East Comes to West Comes to Centre (1974)
Photograph by Peter Deutsche
These things take a while, but the "while" is interesting. Exactly 200 years after the first British expedition to Tibet (1774), the Gyalwa Karmapa visited the West, the first Tibetan high lama to do so. It took that long for sufficient interest and support to grow, reaching a critical threshold by 1974 when the Karmapa and his retinue arrived in Vancouver, then Toronto to visit the Dharma Centre and its rustic retreat property near Kinmount. The plan was to inaugurate a Tibetan gompa onsite, but that's not quite what happened.
The Dharma Centre of Canada is, in a deep way, rooted in a very Canadian version of universalist Theosophy. In fact, the Centre's meeting place was once the headquarters of the Toronto Theosophical Society (1920-67) at 52 Isabella Street. "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" was our Bible; its author Manly P. Hall, born in Peterborough, halfway between City and Village (Kinmount). So, with the bright shades of Pascal, Wordsworth, Ramakrishna, and Gautama baptised by Fire, and Maurice Bucke's "Cosmic Consciousness" tucked in bag or suitcase, with Whitman we'd hit the Open Road singing of the Body Electric to Crystal Lake and the old mink farm – abandoned perhaps by latter day Norsemen moving on to Gimli, Manitoba – intent on seeding the New Dispensation and unfolding our own Space Force,
We had invited the Karmapa in 1973 although wheels had begun to turn in our direction a bit earlier. Initial contact occurred during the mid 1960s in Britain when a few Tibetan lamas, sent by the Karmapa to learn English and the ways of the West, met the Canadian Buddhist monk from Toronto, Ananda Bodhi Bhikkhu. He saw to the transfer of property and an old hunting lodge to their Karma Kagyu monastic order, of which the Karmapa was the spiritual head. The lodge had recently been repurposed by the Bhikkhu and his students as the Johnstone House Contemplative Community, but Ananda Bodhi had decided to return to his roots and a Canadian Experiment: the Dharma Centre, founded in 1966 just half a year after landing at Malton Airport during the September equinox with two of his students, British immigrants Barry Goulden, a equestrian champion, and Tony Olbrecht, recently graduated from Cambridge, now called Vanaratana, a novice monk.
Then there was the First Canadian Dharma Expedition (1968) – not quite to Tibet, but near enough – to Sikkim and the Karmapa's seat-in-exile at Rumtek Monastery. Ananda Bodhi led a group of a dozen students from the caves of Lascaux in the Pyrenees to Ceylon, Burma, and India by ship.
'Travel is broadening', and no-one travels like – or as much as – this World Teacher.
While in Calcutta at the Mahabodhi Centre, the king of Sikkim, a member of the Namgyal dynasty that had ruled Sikkim since 1642, requested and received the Buddhist Precepts from the Venerable Ananda Bodhi and invited him to visit his Himalayan kingdom, Nye-mae-el in the indigene Lepcha language, meaning Paradise. And at Rumtek, situated on the high slope of a green mountain not far from Gangtok, the Karmapa and Ananda Bodhi finally met.
Three years later, Ananda Bodhi returned to India with 108 students. Western interest in Vajrayana Enlightenment was obviously strong and growing. He wasordained by Karmapa at Rumtek and upon his return to Ontario enthroned at Green River as Karma Tenzing Dorje Namgyal Rinpoche during the full moon in October, shortly after 11/10/71, his 40th birthday.
The Karmapa requested that his first Western tour, sponsored by the Dharma Centre of Canada, be overseen by Namgyal Rinpoche, and the various regionssoon had their respective coordinators: Akong Rinpoche at Samye-Ling in Scotland looking after Europe and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche supervising in the United States. All three lamas had been involved in Britain with the transfer of Johnstone House to the Karma Kagyu order.
October to November 1974 seems a blur now, at least between key events such as the Vajra Crown Blessing bestowed by the Karmapa in the Kinmount temple. This is the black and gold 'hat' fashioned from dakini hair that His Holiness places on his head as he embodies Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Infinite Compassion. Just seeing the crown is said to quicken Enlightenment.
Back then DC members rarely took photographs. Prime directives of the Western Mysteries, after all do include "Dare to Know and stay Silent"? There are only two or three photos around of the Karmapa's visit, but fortunately one is excellent, taken by Peter Deutsche and included here. It shows Karmapa and NR in the Temple at Kinmount, prior to empowerments that will take place the following week. Present and unseen in the photo are a contingent of students who have come from a month-long retreat with Namgyal Rinpoche at Deer Lodge in the Haliburton area. Others remained on the land, working to prepare for the Karmapa's visit, building thrones, canopies, and fixing up Hill House where Karmapa will reside for the duration.
Under the direction of Karma Thinley Rinpoche, Peter Boag had almost completed work on the Milarepa chorten, the first Tibetan stupa in the Americas, on the hill just across from the big log house, to be consecrated by the Karmapa before he departed.
After lunch one day, His Holiness chose the site for a Kagyu gompa or temple. He set off down the trail with a long white kata (scarf) and upon reaching near the crest of the hill where the covered Buddha shrine now sits, he turned and walked eastward into the trees and, while reciting a mantra, tied the kata around a low branch of a pine tree. Very near this spot Pyramid Cabin was later built by members of the Mysteries Lodge and upon the door a brass plaque was affixed, dedicating the building to HH Karmapa XVI.
Where that plaque is now, I'm not sure. There is also the sign that stretched high above the driveway during the Karmapa's visit: "Karma'i Garchen" (Tent of the Karmapas). It was taken down soon after and finally placed discreetly in the foyer at Main House. The Dharma Centre in the 70s, after all, was universalist and non-sectarian like Theosophy, and in fact not even Buddhist but the embryo of a Space Age Mystery.
Rab Wilkie