Samye Ling

A long bit about the black snake, Rimpoche's and the Medicine Buddha in Scotland !!!

Mar 19, 2025

Me and H are off to Scotland to his spiritual home. I showed him mine before- 12 step convention of total riff raff - drum and bass between impassioned street homeless addict warriors who found God and came back from the impossible. It’s full power. I love hearing about people who didn't want to have a spiritual experience talking the G word. who cant forget who butters there bread and wont stop talking about it. This time it was his turn- we go Samye Ling near Lockerbie- its the first Tibetan monastery in the west. H felt the first time he went that he had been here before. He was the first person I met who believed in past lives. He gave me the key in to door of how the mind heals the body too, when he told me he healed his RSI by discovering TMS. That was just the beginning of a story that lead me to heal many things in my body. H’s great uncle lived here back when it was started and was taken care of till death by D who still lives here in his cabin. She is now 80. I asked H once, do you think you’re the reincarnation of your great uncle? He said he tried not to get bog down in that too much. Which is great answer.

My intentions for the trip was to find some place quiet as I’m on a come down not form drugs but family. A five month use up family crisis. I’ve been running from my life like I haven’t ran in years. My family like to make a crisis a marathon. They like to do it at the worst moments too- when i’ve just lost my house or similar.

The little bus that takes you through the lanes for half an hour to the place, it feels like its driving into another dimension. It’s empty at the moment as it’s midwinter. Tara prayers at 6am, breakfast at 7 and meditation at 8. At breakfast the only other guest says everything is perfect- war and peace. All perfect. Good and bad in harmony. Me and H look at each other with a silent laugh. I think, well its better than the last retreat where I met a guy who became a landlord to live without work and follow monks around India. Buddhism and middle class are oh so compatible.

I’m not being a dick i swear! I’ve always said i’m spiritually middle class if not socially or economically. Everywhere I go I get profiled as a student, never a dole dosser or a criminal.

***

It’s at this point I should also mention Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche for those how don’t know, the controversial buddhist master bodisatva who was known for sitting in the shrine drunk, and for dating many woman at once. In fact he gave up his vows to become like us. Lots of people didn't like him, but to me these flaws made it all seem possible. He said before he came to the west no one had ever sat still for more than five minutes. I often give him an example when i work with people in recovery because he remembered his past lives, his enlightenment was talked about by the OG buddha, and yet he couldn't stop drinking. You can be a master of step 11 but if you don’t do the first 10 you’re still in the madness and it don’t matter who you are.

When the Chinese government invaded Tibet 300 monks left, only 13 made it through the Himalayas to India. One was Chogyam age 15 (i am a sucker for a coming of age lost it all at 15 story as i have my own). They say he used a magic mirror as a compass. The journey took months. They say upon reaching the west, he used to start fights with people just to try and learn about the energies here, like nudge someone playing pool. I once saw a video of him and the Dali lama young and I was aghast because they look like new born lambs, you can feel the newness. You can see almost the sparkle around them.

*****

I find a medicine buddha postcard in the shop and ask a monk at the till about it. I say do you know about the medicine buddha? She wrinkles one eyebrow. Know? She replies in a Scottish accent. With that wisest is he who don't know look. For me thats not a good look. It's not BC anymore. It's AD- its very very AD. I wanted to tell her that even an idea changes around you and its not absolute. That once it might have been a mighty thought on the top of a great mountain but we past that. Besides anything I have heard before annoys me, and especially when its the opposite of my current fave belief- in this case that we do know, we deeply know, but act like we don't. For me knowing was everything not nothing. So she told me all life is suffering and then you get old and die. And I knew that. And she pointed out the prayer beads for the medicine buddha in case I wanted to ask him for help. I absolutely didn’t want to ask I had already enough help. I don't say I don't believe that life is suffering though I know this world is suffering. I told her this is not the only way. That we can heal. I buy the postcard and some incense for the medicine buddha made the old recipe in Tibet and leave.

***

I decide i’ll go for a walk. And off I go down the path by the river. The sound is amazing and after 5 months of only doing what absolutely had to make life not fall apart, moment to moment I am so glad to be free. The trees have so much moss all over they look fluffy and neon. The path is mushy and soft and I think about how Chogyam will have walked this path too. Probably drunk. I say I don't want to walk the buddhist path but here I am literally walking on a buddhists path. I wonder if the monks walking on the path is why it feels so light. After fifty paces I sprain my ankle for the umpteenth time. I guess I have to go back to my room and stick with my problem for now. I guess i really don’t want to walk the buddhist path.

In the food hall at dins people talk about how Chogyam’s brother who set this place up was murdered 10 years ago. It’s heartbreaking. They say he knew he was going to be killed. That you can see it in his face in the photos of him before he left. He told people he was not coming back. They say it was a fight over money in China on route to Tibet but everyone knows the Chinese government wanted him dead.

I tell H how I found the medicine buddha postcard in the shop. And read the card and what it meant.

Medicine buddha (Sanjay Menlha or Bhaisajaguru) “King of Vaidurya Light”

The medicine buddha embodies the healing powers of mind. On a worldly level, this manifests as the insight and wisdom needed for good diagnosis, treatment and use of natures recourse as a tool of healing. It is also the comparison of the good physician. On a deeper, longer-term level, it is the power to correct the ignorance and mental potions behind the karma that causes illness, either mental or physical. The Medicine Buddha holds the myrobalan plant, king of medicines, in his right hand and a begging bowl filled with Amrit nectar in the left.

Bells rung… Embodies- that each part of mind is stored in parts of the body. Healing power of the mind- yes you can heal with thinking. Compassion of physician- you have to let the ego have the first point or you can’t get rid of anything. Begging bowl- shout to to the holy path of dole dosser (might be a stretch but I'm claiming it as a second gen lifetime benefits claimant). Amrit nectar- kundalini awakening.

I say i’d like to learn a bit more about this buddha. He says there is a shrine here just for the medicine buddha his family friend D is the one who made it. She is an artist and gave her whole life to this place. The shrine is up on the top floor in the tower up several flights of stairs. We need a key to access it. We can ask D to get them to let us in tomorrow.

*****

D meets us after mediation outside the main temple after evening mediation and we do late night Koras around the monastery. It’s to get you in thanks or relation to the physical elements of yourself. It's done around a sacred sight or object. I walk slow to see how the ankle goes.

D tells of the symbolism of all the letters and colours and the rare statues and how they was cast and the types of stone calved. Shining on each thing with a torch. Pointing with her walking stick.

I did a meditation I tell her, I just thought it was a mindful thing but it was like drugs and it started off this thing that is hard to explain but I was shown how to heal my body. She says it sounds like i somatizes things. She has a friend who does this who is always sick because of picking up on the illness of others.

******

D says I can take refuge and I say I don't want too. H says it’s not a big deal, I say I spend yonks undoing cords to people and institutions and the church of many lifetimes, I'm not getting into it I just want to understand. I’ve done the past lives in monasteries. Religion is a barrier on the path. I try not to get into it. He says you can have a transmission without taking refuge. But why would I even need that? the medicine buddha is already my friend. I don't even need healing i’ve been healed. I don't need anything, but somehow it’s seems impossible to to express interest because they are just so used to spiritually empty seekers who need triage.

D tells me if I want to learn medicine Buddha I need to find a teacher go through a lineage and they might not even take me. And then thats how I could get the transmission. I don't want a lineage and I don't want a transmission. It felt annoying to be offered even. Then the penny drops I'm like- wait what is a transmission? Maybe thats what I had. I ask H isn’t _______ (not naming because I don't want to cancel) in a sort of Tibetan buddhism? (i don’t know any of the names of them) H says he is Kagyu and thats what this is. So maybe he gave me that thing? D says sounds like it. So what is a transmission? I ask. It goes all the way back to the buddha passed person to person in a line she said. I still don't know exactly what they are but I know that they are real. The people i got it from was using it to get high.

I forgot this is how it all started, I always say my kundalini awakening was spontaneous a result of a shit load of trauma. But that day, when the light went up my spine. After the meditation I felt sick and wished for months after that I had no done it, it started a dark night of the soul. I’m committed for life. I don’t blame anyone but at the time I was pissed off and near psychotic for a good while. Now have to live a spiritual life everyday or take anti psychotics.

The mediation was to imagine the medicine buddha coming into you and then out of you, and you and everyone you know becoming the medicine buddha. Then a pearl of light came up my spine. And it freaked me the fuck out. It was like coming up on a massive pinger. The biggest of my life. I rushed to the toilet and then had to go down onto the grass outside the flats and lay on the floor for hours. I lay there late in the night in spring 2020. I needed all the earth I could get. Since then I've done every hippy thing you could imagine but not out of choice out of necessity. I’m sick of chakras. It took two years to even realise what had happened. It’s been five years now. I just wanted to calm my mind cause I was so so sick with long covid and fibro and living below the poverty line and it was going on for weeks. I emailed the leader of the session at the time and said he should warn people before they start that its like drugs, and not good for sober people. I was disappointed that though he acknowledged it was strong, he didn’t seem to care the effect and he did not promise to warn people in the future. to be fair i had been dreaming of black snakes a lot beofre this all hapepend so i cant balme him. us with the most desatbled nerbous styems smashed inpt a million timlines at once are the most likely for this and thats no ones fault.

Then D starts talking about getting it in the next life. I’m thinking- they been saying that for 2000 years and I'm like, maybe it is the next life? Then H starts to get irritated with D. Why is it so long and hard anyway people are suffering now? We need to help people now. It gives me a big buzz. Cause I know before when I spoke to H about my issues with it, it hurt his heart a lot cause he loves those sweet sweet monks. I told him how in recovery we do steps fast, get power fast and within usually about 3 months are sponsoring others. H is pissed off it’s taken him years and years of so much work to get anything from buddhism and it din’t give him the freedom which he now has from recovery. I feel dead proud of him. Because i see he has found the perspective of psychic fullness. D is pretty receptive. So D tells us we can go to the medicine buddha shrine tomorrow. We should ask at reception.

D talks about meeting Chogyam and being weary because of his controversial reputation but feeling strongly that when she did, he was very special and very realised and worthy of trust as a teacher on the path. D cries talking about how bad it’s got since Rimpoche died. How it was more open and nuanced now it’s so prescriptive. We have the same issue in recovery I tell her. Slogans. Do 90 meetings in 90 days. Things that are just mad rules that don’t actually mean much and aren’t about finding the power. At least they still don't take money for teachings here though.

I feel so sorry hearing about the monk being murdered and the effect it has had on the monastery. Why do all the ones who advocate for peace get killed? Are you better off like his brother Trungpa with the addiction (opposition from the inside) beat poets for friends and the pyrosis of the liver? Or the humanitarian that’s gets taken down by the opposition from the outside?

*****

I tell H I looked up the medicine buddha. Who took 12 vows. A few very relevant to me- relieving from pains and guilt resulting from materialistic desires. Big problem for me as i hate stuff. Those who relapse, are physically disabled or sick be blessed with good health, both physically and mentally. Relieve pain and poverty of the very sick and poor. For prisoners, those who committed crime to obtain food. Help women who are undergoing sufferings and tortures and seeking for transformation into men. Honest to god what the fuck he really made a promise to help the T boys.

We ask at reception and they say no. It's the one who doesn’t 'know'. Till we come along the next day with D and suddenly it's all, the door has been left unlocked.

*******

We enter through the back of the main shrine room trying not to disturb the monk doing prayers. We walk up several flights of granite stairs to the top floor. Hand painted images of made up animals are on all the walls. We sit and mediate and then I do some inventory. I feel so glad knowing how much me and H have mutually changed each others lives.

D meets us up there and tells us about it how the gold paint came from Nepal as they don’t grind it fine enough in the west. How the ceiling is screen printed. Medicine Buddha is stunning and huge and hand painted. And the whole wall at the front is gold buddhas. Apparently gold can represent any colour. She says they barley open this room anymore. Not enough people to do the medicine buddha puja. That makes me sad I don't want the buddha to be lonely.

I leave a quid for the medicine Buddha next to a club bar and a green and blacks. I don’t know what else to do? I figure he’ll like a coin that’s gold and silver. Small thanks for being free.

We wait for the bus to collect us in the morning. When we try to get on the driver shouts NO! in our face in a Scottish accent. We both laugh because thats all we have heard all week and wait by the side of the road till he goes round the corner and comes back the other way. The journey back to the town feels just like going through a portal back to the Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday get moving look busy sort of world.