Aro West Coast Book Club

After working with Ngak'chang Rinpoche in Bodhanath, Nepal for some months in his early 20s, Kyabje Dud'jom Rinpoche Jig'drel Yeshe Dorje sent Rinpoche back to Britain with the instruction to spend the next three years at art school and "learn to live in the West as a ngakpa."

Rinpoche followed his Lama's advice. During those three years he navigated the English art school scene in the 1970s, encountered the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa in Scotland and received Dzogchen teachings from him, entered and sadly left a romantic relationship that did not include the lady's kindness, and tangled with the question of who he was to be as a ngakpa among the fine artists, illustrators, blues musicians, and Buddhists of the West.

The title of Rinpoche's memoir, "Goodbye Forever," is the answer to his questions about himself and his past visions of a future. He followed the instructions of Dud'jom Rinpoche and the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa instead and returned to Nepal where, "An astounding time opened in front of me like a view arcing the vast sweep of the Himalayas and out into unending Space."

Meeting every Wednesday evening from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., Pacific Time