Simply upon seeing a photo of him I am often moved to tears, his radiant eyes and earthen presence are dumbfounding and extraordinarily powerful.
His incredible smile melts my heart, every time. The stories you hear, the life he led, the simple ways he touched people’s lives whilst gingerly reorganized their molecules in his own special way has become legend. Watching Lama Ole Nydahl speak about the 16th Karmapa gives me great joy. Watching his face light up as he recalls these memories of often daring, otherworldly and extremely powerful exploits with him are quite surreal and very moving. In front of an audience of five, or thousands he seems to have no filter for these feelings as they come pouring out of him like waves of warm heart, affecting deeply those who are present. You can see the devotion and love in his face. You can see what this relationship and connection meant to him. He and Hannah spent so much time with Karmapa and the opportunity to hear these tales of outrageous transcontinental pilgrimages to visit him never gets old. Needless to say I was deeply moved after today’s lecture and wished to spend the afternoon alone walking the beach. We have had scorching sun this entire tour and for the first time the beach was cool, and then the mystic foggy gloom of a storm brewing just over the horizon set in. I had just enough time to walk in this subtle ambience before it caught up to me and the rain began to pour down in a wonderful gentle tropical downpour. It was beautiful. Caught in the rain I couldn’t get Karmapa out of my mind. Perhaps Ole and I share in this devotion, though I never met the great 16th, there is a space for him in my heart that no one else seems to replace. For Ole you can clearly see, even now over 30 years later, that this great Lama has changed his life forever, and he too has a place in his heart that will glow forever brightly in his honor.
16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje
