Sacred West

Anam Thubten Rinpoche is coming to Austin in eight days from now, and this to me is a very big deal, even on a path made up of no big deals. He’ll be here for the retreat weekend of July 28th and 29th, plus the Friday evening on the 27th.

If you’ve never experienced Anam Thubten Rinpoche, well, maybe you should. You can’t help but love the man, his spirit is so warm, and he’s so positive. His particular thing is wakefulness, he wants us to wake up now. He makes it seem possible.

The last time Anam Thubten Rinpoche was in town I went to the Friday evening talk; I didn’t think I could spare the whole weekend. It was my first encounter with him, the first time I’d even heard his voice. We sat for a while, and then he talked. I remember only that he said he was confident that each one of us would have some kind of breakthough, some kind of awakening. This was nice, and later in that weekend I had some kind of breakthough, some kind of awakening. A few hours after the experience I remembered what he’d said.

Some months later I was sitting with his Austin sangha during their Sunday morning puja, and we were listening to one of Anam Thubten Rinpoche’s talks on disc, as they always do every week. Rinpoche was talking about awakening, and at the end he encouraged us to meditate, saying, almost casually it seemed, that we would experience an awakening. When I went home I thought about this. Even though I had meditated for the day, I decided to sit again and give it twenty minutes. Sure enough, an awakening.

Call me superstitious, but two out of two is one hundred percent. What is it they used to say in the old James Bond world? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence – and third is my going back next weekend, and this time I’m down for the whole weekend.

Maybe I’ll see you there 🙂

Full details are here:
Anam Thubten Rinpoche Retreat Weekend in Austin