By Stephanie Mulholland
In 1979 I turned 18, graduated from high school and went to my first Tibetan Buddhist retreat in Dordogne, France. I met up with my older sister Emma who had been living in Nepal with her boyfriend Elias Capriles and together we hitchhiked from Barcelona to Dordogne to attend the teachings of HH Dudjom Rinpoche. When we arrived we were shown the castle on the grounds where the teachings would take place, and the field below, where many of us camped. Sogyal Rinpoche was there as translator to HH Dudjom Rimpoche, but he was staying in the campground as well. I took refuge at that retreat, both in the Buddhist sense with HH Dudjom Rimpoche ( he gave me the name Pema Lhadron) but also in the sense that I was following some sort of urge to be loved and accepted, especially by men. So at the end of the retreat I accepted an invitation by Sogyal Rinpoche to go to his center Orgyen Cho Ling. It was also a fantasy of mine to live in London as a young adult, looking for fun and freedom from parental restrictions.
I stayed at OCL on and off for the next year or so and in early 1981 Emma invited me to come to Nepal to visit her and Elias. In January of that year Mike Farmer and I made our way first to Delhi, and then to Kathmandu. I had a year’s open plane fair and this was meant to be my gap year before starting college. The aim was ostensibly to meet lamas and hear their teachings, but always on my secret agenda was to meet guys and get hooked up with who I fancied or who I thought fancied me. In fact I did meet lots of lovely young Bhutanese and Nepali guys and made some good connections. I turned 20 that summer and we celebrated my 20th birthday at the Bir Restaurant with many friends, both Western and Eastern.
When I returned to London at the end of summer I found that I was not well – I was feverish and turning yellow so I was admitted to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London with a diagnosis of Hepatitis A and put in isolation for the first week. Towards the end of my stay I had a visit from John Renshaw whom I knew from Dorgogne. He told me that he’d heard of this new lama on the scene who he’d heard was an amazing Dzogchen teacher and said he was planning to go to his next retreat and recommended I do as well. I thought “Ah, this sounds promising”. Sogyal Rinpoche had taught me the basics of sitting meditation and guru yoga as well as Vajrasattva practice, but I felt it was time to move on.
So in the summer of 1982 I found myself in a car traveling from London to the Norwich area where a campground complete with a big teaching tent, outdoor showers and a teepee for a dormitory, were set up for the first Namkhai Norbu retreat in the English countryside. I don’t remember what Chögyal Namkhai Norbu taught at that retreat, except I do remember us all working hard trying to do the flaming vajra posture with our bodies. At the end of the day folks would line up to go and speak to Rinpoche and I had to pluck up all my courage to do so. He was kind of scary with a rough sounding serious manner and voice. When I got up to speak to him all I could do was thank him for teaching and tell him that I was struggling a bit and finding it hard to be disciplined enough to practice but that I was really going to try now. He just looked at me and nodded as if to say, “OK, let’s see what you can do – prove it”.
The next time I got to meet Rinpoche was the very next summer, but this time in Conway, Massachusetts which was about an 8 hour drive from the DC area where I was living and beginning my studies for nursing. Tom Garnett and I drove up together and so it began, my many decades long relationship with Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and the teachings he so authentically put across to us. These days I’m not so hard on myself any more. I’ve realized the value of just being present in the moment, not living so much in the past or the future, although my mind wanders to those places I remember to bring it back, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. I love the Vajra Dance practice and am able to dance twice a month or so where I live just south of Washington DC. This summer was a dream come true to be able to return to Tsegyalgar East after many years, and to dance on the Universal Mandala with many vajra kin. Truly wonderful!
I want to express my deep gratitude to Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, Namkhai Yeshi, and all of my Vajra kin, some of who are mentioned in this writing and others not, who have been my friends and helpers on this journey of life. A la la ho!
