In Search of Peace of Mind

Wanted: bookbinders. Free room, board and a small stipend. One- to three-month commitment. No experience necessary. Subject: endangered Tibetan Buddhist teachings.

If the job doesn’t sound like a smart career move, at least the perks are good. Consider that you may get to visit the recently completed Odiyan Tibetan retreat.

Odiyan (pronounced Odie-ON) stands on a coastal cliff north of Petaluma, somewhere between the big blue sky, the vast green ocean and herds of brown and white cows. The road to the 1,100-acre retreat looks more conducive to cattle than the heavy equipment it took to build the six ornate temples, a 113-foot gold-leafed shrine (with a 10-ton prayer wheel inside), a moat-like lake and orchards and gardens that pepper the surrounding hills.

“Bookbinder” might be an enticing job title after all.

Odiyan was founded in 1975 as a refuge for Tibetan culture displaced after China invaded Tibet in 1959. Head lama Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche is leading a band of mostly Americans in securing the art and teachings of Tibet through his Nyingma Center, which includes the retreat plus the Nyingma Institute and Dharma Publishing, both in Berkeley.

The members of Odiyan opened the gates to the private retreat for six days this summer, partly to quell the rumors that spread as shiny gold roofs and unusual structures began to spring from the forests over the last 21 years. Neighbors whispered about secret tunnels and of elevators rising up out of nowhere.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary apparent at the open house--if one considers the free-standing Vajra temple and 108,000 buddhas ordinary.

“I’m still surprised when I walk over the hill and see it,” says member and tour-guide-for-a-day Jim McNulty, as he leads visitors from the dirt parking area up to the Vajra temple. (About 300 were expected each day; five times that many showed up.)

Almost as startling are the hundreds of colorful prayer flags flapping in the breeze, dotting the hills with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop. The flags are silk-screened with prayers, each believed to have healing powers that are released with the force of the wind.

Inside the circular Vajra temple are the 108,000 buddhas, most about 8 inches tall, stacked row upon row pyramid-like in the middle of the room. Prayer wheels--cylinders that hold handmade mile-long mantras--spin continuously indoors and out, dispersing their prayers.

The temple is made of glass block, granite and copper, topped with a double-curved roof. Member Bruce Smith calls it a “construction nightmare” for the two dozen unskilled volunteers who built it.

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Smith was a geophysicist before coming to Odiyan 16 years ago. He was initiated in the ways of hand-pounding copper, creating stained-glass windows and other crafts with practice. Lots of hands-on practice. Work, Rinpoche stresses, is a practical way to meditate. And Americans, especially, he believes, have a lot of unproductive habits that can be unlearned through meditation.

Smith says he gave up his day job once he decided the work he was doing here was more important than his work with the U.S. Geological Survey.

“I really loved the sciences,” says Smith, who lives on the grounds with his wife, Ann Bergfors. “But that age-old question, ‘Why are we here?’ led to a deep interest in meditation.”

That seems to be a common thread among the 60 or so members. Most are in their late 40s to mid-50s, well-educated and in search of peace of mind. They believe the Buddhist teachings can not only help them in their own lives, but can also influence a world bent on materialism and self-destruction.

“Buddhism is very compatible with our deepest principles, like freedom of thought and independence,” says Leslie Bradburn, an ex-biologist who teaches history at Nyingma Institute. “Everybody wants to be kind and virtuous. It’s how do you actually become these things [that are learned] through Buddhist teachings.”

At the center of the property is the largest temple, the Odiyan mandala, surrounded by four smaller temples. The staff quarters connect them in a kind of ranch-house architecture. The 50 or so rooms are sparsely furnished, with twin beds, a sink and closet. Some are larger to accommodate families. Cooking and clean-up chores are shared in the dining hall. It feels a bit like summer camp.

A couple dozen members lived at Odiyan as they built it, under the tutorage of Rinpoche. Others commuted, focusing on translating the Tibetan teachings and making the books. Since long work hours are part of the meditation process, the neighbors could have mistaken this silence over the years as secrecy.

So what is this place doing in California? And who is the driven man who brought it here?

Likenesses of Tibetan masters hang throughout the mandala temple. The faces are weathered and the expressions consistently sour. It is a pleasant surprise, then, to see that Rinpoche, 60, is a jovial, happy host. He greets visitors from his favorite sofa seat in the library, with a cheerful round face and a warm, hearty handshake.

“I love America,” he says with a sincere grin, praising this country’s freedom of religion, the open-mindedness of its people, its state-of-the-art technology. They are all crucial to his work.

“It is half my responsibility,” says Rinpoche, in broken English. “Without me, no Odiyan. Without America, no Odiyan.”

The Nyingma Center clearly exists because of Rinpoche. The publishing arm is at the heart of his loftiest goal--to preserve and translate the Buddhist teachings that were lost, hidden, burned and scattered when the Chinese desecrated Tibet in 1959. Secondly, he wants to establish a home for Buddhism in the United States

A 2,500-year-old prophecy says that “Buddhism would take root when the iron bird flies in the land of the red man . . . and the Dharma would come west.” Odiyan lies smack in the middle of a former Indian reservation. It is now the largest such facility in the Western Hemisphere, a claim formerly held by the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights.

Rinpoche was just 22 when he fled Tibet in 1958, with books under his arms and the Buddhist teachings in his head. Once outside Tibet, he set out to track down, gather and preserve the basic teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. It is still his priority.

“Over 25 years, Tarthang Rinpoche’s library became a real storehouse for rare texts,” says Bradburn. “We wrote letters to Russia, Japan, Scandinavia, England, Australia, Germany, Switzerland. . . . Each would have one or two good things.”

With what are ancient methods by today’s publishing standards, the members have retrieved and translated into Tibetan 75% of Buddha’s teachings, and compiled them into 755 oversized hardcover volumes, now stored in a basement room at Odiyan. As fast as they can put them out, the teachings are being returned to the Tibetan people. Each January, Rinpoche and his helpers pack up the thousands of books they’ve printed, take them to India and distribute them at the annual World Peace ceremony.

Because of the primitive publishing methods--Tibetan books were written by hand on loosely bound rice paper with carved wood for covers--the books and teachings were never before compiled into a single collection. Now in the Odiyan collection there are 5,000 texts that make up the Buddhist Canon, and about 31,000 important teachings--including arts, sciences, literature and poetry. Universities in Japan, Australia, the United States and Europe have purchased the entire 5,000-book collection. That means that the Tibetan teachings are finally safe.

But the clock is still ticking.

“Without the help of people who are trained, [the teachings] could be lost,” Bradburn says. “The source is the older Tibetan masters, and they need these books to transfer this tradition to the disciples.”

And Rinpoche is relying on Americans to make it happen. “They have good minds . . . exceptional hearts,” he says, but adds good-naturedly that their neuroses are something Americans need to work on. It all starts with understanding and controlling the mind, he says, the basis of Buddhism.

“We need freedom from the mind,” he stresses. “The mind dictates to us and we don’t know who we are. We need to do something to make ourselves a little happier, freer, to have a better life.”