Sublime

The retreat was to be under the direction of the Very Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche, a close dharma brother of Trungpa Rinpoche and one of the foremost teachers in the Kagyü lineage.

Rinzai Roku (a celebrated Zen text of the T’ang dynasty) and the teachings of Bankei, the seventeenth-century Japanese master who, for me, represents Zen at its best.

Standing in the background is the great fourteenth-century Nyingma scholar and yogin Longchenpa, who, for the first time, brought together the various doctrines and practices of the Ancient School into one grand and comprehensive synthesis.

I had many teachers, but the most central were two of the wisest Theravada teachers of the past century: one in Thailand, Ajahn Chah, and one in Burma, Mahasi Sayadaw.