How I Met Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

August 17, 2024

Khandroling

Interview with Paora Te Oti Takarangi Joseph from New Zealand

My name is Paora Takarangi however Rinpoche used to know me as Paul when I first met him. Then I became more Maori and that is my Maori name, and the Maori is transliterated into Paul. I am from New Zealand and the Maori name is Aotearoa.

In Maori custom in general we probably talk too much because we like to acknowledge everything, so first I would like acknowledge our Teacher, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, and the Sangha here at Khandroling, the Land of the Dakinis. I am the fortunate one to be here and experience this place.

For myself, I guess my first memory that has some kind of relationship with Rinpoche and my other teachers, is that when I was quite young, around 11 or 12 years old, and I remember looking at the world globe for the first time, and on the globe I noticed a country called Tibet. For some reason it just stood out to me and I grew up in a very small place called Ruawai and not many people resided there, maybe 500 people lived there. It was in the rural northern part of New Zealand. I was very sheltered, and I didn’t know what the world was like, my world was a lot smaller. But I always had Tibet on my mind after seeing it on the globe.

So I guess I carried that and as it is in life, one thing led to another and I traveled to many places around the world and then on the odd chance one time, my mother who was a school teacher had a good friend, Pamala, and Pamala had a friend who is a Gelugpa nun – Celia. I think Pamala was supporting her and anyhow one thing led to another and Pamala said, “I have a friend who is a Buddhist nun and maybe you can meet her.” I was planning to travel to India and I said yes, please, can I meet her.

Pamala also brought around Khyentse Rinpoche from Amdo, a Gelugpa Rinpoche who lived in New Zealand. This was in 1986. This Rinpoche ended up settling in New Zealand and he set up and Gelugpa Gönpa there. He had many students and he was a very lovely man and I was fortunate to spend some time with him and he would stay at our place on Waiheke Island. Pamala also brought another Lama with her called Lama Karma Samten, who was Karma Kagyu.

So, I was very happy that I got to meet two Tibetans and a western Tibetan Buddhist nun, and I told them I was going to India and I asked them where should I go and they said I should go to Kopan Monastery.

So, then I went to Kopan Monastery, like many Westerners, in November of 1987 and I spent around four months there. I also received teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala. When I came back to New Zealand I got involved with the Karma Kagyu lineage and Lama Samten and I did my ngöndro with Lama Samten. This was also in 1987.

With Lama Samten you had to do four ngöndros and he was a hard task master. I did some of my ngöndros at Kopan Monastery which is very close to Auckland, and some of the practices I did in Bodhgaya. When I was going through my second ngöndro and was doing Gururyoga, my friend Alistair Gager who lives in New Zealand, and was also a student of Lama Samten in previous years, spoke to me of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. And he said to me, “Maybe you would like to meet this teacher.” I was a little bit iffy because Lama Samten was quite strict and until you finished your ngöndro, you were not allowed to receive any other high teachings such as Mahamudra and Dzogchen, etc.

Then I found out from Alistair that Rinpoche had been in a New Zealand quite a few times, the first time was in 1986 at Banks Peninsula. So in 1996 Alistair said to me that Rinpoche was giving teachings in Epson, a school in Auckland, and would I like to come. I agreed to come. I still had not completed my four ngöndros. I took my time, at that time I was doing the Guruyoga.

So I went to the teachings with Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and I was lucky because when I went to Nepal I had received other teachings from other masters, like Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche, but when it came to Chögyal Namkhai Norbu I listened to the teachings but I thought maybe I didn’t hear properly. So I went away from the teaching and really I didn’t think much more about it.

I went back to my ngöndro and the teachings with Lama Samten and I had also moved from Auckland to Whanganui. Whanganui is my Maori tribal area. I was also discovering my Maori roots at this time which is quite important because what I had had difficulty with was that I did not grow up as Maori, as indigenous, in a traditional sense, so I had to rediscover that.

So I went back to my tribal area to discover that and I also kept up my ngöndro. I bought a house there along the Whanganui River, and one morning I had quite a significant dream. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu appeared in the dream and we were both sitting on the other side of our traditional river, and we were sitting in a Nikau thatched hut, and Maori would build their traditional homes out of these Nikau trees. Nikau trees are very beautiful.

So, we were sitting in the hut overlooking the river and Rinpoche clearly went through the nine purification breathings with me, and then he went through Gururyoga with me, and it was very clear, and then he said to me in the dream, now we are going to fly the length of the Whanganui river. The river is about 100 kms long, and there are a lot of traditional pa sites along the river and it’s all uncut brush, like here at Khandroling You can imagine that many of these old trees here were never cut down, so the river is very elemental and primal. So we flew down the Whanganui river and then we flew back again past where we were sitting, and then he said to me, “Ok now we are going to Mt Kailash and Tibet.”

Then before that, in the dream, on our way to Kailash and Tibet, we stopped. And I gathered that where we stopped was Italy. I had never been to Italy until recently, to Yeshi’s teachings, and that was quite recently, around six weeks ago. So, we went to Italy in the dream and I remember the cobble stone streets particularly in the dream, and then we went to Mt Kailash and Tibet. I don’t remember much about that at all really.

But the really interesting thing is that recently at the teachings with Yeshi, after the teachings we got invited to a barbecue at the house of Svetko, and the wonderful barbecue was in Castel del Piano. When we walked there and when we left, my experience was that this place felt like where we were in Italy in my dream of 1996. I had never seen this kind of street before. I was quite excited when I realized it was the street in my dream.

I mention this story about the dream because when I was doing my Guruyoga, it was only a piece of paper, until I met Rinpoche. When I was doing practice and reading the text it was only reading, and in the dream when I did Guruyoga with Rinpoche, I recognized the nature of mind.  The other interesting part of the dream is that when I woke up, I was very excited.

So, after I had this dream, I knew I needed to go online and look for this Master. I discovered there were some teachings happening in Australia, in Namgyalgar, I booked a ticket straight away. That was at the end of 1996.

I went to Namgyalgar and the interesting part about the dream is that when I got to the teachings with Rinpoche, for the first 20 minutes he was speaking word for word the same as in my dream and I could remember a lot more easily because it was back then. So it was very clear to me and I remember at the time I was listening to Rinpoche and it was exactly like we were sitting back on the Whanganui river bank.

So, I guess like some of our Vajra brothers and sisters who have had similar experiences with Rinpoche in the dreams, that’s really what led me into the teachings. And it still continues, Rinpoche has led me here to this wonderful Gar, the Vajra Dance and Goma Devi and I really hope that the rest of our Community can come here as well to experience this place and be in Rinpoche’s vision from his kindness and what he has offered to all of us.

In about the year 2000, I had another significant dream in which this time Guru Rinpoche appeared as a golden statue coming out of the ocean at the top of the North Island of New Zealand. Guru Rinpoche said that he had been here along time ago but your people had forgotten. Later I discovered that our ancestor Te Rakaihautu had flew here from Mount Kailash in Tibet – probably on a garuda which we call the Paerangi or Korotangi bird. Our name for Tibet is called Patu-nui-a-rua.

I will end with this korero or talk with a waiata or song and it is sung quite often and it is really about the truth. It says that the truth leads you to be in the knowledge concerning the relationship with all things and out of that comes the compassion and from that the community or marae as we say in Maori.

Waiata
Ma wai ra e taurima
Te marae i waho nei?
Ma te tika, ma te pono
Me te aroha e.

Who will tend
To the marae (out) here?
Truth, honesty
And love will.

This song is often sung at pōwhiri and tangi. It is sung by the hosts and begins with the grammatical structure we are learning – asking who will do something. (The ‘ra’ is poetic, for the meter of the song.)

Featured image: Paora with Rinpoche at Tashigar South