After an absence of five years, Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Lawudo June 2-16, 1998

On a clear day in June last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived in grand style, by helicopter from Kathmandu, for a visit to Lawudo, in the Solu Khumbu area of the Nepal Himalayas. It was his first visit in five years. Known as the Lawudo Lama, Rinpoche is the reincarnation of the previous lama, a Nyingma ngagpa Kunsang Yeshe, who spent more that 20 years meditating in a cave that was, as Lama Kunsang Yeshe himself said, “Self-created and given to him by Guru Padmasambhava.”

After landing in a grassy field in Mende, Rinpoche and his party walked the steep hill up to Lawudo itself. Rinpoche’s arrival was a “big surprise” to everyone, including his sister Ven. Ngawang Samten, who runs the cluster of retreat houses that surround the cave, said Ven. Nyima Tashi, a member of Rinpoche’s travel party. “Even though she’d received a message that Rinpoche was coming, she couldn’t believe it! She greeted him with tears in her eyes.”

“When the helicopter landed, the people from nearby villages guessed it must be the Lawudo Lama and started to make their way to Lawudo,” he said.

At an altitude of 14,000 feet, the Lawudo cave is on a cliff face surrounded by snow-capped peaks. “There are always banks and banks of clouds, sometimes engulfing, blowing in and out all the time; it’s quite incredible,” said Diana Finnegan, an American who was in Lawudo at the time. Mount Everest Base Camp is about five hours away on foot. The most common way of reaching Lawudo is to take an hour-long flight from Kathmandu to Lukla and then walk for three days.

Ven. Ngawang Samten and Ven. Tsultrim Norbu, a Lawudo Sherpa monk who spent many years at Kopan Monastery in the Kathmandu valley, “worked tirelessly, day and night, for the 10 days he was there,” said Wendy Cook, assistant director of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in Boston, who was doing a retreat.

Throughout his visit, an endless stream of Sherpas and Tibetans brought the beloved lama offerings, received his blessings and requested healings. Some of them walked five hours from the small trading town of Namche Bazaar, as well as the nearby Thami monastery and Thamo nunnery.

The original plan was for Rinpoche to visit Thubten Choling Monastery in Jalsa, an area in lower Solu Khumbu, near Pablu, where he plans to build a stupa and large prayer wheel. “The monastery was formerly administered by a Sherpa monastery in Kathmandu, but because there aren’t many monks anymore, they requested the Tibetan government to appoint another monastery to manage it,” said Ven. Fran Mohoupt of Kopan Monastery. The Tibetan government approached Kopan and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and he accepted. In order to benefit the large number of Tibetan refugees in the area, Rinpoche plans to expand the existing monastery and has installed an abbot, a young Sherpa monk from Kopan who recently graduated as a geshe from Sera Je Monastery, Geshe Losang Jamyang. “His job will be to teach and to develop the place into a proper functioning monastery where the various monastic rites are performed,” Fran said.

As always, with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, every moment of his trip was completely dedicated to the welfare of others. As Ven. Nyima Tashi said, “Scores of disciples, including Tibetans who do business between Tibet and Solu Khumbu, came to see Rinpoche in Lawudo, bringing big piles of Tibetan tea bricks, salt and half-bodies of dry goats!”

At different locations throughout his visit, Nyima Tashi said, “Rinpoche accepted more than 20 monks and nuns to go to Kopan Monastery, ordained five others, and brought them back to Kopan with him.”

Along with the numerous pujas he performed with the Thamo nuns and four Kopan monks specially trained in ritual, chanting and mandalas, Rinpoche conducted several consecrations in the area. Soon after his arrival on June 1, “Rinpoche blessed the Tiver Gate Prayer-Wheel House at Teshio, a village at the base of the Lawudo mountain. For many years it had been Ven. Tsultrim Norbu’s wish to be able to build this holy shrine, and eventually the conditions came together,” said Wendy Cook. Three prayer wheels line each side of the structure, while holy images of buddhas and mandalas adorn the walls like precious ornaments. “As it is on a main walking trail, many sentient beings will receive blessings from it,” Wendy said.

Another primary purpose of Rinpoche’s visit was to bring Rinpoche’s mother’s reincarnation, an 8-year-old boy named Ngawang Jigme, to Kopan to receive an education. He visited the boy’s home on June 6 to express this wish to the parents. They explained that they would send him, but because this is not considered a good year according to Tibetan astrology, they would wait for a better time.

“During his visit, Lama Zangbo, the young boy’s father, took Rinpoche to his own father’s cave and showed him the lineage and holy relics of his family, for which Rinpoche displayed reverence,” said Ven. Nyima Tashi.

“Every year Lawudo gompa conducts two nyung-näs at Saka Dawa, the time of Lord Buddha’s birth, parinirvana and enlightenment, and this was no exception,” said Wendy Cook. From June 7 to 10 Rinpoche led more than 90 people in these two-day fasting retreats and gave several teachings. “Nearly all the nuns from the nearby Thamo gompa came, except those who are now too old to climb the mountain. The Thamo nuns are incredibly inspiring, and their devotion for Rinpoche is awesome,” Wendy said. “The energy they put into chanting and playing the ritual instruments makes them sound like a choir of dakinis.”

The day after the retreat, June 11, a warm and sunny day, Rinpoche bestowed an Amitayus long-life initiation upon 300 people. They sat on mats in the front yard of the Lawudo gompa because, as Rinpoche’s attendant Ven. Roger Kunsang said, “If they entered the gompa it would fall apart!” Rinpoche taught for several hours, and when it was time to receive the blessed long-life pills, Wendy said, “There was a stampede towards the throne.” However, everyone was smiling, and “with a bit of crowd control, everyone had the chance to make an offering to their beloved Lawudo Lama.”

On June 13, his last day in Lawudo, Rinpoche gave the Thamo nuns a commentary on Vajrasattva practice, which they had strongly requested. Towards the end of his commentary, said Wendy, “platefuls of steamed potatoes and potato pancakes, topped with sour cheese sauce flavored with erma, the distinctive spice favored by Sherpas, were distributed in the gompa.” Then, after emotional good-byes, Rinpoche began the walk down to Namche Bazaar. Five minutes down the path, Wendy said, Rinpoche and his entourage came to a clearing where they could look back up at the Lawudo Gompa. “Everyone was leaning over the monastery wall, waving khatas and crying out, ‘Come back! Come back!’ They were so sad to see Rinpoche leave,” she said.

Nyima Tashi reported that “it was so difficult for Rinpoche to move towards Namche Bazaar, because so many people kept inviting him in to bless their house and have tea.” And when he finally reached Namche it was the same. “Usually it takes fifteen minutes to walk from one end of the town to the other,” Diana said. “But this time it took Rinpoche seven days, because of the local people’s requests for house blessings!”

One fortunate family invited Rinpoche to perform a puja for their 19-year-old son who had died exactly forty-nine days before, and Rinpoche ended up spending the night at their home. “At midnight, a flood of people, who had been waiting for hours to see Rinpoche, were finally allowed in,” said Diana. “They were traders, with matted hair tied up in red strings, coral in their ears, and such strong faith. They lined up for blessing strings, pills, pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and deities, and asked Rinpoche to perform divinations.”

The next day, Rinpoche went to the previous Lawudo Lama’s wife’s cousin’s home. The Lawudo Lama’s cousin-in-law Nyima Kinjom is 87 years old and her husband Au Palden is 94. Au Palden was very devoted to the previous Lawudo Lama. Every day since he was a young boy, he has risen at 4 in the morning to recite his prayers and The Diamond Sutra, and he still uses the rosary given to him by the Lawudo Lama.

At 3 in the afternoon on June 14, Rinpoche departed for Lukla on the last leg of his two-week visit. On the way, at the request of local teacher Lama Dorje, Rinpoche and his entourage visited the Nyingma monastery that Lama Dorje is in charge of. “We were so exhausted when we reached the gompa,” Ven. Nyima Tashi said. “Only Rinpoche has inexhaustible energy for sentient beings. He blessed every toad we saw on the way down, even in the dark. We met one toad almost every 50 meters, and Rinpoche would stop and bend down, recite many mantras and blow on each of them.”

Lama Dorje, considered to be one of the most powerful teachers in the area, is particularly concerned about the education of the young Sherpas. He feels the younger generation have no interest in spiritual practice or preserving the religious culture of Solu Khumbu, but instead focus their attention on making money. As a counter measure, Lama Dorje is encouraging young boys to be ordained as monks and educated in order to preserve the tradition. “He requested Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who gave a long-life initiation in his gompa, to send a teacher there, and Rinpoche immediately accepted his request,” Nyima Tashi said.

Finally, after spending two days at Lama Dorje’s gompa, Rinpoche made his way to Lukla, where he blessed four more houses. He stayed one night in Thami Lodge, where a library is located. “Rinpoche started this library,” said retreater Kendall Magnussen, “Because when people get delayed in Lukla waiting for a flight, he thought they should have something to read that benefits their minds.”

Rinpoche flew back to Kathmandu on June 16.