He said that business was going relatively well and he could afford to send his two daughters to study at university in the West, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so, despite that being the goal of so many people in this part of the world. He said he felt saddened by the idea of them moving to a country where there is no Buddhism; where there would not even be a stupa to circumambulate, never mind the chance to receive teachings and so on. That moving Westwards would not only remove his daughters from a place imbued with the dharma but that his grandchildren and future generations would most likely become estranged from Buddhism and uninterested in the dharma. But if they were to stay here in Nepal, there is something of Buddhism and spirituality in the air, and at the very least his daughters and grandchildren would visit, circumambulate and make offerings to the stupa at Boudhanath.

What he said very much mirrored my own thoughts on the matter; I too have no wish to stay in the West. Never do I think that that might be pleasant. I’ll visit if I think I have to, or because it will be worthwhile, but no way would I move there. The same for a modern swanky city in the East. I never think about settling in such places.

I think that if I were to move to the West, or a highly developed Asian city, it would be ruinous to my present and future lives. What I think about most of all is moving to the streets of Kathmandu. Many times a day I think how wonderful it would be if I could live like that for a while; just left to my own devices, a nameless face in the street gutter. The other place I think about going to the most is the mountains. But these are just thoughts. I haven’t taken any steps towards actualising them, because I am not a real dharma practitioner. They remain in the realm of mere fancy.

We see that Milarepa always ran away to more isolated places whenever too many followers gathered around him. We may think that his way was heartless, and lacking compassion, but can you name a Tibetan who has done more for the benefit of beings and the buddha dharma? I see and appreciate his way, but I am too ensnared by attachments to follow in his footsteps.

But one thing I always say to the people who come to hear me talk when I travel in the West or the East is that if they notice me coming more and more to where they live in developed cities and the like, they can understand from that that I have become even worse as a practitioner. Whereas if they start hearing and seeing less of me, that might be because I have improved as a practitioner. I’m not sure they like it when I say that, but that’s how it is.

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Note: This picture of Drupon Khen Rinpoche was taken in Tibet with his uncle, Samdrup, who spent decades in mountain retreat, and many years staying in very remote locations all alone. He spent the last years of his life in a mountain hermitage on the same hillside as Tsabtsa Monastery’s retreat centre. His nephews and nieces wanted to care for him in his old age but he declined their offers of help, saying he was happiest being left alone to his practice. He passed away four or five years ago, alone in his retreat hut. A fellow practitioner who lives in a nearby hut noticed that Lama Samdrup hadn’t cleared the snow that had accumulated around his hut, so the neighbour went to check on the old lama and found him sitting in his meditation box no longer alive.