How Long? (In remembrance of Chogyam Trungpa, Rnpoche on the occasion of the anniversary of his parinirvana)

In my life, I was always looking for the truth.

My dad was a lawyer, a good man with 

strongly fixed opinions. My mom was a full 

blown schizophrenic, constantly walking 

around the  house talking to herself and 

crying. So, it was  like growing up between 

a rock and an hallucination. I didn’t 

recognize the truth in anything they said. 

“Normal” for me was not as it was for 

most middle class families. I felt like I was 

waiting for someone to tell me what

was going on. 

When it was time for college, I didn’t know 

what I wanted to study, what I wanted to 

become. I wrote a paragraph abut it years 

ago:

"At the college interview I couldn’t tell

them what I wanted to be, which may be

why I didn’t get into Harvard…I hadn’t

a clue…I just wanted to find out what

the fuck was going on with having a life

anyway…which no one I encountered

even seemed to consider…like life was

a freight train I was on, going where no

one knew, but I had to get with that

Program, in some way, to be some how

successful at something, while, all the

while, we were all barreling along towards

some unknown destination. It never made

sense to me…”

I wanted to help people….I don’t know why. 

My time at college was spent looking…trying 

to find out what made sense. I did a lot of 

theatre. I also encountered Buddhism, which 

seemed to have potential. Strangely, a feeling 

would arise from nowhere sometimes that 

someone was looking for me. There was a tune

I would listen to that moved me: “How Long” 

by John Fahey.  How long before I would find 

what I was looking for? Would I ever find it?

I did radical theatre for a year after college.

It was social satire at its finest. It did have 

an effect on the audience. Some people 

walked out….some took the whole cast to

their homes to party. But I realized it wasn’t

going to change anybody’s minds or help

them that much. I though: “Maybe 

Buddhism”.  I was in a waiting room for a

doctor and overheard two guys talking 

about a Tibetan teacher that smoked 

cigarettes and drank liquor while he was 

giving talks. Something clicked in my mind 

and I thought: “That could be my teacher”.

I moved to Boston and went up to Vermont

to meet this man, Chogyam Trungpa, 

Rinpoche. When I laid eyes on him, I knew

I had found what I was looking for…the 

truth in the form of a man. I also knew on 

the spot that what I was going to have to 

do wasn’t going to be easy. 

To make a long story short, the best word

I could use to describe the next thirty years

is excruciating….excruciating beauty, pain

and effort. Uncompromising clarity. In the

beginning, I didn’t know how long it would

be until I understood the teachings, or if I

ever would. But I had faith that what I had

seen in him was correct and true…so I just 

kept going.

At this point, I know I was right. I make no

claims as to any Buddhist “realization.”

Only that because of the path I did stop 

drinking and I did stop thinking. “Thinking”

meaning the monkey mind of discursive

thought left home like a bad housemate 

I’d lived with my whole life.

Now, my teacher is gone. How long until I

see him again? I’ll have to die and be 

reborn and find him again. Given this life,

how hard could it be? One thing I’m sure 

of is this life was no accident.