It was the 10 Day Teaching approximately 1991. In the middle of the 10 days, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche came out for the afternoon session, did his prostrations to the shrine and sat down.

While we were prostrating to him, he put a foam clown nose on his nose.

When we looked up, and saw this, the shrine room roared with laughter.

During free time over the next few days some of his students did a deep search of stores in the area and came up with 50-60 foam clown noses.

The next afternoon they were distributed to all of us before Rinpoche came into the shrine room.

When he did his prostrations we put our noses on. As he sat down we started to prostrate with them on and he saw us.

The shrine room roared with laughter, probably louder this time.

When we sat down with our noses still on Rinpoche said ‘I’m pleased to see you have received the blessings of the guru.’

This is my clown nose (right); I still have it.

I only have one picture, Lama Kathy and her husband, Mike, who used to be a clown.