Meeting Khyentse Rinpoche’s Incarnate

In 2010, I was traveling in Nepal with my mom. It is a long story. Basically, her teeth were falling out, and she wanted to have a procedure done in India, by a European-trained oral surgeon named Dr. Aggarwal. He had a clinic in Jalandhar. She asked me to come along, and since I wasn’t working—I had quit my job a couple years earlier and was living in the spare room in her two-bedroom apartment—I agreed.

We arranged to go to India through Nepal, so we could see a friend of ours. That is how we ended up at the ceremony commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. I hadn’t thought of Khyentse Rinpoche’s incarnate until this time, but 20 years before, I had met the previous Khyentse Rinpoche, and traveled with him for about three weeks. Seeing his 17-year-old incarnate from afar, I didn’t get a strong impression.

On the final day of the ceremony, guests could approach the young incarnate, who is sometimes called Yangsi Rinpoche, to receive a blessing. I wasn’t going to get in the line, but then a friend of mine encouraged me, so I did. I was about a hundred yards from Yangsi Rinpoche when I lost my composure. I tried so hard not to cry that when I broke, I make a noise like a horse.

This always used to happen to me with the previous Khyentse Rinpoche, when he gave transmissions, or initiations to Vajrayana practices. I was 11 years old then; I was 33 in 2010. Of course, I understand all the rational explanations for the repeat—for my crying—but at the time, the words that went through my mind were, “It’s him.”

There was a money problem, and my mother and I were stranded for one month in Nepal, at Yangsi Rinpoche’s monastery. We attended the yearly drupchen ceremonies there because we had nothing else to do. That means that for eight hours daily, we sat in a shrine room full of monks chanting sadhanas, with Yangsi Rinpoche at the head of the room. Some time during that month, I got the idea of following his tour and writing about it.

The money problem let up on April 1, 2010. My mom went to India. I stayed.

It was very difficult to get permission to follow the tour and write about it. I was put off and then even told no several times, but due to some circumstances that I don’t have the space to detail, and due to my stubbornness, that changed, and I was able to follow the tour through Europe and the United States. Put plainly, I did this because I wanted to be near him.

Two years later, the article just didn’t work out. I couldn’t get a grasp on the material, and I couldn’t get a grasp on my mistakes. My editors gave up, and I—for some reason—felt too discouraged to seek another home, and too stubborn to put the piece onto a shelf. So I self-published on Amazon.

In my emails to friends and desperate Facebook postings, I said, “Don’t feel compelled to buy it,” but here, I’m going to tell the truth: Feel compelled. There's a good story in there somewhere, and half of the money will go to Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu.

Final thing. The first time I spoke to Yangsi Rinpoche, it was to ask if I could follow his tour and write about it. I had been at Shechen a month, but had never had the courage to approach him. Also I get wildly nervous. I don’t have the disposition or the appearance of a reporter you could trust. But one afternoon I thought, “Go now.” I had just a vague idea where Yangsi Rinpoche’s room was, and so I walked in that direction. I met a man who was taking Yangsi Rinpoche’s little dogs out for a walk. I asked him if I could talk to Yangsi Rinpoche, and he told me who to ask, and where to find him. I did. After a short wait, I was led in to sit across from Yangsi Rinpoche on a sofa. He was 17 years old. His manner was simple. He seemed a little bit tired. Mine was not a simple question. It was one I had been posing to those around Yangsi Rinpoche in various inelegant ways for several weeks. At this time, I hadn’t received a firm “no” yet, more just skillful dodges, but when I asked Yangsi Rinpoche the question—“Can I write about you?”—he just said, “Yes.”