The memorial held this morning at the Wasatch Retreat Center in Salt Lake City was a joyful tribute to our friend and vajra sister, Gesang Suolang Rinpoche. Her family, friends and fellow travelers gathered there and others attended via ZOOM from all over the world to share our memories and stories about this kind and magical being who had touched our lives and our hearts in so many ways. Many repeated incidents that are recorded on a webpage her loving husband Mark Esterman Roshi established along with a photo essay of their life together. CLICK to visit that site and add anything you might want to share as well. Mark has promised to add a video of todays sharing, so check back if it is not yet there. You can also CLICK for more photo and articles I offered about my memories of this wonderful human being. Gesang, you will be sorely missed, but your presence will be felt in our hearts and you will continue to serve as a compass and example to guide us in our cultivation and work in this world. Thanks for blessing us with your presence and for all you did to make this world a better place.
The following was posted July 20, 2023: I am not planning on saying much at the public memorial this Saturday because if I were to share even a small part of the things I know and love about Gesang there would not be time for anyone else. She was the sister and daughter I never had, an excellent student, but mostly a dear and trusted friend whose wisdom, judgment, and insight I relied upon and who was one of the hardest and the most selfless and dedicated worker and believer in the Dharma I know.
She worked tirelessly to make an old ranch house near Fresno, California, the Holy Vajrasana Temple. She labored long and hard to finish the yurt that became our Protector Chapel, a place she always used for meditation and practice as much as possible on her many retreats at the temple. While in great pain, she insisted on installing the Buddha Master’s tile around the vajra poles so that more people could meditate in their presence. She also enabled us to have a first rate garden with raised beds, irrigation and a green house, modeled after the book she wrote on More Food from Small Spaces. I am particularly grateful to her for enabling me to go camping again. I had always gone backpacking and never tried camping at a campsite, but she taught me how and I went on my own for a few more years. She was also a fabulous cook who made many of our retreats and visits so enjoyable. More photos on this below.
She gave a critical speech at the dedication ceremony for the installation of the Bodi Tree in 2014 at our temple in Sanger. This sacred tree was a descendent of the famous Sri Maha Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa) in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, the oldest living human-planted tree in the world with a known planting date, which in turn is a descendent of the historical tree under which Shakyamuni Buddha sat to become enlightened in Bodhgaya, India over 2,500 years ago. You will see her with me at the many retreats we did together in China (2015), Hong Kong (2015), Thailand (2015), Thailand again (2017), and Vietnam (2017). There were more, but I am missing photos and many, many retreats at the temple. The last two retreats in 2017 were Kuan Yin Bodhisattva Great Compassion Empowerments as was another one held in Clovis, California earlier that year. Gesang participated in all of them as at the two I held for her sangha in Salt Lake City, the last one being held in April of this year. She was also an essential part of editing and publishing my own account of my life with our Guru, H.H. Dorjee Chang Buddha III.
She founded the Xuanfa Utah Dharma Center in Salt Lake City and held weekly classes to spread the Buddha Dharma in her home town.
You can find her story as she told it, her personal manifesto, here where she stated clearly why she followed H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha and the Vajrayana or Tantric Path after years of practicing Japanese Zen. There is a shorter version that stressed why the West and Western Buddhists need this path that she wrote in 2020.
One of our most endearing road trips was to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation located in both South and North Dakota. We not only camped on the reservation land to protest the pipeline project that was planned to cross their lands, but we went to nearby Mandan, ND to protest the incarceration of a young Indian woman protester. It was on the way back that I remembered a vision I had had while living in Kansas and working with the Kickapoo Nation that I was to do prison work. One of the medicine men that I met with reminded me that “not all prisons had walls” and so I had not pursued doing anything for those beings in prisons that did have such walls. I reconsidered this and decided to start a prison sangha and credit Gesang with the inspiration and support and enabling me to attend that protest in Mandan. CLICK for photos of that event and our camping on the Reservation.
I have one more event with Gesang that I want to share and that happened only a few days ago on July 17, 2023. I knew that in the Chinese and Tibetan traditions, it is customary to say prayers and send merit and blessings to someone who has departed this world on the seventh day after they leave and every seven days thereafter for six more weeks to provide guidance to the departed. It is believed that someone stays in the bardo or transition around 49 days, seeking suitable rebirths or going on the the Buddha lands. A dear friend had told me how she had done this for someone she had cared deeply about and she felt his presence more intensely on these seven-day anniversaries. She finally realized he had gone on when he no longer appeared on this anniversary date. The Buddha Master told us that although 49 days is the usual period for this ritual, some go much sooner and some may stay in the bardo a very long time.
On July 17, the second seventh-day, I had a very vivid vision. I was awake and knew what I was experiencing was much more vivid than any ordinary dream. In fact, it appeared I was in a different place, and it was a very special place like a scene from a classic ancient Chinese painting with clouds and mountains peaks and waterfalls and even elephants. And there were many beautiful Beings adorned in samboghakaya splendor with glittering jewels and rich silks and brocades. It was a magical place and I felt very calm and peaceful. It was pure bliss. I looked for Gesang, but did not recognize her, but felt this was her doing. It was my understanding that you could appear anyway you wanted in these places. She was letting me know that she was ok and I was not to worry about her and, I think, I was to tell her husband, Mark, a very serious Zen Buddhist, a teacher who has been recognized as a Roshi, with whom she walked side by side on the Buddhist path till the end of her days. I believe she knew that though he deeply respects and admires her devotion and the depth of her practice, he might not be able to see what I saw and she knew I would tell him, which I did. He was moved and grateful to hear of my experience, and happy for me. Gesang was ok and I believe confirming the rewards for following the path of the Buddha as she had done.
This sort of “vision” had happened twice before for me and the second time it happened when I was with Gesang, I believe on our way to a Dharma presentation in Montana. The heavens opened up and there was a portal over my head with these beautiful beings peering over the edge watching us. They looked like what I saw this time. When I told her husband Mark about this, he agreed that this might have been what happened. Gesang had told him about the Montana incident so he had some understanding of this sort of experience.
Last night, another of member of our sangha volunteered that she had received a similar message from Gesang on the same day with the same assurances and with some perfect advice. She was told by Gesang that, “she will continue her cultivation and practicing as usual and there is no time for delay.” This message was so vivid that this vajra sister jumped out of bed, practiced her dharma, and dedicated merit. The sister went on to say that Gesang “has been in my mind this whole week…I have been very lazy practicing dharma lately due to excuses of there being so much Buddhist work I need to take care of. Amazingly, it is just so natural I can’t forget her, or more properly to say that she keeps reminding me to practice dharma.” She was so excited about this that she shared her vision and experience with her husband telling him, “I did not know where the image comes from, but it is so clear and not like in a dream and it most importantly naturally reminds me to practice dharma every moment with no postponement.” Although at one time this person spent time with Gesang when they both did retreats at the Holy Vajrasana Temple, they have not been close in recent years.
I still feel the bliss and serenity that I felt from this vision. I wish I could share it with everyone. May we all be so blessed and may we all continue to be blessed by the kindness and strength of Gesang Suolang Rinpoche and heed her advice to “continue our cultivation ” as “there is no time for delay.” Thank you again Gesang!
CLICK for more background, photos, and link to July 22, 2023 Memorial Gathering.
I am very touched and inspired by this sharing. I do not know Gesang Suolang Ripoche well but can feel her dedication and kindness, she has contributed so much to the temple and spreading of the dharma and I am so glad to know she is well and am certain she is continuing the cultivation. Thank you so much for reminding us that we must practice continuously with no delay.
Thanks.
Thank you everyone for your comments and sharing of Gesang Soulang. She is forever in my heart .