Me, Chatral Rinpoche and Several Thousand of my Closest Friends

Chatral Rinpoche is arguably the greatest living master of the Dzogchen tradition, at 96yrs old he is one the last of his generation of yogis. HH Penor Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche and Dodrupchen make up the very short list of completely realized masters of Dzogchen. I have always wanted to meet Chatral Rinpoche and receive some teaching from him but he is as reclusive as he is famous and meeting with him is nearly impossible. The mantra immediately issuing forth from anyone's mouth who is asked about Chatral Rinpoche is "no one sees". We have some connection with him from our previous visit to Nepal when we visited his monastery but at that time he was staying in Siliguri, India for the winter and we were not able to meet with him. Back in America we spent some time practicing with Ralo Rinpoche and I became friends with his Shabje (attendent), he told me when I come to Nepal he will introduce me to Chatral Rinpoche, he said he was very close with Chatral Rinpoche's daughter, Sarwaswati and she controlled who see and does not see Rinpoche. He said it is very difficutl to meet with him but he would be able to help.
So when we arrived in Nepal the quest was on for me to meet this incredible yogi and receive some teaching. When I arrived in Pharping I found that he was indeed staying here though not at the monastery but at a hermitage outside of town. Again I was assured by everyone I asked, "no one sees". I went to Ralo Rinpoche's monastery to see him and his Shabje but they were still in America and I had no way to be introduced to Chatral Rinpoche. We stayed at Ralo Rinpoche's monastery for a few days and soon Ralo Rinpoche arrived but unfortunately his Shabje had stayed in America and will be ther for the next 3 months. (DOOH!)
As if reading my mind and my longing to connect with Chatral Rinpoche, Ralo Rinpoche (a very old and respected ngakpa yogi) who is very close with Chatral Rinpoche reached into his bag that he had placed beside him and scooped out a few large handfuls of Mendrup. Mendrup is a sacred substances prepared according to ritual by high lamas and distributed to practitioners as a support for their practice. Mendrup is said to increase realization and meditative experience and just carrying a small amount is said to offer great protection. Mendrup is often placed in holy objects such as statues and amulets etc. HH Penor Ripoche has told us that the benefits of mendrup prepared by a great lama are inexpressible. Usually these high lamas oversee the production of the mendrup (accomplished medicine) and perform the ceremony. In this case however, the mendrup was none other than Chatral Rinpoche's and Ralo Rinpoche assured me that the mendrup he was giving us had been actually prepared by Chatral Rinpoche's own hands. I do not exagerate when I say there are many a lay Tibetan practioner who would trample over you just to get a glimpse of this, much less to actually take some of this medicine.
Ralo Rinpoche gave Jenn and I some mendrup to take then and then packaged a generous amount for us to take to support our practice. I felt our connection with Chatral Rinpoche strengthening and became hopeful we would indeed meet him. I asked Ralo Rinpoche if we might meet with Chatral Rinpoche and he casually told me where his hermitage was. I thought, "it can't be that easy". We headed off, the place where he was staying was not exactly easy to find but we managed to blindly make our way there. We saw a closed gate ahead of us and I was sure this was the place. Jenn said the gates closed forget it, I didn't care I approached the gate and it opened without resistance. I walked through and there I was inside his mandala, a small, very small temple was there and a house, there was an old monk watering plants and I walked up to him. I told him in Tibetan we were here to see Chatral Rinpoche and he acknowledged this was the place and pointed to the front door of the house. Is he here now I asked, yes he said. This was going way too well to be true.
We walked to the front door and I excitedly approached but Jenn was more hesitant and felt we were intruding, surely we were but how else will you meet with this great being. As I approached the door, before I could even knock a small boy appeared and we said we wanted to see Chatral Rinpoche, he gestured us in. As soon as we entered a woman came from around the corner and said, "yes" questioningly. Again I said we are here to see Chatral Rinpoche, and much like the line "you'll shoot your eye out kid" form A Christmas Story, she uttered the dreaded, "No one sees" (DOOH!). But at the same time she gestured for us to enter another room, inside was a white woman in Tibetan cloths, who questioned us about where we were from and who our Lama was. We told her our guru was HH Penor Rinpoche and she was surprised, the small boy returned and offered us each a banana, "a Chatral Rinpoche banana I thought" I must be becoming obsessed I thought. Then entered a Tibetan woman and she asked the white woman who we were and who our lama was. The white woman gestured for us to stand and introduced the woman as "the sublime daughter of Chatral Rinpoche, Sarwaswati". I told her we were here to see Chatral Rinpoche and wished to offer him a Katag. She looked us over and say we could not see (check and mate I thought). It was just as everyone had told me, "no one sees" and certainly no one gets teachings. A Tibetan man in town told me he had only seen Chatral Rinpoche once in his life and that was from a distance and he tried ceaslessly to meet with him. Why should I be any different I began to think. But then Sarwaswati said, Tuesday 9:30am you come here. (WHAA!)
That was just a few days away and I was gitty with excitement. On Monday the day before the meeting, we were walking back to Khenpo Namdrol's retreat center where we are staying from dinner and Jenn and I were teasing eachother and fooling around as we walked home. She was mocking me and I was mocking her and we were laughing. I was imitating her chomping on her gum and dooing a little dance, my mouth open wide and acting a fool when right then Chatral Rinpoche drove up. I frooze, mouth wide open looking like an idiot and there he was less than 2 ft away from me in traditional Nepali driving style (the closer the better). He was in the passenger seat on my side of the road, in his red wool hat, dark sunglasses and long white beard. My mind stopped, I instantly recognized him but it took time to compute and then he was gone. There it was the first in person sighting of this great Lama. I knew the next day we would see him.
On Tuesday morning when we arrived at Chatral Rinpoche's home it turned out that not only was I here to see Chatral Rinpoche but so were several thousand people. He was going to give a lung (loong) and blessing. I was not disappointed at all. Seeing Chatral Rinpoche is one thing, but receiving a teaching from his is even rarer. We took our seats right in front of where he would sit on a small balcony to give his teaching. I went to his front door and just before I knocke Sarwaswati answered, she said, "your here" I said, "yes, here is a Katag and offering for Rinpoche, can we see him" She said, "yes you can see him when he comes on the balcony, sit over there". I thanked her and we sat up close and waited. While we waited, we received many generous gifts from Chatral Rinpoche, we received more mendrup, we received a beautiful picture of Rinpoche, we received a copy of the text to keep that would be transmitted, we received a blessing cord from Chatral Rinpoche and we were offered food and drink. Behind me thousands of Tibten monks and nuns and ngakpas and lay people began to pile in. A table was arranged just in front of us for objects to be blessed by Chatral Rinpoche and I placed my new bodhi seed mala that I got near the cave where Guru Rinpoche practiced Vajrakilaya on the table to be blessed.
We waited in the hot sun, watching all the people, I had never seen anything like this except when HH Penor Rinpoche would give a large empowerment in India. After some time Chatral Rinpoche appeared and took a seat in front of us. A large group of monks made an extensive Mandala offering and we all chanted along. Chatral Rinpoche then read from the text we were given and performed the Lung (reading transmission), he read for a while then offered a few words of auspiciousness and blessing. I stared at him for the longest time, just like HH Penor Rinpoche something was entrancing about his presence and visage. His voice was deep and coarse and carried across the crowd. He stood up and looked at all the disciples gathered and wished them all happiness, he leaned over his balcony and blessed on the objects on the blessing table including my mala (prayer beeds). He then blessed the crowd of people by chanting prayers and throwing rice on our heads.
He then was gone back into his abode, I felt totatly satisfied, not only had we seen Chatral Rinpoche, we had received the Lung, we had a blessing cord, we had received some mendrup, I had the text that I could study and practice and we had a beautiful picture from him to place on our shrine. As I approached the blessing table to get my mala, a feeding frenzy had broken out, people were diving over eachother and trampling just to get a grain or two of rice that Chatral Rinpoche had thrown. I thought he had given so much but it is so rare to see this Lama and so rare to get a hold of anything he has blessed that these pilgrims were anxious to get whatever they could. I also found a small piece of rice that had fallen on my mala and ate it. I grabbed my mala and Jenn and I squeezed our way out and back to our quiet retreat center with Khenpo Namdrol.