COMING HOME – Chapter 1

Aloha!

This is the 1st chapter in a series of posts that will be shared between now and mid-October that are written to entertain, maybe inform, spark memories, connect our hearts, and definitely beseech your help to sustain Karmê Chöling through April 30, 2020. Karmê Chöling needs your unrestricted donations now more than ever before.

This series of posts, called COMING HOME, weaves together the story of Trungpa Rinpoche’s determination to protect & perpetuate the dharma with a very personal story of a student’s exposure to Shambhala – my own. It’s a story of a journey – a journey of bravery and perseverance. I hope you enjoy it.

Mahalo Nui!
Kit Kanohoaloha Wynkoop
Director of Development

Karmê Chöling means the world to me.

To my own inner ears, this seems like a funny way to begin a major fundraising appeal. As of this writing, I’ve been a resident of Karmê Chöling for four years and five months. There are only three others on staff (not counting Acharya Duquette and Jan) who have been here longer – and one of them is leaving this month. When I arrived, we had 45 staff members and I only intended to be here a year. But time is funny on these 700 acres – as anyone who has ever been at Karmê Chöling for any length can tell you.

My Shambhala journey started in 2013. (Yes, I’m a relative newbie and have blazed through the path; having taken to heart Trungpa Rinpoche’s advice of “Practice like your hair’s on fire”). I was in my Honolulu studio early that year itching for something to read. Having scanned my bookshelves a number of times, I settled on a book someone gave me the year before, “The Heart of the Buddha.”

When Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was 19, he was a Lama, the governor of a province in Tibet, and the holder of the ancient and precious Buddhist teachings of the Kagyü lineages.

When I was 19, I had pimples, worked as a busboy, and was missing a front tooth. It was at that age, Trungpa Rinpoche was faced with the very difficult decision to leave Tibet to save the Buddhist teachings he had been given to protect and perpetuate. 

Over the next nine months, he and a small group of others including Lady Könchok began the treacherous journey to get across the Himalayan mountains to safety. They crossed rivers, edged along trails etched into the sides of cliffs, lost donkeys and belongings to the same, banded against brutal weather, were chased by the Chinese army, fought off frostbite, boiled belts for soup – all while more and more refugees joined his lead, growing to 300 people!

Two years into the safety of India, Trungpa Rinpoche was given a scholarship by the Dalai Lama to attend Oxford University. He learned English and soaked up Western culture like a sponge then migrated to Scotland where he and a colleague began to teach the dharma and attract a sangha. There, he gave up his robes for western wear and married Diana Judith Pybus.

Then change REALLY began to happen.