The circular window of the dining room of Rinpoche's house.

 

The circular window of the dining room of Rinpoche's house.

Throughout the years 2003, 4, 5, and 6, the retreats in Tashigar were numerous. We had two years, if I remember well, when there was a monthly retreat. Some years Rinpoche spent in Tashigar Norte eight, nine, ten, I think once, up to eleven months almost the whole year. That is to say that we lived there, a certain number of practitioners lived in the camping, in the houses, which translated into an affluence in Rinpoche's house. When I say affluence, I mean that there were always people who were strangers to Rinpoche's family. In the kitchen it was to help Rosa, on our teacher's side, it was to help him sometimes to rearrange some things in his office, in his studio. Other times it was to repair or reinstall the internet bam, it was a Movistar bam and we had many problems with those things at that time. We had to invent new solutions all the time. In general, the Red Gakyil, the biku, some of us were there, Raul Baratini, sometimes Rolando and many times me. That day we had been doing something and as many times, we were invited to share the table with Rinpoche at noon. It was a little party for us, although it was always a very quiet party. That day we had lunch with Rinpoche, sometimes we would talk about topics that were not usually discussed at other times like politics. And that day when everyone is leaving, Rinpoche gives me to understand that I could stay with him, to perform a task at the dining room window.

The window of that dining room is a large hole, more than a meter in diameter, which is covered with a very thick, round glass, supported with four stainless steel hooks, forming a kind of rhombus, or cross if you want to see it differently. Then, our teacher quickly gives me to understand that the task is to pass some strings of five colors, the five colors of the elements. Blue, green, white, red, yellow, and you have to pass them around the perimeter and from time to time, the string goes horizontally or vertically to form a cross.

The size of the window means that one person, Rinpoche alone, cannot cover all four hooks at once, and my task, I quickly realized, was to facilitate his movements so that he could do it more continuously.

We didn't talk anymore, after the first explanation of what we were going to do. It was silence, it was a kind of meditation that lasted two, three hours, I don't remember, but it was very long. Very simple, very deeply pleasant. It was really for me a moving meditation. At a certain moment I dared to break Rinpoche's silence.

So, you are doing this so that the little birds are able to detect that there is an object in their way and they are not going to kill themselves against the glass, right? But my question contained: but is there something else?

Then, Rinpoche looked at me with his mischievous childish smile: "yes".

But that "yes", he meant no, that is; "that too". Obviously in the threads there was something else. He did not give me another explanation; I did not dare to ask him for it and I was left with the idea that there was obviously an energetic aspect that for some reason I was not able to grasp.

Perhaps seen from the outside, that little event with the master may seem unimportant. In my memory it remained as a wonderful day, that somehow gave me a lot, I don't know what, but it remained as a very, very fundamental thing, one of the most important things of my experience with Rinpoche.

Truly today, I always treat him as if he were here watching me, I believe he is watching me. I thank him for that day in a very, very particular way.