I studied Buddhist philosophy for almost a decade in my teens, even though I may not have succeeded in learning much. I did succeed in becoming narrow minded by developing a high regard for the skeptical mind. My studies made me arrogant and blinded my pure perception. I began to idealize skeptics who doubted superstitions, blessings, and devotion. I’m sure if I had known who Erich Fromm and Nietzsche were at that time, I probably would have placed them on the same pedestal as Shakyamuni.

When I was studying at Sakya college my father repeatedly scolded me for wasting time on all this logic and philosophy. I didn’t understand. Any other father would be so happy to have a son who was putting effort into his studies. Years later it became clear: These scoldings were coming from someone who understood the blindness of logic and appreciated the taste of practice.

So I developed this habit of looking down on things that couldn’t be explained by logic, but luckily that habit was broken, partly because of a mouse.

In 1990, I was in the middle of trying to establish Dzongsar Shedra in Bir, India, which has now metamorphosed into something called Deer Park. We were quite poor then; at one point I had only one single green 5 rupee note in my wallet. We survived on food rations that the American government provided for Tibetan refugees, mostly barley and sometimes wheat. It came in big sacks emblazoned with an image of two hands clasped. Ten sacks of barley was enough to feed 25 monks for about a month.

When there was no money to continue construction, we just had to pause and wait until some funds materialized. I relied on a strong “something will work out” attitude back then, an attitude that has become weaker over time.

It was actually good when the money ran out, because I could take advantage of the time to do retreat. One time I decided to do a one-month retreat dedicated to Lady Yeshe Tsogyal, the consort of Guru Rinpoche (whom Tibetans in general and especially Nyingmapas should revere on the same level as Guru Rinpoche and King Trison Deutsen for all that she has done). At the end of this retreat, I was clearing my shrine and to my amazement I discovered that the back of the torma[1] had been eaten by a mouse. This skillful mouse had been so perfect and precise, leaving the front of the torma intact so that I hadn’t noticed, even though I had been looking at it for a whole month.

My logical mind said it’s just a mouse, it needs food. My shrine was out in the open, not in a cabinet, so why not? But then Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche, the king of soothsayers, showed up saying his soothsaying things and when I told him that my torma had been eaten, he didn’t beat around the bush. “That’s a bad sign,” he growled. He was so direct. Even the most skeptical person would be bothered by a gypsy soothsayer being so frank.

Two days later, I received a call from Bhutan from Dasho Pema Wangchen, who was the private secretary to the 4th King of Bhutan. Back then, it was a really big deal to receive a call in Bir, from anyone. The phone rang only about three times a year. To place a call even just to Baijnath[2] you had to book with a telephone operator a few hours in advance to reserve the connection. Much later, I gathered that people in Bhutan had nominated Dasho Pema Wangchen to call me because no one else had the courage to deliver the message.

Dasho’s voice was surprisingly clear on the line and what he said was also very clear. “Your mother is dead.”

The Yeshe Tsogyal practice that I had just completed with my mouse-eaten torma was the main and maybe only practice that my mother ever did. So my skeptical mind made a shift right then and there. From that time onward, I couldn’t help but be a believer. This was one of the biggest shifts of this nature that I ever had. Now I am superstitious about everything. If I see someone carrying an empty bucket when I am about to go on a trip, that affects me. And when I walk around on the busy streets of New York or New Orleans, when I see tarot card readers, psychics, astrology readers, I easily fall for them. On the positive side, on the last day of the 21-day Tara puja [in Chauntra in 2017], a child offered me his sketch of Arya Tara. But he had put a beard on Tara so that she looked more like Guru Rinpoche and my small mind was overjoyed. I thought of course Tara is Guru Rinpoche! So that’s where I am now, thanks to that mouse.

Over the years, I have met certain skeptical individuals who coasted on the wings of rationality and logic and fancied themselves to be as sharp as hawks. But years later, those same people were lying in their deathbeds filled with fear and hopelessness. I am really curious how existentialists like Sartre and Camus looked at the moment of death. These critics never used the sharp skepticism they were so fond of to be skeptical of the skepticism.

Unlike Shakyamuni Buddha, who was beyond karma, and who could choose Maya and Suddhodana to be his parents, we are so dictated by our karma; we don’t get to choose. I didn’t choose Thinley Norbu and Jamyang Choden. It was just a matter of karma. Just because someone is your mother or father, that doesn’t necessarily mean you love them and vice versa, but that hasn’t stopped everyone from thinking that they should. Half of the world’s family problems come from that unnecessary expectation. Instead of trusting karma, they end up trusting the assumption that parents should love their children and children should love their parents. The only good that comes of this assumption is that it gives employment to so many therapists. I too am very much a prisoner of my assumptions and expectations regarding my parents.

My nostalgia about my mother has grown over time, and especially after she died. After age 8, I had spent a total of only a few months in her company. And I certainly don’t remember ever going to a family picnic. Being a rinpoche of that generation meant being estranged from my family. Today the tulku life is dominated by parents, they spend holidays together, they even live together and—for goodness sake—they have Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings. There was never a Thanksgiving or a family reunion or even a New Year celebration in my family. There has never been a group photo of all of us together.

I grew up in a patriarchal society that didn’t care much for women’s rights. As I have explored the world outside that society, I’ve come to appreciate women and have become one of those who think that gender bias is not a good thing. My mother was never given any right to make decisions about me. How was she supposed to feel when her first son, me, was drafted as a tulku forever, a job that doesn’t have an option for firing or resigning. Overjoyed? Although she would never have opposed my being recognized as a tulku and did not resist my being taken away, she was never even given a chance to voice her opinion. In those days parents had no say over the tulkus. The child was just gone.

The little memory I have is that she was always kind of alone. My father was never really there. She raised the two youngest kids basically by herself. I can only imagine what her life was like, surrounded by a society that had such strong concepts about what is right and wrong. As the consort of Dudjom Rinpoche’s eldest son and as the daughter of Lama Sonam Zangpo, she had to behave—not that she was ever inclined to misbehave, that was not in her nature.

She always dressed so simply— a plain Bhutanese kira or a Tibetan chuba in dull colors— and she was a talented weaver. She was so capable, but her talents were never given a chance to blossom in that male-dominated society. Only one thing she made for me, a bedcover, remains in my possession. My attendant Phuntsok’s mother Aum Kuenga was her good friend, and now whenever I see her, I get that nostalgic feeling for my mother.

She was a woman of few words, which was one of her most awe-inspiring qualities. I met many people who were more in awe of her than of my father, even though my father outranked her, overpowered her, and was the dominant gender. And even though he scolded everyone all the time, somehow she was the one who quietly earned their deepest reverence. One word from her had more impact than a week of my father’s scoldings. People watched their behavior in her presence and acted more properly around her than around him.

I never said “I miss you” to my father or mother. Given the chance, I would still not do it. Culturally it’s not there. It would be so strange. But these days tulkus say I love you and I miss you to their parents all the time. Maybe they’ve watched The Brady Bunch or Modern Family. My skin cringes at the thought of my father saying “I love you.” I was much more accustomed to him scolding me. He would scold me for everything from the color of my shirt being too bright to my footsteps being too loud. In fact, if he didn’t scold me, I’d wonder what was wrong. I think it’s it important for parents to pay attention to how they manifest in front of their children. The memories I have of my father scolding my mother during his rare visits home made a strong impression on me. Through all the disparity and difficult situations, she would still always praise and speak genuinely of my father, referring to him as Dungse Rinpoche. The analysts would probably have been eager to take us on as patients.

A few years before my mother passed away, she began saying things like, “When you are all gone, when you have abandoned me, I will do this or that.” It seemed she was expecting to be left alone or not included, which always puzzled and almost annoyed me. A lineage holder of Freud might have diagnosed her as having a bit of an empty nest syndrome. Because of who she was and who she was married to, she never had the opportunity to be a mother. If she had not been a great dharma practitioner, she would have had a much harder time. And she was, from what I recall, a great dharma practitioner.

From my side, there is a mixture of regret because the years of separation created a sense of distance. But who can break a mother and son bond? Even though the time was brief, my connection with my mother and my maternal grandfather was so strong. Looking back, I’m glad that I insisted that my mother travel with me to Switzerland, Malaysia, and China when I was in my twenties. These three journeys, albeit short, made up the most time we spent together.

I think one of the reasons I have a special fondness for my brother Jampel Dorje, and why I always forgive him for being obnoxious, is because he resembles my mother and grandfather so much, his features and even just the movement of his hands. He was the sibling who spent the most time with my mother, and she loved him particularly because he’s kind of funny and crazy. Jampel Dorje drools when he talks and I realized recently that I do that too. This is what DNA can do.

When we did manage to spend some time together, my mother’s approach to me was not as her son but as the incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö. This is what society demands of a tulku’s mother. But she had genuine devotion. She did so many prostrations to me. Hugging and cuddling up with her was out of the question, affection was shown in other ways. Once when I was in Phuntsholing and desperately needed cash, the first person I had no qualms leaning on was my mother. I asked her to buy my old television, and she paid the full original price. It was a good deal for me.

In her last years, she stayed in Thimphu in a four-room house right above Memorial Stupa, which my father designed. I remember going there to bathe sometimes; she had a big bucket with an electric rod to heat the water. She warned me again and again not to touch the water if the switch was on. This was her way of showing her concern and affection. So there were a few times that she spoke to me as her son, not as Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö.

Coming back to superstition, Tibetans believe in something called lha, which is like soul. Once I was in Nepal receiving initiations and teachings from all the great masters who were living there at that time. My mother was also there, living in a house that my father had built. My father had given her some American dollars, worth about 100,000 Nepali rupees. One day a thief climbed a tree, broke into her room, and stole the money. She felt so bad about this, and she never recovered from that sense of guilt, especially because the money was from my father. It could have been my imagination, but I felt that she lost her radiance, her lha, and never recovered it. She became introverted. And then slowly her thyroid sickness came. I tried to console her, and even Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, ever so compassionate, called her on the phone to cheer her up. But somehow that burden never left her.

Soon after that I went to Bir and did the Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. I can’t help but wonder about the connections. I hope for my mother , and for all the mothers of the past and the future, that I and they will go beyond superstition and logic.

[1] Quite an important tantric substance which are made of grains and usually decorated with colored butter.

[2] The village just 15 minutes down the road from Bir.