A letter from Shenpen Hookham
Dear Walter,
I was just reading through the Chronicle wedsite and enjoying it very much, when I came across a message sent in 2002 asking about Michael Hookham and the Longchen Foundation. I am Michael Hookham's wife, Shenpen Hookham and I thought it was about time I said a few things!
After doing a three year retreat in Oxford under the direction of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Khenpo Rinpoche gave Michael Hookham the name Rigdzin Shikpo. He said that this was naming him after his realisation. Rinpoche was extremely pleased with his realisation and said many wonderful and inspiring things about it. I was the interpreter for Rigdzin Shikpo when Khenpo Rinpoche was teaching him in retreat,
I want to add my voice to the stories about Rinpoche and put the Longchen Foundation on the map, as it were. It is hard to know where to begin.
I was myself a student of Trungpa Rinpoche when I was at Reading University in 1968. As secretary of the Reading University Buddhist Society, I would invite Trungpa Rinpoche to come to speak to us and enjoyed spending the whole day with him on those memorable visits. I wrote to him asking what I should do to find out more about the nature of mind and, surprisingly, he told me to go to India to take meditation instruction from Karma Thinley Rinpoche. He did not tell me that he had asked Karma Thinley Rinpoche to come to join him in Samye Ling and therefore expected me to come back with him. I discovered this fact many years later when I met Trungpa Rinpoche again in England. He then told me he had simply sent me to India to 'absorb the vibes'. That took me five and a half years!
I met Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche in France in 1978 (I think) and have been his student ever since. Soon after I met him, Khenpo Rinpoche seemed to intuit my karmic connection with Trungpa Rinpoche and insisted I go to see him. It felt like being sent off into the wilderness as I thought Trungpa Rinpoche would be very inaccessible to me. Khenpo Rinpoche then told me to hand back my nun's robes and return to lay life, encouraging me to do my D.Phil in Oxford. It is in Oxford that I met Michael Hookham. Having heard he was a student of Trungpa Rinpoche, I was hoping he might provide me with a way of reconnecting to Trungpa Rinpoche. That is how we met and were married within months by both Khenpo Rinpoche and Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche said somewhat enigmatically to us 'It's about time for both of you!'.
For the story of the Longchen Foundation, you need to contact Rigdzin Shikpo himself. The Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche knows about it. He stayed with us for a while when he came to study in Oxford shortly before Rinpoche died. On one memorable occasion he came and gave us a talk on Shambala at Wolfson College.
As a student of Rigdzin Shikpo, I have to say his teaching are astonishing and for me are the key to understanding Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings. Often what to me sounds obscure and even misleading, turns out to be some specific Dzogchen teaching that Rigdzin Shikpo had from him in full. He often can tell me what Rinpoche used to think certain words meant in English and with these clues I can return to Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings and suddenly they start to make sense. Suddenly I can spot the brilliance, precision and depth in what Rinpoche is saying.
Rigdzin Shikpo had obviously been ripe and ready for the Dzogchen teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche gave him in Oxford in the 1960s and early 1970s. He is a very careful note-taker and he went through his notes in detail with Trungpa Rinpoche, checking them for accuracy. He is still working on those teachings and producing a kind of maturation of them in the courses and writings that he is doing at the moment. In reference to those times in Oxford, Trungpa Rinpoche once said to Rigdzin Shikpo, 'Ah, those were the good days!'. Rigdzin Shikpo certainly remembers them as a very special time.
It is one of those strange quirks in life that Rigdzin Shikpo never followed Trungpa Rinpoche to America. Rigdzin Shikpo says that Trungpa Rinpoche had told him when he left that he would be back in Britain soon. It is as if Rigdzin Shikpo was always waiting for him to return. Eventually Rigdzin Shikpo asked him if he should come to America to join him and Rinpoche simply said, 'Not now.' In retrospect this sounds poignant. At the time it seemed to suggest he should wait for later.
At one of the last interviews that we had with Trungpa Rinpoche at Kalapa Court in Boulder, I asked him whether, if we could get a suitable place together for him, he would return to Britain. He almost jumped out of his chair saying 'Yes!'. It was almost as if he were just waiting to be asked. I determined there and then to make this my next project as soon as I had finished my thesis. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. I always think of this with great sadness. If only I had known how short of time we were and how quickly he would leave us in his earthly form.
Of course, there is much I could say about Rigdzin Shikpo and the Longchen Foundation. Maybe it is appropriate that there be an air of mystery and strangeness about them. In recent years, Rigdzin Shikpo and I agreed that it was appropriate for me to set up my own teaching mandala and we called it the Awakened Heart Sangha. He thinks of the Longchen Foundation as a body of teaching rather than as an organisation and feels that I am integral to the whole development of that. So there are now two organisations, the Longchen Foundation and the Awakened Heart Sangha, both of them inspired by Rigdzin Shikpo's teaching coming from Trungpa Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsultim Gyamtso.
There are websites for both
With best wishes,
Shenpen Hookham
0870 432 3445, Shenpen@ahs.org.uk
Hermitage of the Awakened Heart
Ynys Graianog
Criccieth
LL52 0NT
Shenpen Hookham
0870 432 3445, Shenpen@ahs.org.uk
Hermitage of the Awakened Heart
Ynys Graianog
Criccieth
LL52 0NT
© 2004 Shenpen Hookham, posted here by permission.
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Dear Shenpen,
Thank you so much for writing. I know so little about Rinpoche's years in England and I'm always delighted to learn more. At some point -- budget allowing -- I would love to fly over meet you and Rigidzen Shikpo and other's who knew Rinpoche during his years at Oxford and Samye Ling. As students of the same teacher, so we share enormous common ground. Were Trungpa Rinpoche's talks to the Reading University Buddhist Society recorded? Does anyone have notes from these talks?
Best wished and thanks again,
Walter
* * *
Dear Walter
Thank you for your message. It is great what you are doing. It would be lovely to meet you if you ever make it over this way. I have lost track of almost everybody from those days, but I will wrack my brains a bit. It was definitely not recorded but someone might have taken notes. I was too bowled over by it all I think. I was just so amazed to be there at all, I dont think I thought of taking notes. I didnt know anything. I didnt know what I was hearing, to tell the truth. It was all working at gut level somehow. I remember telling Trungpa Rinpoche at Samye Ling, at a personal interview, that I didnt know anything about Buddhism, so what should I read. He suggested I read Krishnamurti and Meister Eckhart.
Did he often recommend this kind of reading to people?
It is lovely to be in touch
Shenpen
* * *
Dear Shenpen,
I know that Rinpoche often expressed appreciation for Meister Eckhart -- but I don't remember his mentioning Krishnamurti. [Would anyone else like to chime in here? What books did Rinpoche recommended to you?]
Walter
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