Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Wendy Finster shares her first-hand account of Lama Yeshe’s death in March 1984, offering a detailed chronicle of his final months and the preparations that revealed his passing was intentional and spiritually orchestrated. She describes Lama’s medical history—a damaged heart enlarged over decades following childhood rheumatic fever—and traces his decline from illness at Kopan in December, through hospitalisation in Delhi and recovery in California, to his sudden worsening and death in Los Angeles. Throughout, Finster emphasises signs that Lama had been consciously preparing for months: cryptic statements to students, a mysterious house purchase, an explicitly written will instructing a one-year Vajrasattva retreat and the preservation of his body. She walks through the cremation ceremony, the discovery of relics, and Lama Zopa’s grief and steadfast care. The talk concludes with plans for a life-sized Vajrasattva statue to be made in Lama’s likeness, filled with his ashes and relics, and distributed to centres worldwide. Suitable for devoted students and those already connected to Lama Yeshe’s lineage.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Lama Yesha's Death-Wendy Finster-1a 1984.mp3
UUID: 798ee3be-83c6-4aad-ab57-bceaca5fcc20
Teacher: Ven Wendy Finster
Collection: Lama Yeshe's Death (Ven Wendy Finster)
Date: 1984 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.3 minutes
Words: ~5,312
Gave. And then I thought we’d have a break, and then I would go through with everyone the practice, which which Lama wanted us to do. And that will take about an hour and a half but I think everyone will enjoy to do it. So I thought I’d spend some time and go through it and I’m hoping that we’ll have a time once a week, maybe Saturday night every week to do that practice for those who are interested passed away. Because he’s the source of all kindness and goodness and the The guru to whom it’s impossible to repay kindness.
So I felt felt compelled. I felt a duty to be be there if possible. So actually within a couple of hours of mentioning this to one or two people somehow I was fortunate enough and they were kind enough to not only arrange for me to leave the next day, but also to benefit the cost. So even though I felt compelled to go on my own for my own as my own kind of duty and something I needed to do. I also felt that I was going on behalf of everyone else that’s here that would have liked to also have gone on.
So because of that feeling, while I was there I very much felt that I was representing Buddha House students and also students from Tārā House and other Australian centres that weren’t able to go themselves. In particular, Rinpoche had sent the message to say that it wasn’t necessary for people to go, that it was good to remain and to do practices and that particularly not something that people should suddenly of drop responsibilities and things that they’re doing in order to rush to California. So actually there weren’t so many people that were not American. I think perhaps altogether there may have been about sixty people, seventy people maybe. And of those I would say eighty five percent, ninety percent were Americans so there weren’t so many people that actually were able to or had the freedom to go and or were simply following Rinpoche’s suggestion that people don’t suddenly rush to California.
So I actually took about six rolls of film while I was there. Very, very because I was aware that for others to kind of try and experience what had happened, a pictorial record of stages of different things that happened could perhaps start to share for you to share in in what happened. So actually, I was planning to have the photos out so you’d see them, but I’m sorry. I I had some other job I had to do this morning, a couple of jobs, and so I only just got here. But this time, in the break time, I’ll put them out.
Also, at Tārā House, I’m not sure if you all know, was due to it was already advertised that I was to give a course at Tārā House last weekend. So I made sure that I was back in time for that and then I also discussed with the students what had happened. And students, many of the students have taken have made orders of these photos so what I thought was we can put them out in a similar way here and if people want to make orders of the photos then maybe organise with Dennis and then just the one time I’ll sort of arrange to have reproductions done of whatever anyone likes. So perhaps the easiest way of talking about what happened is to just share my own experience of what happened. Perhaps I should talk a little bit about what led up to Lama’s passing away.
As a child, Lama had rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever is something which, because of the continual high temperature of the body, particularly the cells, the muscle of the heart is not only damaged but it actually dies and those cells aren’t regenerated. So what happened was that in order for the heart to continue as a pumping station to pump around the body sufficient nutrients and blood oxygen, the heart actually grew larger, physically larger, in order to have the same capacity to pump because so much of the heart muscle was dead. So I think about ten years ago, the first time Lama was examined by a Western doctor, they gave him six months to live. And they were they he went to couple of specialists and they actually expressed a lot of surprise that he was actually still living.
Because the heart had grown to such an extent. It was very kind of instead of pumping like that it was kind of pumping like that that it it really wasn’t physically speaking, the heart wasn’t too healthy. So an interesting thing was that about seven or eight years ago, one of one of the American students when Lama was on tour in America heard that Lama’s heart was actually not functioning particularly well and sat down with Lama and said that he was very concerned about his health and please take it easy and this and that. And Lama just looked at him with big eyes and said, My dear, it’s not my physical heart that keeps me alive, it’s my psychic energy. So, I mean, that shut him up really quick.
So, actually when Lama came back to America this time, he met again with this student and he said to the student, Do you remember our conversation seven years ago at the place wherever it was? And he said yes and Lama said well, dear oh no, the other thing that he had said at the time was it’s not my physical heart that keeps me alive, it’s my psychic energy and then he said when I have fulfilled everything that I want to do then I’ll go, there’s no need for me to stay. So this time when he met with the student he just Lama arrived in America actually fairly reasonably fit although he had been ill he was on the outside manifesting as though things were he was actually becoming quite healthy and they were building up to develop his health strongly enough to have open heart surgery because the heart had expanded to the extent where he actually had holes in the heart now because they stretched the heart. Said in November last year when he was at Copenhagen, I was there he said he had three holes in his heart and so they were planning to look into doing some open heart surgery.
Anyway, when he met this student this time he said, Do you remember the conversation we had at such and such a place seven years ago? And the guy said, yeah. And he said, well, something like, well, my dear, now is the truth. So So I think that a number of different things which Lama said over the past year to different students, once they were all put together, it became very clear that in fact for past twelve months he had been making many preparations to die, to pass away. So I think that what happened was that another thing which occurred last year while Lama was in America last year he he told Sister Max, a black nun who was one of the first nuns that he ordained.
We call her Mummy Max because she’s like mummy to everyone. And he told her that he wanted to buy a house in California near the center so they went and looked at many many houses and she bought the house for him and actually I’ve got some photos of the house. So they went to many houses and many but he saw one and he just said that’s the one I want and they went and saw much nicer ones that looked sort of better and he kept on saying no, no, not that one, not that one, this is the one I want. It was in a pretty run down condition and the students at Vajrapāni Institute did a lot of work to make it nice to live in and actually when Lama came back this year he only spent ten days, I think totally ten days in that house and he made a comment earlier when he returned to when he went to America the end of December to another a different student another student and he said something about oh I think I must have been unconsciously preparing for my death when I bought this house last year so when Lama says it’s something about unconsciously doing something, you know that he was really doing it but he’s not going to tell you.
So it seems to me that it’s something which he was preparing very strongly for his rebirth. Otherwise, doesn’t make sense that this house so much energy was put into this particular house and this particular area and for him to spend ten days his whole life in that place. Anyway there are a number of different things which happened and different things which Lama had said to different people and in fact he had told one it says Rinpoche mentions on the tape he had told one student, the director of the French center, Vajrayoginī Institute, about a year ago he said that he would leave his body in the New Year and that was the New Year according to Tibetan New Year which finished the old New Year finished in February three or four or something like that and the New Year started on I think February five, I think something like that and actually Lama passed away in the early hours of the Tibetan New Year the first day of the New Year. So there are many indications that Lama’s passing away was something planned and something which is not an ordinary death. Rinpoche says himself Lama had made many preparations, done many different types of practices and retreats and so on, and in fact had total control over when he was choosing to leave the body.
He’s also given many signs about his rebirth, but I’ll talk about that later. So what actually led up to Lama passing away was that in in December, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Lama came to Kopan in Nepal and after giving a couple of three or four lectures and giving some initiations then he became very ill. His body whenever Lama’s body was getting to the point of exhaustion because he was doing far too much there wasn’t enough blood and nutrients going around to the different organs in the body so whenever he was exhausted and overtaxing the meagre efforts of the heart to pump around then everything to go wrong so he was vomiting a lot and quite ill, unable to keep any food down, long periods of time where he couldn’t breathe properly, so all of these sort of things. Apparently the heart had expanded to the point where it filled about quite a large part of the chest cavity and was pushing against the lungs and there was a problem then of moisture also gathering. So that time he went to Delhi and he went straight into intensive care in Delhi and in fact at that time Rinpoche thought that Lama may have left his body then.
We did a lot of practices, a lot of different pujas requesting Lama to remain with us at that particular time when Lama was manifesting this very severe illness and someone, one of the students who remained with him through one of the nights said that actually many times during the night it looked like Lama would stop breathing because the breath just was so difficult for him to get and it’s my personal belief that the reason Lama remained with us for a few extra months after that time was simply to share around the karma of taking care of him with as many people as he came into contact with in the next couple of months in terms of creating the merit and serving the guru and all of these things. So he remained in intensive care in Delhi for a couple of weeks and he was hooked up to a number of machines to keep the body alive so then I think he spent about two weeks out of hospital in a in a house in in the Delhi area and at that time he sent a message to Lama Zopa to please come and Lama Zopa and Lama Lhundup both left Kopan and went to Delhi to take care of Lama Yeshe since they were both very close disciples of his actually Lama Yeshe had been like not only sort of a spiritual guru to Lama Zopa but also kind of like an earthly father as well because Lama Zopa was a young boy when he was given into Lama Yeshe’s care.
Every aspect of Lama Zopa’s life from what he wore to what he ate to where he went to everything was actually Lama Yeshe did. So at that time Lama was in the best hands that were possible and he couldn’t talk very much at that time. If he tried to talk, would become breathless. So he was very ill, really. But at no point was his mind anything but compassionate and caring for those who were about him.
So then after a few after about a month he then went to America and a nurse flew across with him on the plane and he was then taken straight from the plane in America to hospital again where he remained I think for about another week or ten days before he was discharged and he was actually then he went to this house where the students had been preparing for him to stay and then he had been looking like he was recovering very strong health he would go shopping, would go for a walk along the beach, he would be laughing and joking and doing many things which he had the strength to do in the past but he would only do small amounts at a time and then he would be exhausted for the rest of the day. It looked like his strength was really picking up and they were planning that he would become strong enough for the surgery. Lama had said that he would try to remain another two years After the surgery, he said the surgery may help him to remain another two years if the had enough merit for him to remain another two years.
So this is kind of the background to the messages that we received about doing practices and doing puja is to try and get Lama to remain with us for longer. Actually, from a Buddhist point of view, it’s karma of the students as to how long the Guru remains with them. From the Guru’s side, they manifest in situations places that are most beneficial for students or for the teaching of the Dharma. So on that very basic level, the karma or the merit which the students students have determine the length of time or the way in which a teacher manifests at that particular time and place in the world and that we have particular karmic connection with. So then, after about a week like that, then Lama took the aspect of having a stroke and he was taken again to hospital at that time but after staying in hospital as soon as he had a chance he just said to someone, ‘Get me out of here, I want to go home.
Medically speaking, a normal kind of medical situation, a person in that condition should have remained in hospital. It was quite clear that Lama had different intentions for how he wanted to spend the remaining time that he had and that was not to be in hospital hooked up to machines or to be in that kind of impersonal situation. So he went home and they hired I think there were a couple of the Dharma students there who were nurses and there was one doctor and then they also hired somebody else to make sure that there was a twenty four hour nursing staff with him at the house and he had all the kind of everything that was needed. And at that time Lama kind of started recovering from the stroke which paralyzed the left side but then he said to one of the Now taken the aspect of being paralyzed. So kind of in Lama’s way he was not saying, you know, I am paralyzed.
He’s saying the body now has the aspect of being paralyzed which is quite something different. And He was actually recovering a lot of use in the left arm and the left leg and the signs looked good that medically speaking that he would recover from that and go on to become well to have the operation which would give perhaps medically speaking anyway another two years So then what happened was that very suddenly, after about ten days of being back home, the condition of Lama’s body became much worse and it looked like he wouldn’t live through the night. So again it was very difficult for the students who were there because on the one hand there’s the medical what should you do medically speaking on the other hand one has to do whatever it is that the teacher wants in terms of what their plan is so Song Rinpoche who was a guru of both Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa and who’s you’ll see photos that I have of him who came and officiated that ceremony he’s in his mid eighties I think, and he’s quite an amazing being and Lama, a number of times, had told us very clearly that Song Rinpoche was enlightened he would use examples like he’s like the sun to the world and use many analogies which in Buddhism although they never say directly I’m enlightened there are ways and analogies which teachers will use that make you understand or infer that definitely speaking that that’s the case.
Lama Zopa all this time had been caring, had So Lama Zopa had for a long time been almost without sleep, just continuously with Lama and doing whatever it was that Lama wanted and caring for him both physically and also doing many many practices pujas. Lama Zopa was continuously in touch with Song Rinpoche who was teaching a course in Switzerland at the time and he would telephone Switzerland a couple of times a day to check with Song Rinpoche about this or that in terms of keeping Lama at home or taking Lama to hospital and all of these things would be discussed and Rinpoche and Song Rinpoche would sort of make a suggestion and then of course it was up to Lama which way he wanted to go what he wanted so anyway at this time when Lama’s condition worsened very, very much he was taken to hospital again that evening and then everything sort of stopped actually at that time again everything stopped working like he couldn’t eat for many days, was vomiting a lot, he couldn’t I think a lot of diarrhea just basically everything all the major organs of the body were stopping so then he was transferred from that hospital by air ambulance to another hospital in Los Angeles which is the I’ve forgotten the name of it but I think it’s a world renowned, the best heart hospital there is and he was there I think only about twelve hours before he passed away medically speaking there was from what I understand, from what was explained to me medically speaking Lama may have been able to remain with us for some time yet.
But even though after Lama’s breathing stopped, even though they made efforts to again make the heart start pumping, Everything that they did didn’t work. This was done at Song Rinpoche’s instruction. So it’s kind of clear that Lama made a plan to go and regardless of what anyone did it was something that he had planned. Actually over that period of time there must have been about a month or six weeks between Lama arriving in America and his passing away and over that period of time he received or the students at vajrapani Institute, the American students, had the most incredible opportunity they took it in rosters and shifts to be with Lama there was always someone sitting with Lama and doing things for Lama and some of connection, some kind of incredible opportunity that they had to be present and to Lama Zopa Rinpoche himself said that the last three months had been the most incredible teaching for him on karma and on Guru devotion and so that the whole Lama’s deciding to pass away in America and go there and do these things obviously have very strongly affected a large number of people who were there and to me, and this is only my personal view, seems very clear that Lama wished to share around the opportunity for people to be close to him and to experience with him the processes that he was going through to his death Actually, only think only about something like five or six hours before Lama’s breath stopped.
He was giving one of the nurses at the hospital a real examination, second degree grilling of where did he get his training, what was he doing, why did he do it, what training did he do after his basic training. You know how those of you who know Lama, how he would kind of searchingly inquire and sort of take advantage of any situation of whoever walked in the room, you know? So it’s kind of like amazing really. And at the time, then a couple of hours after that Lama asked Rinpoche to do a particular practice related to Heruka, which is a tantric deity related to compassion, and at the end of that practice then Lama’s breath stopped. Then after they got permission to move Lama’s holy body up to another room at the top, at that time Rinpoche and Lama Zopa and another Geshe who was there did another it was a Vajrayoginī practice and they did that this is another tantric practice and after they finished doing that then they noticed Lama’s body move which was actually the final sign of the mind leaving the body.
So then there was much discussion actually looked like that Song Rinpoche said that unless the Americans could get the permission to actually do the fire puja and the different practices and ceremonies that were to be done with the passing away of a high lama then Lama’s body was to be taken to India and to be done in Dharamsala. So, it looked like that that’s what would have to be done because I think that the rules of what to do in America are fairly strict. So anyway, the students went into all the appropriate authorities and just got permission just like that for everything that they wanted. Kind of Lama sort of knew he wanted to be in America somehow the day actually the day I arrived at vajrapani Institute which is near a township called Boulder Creek which is about half an hour’s drive from Santa Cruz which again is about a two hour drive from San Francisco. So the day I arrived, Lama’s Holybody had been brought by plane back from Los Angeles and had actually just arrived in the Gompa.
It was kind of in a coffin in front of the Gompa, in front of the altar like that. So then we did a number of different practices and poojas and a couple of all night sessions. Song Rinpoche arrived the next morning. But all in all, there was about a week of different ceremonies and practices. And at that time a lot of different messages which Lama had given to different people kind of spread he never told everything to one person he sort of told different things to different students and then kind of it became clear all the little pieces were being put together messages were being sent from students around the world who Lama had said something to and it was coming clear what he wanted.
There was a Spanish nun called Jampa Chökyi or Helly who Lama had actually given an instruction and a text and said I want this to be done after I pass away and he actually made out what Rinpoche calls a will anyway he made her sit down and write on this day at such and such a time at such and such a place this is what I’m saying so that it’s actually sort of written down so no one could question that someone made it up what he said was that wanted his students upon his passing away he wanted his students as those who were able to go to one place to do a one year’s retreat on Vajrasattva which is a practice particularly in purifying negative karma and that by the power of the mantra and the mantra was sort of to be done in shifts, like it had to be continuously done so that you do a session and then some others would come in to start their session just before you finish your session so that there’s continuous session and mantra happening in the gompa, in the room. And he said by the power of the mantra that body would not decompose for one year while practice was being done.
So he gave these instructions to Jampa Chökyi and there were different things that other people had been told too. Song Rinpoche was in the middle of teaching a course in Switzerland and he agreed to come immediately to California so he came and Song Rinpoche checked up very carefully over a period of a couple of days as to which would be more beneficial to actually keep Lama’s body in the way it was and do the retreat that way or to actually cremate and use the relics from the body to incorporate into a statue a life a statue of Lama that would be used for the retreat. And Song Rinpoche finally made the observation that it would be more beneficial to do the latter and because also Song Rinpoche was both Lama Zopa and Lama Yeshe’s Guru there’s sort of no question that in fact Lama would have been happy with whatever Song Rinpoche had decided was most beneficial. So at that time preparation started going ahead for a fire puja and I think I’ve tried to make photos of the different stages of the building up of the stupa which Lama’s body was placed in and how it all happened.
And So the idea is that after well there are many signs which can happen at the time of such a cremation anyway what happened was that a number of different sort of ceremonies were done and then body was actually taken and placed in a stupa and then the stupa was built up around. And Song Rinpoche, there were many people around and we were all doing puja as he lit at the time of the burning. She’s kind of incredible. Kind of on one level, on one level It’s very it’s to understand that actually, know, Lama’s purpose with us was that we practiced Dharma and his whole teaching, his whole everything that he did was to show us different ways of practicing the Dharma and ways to understand ourselves and others. And that actually his passing away was another teaching for us in terms of how we’re to be and so on, and our experiences.
And I think that in terms of the the way of understanding anyway, it’s got of course many levels that on a much higher level Lama’s totally beyond suffering, totally beyond, totally in control of all his death and rebirth. And from that point of view there’s nothing to become kind of emotional about. And also because manifestation was on a much sort of higher level in terms of his way of expressing himself, but on the relative plane it’s very easy to become attached to his physical body and being able to talk with him and get advice from him on a plane, on a level which we can easily communicate with. So there’s much difficulty at the time of actually when the burning of the physical body was happening Song Rinpoche was officiating at this time and he asked whether there was anybody present who had never taken teachings from Lama Then one girl said yes, she had never taken teachings from lama and so he said okay, you can light. So she actually was the one who lit it.
Also I’ve got a picture of that so you kind of put all these pieces together when you look through the pictures that I’ve got. Then then was think three days it was left before opening the stupa again and there are particular signs and ways and sometimes they say there are footprints in a direction where the rebirth is going to take place and all these things. Rinpoche didn’t talk a lot about what he saw and how he saw it but there were some crystals and also the different parts of the relics, know, bones and parts of which weren’t burned apparently they have specific significance and the anyway, there’s pictures of all of that that you can see of how it was and the idea is that the bones basically are crushed into powder and then the powder is actually incorporated into the when making the statue. And the statue is going to be made actually in Lama’s likeness in the Vajrasattva posture which is this one with the right hand here with the vajra like this and the left hand here with the bell like that. And those those parts of the body which don’t crush like teeth and things like that will be placed as relics inside also some of the ashes and other relics will something will be sent to each centre and Rinpoche’s suggestion is that each centre makes either a statue or a stupa or something like that with the relics which are sent.
Also, I brought back with me a piece of clothing which Lama wore. So I have it on the altar at home. I’m actually not sure what we should do with it. And I think I’d like to wait for a suggestion from Lama Zopa first before thinking to do anything. There’s one possibility which maybe you’d like and that is to cut so that each person can have a piece and they can have that at home or whatever, I don’t know.
But anyway, that’s something we can decide at some future time. But I would imagine within a month or two we will receive some of the relics of Lama’s holy body in which we can think about making a statue. Actually Rinpoche said that he wanted the statue to be made like a mannequin, his words were like a mannequin. You know the mannequins that you have in shops he actually wants it to be extremely lifelike in Lama’s likeness not sort of like a some kind of Tibetan statue and also Lama Zopa said that he wanted a western person to do it, so it was kind of like to be western style. And then there were a few things kind of