The day that Mahakala broke the table

So a couple of posts ago I mentioned the course this week-end with Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche. Day one was today. For lunch we could choose the meat option (spag bol, I think) or the “vegitarian” option. Confident that the cooking would be better than the spelling, I booked for veg.

As we moved towards the kitchen, I asked Gary (one of the pillars of the new centre) if it counted as a Karma Kagyu centre. He wasn’t sure what I was getting at, and I explained I was commenting on the wish of “His Holiness Karmapa XVII” that all his monasteries and centres should stop preparing meat in their kitchens. Many a Tibetan monk has been dismayed by this, but they have done it. You do realize I was, though admittedly making a point, being fairly light-hearted about this, don’t you?

Well someone in front of me got their food, I got mine, and so did a couple of others. Then BANG. The left hand half of the table (with the cookies and bread on it) was spared. The right-hand half simply broke, dumping broken glass, crockery, bolognese sauce and veg sauce on the kitchen floor. Most people had to go out to local restaurants. Here’s a couple of pictures of the mess:

There have been jokes about Felicity’s powers – she is Rinpoche’s wife, and was the cook. So whereas you or I might look in a mirror and break it, the joke was that she only had to cook food and put it on the table to break it. There have been “sensible” explanations about “well the food was hot, of course, so it would break the glass, wouldn’t it?” (Of a purpose-made dining table, it should be said!) But we know the truth, I think, don’t we? Mahakala stepped in to say that the centre really should do what HH Karmapa said. That was the outer warning – next time will there be an inner warning, and a secret warning the time after? I shudder to think!