Milarepa Dave in a cyber-cave

Lama Zopa was in London to give a series of lower Tantra initiations at Conway Hall Rad Lion Square home of the Ethical Society a place that I was familiar with because it was here that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami had given teaching on Shri Ishopanishad just prior to my joining the Hare Krishna movement along with my wife when he was staying at Tittenhurst which was the estate on John Lennon.

I had volunteered to cook lunch for Geshe Tashi but was unaware that Rinpoche would be eating as a guest of Geshe la.

All I knew of cooking was rice and dhal but it was made rich with a dollop of Gee tomatoes for flavor with carrots as well. Upstairs in Geshe la’s apartment the bells from a ritual could be heard as the spices roasted in the pan creating take my breath away fumes pervading the air.

Quietly when it was time Joana Fairly helped me take the food up to Rinpoche and Geshe la then went back to the kitchen to clean up the mess before eating our fill.

Rinpoche was staying at the home of Sean Jones who had been a great mate of mine in the sixties and had made his pile of cash after spending time in jail in Tabriz Iran {which is said to be the site of the biblical Garden of Eden}. He was about to get married to his wife Arianne and Sean arrived to drive Rinpoche back to his home.

Lama Zopa was in the shrine room saying goodbye to the Rupa’s on the alter nut had emerged to the front door by the time that Sean had turned the car around in the one way street that housed Jamyang.

He approached the step as Rinpoche said shaking my hand “This guy has just cooked for me far out dhal” and all Sean could do was say “Yes I’ve known Dave for over thirty years.”

They drove away and I had an opportunity to play some music for Rinpoche of my tin whistle before he left England. I tried to live down the name because I never saw myself a yogi in the high Himalaya but whenever he saw me he would ask me if I had my Milarepa Flute which I’d been playing as a busker and clown down the London Transport Tube System for sixteen years singing into the flute playing Duke Ellington gems inspired by Roland Kirk.

Rinpoche even introduced me to some of the other Lamas as Milarepa from London what could any old hippie do except go with flow and move to the next step up.

So I don’t see myself as the saint Milarepa because he was a person of great renunciation; but he wrote poems that still are read but the same can be said of David who was the Psalm singing king.

What’s in a name?

When all is empty of inherent meaning and for the Celts of Wales Saint David of the old Celtic church prior now has a place in my way; was a vegetarian who would make his monks pull the plow to save the strain on the Oxen.

When Augustine mistook the Brits for Angels and changed this land forever a bit later and history created the Karma of the change of dominant government with 1066 and the Norman Invasion as the Comet of doom swung over head.

So Milarepa Dave in a cyber-cave it is and there nought I can do about it.

I'm trying to understand and experience Buddhist Emptiness fuelled with Compassion for all beings.

Come and join me because as Ray Charles once sang in the Fifties “The world is in an uproar the danger zone is everywhere.