His ability to make difficult subjects both understandable and hilarious will never cease to amaze me. He told us it’s ok to go to hell. That it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Big laughs. We have this vivid, intense view of hell - with the fire and brimstone and endless suffering - but it’s just not so. He said it’s more like just another state of mind. In Hell we feel everything so strongly, we believe what is happening, making it real, making it endless. We have the same idea about death, that it’s something tangible and deeply frightening. But death is also just another state, it also just comes and goes, unavoidable. Death is not to be feared. He said death is more like a sunset. Or the end of a novel. It just comes and goes. We can even become free of the fear of death, we can even enjoy it. Huge laughs again. He was so funny, so touching and so deeply heartfelt at the same time. His resolve for us to understand, while simultaneously being overwhelmed with his own laughter was intoxicating. At one point he was laughing so hard he just buried his head in his hands and shook. Everyone was in fits of giggles once again. Seeing your teacher laugh that hard, while talking about death certainly has a way of lightening the mood. That is the power of the Karmapa.
