It is almost a year since Rob passed away. He was instrumental in establishing and growing Tara Rokpa Centre into the mature retreat centre it is today. In the early days of TRC, it was Rob, in support of Akong Rinpoche’s vision for TRC, who interpreted Rinpoche’s vision, and provided ideas and the drive,  who organised the funding (to paraphrase Rinpoche – ” The money will come from where the money is”), and engaged and drew in volunteers to become part of the centre’s ‘committees’, and residents on site, who did the work on the ground.

It was also Rob who inaugurated TRC as an international haven for meditation retreats with his month-long February and November retreats, which enticed his international students in the northern winters to fly south like the swallows, to retreat in the warm African bushveld. It was Rob who helped and encouraged Alan Muller to lead 2 six-month Ngöndro retreats at TRC. Rob also initiated 10-day retreats, including the Xmas/New Year retreats, which were more accessible to the average person, who couldn’t imagine doing an entire month of meditation retreat. Rob believed that a 10-day retreat was the ideal length for regular practitioners as it took people at least 3 days to settle completely on retreat, 3 or 4 days to ‘be in the zone’, and 3 days to emerge out of the retreat experience into one’s daily reality.

My first retreat at Tara Rokpa Centre, and my first retreat ever, was in September 2004 with Rob Nairn. The retreat was part of the Mahamudra course taught by Rob under the guidance of Akong Rinpoche. Everything was new to me – the Bushveld, the Buddhist people, the practices, the noble silence. I stayed in the dormitory in the Main house, and I don’t think I slept a wink the entire 10 days as one of my roommates had sleep apnea and made the most disturbing noises while she slept.

We were introduced to Noble Silence on the retreat. Although I am not a chatterbox, the noble silence drove me to chat and giggle, and I received many glares from Rob. On this retreat, I experienced the Chenrezik Puja for the first time, led by Rob. It made the hairs on my arms stand up. On subsequent retreats Rob had us doing “all-night’ Chenrezik sessions. Sometimes he would join in the sessions, but mostly he would take himself off to bed, leaving us to carry on through the night.

On New Year’s Day (after an all-nighter), he would lead us up Temple Hill singing the mani mantra to watch the sunrise. This was usually followed by a scrumptious breakfast provided by Pippa and the catering team. Some retreats ended with a party, involving wine, the singing of Molly Malone, and ‘sokkie’ dancing led by Rob, with a blanket wrapped around his waist.

The last retreat that Rob led at TRC was a mindfulness/insight retreat in April 2016, where Rob underwent a serious health crisis. After this Rob semi-retired to live with his sister Margaret in Cape Town, where he embraced teaching online to a couple of regular groups. He offered to return to TRC to co-lead the Xmas retreat in 2021, but owing to COVID concerns at the time, this never materialised.

Rob left many grateful students/meditators, an enormous retreat legacy, and a wealth of recorded teachings at TRC, which he generously offered for the use of the centres. We hope to honour Rob’s legacy by sharing some of his teachings here in this space in the future.

Sylva

Sep 2024