I deeply trust your counsel and intuition, so I will start right there.
Death is one of the most powerful sources of disturbing emotions right now for me. Not talking about my own death (but I know it shouldn't be excluded at all), but the evident and increasing possibility of the death for one of my dearest and closer ones.
Thank you, dearest Lama La. I feel so lucky to be again in touch with you, even though I don't forget your lesson on how there's not such thing as good or bad luck but accumulated karma. "Action and reactions". "Causes and conditions". Karma.
I was reading the messages so full of gratitude people publish in the VNOS's webpage and couldn't avoid but starting to write my own one. I refrained from trying to share it because it was so personal, maybe so out of place, so full of manifestations of my ego trying to reify itself, to gain like a protagonist role... But I now think that it may be possible you won't find it annoying if I share it.
It goes like this:
"Venerable Gen Losang Namgyel's presence, the feeling of His presence, and meeting Him about 10 years ago now, marks a before and an after in my humble existence. I guess I should not say that I feel immensely fortunate because of this encounter or meeting, because there's this fact I learned from one of His teachings: there's not such a
thing as fortune or good or bad luck, but accumulated karma.
Anyhow, I DO feel immensely fortunate, and I can't avoid that feeling! But let's call it 'blessed' instead; for blessed I am.
Blessed for living the wonderful experience of having His shining and wide path—on one hand—and my humble and dark narrow path—on the other—crossing each other's trajectories for a brief but definitely one of the most valuable and meaningful times until now in my existence.
It was an experience which not only allowed one of my wildest dreams to come true: to be in touch with a real Lama, something which I didn't anymore expect to really happen at all at that age: being already forty-something years old; but it was ingrained in my thoughts as an impossible early fantasy since I read for the first time 'The third eye', when I was thirteen or fourteen, and then another ten books published by the same internationally known author who casually went signing by the name of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.
Not caring right now if this writer was telling or not the truth about his life, knowledge and experience, there should be little doubt, in my humble and mostly meaningless opinion, that he had some kind of insight into the life and training of monks at the Potala and about what does it mean to practice Tibetan Buddhism. And maybe even a little glimpse of what it means to become an ordained Lama.
I guess, just guess, some little hint gesture of Venerable Gen Namgyel reaffirmed on me this possibility.
Even thought Genla Himself listened and commented on with gracious and kind attention my questions about if one could give some credit to what's stated in those books, he refrained from giving an opinion or definite judgement about its true or false nature. But I remember also his tactful and patience-filled explanation on how there was nothing negative in the way this writer helped in his own way to gain a good deal of the public's attention to how fundamental and important the practice of Dharma is.
Where I want to get to... is that it was a real dream come true when I finally was seated beside Venerable Losang Namgyel, dear Genla, A Real Lama!
Asking Him how should I address Him because my respect made me shamefully aware of my profound ignorance.
Then walking by His side on the roadside to have a coffee near a Zen Temple in Spain where He was teaching Dharma through coaching courses, and joking with Him about how close we were to cause an accident because most of the drivers couldn't avoid to part their focus off the road to watch a Mahayana Lama wearing His full garments and
maybe making them think they were seeing HH The 14th Dalai Lama Himself.
"What if we get hit by a car?", I asked.
"Karma", He answered back, and we both laughed.
I guess He perceived all of my shame and sense of inadequacy at a first glance, and He then had the deference to kindly and humorously put us in the middle of very funny situations, and to then answer a bunch of questions I asked, and celebrate some silly jokes I made (and to add his own subtle ones), while I was not nearly being aware of the blessing I was enjoying at the moment.
Even though the deepest feeling of admiration and respect for Himself was as sincere as it can be, I feel now I wasn't able to grasp, I insist, the meaning it had, and the unspeakable blessing I was receiving at such a moment.
And neither do I still have now words to try to express, or understanding enough to grasp, the enormous possibility of realisation I'm having still being in touch with Him and having the opportunity to participate in the practices and receive the teaching on Dharma He so generously and firmly keeps promoting around the World; maintaining
myself always, or as much as possible, an open and disciplined mind and a devoted heart, that is.
It's up to what I call 'me', or to the result of my efforts to subdue my primitive ego, not to let this opportunity to sadly become another piece of..., well, another piece of foolish nourishment for my primitive ego! But, instead, to do my best to humbly be thankful, disciplined, and to appreciate the jewel I'm receiving not just for my own growing and
development but to put it to the best possible use in order to humbly help the whole sentient beings' growing and development, in the first place.
Thank You, dearest Venerable Gen Losang Namgyel.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
An undeservedly blessed, once-again-beginner."