Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Young Tibetans crossing mountain passes at night — some caught at the border, some dying en route — give this 66-minute conversation at Buddha House Adelaide its most striking moments. Khensur Rinpoche, speaking informally at the close of a 1988 Australian tour, opens with the Sera Je monastery school (350 monks, funded by an Italian benefactor), then describes these refugees: lay people in their twenties, fleeing to study Dharma, ordained on arrival in India. He recounts life under Chinese rule — collectivization, forced wheat cultivation for Chinese export, and the land reforms after 1980 that eased food shortages. The session closes with Rinpoche’s personal retreat history — Yamāntaka, Palchen Heruka, a three-year retreat from 1979 to 1982 — and a catalogue of teachings given at Tuśita Delhi and Kopan.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 26 RS 1988 03 31.mp3
UUID: d7fba252-19a0-4245-b3b3-675222970202
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Rinpoche's Story (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1988-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 65.8 minutes
Words: ~2,379
So they have five lay teachers who teach at the school. Oh, Tibetan. They give them they get they get a salary of four hundred, five hundred rupees a month. Who pays for them? They have one.
There’s one And I think it doesn’t. There’s one patron. His name is the Italian one Italian monk. His name is Luca. Luca Corona.
Uh-huh. He’s the school patron. Oh, so he funds that. He funds the school. Oh, that’s good.
He’s a he likes he likes the school. He likes the honor. He he’s been very beneficial. He’s been extremely beneficial to the to the monastery. Very rich.
His parents are very rich. Mhmm. How did he make contact with the monastery? It must be unusual. The Luca, the patron.
He met the center right. Particularly, he was he’s staying in Switzerland, and he met him. And this is how he originally made a connection with his monastery through meeting him in Switzerland. What period? Would that be the seventies?
Seventy five, seventy six. He was the he he built the school itself, the buildings. Boom. Hundred thousand. Twelve hundred thousand rupees to build the school.
One million two hundred thousand rupees. That’s a hundred thousand over a hundred Oh, three three floors. How many students did Rinpoche say on? Was that the At the school? Yeah.
All three hundred. The laptop that laptop. Laptop. Laptop. Just said.
Three hundred fifty students. Oh, this is the max school. Mhmm. Yeah. It’s not the orphanage.
That’s it. The school of Sera Je. Yeah. This is Sera Je’s school. Three hundred fifty monks.
How many old monks would be left there now from to back? He’s not there. Is he? He’s run away again. Yeah, from Buxar, maybe seventy.
There’s no seventy. There’s not so many now. But there’s many new monks from from Tibet. But they’re not they’re not this original lot. Many new ones have come.
Oh, I see. They’re coming all the time. Last year, two years, last three years, but many, many. Are these young people, though? The sarpas, the sarpas.
Very young ones can’t come. The youngest of the new monks from Tibet are fifth maybe fifteen years old. They come out of Tibet on their own? They came. They didn’t have any Oh, they would have to beg.
They didn’t have money. They just have a swag or something. So many of them were stopped at the border between Nepal and and Tibet? Many were caught and sent to prison, and some of them but some of them made it. So many of them had to climb over the mountains so they wouldn’t be caught crossing the border, some of them died, but they couldn’t carry they could carry hardly anything because of the difficulty of making the journey.
So they’d have to travel all night? So they know there weren’t any little there weren’t young people who could do this. You know somewhere maybe around twenty five years old. Thirty. Really?
What what sort of motivated them to come? They wouldn’t have been monks in Tibet, would they? In order to study dharma. So they would have been lay people when they came. Yeah.
They were lay people. And then they come and they all day once they come. And then they they become a monk. Monks when they come. There’s not It’s very rare.
It’s very rare to become a monk in Tibet because Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not possible. In some places in in cannot become a monk. So what parts of Tibet would most of these people come To to.
Two camps in the district house. In Sera, they had three hundred new monks. Up to bed. What’s this the most? Any.
A few. And one of his relatives came. Yeah. I remember that. I forgot.
And she went back? They did it one time. Oh lord. Oh, yeah. She went back.
Oh lord. Oh, yeah. She went back. So there In Dharmasala, there’s a monastery. There’s an underneath.
And there’s a new new arrivals from Tibet. Why did his relative go back again? Did many monks go back also? So she she missed her home. She got homesick.
Yeah. Yeah. What about the milks? Do some of us go back So many of the monks who aren’t doing well, who aren’t cut out for Being. For for being monks.
I can’t or I don’t have aren’t able to study well, etcetera. And some of them go back or some of them just become lay people. Yeah. Because they would really be very old, wouldn’t they, to start twenty five or thirty? Oh.
It’s difficult for food. Difficult for them. In Tibet these days there’s no worry about food. There’s plenty of food. This is in in in maybe in some areas, but in his area, there’s there’s no problem.
There’s there’s no with food. Previously, was difficult, but now they don’t even have to think about it. So these days, the the the Chinese have parceled out fields and and animals for the people. So they have food. So they have good crops now.
Before, what did they do? All the animals together, and they would only they would give the people a a small allotment each day of food Oh. When the when the Chinese first arrived. So it was like a communal They collect collectivized. Collectivized.
A communal bird and communal. But now they’re giving They’re parcelling it out. They’re they’re sharing out the land and and the animals. How long has this been happening? So they started liberalizing in maybe around nineteen eighty.
In nineteen eighty three, they that land and animals for the people. They were allowed to carry on trade. Trade. Yeah. Make money, profit.
What about the the So first, when they they collected everything that was cultivated, they collect all the crops. They collected all the implements. And then So when the previously, they had planted mostly barley, but after the Chinese came, they they hadn’t planted much wheat. After after the Chinese came, they planted mostly wheat. Is that successful?
So it it helped the Chinese, but it didn’t help the people, the Tibetan people. What they They they planted the wheat. Why did it help them? How did it help the Chinese? So, I mean, the the Tibetans up to that time had to eat mostly barley.
Yeah. And and and the and the Chinese didn’t eat barley. Yes. So the the flour, the wheat flour helped the Chinese, but it it wasn’t it didn’t help the Tibetan people because they didn’t eat it originally. It was planted for Chinese.
So most of it was taken to China. Yeah. It was exported to China. Was taken away to China. It was carried away to China.
So at that time, there was a lot of poverty and hardship. So before, yeah, it was extremely at first, it was extremely difficult. There wasn’t much food, and there wasn’t much food for the people. Now things have changed, and things are now things are much better. So they’ve been Chinese have been controlled for many years now.
So before there was a great deal of repression, they were still fighting against the Chinese. So there was a great deal of repression on the part of the Chinese. So There’s a photo of the incarnation, but they’re from Rinda. Elton. Australia.
And I’ll take those. Where is the Dharma teacher? Teacher? In seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. He just thought, you know, there’s sometimes he present Dharma teachers from the from the point of view of bases, paths and fruits.
Yeah. Basis, paths and fruits. Yeah. Would Yeah, that would really be Rinpoche’s choice bearing in mind that it’s a Western audience and it might be people who haven’t heard anything. So some something that’s universal, some I mean, mean, that can touch the heart of anyone.
It’s gonna be very simple. Yeah. Yes. Something. Well, what do you think?
What do you think about? Well, I’m just not used to it it the first it’s When you know, though. How how about how how long do you think it should be? Well, it can be a section on its own, and then people can read or not not read. What’s that?
Ten pages. Ten pages. Ten pages. I mean, it’s hard to say. Whatever whatever he comes up with is fine, really.
Got it. We can edit or add to it as we work with it. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Because they when we get it down Three three parts of basis, paths, and fruits. No idea. Area. Area. Yeah.
All the area. Yeah. Does he have the same name or is it a different name? Is he is he a monk? He’s not monk.
Oh, he’s not. Yeah. Yeah. He’s got different. A lot of steak is good.
So when does Rinpoche know about his X rays? When does he hear about those X rays? He’s had them. Mhmm. But when will he hear?
What Oh, yeah. I don’t understand that. I’ve seen them already. No. They want to send talk to the doctor.
The X-ray? Yeah. It’s different. Right. Yeah.
So the doctor’s got to see them. Yeah. Did the man who took the X-ray say anything? Sometimes they say something. Because I had X rays for my back, and the man said, ugh.
Why? Remember when my back was sore? And there’s something wrong with my spine. Yeah. And he just said something, then I had to take it to the doctor.
Any pictures? Other pictures? You have. I have some pictures I’ve got before. I made photocopies of Photocopies.
These. Oh, these. Some of these you’ve seen, but I had them all done properly by another photographer. You’ve seen some. But How many?
Thank you. Maybe we should put them all in their right order. I put numbers on them, which is first and second and that. You can stick it on with this. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten this is Friday the thirty first of march nineteen eighty nine and I’m at Buddha House Adelaide for the final interview of this trip with Khensur Rinpoche with Jampa translating.
Thank you. That’s good. Today, What shall we talk about today? Day as well. Some day.
About his retreats. In Tibet, he did the retreat on on the solitary on the. Solitary solitary realizer? Mhmm. The particular types called solitary realizing.
And then again in Buxar a retreat. Solitary realizer, solitary terrifier. Oh. Solitary terrifier. He did the same retreat.
And then he also did the Yamāntaka thirteen deity. In Tibet? In Buxar? Buxar. Yamāntaka thirteen deity.
And then Palchen Heruka retreat. Mhmm. In the in Tibet that one’s the the first one, solitary terrifying, one and a half months, then in one month. And then Thirteen. One month.
And then at, he also did the retreat. They did. In two months. Forty days. Two months?
Two months? C h I t t a. Chittamani, m e n y. Oh, Mani. This was in Mysore.
Oh. In Mysore. What? It’s Sera. Sera Mani.
Sarah. Good. White judiciary? White man’s Twenty days? Right.
And and. So together, forty five days. There’s Oh, they were together at the same time. Forty five days. Yeah.
Buddha House. Three years, three months? Three years, three months. Yeah.
December of seventy nine to February of eighty two. Do you want to to a list of the the teachings and the empowerment that Rinpoche has given himself? That he’s given to other people? David? So in Tibet, the three the collective topics?
And then do you have that list of text handy? Let’s go ahead. Let just let me just write a a code number or something. Oh, right. Okay.
So he he talked collected topics, you know, just in general, collected topics. And then What about perfection of wisdom. So all these three. Collect the topic. Collect the topics, awareness and knowledge, classes of reason.
I meant to have the job. Mhmm. That’s, you know, seventy topics. Abhisamayālamkāra, perfection of wisdom Mhmm. And then middle way philosophy.
It’s probably now. Middle way philosophy and The under the one text called the compendium the compendium of valid prime cognition. Okay. So So so in addition, in addition to these, he also taught ethical discipline. And the Abhidharma.
Mhmm. And then also they also grammar. They taught the same things on the truth. This is the empowerment. Mhmm.
So these are all the teachings. The empowerment and teaching. When when was that? Delhi Tuśita. Was Tuśita the place in Delhi?
It’s at the Dama Center in Delhi. Tuśita Dama Center. The Graduated Path. These are teachings he gave there, graduated path. When was he there at Tuśita?
We haven’t covered that. No. The engaging in the bodhisattva’s deeds. Heart Sūtra. Awareness and knowledge.
Are these empowerments? Not in their own teachings. The only nineteen nineteen eighty two. Oh. He stayed there six months.
After his retreat? Yeah. Mhmm. After he finished your body again, you retreat? Mhmm.
Hayagrīva. Hayagrīva in h a y a g r I b a. He did it twice. Twice. And Sera.
Sarah. Yeah. Good. White white white. Yeah.
Mahākāla. The permission. It’s called the permission. The Four-Armed Mahākāla. Preliminary preliminary practices?
The teaching? Back to Chenrezig. Heart of Wisdom Sūtra. Heart Sūtra. This this This this get the heart heart of wisdom.
Permission of the Medicine Buddha. So he’s gonna give the Medicine Buddha again in there. So and also, he’s gonna give the Heruka. Permission? vajra Śākyamūni permission?
So also at Kopan? Kopan? Kopan? Kopan. Let’s see.
The twenty four hour My Great Vehicle Precepts. The twenty four hour Great Vehicle Precepts. The oral transmission of the graduated path. How do you The twenty four hour great vehicle precepts. Refuge vows.
The path of grounds and paths of tantra. Opening of the eye of new awareness, the eye of new awareness. Awareness and knowledge. New awareness and knowledge. Just awareness and knowledge.
Awareness and knowledge. No. This is a different tone. Oh, I’m sorry. New awareness.
Awareness and knowledge. Let’s see.