Inspired by the writings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, I decided to take refuge and get on the vajrayana path (as I conceived of it) as soon as possible. After doing a fair amount of research, and puffed up with intellectual pride, I decided to ask Ato Rinpoche to grant me refuge, since I knew that he, like Trungpa, was a lineage holder in both the Mahamudra and Maha Ati teachings. After a short and very beautiful and intimate ceremony in the living room of his home, with all my incredible presumptuousness I asked him, 'So, Rinpoche, which do you think is the best path for me, the Mahamudra or the Maha Ati path?' He chuckled softly and said, 'I don't prefer my right eye to my left eye.' It was such a gentle rebuke, delivered with such deftness, that the words really shook me. Until then, I'd thought of the path as an intellectual pursuit. In that instant, looking into Rinpoche's eyes, I first got a glimpse of how profound these teaching were, and how they were rooted in experience, not thinking.