Transcript: Happy Family for Kalachakra

The other day I was doing some blog work and a story came to mind that had happened to me when I was quite young. In July 1981, His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave the first historic Kalachakra empowerment and explanation in Madison, Wisconsin. I was 15 at the time but I remember it like [it was] yesterday. I think about 4-5 months earlier I had heard that… there was this great announcement that His Holiness was giving one of the Highest Yoga Tantra initiations (Kalachakra).

I was 15 at the time, living with my family in Howell, New Jersey. And being 15 I didn’t really know or understand what Kalachakra was, but I just knew that if His Holiness was giving it, I wanted to be there and it’s something that I really would want to do. And I did understand that it was a meditational practice, I did understand it was a yoga, I did understand that it was a transformational practice and it involved commitments, mantras, meditations, prayers. I did know that even though I was quite young, and I wanted to go very badly.

So, I lived in a community in New Jersey where, in the 50s, Kalmyk Mongolians (or Kalmyks) immigrated from Eastern Europe to the U.S. to find a better life during World War II. So, these Kalmyk Mongolians, with their culture, families, children, belongings that they could carry, lamas, monks, religion, teachers, they all immigrated to America, landing in New York. From New York, they migrated to the Tri-State Area, which is Pennsylvania, namely Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey. And there’s a high concentration of Kalmyk Mongols in Howell, New Jersey. That’s where I lived; with the Kalmyk Mongolian people. And they’re very beautiful and nice people.

So I lived there in the Kalmyk-Mongolian community and they had three Buddhist temples there and they had their Mongolian teachers and Mongolian geshes that had graduated from Drepung Monastery. Some of the geshes were from Sera Monastery. The Buddhism of Mongolia or the Kalmyk people, is exactly the same as in Tibet.

Kalmyk people is just a nationality of Mongolians. Mongolians have around 75 different nationalities, like Kazakh Mongols, Buryat Mongols, Xinjiang Mongols. What happened was when Genghis Khan had conquered Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe, many of his tribes had stayed in the places that they had conquered and lived there for centuries until the present day. So, there are 75 different types of Mongols that had lived in different parts of Europe and Asia. This group of Mongols are called Kalmyks and they had migrated from Eastern Europe to the United States, and they brought their religion and culture.

So the Mongolian religion of this group of people (the Kalmyks) is pure Tibetan Buddhism and they respect and revere His Holiness the Dalai Lama as we all do. Their form of Buddhism is according to Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition and they had brought that to the U.S., and they had very renowned and great teachers in their community in the 50s, 60s and 70s. That’s where I lived and 10 minutes away from me were two beautiful Buddhist temples with geshes from Drepung and Sera Monasteries.

So anyway, we had heard that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was giving this incredible empowerment of Kalachakra in Madison, Wisconsin. This was going to be in 1981. When I heard, I was extremely excited. I was very much looking forward to it and I ran to my friend’s house; at that time her name was Carmen, now she’s a nun. So, now her name is Thupten Chonyid, but at that time she was Carmen, so I’ll refer to her as Carmen for easy reference. So I went to Carmen and I asked her more about it. Carmen was a Kalmyk Mongolian lady who was advanced in Buddhist practice and tantric practices, and she had a lot of knowledge and was much older than me (at least over 15 years older than me), and she had been studying for years. So I went to her to ask her questions and she enlightened me and gave me a lot of information. I told her that I definitely wanted to go.

So, the Kalmyk Mongols had booked buses to go from New Jersey, Philadelphia, and I think some from New York, to Madison, Wisconsin. So they had booked buses ahead of time and everybody had put in their money and of course, we’d have to stay there for a few days (probably a week) in hotels and accommodations and it could be slightly pricey. Well, I wanted to go, so I went home and told my parents that I wanted to go. The good news was I could go if I earned my own money. The bad news was if I could earn my own money because it was going to be about $300-$400 USD, which at that time (in the 80s) was a lot of money for a 15-year-old kid. And I didn’t really have any money. I had an allowance of $5 a week so that wasn’t going to get me anywhere near Madison.

My parents were Buddhists and they had their shrine in their home and they attended the temple and they attended services and prayers, but they were adamant against me practising Dharma deeply, or doing meditations and religious studies deeply. They were afraid that I would become a monk and that they would lose a son. You see in the Kalmyk tradition, if you have a few sons you can give one to the monastery, but if you have only one, that boy is not supposed to be ordained. They’re supposed to stay home and take care of the parents and carry on the name, the lineage and so on (the ‘Asian thing’). What’s the ‘Asian thing’? That you carry on your name, lineage, take care of your parents, be filial… That’s the Asian thinking. Kalmyks are not much different than other Asian nations where they think the same thing.

So what happened was they didn’t want me to go and they had always objected to me going to the temple and learning, studying, praying and attending talks. They did many things to try to stop me from going. For example, they would tell me that I was grounded and couldn’t go to the temple for 3 months. Then when my birthday was swinging around the corner, they would ask me what I wanted for my birthday. I’d say that I wanted to be allowed to go to the temple to attend Dharma teachings and they’d say no because they wanted to get me a ‘good’ birthday present. After I insisted, they would give it to me and tell me it was okay to go to the temple.

Then that would last for 2-3 months and they’d see that I was getting deep into it and they would stop it again. And that went on for years where they would do this. Sometimes they’d come to the temple and see what I was doing (which was quite embarrassing for me). Sometimes they’d call up my teacher and kind of scold him, telling him that he shouldn’t be brainwashing me, teaching me all kinds of things, that he should allow me to stay home.

My teacher wasn’t doing any of this. My teacher wasn’t telling me to come, he wasn’t telling me to leave home, he wasn’t telling me to become a monk. He was just teaching the Dharma to groups of people and I attended. So my teacher was totally innocent in that ‘he wanted me to leave my family’ or something. He never ever said anything like that. He always told me to respect my parents and to take care of my parents and obey them and be a good son. That was his advice to me (personally) all the time.

So my parents used to think that he was kind of brainwashing me and telling me to be a monk or join the monastery. That was not true. So what happened was my parents developed a lot of animosity towards my Dharma teacher and some of the members of the temple because I was so heavily involved, and they tried to stop me as best they could. Anyways, when I asked if I could go for the Kalachakra initiation in Madison, Wisconsin, they wanted to say no but they couldn’t find a really good reason to say no. So they said that I had to earn my own money. So I was thinking to myself, “Ok… How am I going to do that…”. I talked to Carmen and she said it would be about $300-$400 USD.

So I went to my bedroom and I was doing my Manjushri mantras and I was plotting and thinking how. You see, I did 1,000 Manjushri mantras every single day in my room, quietly, without my mom knowing. So every single day I would do 1,000 Manjushri mantras and I would do a couple of thousand Kuan Yin/Chenrezig (OM MANI PADME HUM) mantras, and I would do a couple hundred of Palden Lhamo mantras. When I was younger, I was extremely attracted to Palden Lhamo and I would always pray to her and I would always recite her mantra. So I was praying to Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara and Palden Lhamo, that I could get to Madison, Wisconsin, because I really wanted this initiation. I really wanted to come back and practise. And I was flipping through some books and even found Kalachakra’s mantra. I was like “wow”, so I started reciting Kalachakra’s mantra (which now I know I shouldn’t have without initiation, but I was a kid) and praying to him that I could get his initiation.

So I was plotting away, and I thought I would go and get a job. Luckily it was coming around the summertime and so I did. We have a highway called ‘Highway 9’. If you go north it goes to New York. If you go south it goes to South Jersey. And Highway 9 went right through [New Jersey], very near our house. So I went on Highway 9, south, to where the shopping area of our little town was in Howell.

The shopping area was clusters and clusters of stores. We had this grocery store/supermarket called ‘Food Town’ at that time. Nearby they had pet stores, Burger King, McDonald’s, grooming shops and toy shops. They had all kinds of little shops on either side of Highway 9, and there was one Chinese restaurant there and it was called ‘Happy Family Chinese Restaurant’. My parents and I used to go there to eat and they were really Chinese people because in Howell it was quite rare to come across Chinese people or Japanese people or Vietnamese people at that time. It was quite rare to come across other Asians when I was living there. I think now there are many sorts of Asians of different nationalities but when I was there it was mostly us Kalmyks.

So there was actually a real Chinese family there, a mother, a dad, two sons, and they ran the restaurant. I asked around for some jobs in that area and I couldn’t get them, so I went to the Happy Family Chinese Restaurant. I was a little embarrassed because I used to go there and eat so when I walked in, they thought I wanted to pack some Chinese food home. I actually went there to ask for a job. The lady at that restaurant, the proprietor, was quite a nice lady. She spoke some English and asked what I could do. I said, “I don’t know… What do you need?” and she gave me a job as a busboy and a part-time waiter, which means I did waitering when necessary but most of the time I did bussing. Bussing is where you clean up the plates, dishes and cups after people finish eating. So I got a job and I was like “wow”. I didn’t have to fill out any forms. I didn’t have to pay social security or anything. I was just a kid in the summer, getting a job.

So every single day, from my home I would ride my bicycle and I would go to Happy Family Chinese Restaurant. So at home, I would take a shower, comb my hair, and I would have to wear black pants and a white dress shirt (no tie), and I had to look like a waiter. Then I would ride my bike from my house all the way up to Happy Family Chinese Restaurant which actually took about 20-25 minutes because it’s quite far. If you went by car it was about 7-8 minutes if there was no traffic. So I went to work, and I was really excited because I had a job and I was making like $2/hour and I could get this money, save it up and I calculated that if I worked really hard and overtime, I would have almost enough to make it to Madison. The rest of the money I would figure out how to get it later.

I think my goal was about $400 USD. So, I went to work every day and luckily it was summer. It became summer because the initiation was in July, and summer holidays were in June (June 20^th or something like that). American schools would let us out for summer holidays until September. So I was so happy because it was the summer holidays and I could work really hard and I went there and I bussed tables and I cleaned up, washed, wiped, put new tablecloths… so every time a customer came they would eat, and I would clean up then I would take the dishes to the back… And I think one time I had to wash some dishes in the back because their dishwasher didn’t show up. So I was washing dishes and then one of the brothers didn’t show up, so I was also waitering tables. I would take people’s orders (I messed up) and I would balance food on a tray which was a very big production because we had to carry it on our shoulder with one hand, but I was lugging it out with two hands in front of me because I was afraid if I carried it on my shoulder I’d drop it. So I was waitering a little but I was bussing and washing dishes and saving money, and my whole goal was to have enough money to go to Madison to receive initiation from the living Buddha himself, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, bring the initiation back with me, with the texts, so I could do meditations, practices and prayers on Kalachakra. This is what I really wanted to do.

Well, I worked and worked and worked and I met up with my friend Carmen. I told her what I was doing and she just said to me, “Wow you’re a brilliant little kid.” She used to call me a little kid. She said that was amazing and asked how much I had saved up. I told her I had saved up around $150-$180 but I didn’t know if I would have enough. She was really generous and said, “If you don’t have enough, I will top off the rest so you can go.” I was like, “Really?” I couldn’t tell my parents that because my parents didn’t like her. They didn’t want me to associate with her because she was influencing me to study the Dharma so they didn’t really like her.

Anyways, I was really excited and so after a few weeks of working I saved up about $200-$300 and it was getting near the time (about 1 week away) of the initiation. I told Carmen how much I had and she told me she would top off the rest and that I could go on the bus with her, because my parents were not going (for whatever reason). They were supposed to but they didn’t. So they said that I had to make the money and since they weren’t going, I couldn’t go because there was no adult supervision. So I said I could go with Carmen and other people. It was the wrong thing to say but that’s what I said. So they said they’ll think about it and I was like, “Oh no…”. I worked part of the summer for this money to go. Now they were backtracking on their word, which they did quite often.

So, I remember they were in their bedroom discussing whether I could go or not. They were talking in Mongolian and at that time I could understand Mongolian. So I was parked outside their bedroom door, listening intently, and I had a mala (rosary) in my hand and I was reciting Palden Lhamo’s mantra. And I remember the hallway lights were shut and I wanted to make sure I could hear every word.

So, the hallway lights were shut and I was outside their bedroom door (which was closed) listening, and they were talking. They thought I was asleep and I was just reciting the mantra quietly “JO RAMO JO RAMO JO JO RAMO TUNJO KALA RACHENMO RAMO AJA DAJA TUNJO RULU RULU HUNG JO HUNG” and praying to Palden Lhamo, “Please influence them to let me go”. And I listened and listened, and they were discussing back and forth, “he’s becoming fanatical”, “if we let him go then he’s going to go deeper”, “he’s going to be a monk, we better not”. Then they were talking, “but we already promised him”, “he was working and he saved his money, now if we say no it won’t look good”. Then they said, “it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look good, he’s our son so we’ve got to do what we want with him, protect him”. And it just went on back and forth. They were talking like that.

Finally, after like 1-1.5 hours of discussion (and I was listening to the whole thing), they came to the conclusion that they were not going to let me go. I was in the hallway and I was devastated, and then there was kind of silence in their room and they talked about other things and I thought they’d go back to the subject of whether to let me go. They didn’t but I waited in the hallway for a while. They didn’t talk about it anymore so I went to my room and I kind of crashed onto my bed and put my face into the pillow and I was crying. I was really crying and crying. I cried for quite a long time because I was just so disappointed. I didn’t want anything so bad as this and they had promised and they broke their promise.

I think what upset me very much was I couldn’t go to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Firstly, I wouldn’t get the initiation. Secondly, which they often did to me, was them breaking their promise and it hurts. It hurts a child that an adult or another person would think of something, make a promise and break it. And I think these days I have this strong kind of mindset that when I make a promise to someone, I do my best not to break it. And if I do break it because it slipped my mind, I will make up and I will do it.

When other people make a promise and they don’t keep it or you have to remind them or they’re not really serious (or flippant) about it; it really disappoints me and it makes me be very careful with the person the next time. Because promises are something that you think about (and no one forces you) and then you say yes, and when you say yes and you do it, you develop integrity and you develop a type of trust, and other people trust you, believe you and look up to you.

But if you just make promises and you break your promises and people have to chase you, or for strange reasons you just change your mind, people get disappointed, they get hurt, it leaves a very strong [negative] impression and I don’t like that. I don’t like to hurt people or disappoint people and I don’t like to be hurt or disappointed. So why do to others what you don’t want done to you?

Reliability is when you trust someone and they say they’re going to do it. You rely on them. You kind of plan around that and put your mind towards that and have that resting in your mind that a department is okay or that situation or that promise is okay. And when they break their promise, it upsets what we’re thinking, our plans, what we wanted to do, and I guess the most disappointing thing is that you start to lose respect for the person because they don’t have enough respect for you, anyone or themselves, to keep a promise and to not disappoint.

So therefore, I was extremely disappointed and very sad. My parents had done that many, many times, where they’d make a promise and break it repeatedly. And whenever they promised me things, I had to be very careful in the sense of not believing it or trusting it. I would have to be on extra good behaviour and extra careful not to upset them in any way, that they would backtrack on their promise. So when they said I couldn’t go, although I had enough money (with Carmen’s help) and I had worked the whole summer… and they saw me working. They gave me their permission to work. They gave me their permission to go and get a job and do all this because they didn’t think I would earn enough. They didn’t think I’d get the money. They didn’t think I would achieve the target. They really did not think that because I had never really worked.

So I was a determined kid. For Dharma, I was extremely determined. For Dharma, you couldn’t stop me. So they really didn’t think I’d make it; that I’d get the money together (because it’s a lot of money). But I did, so they were kind of stuck because I did get it and they had to let me go, but they didn’t want to because when they agreed it was because they thought I wouldn’t make it. And it was no.

I remember I went to Carmen and I cried. I cried for days… a couple of weeks in fact. I really cried. I was really upset. I was really down because I really, really wanted this initiation, the mantra, the blessings, the practice, and I really wanted it from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I just really wanted to go home and meditate on this. And it was a “no”. So I told Carmen and she just said, “Never mind, we have our teacher here and he gives us great teachings (which of course he did) and in the future His Holiness might give Kalachakra again and maybe you can go later. Maybe it’s just not time now.” She was right but to a kid who was highly disappointed, I was inconsolable.

So the day came when everybody was going on the bus and Carmen was saying goodbye to me and all that. Up to the last day of them getting on the bus to go from New Jersey to Madison, Wisconsin, I was hoping my mother would have a change of heart. I didn’t get to go. I couldn’t go. When they all went and came back, Carmen told me really fabulous stories about meeting the Living Buddha Dalai Lama, the initiation, the practice, the blessings, she showed me the picture of the Kalachakra deity, she showed me her sadhana book and I was like…I didn’t get to go…

One thing led to another… eventually that year, I left home. It was towards (almost near) my birthday that I left home for the last time in my life because I had run away two times before that. So it was just before my birthday that I left home that year and I hitchhiked from New Jersey to Los Angeles. And I joined the Dharma centre in Los Angeles and then met Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen and met His Holiness Zong Rinpoche, and then Zong Rinpoche invited me to Gaden [Monastery] and then I was able to go to India, become ordained and become a monk. So the rest is history as they say, but I remember that story of how I was so disappointed that I couldn’t go to the Kalachakra initiation.

I thought that I’d share that with my friends. I guess the point of what I’m trying to say is you may not always get what you really want at the time you want it but don’t give up hope. Don’t despair to the point that you ruin your future chances. Keep up the hope. Work towards it. Make the determination strong. Focus and achieve it, because it can be achieved.

Thank you.

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