Background Page 1 of 10

INTRODUCTION

Madhyamaloka. Raining.

Title: Birmingham, UK. Current home of , founder of the fwbo

Park then Sangharakshita with tea. Shrine. Young Sangharakshita at holy site. Then aged Sangharakshita.

Music of a distant time and place.

Sangharakshita: I was studying with Jagdish Kashyap. He was a very eminent Indian Buddhist monk, a very great scholar and I was studying with him , which is, in a way, and also logic and I spent many happy months studying with him.

Indian images

Sangharakshita: I stayed with Kashyapji in his hermitage where he lived more or less on his own. One day Kashyapji decided he had enough of working as a professor in the university so he suggested we went and had a pilgrimage in , to the Buddhist holy places and then he said we go up to a hill station called Kalimpong. But it was very different to any town down in the plains, it seemed a much happier, livelier, more colourful place.

Title: Some 50 years on, pilgrims pay visits to the places where teachers have been. With Danus, Manish & Suryaprabha (unseen) and Ratnaketu (guide)

1 SANGHARAKSHITA

Dharmodaya Academy ()

Ratnaketu: So we better knock on the door... We are disciples of Sangharakshita.

PB Shakya: Yes. You've come from where?

Ratnaketu: We've come from different places - from New Zealand, from England and from Bodhgaya.

PB Shakya: I see. You've come here just to see the place where Bhikkhu Sangharakshita has stayed.

Ratnaketu: That's right.

PB Shakya: I see. And here you have got a picture... In this picture you'll find Sangharakshita.

Ratnaketu: Aha! So it is…

PB Shakya: He's stayed here for few years. 1951 or ‘52, most probably ’51 0r ’52. Background Page 2 of 10

Ratnaketu: This is the bedroom that Bhante slept in when he was here. The Dharmodaya Vihara as it was then called.

PB Shakya: This is the computer room and this is the children’s work… He started preaching, he started teaching English and the young boys used to come to his place to learn English. He opened a branch of the Mahabodhi Society here.

Ratnaketu (off-mic): [...it was constructed. …in the forest cut it back to the roots and then, what they do traditionally, they wrap it in leaves and this man said, ‘OK you leave my portion here… We had this problem. He discovered…]

PB Shakya: He was previously monk, his name was Mahaprajna.

Ratnaketu: Mahaprajna

PB Shakya: Then after that he went back again to Saranatha, then, most probably, he didn't come again, he didn't come back.

Ratnaketu: That’s the stairs where all Bhante's belongings were thrown down the bottom of the stairs, where he learnt that he'd been kept out of Dhammodaya Vihara. And this is where Burma Raja came and rescued Bhante, took him up the hill to Panorama.

2 PILGRIMAGE

Country scenes

Sangharakshita: A pilgrimage reminds one of the Buddha and his original disciples and, even now, in some ways India is not very different, especially village India from what it was like in the time of the Buddha. One can find the same little villages, the same mud huts, the same village ground, the same lotus pond and sometimes if one were sort of to close ones eyes one could very easily imagine the Buddha just coming round the corner of one of these little huts on his begging round, So, a pilgrimage of this sort can give one a more vivid sense of the Buddha and of the fact he was actually a real human being and not a myth or a legend even though legendary elements may have crept in later in the story of his life.

Yiga Choling, Ghoom

Title: the monastery is associated with Tomo , died 1936 (b 1866) Anagarika Govinda, died 1985 (b 1898) Dhardo Rinpoche, died 1990 (b 1917) whose is here

Interior. Music. Then Exterior

Ratnaketu: This is where Lama Govinda became a Tibetan Buddhist, because he started off as a Theravadin. He came up here to Darjeeling to a conference hoping to convert some of the Tibetans to the and he got snowed in at this monastery Yiga Choling at Ghoom, he got snowed in and slowly the atmosphere, the spirituality of the place really had a very powerful effect on him and it was he who got converted to by this place. Background Page 3 of 10

Tomo Cottage (ruin)

Ratnaketu: The first Tomo Geshe Rinpoche did his, one of his retreats here when Lama Govinda was staying down here, Tomo Geshe Rinpoche was up here. He began to feel the Rinpoche's presence. This is quite an important place for Western I think: the transmission of the Buddhism into the West. It's a pity that it's in such a bad state... Really this monastery has such a strong connection with Western Buddhism through Lama Govinda who made it famous in his book 'The Way of the White Clouds'.

3 BHANTE’S HERMITAGE

The Hermitage, Kalimpong

Ratnaketu: This is the hermitage that Bhante stayed in and it's been fixed up now, it's a guest house.

Danus: Ah, the octagonal room in the garden.

Ratnaketu: Yes, this is, yes, the room, Bhante's shrine room. This is where he came back from one visit with Lama Govinda and found the gold statue of the Buddha that Dhardo Rinpoche had blessed... So, I believe this is Bhante's room when he stayed here, (this room…) This was where the famous ping-pong table was and Bhante describes the room was just big enough just to fit the ping-pong table and you could squeeze down either other side and it’s true. In the first chapter in 'Sign of the Golden Wheel' you know he describes on one Wesak everybody just kept bringing gardenias until the whole place was filled with those flowers and their scent. He wrote a lot of poetry, of course, here and articles and, towards the end of his stay here, this is when he began the Survey. But this is also the room where Lama Govinda, Li Gotami came. Li Gotami showed her drawings that she'd done from the expedition to the West of Tibet.

Near Samten Choling, Ghoom

Ratnaketu: This is a stupa in memory of Lama Govinda and Li Gotami. Interesting to see that Lama Govinda founded the Siksapracchar in Darjeeling 1933... a long time ago... He would have, in fact, only been 35 years old...

Gompu’s Restaurant

4 CHETUL’S MONASTERY

Phuntsog Nyab Choling, Jorebangla, Nr Ghoom

Tibetan monk: Sangharakshita… Background Page 4 of 10

Ratnaketu: So, this is Chetul Sangye Dorje's monastery, it's one of Bhante's teachers, and this is also one of Bhante's teachers, Dudjom Rinpoche, who is the head of the Nyingmapas and he is also a teacher of Chetul Sangye Dorje. To me Chetul Sangye Dorje is important because he is a bit outside of the tradition. He is.. he is not recognised as the of any of great previous person, he's just somebody who emerged, in the same way that Bhante is not recognised as anybody but as someone who has emerged. And there, of course, is His Holiness the and behind on the wall is…?

Tibetan monk: Khenpo Dasan Rinpoche.

Kalimpong Café

Ratnaketu: And in the same way I believe that other Buddhist teachers in the world and some of them are teaching Buddhism...Well, they're all teaching Buddhism...but, erm, some of them...

Triyana Vardhana Vihara

Ratnaketu: Bhante was looking for some permanent place in Kalimpong. And one day Chetul Rinpoche just told him, 'Yes, you are going to get a place' and he wrote out this poem in Tibetan and he said, 'You should call it this name: The Triyana Vardhana Vihara', it’s the place where three Yanas - , Mahayana and , where they’re practised. And that was very much what Bhante wanted to do: was to practice the as a whole, not just one school, not just one path.

Manish: So had Bhante to pay something here?

Ratnaketu: No, he was very lucky, an Indian millionaire had said to Bhante, 'Well, if you ever need any money, then let me know…’ So he would have come here in 57, that’s when he got the place, right at the end of 1956, I believe, or the beginning of 57. He finished The Survey here, he wrote, you know, quite a lot of 'The Rainbow Road', 'The Eternal Legacy', quite a bit of, I think, 'Three Jewels' was written here and lots of poetry.

Manish: [Hindi] Christian, no?

Jen: Christian.

Manish: His name is Jen, he’s Christian.

Ratnaketu: He's in the lion's den.

Manish/Jen: [Hindi]

Ratnaketu: [You have to pull out that thorn.]

Vikshukuti (was Triyana Vardhana Vihara)

Ratnaketu: You stayed here with Bhante, yes?

BK Gahatraj: Of course, I stayed with Bhanteji. Background Page 5 of 10

Ratnaketu: How old were you?

BK Gahatraj: It was in ’59, I was 18 years old

Ratnaketu: 18?

BK Gahatraj: 18. Well, Bhante was also, as I see it, quite young. And this place, in fact, was not cemented, it was a wooden floor here. And this room coming outside was not here. This is wooden floor that Bhante used to pace the floor most of the time up and down... Yeah, he was meditating or thinking something, some investigative studies, writing work. And often he used to go inside and he used to sit at this old typewriter - clack, clack, clack, clack...

Ratnaketu: He had some Tibetan teachers?

BK Gahatraj: Of course he had. He often used to visit the Tibetan teachers and they also used to come over here. Dhardo Rinpoche could never speak a word of English and Sangharakshita didn't know how to speak a word of Tibetan. But he had some boys working over here, and those boys, they were Tibetan boys, and though they were not good at English but still could manage to express what Dhardo Rinpoche was saying. He often used to visit Tibetan teachers and they often used to come here.

5 URGYEN SANGHARAKSHITA

Ratnaketu: Bhante stayed here for seven years and it is in fact in this place that Kachu Rinpoche gave Bhante the initiation and gave him the name Urgyen. And that's how he got the name Urgyen Sangharakshita. Of course, he was instructed to give Bhante that Padmasambhava initiation by Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.

Dechen Khangzang (1956)

Ratnaketu: [In] This little cottage here, called the Dechen Khangzang which means 'the cottage of great bliss'. It’s in that cottage that Chetul Sangye Dorje lived, when he was in Kalimpong and in this little cottage here Bhante received the Green abhiseka which was the first of Bhante's Tantric practices. And if you look by the door of this cottage is one of the famous symbols of Green Tara - the fully open lotus, the partly open lotus and lotus bud. Maybe, it looks like they’re about to… Maybe they’re starting to fix it up. Over there there’re some bags of cement and they’ve pulled up the rotten floor boards. Maybe they're getting ready to rebuild it.

Cremation Ground

Ratnaketu: Men are cremated laying down and women are cremated standing up and so that is a place where women were cremated, but that tradition has fallen into abeyance. The thing itself is a testament to . Maybe a child was cremated here, I think. Background Page 6 of 10

Manish: There are bones.

Ratnaketu: There are some bones, spine bones and rib cage.

6 DHARDO RINPOCHE

Bellevue Hotel, Darjeeling

Lawang Pulger: This mountain is called Chumulari.

Ratnaketu: Chumulari.

Lawang Pulger: Chumulari is The Goddess Mountain. There are the pictures. This is Sangharakshita, with Tomo Geshe, this is the prime minister of the Dalai Lama.

Ratnaketu: When was it, what year do you think?

Lawang Pulger: Just before the Chinese attacks…

Ratnaketu: Did you know Dhardo Rinpoche?

Lawang Pulger: Oh yes, he stayed when he first came from Tibet, he stayed in our house.

Ratnaketu: Your house was here?

Lawang Pulger: The house that I gave to the .

Ratnaketu: Do you have any particular memories of Sangharakshita?

Lawang Pulger: At those days foreigners were quite few, you know? And for someone like that to come and stay... Yeah...

ITBCI School, Kalimpong

Ratnaketu: Oh, here we are, this is ITBCI where Dhardo Rinpoche lived and this is Jampel Kaldhen, Rinpoche's assistant and headmaster of ITBCI.

Jampel Kaldhen: This is Dhardo Rinpoche's altar. And he used to stay here, right from morning to 11.30 or so. These are the two main gurus. Rinpoche was abbot of Bodhgaya monastery to ’63. In 1956 there was the Buddha Jayanti celebrations, so a lot of people attend from Tibet... and Dhardo went for delegation from the Buddhists and met Sangharakshita there. Later on Sangharakshita came to Kalimpong and there's a very, very close link with Rinpoche. He's also abbot of old Ghoom monastery. He’s doing fire puja at Old Ghoom monastery. This old tangkha from Tibet is another tangkha, this is Tsongkapa, a very old tangkha.

Dhardo’s shrine room

Ratnaketu: In Tibetan it's called gyaltsen which means a banner of victory. It’s actually an ancient Indian thing which has survived in Background Page 7 of 10

the Tibetan tradition and it's usually erected above monasteries. And after Rinpoche died, I made this. Different order members sent shirts they’d been ordained in, special dresses... This is a photo of the young Rinpoche, must be many years ago now, and the handwriting is the Dalai Lama's handwriting, blessing the new tulku.

7 MR CHEN

L.M. Lodge, Kalimpong

Ratnaketu: So, this is where Bhante used to come, once a week, for meditation instruction from Yogi Chen at L.M. Lodge. There's a very fascinating story of Mr Chen that in the ‘60s some people in California were taking LSD when they heard a voice and that voice said, 'Go to Kalimpong and meet Mr Chen' and these hippies (tripping hippies) they'd never heard of Kalimpong and, apparently, it happened to several people and Mr Chen found over the years, 2 or 3 people turned up telling him the story that they'd been taking LSD and heard this voice. As a result of meeting these people Mr Chen produce series of booklets ‘Poems for Hippies’ and he also categorised all these different sorts of hippies starting of the lowest hippies, which were plastic hippies, which were not really hippies at all, right up to the highest hippy, which was of course a mahasiddha.

8 DUDJOM RINPOCHE

Dechen Choling

Ratnaketu: This is the Dechen Choling, the Bhutanese monastery. The Queen Mother of Bhutan, some time ago, she gave this monastery to Dudjom Rinpoche and now it preserves what's called the Dudjom tersar, the new tradition of Dudjom. You can see the tree of the Dudjom tersar. This is Dudjom Rinpoche, who was Bhante's teacher. Dudjom Rinpoche gave Bhante an initiation, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat with lots of money sticking out of his pocket. Many different manifestations of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava). Interestingly enough here we also have Hsuan-Tsang.

Manish: Ah Hsuan-Tsang.

Ratnaketu: Hsuan-Tsang with his backpack with the dharma texts. This is Shivaji.

Manish: Ah yeh, how is it here?

Ratnaketu: Because Shivaji has become a disciple of Buddha, at some point Shiva has become absorbed into Buddhism. And this is the shrine of the wrathful deities. Here we have, at the top of that refuge tree, this is Guru Rinpoche in the form of .

Triyana Vardhana Vihara Background Page 8 of 10

Ratnaketu: There's a story where Bhante is awoken in the middle of the night. And normally it's pitch black but he can see this light. And in the floor in front of him is a big hole in the ground. And inside the hole, in the pit, is a friend of his who had died some time earlier and he is supplicating Bhante, praying to Bhante... And Bhante, he just automatically starts chanting the Vajrasattva and, to his own surprise, the words, the letters of the Vajrasattva mantra, come out of his mouth and form a chain and go down into this pit and the man that’s there is able to pull himself out, using the letters of the mantra.

9 DILGO KHYENTSE

Back of Dechen Choling

Ratnaketu: Beneath this little cottage here is the little place that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche stayed in when he escaped from Tibet and he came to Kalimpong. At the time he was very very poor and unknown and he lived in this very little shack here. This is where Bhante came and met him and received several different initiations including Jambala the god of wrath, Kurukuli the goddess of fascination and Amitayeus Buddha of eternal light.

Sangharakshita: I used to go with a translator and I used to find him in the little front room sitting on his bed, cross legged and always with a Tibetan book in his lap. And as I entered he’d just look up and smile and then we’d have some discussion. And his wife would always bring Tibetan tea.

Ratnaketu: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, this is his throne.

10 ELDERS & ARCHETYPES

Samten Choling Monastery, Ghoom

Sangharakshita: A pilgrimage can give one a more vivid sense of the Buddha and of the fact he was actually a real human being and not a myth or a legend even though legendary elements may have crept in later in the story of his life.

Ratnaketu: This is where the relics of Sariputra and Moggallana stayed when in Darjeeling. Bhante had strong connection with the people here.

Manish: [Hindi] When our teacher, Sangharakhita, was first here, he was very impressed by the image of Guru Rinpoche.

Ratnaketu: Sangharakshita said that when he saw this image of Guru Rinpoche, he felt that he was deeply familiar, like nothing on earth was familiar to him. He said it became a permanent part of his inner psyche after seeing this image. And, of course, Chetul Sangye Dorje has just recently given Bhante the name Kyabjé Rinpoche Urgyen Sangharakshita. So Kyabjé means Lord of the Refuge. And, of course, Rinpoche means 'greatly precious'. That shows how much Background Page 9 of 10

respect they have for Bhante. Yes, he's called Kyabjé Rinpoche Sangharakshita...

11 JAMYANG KHYENTSE RINPOCHE

Samten Choling Monastery, Ghoom

Sangharakshita: I was already acquainted with Kachu Rinpoche so it was he who told me that Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche was in Kalimpong and that I should meet him. And later he told me that I should take the opportunity to ask him for initiation. He was a very great lama and very widely respected by the Tibetan people. And Jamyang Khyentse said that. when he gave me the four initiations, he had transmitted to me the essence of all the teachings and all the initiations which he himself had received.

Overlooking Cooch Bihar House, Darjeeling (now the residence of the head of the Darjeeling Gorka Hill Council and strictly off limits to visitors).

Ratnaketu: Jamyang Khyentse commissioned a special tangkha to be made with all the different teachers, you know, from the past from both India and Tibet. Which Jamyang Khyentse said he had condensed into that initiation everything that he had received. And I believe that Bhante was the only Westerner ever to receive initiation from Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. And I believe that Bhante was the only Westerner ever to receive initiation from Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. That’s really quite special.

Sangharakshita: All the different teachers that I met certainly did inspire me to practise the Dharma whether in the more general way or in connection with the actual practice which they gave me.

Birmingham. Bhante pauses in reading

Triyana Vardhana Vihara

BK Gahatraj: I remember that, as I think now, those two years or something I stayed with Sangharakshita were the most free and valuable part of my life. Because I didn't have to fear anything. I was always looked after very well. And cared. And Sangharakshita was never aggressive about anything. Even as a boy – I did some sort of pranks maybe, but he never bothered about it and he was always like just smiling. And when any visitors stopped him, he always welcomed them A very nice person. Kind-hearted.

EPILOGUE

Gantok, Sikkim

Padmasambhava said Sikkim would be a Buddhist sanctuary…

Ratnaketu: We've been to the Tsuk-La-Khang, the Royal Chapel, here in Gangtok. At the back of the Chapel there's is really wonderful room, where Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche lived and the main place where his relics are kept and his dakini, Khandro-la is her name, she’s stayed there ever since, since he died in 1959. And we were very Background Page 10 of 10

lucky, in fact, we got in, photography was not permitted, we got to meet Khandro-la even though there wasn't really a common language. And, yes, it was really special. This is the Royal Chapel, this is where relics of Sariputra and Moggallana (Maudgalayana) were kept. There's a very beautiful description in ‘Facing Mount Kanchenjunga’ by Bhante here on that very special occasion.

CREDITS

Pilgrims: Danus Blanchard, Manish Kumar,

Assistant Producer: Ratnaketu

Joe Peet

Thanks, Windhorse-Evolution Legacy Fund, Saramati, Mahamati, Sangharakshita, Nityabandhu, Prajnabandhu, Dharmamati, Alexey Moskvin,

Photos: Clearvision Trust