Thursday

Are you Enlightened?

Photo courtesy of Bob Morehouse.

In 1983, I was auditing poetry classes at Naropa Institute and just starting to take the Shambhala Training program. To help pay for the program, I was allowed to do work study and sat at the reception desk in the International Headquarters of Shambhala Training in Boulder which that year was above a hot tub place west of the Pearl Street mall.

One day a scruffy looking guy came in and struck up a conversation. He was in his thirties, wearing shabby clothes and missing a few teeth. After a few minutes, he told me he had been to a party the night before and Trungpa was there. I asked him what happened. He said, “I met him. I asked him if he was enlightened.” Suddenly, I was really interested in the conversation. Later, I thought that this is the exact question that the Buddha was asked and which he answered with the famous earth touching mudra — “the earth is my witness.” I asked the scruffy guy what Trungpa Rinpoche said in response. He told me: “Trungpa said: ‘I’m not allowed to say.’”

I still think that this is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.