Day 4 — February 10 2024 — Dehra Dun — visit to Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche

2/10/2024

The pilgrims were granted a meeting with Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche. This was on the date of the Tibetan New Year called Lama Losar, when students traditionally go to pay respects to their teachers. She was very kind and generous to delay a scheduled puja in order that we might hear her words of wisdom. Jigme Rinpoche and Her Eminence exchanged khatas.

She contrasted the Dharma in the East and the West and spoke of how learning is important but it requires practice and heart. Empathy is not compassion. Devotion is hard to explain as one needs to come from something that can’t be put into words. Her Eminence also drew a distinction between kindness, which is very easy to connect to, and bodhicitta which is “an entirely different stratum.”
On Jigme Rinpoche’s request, Her Eminence spoke on pilgrimage. She said it was “one skillful method which leads you to meeting those challenges of a rather linear perspective and brings you to embrace something that is much more profound, subtle, and can’t be put into words”. She spoke about how it could come in the form of a stomach ache or in meeting all the challenges of travel or to "really feeling a depth and profundity of just connecting to what buddhadharma is in a very subtle inexpressible level" such as when one sits under the very Bodhi tree where the Buddha actually sat or one circumambulates a stupa or when one sees a monk or nun meditating, these produce experiences that books and lectures cannot provide. When you are brought to tears, you feel that you open a very important gate to really understanding what it means to be a practitioner. Until then we are merely students.

Jigme Thrinley Rinpoche and Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche

Happy pilgrims pose with Her Eminence Khandro Rinpoche and Jigme Thrinley Rinpoche

We walked the grounds of the monastery complex with 300 resident monks. They included a World Peace Stupa and an inspiring statue of Guru Rinpoche. We went inside the stupa and heard teachings from Jigme Rinpoche. Each teaching immersed us yet more fully into the Sacred Journey.