I'd say about two dozen square tables perfect for playing "Patchen

 

Patchen.

During all those early years there were rites. One of them was Sunday afternoon, which lasted for years.

On Sunday afternoons at half past three, Rinpoche would walk down from his house to the dining hall. The dining room had been the old chicken coop, where the egg production was, with a structure to house a few hundred hens. We had transformed it into a dining room, with a kitchen in the back and about twenty ... I'd say about two dozen square tables perfect for playing "Patchen".

Across the street from that dining room still in existence, is the master's bathroom. And for us the practitioners, the residents, it was the bathroom next to the Gonpa.

Then on Sundays, Rinpoche would come down, he would enter with a ceremonial attitude his torso facing us... How beautiful was our Rinpoche! ... he would enter and sit at a table in the lower part, usually facing the center.

In general people would try to go and play Patchen with the master. This was played on fours and anyone who wanted to would sit down. Not everyone was interested in Patchen, but those of us who were interested occasionally liked to sit at the table with the master, then there might be a little dispute to participate.

Well, I'll get down to business ...

That day Antonio, another person and me, we had had a slightly more abundant meal, we had had a few beers and we arrived a little late. When I say late, I mean that the teacher had already entered the dining room, and when I arrived, there was still some space at Rinpoche's table, something very rare. I asked permission and was able to sit in front of Rinpoche at the table where we were going to play Patchen. By then, those beers I had drunk were already in my bladder and I needed to go pee in the bathroom. At that time, I had prostate problems and it wasn't good for me to be holding it in for too long. So, at the end of a game I said: "Excuse me, I'm going to the bathroom" and I got up and went to the bathroom.

Yeah. When I was peeing quietly, there was something, I wasn't feeling entirely pleased with myself.

I went back to the table, and there, when I sat down in front of Rinpoche, Rinpoche turned his head not to look at me and said in Italian: "I don't want to play with him" ... imagine, I don't want to play with him, he wasn't even saying it to me, he was saying it to the others. Then I understood everything. I was absent and it was obvious. Rinpoche would play from three o'clock, sometimes until ten o'clock, many times at six, or seven or eight. And Rinpoche would also get up to go to pee, but when Rinpoche did that, he would call to someone passing by: "Look X, sit down in my place and play this turn of the game for me, try not to lose. And he would go to pee quietly.

I, being so important, had gone to pee, leaving the teacher waiting to continue the game.

Of course, when I realized all this, I felt some embarrassment, but... Rinpoche was telling me that he didn't want to play with me and I defended myself for a few seconds, then Rinpoche, raised his head, and to Grisha who was passing by he said: "Grisha, sit in Michel's place". Of course, I had to get up. I was very embarrassed, and to tell you the truth, I was with that unhappiness, inside, for a few weeks....

Well, on Sundays I went anyway, to the dining room, to be with the others, to see Rinpoche, and each time, with some embarrassment. But, little by little I managed to understand deeply, what it represented of the ego, that small mistake. Not so small in the measure of being the master, but I was able to observe my ego in a more evident way.

Little by little the wound healed and I came on Sundays a little more normal, a little happier to be there, although I did not dare to come to Rinpoche's table.

One Sunday that I arrived a little bit late again, about three months later or maybe more, I entered the dining room and Rinpoche was already seated at a table with two other people, I think Gilberto was there and when Rinpoche saw me, he called me: "Michel, do you want to play with us?", this time he did not tell me in Italian, which he knew was not my favorite language... (laughs). He told me in English – “please sit down- It was the happiest day of my life!

the teacher had forgiven me, if he had forgiven me, this meant that he justified, I don't know from what point, that I had done the necessary work to observe what had happened to me. And my unhappiness was transformed into a transcendental happiness...