Jack passed away Thursday, (today, the 15 of October) after a brief illness. He was a loyal Shambhalian and loved the Vidyadhara very much. He lived at Karme Choling when I lived there with my wife, Nancy. That was where I got to know him. Later, he invited me to Gampo Abby where I worked with him for ten weeks on part of the first expansion project. He subsequently moved to Japan, which he had visited when he accompanied the Vidyadhara during his trip there. He became a chado student, then an instructor, in the Urasenke School of Chado in Kyoto. He took an old, Japanese home/building, and converted it into a traditional Japanese tea house. This was such unusual a thing to do, that he was written up in periodicals and newspapers, and afterwards, his chado school bumped up his rank to a somewhat high degree. There are many types of tea ceremonies, from simply sharing a cup of tea to a formal feast that could take hours with many dishes of food specially prepared. I had the great fortune to attend two such feasts with Jack, one in Boulder at Rinpoche’s tea house, and one in Kyoto, when I was visiting Jack for some weeks. They were the greatest and exactly the most splendid Shambhala feasts I attended in my life. The dralas were in attendance, as was the presence of adishthana.  I can’t say I will miss Jack, since I feel we have known and will know each other for many lifetimes. As the punchline to one of Rinpoche’s favorite jokes goes: What’s time to a pig?