Stupa to honor 'Tiny,' friend of Dalai Lama

[ Originally published on: Saturday, May 12, 2007 ]

DEERFIELD -- Paul Stacy was as large as life.

The 6-foot, 4-inch mountain of a man, it seemed, was the perfect bodyguard and driver for the 14th Dalai Lama, whose visit to the Pioneer Valley this past week marked in some ways an important milestone for the Tibetan community.

Yet 'Tiny' -- as he was known to an amazing array of people -- also lived life to the fullest right up to his death in 1994 after years of battling diabetes and its complications. And while that meant immersing himself in Buddhist meditation with the Dalai Lama and other teachers in his later years, it also meant drug and alcohol abuse earlier in life.

Tiny was grand, as well, in the way he hugged the world, just as he physically hugged those around him -- including the Dalai Lama and the people he came to know through his Blue Plate bar in Holden: singer Arlo Guthrie, author Ram Dass, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bob Wier and even Woodstock's Wavy Gravy.

He embraced the world, through donations to survival centers, benefit concerts for the homeless, work to help Tibetan refugees and meditation sessions for recovering alcoholics and substance abusers. It's because of these works that Tibetan stonemason Sonam Lama began work Friday morning on a Buddhist shrine, or stupa, for Tiny in Deerfield. At his side were two friends of Tiny, Steven Rodman of Greenfield and Amy Zuckerman of Amherst, who are helping with the project and having it documented by filmmaker Carlyn Saltman of Turners Falls.

Shortly after 8 a.m., in light rain, the Deerfield stonemason broke ground in front of his recently opened plaza off Routes 5 and 10. Exactly between flagpoles where the American banner and a Tibetan prayer flag fly, Sonam is building the stone memorial, which he estimates will be 10 feet in diameter and maybe 12 feet high.

In front of his distinctive plaza, which incorporates Tibetan prayer wheels and traditional painting in its architecture, the 1989 refugee intentionally waited until after the Dalai Lama's departure from the area Thursday to begin working on the stupa to avoid any confusion that his purpose is to show appreciation for Tiny.

''Not only Tiny, but many Americans helped Tibetans, and (would) help anybody who needs help,'' said Sonam, who met Stacy in Amherst soon after arriving in this area in 1986. ''He was one really neat guy. He was so compassionate,'' Sonam said of the self-described ski bum-turned spiritual seeker.

Tiny would give him loads and loads of old clothes he'd collected to take to the Amherst Survival Center, Sonam remembers, and helped him find masonry customers, including Peter, Paul & Mary member Mary Travers at her Connecticut home.

''Before he died, I saw him in Middlebury (Vt.), on crutches, guarding the Dalai Lama. He was a very caring person. I wished I could do something for him, because he was so nice for so many people.''

'Like a rivulet'

Tiny Stacy, born on Groundhog Day 1944, was ''always the center of gravity,'' says Rodman, who met him in 1971 soon after arriving in Worcester from San Francisco. ''Everybody was a friend of Tiny's. He made you feel, no matter who you were, you were his closest friend.''

Stacy worked as a bartender at his family's Blue Plate restaurant on Route 122A in Holden, which he turned into a haven for the lovers of music and poetry on a scale as large as Tiny himself. Country Joe McDonald, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Arlo Guthrie all flocked there. Poet Allen Ginsberg wrote to Tiny about doing a reading there but never made it.

In the spirit of the time, Rodman remembers listening with Stacy to tapes of Tibetan chanting -- something that had sent Tiny into checking out all he could about altered states of consciousness other than the drugs and alcohol he'd been abusing: Carlos Castaneda, Buddhism, martial arts … and eventually, the Dalai Lama.

When the supreme Tibetan spiritual leader spoke at Amherst College in 1978 or 1979, college dropout Stacy was there and became so enthralled that he turned out the following night to hear him at Harvard University. And even though he was still ''in the grip of the grape,'' the gentle big man decided when he heard about the Dalai Lama's return a couple of years later that he'd offer to work as his bodyguard.

That meant drying out at a New Hampshire retreat, where he meditated, recalls Rodman.

Stacy continued bringing food to the elderly and organizing benefits to help Vietnam vets.

''He'd move wherever he could help the most,'' his bushy,gray-bearded friend remembers. ''He was like water, like a rivulet.''

Six weeks after getting out of the hospital in New Hampshire, Rodman recalls, he was driving the Dalai Lama in his Tiny-sized car and serving as his chauffeur. Both men, strikingly similar as humble, compassionate and light-hearted human beings, hit it off ''like brothers separated at birth.''

It sounds hard to believe, especially given the heavy security for the Dalai Lama's recent visit, but en route from the Adirondacks to Boston on their first detail together, the two stopped off at a Howard Johnson's on the Mass. Pike to split a frankfurter because the Tibetan leader said he wondered what Americans really eat.

Even more incredibly, Rodman said, the Dalai Lama and Tiny would wrestle in a playful way that suggested this statesman in exile, hailed at age 2 as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th incarnation as the leader of Tibet, was happy to simply find a kindred soul with whom he could play.

At the same time, Rodman said of Stacy, ''His love and respect for the Dalai Lama was as big as Tiny was,'' and meeting the spiritual leader helped him find what he had been searching for in life.

''Buddhism certainly helped him more (with depression) than drugs ever did …. He was like a thirsty man who was searching. He finally found the real deal.''

Tiny, shown with the Dalai Lama in the documentary, ''Heart of Tibet'' and included in Ram Dass's book, ''How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service,'' deepened his own spiritual practice. It helped him as he helped substance abusers and took a job as a substance-abuse counselor at Shirley state prison.

''Tiny took care of everybody in the world but himself,'' Rodman said. ''His path of compassion allowed him to let go of his own personal stuff.''

A 'peaceful, loving soul'

Sonam Lama called on 14 Tibetan monks to dedicate the site of Tiny's stupa in February, asking permission of the spirits that are believed to live at the site to erect a shrine there that will be filled with thousands of written mantras, wrapped in white cloth, as well as holy soil, rocks, tools and other ritual objects.

Sonam has been planning the stupa for nearly 10 years, first near his home when he lived on Greenfield's Chapman Street. When he bought the former Deerfield motel site, he decided this would be a more visible site.

The 46-year-old stonemason has built stupas in New York, in Vermont and in Chicago -- including one for actor Richard Gere (who, like seemingly everyone, knew Tiny.)

When he returned from a visit to Nepal last month, Sonam had a Tibetan-made brass sun and moon -- traditional symbols to cap a stupa -- sent back. The sun, cradled in the moon, will become part of the final work, along with an umbrella symbol created by Ashfield blacksmith Steve Smithers.

Sonam figures it will take a couple of weeks to finish building the stupa and that he will ask a high monk to consecrate it by the end of summer. Along the way, videographer Saltman will document the process and interview some of the many friends of Tiny.

Like all stupas, Sonam said, this will be a place for healing and prayer, a peaceful place. Tiny, whom it's meant to honor, would have liked such a place, he says, and there will be a marker telling people about him.

Zuckerman, known for founding the area's ''Hidden Tech'' network, is working on a visitors center for the stupa where people can gain from the example of ''an amazing spirit who came from a very humble background to become not just a bodyguard but a close confidante and student of one of the holiest, most spiritual people in the world. He was a very peaceful, giving and loving soul, and I hope the experience of sitting at the stupa and reading about him will give people a few moments to contemplate loving kindness in their day.''

In another way, though, the stupa may represent that the Pioneer Valley's Tibetan community has come into its own in the past decade and a half, said Rodman. In showing appreciation for Tiny, he said, the monument will also be an expression of gratitude toward others who helped the community get established.

The stone stupa will be a permanent marker of respect, much like the white cloth kata, or scarf, wrapped around Tiny's neck after his death. It had been placed there a few months earlier by the Dalai Lama himself, with a long, emotional embrace and the words, ''This knot unites you and I together forever.''

On the Web: wwww.tiny.octobernight.com

You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261 Ext. 269

 

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