Playing Ritual Instruments
For Chenresig we don’t need any instruments, but on our first morning with the smoke puja one of us starts into what will be an exciting first to quite a handful of us in the next few days: We are requested to take turns playing the big ritual drum for a thün or later for a day.
Rinpoché explains, it is not so difficult, really, we just follow the cymbals, starting by taking out the drumstick when the cymbal is taken to hand. The rythm he characterizes with big-big-big-big-small-small-small for the Smoke Puja, which would translate into 4 crotchets somewhat louder and three quavers piano and a quaver break to fill what could be seen as sequence with 6 crotchet beats. Mahakala seems simpler with its three crotchet beats and the one crotchet break. But the instrumental parts before and after the recitation of the „Om ma dag …“ are tricky. We have to pay close attention to what the cymbal is doing and there is a way of playing final notes where the cymbal’s sound is extended and we have to resist the temptation to imitate that on the drum.
At another occasion Rinpoché explains that we shouldn’t be surprised if more conservative people raised their eyebrows at what we are doing here and how soon in our acquaintance with the dharma we are allowed to play these sacred instruments.
Since these traditions of doing ritual practice together have been cultivated mostly in the monastic context, it is handed on much differently there and that has formed the expectations. There are many roles that can be filled in a monastic context. You ‚d be a tea monk serving tea for several years and then there would be a position that you might eventually be allowed to fill, which is head tea monk and they’d have a slightly elevated seat. The Tibetan term for the job actually being „throne holder of tea“ we get an idea of how remote this is from how we lay people behave amongst each other and how we organize our events and our group practice in a much more spontaneous and democratic way. We sure appreciated his generosity in teaching us these things before he explained this background, but now we understand how downright brave it is for him to do so.
The Meaning of Tsam in Düntsam
So dün means 7, signifying the seven days that we’ll be dedicating to practice. But what precisely does tsam mean? Rinpoché recommends we get used to the jargon because often the translations are misleading. We find in this case the word retreat to carry connotations of war and fear of defeat. Tsam, on the other hand, just has the basic meaning of boundary. Rinpoché explains that like there is a distinct division between mindful state and a not mindful state, there are rules created to support mindfulness, to sustain it: We are not going anywhere, no one will come in either, so the physical boundary of our retreat place and the mental boundaries of the rules help us maintain mindfulness, we benefit from staying within the physical sanctuary, which supports us in maintaining mindfulness in thüns and in-between thüns as best as we can. The place, like many rural areas in Germany has very poor cell phone accessibility.
The house, being a pretty run-down establishment, doesn’t have wi-fi either. So it is perfect for our purpose. If you are feeling alone, that’s the whole point. You signed up voluntarily. That’s the only difference between retreat and prison – Rinpoché, our retreat master, or drupön, jokes. In our case it’s a pretty spacious confine, we are allowed to walk into the forest, but not down into the village. If we need something from town, we can ask the drubyö, in our case a member of the kitchen helper team, who will go and get it for us. The schedule for the next couple of days is impressive:
Nourishing the Tsam with Silence
What happens between the thüns? Rinpoché explains the interval between the thüns is called thüntsam. Tsam is the word we already know from düntsam, so this is the intermission between two thüns. Maintaining mindfulness, not seeking conversation where it is not necessary, reciting the Dorje Sempa mantra, this is how we are encouraged to spend the off-thün time, the thüntsam. We are encouraged to nourish the tsam with silence.
Rinpoché explains how the umze will be leading us from thün to thüntsam. After dedication and a moment of silence he or she will be starting to recite the mantra for us to join in and carry on with this less elaborate version of the practice wherever we might want to go. We could go stretch our legs in the forest, do silent yoga with one of the participants, who is a professional yoga teacher, or whatever feels right for us, within the boundary. One special thüntsam will happen every day between the two afternoon thüns. We’ll be taking a vow of silence for this 60-minute interval, this also being intended as a support for mindfulness. Rinpoché reflects with us on how there is so much social pressure about speaking: We meet and we say hello and if we don’t, the silence might be perceived as awkward. He encourages us to embrace this opportunity and deal with the awkwardness that might be perceived of: Let there be awkwardness.
It’s okay to be silent.
If just being silent around people seems difficult, we could also keep a distance, stand alone, take a walk or sit on the balcony. Be creative in nurturing the retreat! Another habit that we will break with to nurture our retreat is eating after lunch. Day 4 of our düntsam is a new moon day and we will be taking sojong vows.
On Falling Apart and Being Gently Held
One of the most awesome features of this retreat is that Rinpoché not only makes himself available for scheduled interviews but is also around a lot, spending the off-thün times in the garden or in our dining room. So people can approach him and they do. The sight of him sitting with someone immersed in a private conversation, be it in a corner of the garden, on the terrace or in the hall, is part of the picture that my mind is forming as a visual memory of what this düntsam will have been when eventually it will be in the past.
It is not so much through my own conversations with Rinpoché, but mostly through being asked to translate for people in their interviews that I am starting to get a clue as to what a great service he is doing us by making himself available for these conversations. People have so much devotion and share their deepest hope and despair, share their uncertainties and their lack of orientation, share how their personal emotional issues reflect into their difficulty to practice, share their freshand raw suffering, as Rinpoché termed it in one of his evening talks.
It is more than once during these interviews that I am humbled by seeing somebody else’s devotion and openness.
People feel free to fall apart in these conversations. There is so much trust and so much beauty in how people can be people with him. It is more than once also that I am touched deeply by how kindly he listens and encompasses the particular problems in a wider view of things when he replies.
Some need it in words, some get a hug, if that’s what they need to seal the conversation or to calm down. Some get a longer answer in the evening’s talk: Rinpoché’s teachings seem to have this quality of growing somewhat organically with the needs of the people he’s with. And I feel privileged and grateful for being allowed to observe his work so closely…