by Susan Lorraine
Re•fu•gi•um. Early 20th century, from Latin; literally “a place of refuge”; plural refugia. In population biology: refers to an area that supports an isolated or relict population of a once more widespread species. This isolation can be due to climatic changes, geography, or human activities such as deforestation and overhunting. A refugium allows a population to survive through a period of unfavorable conditions. A new dispersion may take place once conditions become more favorable.
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Story #1
From the age of 37 until her death at the age of 99, Machik Labdron lived, practiced and taught in Zangri Khamar, a meditation cave complex in central Tibet. After she “departed into the expanse of suchness” in 1153, generations of practitioners continued to reside at Zangri Khamar, holding Machik’s lineage, preserving her legacy, and protecting her relics.
Eight centuries later, in 1952, the treasure revealer Trülshik Rigdzin Lingpa received a prophetic vision, in which dakinis instructed him to “save the treasures of Machik’s lineage and relocate to a place shaped like a fully blossomed lotus in a land ruled by a Dharma king.” By chance, Trülshik Rigdzin Lingpa had a Bhutanese disciple who was able to offer the Tibetans a portion of his family’s ancestral land in Bhutan. A group of 30 from Zangri Khamar made the arduous journey to a remote mountaintop in northeastern Bhutan, escaping the destruction that the Communist Chinese occupation would inflict on the people, culture and spiritual life of Tibet just a few years later. (Greenspan, 2023)
The relocated Bhutanese community, called Druk Zangri Kharmar, remained relatively unknown to the outside world until 2017, when Lama Tsultrim Allione made an initial connection and then led a pilgrimage there, initiating a fertile exchange which continues to this day.
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Story #2
In 1957, the Chinese occupation of Tibet was well underway, though its full implications were not yet clear. The young tulku Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was head of Surmang monastery in eastern Tibet as he continued his spiritual training under his root guru, Jamgön Kongtrul of Sechen, and one of Jamgön Rinpoche’s closest disciples, Khenpo Gangshar.
In this excerpt from his memoir, Trungpa Rinpoche recalls a time when he and Khenpo Gangshar visited caves near his monastery, in Mount Doti Gangkar, where Guru Padmasambhava once meditated. The mountain was known to be snow-covered, though that was changing.
The legend goes that in the Golden Age this snow never melted and shone like a diamond. In the following age it was like an onyx in which light and darkness are mixed. In the third age, however, it was to become like iron; everything would be dark and our time in Tibet would be over. When we reached the top of the mountain we found that the snow fields were melting and that great expanses of dark rock were showing.
All this made a deep impression on Khenpo Gangshar. The legend of the three ages seemed to indicate to him how urgent it was to prepare for the dark period before us; there was so much to be taught in so short a space of time….
Khenpo Gangshar now decided that we should no longer give lessons exclusively to the monks who attended the seminary; the more immediate need was to teach all the people. In the autumn he held a large meeting in our assembly hall. He talked all day from seven in the morning till six at night with only a two-hour break. He explained in simple terms how necessary it was to realize the times we had reached. We might no longer be allowed to perform our rituals, but this would not destroy the fundamental teaching that the Buddha had given us, nor the integrity of the Tibetan people. He quoted, “Cease to do evil, do what is good, purify your minds.” We must act in the right way and be aware of ourselves. We must build our temples within ourselves….
Kenpo Gangshar visited many of our hermits who had taken vows to remain in seclusion, telling them that they must experience the shock of re-entering the world and learn how to retreat within themselves. (Trungpa, 1966)
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Story #3
For almost 40 years my home has been Nova Scotia, a peninsula on the east coast of Canada, facing the rising sun. Since time immemorial this land has been home to the L’nu, the First People, also known as the Mi’kmaq. They and other Indigenous people of northeastern Turtle Island are part of a confederacy known as Wabanaki, “People of the First Light.”
I arrived in Nova Scotia during a wave of immigration initiated by my first Buddhist teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I first met Trungpa Rinpoche in 1975, in Vancouver, not far from where I grew up. I had been actively seeking a spiritual community and teacher, and soon took refuge vows and formally entered the Buddhist path. At that time, the centre of Trungpa Rinpoche’s community was Boulder, Colorado, and I began traveling back and forth to Boulder, finally moving there in 1980 and becoming immersed in the dharma. Not long after, Trungpa Rinpoche began encouraging his students to relocate to Nova Scotia. Since I was Canadian, it was relatively easy for me to move, while most of the other 600-plus students who migrated to Nova Scotia at that time had to find ways to immigrate.
Since then, many people have asked me, why Nova Scotia? During those years, Trungpa Rinpoche was teaching about enlightened society and the vision of the Great Eastern Sun. He referred to the legendary Shambhala, which was said to be an enlightened kingdom in a remote valley in the Himalayas. Others say “the kingdom of Shambhala disappeared from the earth many centuries ago. At a certain point, the entire society had become enlightened, and the kingdom vanished into another celestial realm.” On the other hand, “Many Buddhist teachers… regard the kingdom of Shambhala not as an external place but as the ground or root of wakefulness and sanity that exists as a potential within every human being.” Trungpa Rinpoche presented the Shambhala legend, prophecy and teachings as a secular path and a model for society, saying that “With the great problems now facing human society, it seems increasingly important to find simple and nonsectarian ways to work with ourselves and share our understanding with others.” (1984)
After his first visits to Nova Scotia, Trungpa Rinpoche described the natural goodness of the place and people. He suggested it was an ideal place to create enlightened society—out of the way, modest in size and economy, less materialistic and speedy than mainstream America, and conducive to living a decent, down-to-earth yet uplifted life.
Later I came across an interview with Frank Berliner (2017), one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s senior students, who recalled this meeting:
On [Trungpa Rinpoche’s] last visit to Berkeley, in 1985 or 1986, he was quite sick and frail, but the quality of exertion and determination coming from him was almost terrifyingly intense. He called a meeting of his senior students from the Bay Area and told us that things were going to get worse in this country, that we may feel comfortable, but that our comfort was like honey on a razor blade. He said there would be economic problems and earthquakes, that the weather would become more extreme because the dralas [unseen energies] would not be protecting the situation, and that it would be harder and harder to practice genuine dharma because of the level of aggression in the country. He said there would be a resurgence of political reactionism and religious fundamentalism, which would make the environment less and less hospitable to what we are doing and we should all leave. At that point it was maybe a year from his death and he was telling many of his students to move to Nova Scotia.
Much has happened since those years, both in the Shambhala sangha and globally. Like most of my sangha friends, I stayed in Nova Scotia after Trungpa Rinpoche died in 1987, practicing the dharma, raising a family, and continuing to hold the inquiry I had arrived with. What does enlightened society mean, and how do we get there? What positive contribution could I make?
Over time the culture of Shambhala became dissonant for me, and I left the organization in 2008, studying with another sangha for a while and then in 2016 making my way to Tara Mandala, where I found refuge for the next phase of my spiritual path.
After Shambhala hit a wall in 2018, with revelations of abuse and the fall of its leadership, the vision of enlightened society seemed ironic, if not delusional. At the same time, our world is hitting a wall in ways that Trungpa Rinpoche foresaw. His instinct to seek out a place of refuge, where a culture of bravery and compassion could take root and survive through challenging times, continues to resonate. Perhaps the Shambhala community, which fell into patriarchal excesses, needed some dismantling, cleansing and healing first. Perhaps this hard lesson has implications for our greater society. Perhaps pockets of refuge and enlightened society are needed everywhere in these times of trouble.
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Story #4
In the fall of 2024, I hosted a class on “Finding Refuge” in Halifax, drawing inspiration from Buddhist women teachers and mixing in what I was learning through How We Thrive.
The theme for the first class was “grounding in body and land,” and I invited an Inuit woman to lead us in an inquiry about what it means to take refuge in the land. She told us that she’d prepared for the class by going out onto the land, making an offering to the land, and asking her question: “How can I take refuge in you?” What she received was another question: “How can I (the land) take refuge in you?”
This response was startling to me. I realized I had assumed a one-way relationship: me taking refuge in a place, with the hope of finding belonging and security. My friend knew that the land was alive, and the response she received reminded us that we, as humans, have a particular responsibility to the place where we live, and to all the beings, human and nonhuman, who share that home. As in any relationship, there is a need for reciprocity. Sometimes we find refuge in the land, and sometimes we must do what we can to protect the land as a source of refuge for all species.
Netukulimk is the Mi’kmaw teaching for how to live on this land. It is summarized for English speakers as the four Rs: Relationship, Respect, Reciprocity and Responsibility. I am learning that this is code for how to create, or live into, places and cultures of refuge. We need to come together in Relationship so we can heal worldviews of separation and remember our Responsibility within the web of life. We need to purify colonial cultures of arrogance and extraction within us through practices of Respect and Reciprocity, while acknowledging the Earth as our original mother.
Listening to the land through her Indigenous people; composting cultures of patriarchy, domination and separation; connecting with the wisdom of the earth through inquiry—I am learning that these are worthy starting points for finding refuge and creating refugia in times of trouble.
Sources and resources
Berliner, F. (2019, June 17). Like a foreign country. The chronicles of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. https://www.chronicleproject.com/like-foreign-country/
Greenspan, K. (2023, August 25). Through the eye of a needle to dance with the dakini: Journey to druk Zangri Khamar. Buddhist Door Global. https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/through-the-eye-of-a-needle-to-dance-with-the-dakini-journey-to-druk-zangri-khamar/
Lama Tsultrim Allione's recognition story. https://www.taramandala.org/about/lama-tsultrim-allione/recognition-story/
Trungpa, C. (1966). Born in Tibet. 120-21.
Trungpa, C. (1984). Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior. 25-28.
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