Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute editorial session, a biographer reviews early chapters of Rinpoche’s life story with translators and Khensur Rinpoche, clarifying details for the manuscript. The discussion centers on Rinpoche’s Kham village origins: local currency practices (use of Chinese coins rather than native Tibetan money), customs of animal-lending for trade journeys to Lhasa, and village administration—headmen, district heads, and the five-year rotation system for representatives. A key moment is the childhood story of Rinpoche’s first recognized signs of spiritual power: as a young boy, he extinguished a protective fire lit outside a sick person’s home and scattered warning stones; the person recovered, and the community identified him as an emanation body. The tone is documentary rather than devotional, focused on historical and cultural accuracy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-11-10 – 31A – 's Story – KR.mp3
UUID: 8859606e-bedb-4935-8a85-1ade6bdbbb70
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Rinpoche's Story
Date: 1989-11-10
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,194
78910 this is thursday this is Friday 11/10/1989 I’m going to Buddha House to talk with Khensur Rinpoche with Dawa translating. So Rinpoche so far hasn’t got a clear idea about how far everything is going. So maybe you are the one who has the idea of which parts are, at the moment, most important one to go over. Right. So on that basis, you can just go over with your.
Right. Well, if you just tell Rinpoche this beginning part because I’ve gone over it, and then Bruce has gone over with Rinpoche. This is nearly final. Mhmm. So if we just finish this.
But yeah. Yeah. Maybe if you could ask some time next week if he has time, say, an hour to come and have tea at our place, and I could just show him my little office Mhmm. And show him all the different stages that I have am going through on the story. Mhmm.
And he might like to give a blessing to my new little office too. So this first part, I’m reading from page four of my transcript, and you made a note about oh, I don’t know. Further clarification might be needed from Rinpoche about the Chinese currencies. And you said I think this might have been an exceptional case in border areas near China while the rest of Tibet traded or bartered in very very I don’t know I can’t read your writing with native Tibetan currencies. Rinpoche is talking about actual money was very precious.
There wasn’t much currency around in my area. We didn’t have Tibetan currency. We used Chinese currency. Previously the Tibetan currency was used but then we began to use more and more of the Chinese currency until they weren’t using the Tibetan. There were many different types of Tibetan currency.
The name was taken from the pictures which appeared on the currency. One of them was a picture of a person who didn’t have a collar. I think Jampa had a bit of trouble translating this description. So they called this person this collarless above river is perhaps Neko. Which river?
De Chu. De Chu? Yeah. I think it’s Neko. Right.
The area The area above the river has some sort of a company in people’s mind or just the kind of the way how things used to go was more like a. And below that river, Of course, in the past, we were part of Tibet. Mhmm. But afterward, Chinese attacked, and somehow Chinese captured these places. Mhmm.
Since then, it has been more or less like anti Chinese. Years, five hundred? Just roughly. Mhmm. Good.
But looks like it was already under Chinese or So when Rinpoche describes this person on one of the coins that was hunched over, that must be a Chinese person. This one. This hunch over means just that. I think so. So it’s called the bent one.
Bent one? Yeah. And it’s a Chinese, of course. It must be one of the past Chinese great person in history. Oh, so some sort of bent and hunched, of course, but big bowed.
And let me just say this Chinese person, a Chinese coin, like an English one. Yeah. Yeah. So you must be some old Chinese sage. Walking stick?
That’s all. Just someone like that. Yeah. Someone in. Mhmm.
Yeah. Yeah. But the says, at first, we didn’t have any actual currency, then slowly we began to use the coins. He must mean the Chinese coins. So that’s in Rinpoche’s hometown.
Right. Is it? I yes. Yeah. Yeah.
They’re They’re talking not. About different occupations in the village and customs for payment or renting animals and things like that for for journeys to Lhasa from his village. Yes. Yes. When when people would make a journey to Lhasa, and they would lend them mules or something for the journey and how they would pay.
And so if they didn’t have any Chinese coins Mhmm. Before, I’m just interested in how they pay for everything or what is just, yeah, how it works without money. Also, things are given in return for borrowing, you know, loans for bulls and horses, So up to page six, and it was just a spelling. You has his mother’s brother, Jampa. Perhaps if you could just ask him how he says Jampa’s name and if he we could get the spelling right.
You said you didn’t think what I’ve got what I’ve got here is right. The the who? Mother’s? Mother’s brother. And normally, monk who come from a very appropriate family and able to sponsor all the other monks.
They’re given special title called. So that’s Because he came from an aristocratic So it’s the kind of monk who monastery sponsors the monks with their foods and facilities and who are given this title. Or in the case of not being sponsored, they have to leave from rich families and who can be, what, called upon as a source of emergency help for the monastery to which they belong host to. And they are given the title, and they don’t have to work too too much like the other monks in monasteries, labor, and things like that. So it’s a kind of tied to giving to specific monks who can have the monastery financed as his point.
Oh, I see. So did Rinpoche’s uncle, Jampa, did he actually spend much time in the monastery or more time in his home? So firstly, he has to go to work or he has to go to one of the three monasteries in Central Tibet, and then come back to and then meet. So he was a monk for the rest of his life. Mhmm.
Page eight. Just just to clarify a word. Mhmm. This is this is the time when Rinpoche was a little boy. Mhmm.
And the custom, if anyone was sick, they’d light a fire in the doorway and they put stones around. And Rinpoche peed on the fire and put the fire out, and the stones got dirty, and he got rid of the stones. And very soon after that, the person got better. So that’s when they first realized that Rinpoche had some special powers. But then Rinpoche says, everyone said, I must be a reincarnation of some great power.
And power is not a very good word. So you’ve said, I think we need to check up the Tibetan of that. So how did everything start with this? So There was a custom that if somebody was sick in the house and a fire was lit at the doorway, stones were placed across the door. But then Rinpoche was only a child or something, so he came along and he peed on the fire and put out the fire.
And this got the stones all dirty, so he got rid of the stones. And soon after this, the person who was sick got well. So everybody said, I must be a reincarnation of someone with some great power. So normally in that area, there’s a custom whenever somebody’s sick in the house to to light the fire at the doorway. Mhmm.
And then along with that, next it, to pile one stone after another, like in Tibet, you mean Oh, yeah. Single those piled stones. Yeah. One on top. So this is to indicate and why this is done is normally whenever there’s somebody sick in the house, and if you let all sort of people come in the room, then this in in the case of ordinary people, whenever they can, that makes the person’s sickness get worse.
Oh. So you know, they’re not to let cold souls come into the house. This is a warning indication. Oh, So, there’s a sick person inside. Yeah.
So, when this is lit outside the door and the piled stone, then everybody knows, oh, there’s a sick person there. And the Rinpoche case, when there was this sick person inside and outside the fire, Rinpoche went there and peed on the fire and then dismantled the whole pile of stones. And the next day, the person recovered. And then everybody said, oh, he must be an emanation body. Oh.
An emanation body coming to serve sentient beings. He’s he’s this kid is not an ordinary one. He must be an emanation body. Right. So Yeah.
Did they say a particular emanation or just So I’m to page 19, and we’re talking about the organization of the villages in Rinpoche’s home area. Mhmm. And he’s saying in our village, there was a head person called. Mhmm. And we’ve got here means to correct, to collect.
And then you’ve made a note. Check this with Rinpoche. If it is, it means subdue and control. The word for collect is is a bit different. So we just need to find out that man’s name and what it means and what he exactly does again.
First is correct. Do. Yeah. D d u D u. Wow.
I can’t write those in a printed English book. So what do we do? The next is o e’s. Uh-huh. Mhmm.
D o e. Yeah. And that means? Together. Collect.
Together. To collect. Yeah. Gather. Right.
Gather under one’s control, under one’s room. Right. Page 21. So we’re still talking about this head person. And it says the head person would often go to visit district, and you’ve got a little note here that you haven’t heard of this word.
It could be right, but it’s worth checking it again. Mhmm. So they elect a new headman every five years. Mhmm. And the head person would often go to visit the.
That’s the head of the whole district. So the village headman is one. Year term, you said that the management only? Yes. Think so.
This is what I understood. Yes. No. No. And I don’t know how long we haven’t got much information on this other one, but he must be the head.
I don’t know how long he stays. The the other one is called in the head or in who resides or lives in the. Lama where they reside. Oh, I see. So the is the Palace.
That’s where the province had lived. And this Provincial head? Yeah. So this head, he has so many under him, like one in each direction. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s one. And then on all directions. Oh. Yeah.
So many others. Oh, okay. And this wouldn’t be for the whole of come. This would only be for the small area of Kham, would it? What is What and and then what area is it?
So this is the one who covers the village. But that place, which is called, and that’s a kind of, like, a residential or headquarter. And this is coming to me because in the past, there must have been a leader there was a leader. Uh-huh. And he’s really sure he’s continuing to control the whole his territory.
So this would be a small king sort of thing. Yeah. The king or a person, you know, who controls the way. Fairly large amount of territory. So that’s just a name not a name only.
Right. In that place. Yeah. Now every work for about five years, the headman has to go there along with few representatives from other villages under that territory. Mhmm.
And there will be. There will be about three, four people. Alright. And they’re owner of equal rank, equal power. Uh-huh.
So they constitute their own chief, or what I call highest authority, controlling the whole area. And they have to remain there for five years for five years too. Yeah. And I asked what happens during this time in this village here. Yeah.
And then she says, there doesn’t have to be any So are you are you saying that there is one man as well as these three There isn’t. There isn’t. There isn’t. That’s right. That’s where I’m going before.
It it gives an impression. Yeah. But it doesn’t. Oh, so they collectively Yeah. That’s right.
So you only stay there for one year at a time, is it? No. No. Five. Five years.
It’s because I was. Yeah. Five years. See, I’ve got here. Had a full time position which lasted one year.
It’s not right. In that So in there, they remain for one, two years, depending how successful they were. If they don’t, then they’re not successful, then they take leave in one or two years. Otherwise, they remain for some today too. When he was everywhere, some of the chapters were up.
But that’s so, anyway, that’s good. There’s not one person, but it’s this three or four people, and they live there. And they’re all close enough to go back there’s another question you’ve got here to check. We’re just talking about some anniversaries that they celebrate in their village. Do you want to do you want to just his name and the name of the place near Lhasa where he was born.
That was a festival they celebrate in their village.