The Perpetual Reinvention of Rigdzin Karma
Sincere homage to the Guru, the Deva, the Dakini — and satiric bow to all patrons who shape the sacred.
The year was 2468 since the Buddha's Parinirvana — a distinctly Buddhist reckoning of time, which renders events recent enough to be documented yet distant enough to be misunderstood. Into this moment, Rigdzin Karma was born: in a valley southeast of Jomolangma, where mountains rose without effort and livelihoods did not. Beauty was abundant. Opportunity remained conditional.
His father — a Tibetan refugee, no separatist but plainly an opportunist, having seized the gift of citizenship from the Dharma Raja of the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon — departed early into samsara, another valley, or simply into absence. The departure was complete enough to become formative.
His mother — albeit Bhutanese by birth, came from a nomadic family that had quietly mastered survival, though she herself chose a narrower path: one her relatives called renunciation and accountants termed an administrative inconvenience. Between these two absences — one physical, one material — Karma learned early that permanence was an unreliable companion.
By age ten, he had become what institutions classify as an orphan and what life recognizes as a student of necessity. When his trajectory seemed fixed toward subsistence punctuated by seasons, the karmic ledger shifted. In 1998, he entered a monastic school whose name — Druk Khamsum Wandue Choekyi Phodrang — exceeded the length of some Himalayan winters. ༼འབྲུག་ཁམས་གསུམ་དབང་འདུས་ཆོས་ཀྱི་ཕོ་བྲང་།༽
The monks observed two things immediately. First, Karma learned quickly. Second, he worked without complaint, lifting stones, hauling timber, and memorizing texts with equal discipline. Whether this reflected devotion, determination, or simply lack of alternatives was never conclusively determined.
He advanced to Chungoen Dongak Dargay Ling, where he studied grammar, poetry, sutra, and philosophy while participating in the ancient monastic tradition of constructing buildings for future generations to renovate. Under his first master, Lopen Yeshey Rinchen, Karma spent four years balancing textual rigor with physical labor, discovering that the doctrine of impermanence applies most consistently to structures built with optimism. ༼ཁྱུང་དགོན་མདོ་སྔགས་དར་རྒྱས་གླིང་།༽
A second teacher, Lopen Lekshed Jamtsho, appeared briefly but decisively. Under his guidance, something shifted. Grammar ceased to feel mechanical. Sutras stopped resisting interpretation. Philosophy revealed itself not as abstraction but as disciplined clarity. Karma's aptitude sharpened not theatrically, but unmistakably. ༼བདེ་བཤེགས་བཀའ་བརྒྱད་འདུས་གྲྭ་༽
In 2003, he arrived at Dechenchoeling Monastery and met Khenpo Namkar Donkuen Drubpa, who would become his root guru. Instruction here was neither indulgent nor performative. The Longchen Nyingtik teachings were transmitted without embellishment, and Karma absorbed them with the gravity of someone who understood that precision mattered. ༼བདེ་ཆེན་ཆོས་གླིང་༽ ༼མཁན་པོ་རྣམ་དཀར་དོན་ཀུན་གྲུབ་པ།༽
After three years came retreat.
Retreat, as described in brochures, offers a controlled encounter with the mind. In practice, it provides an unsupervised audit. Karma retreated to Bayul Langdrak Ney, the Hidden Valley of Misty Towers, a location chosen for its silence and distance from distraction. The silence endured. The mind did not cooperate. ༼སྦས་ཡུལ་གླང་བྲག་གནས་༽
One evening, a radio played by a less pretentious elderly practitioner nearby began to echo. The music itself was unremarkable. Its effect was profound. Within minutes, it accomplished what months of solitude had not: it exposed the fragility of resolve built on containment rather than genuine insight. Karma remained in retreat physically. Mentally, he had already departed.
At sunset, he asked himself a question less poetic than honest: whether this was genuine renunciation or simply a different form of avoidance. By morning, he descended.
In the capital city of Kingdom of Agartha, Karma encountered another system of doctrine: institutional legitimacy. Despite fluency in Dzongkha, years of classical training, and comprehensive textual mastery, he discovered that knowledge required external validation to circulate freely. Enlightenment, absent certification, was considered non-transferable.
So he adapted. English. Science. Western literature. Temporary employment. Persistent exhaustion. He learned that institutions value clarity, provided it arrives in the correct format.
In 2006, worn thin rather than broken, Karma entered a Christian community that asked fewer preliminary questions. He was welcomed, fed, and trusted with responsibility before credentials. The warmth was genuine. The structure was firm. Soon he became a Baptist preacher — one whose logic could dismantle mountains of doubt — and remained within this faith for fifteen years: long enough to be shaped, challenged, entangled, and ultimately transformed.
His efforts to improve outcomes for others were interpreted variously. Institutions, regardless of theology, rarely welcome unsanctioned reform. And so he crossed continents, accumulated books, and made his first American home in the Green Mountain State along the 45th parallel — before drifting gradually southward to the Big Apple, that city he had tenderly renamed Ardam Dragrong, the Garden of Luminous Clarity ༼ཨར་འདམ་བྲག་རོང་། འོད་གསལ་སྤྲིན་གྱི་སྐྱེད་ཚལ།༽ in later chapters of his life. It served as his base for a decade, until the Roof of the World began its incessant call.
In 2020, Karma nearly died. Twice. This was not collateral to the global pandemic but a more intimate summons — from the universe, or perhaps the Dharma itself. Despite a life of unbroken sobriety, he was visited by an ominous onset of acute pancreatitis: misdiagnosed the first time, diagnosed with precision the second. What medicine classified as a terminal crisis, Karma received as a blessing poorly wrapped — a physical dismantling that mirrored, with uncomfortable accuracy, his spiritual necessity.
The proximity of death clarified matters considerably. The identities he had collected — or at least attempted to collect — monk, scholar, convert, social worker, migrant — proved administratively irrelevant in that moment. There were no forms to complete. No doctrinal checkpoints to pass. No patrons to appease for validation. Only clarity, arriving without ceremony.
After a fortnight of inward battle, he returned to the Dharma — not as performance, but as practice. He sought forgiveness without elaboration. He offered lamps without seeking their symbolism.
Karma had known two teachers and a master. The second teacher and the master had already passed beyond. But his first teacher, Lopen Yeshi Rinchen, still walked among the living. Once more, before the end, Karma found his way to him — and a circle closed that required no interpretation.
When all his teachers had passed beyond, instruction did not cease. It simply changed form. The message was direct, delivered without flourish: stop performing Buddhism — start contemplating the Dharma.
So Karma did. Texts, commentaries, philosophy. Physics as well — not from novelty, but because genuine inquiry respects no jurisdictional boundaries. The world appeared increasingly coherent when stripped of convenient slogans.
Today, Rigdzin Karma lives with intentional simplicity. He writes poetry. Translates when compelled. Guides a small number of students who assume this is preparation for something more public, but in reality Karma occasionally attempts to disappear from them — recognizing, perhaps, that the game was never about becoming somebody; it was always about becoming nobody.
Over the years, without intention or effort, Karma developed a quiet habit of existing inconveniently — particularly in proximity to narratives where divinity was being carefully assembled for public consumption. He made no claims, issued no challenges, and sought no position. Yet through the unsparing lens of Lha Lama Yeshe Wo, his mere existence is likely to introduce an unwelcome variable into certain equations — especially those requiring unanimous silence to balance.
Fear not. His final retreat is not geographic. It is internal, uncluttered, and immune to certification. Radios cannot reach it. Committees cannot refute it. The Dharma, unmediated by institutions, remains intact. Nor need anyone be wary of his entry into any contest of validation — his appetite for elusiveness only deepens, perplexingly, the further he recedes.
He already stands as an undeniable curvature in Einstein's field equations and as a luminous clarity in Longchenpa's exposition of Kun Gzhi. So kindly spare his humble voyage across cosmic space without any let or hindrance — if such a thing were ever in your power. After all, even emptiness needs a little space.Now to mind of curiosity, why these narratives warrant the telling — given Karma’s conspicuous indifference to mundane affairs — that mapping the observable universe still matters, at least when the knowledge and instruments are ready. For those inclined to search further, one mind fine the secret milk that nourishes the self-arising Rigpa child.
In Karma’s own words: As one encounter this story, notice what stirs. If an Ao Guang warmth rises in you — open, receptive, inclined to receive the narrative as genuine — treat that as the first object of inquiry. Who is perceiving? And why? Do not follow the warmth. Examine it.
If instead a Ne Zha sharpness rises — skeptical, resistant, inclined to dismiss the whole as vague or self-important — do not follow that either. Ask again: who is perceiving? And why? Sit with the question. Whether an answer arrives is beside the point. Look at who is perceiving, and why perception reached for that particular shape. Here Karma allows himself a wink.
To conclude: when the seer and the seen dissolve into a single field, the purpose of this life story is served. Should anyone question the authenticity of its subject — it is as authentic as a brief congregation of organic molecules bending along a curve of spacetime. In the end, approval and rejection, acceptance and dismissal, love and hatred all fold back into a single vibrating loop, and the universe, down to its last quark, is left utterly without remainder.
Amitabha Bless You!
Penned by David Shanker — a longtime close friend who, over decades, has declined repeated invitations to adopt any of the above disciplines, preferring sustained affection from a safe observational distance.