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Far off, in the lean-to kitchen, I heard the breakfast bell ring.

Twelve hundred!

 

 

WHYIN GOD’s name would anyone do these crazy prostrations?
I wondered this to myself, as I sat down on my cushion and swabbed off the sweat and sucked for air. I wondered at the question for years in fact.

In part, I was desperate. I truly believed my only happiness would come from full enlightenment. And I did them because they were expected. Tylanni had done Ngondro as a young woman, and as a student of Tylanni—well, I wanted to be obedient. But there is more to the story—there usually is. In doing those prostrations, something incredible was also happening. I was pressing my forehead to earth, which is a form of frontal lobe therapy as was later explained to me by experts of the brain. It seems I was bowing to heal my own trauma.

 

 

WHEN YOU ARE a student of Rinpoche, you get to meet with the great master—one on one.

It’s called semtri, or “pointing out instruction,” where Rinpoche is able to see the nature of your mind. While I had no idea what this “nature of mind” meant, I was properly impressed. I had heard that a student could become enlightened during Sem Tre. Rinpoche could tell you one small thing and poof, enlightenment. Of course, I didn’t know anyone this had happened to. It was like a Tibetan urban legend—useless but intimidating.

 

 

I WAS SHUTTLED up to Tylanni’s house, which was at the top of a mountain, for my meeting.

I waited my turn in a small bedroom, sitting very still with my hands in my lap.

Although I would never admit it—I was too devoted to Tylanni to outwardly question this whole scene—I didn’t know about being a student of Rinpoche’s. He was thirty-four years old, a monk, and from Tibet. What did a young monk know about a divorced mother of two from America?

Across the spectrum of another possibility, I asked myself, What if he knew everything? What if Rinpoche—via his powers of enlightenment—could see so deeply in me that he’d view my past lives and my ruined karma, which were ripening in this life? Would he take one look into my eyes, shake his head, and send me away like some kind of all-knowing grim reaper? Would he say, “I am sorry Jennifer, but your next life will be lived as a bug. Bad karma. Baaad bad karma.”

When it was finally my turn and I was being led into the room, I felt sure I was doomed.

Rinpoche was positioned on a loveseat that had been covered in maroon fabric.

The man was the size of an NFL football player. His shoulders were draped in maroon fabric. His head was shaved to less than a quarter inch of black stubble. His skin was dark brown.

Spencer, who had met Rinpoche on another retreat, said it like this: “When I met with Rinpoche, I felt like a fifty and when I was done talking to him, I felt like a thousand!”

It was true—to be in Rinpoche’s presence could make a person happy. The man was enlightened after all, but aside from the whole enlightenment label, he was also a very cheerful person. He smiled a lot and had a huge belly laugh.

As I positioned myself on a mat on the floor, I bowed and trembled like a dashboard dog. How I longed for Spencer’s optimism. He was blessed to be so open and so free.

Rinpoche’s translator sat on a mat next to me. Her name was Anne and she was from Texas, a scholar at Rice University who devoted her adult life to translating the work of great Tibetan masters.

Next to her, I felt myself becoming that much more tiny and insignificant. Given my first inclination, I would have put my head down on the floor and cried. Instead, I just sat there and waited for my sentence—as if Rinpoche were my judge.

Afternoon sun fell through the western windows; its warmth spread across my back.

Anne told Rinpoche I had done twenty-five thousand prostrations and would be done with Ngondro right on schedule.

Rinpoche did the double thumbs up motion, which he had learned from his American friends. It was funny, that thumbs up, but I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t even smile.

“Rinpoche is pleased,” Anne said. “He says you are a very diligent, hard-working student.”

Diligent? Hard working? Okay, this was a good beginning.

Rinpoche became serious and cleared his throat. He spoke in Tibetan and I flipped open my notepad. Anne leaned over and said I couldn’t write.

In fact, our meeting was sacred and private. I was not to repeat anything—even the questions he would ask. My writing, my note pad and the little mechanical pencil I carried everywhere—my only devices of security—were gone. I had to rely on my mind, my memory, and my heart. Even though none of these had me failed me before, I lost all faith and became defined by fear.

Rinpoche asked a series of questions related to Buddhism and to meditation practice, things about Buddhist theory—of which I knew the answers—but he told me I couldn’t respond. He said I needed to go think instead. He wanted me to come back with the answers later.

Did I mention I wanted to put my head down and cry?

I scurried out of our meeting, left Tylanni’s house, and hiked down the treacherous mountain road as the heat of the day rolled sweat down my spine.

I needed to be away from witnesses and my teachers. I needed to go off alone and cry—yet again.

When I was a good distance away from the house and any possible spectators, I stopped walking and the let the tears fall. They weren’t the monster tears of three years earlier—the Tara tears that constituted a lifetime of unknown grief. These were tears of defeat.

 

 

I READ A book once by an American man who claimed he had experienced the transcendent state—enlightenment. He wrote, “There were a few moments of apprehension as the Self died.”

This Self, described as “dying,” felt like an O-ring on the space shuttle—something that fell away when it was no longer needed and yet necessary for the initial lift-off into the nongravity state.

I underlined the passage and began to study the Self, which is defined as a complete and individual personality, especially one that somebody recognizes as her or her own and with which there is a sense of ease.

In Jungian theory, the Self is the totality of the psyche, the coherent whole symbolized by the circle (mandala), which pulls together the conscious and unconscious mind and integrates the personality.

I had to admit that I did not recognize my Self with a sense of ease. I did not feel that I had a solid container that held a coherent personality or a total psyche either. My dreams were filled with stories of being lost in buildings, taking wrong turns on unknown roads, missing flights, and losing my car. During the daylight hours,
there was a lack of continuity in my thinking and even in my actions. I had a stop-start quality that I could not seem to control and this quality was tied to a bundle of complex and confusing emotions—primarily grief—but if I pushed to look more deeply, there was also a good share of anger too.

Initially, I believed my condition was the result of the many traumas of my past—the deaths, the sexual assaults, the terrors, the lies, and the betrayals. But I had examined all of these experiences with microscopic attention. I had written books, seen therapists, and studied. Certainly, through conscious attention to myself, I should have been able to heal; yet my inner Self wasn’t intact, and I had proved this truth—once again—in the meeting with Rinpoche. I was—outside of my own control—tearing myself down.

Why?

What was wrong with me?

As I looked into the valley that held The Pure Land, tears rolled down my cheeks. I had seen into the nature of my own mind and knew I was not moving forward, despite my years of hard work. I was not strong enough to face apprehension, and even fear, and then pass through it. I was nowhere near the transcendent state. Being in service to The Pure Land and to Tylanni were not taking me where I needed to go either. Yet if Tylanni, these Buddhist teachings, and enlightenment weren’t enough to bring me wholeness and peace, what else could there be?

The wind blew up the ridge and through the pine forest—the sound as big as a tidal wave. I faced the western sky, now ribboned
with gold and pink light from the setting sun, and I had no answers to my own questions. Not one.

I pushed my tears away and continued down the rocky mountain trail, feeling weary beyond my years. All I wanted was to go home and be with my kids.

TWENTY

HOME, AT LAST

SPENCER AND JOSEPHINE played in the hot tub out back, and I was at my desk, reading and responding to emails. Busy work.

Jo cried, “Mom-meee.”

I went to the open window, just steps from my desk, and leaned out. Jo was standing in the tub, pointing one long arm at Spencer. She wore only a pair of cupcake panties. Total little girl exposure with long legs, knobby knees, and a proudly exposed flat chest.

“He’s splashing ... ” Jo began.

“... I didn’t. I swear,” Spencer interrupts. His expression held innocence.

“Why is she soaking wet?” I asked.

Jo was drenched, her face still dripping.

“Well, maybe a little bit... ” he admitted.

While Spencer was caught off guard, she splashed him back.

Spencer sputtered, taking up the role of victim Jo had left behind.

“Did you see that? Did you see what she did? ”

I just shook my head, rolling my eyes. These people were so crazy and funny.

“Please don’t fight,” I said. “I’ll get into the tub with you guys in a second.”

Spencer, outraged, did a huge splash back at Jo and the whole thing began again.

“MOM!” Jo yelled.

“Spencer! Enough! Both of you,” I said. “I’m coming. Sixty seconds. Count so I can hear you.”

They started counting, loud—one, two, three—and I sailed back to my desk to look at the last email, which was from an adoption organization in Virginia. It was an invitation to speak at their annual meeting. The author of the email had been trying to find me through my publisher and had just found my website.

“Ten, eleven, twelve,” they counted.

I read and then reread the invitation.

“Twenty-five, twenty-six ...”

I typed fast:
I am not an expert on adoption. Many apologies. Good luck.

I hit the send button and raced down the steps, pulling off my clothes as I went. Under my jeans and top, I wore a bathing suit—like some kind of super hero, ready for action! I tossed my clothes on a chair in the dining room and jogged out back.

“Sixty!” they both said at the same time.

Crisis averted.

 

 

I NO LONGER pushed myself to be in service to Tylanni or to travel the great distance to The Pure Land for retreats. It was just too exhausting and too expensive to live bisected between being Jennifer Lauck and Jampel Sherab.

I did continue my meditation practice, though. I had made a commitment to complete my Ngondro and I was not going to quit—no matter what.

I completed the practice right on schedule—done in the two years requested by Rinpoche—and savored the accomplishment in the solitude of my bedroom. On my last prostration, a poster of Tara fell down and broke across my altar. Water bowls tipped over, a crystal shattered, and I stood there—panting and sweating—while I stared at the impossible scene that marked prostration 108,000.

It was like some message from the gods or the deities or the higher forces of the universe. I thought,
I am not alone.
I had never been alone, not like I thought I had been, and this realization had me on my knees as if I had witnessed a miracle.

Ngondro had been my Mt. Everest, my Tour de France, my English Channel crossing. And I had done it. Moreover, I had done it and something bigger than me had said, “Yes, you did it!”

 

 

MY EVENING WITH the kids fell along the lines of our established routine—Jo, Spencer, and me. Play, homework, and dinner.

We clustered together on the sofa and I read
Judy Moody
to Jo and
Harry Potter
to Spencer. While I read, Spencer drew an excavation exhibition into a crystal cave far under the surface of the earth.
Jo drew princesses who held flowers in their outstretched hands. They continuously interrupted me to show off their creations and I told them how wonderful and talented they were. They both shimmered with the attention and the praise.

 

 

AFTER THE PHYSICAL exertion of Ngondro, I opted to take a quiet and relaxing Qi Gong class at a nearby college of natural medicine. Qi Gong was a welcome change to those damn prostrations but even more welcome was the teacher—a tall Midwestern man with red hair and a red beard. He was calm, peaceful, and fantastically beautiful. Now there was a man to rest your eyes on.

Upon closer inspection, I saw he was also married and that was just as well. I wasn’t ready for a relationship—yet.

 

 

AFTER THE CHILDREN fell asleep, I went to my office to check my computer. A response had come from the Virginia adoption organization. The writer insisted that as an adoptee, I was the ideal speaker for their annual event.

Cricket song whined through the open window and the glow of the computer lit up my face in the darkened room.

The amount of money she offered was staggering. I thought,
You’re a fool to pass up a paying gig, Jennifer!

But adoption? What could I say that would mean anything? I knew nothing about adoption other than the fact that I had been adopted—twice—and in my own opinion, adoption was not a great choice. I also knew, given a preference, I would not adopt a child. No
way. But these were my experiences and my opinions. They were not flushed out with any deep thought or consideration. Frankly, I didn’t really want to think about adoption at all.