Here I Am Again! A Pure Sportingpiece for the Great! A Mere Tennisball of Fortune
By at present many of y'all know that Colin Chase died on Sat. Because it turns out that this man is extraordinary, this past calendar week has been a surreal, heart-breaking, however besides curiously peaceful journey for many hundreds of people. I can't begin to capture this collective experience, but I tin share what I idea most it at the time it was happening.
Wednesday August 11th : A devoted disciple of Venerable Geshe Kelsang had a motorcycle blow last night, on August 10th, leaving him with catastrophic brain damage.
I can't believe I am writing those words. Non least because Colin Chase is also i of my closest friends.
I am going to write stuff down now because I have been making non-stop prayers and I will be praying again soon, and in the meantime I don't know where else to put myself. I am then very sorry for all of you close family and friends, I remember I can approximate at some of how you lot feel.
I only spoke to him via phone. I knew what to say. But it'south not enough time. There'southward so much more that was supposed to happen. There were still so many more conversations to be had, so many more adventures in the mandala, so many more than mountains to climb. I even want to tell him about the strangeness that is going on now.
Colin made me laugh and was kind enough to find me humorous as well. He has been a very reassuring, loving presence in my life, and not simply mine, of class. He was a dandy listener. He genuinely loved helping people. Y'all could learn a lot from watching him collaborate with others fifty-fifty in difficult negotiations or tense situations – smart, worldly-wise, diplomatic, ever thoughtful. His effortless kindness is the first thing I noticed virtually him many years ago, watching him in some interaction I've now forgotten at Manjushri KMC, before we'd even exchanged a give-and-take. At that place is nothing he would not do to help bring about Geshe-la's wishes to plant a Pure Land for all living beings. "I'thousand a believer!" he joked with me recently, and this combination of devotion and love made his life amazing. He was kinda ballsy, to be honest.
Endless lives
All appearances in my dream teach me that all my appearances while awake do not exist. Thus for me all my dream appearances are the supreme instructions of my Guru. ~ Lord of all Lineages
Terminal week Colin reminded me of the brilliant dream I had when he was visiting in June. He said he had been thinking about it all the time since then. This was the dream as I recorded it at the time:
I was standing on the edge of the virtual reality show of this life, merely a vast abyss of empty space had opened up that I knew plunged to all my previous rebirths. I was tipping over – I could scramble back on to this life or I could permit go. For some reason I decided to let get and fall to meet what was there.
I fell fast and was seeing all my human being rebirths, thousands of appearances and versions of me every bit a different human beingness in different places doing different things, sometimes male person, sometimes female person, etc.
I wanted to stop before I got to all my previous lower realm rebirths, starting with fauna rebirths — that felt too scary, equally if I may not exist able to go out over again. So I went for refuge to enquire to return to the albeit even more than obviously temporary appearances of this electric current life.
A special aircraft appeared and the pilot told me to buckle up while he flew me back up by all those lives. We stopped at ane life where he introduced me to someone who I recognized, though he didn't recognize me all the same – I could tell he was a previous different-looking version of a someone I know in this life. In that life I was a woman with yellow hair and a round confront.
I asked the pilot why I hadn't gone all the way to the lower realms and why he was able to appear so I could get back up to my human life; and he said it was because I had purified a lot of the karma of killing, which was protecting me from lower rebirth. However, he also cautioned that I didn't necessarily have enough expert karma adjacent time to come straight support if I fell again. I had used some up and needed to create more.
Past and hereafter lives exist, I have believed in them for as long as I can recollect. I felt the demand for all of us to go for very strong refuge because this life is entirely dreamlike, fragile, and impermanent. And where we go/what appears to united states depends entirely on our karma.
Colin asked how if I, with all my merit, might not exist able to get hands back into the man realm if I fell, what hazard did he accept? I replied that he had created amazing merit, far more than than me. He replied by generously listing all the things he thinks I've done. I replied past listing his expert qualities and accomplishments. Anyway, you get the drift. He was ever rejoicing in other people, never pulling them down.
Decease on our minds
And in the last few months, decease was on his mind. Nosotros had several conversations about it, and the fleeting nature of this life and our fragile silly bodies. Including his knees – he was due for double knee replacements next calendar week (August 17), repayment for a lifetime of daredevil bodily risks. Talking of which, I said he'd be needing a wheelchair if he insisted on having both knees done at the aforementioned time. "No, I won't. I'll have crutches." "You do know how crutches work, right?!"
And now he lies in Newark infirmary, the demand for knee surgery gone.
In an astonishing coincidence, the main spiritual director of Newark Hospital happens to be a New York Sangha member, Helen, charged now with taking intendance of Colin and the family. Her assistant is called Tara.
Testament to his outsized role in our tradition, at very short observe hundreds of people attended Tara puja alive at KMC New York Metropolis and at the upstate NY and Grand Canyon World Peace Temples or tuning in online. We could come across KMC NYC's cute city temple on i side of the screen and Colin on the other. All the fashion through puja his breast was exaggeratedly inflating and deflating with the life support machine. Seared into many minds at present is the image of his beloved mother Marsha, same cheekbones and ruby-red hair, sitting by his bed and stealing glances at his poor damaged head. What a gift she gave us in Colin.
Colin's vital signs improved during puja. That has to mean something, correct?
Conversations on life and expiry
Like I said, over the last few months we were having conversations nigh the brevity of life, how speedily each decade had flown by, and how trivial fourth dimension nosotros had left. We are moreorless the same age and have both been caring for our mothers lately, in the front row seats to dandy old historic period. I hoped nosotros'd abound quondam together, hanging out, building centers (the architects' drawings merely landed for KMC CO's new building, and I would love zippo more than right now than to hear what Colin has to say nearly them). At the aforementioned time I kinda figured that Colin might non stick around for the ravages of extreme old age.
I am still taken aback past how early he checked out and, if I'm honest, a trifle annoyed. When I sent a photo of him in Colorado in June to a mutual friend, he replied: "Should Colin really be climbing copse?!" 
Of class not, nor ignoring my protests to climb onto the roof of KMC Colorado's new building (the views, though, turned out to exist worth it.) Nor should he have been riding motorbikes between hip and knee surgeries, but I have to acknowledge that this was typical Colin. He was probably always set to go out in a blaze of glory (from his perspective, not so much ours). Sitting information technology out in an armchair for years wearing slippers was probably never going to happen.
Mayhap his female parent knew this likewise. I hope she did. I guess we all have to accept now that he was made to live fast and die too soon.
I just re-read the last text I had from Colin yesterday afternoon (August 10) on my style up this mountain for a calendar week to look after 4 dogs and cats while attending the remainder of the Summer Festival:
"I am very happy that y'all're getting abroad!! When you get settled, please permit me know when nosotros might connect once again. Enjoy the mountains, and please say Hello for me. I miss them, and look forward to returning presently!"
He didn't reply to the text I sent dorsum at vii.39pm MST. Turns out he was climbing onto his motorbike. And it likewise turns out that I am non the ane who is getting away.
"Exist joyful"
A friend of mine is part of a healing energy grouping and they simply spent time tuning into him. I don't know if you believe in these things or not, but I am going to share this anyway because it honestly does sound just similar Colin.
Curiously to their minds, because they are not Buddhists and don't know Colin, they kept getting a strong message from him, "Be blithesome!" After helping to clear out his chakras they normally infuse the person with a lot of energy, simply they said that he was already completely total of positive energy and there was nothing to add. (They had no idea about the Tara pujas existence held for him worldwide.) They also said that he was very determined. And the word "Rinpoche" kept coming to them, fifty-fifty though they didn't know what it meant. ("Rinpoche" is the Tibetan word for "precious" and is applied to reincarnate Lamas.)
Today, Thursday Aug 12, I woke upwardly today feeling hopeful that mayhap Colin tin be healed afterwards all. I understand that quite a number of people dare share this optimism, quoting Colin's lack of boundaries, how many crazy accidents he has pulled through earlier, and the ability of the prayers. A lot of people are praying for his full recovery in today's Tara prayers. Helen said today: "In full general you practice not come dorsum from this and, if you exercise, yous wish you hadn't. But I've seen miracles. He is in the right hospital."
Later on on Thursday: Simply now, subsequently this same day, we accept heard the deeply sorry news that the doctors could not cease the bleeding. Colin is encephalon expressionless. Once again, I cannot believe I am writing these words, just Colin will exist taken off life support tomorrow. Powa is planned for merely after he dies.
Right-hand homo
The last time we spoke on the telephone, Colin told me he had just spent a xiv-hour day at KMC NYC making sure everyone could tune in online to the Vajrayogini empowerment and teachings. He was very happy and we talked for over an hour. Thousands of people received these empowerments, and to begin with he was doing all the tech himself. Then he handed it off to 3 people he'd trained — rejoicing in them when he saw them on CCTV (he loved his CCTV, lol) – and headed off to see his family.
It is no wonder that at that place is an outpouring of people at present, saying "he helped me"; he was always there to help. Within minutes of arriving at a Festival he knew everyone and everyone knew him. He has been instrumental in the success of KMC New York City, from the day he turned up and went off roller blading on the hunt for a new edifice. For Colin, nothing was a problem. No vision was too big. He found that cute infinite in a huge cooperative skyrise, and not merely managed to acquire it for the Center just besides became the near of import lath member in the whole building. Afterward Greg showed up and took on all the day to day volunteer projects, allowing him to be full-on visionary along with KMC NYC's wonderful EPC Simone.
I'chiliad besides going to go right ahead here and call out the quiet heroine Laurie, banana Advertising, who worked tirelessly past Colin's side the whole time he was in that location — never one to steal whatever limelight, she was nonetheless the right-mitt adult female to the correct-mitt man.
The barefoot Bodhisattva
In his occasional day job, Colin was a logroller for the i-percenters, so he often had plenty of resource. (Sometimes he was broke, too). However, that wasn't his lifestyle and he was usually just trying to requite coin abroad. Colin's leased apartment wasn't really his – and indeed information technology never looked very lived in to me. Instead it hosted everyone and anyone who came through town, if they needed a place to stay. Colin was e'er barefoot, unless the occasion demanded shoes, such as the opera, when he might wearable flip flops. He just drank sparkly water, no tea, java, or any other beverages. He would oftentimes army camp at Festivals despite being easily able to beget something more than comfortable. He loved sailing on the open seas. He loved the liberty of his motorbike. A few years ago he wanted to go riding in the Rockies:
Colin: Perhaps you will consider taking a ride with me, through the mountains, if I reschedule my visit. xx
Me: haha, i may consider it — simply not sure about my precious homo life 😃
Colin: You don't trust me?!?!
Me: aha, i do.
Colin told me, and I witnessed several times, that he didn't really listen physical hurting. During a painful lung infection a few years back, for instance, he replied to my text: "In truth, I am fine now. My torso just has a few challenges. There are and then many people out there, who are truly suffering."
He was astonishingly successful and made everything fun at the same fourth dimension. A friend told me that he reminded her of what Heruka would be like if you met him:
"He managed to make everyone experience happy and strong. When you were around him, that was the quality he had. He was heroic and gave you what you needed, whether that was a hug if you lot were cold or helping to negotiate a meg-dollar building. And it wasn't like there was anything in it for him."
Within vii lifetimes
Last week Colin chosen me with a question nigh Vajrayogini practitioners definitely going to Keajra within seven lifetimes, asking if that was a rumor or was it true. I replied that it is in The New Guide to Dakini Country:
Information technology is said that even those with the least fortune who do not attain Dakini State in the intermediate state will be led by Vajrayogini to her Pure Land within vii lives.
He was very excited for some reason, and wanted to know which lifetime I thought he might be in. I said not the outset, because information technology is unlikely that he could have all these unusually good conditions coming together in his life on a first run into with Guru Vajrayogini, given that each of them needs a lot of good karma to create. "And then, who knows, possibly your 4th or 5th, or perhaps even your 7thursday!" Turns out that might have been correct.
Helen
When this picture was taken of Colin and Helen in front of Compassion Buddha Avalokiteshvara, no one had a inkling that she would be able to orchestrate at his bedside not only all the Tara pujas but the transference of consciousness puja, when Avalokiteshvara could lead him to the Pure State.
Helen is a force of nature herself. She trained hard for years to be a Buddhist Chaplain, the very first person in the Kadampa tradition to do so. She landed this job very rapidly afterwards because she excelled in her preparation. I asked her yesterday how many people and families she had helped die, and she said hundreds. She tries to make the right situation for people to die peacefully, and I asked her how. One adult female wanted so badly to go habitation to dice in Puerto Rico, merely could not be moved. Helen asked her what exactly about home she missed and, upon hearing that information technology was the scents and the plants and the nutrient, she recreated that for her in the ICU.
She didn't have fourth dimension for attention to detail concluding yr, all the same, when she had to assist six or seven different people and their families every solar day during COVID. "That was a different earth."
What a meaningful job! Venerable Geshe-la has said that helping people dice well is the kindest thing we can practise. And helping their families observe some mensurate of peace at one of the very worst times of their life is as well no pocket-size feat. If any of y'all are looking for a career path … only I do believe this is not for the faint-hearted.
Helen said that she hopes that Colin's death will besides spark conversations well-nigh the terminate of our own lives and whether or not we want DNR and and then on. (I did my Living Will a couple of months agone, it merely took most fifteen minutes, FYI.)
"Zero gets in the way of that!"
It is thanks to Helen that I was able to talk to Colin in his last two days. I asked if I could say a few words into his ear and she did 1 better, organizing a WebEx between the end of visiting hours at six p.m. and the nighttime shift at 7 p.m. Talking to him for what turned out to be well over an 60 minutes was surprisingly non difficult. Hither is the jist of some of what I said.
"Howdy my beloved friend, and farewell for now, just for a short while though, I will run into you on the other side. I know you're going to enjoy being in Keajra so much sending emanations to help usa all and everyone else — it's what you've been practicing for the whole fourth dimension I've known you, you were fabricated for the Pure Land! You will so enjoy helping Geshe-la help everyone now on a yard calibration. I exercise believe this was your seventh and terminal lifetime in samsara, just like we were speculating the other day.
Thousands of people have been praying for you considering it turns out that you helped also many people to count. People are wondering when you lot had the time?!
Your family were very happy to detect about your life, and the powa we are doing tomorrow will bring your birth family and your Sangha family together in a way that yous would love. The mother of all sendoffs awaits you, y'all created the cause for hundreds of people to transport you lot the Pure Land. We insist yous go. Y'all are going anyway, but we're going to make sure of information technology."
I did make him promise the states 2 things because he always liked to keep his promises: (1) he needed to visit us all with his emanations, including KMC NYC and KMC CO to cease those projects he started; (two) if he insisted on leaving early, he needed to gear up things upwardly for me and anybody else to join him in the Pure State. After all, that's what he did. Equally he texted himself the other twenty-four hour period:
This is Geshe la's work, and NOTHING gets in the way of that!!!
Before I left, I asked the nurse to bear on his eye to point we are all going with him, and then to affect his crown.
I thought that was it, but the following morning one of Helen's administration called again unsolicited to see if I'd like to talk to him. Of form I wanted to. So again in the afternoon, I got this rather wonderful call:
Hello L, this is Tara. I have Colin here. Will yous talk to him?
And so that was lucky for me.
I besides talked to him a lot about what the Pure Land is like from things I've read, "without even the name of mistaken impure appearance", where even stepping on the footing gives rise to bliss. How it is full of all the things he loves, but all completely pure and known to be illusory, like dream oceans and dream mountains. How he will send emanations. It was me doing all the talking, of course, but a conversation withal, because, along with Helen, I believe that people in this situation can hear "beyond words and sounds" every bit she put it. This is not least considering I had this experience with Bob — his brain was also gone when Cheryl and I talked him into the Pure Land, yet "it worked". That story is hither.
I as well shared with him several beautiful messages, such equally from Sara Wendt, his "niggling red-headed childhood friend", who did us all the big favor of introducing him to our tradition. And this one from Gen Samten:
"Delight tell him that a life lived with kindness is a life lived without regrets. Please tell him that he has brought happiness to and so many people in so many places. And delight tell him that it is time for him to leave at present, to allow get of this life and to move on to a pure world where he can work with Geshe-la to bring happiness to many people."
August 14th: I dreamt vividly of Colin last night, he was very youthful and joyful, information technology was blissful to see him, and it felt like he was on his fashion to the Pure Land.
In a dream, a daughter meets a male child and sees that he is dying. She is happy to come across him but unhappy to run into him dying. We should understand that all phenomena are like this. ~ Buddha
I accept been contemplating how Colin is mere proper noun not other than emptiness and therefore can be Heruka. It is worth pointing out that all this has been going on during the retreat section of the Summer Festival, (adept timing Colin!), where Gen Rabten has been giving profound instructions, including on what Buddhas experience. The suffering hallucinations of Colin'due south gross mind are well-nigh to be all over for him, and indeed could be for united states too, if we really want them to be.
Accepting the sorrow
Talking to myself … There are a million ways to transform this sadness, but I have to take that it is there get-go, not paper over the cracks. Apply the heartbreak to permit my middle to grow. Practice the yoga of equalizing samsara and nirvana. Non be attached to my sorrow, nor the ordinary narrative of our friendship.
Accepting the suffering means non repressing it, only at some point we know it is empty and we let it get, to exist replaced by compassion and joy. I did this this morning, which is the 24-hour interval of his powa.
It is our joy, compassion, love, wisdom, and pure view that will help Colin get to the Pure Land, not dragging him with our sadness. But this is a process for everyone, information technology has to be natural, not forced nor pretended. We tin't tell people who are grieving: "Think like this and you lot'll finish beingness sad", and assume that'll piece of work. Nosotros cannot be disconnected from our sadness; information technology is the sadness which gives the states the realization that suffering is unbearable. From there we can develop authentic renunciation and compassion, hence "Suffering had good qualities." Then we tin can also view it as mere name. It is mere mistaken appearance blocking u.s. from seeing the truth of elation and emptiness.
The powa, 2.25pm EST, August 14th
Nearly 1,000 people attended Colin's powa, joining in from all over the world. And information technology was very powerful. This has got to be a first. Who were you, Colin Chase?! As a friend said:
"Colin really did go a Powa Express, not besides many have 500+ people on stand up-past for your last moment in this life to transport you off to the Pure Land. His kindness & bodhisattvaness touched endless beings "
I think many people now feel securely supported to know that we are united not only in our grief but likewise now in the knowledge that we tin can do this for each other – nosotros can ship our friends, Sangha, and family unit to the Pure Land. It is inspiring to see how our Sangha is open-ended because everyone is welcome, and that none of us has a monopoly over anyone else'due south affection or retentiveness, we are all learning to beloved one some other.
At my deathtime may the Protectors, Heroes, Heroines so forth,
Begetting flowers, parasols, and victory banners,
And offering the sugariness music of cymbals and so forth,
Lead me to the State of the Dakinis. ~ The New Guide to Dakini State
During his death and for about an hour subsequently I had an unexpected and good feel that I won't share hither, just that was in keeping with everything else that has been happening these terminal few months and days. It convinced me that Colin is at present in the Pure Country of the Dakinis.
For such practitioners, decease is only mere name – they are simply moved from the prison of samsara to the Pure Land of Buddha Heruka. ~ Heruka Root Tantra
I will just say that we are usually and then dualistic about samsara vs nirvana, for the Pure State is mere proper name away at all times. Nosotros go where our mind goes. How many different means has Guru Heruka explained this to us?!? He couldn't accept made it clearer.
Enlightenment is reality, it is correct here. So of grade the Pure Land is right here.
Living meaningfully, dying joyfully
I experience that Colin's life and death take had a big impact on our Kadampa tradition, that something has shifted for a lot of people. It was a meditation on death par excellence, our own life of approx 4,000 weeks non to be taken for granted, not even a day of it. Of course we all die – we don't all dice on a stage, though, in a five-solar day drama watched past hundreds of practitioners. It revealed what happens if you exercise spend your whole life being kind — living meaningfully does hateful you're going to die joyfully. Nosotros have seen the power of the Guru and the power of the Sangha. Nosotros tin practice this for each other.
Honoring him
When someone I honey and respect dies, I try to honor them by adopting some of their practiced qualities; and that may merit some other commodity. Colin would read this web log from time to time and generously told me: "Your writing draws people into their heart, and leaves them yearning for more. That, my dear lady, is an unparalleled talent." Then maybe he will exist reading this along with all the comments I hope yous will leave below. Please exit comments! Tell your stories. Let us be encouraged past this homo's life and works.
(Since I posted this, a lot of you have kindly sent inspiring comments below, thank you! This includes people (and good writers!) who knew Colin well such equally Greg and Michelle — very well worth reading if y'all get the chance.)
Colin, if you are reading this … you may not fully appreciate how much you are loved and by how many. That, and riding a motorbike, might be the worst faults you had. But information technology doesn't matter at present because the Guru and Dakinis have you. I know we're going to be hanging out again in the mountains of Keajra one way or another. We're all going to be having endless fun with the Heroes and Heroines of Geshe-la's mandala, a mandala that you've already been a huge office of creating. It is your home, where y'all vest, where we and our families all belong. Indeed, where else could you exist at present but in that location already, inseparable from your dear Spiritual Father — paving the manner, as ever, for us all to run across through the illusion and join you.
Source: https://kadampalife.org/2021/08/17/im-a-believer/
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