Serving Tea

I served tea to the Sixteenth Karmapa in 1980 

for a week.  Me and this other guy, Craig Smith, 

who happened later to become important in 

South East Asia for some reason....not through 

the organization, but, I guess he was brilliant or 

something. Anyway, I was in South Carolina at 

the time, and, I got this call from someone saying 

I was invited to come to Washington D. C.for

a week and serve the king of the Kagyus. Well, 

I took a week off of work... my wife was fine with it... 

so, I drove up. Almost missed a turn and died, but 

got there. I'll tell you this now, a sidelight, but, I had 

an affair with a woman that week. I knew when she 

asked me for a ride where she was staying. She 

was close to Ripoche. As we were driving, I didn't 

turn to her but I said: "Will you sleep with me?" There

was a pause. Then she said "That's it?"  I said: 

"Yes, that's it." She said ok, so, I

drove to where I was staying.  

The week of serving His Holiness  was rather 

uneventful, yet stressful. There was a 

protocol about how to serve. Usually, the servers 

were off in the wings, attentive to His Holiness's 

needs, but out of view.  Craig seemed to have been 

invited to sit with His Holiness while he was watching 

T.V. I heard that His Holiness saw some footage

of starving children in Africa and cried openly.

Mostly, His Holiness ignored me, probably because 

I was so uptight. One night he had an audience with 

some important person, from India, I believe.. I felt I 

should "get out of the way", so, at that moment of 

serving tea, I was totally unselfconscious,

as if I was on stage, playing a part. His Holiness put 

his hand on my head, for a  few moments, saying: 

 "Very good, very good" in English. That was nice.