In commemoration of the 21st anniversary of the enthronement of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on September 24, we are presenting testimonials from Jetsunma’s students about her impact on their lives.

Part 3

There are SO many other incidents of these sublime moments… answers to questions about where to spend my time and efforts, how to proceed on the path, gossamer tastes of the thin line between this reality and another. I recall how Jetsunma encouraged some of us to go down to the Katrina aftermath when I personally was going through the loss of a job – and that experience of the trip to New Orleans was replete with miracles.

From not knowing where we were going to even stay upon arrival, Jetsunma’s guidance lead us to a woman named Katrinna Huggs (yes that was her name, spelled differently than the storm but the coincidence was undeniable) who lived at Bayou de Zairre just above the Lake Poncetrain causeway…We only found her because she had a STUPA in her back yard, and one of our traveling companions kept communicating back to our main temple in Poolesville until we found a phone number to visit this stupa. When we arrived – to ask only if we could see her backyard stupa – she (barely knowing what a stupa or we crazy Buddhists were, or why we wanted to see her stupa) hesitantly agreed to have us stop by and see it.

While she prepared her lunch and offered us a meal – we asked if we could clean the stupa which was in need of some simple upkeep and weeding around its perimeter. As we washed and worked around this image of Buddhahood, making prayers to our lama and dedicating the merit to those who had been hit so hard by this storm… the lama who oversaw the construction of this particular stupa just HAPPENED to call Katrinna to see how it had done in the storm. Katrinna says she had not heard from him in years and was very amazed by the synchronicity that we were cleaning and paying attention to it and she hears from this teacher who she barely knows.

She graciously invited Sam and I to stay there with at least a half dozen people who were en route from Sedona.  In addition, she allowed us to erect a compound in her back yard and bring refugee animals rescued from the aftermath of the Hurricane in New Orleans to be triaged in her backyard.  It was such an amazing time of trusting in our teacher’s instructions (which were frightening as we looked at the destruction and chaos of the area), and that trust lead us to a woman with 4 acres of paradise in the middle of all this destruction and storm fallout.  (Tomorrow – Part 4 – Joy in the midst of Tragedy)