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Am I Reincarnated? Tulku: Interview

Q: You were only 3 years old when you were enthroned as the reincarnation of the Tibetan teacher Shechen Kongtrul Rinpoche. What do you remember about that?
Gesar: I really remember the enthronement ceremony. I have a vivid memory of the monks helping me put on the robes, and shaving my hair, and being up on the throne. I don't know if I knew I was a tulku, but I knew I was doing something that was not ordinary.

Q: You are said to be the reincarnation of the Tibetan teacher Shechen Kongtrul Rinpoche. When you look at his image or hold objects that belonged to him, do you feel a special connection?
Gesar: It's undeniable that I have a connection with him – regardless of whether I'm his reincarnation or not. I've been told I'm this person, I've been presented his story from youth, I've been given his possessions, made to go where he came from, stayed where he stayed, hung out with all the people he taught.

So yeah, there's a connection there, because there's a person I never met who's been a major presence in my life since I was 3. Just the fact that I've grown up around all of this – being inundated by his life, going to seminars on him, reading everything there is to read about him – of course I feel a connection to him. A really strong connection.

I feel a responsibility to him… like I was earmarked to preserve this person's story and what he collected. My life and his life have intersected.

Q: Do you have doubts about being a tulku? Do you ever wonder if you really are his reincarnation?
Gesar: I will always have doubts about truly being a tulku, but they will never overpower my connection with the teachers I've met and the value I see of the tradition in my life. These great teachers told me this is something I was meant to do. And whether I'm meant to or not, they wanted me to, and I have to honour that in some way. I have doubts about the logistical side – about the practicalities of being a tulku, but I have no doubt that it's something I should do with myself that's good. There's no way I could make it a part of my life and hold it close to me and not be better for it. At that point, doubt becomes pointless.

Am I this person or not? I have doubts all the time, and I don't try to conquer them by figuring out how it is possible. I just look at those doubts. I will always have them.

It really doesn't matter whether I doubt it or not. The question is, Am I going to live up to what this spirituality is all about? That's the biggest doubt for me. It's got nothing to do with what came before and everything to do with what I'll do with myself.

Q: In the film, your teacher, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, says he loves you more than other tulkus, even though you misbehave. And that he and others are waiting for you to do what you are supposed to. What did you make of that?
Gesar: Dzongsar Rinpoche invested a lot of time into trying to teach me, hoping to transform me into some kind of sedate monastic. It didn't work out that way. For a while there, I think he was kind of pissed off with me.

At one point I felt really pressured that I didn't live up to what he wanted for me. Now he seems like a really good friend, and I listen to his advice… He gave me a hard time for a long time, and it really bothered me. Now I'm desensitized. Part of the excitement of being around him is to see how he is going to prod and poke at me. I find it funny.

Q: So what do you think you are supposed to be doing?
Gesar: I think I'm doing what I'm meant to do. Having been through a lot in my life – questioning what I'm supposed to do with myself – it weighed heavily on me for a long time. After a while I relaxed with the whole thing because it wasn't getting me anywhere. I think for all these Western tulkus, what they're supposed to be doing is exactly what they are doing.

The shift in Buddhism coming to the West is stripping a lot of the tradition away… like the hierarchy. When I sit there and listen to my teacher – who was brought up in the traditional way – telling me I should be in a monastery, I do laugh a little bit. I know he means that 50 per cent. The other 50 per cent is interested to see what I come up with.

Q: How did making the film affect you in your role as a tulku?
Gesar: I definitely learned a lot. In the beginning, I felt like everything was just a big question. With every tulku I met and talked with along the way, I realized I'd been through more, learned more and felt more comfortable along the way by listening to them.

The crux of being a tulku is the whole idea of expectation. The biggest problem with the whole thing – all this doubt – is based on trying to fulfil someone's expectation. Seeing it over and over made me realize I needed to get over my own sense of expectation and the possibility that I was letting people down.

The idea of being a tulku comes out of this heavy tradition based on self-discovery. And those are two very different things. If you are trying to fulfil the role of organized religion, that's very different from the need for self-discovery. They are polar opposites. through the film, I realized all these negative thoughts we had were because we didn't fit in some way into a system.

As we went along, I realized that what's important is not the tradition. It's the heart of it, which is self-realization, with the goal of working for other people. That's what I'm meant to be doing. Not sitting in a monastery.

Q: What surprised you the most about the other Western tulkus you met?
Gesar: A few years ago, I appeared in the documentary Words of My Perfect Teacher. I didn't realize that these Western tulkus had all seen me in that movie.
When I met Wyatt, a Western tulku who was 19, he didn't really let on. But he had seen the movie, talked to people about me – and I was like this poster child for what a tulku shouldn't do. So the most surprising thing was realizing that other Western tulkus had seen me in this film and been told, “Don't wind up like him.” Which of course is going to piss you off.

But where that takes me is that, as wise as the Eastern teachers and masters are, and as profound as the tradition is, it's hard for them to accept how Buddhism is going to be in the West, because it's going to be devoid of the tradition of masters. And it's really hard for them to fathom. I have extreme respect and trust in the Eastern teachers. At the same time, I realize they don't know how things are going to change. How they are going to be. The entire Western mindset on Buddhism is completely different. Western Buddhism doesn't involve people living their lives in monasteries. It's ordinary people who make Buddhism a facet of their lives.

Q: When you first approached the National Film Board with an idea for a project, it was something completely different. How did you decide you wanted to tell this story – your own story?
Gesar: I had applied to the Reel Diversity program before and not gotten it. So I was skeptical about applying again. A couple of days before the deadline, I hadn't written anything, and I sat down and thought, Screw it, I might as well tell my story.

I didn't want to look and fish for some story. It was just there. I poured it out in two paragraphs… The idea wrote itself.

This was something that was real, it was true, and it's a story I could tell in a way that nobody else could. As a filmmaker, that's what you want – to make people connect with something real and intimate. I felt this story had that. It's my story.