Venerable Lama Thubten Yeshe
1935-1984
By Monday morning Californian time—Monday night in Europe and Tuesday morning in Australia—the news had hit home. Scores of people, from Australia, New Zealand, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Hong Kong and many European countries, had already arrived or were on their way to Vajrapani .
Already, Geshe Sopa had arrived from Wisconsin and Geshe Thinley, one of Lama Yeshe's brothers, had come with five others from Australia, where he was resident teacher at Chenrezig Institute. And Kyabje Song Rinpoche was due from Switzerland that night, to officiate at the week-long ceremonies. Also there were Geshe Gyeltsen from Los Angeles, Geshe Lobsang Gyatso, the resident teacher at Vajrapani, and the reincarnation of his teacher from Sera Je, Tenzin Sherab, a young Canadian boy, and Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper from the University of Virginia.
American monk Thubten Pelgye and others had started to organize the kitchen, bringing in food enough to feed one hundred people for a week. And forty-five minutes away, not far from Santa Cruz and Lama Yeshe's house at Aptos, Peter O'Donnell and the staff of Greenwood Lodge, a conference center and home of the Universal Education Association, had opened up their rooms and cabins to accommodate the visitors.
On Monday night Song Rinpoche was picked up from the San Francisco airport and taken to Lama's house, where he would stay until Saturday March 11th. There with him were Lama Zopa, Geshe Thinley, Geshe Gyeltsen and Geshe Sopa. They were being looked after by Thubten Monlam, the young Sherpa monk whom Lama had sent for from Kopan a month before, and Lama's friend, Age Delbanco. By Tuesday afternoon, the gompa was packed. There was a Vajrayogini puja and self-initiation, and in the evening a Heruka Vajrasattva tsog offering written by Lama Yeshe in 1982, with prostrations to the thirty-five Buddhas being performed alternately. As much as possible, Lama Zopa had said, these purification practices should be done—'not for Lama's sake but for our own.'
People continued to arrive during the week. Although many had not met before, there was a powerful feeling among everyone of deep friendship; brothers and sisters sharing the grief of losing an incredibly loved parent.
Lama Zopa asked Geshe Sopa to talk to the people on Wednesday morning. 'We have known each other for a long time, as teacher and student, since he was a young boy,' he said. 'During these past years Lama Yeshe has done so much beneficial activity for so many people, especially in the West.'
Geshe Sopa emphasized harmony. 'There are many students everywhere at all the centers that Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa have established. It is so important to be very 'friendly towards each other, like children of the one spiritual father...We should ask. "How can I help?"'
Lama Yeshe is gone, but 'Lama Zopa is still here. His activities everywhere are great, sowing seeds everywhere for the development of this wonderful spiritual teaching that is most beneficial to sentient beings.'
After the talk, an all-day Heruka puja and self-initiation started. And John Jackson and others, with the supervision of Song Rinpoche, began work on the stupa in which Lama's body would be burned. The site chosen was a clearing on a ridge, five minutes' walk up from the gompa, which had a spectacular view of miles of forest and the smell of the unseen ocean beyond.
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Keeping vigil at Lama's body next door was Bill Kane. 'Beautiful odorous were coming from his body,' he said. On Wednesday morning he assisted Lama Zopa and others prepare Lama's body for cremation. It was to be burned in an upright position, so his knees were drawn up to his chest and tied tightly with katas. His arms were crossed and a dorje and bell placed in his hands. He was dressed in his magenta robes and a yellow chogo. Upon his head was placed a triple-tiered black bodhisattva's hat adorned with a crystal rosary, and his face was covered by a red cloth. His body, in a chair, was driven in procession up to the ridge, which was already prepared for the fire puja.
Mountains of appropriate offerings for the fire were on a side altar, between the stupa and Song Rinpoche's throne. The place was covered in flowers. Incense wafted on the breeze and the sky was bright and blue. Two hundred people were assembled—monks, nuns, lay men and women, and children and included five of Lama Yeshe's doctors, members of the administration of the University of Santa Cruz where Lama had taught for a term in 1978, and many, many friends. One, a woman who 'always dresses in red' had met him five years before and was immediately attracted because of his 'wonderful laugh.' That morning she had heard that 'Lama Yeshe was in town' so came to Vajrapani with an offering of flowers— only to discover that she was coming to his cremation.
The van carrying Lama's body stopped at the edge of the crowd. His body was carried to the stupa—only the square base of which, waist high, had been built so far—and carefully placed inside. Metal rods were put horizontally on all sides of the body to keep it upright. Firewood was stacked around him and oil poured over the wood to ensure that the fire would burn well.
The remainder of the stupa was built around Lama's body. Bricks were laid in a circular fashion to form a cone-shaped structure about eight feet tall. The entire stupa was covered with mud and, as it dried, with white wash. The square base had four openings, one on each side, and the upper part two, for receiving the offerings.
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The person elected to start the fire had to be someone who had not received teachings from Lama. She prostrated three times in front of the stupa, bent low and, with a burning torch handed to her by one of the attendants, set fire to Lama Yeshe's body.
The Yamantaka fire puja commenced. The mountain of offerings slowly diminished as the ingredients were handed to Song Rinpoche who in turn handed them to Chuck Thomas and others who offered them to the fire. The puja lasted three hours. Throughout, a deep stillness, a composure, a sense of the unexpressed grief, pervaded. And the only sound to be heard above the chanting was the blazing of the powerful fire.
By one o'clock the puja was over. Later, Song Rinpoche and Lama Zopa returned to the stupa to seal the openings; it would remain untouched until Sunday afternoon when Lama Zopa would dismantle it and remove the relics of Lama's body.
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I'm just very numb,' Lama Zopa said later that afternoon, when he talked briefly in the gompa. 'I can't think of anything.' Rinpoche sat for a full five minutes before continuing. 'These high lamas, His Holiness and all these high lamas, including Lama Yeshe, they do not fit us, they do not fit. Because of our small merit, they just do not fit. They are like a huge burden that we cannot carry.' Earlier. he had said that Lama had died 'because we do not have the merit. But we should not think too much about this because we would go mad. Instead, we should protect our mind and try to practice dharma.'
It seemed that people hung on to his every word. Lama had always been the pillar of strength; now, with him gone, people looked with a sense of relief almost to Lama Zopa. He thanked everyone for their kindness during the past few months. 'If we follow Lama's wishes, every piece of advice, if we put it all into practice then I think it will become a quick cause for Lama to reincarnate soon. Maybe he will even come to America! I think that's all.' he said. 'I will pray.'
By Friday, many people had left. In the afternoon Song Rinpoche gave a Heruka Vajrasattva initiation and talked briefly. He, like the other lamas, stressed harmony. 'We are all very good relatives,' he said. 'Loving each other is the most important thing.'
Kyabje Song Rinpoche was bade farewell—for what would be the last time—at the airport on Saturday, when he returned to Switzerland. That night Lama Zopa invited people to Lama's house for a Lama Choepa puja. The room was packed. The ocean pounded just outside the windows. It was good to be there in that house that Lama had loved. The puja, sung in English, was intense and heartfelt. It was seven days since Lama's death.
On Sunday afternoon, Lama Zopa went back up to the ridge to open the stupa and remove the relics. He requested that everyone stay in the gompa and recite Vajrasattva mantras and do prostrations. Tenzin Sherab, the young Canadian Rinpoche, was there with Lama Zopa. 'First we did prayers, then more prayers,' he said later. 'We started opening the stupa at exactly two-fifty p.m. and at four-twenty-four we finished taking everything out.
First, the stupa had to be carefully dismantled, brick by brick. Each bone was taken from the stupa floor and handed to Lama Zopa, who would examine it and put it aside in the red trunk bought especially for the relics. The ashes were put separately.
Later, Rinpoche said that the fire had been almost too good; it had burned so fiercely that most of the body had burned completely. What remained, apart from the bones, were part of Lama's heart and kidneys. 'I saw every bone in his body,' Tenzin Sherab said. Later, during the drive down to Santa Cruz, he said that during puja after taking out the relics he looked up into the sky and saw, besides other things, 'a cloud forming into an arrow and pointing towards the south, and four Tibetan letters, la, la, sa and ra. ' Song Rinpoche suggested that these might indicate the name of the mother of Lama Yeshe's future incarnation.
The relics were carried in procession down to the gompa where again purification practices were done. Rinpoche thanked everyone at the conclusion of the puja. 'I am completely satisfied. Everything has gone so perfectly, nothing inauspicious has happened.' He said that even if the pujas had been done by the monasteries in south India, it all could not have gone better. He gave to each person a capsule of ashes — 'vitamins for the mind,' he called them.
By Monday afternoon, Vajrapani land had returned to its normal serene routine. The week that had seen one of the most extraordinary events of the centre's seven years of existence had come and gone like a dream. Lama Zopa had returned to India that morning, via Switzerland where he would see Geshe Rabten and Song Rinpoche, and the people had returned to their homes and centers and monasteries around the world.
Lama's relics, once consecrated by Song Rinpoche in Switzerland, were divided up and sent to each of the centers, where they were received with great respect and ritual 'as if you were receiving Lama himself,' Rinpoche had advised. Most of the relics, however, went to Kopan where eventually they will be sealed inside a larger-than-life-size statue of Lama; the face, an exact likeness, is being made by American sculptor Courtland Bennett, and the body, with the hands in Vajrasattva mudra, by local Nepali artists.
A thousand small statues of Lama Yeshe, commissioned by Max Mathews, are being made in India, and the bulk of the ashes from the cremation will be mixed with clay and made into small Vajrasattva statuettes (tsa-tsa).
In accordance with Lama Yeshe's own wishes—that a year's Heruka Vajrasattva retreat be done 'wherever my body is'—a retreat started at Kopan in April. A yearlong retreat also commenced mid-year in Spain, at the O Sel Ling Retreat Center.
It is possible for people to come to these retreats for any period of time. Most other centers have held or plan to hold shorter retreats at times to suit their students.
While preparing Lama's body for cremation, Bill Kane asked Rinpoche if Lama had ever indicated to him where he planned to take rebirth. Rinpoche thought for a while before replying that no, Lama had never said any thing about it, but Rinpoche's own opinion was that Lama 'had karma with California.' Seven months later Rinpoche said in a letter to one of his students that in a dream he had seen that 'Lama had already decided on his rebirth.'
And in December he said, 'Lama will reincarnate soon. We have done many pujas and have been checking and will continue to check through lamas and deities. So sooner or later we can have big parties for Lama's reincarnation.'