Homage to the Guru, the Deva, the Dakini—and to all patrons that invent divinity.
Rigdzin Karma entered this world in the year 2468 since the Buddha’s Parinirvana, which is a very Buddhist way of saying “recent enough to be documented, ancient enough to be misunderstood.” He was born in a valley southeast of Jomolangma, where mountains rose effortlessly and livelihoods did not. Beauty was abundant. Opportunity was conditional.
His father, a Tibetan refugee, departed early—into samsara, another valley, or a different set of responsibilities. His absence was complete enough to become formative. His mother came from a family that excelled quietly at survival, but she herself chose a narrower path, one described by relatives as renunciation and by accountants as an administrative inconvenience. Between these two absences—one physical, one material—Karma learned early that permanence was an unreliable companion.
By the age of ten, he had become what institutions classify as an orphan and what life recognizes as a student. When his trajectory seemed set toward subsistence punctuated by weather, the karmic ledger shifted. In 1998, he entered a monastic school whose name—Druk Khamsum Wandue Choekyi Phodrang—was longer than some of its winters.
The monks observed two things. First, Karma learned quickly. Second, he worked without protest, lifting stones, hauling timber, and memorizing texts with equal seriousness. Whether this reflected discipline, devotion, or lack of alternatives was never conclusively determined.
He was advanced to Chungoen Dongak Dargay Ling, where he studied grammar, poetry, sutra, and philosophy while participating in the ancient monastic praxis of constructing buildings for future generations to renovate. Under his first master, Lopen Yeshey Rinchen, Karma spent four years balancing textual rigor with physical labor, discovering that the doctrine of impermanence applies most consistently to structures erected with optimism.
A second teacher, Lopen Lekshed Jamtsho, appeared briefly and decisively. Under him, the material cohered. Grammar ceased to be mechanical. Sutras stopped resisting. Philosophy revealed itself less as abstraction than as disciplined clarity. Karma’s aptitude sharpened, not theatrically, but unmistakably.
In 2003, he arrived at Dechenchoeling Monastery and met Khenpo Namkar Donkuen Drubpa, who would become his root guru. Instruction here was neither indulgent nor performative. The Longchen Nyingtik teachings were transmitted without embellishment, and Karma absorbed them with the seriousness of someone who understood that precision mattered.
After three years came retreat.
Retreat, as described in brochures, is a controlled encounter with the mind. In practice, it is an unsupervised audit. Karma retreated to the Towers of Hidden Paradise, a location chosen for its silence and distance from distraction. The silence held. The mind did not.
One evening, a radio—abandoned by a less rigorous predecessor—began to play. The music was unremarkable. Its effect was not. In minutes, it accomplished what months of solitude had not: it revealed the fragility of resolve built on containment rather than insight. Karma remained in retreat physically. Mentally, he traveled widely.
At sunset, he asked himself a question less poetic than honest: whether this was genuine renunciation or simply a different form of delay. By morning, he descended.
In the capital, Karma encountered another system of doctrine: institutional legitimacy. Despite fluency in Dzongkha, years of classical training, and comprehensive textual mastery, he learned that knowledge required external validation to circulate. Enlightenment, absent certification, was considered non-transferable.
So he adapted. English. Science. Western literature. Temporary work. Permanent fatigue. He learned that institutions value clarity, provided it is formatted correctly.
In 2006, worn thin rather than broken, Karma entered a Christian community that asked fewer preliminary questions. He was welcomed, fed, and trusted with responsibility before credentials. The warmth was sincere. The structure was firm. He remained for fifteen years—long enough to be shaped, challenged, disappointed, and altered. His attempts to improve outcomes for others were interpreted variably. Institutions, regardless of theology, do not enjoy unsanctioned reform.
He crossed continents. Accumulated books. Infiltrated North America. Called 49th parallel home.
In 2020, Karma nearly died. Twice.
The proximity of death simplified matters. The identities he had collected—monk, scholar, convert, migrant—proved administratively irrelevant. There were no forms. No doctrinal checkpoints. Only clarity, arriving without ceremony.
He returned to the Dharma not as performance but as accountability. He sought forgiveness without argument. He offered lamps without symbolism. Before his first master passed, they met once more, closing a loop that required no interpretation.
When his teachers eventually died, instruction did not cease. It changed modality.
The message, delivered without flourish, was concise: Stop enacting Buddhism. Study it.
So Karma did. Texts, commentaries, philosophy. Physics, too—not out of novelty, but because inquiry obeys no jurisdiction. The world appeared increasingly coherent when stripped of slogans.
Today, Rigdzin Karma lives with deliberate simplicity. He writes poetry. Translates when asked. Guides a small number of students who assume this is preparatory to something public.
It is not.
Somehow, without intention or effort, Karma had developed a tendency to cross paths with Titans—figures practiced in the performance of divinity, particularly in places where divinity benefits from careful administration. On more than one occasion, his continued presence appeared misaligned with projects involving the manufacture of sacred authority. He made no claims, issued no challenges, and sought no position. Yet contrast alone can feel threatening, especially when divinity is under construction.
His final retreat is not geographic. It is internal, uncluttered, and immune to certification. Radios cannot reach it. Committees cannot improve it. The Dharma, uninstitutionalized, remains intact.
By: David Shanker
(A longtime close friend who, over decades, has declined repeated invitations to adopt any of the above disciplines, preferring sustained affection at a safe observational distance.)
