An Old Friend
Meeting an old friend
sharing stories from the past
timeless and precious
Today we were able to track down our old friend Tsultrim through the monastery main office. Tsultrim came to Sherabling in +/-1981 when he was maybe 5 years old. He’s now 46. He was a monk under Situ Rinpoche for some years, then began working in the guest house, cooking, room service, whatever was needed, on call much of the time. In the last maybe ten years he has been working as an artisan creating parts of an enormous fabric thanka-like applique hanging of Guru Rinpoche, a central and seminal figure in Tibetan Buddhism, that will, at some point, maybe ten years from now he says, be finished and will be hung from one of the sacred mountains here abouts.
We’ll check in with him again and get to see the latest iteration of what he’s been working on, along with several other artisans.
Tsultrim has spent his entire life here at Sherabling, grew up here, works here, lives here. He speaks Tibetan and Hindi of course, and has a reasonably good command of English as well. He shared today, now that he’s older (and maybe not so restless as Nancy supposes), that he’s quite content to stay here, not interested in traveling anywhere or living anywhere else. He seems settled into himself, Nancy says. He even has an Indian girl friend, or, he corrects, a girl…….friend, whom he sees only occasionally, but talks with by phone. And………..he’s been given a car, so he’d be happy to take us on any trip we might like, assuming he can take the day or two off from his work obligations. Like the hot springs up in the mountains, or to Tso Pema, the Hindu and Buddhist holy town a few hours away.
On the way to find Tsultrim we stopped at the lovely terraced Tibetan medicine herbal garden below the teaching Institute. I wanted especially to get a photo of the presiding Goddess (I’ll try to get her name…), who benevolently overlooks the grounds, bestowing her blessings on the plants and presumably on the humans who will benefit from their healing powers.
As we were preparing to leave we were again stopped in our tracks by the largest troop of monkeys we’ve ever encountered, with many very small babies, and the ubiquitous dominant protector males overseeing their procession through and beyond the gardens and farther into the forest. We stood aside and waited respectfully for all of them to pass, including the guarding males, before taking advantage of the clearing to head on our own way toward the monastery office. Here’s a clip of some of the early movement:
Family morning stroll
big monkey business today
staying safe in troops
Tonight we’ll meet up for dinner in Bir with the best friend of Nancy’s brother Bakes, David, who is in the area for the month or two of teachings being given by their guru, Dzongzar Kyentse Rinpoche, at his monastery in neighboring Chandra.
