From Aspirations for Mahamudra, commentary on verse 19
Ken: One day shortly after the three-year retreat ended, I went to Kalu Rinpoche for instruction in dzogchen. I had asked for the instruction because, frankly, I thought I might be missing something. Rinpoche picked up a piece of paper from a pile of pages in front of him and read a pointing-out instruction to me. “Sounds like mahamudra to me,” he said. He then picked up another piece of paper and read another instruction. “Hmmm, that sounds like mahamudra, too.” Another piece of paper elicited, “That sounds like dzogchen, no?” I was familiar with almost all the instructions from my studies during the three-year retreat, and began to say so. Rinpoche ignored me and continued to read, mahamudra, dzogchen, dzogchen, mahamudra, back and forth—for half an hour or more. Eventually he stopped, looked at me, and asked, “Do you understand?”
In his commentary on verse 19 of Aspirations for Mahamudra, Ken shares an anecdote that begins with a very familiar anxiety: “I might be missing something.” Shortly after completing the three-year retreat, he still wonders whether there is some crucial instruction, some hidden distinction, some deeper level that he has not yet received.
I find myself relating to this very strongly. Over the years, again and again I've had the feeling that somewhere there might be instructions that would work like a Rosetta Stone, decoding or illuminating experiences that don’t sit comfortably within descriptions of effects and results of practice, and releasing deep reactive patterns that keep reemerging. I've explored more than one ultimately fruitless rabbit hole searching for such keys. Then, through pure serendipity, I encountered Ken's anecdote.
Kalu Rinpoche’s response is wonderfully indirect. He doesn’t answer Ken’s question. He doesn’t explain the relationship between mahamudra and dzogchen or offer a philosophical comparison. Instead, he keeps reading instruction after instruction, refusing to let Ken settle into categories. Mahamudra. Dzogchen. Dzogchen. Mahamudra. Back and forth until the distinctions begin to lose their solidity. It feels as though Rinpoche is responding to Ken’s search for certainty by wearing out the mind that wants to classify, compare, conclude, and know the answer.
This anecdote touched a very tender place. Ken wanted to be sure he hadn't missed anything. I recognised that impulse immediately. My version of it has been, “I want to find a teaching or a practice that provides the missing piece.”
Ken comments that he is familiar with the instructions Rinpoche is reading. His frustration is palpable; he can distinguish one set of instructions from another. But Kalu Rinpoche seems to be pointing to something else entirely. When Rinpoche finally asks, “Do you understand?” it feels like an invitation to stop looking elsewhere rather than a test of knowledge. The mind that is searching for the perfect map is the very thing obscuring the territory.
The story ends without telling us how Ken answered. Instead, Rinpoche’s question is left hanging in the air. Do we understand? Not the difference between mahamudra and dzogchen, but the nature of the doubt that keeps asking whether there is something else, somewhere else, that we still need to find or acquire.