Ngawang Samten, sister of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, talked about her brother, the reincarnation of the Lawudo Lama.

(First published in Mandala, October 1993)

Our grandfather moved from Tibet to Thami. He was very poor and worked as a servant for a local family. Eventually, he married the daughter of the family and they had six sons. Four became monks. One of the other two married and their first child was me. Then they had another girl two years later, but she died when she was about nine or ten. In 1946, two years after she was born, they gave birth to Rinpoche, and two years after that time came Rinpoche’s brother Sangye.

From the time Rinpoche was born, everything started to go wrong for our family. The animals died, the business my father was trying to do failed, and then father kept getting sick. I think he blamed Rinpoche for this and resented him. Finally our father died when Rinpoche was 2 and Sangye was in the womb.

So then the family was extremely poor, and my mother had to go out collecting wood in the forest all day and to work for other families. She worked very long hours every day. She barely had enough food to feed us children, and she used to look through the rubbish bins to find cloth to patch together clothes for us.

Because mother had to work all day, I was left to look after the other children, even though I was only 6 years old. From the time Rinpoche was about 2 he would run away during the day. I couldn’t stop him because I had to look after the other children, so when mother came back at night she would have to go and search for him. And she would always find him trying to climb in the direction of the Lawudo Cave, which was at least three hours away, across a river and up a mountain.

Of course she would be very worried, so she would beat him and tell him he must come home. And every time he would protest and say, “That is my home, my home is up there,” pointing up at the cave. You see, he knew he was the reincarnation of the Lawudo Lama, a yogi who had died a couple of years before. All the time Rinpoche would run away, and all the time my mother would have to go and get him, beat him and bring him back.

When he didn’t run away and would stay around home, he would organize the other children at games, and he’d always be preparing for and giving initiations. He would sit on a high rock and use stones as tormas, and the other children would be his disciples. Then he would tell us about various people that would come to the initiation the next day, and he would actually name many of the benefactors of the Lawudo Lama. He would insist that such and such a person was coming from Namche Bazaar or from Lukla. We were all surprised because there was no way he could know the names of these people.

So, this is how Rinpoche spent his time as a child. Many people began to believe that he was the Lawudo Lama because of his unusual actions. He would tell us, too, that he had a daughter, and he would say her name, and it was the name of the Lawudo Lama’s daughter.

But she could not accept Rinpoche as the incarnation. Her family was very embarrassed because our family was so poor. This often happens in the mountains. Relatives find it very embarrassing if other relatives are poor, so they ignore them.

However, one night the daughter came secretly to our house with many different objects: texts, bells, dorjes, damarus, chang bowls, etc. A few of these were the Lawudo Lama’s, but most weren’t. She placed them before Rinpoche, and Rinpoche immediately grabbed the ones belonging to the Lawudo Lama and said they were his. The daughter left, convinced that he was after all the reincarnation of her father, but she never told anyone, so no official recognition was offered.

Another time I remember that the family went to puja at the Thami Gompa, presided over by the old Thami Lama. There were a number of cymbals and Rinpoche kept grabbing one particular set and saying they were his. The Thami Lama said that those cymbals had been given to him by the Lawudo Lama’s grandson after the Lawudo Lama passed away.

When Rinpoche was three or four, his uncle, who was a monk, came and took him from the family. He knew he was the incarnation, so he took him to his monastery at Rolwaling, where Rinpoche learned to read and write. The uncle would serve him. I think he spent seven years at Rolwaling. Then Rinpoche’s uncle was invited to Tibet by one relative, so he took Rinpoche with him.

In Tibet, Rinpoche stayed at Domo Geshe’s monastery for a while. When the time came to go back home, Rinpoche absolutely refused to go. The uncle tried very hard to make him come, even beating him, but Rinpoche would fight back, throwing sticks and stones at the uncle, desperately declaring that he would stay.

So in the end our uncle had no choice, and he returned to Thami without Rinpoche. When he arrived, my mother asked, “Where is my son?” Our uncle told her what happened, but my mother and I didn’t believe him. We thought Rinpoche was dead and that our uncle was trying to be nice. So it was not until 10 years later that we received a letter from my mother’s sister in Darjeeling that Rinpoche had come to see her. Only then did we realize he was alive. That would have been about 1967.

A couple of years later, we received a letter from Rinpoche asking the family to come meet him. At that time, Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe and Ani Zina, their first Western student, were staying at Boudha, just outside Kathmandu. So the whole family, my mother, Sangye and I, walked about 10 days down the mountains. We had no money, so we had to beg for food on the way. We finally got to Boudha and went to the monastery where they were staying, but we couldn’t recognize which one was Rinpoche. At first we thought Lama Yeshe was Rinpoche, but finally someone introduced us. When he left as a boy he was fat but now because he had TB he was extremely skinny. The family didn’t have anything to say, we just cried and cried and cried.

During that time, Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche was giving an oral transmission of the Kangyur. Many benefactors of the previous Lawudo Lama were there and requested Rinpoche to return to Lawudo. So, soon after that, Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe and Zina came and stayed with us at Thami.

There is only one room, so everyone slept there together. But Rinpoche didn’t sleep. Even then, although he was very sick and skinny, he never slept but sat up all night reading texts and meditating.

Lawudo Cave had been abandoned, but at this time it was returned to Rinpoche by the previous lama’s son, so we all went up and stayed at the cave. There was nothing there, just the cave, and the family was still very poor. I remember that Rinpoche and Lama also had nothing, and their robes were very poor quality and quite thin.

We began to build a small house beside the cave. Lama was the boss, the organizer; he directed everything. We tried to do everything very carefully, but Lama would come along and say, “You are taking too long! Do it like this! Do it quickly!” So we did it quickly – but after a while we had to rebuild it!

But Lama also worked. I remember him carrying stones on his back and his back bleeding, and he would go out to the forest and pick up cow dung in his bare hands and bring it back to put on the garden to grow potatoes.

Because Rinpoche was sick, he couldn’t do much. Mother would give him the potatoes and he would peel them. Then he would meditate and read texts.

Sometimes Rinpoche and Lama would go to Namche, about three hours away, and Rinpoche would give initiations and teachings. People would offer rice and dried meat, and then Lama and Rinpoche would return up the mountain, with great difficulty carrying all this on their backs, taking turns and stopping. This was necessary because food was very scarce.

Apparently, when Rinpoche was in Darjeeling and was very sick, another lama checked and said that if some of the possessions of the previous Lawudo Lama were returned to Rinpoche, his health would improve. I remember Lama Yeshe telling us this. So our uncle, who had a set of water bowls belonging to the Lawudo Lama, gave them to Rinpoche. From that time Rinpoche carried these water bowls everywhere he went, and his health got better. Then later the texts of the Lawudo Lama were given to Rinpoche and his health got even better.

Soon, Lama and Rinpoche went back down to Kathmandu, and eventually to Kopan, which they were just starting. This was 1970.

Tags: lama zopa rinpoche, lawudo