Gratitude

Asked to contribute to this special edition celebrating the life of Namgyal Rinpoche took me into a morning of rich reflection.  So much to contemplate.  So many events spread over half a century of living and involving uncountable numbers of beings.  In the end I was simply awash in gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, to everyone in all directions.  

He was a purveyor of metaphors

buying and selling to all and sundry,

wandering widely, he set up shop,

in village greens, in conference centres,

in living rooms and places of time and knowing

that lacked geographic coordinates. 

He dealt in metaphor of all kinds;

cheaply mass produced fads, popular classics,

but also an extensive range of useful ones

for cleaning and removing stains, for unsticking

and lubricating squeaky hinges, for collating

and organizing data.  He had metaphors with hand grips

and ergo-metrically designed straps and quick releases.

Some were big. Some were remarkably tiny. He had

light ones and dark ones and a few that were both

light and heavy, dark and dancing, all at once.

Some allowed you to see all the way to Betelgeuse. 

Wherever he went, he was always interested in the old and rare

but also the new and innovative.

He had an uncanny knack of sniffing out

ones that people habitually carried wherever they went

and ones that had been forgotten in dusty cupboards.

His personal collection was extensive and it

was rumored that he had a some that were

so delicate you could place one of them on the finest balance,

and its weight was less than the lightest feather.

A collector and dealer,

he was a connoisseur of connoisseurs, who moved with ease

through the lives of countless modes of being.

Yet few know where he came from.

He seemed to just appear, and then,

with a smile, he'd gather all his wares

and stuff them into a tiny bag of blackness.

I say blackness, but actually,

I couldn't really make it out.

It wasn't like anything else in the world.

It was silky and soft and heavy and encompassing,

and everything went tumbling into this bag of silence,

this unseen baggage of belonging and vastness.

Looking around, he'd grin and then,

tossing his bundle in the palm of his hand,

he'd pop it into his pocket, right next to his heart.

Some people said that he lived in

a far away place that had no need for metaphor,

that his own house was simple and unadorned.

It was even thought by some with wild imaginations,

that he lived in the bag of blackness, or even the shirt pocket.

Of course, there were always gushy mushy types

who thought his home must be his heart.

To me, he was a purveyor of metaphors,

a traveling tinker, a mysterious vagabond

who trod the roads and byways of our lives.

He once allowed me to carry his bag.

Truth be said,

I think he saved my life.

by Tarchin Hearn