deep foul in my heart in the beginning going into it.
Then I was not going to let anything get in the way phase me
and it was fine. I didn't have a single issue the
entire time with anybody and everybody did well.
Everybody really did well. Fabulous truly.
Now it's you bring up a great point though, that people that
go into through your treat, there should be a vetting
process. We didn't have much of A vetting
process. I guess I could say candidly,
the women had a little more of an issue on their side.
But it's just people. We're just human beings and
we're all an enlightened human beings going into this and we
have to deal with whatever comes up.
It's I think it's an opportunity for people to work through
things. And of course, people are a
mirror for ourselves. That's kind of the point.
So, so people, you know, often have to deal with that, but we,
I can't remember one fight, one argument, anything, which is
sort of shocking. It actually really is.
And I want to say for our listeners who might be familiar
with the Buddhism as it's entered the West, that is, I
don't, I don't think it's rare. I think it's unique.
I haven't heard from anybody else who completed a three-year
retreat either here or in Europe or in Asia for that matter.
Westerners I'm talking about who didn't have the predominant
feeling of the retreat was chaotic nightmare then.
And that goes for both Ningma and Cogyo tradition.
So I want to say thank you for just saying that.
It's actually changes my view of three-year retreats in the West
because I have been known to say I'm not.
They work that well because people have so many problems and
people are leaving and psychotic breakdowns and all kinds of
nightmares. And in fact, here we have a
graduate of a three-year retreat right here in America who isn't
even crazy amazing. So I'm so glad we had you on for
that alone. That's beautiful.
Thank you. Joseph, We might have been the
exception that proves the rule and.
If you were, it did work once, That's incredible.
And if you talk to some of the other people that did retreat,
maybe they had a slightly different experience.
Maybe I had blinders on, but I don't think so.
I, like I said, I I think people maybe had their feathers ruffled
from time to time. That's normal.
But out and out fights, arguments.
No, I think we all had such high regard and respect for Calorie
Rinpoche. I mean, he was the word that
comes to mind is he was a St. He was, he was truly, I mean, he
was a master. He was a Yogi, consummate master
Yogi, but saintly, you know, and that was kind of maybe sort of
drilled into us. We knew that and also our
retreat master. He's kind of a no nonsense kind
of guy. I don't think any of us wanted
to cross him. That makes sense.
But we were there, I think. I mean, I can't speak for anyone
but myself, but I think we're all there with the really
realizing what a precious opportunity this was.
And none of us wanted to screw it up.
You know what? About reintegration, because
that's the other thing I hear that people have a very hard
time coming back. OK.
Thank you, Damien. That's really important.
The hardest thing of three years, three months and three
days was coming out and I had no idea what it would be like.
No expectations. And I it was like some kind of
weird PTSD or something. I couldn't talk to anybody for a
long time, maybe even to this day.
I could not look people in the eye.
I could not relate to the outer outside world.
It was shocking in retrospect, I guess I hadn't realized that I
how deep I had gone and was not prepared.
That would be my biggest critique was we were not
prepared. Now again, I can't speak for
anyone else. I never heard anybody else say
that it was so difficult for them.
But for me, it was incredibly difficult coming out.
I was not prepared. I didn't know how to relate to
the world, to be honest. After, after three years of
three or four in the morning to 10:00 at night, nothing but
practice. I mean with no breaks, you know,
no days off, no, no vacations, no.
Oh, take a week off and go see your family.
No, nothing like that. So it was the, my whole world.
It was all I knew. And we were told at the end of
the second year, oh, 'cause we didn't really keep track
ourselves, but our llama told us that your second year has ended,
you have one more year to go. Almost had a heart attack it, it
was so jarring and sad to think, oh, it's only a year left, it's
going to be over soon. I did not want it to end.
And when it came, when it was time to leave, it was time to
leave. The first thing I remember is
getting in a car and going down this long driveway because
there's a very rural retreat and we're probably going not more
than 5 or 10 miles an hour. And it felt like we were just
speeding down the highway. It just, you know, we hadn't
been in a motorized vehicle for for over three years, so like
that. How long did it take to feel
like you were able to function in anxiety again?
If I'm really honest, it took years.
It took years to kind of fully sort of almost integrate or
something. Yeah, in a way it ruined me for
the world. It was.
Hard to take seriously a career
which I never could wholeheartedly get into and
things like that. So certainly not for everybody.
And maybe there's ways to prepare differently.
Again, we were, it's sort of like we're the Guinea pigs.
I mean, this was in the 1980s. You know, it's almost 40 years
ago when we went in. Did you consider doing another
one? Many times the circumstances,
the karma, whatever you want to say, didn't quite.
I came pretty close. I was in Woodstock, I don't
know, a handful of years after it, after we came out and I was
there and talked to Kempo Cutter Rinpoche, the Abbot and
wonderful, amazing llama and he gave me permission.
He showed me a room. He said you can have this room.
The great Kagyu Kempo Trango Rinpoche came while I was there.
All this was sort of kind of coincidental.
There is such a thing. And he gave through
empowerments. This would have been a
karmakagyu retreat and it was due to start like 2 weeks later
and I didn't have the money or anything to.
It was just too much too soon. Obviously again wasn't meant to
be somehow so, but that would have been my dream come true
having do a Shankba Kagyu and then a Karmakagyu 3 year
retreat. Be full on Kagyu.
Amazing. Very proud.
But no regrets, right? Everything is as it should be.
What about the future? Any chance you'll be back in the
Hardcore retreat anytime soon? Well, hardcore not.
Probably not. Three years?
Probably not at my age. Now you know.
He's almost 115, which is incredible.
It works. Pretty close to that, but I do a
lot of retreats when I can and, but compared to three retreats
or nothing, but a couple weeks here a couple weeks there, 10
days, three weeks, they're very valuable.
I, I'm a retreat person. That's when I feel like I'm
fulfilling my purpose. So, so to speak, I'm in my
element. I encourage everyone that's a
serious, that's serious about Dharma to do retreats.
I think there's no, no substitution.
There's nothing, nothing like it.
You know, books, whatever you have to do retreat.
If you're, if you're a vajayana practitioner, if you're doing
Tibetan Buddhism on any level, you know, I think it's crucial.
My, my root Lama Keeling Rinpoche, he had us do, I don't
know if you've heard of the Shakja tradition in the Nygma
school, but that's basically 100 days and 100 nights.
It's a retreat for laypeople where they do.
And so he kind of made a modified version where he was
like, I want you to add up the amount of time you spend in
retreat, even if it's half days, weekend days, whatever, to 100
days in a year. And he had us do this.
And it really helped me a lot to find some kind of integration of
a lot of practice while also having a family and kids and a
job and all of this. I'm wondering how you've been
able to integrate what you learned from that retreat into
your life and what like. What are some tips how people
can make their life more retreat like even if they can't?
Fully do that. Wow, that's a great question.
I mean, it starts with having a consistent practice of course,
even if it's just just an hour a day, that's a good beginning.
But my other great llama was Bokar Rinpoche, who was previous
Keller Rinpoche's Dharma heir and he led three-year retreats
both in Shangpa and also he was appointed by 16th Karmapa to be
3 year retreat master. So he was amazingly highly
realized. His parting words to me were
exactly what we're talking about.
He said don't stop, just keep going, stay consistent.
Those are his last words. And then I heard a few weeks
later that he passed away untimely passing away.
So to answer your question, it's just about sincerity.
It's the only word. Even if you're doing an hour a
day, if you're doing 20 minutes a day, if you're living your
life, you've got family, you've got job, you've got all these
responsibilities. You know, Dharma's not something
we do on our mat. It's what we're living our life
with all the time. And of course, we all know it's
about Borichita. So we keep opening our heart.
I don't know that retreat really helps.
It really helps especially well with whatever your goal is, if
it's to to improve or perfect your shine, if it's to work on
visualization practice. But really the essence of doing
sustained deeper practice like in a retreat, typesetting is
getting in touch with where your sincerity falls short, where you
are not quite necessarily you're maybe you're going more going
through the motions. It's a chance to reconnect with
the deep heart of your practice. And so again, sincerity comes to
to mind. That's, that's the preparation.
Then if you can squeeze off 3 days here or two days there, but
I don't know if I'd consider half a day a retreat, to be
honest. I just have to say that you have
to, you know, as Miller Repper and other great masters said,
you have to isolate yourself, body, speech and mind.
So body is where it starts. You go to a cabin, you go
somewhere. If the cell phone is turned off
and put away or left in the car or whatever, you're not checking
e-mail. You are literally on retreat.
That's what you do, do it 100% even if it's just for like I
said, a handful of days. But and in my experience, the
first few days of retreat, you're just settling in.
The monkey mind is in full swing and it takes several days to
start to get through those to those deeper levels.
And that's what it's all about is getting to those deeper
levels where new insights arise as far as again, whatever you're
working on. But it comes from that
separation, that isolation because you're going to
everything will come up, everything's triggered.
Especially if you have family and job and stuff, you know,
you're going to miss them or you're going to wonder what
they're doing. All that stuff's, you know,
we're talking about working towards some deeper realization,
letting go of the world, our worldly attachments, our worldly
connections, and then we can start to actually work more
directly with things. We can say more advanced things
like nature of mind and and stuff like that.
You know, emptiness not as a intellectual concept, but as a
direct experience, because the whole planet Dharma is direct
experience, intellectual understanding, basically
worthless if we want to be honest.
Beautiful. That's great.
Well. This is a treat.
What a what a treat. I can feel the vibes coming off
of them right here. I'm sorry you guys can't be in
the same room warming up my my Dharma core like being right
here. It's very nice, very nice.
We would love to have you back sometime if that would work for
you. And then we could talk about
specific practices or things that have really inspired you or
things that we might be able to help our listeners so, you know,
to bring into their own lives. So sure, because and maybe
infect them with this, with this sense that I can, I can do this
too, because that's really where it's at.
You know, that's how the Buddha got enlightened.
That's how the great masters of the past practiced.
And if we don't have that as a goal, then it will, the
opportunity will never show itself.
So well said Joseph. That's the point.
We can all do this. We all do have Buddha nature.
We have to uncover it, find it, discover it, and realize that
it's ever present. So yeah, it's not beyond any of
us. And that is really the Buddhist
core message. What a treat.
This has been great.
Yeah, before. We close out.
Would you share maybe a few parting words about, you know,
like like you're saying, I, I agree with you that there's no,
nothing like full retreat, but for me, like I've been able to
do 3 day solitary retreats, this sort of thing, but much beyond
that, It's just not going to happen for me anytime soon
because you can't when you have children.
So, you know, wake up early and you do some practice and you do
some practice before you go to bed.
But what have you done to bring this tether of the essence of
your retreat into the mess that we all have to live in?
Good. Question.
Yeah, great. Question.
Not sure if I can answer. I don't know if I've done a very
good job of it. We have to stay humble.
We have to stay open hearted. You know, one thing that Trump
Rinpoche did right and say is to be a bodhisattva or to be a the
idea of an awakening warrior is not that you have all this armor
and so on and your weaponry. It's that you're taking it all
off and you're exposing yourself and you're willing to be
vulnerable, tender hearted. I think he kind of used that
kind of terminology. And the world is a frightening,
scary, confusing place. And we have the protection
armor, refuge of Dharma, which is not to be taken for granted.
This amazing, precious human life that we have, this karma
that we have, for whatever reason, however we stumbled into
it or we must deserve something. We have to have that
affirmation, that positive outlook and really keep our eyes
open that as you just said, the world is full of problems and
confusion. Well, the appropriate response
to that is not to give up or to get overwhelmed.
It's to with that fearless open heart, find that compassion for
it, for the suffering world. The world needs our presence
more than ever, more than ever. You know this is a dark age, as
they say, right? Kali Yuga.
But we still have great, amazing blessings.
We've met great masters, great teachers, we've read, we've got
amazing teachings and translation.
We have it all. We have everything we need, so
we don't need to make excuses or three days retreat is great.
You know, it could be more, but it's really good.
It's way better than than nothing.
And in three days of really deep, sincere practice, you can
you can have all kinds of breakthroughs.
So again, as my teacher, as Booker and Boucher said, just
stay consistent. Just keep going, keep going, but
check yourself. It's about self honesty.
Am I going through the motions? If we're honest, we all do from
time to time. We all just sort of fall into
that. We have to keep it fresh and
alive. Like Suzuki Roshi said,
beginner's mind. If we bring that to our practice
and we really can work on arousing our bodhichitta, you
know, again, not just saying the words, may all beings have
happiness and so on, but make it.
We've got to like be honest with ourselves.
Like, oh, I'm just saying the words.
I'm not really feeling it. Can I feel it?
And then stop and really address that within ourselves.
So anything we do, even if we're just taking refuge, Sanjay,
Chudan, Sokhi and Chodanamala, we say these prayers, say them
slowly. And if we're just realizing,
yeah, I wasn't really feeling that, say it again, say it
again, go back, go back. Instead of going forward, like
we have to make progress and we have to accomplish all these
things, Come back, come back to the basics.
I think the most important thing for Westerners is like Nundro is
like the ordinary preliminaries, really starting with the four
thoughts, you know, precious human life, impermanence, cause
and effect, shortcomings of samsara.
After 40-50 years, I still recite those every day.
It it's not something we we move beyond I've often.
Thought that if I took the four thoughts truly to heart, I would
run to retreat right now. If I really really really had
accepted them fully, then I would pack my bags and be in
three retreat or whatever tomorrow.
The there's something said about the merit that you accumulate
from really taking on those four thoughts.
I think that that's a wonderful thought for our listeners and
thank you so much for being here to share with us your story.
And as Joe said, we'd love to have you back.
Totally can feel the blessings over here.
Wonderful and and just great to have you.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Damian.
And everybody watching and thank you, Joseph.
Pleasure, actually. What a pleasure.
This is a great episode. Thank you for being willing.
I know we will ask you back, so I hope that you can make time.
Thank you so much. OK.
All right. Yeah.
Thank you all you listeners. As always, please like, share,
subscribe, comment, all those things help with the silly
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you soon. Have a great one.
Thank you.