Supercyclone 1999, Orissa, India
- this raging ocean of water had been farmlands.
Miracles in the Super Cyclone
Before we departed Orissa, Rinpoche called us all to meet with him in
his shrine room. He was so kind, thanking us for coming, and he gave each
of us a farewell kata as well as a red protector thread. We thanked him
and bid him farewell, then got onto our tour bus and prepared to depart.
Before we left, however, one of Rinpoche's monks came running down with
a special Vajra-knotted kata which he tied onto the front of our bus as
a special protective blessing from His Eminence. Jigme Rinpoche and his
attendant, monk Tenzin Phuntsok, came with us, as we prepared to leave
Orissa, ready to tour the rest of India. We had been scheduled to visit
Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Patna, Vulture's Peak, the main points of Buddhist
interest in India. Little did we know then that the rest of our trip would
be cancelled and we would experience many miracles.
We stopped for a tea break at Lake Chilika, India, thinking that after
tea we would continue on to Bubaneshwar where we had a hotel reservation
at the Oberoi. After we had been there a while, the bus driver rushed
in to tell Jigme Rinpoche that a terrible cycle was hitting Bubaneshwar.
We could see that the winds around us, too, at Lake Chilika were becoming
quite wild. As we waited and Rinpoche considered the options, we learned
a few Tibetan card games and had a great time. We also ordered dinner
there. It got dark. Decisions had to be made. The busdriver came back.
Communications were no longer possible with Bubaneshwar. But the last
he had heard the cyclone was very terrible and great destruction was happening.
Jigme Rinpoche meditated on the matter and then said, "We will leave now
then." There was no question in anyone's minds. If he said we would go,
we would go. And we left on faith that with His Eminence's protection,
and with Jigme Rinpoche's seeing, we would be OK. We had no idea then,
however, how extremely severe the storm had become. We were on that bus
for over 30 hours, with a distance of only about 250 miles to go. We spent
the night in terrific rainstorms, clunking over fallen trees, sawing limbs,
cutting through muddy gullies, waiting. . . waiting . . . waiting behind
lines of stopped trucks and busses, clunking over more trees, sploshing
through water, running outside in raging winds to go to the bathroom.
By daylight we were getting close to Bubaneshwar, but every foot of travel
along the devastated roads was a major task. The most dangerous part of
the trip was when we came to the region where a 33-foot tidal wave had
roared through. On our way going down to the monastery, this area had
been nice farmlands. Now as far as the eye could see in every direction
was only a raging brown ocean of water pulling itself back to the Bay
of Bengal. We had to cross over about 6 narrow bridges in this water,
with torrents flooding over the bridge as well as under the bridge, and
we all knew this could be very deadly if anything happened to delay us
here, that we had a limited time before these roads washed out to sea
taking everything and everyone with them. Fortunately we did make it across
safely. It took us very long to find anywhere to stay but we did find
a place and we had food for three days until we could depart. Being "wet"
takes on a whole new meaning when you are totally soaked, everything you
have is wet, and there is no hope of drying out and everything smells
of mildew. But the wondrous thing was that the members of the pilgrimage
group were in every high spirits. No one freaked out. No one whined or
complained. We developed a new closeness and sense of true faith. There
was no question that we had been protected by the miraculous power of
the Vajra Master, his blessing had carried us through with perfect timing
and freedom from harm. And despite the crowds of beings wanted to leave
the area, we were actually on the very first flight out of Bubaneshwar
to New Delhi.
Safety in New Delhi
Cyclonic winds destroyed these
signs and overturned homes.
After arriving safely in New Delhi from cyclone-devastated Bubaneshwar,
all 22 of us camped out in Jigme Rinpoche's two-story apartment there.
Some people slept in bedrooms, some on the floor on nice mats, and we
took turns sharing the bathrooms. There is a quality of freedom and joy
that arises after surviving a major traumatic event, especially when the
realization hits home that one has truly experienced an unquestionable
miracle of the protection of the Vajra Master and all of the forces he
has at his command. Despite our sadness that so many people had died around
us and that Orissa had been leveled by the Supercyclone of 1999, with
hardly a tree left standing, personally our karma had been to come through
relatively unscathed. (It turned out that approximately 10,000 people
died, thousands of animals perished, and almost 15 million people were
left homeless.) All the inconvenience we had to experience was that a
substantial part of our planned India journey was cancelled. It is never
safe to assume in life that one can always get to Bodhgaya. We did not
get to Bodhgaya, Vulture's Peak, Varanasi, Patna. Yet we got to Delhi
on the wings of a miracle. Thus we had a great time taking an Indian train
to Agra with Jigme Rinpoche where we visited the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort.
We also toured a delightful marble place where supposedly they continue
using the craftsmanship seen in the Taj Mahal of inlaying semiprecious
stone designs into marble. Of course we dragged out heavy bags of not
inexpensive marble souvenirs! Once again our pilgrims filled the hearts
of local merchants with joy.
