Captain of the Boat
Top left : the photographer Lauren Milordis; Left to right in the boat: Ursula Oddie, Namgyal Rinpoche, Terry Hagan, Sara Elderfield, Michael Bobrowicz
Namgyal Rinpoche started teaching regularly in Western Australia in 1985 and returned every year until 2003. We built him a house adjacent to the retreat property near Balingup, about 3 hours south of Perth city. He would teach for a week in the city and then hold a retreat at Balingup. He would teach at Balingup for about a week and then take a break, travelling and exploring around the region with a small group of students.
He had one particular, favourite drive, through the forests south of an old saw-milling town called Pemberton. The track went for many kilometres through dense hardwood forests, ending in a clearing with a boat ramp on one of the most beautiful of rivers, the Donnelly River.
Getting out of the car, looking at the river he would say, “I wonder what’s down the river?”
Whatever the present arising circumstances were, they were to Namgyal Rinpoche just the rich soil of dharma. The classroom was only one of the places where he taught.
In July 1996 he took a group of students: Terry, myself, Ursula Oddie, Sara Elderfield and Lauren Milordis, to stay at Pemberton. We secretly hired a boat. On the 11th of July (Ursula’s birthday) we drove Rinpoche down to the river where the boat was waiting.
We motored down the river though dense forest, trees overhanging the water and densely packed together on both banks. We travelled in muted light, sound muffled by the forest, through a long sage green tunnel. He sat in the centre of the boat sometimes noting detail in the landscape and soundscape, plants, and the calls of unseen birds in the forest. Sometimes we just sat in quiet watching this green world go by.
Finally we rounded a bend and suddenly burst out of the forest into the river mouth with a pristine white sandy beach stretching endlessly in both directions and a wide open blue sky, an explosion of bright summer sunlight.
We sat on the beach watching the waves, walked in the surf, and picnicked on sandwiches, birthday cake, coffee and tea.
He smiled an awful lot, he had a birthday present for Ursula, made some terrible puns.
It was a day of awe and wonder, the teacher taking us where we had never been before, captain of the boat.
In all my lifetimes may I never be separated from my guru.
by Michael Bobrowicz