Читать книгу Blazing Splendor - Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche - Страница 16
ОглавлениеGampopa and the Early Barom Masters
As I mentioned, according to the Tibetan tradition of storytelling, a person should not simply appear out of nowhere. The tale should begin with the person’s origins. We describe origins in two ways: family tree and spiritual lineage. So I will begin in the proper way, by telling you a bit about my family, who were often known by the lofty—and somewhat exaggerated—title “divine bloodline of Tsangsar.” Our clan was for many centuries the rulers of two kingdoms: Tsangsar and Nangchen. According to oral history, our bloodline traces back to India. The story goes that a celestial being from the Brahma realm descended to earth to produce a child with a tigress in the Forest of Black Sandalwood in northern India.11
These are unusual ancestors, but we are not unique in this: tradition holds that the first person in the Drigung family line was fathered by a god, while the mother was a goat. The goat gave birth to a boy and his divine father then returned from the heavens to collect his child. But as he picked up the boy, the goat mother, heartbroken at losing her child, let out a “Baaahhhhh!” and out of compassion the god let her keep the child.
6. Vajradhara—the dharmakaya buddha
My ancestors are deeply connected to a spiritual lineage called Barom, one of the early Kagyu schools.12 The word Kagyu means the teachings (ka) that are transmitted (gyu) in an unbroken lineage from the very beginning until today. It is said that this spiritual lineage traces a continuous line back to the celestial buddha Vajradhara, whose teachings passed through the Indian masters Tilopa and Naropa and then to their Tibetan successors Marpa and Milarepa. The famous yogi Milarepa had many disciples, but there is one who rose to the fore; today we know him as Gampopa, “the man from Gampo,” the root of our Barom tradition.
Before he met Milarepa, Gampopa had studied and practiced the Buddha’s teachings for quite a while and had reached proficiency in the meditative state of samadhi. One day, a beggar happened by and began talking about Milarepa, a great guru, right outside Gampopa’s window. The moment Gampopa heard Milarepa’s name, he was overcome with emotion and called the beggar inside.
7. Gampopa—the forefather of the Kagyu masters
“Where does this Milarepa live?” he asked.
The beggar told the master’s life story: how he had been wronged as a child by his own relatives and suffered, how he mastered black magic and used it to take revenge, then how he had a change of heart, became a renunciate, and was now an amazing master yogi. The beggar ended by saying, “Right now he lives in the province of Ngari. I am one of his disciples.”
“Could I meet him?” asked Gampopa.
“Of course,” replied the beggar.
Gampopa felt a deep yearning to meet this yogi, and, wasting no time, the very next morning he headed for Ngari. He met Milarepa at a place named Auspicious Ridge. Upon merely seeing the master’s face, Gampopa attained the warmth of blissful emptiness. Milarepa told him, “Sit down and train in tummo!”—the yoga of inner heat. After a short time of practice, as you can read in the Life of Milarepa, he showed profound signs of progress connected with the energy currents dissolving into the central channel.13
When Gampopa had gained a highly refined level of insight into Mahamudra, the awakened state of mind, his guru said, “You have spent enough time with me. You must now go to Mount Dakpo and practice in solitude, but before you leave I still have one final lesson for you.”
On the day of departure, Milarepa walked with Gampopa for some distance. After he rested a while on a large boulder, it was time for the final good-bye. Then Milarepa stood up, lifted his yogi’s skirt and showed Gampopa his buttocks. They were so worn down and callused that Gampopa could almost see the bones.
“Listen to me! When training in Mahamudra, do not busy yourself with virtuous deeds of body and speech,” Milarepa explained, “because you risk losing thought-free wakefulness. It was by sitting on these buttocks that I attained realization. I have persevered in the two paths of means and liberation: Naropa’s Six Doctrines and Mahamudra. Easy, comfortable practice won’t get you anywhere!
“Forsake the aims of this life,” he continued. “Practice with fortitude. One day, you will see this old father as a buddha in person. That is when genuine realization of Mahamudra will have taken birth in you. This is my final instruction.”
Gampopa went to stay in a small meditation hut on Mount Dakpo, where he trained with tremendous perseverance, unconcerned with life or limb. Through this effort, his insight deepened until he realized the awakened state that is boundless like the sky. Gradually his following grew vast; five hundred of his disciples became masters in their own right, allowed to bear the parasol of the Dharma, signifying their status as lords of the Buddha’s teachings—no small position. Thus he fulfilled the prediction of Naropa, who said, “My disciples will be more eminent than their teacher, but their disciples will be even more eminent.” And sure enough, the practitioners who sprung from his lineage were as numerous as flocks of birds taking flight and filling the sky.14
Among Gampopa’s foremost disciples was a man named Darma Wangchuk, who is counted as the first master of the Barom lineage. From early childhood he had no other thought than practicing the Buddha’s sacred teachings; as he grew up, his sole aim was to find the best master to follow.
Eventually, the young Darma Wangchuk met a yogi and asked where he was headed.
“I’m going to Mount Dakpo, where the extraordinary Gampopa lives.”
“Take me with you—I want to meet him too!” exclaimed Darma Wangchuk, having made up his mind that very moment. Off they went. Upon meeting Gampopa, Darma Wangchuk immediately became his disciple.
Where I come from, the word ‘disciple,’ is not used lightly. It means someone who practices full-time, who gives up everything to focus one-pointedly on attaining enlightenment in that same body and lifetime. People who merely received a few empowerments or a short teaching now and then were not necessarily counted as disciples.
Darma Wangchuk became the prime example of the kind of disciple who serves his master perfectly in thought, word, and deed. He even saved Gampopa’s life several times.
We Tibetans are in the habit of showing our religious fervor by pushing one another aside to get close to the lama and receive blessings. It can become quite a scene, almost a stampede. Once, at a big market fair, word spread that Gampopa was there, and so everyone at the fair wanted to obtain his blessings—all at the same time, nearly crushing the master. Darma Wangchuk must have been quite a strong man because, the story goes, he lifted Gampopa on his back and carried him to safety.
Another time Gampopa and his following were moving along a steep, narrow trail in the high mountains. The yak Gampopa was riding slipped and fell into the abyss. But Darma Wangchuk was quick enough to catch hold of Gampopa and thereby saved his life.
One day, Gampopa told Darma Wangchuk, “You have served me for a long time and with great devotion. Now the time has come for you to benefit others. Go to the north, to a cave on sacred Mount Kangsar, and devote yourself one-pointedly to meditation practice.” Gampopa then described the mountain and how to get there. Darma Wangchuk pleaded with him, saying that he would rather remain a humble servant, but Gampopa sent him off just the same.
Darma Wangchuk went where he was told and practiced with great diligence, having completely turned his back on striving for food, clothing or fame. The gods and spirits of the mountain brought him provisions, and he stayed there for thirteen years. At the end of his retreat, he could fly through the sky and move freely through solid rock, and he had the signs of an accomplished master.
Darma Wangchuk established his first center in Central Tibet,15 near Mount Kangsar, northeast of Lhasa, where he had spent all those years. An increasing stream of faithful people with offerings, some coming all the way from China, began to find their way there. But after an avalanche buried his temple, he accepted an invitation from the king of Nangchen in eastern Tibet. There he established his second monastery, and over the generations the kingdom slowly became filled with meditators and yogis.
The word ‘meditator’ in my homeland of Nangchen is closely connected with the pointing-out instruction of Mahamudra, the most profound teaching in the Barom lineage. Almost everyone living in Nangchen received this instruction, which directly introduces the state of realization, and so they all became meditators. On every mountainside, in every valley, each family’s house became a practice center. At the end of the day, even simple water-bearers used the leather straps on their yokes as meditation belts, as did shepherds with the ropes from their slingshots. It is said that almost everyone was a practitioner, and so the kingdom got the name Gomde, the Land of Meditators, a sign that the Buddha’s teachings had firmly taken root there.16
In modern times, people often wonder why so many spiritual practitioners spent year after year in remote mountain dwellings. The answer is simple: They had an acute awareness of the grave facts of life—that we are mortal, that time is running out for each of us, and that we can use this precious life to secure a lasting attainment of liberation and enlightenment.
They saw worldly success and social recognition, even in dreams at night, as nothing but demonic attempts to seduce us away from the attainment of enlightenment. Seeing mundane pursuits as the futile chasing of a mirage, they removed themselves from the world like a wounded deer recovering from an injury, until they attained stability in the awakened state. Having attained the perfect stability of enlightenment, the masters among them engaged in work for others, by establishing monastic centers where the Buddha’s teachings could be practiced and passed on.
It’s amazing what a single authentic spiritual master can accomplish in terms of the common good. When you have the chance, try to read the biographies of the early Buddhist masters and the original founders of the major monasteries in Tibet. See how they went off and practiced with great dedication, and how they later built magnificent temples for the benefit of others. If you could have seen the number of beautiful statues of exquisite craftsmanship that existed before the communist destruction—gilded with the offerings of devoted people and created for over a thousand years—you would be quite impressed. Yet every single founder of this exquisite abundance had been a true renunciate, while regarding worldly honor and success as an attack by demonic forces.
The spiritual influence of a single enlightened being can spread into every corner of human civilization. There have been innumerable examples of this over the centuries. For instance, before he built the temple complex at Tsurphu in Central Tibet, where the Dharma flourished for centuries, the first Karmapa had already spent decades in meditation sheltered by nothing more than the overhang of a cliff. But there came a time when he reached such a level of realization that there were abundant signs of extremely high spiritual attainment.17
Like the Karmapa, there have been thousands upon thousands of practitioners who followed Milarepa’s example. When someone stayed in an unpopulated valley or a remote cave, having abandoned futile involvements, and thereby had the time to awaken to true enlightenment—now, that impresses me!
My family became linked to these early Barom Kagyu teachers through the master Tishi Repa, one of Darma Wangchuk’s main disciples. Tishi Repa had four other gurus as well, and in their honor he fashioned a famous hat with five peaks—one at the center and one in each of the four directions.18
In Tishi Repa’s time, a tradition of spiritual relationship between China and Tibet had begun whereby the Chinese emperors sought out and invited the most eminent Tibetan master to be the imperial guru. At regular intervals, a search party was sent to travel throughout Tibet to find the greatest master of the day. As his fame had spread far and wide, the lama with the five-peaked hat received an invitation from the emperor. That’s how he became known as Tishi Repa—tishi being the Chinese title for the imperial preceptor, the highest religious rank. Below a tishi were two masters of the pakshi rank, and below each pakshi were two dignitaries with the position known as goshir. The tishi position also included an entourage of forty religious officials, all paid from the emperor’s coffers.
While perusing the archives during my stay at Tsurphu, the main seat of the Karmapas, I came across ancient correspondence with China. A similar invitation from the imperial court to become a tishi was once sent to the third Karmapa. In those days, an invitation sounded more like a command.
One of the letters read: “To the west, no lama has been found to surpass you in spiritual qualities. The emperor has established this fact through his many emissaries. You alone must now be the imperial preceptor. If you fulfill his wish and come to China, the emperor will bestow every boon upon you in both spiritual and secular affairs. If you fail to fulfill the emperor’s wish, you will never have another happy day.”
Along with the document came a large seal of pure gold, a sign of exalted rank. Two high-ranking officials had personally carried the invitation to Tsurphu. The letter continued, “Commence your journey to China immediately, together with these two officials. Unnecessary delay of departure, even for a single day, will result in dire consequences.”
Such an “invitation” required Tishi Repa to go to China—he simply had no choice. But he did so in a highly unusual manner. Perhaps he knew intuitively that traveling in the style of a grand master of Tibetan Buddhism would cost him his life or perhaps it was simply a personal choice, but he chose to dress as a wandering beggar.
“That attire is entirely inappropriate,” the Chinese officials objected. “While traveling on imperial command, you must proceed in a dignified manner with the proper pomp and circumstance befitting a grand lama.”
They negotiated back and forth, until it was agreed that the traveling party of the grand lama, including his own retinue of forty religious officials, would travel all the way to China in the traditional way. Tishi Repa, however, was permitted to accompany the caravan on foot dressed as a beggar in a simple cotton robe and carrying only a wooden walking staff. He walked the entire distance from Kham to the distant Chinese capital while everyone else rode on horseback.
There are written accounts of the miracles and other signs of accomplishment Tishi Repa displayed at the imperial court. But he also saw that the emperor’s dynasty, which was of Mongolian descent, would last no more than thirteen years. When ten of those years had passed, Tishi Repa thought it best not to be in the capital when the dynasty fell, and so he made excuses to leave. But the imperial family categorically refused to let him return to Kham.
“Times are taking a turn for the worse,” Tishi Repa thought. “The emperor’s life is running out, and if I stay I will get caught up in warfare and internal strife. I must escape by stealth.”
And so he slipped away. When the emperor discovered that Tishi Repa had fled, he sent out search parties in all directions. After two or three days, they caught up with him, and under strict guard Tishi Repa was marched back to the imperial court, where the emperor kept the master under lock and key.
“How will imprisoning me help you?” Tishi Repa asked. “You are the ones who are in trouble! Three years from now, both the dynasty and the crown prince will meet an untimely end. What can you do about that? I didn’t want to be a witness to all that, so I decided to leave. You wouldn’t let me, so I had to flee.”
“Lama, do not speak in such a manner!” replied the emperor. “What you say couldn’t possibly come true. Anyone who speaks as you do is to be punished! But since you have been my guru, I will excuse you. And if you really intend to leave, I will let you. In return, try your best to ensure that my life does not end.”
So, with a change of heart, the emperor showered Tishi Repa with gifts and provided him an escort back to Kham. When the party arrived at the border, Tishi Repa’s mount lay down and refused to stand up again. He told his escorts, “This is a sign that from now on I will return to being a wandering beggar.” And he proceeded on foot.
Along the road, he met Sakya Pandita, the head of one of the main branches of Buddhism in Tibet, who was on his way to China. Sakya Pandita wanted to honor him by arranging an extravagant welcoming party. However, Tishi Repa replied, “There is no need for all that! Just treat me like the humble beggar that I am.”
He continued on his pilgrimage and, taking a very long route home, visited Lhasa. A few days after finally arriving back in Kham, he passed away.
As he had been a guru of the emperor, Tishi Repa’s passing was the cause of much attention and many ceremonies, and the news soon reached China. The new emperor sent emissaries to make offerings as well as to search for a suitable successor. They returned with a master named Repa Karpo, who was Tishi Repa’s chief disciple. According to all written accounts, the greatness of this master defied all imagination; he was even more accomplished than Tishi Repa. Many people saw him emitting a resplendent light. He was given immense wealth by this new emperor and used it to build many temples. In particular, he built a huge temple in Nangchen with innumerable statues, the main being a replica of the Jowo Buddha statue in Lhasa. Eventually, he received the same spiritual rank as Tishi Repa from the emperor.
It is among Repa Karpo’s disciples that we find my ancestor, Lumey Dorje of the Tsangsar clan. Earlier, during an empowerment ceremony with a huge gathering, Repa Karpo spotted Lumey Dorje in the crowd and called out, “Hey, you! Do you want to follow me?”
Lumey Dorje approached and replied, “Certainly. How kind of you to make it so easy for me—I don’t even have to make the request.” Then and there he became a disciple of Repa Karpo.
Before long, Lumey Dorje attained a high level of realization. He also built a monastery called Nangso Chenmo to which Nangchen owes its name. It had 115 pillars, making it extraordinarily large. When it came time for the consecration, he pitched a small tent and began practicing the instructions he had received from his guru.
During the ceremonies, some benefactors offered him droma, our traditional and auspicious but very rich dish of tiny sweet roots swimming in clarified butter. Lumey Dorje consumed one large pot after another, ten in all, and the word got around that the master had done something crazy and would die, or at least become seriously ill. But when everybody had gathered, he exuded all the butter through the pores of his body, leaving him even more radiant than before. Someone said, “That can’t be an ordinary human body!” Another remarked, “Look! His body doesn’t even cast a shadow! You can see right through it. He should be called Bodiless Vajra,” which is what Lumey Dorje means. This master was truly a sublime being—like a lion among men.
When his guru Repa Karpo passed away, the funeral ceremony was a major event, a special occasion for his disciples to make lavish offerings to honor their guru’s physical form. Soon after, the great Chögyal Pakpa, a master of the Sakya lineage, traveled through the region on his way to China and visited the monastery at Nangso Chenmo.19 The followers of Repa Karpo told him, “We have been abandoned by our master, like a body without a head. You are a sublime being, the emperor’s guru and the ruler of Tibet, and we would like to offer the monastery and the Nangchen kingdom to you.”
Chögyal Pakpa replied, “This would be inappropriate because the head wouldn’t fit the body. I am Sakya while you are Kagyu. It would be like putting a sheep’s head on the body of a goat. I would rather choose the best of Repa Karpo’s disciples. I have been entrusted with thirteen emblems of power to be given to thirteen people below me; the first of these I will offer to Repa Karpo’s main disciple, giving him the rank of lachen, grand master. So, choose the one among you who is the foremost disciple, and I will invest him with this title so that he can take charge of your kingdom.”
One of the disciples replied, “My Dharma brothers are all equal; there is no difference. It would be hard for us to choose who is best.”
“Isn’t there one who is just slightly better than the others?”
“Well, there is Lumey Dorje, whose bodily form resembles a golden offering lamp, but he has gone to Central Tibet. The rest of us are all equals.”
“I am also going to Central Tibet. Send someone to find him and tell him to meet me there.”
The messengers found Lumey Dorje near Lhasa, residing at the seat of a close disciple of Marpa.20 They escorted him to Chögyal Pakpa, who enthroned him, giving him a golden seal and an insignia of precious brocade that symbolized the rank of lachen, one of the thirteen imperial priests. Upon receiving these honors, Lumey Dorje said, “I have had no other aim in my heart than to be a renunciate meditator, least of all a Dharma king, but I will not oppose your command. However, you must appoint me an effective Dharma protector.”
Chögyal Pakpa then entrusted him with the Four-Faced Guardian, a Dharma protector from the Sakya lineage, together with the accompanying empowerment and instructions. Chögyal Pakpa then said, “You can rest assured that this guardian will follow you everywhere like a shadow follows a body.”
This was not to be his only protector. Later Lumey Dorje had a vision of the female guardian Dusölma. She asked him, “What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything!” Lumey Dorje replied.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “I will protect your Dharma lineage for thirteen generations as if I were present in flesh and blood.”
Lumey Dorje had also received many empowerments and instructions from a great lama in the Kadam tradition and a disciple of the famed Indian master Atisha.21 When Atisha came up from Nepal to Tibet for the first time, a Dharma protector named Monkey-Faced Ganapati had followed him. At some point, Atisha entrusted this guardian to the lama, who later passed him on to Lumey Dorje, saying, “This protector is half-wisdom and half-mundane; often his activity is mischievous.”22 So when Lumey Dorje returned to Kham as a Dharma king, he had an invisible following of not just one but three Dharma protectors.
It is interesting to note that Lumey Dorje—as well as his descendants, my own ancestors—had no real wish for secular power and fame but preferred the simple life of the renunciate. Perhaps because of this, eventually my paternal ancestors lost their position as the kings of Tsangsar to the ruler of Nangchen.
Lumey Dorje caused the Dharma to flourish throughout Nangchen. It was primarily through his spiritual influence that the kingdom became known as a land of meditators. Lumey Dorje remained on the golden Dharma throne for eighteen years and then he passed away—or, as we say in Buddhist terms, he “displayed the manner of transcending the world of suffering.” For seven days, wonderful designs in rainbow colors appeared in the sky for all to see. On his bones, thirteen self-appeared images in the shape of the auspicious white conch were found. Even today people still retell the story of his cremation and all the wonderful, truly unbelievable signs.
By this time, Nangchen was a small country unto itself, and it was now necessary to choose Lumey Dorje’s successor. The choice fell on Lumey Dorje’s nephew, Jangchub Shönnu, who was a lama. He was a disciple of Lumey Dorje’s and was living as a renunciate meditator in the area. Messengers found him and said, “You must leave your hermitage to be king. You can continue your spiritual activities from the golden throne of the Dharma.”
“I don’t wish to do anything but meditate in retreat,” Jangchub Shönnu replied.
“What use is your meditation if you ignore the well-being of all those who live in the kingdom?” the messengers argued, and so Jangchub Shönnu became the successor to the throne.
On ascending the Dharma throne, Jangchub Shönnu received a high religious position from the Chinese emperor, along with many gifts from the imperial court. He decided to use his newfound wealth to build a magnificent castle-like palace in Nangchen. When he moved there, he transferred the three Dharma guardians as well, except for the monkey-faced protector, who vehemently refused to go to the palace, preferring to stay behind in the monastery at Nangso Chenmo.
Every morning Jangchub Shönnu would make a circumambulation of both castles and their temples. One morning, while he was walking around Nangso Chenmo, a dog attacked and bit him. People started talking. In the new castle, they said, “How can they let vicious dogs run around loose? Don’t they feed the dogs over there? The manager there is so conceited he thinks he can use our lama as food for his mongrels!”
The servants in the other camp retorted, “He may be a great lama, but what is he doing running around alone every morning?” And the argument escalated from there. Words were flung back and forth. That was all it took to create a big rift. But we shouldn’t be surprised that jealous rivalry abounds in the world of humans.
In the end, the high Sakya lama who had succeeded Chögyal Pakpa on the throne in Central Tibet was asked to mediate by the manager of the new castle. This manager must have been quite politically astute, because when he came back he brought a royal decree granting equal status to the two castles, which meant that the kingdom would have to be divided. Jangchub Shönnu didn’t mind and said it was fine with him.23
From then on, there were two castles: one called Nangso Chenmo and the other Tsangsar. In time, each was to have its own king. In those days, the throne holders of the Dharma were simultaneously the ruler of a major region and oversaw both secular and spiritual affairs. Over the centuries, the surrounding areas were consolidated into the two kingdoms, which eventually comprised ten thousand family estates scattered over a sparsely populated area. In the following generations, many of these masters held high ranks bestowed by Chinese emperors: tishi once, pakshi twice, and goshir thirteen times.
As the Mongols came into power in China, they also gave the Nangchen kings official titles and positions. The title conferred upon the Nangchen kings was the position of chinghu, which is one rank below goshir but still higher than a wang. The whole western continent was divided under the power of four chinghu and eight wang. In our terms, we can equate the chinghu with an affiliated but independent ruler, while the position of wang is closer to that of a district governor. But the kings in the Tsangsar family—my ancestors—never received any such position and remained lamas.24 In later centuries, the custom of the imperial court was to station its own representative in the various districts of Tibet. Just like the high-ranking Chinese official in Lhasa called an amban, there was a similar Chinese delegate in Nangchen and the neighboring kingdom of Derge.
Chinese from Ziling in the north had forced Tsangsar to relinquish most of its political power to Nangchen twelve or thirteen generations before mine, during the time of the master-poet Karma Chagmey. Then, about three generations ago, an important minister from the Nangchen court succeeded in forcing Tsangsar under the rule of the Nangchen king and imposed obligatory taxes. So, in the end, we lost our independence completely.
When I grew up in the Tsangsar mansion, our family line was no longer involved in politics, although we had a continuing spiritual lineage. There had been one ngakpa lama after another in my paternal line. The Tsangsar family line continued as lineage holders of the Barom Kagyu, while all the country’s political affairs were handled by the Nangchen palace.
This state of affairs—Nangchen as rulers and Tsangsar as lamas—went on harmoniously over the centuries, except for the reign of one king.
Sometimes worldly power goes to a person’s head, and, one fine morning, the king of Nangchen looked toward the east and saw that the sun’s warm rays were prevented from touching his palace by a mountaintop nearby.
He exclaimed, “I am the king! I want sunlight in the morning, so lop off the top of that mountain!” A huge labor force was mobilized and they began chipping away at the rock.
This was no small mountain, but they managed to take a fair chunk off the peak. Even today, if you climb that mountain, you can see the results of their labors.
But the work was overwhelming. Eventually, one of the workers said, “This is no good. We’re dealing with this in the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” a coworker inquired.
“It’s easier to chop off the ruler’s head than to cut off the head of a mountain,” the first replied.
“What are you saying?”
“Even if we continue for ten thousand years, we will still not finish this work. We have been given a horrible, endless task. Let’s mobilize everyone and put an end to this senseless king!”
So that’s exactly what they did: They cut off the king’s head.
Nangchen was divided into eighteen districts, each with a major monastery.25 In the early days, all eighteen were Barom Kagyu, but the lineage waned in influence as the Karmapa’s influence grew over the centuries and many of these monasteries began to follow his branch of the Kagyu. By the time I left Tibet, only a few small monasteries remained Barom Kagyu; one was my guru’s monastery at Lachab.26
A bit more about my paternal line of ancestors, with its famous (and perhaps a bit pretentious) name, Divine Bloodline of Tsangsar. Ours was a family lineage of married Vajrayana masters who for many generations were politically independent of the Nangchen king. Over the generations, their estate and mansion were no longer vast, but they were not small either.
As I noted, my ancestors focused on spiritual works, not politics. At one point, there were eighteen Tsangsar brothers who together made eighteen sets of the Kangyur, the translated words of the Buddha, each written in pure gold. One set was offered to the head lama of the Sakya lineage, one to the Karmapa and another to Karma Gön, the Karmapa’s main seat in Kham. When I was at Lachab, we still had one set and there was also one at a small temple under Tsangsar patronage. The pages were handmade of thick black paper and the script was a beautiful calligraphy in pure gold.
The wives and sisters of those eighteen brothers, a group of twenty-five, decided to create the merit of making twenty-five sets of the many Prajnaparamita sutras on transcendent knowledge, each written in pure gold on deep blue paper made from powdered azurite. During my time, one of these was still kept at the Tsangsar temple. Over the centuries, many people have seen the female protector Dusölma circumambulating and paying respect to these scriptures. There was also a profusion of artists connected with my family. Once when the Karmapa passed through between Tibet and China, he was given one thousand tangka paintings as an offering.
These Tsangsar ancestors all the way down to my great-great-grandfather were realized masters. There is almost no one, including my father, who didn’t show some miracle or sign of great realization.27 I heard that one of them was the leader of the army from Nangchen and was attacked by a gang of soldiers from Derge, but their muskets couldn’t kill him.28
A more recent and very important link in this Tsangsar family line was Orgyen Chöpel, my paternal grandfather. Being a married Vajrayana master, he dressed as an ordinary layperson. He married Könchok Paldrön—my grandmother and the only daughter of my illustrious ancestor, the great treasure revealer Chokgyur Lingpa—with whom he had four sons, all lamas, and two daughters.29 These are all major figures in my family story. Remember, I was born on the journey when my grandmother went in search of Tersey Tulku.
When my grandmother was given in marriage to Orgyen Chöpel, his family’s basic Dharma lineage was Barom Kagyu—but in name only. By that point, they were all following the Nyingma practices found in Chokgyur Lingpa’s New Treasures, the forty volumes of teachings he revealed for these times. So, it seems the Barom seat had turned predominantly Nyingma.
That didn’t mean they had completely abandoned the Barom teachings. The once-flourishing practice of the Six Doctrines from the Indian master Naropa had weakened long ago and was now maintained in only a few places. But by unifying Naropa’s Six Doctrines with the liberating instructions of Mahamudra meditation, many early Barom Kagyu practitioners attained accomplishment—thirteen could run as fast as horses, another thirteen could run like the wind and there were many, many others. Their disciples spread far and wide, all over Nangchen.
The training in Mahamudra, on the other hand, had for the most part taken on the flavor of Dzogchen, the teachings of the Great Perfection. All that was left of pure Barom practice was a very particular ritual involving a way to invoke the guardian of the Buddha’s teachings. This ritual was continued with very high regard—so much so that some monks would accumulate more recitations of this mantra than of their yidam deities. In the Tsangsar mansion where I spent my early years, there was a special shrine room for the lineage protectors, with huge masks covering all the walls. Every day, special petitions and offerings had to be performed in front of each. One of them, I remember, was said to give almost instant results; over the centuries, there have been many accounts of their protective powers.
These days, I am sorry to say, Barom is close to fading out, as very few lamas are left to uphold it. I, too, was supposed to do my part, but obviously I haven’t done much. Of the Barom I have not practiced the Barom style of the Six Doctrines, but only the chanting for the Dharma protectors. Instead I have been steeped in Chokgyur Lingpa’s terma treasures since I was a child. I haven’t even had the chance to perform the practice connected to Chakrasamvara, the main deity of the Barom Kagyu.30 So I am definitely to blame—shame on me!—for letting my forefather’s Dharma lineage slip away as I occupied myself with Chokgyur Lingpa’s termas. Actually, my father and one uncle did most of the Barom Kagyu practice in our family; they employed the practices for the Dharma protectors. But another uncle, Tersey, didn’t chant even one syllable from the Barom Kagyu lineage; he followed the New Treasures one-hundred percent.
According to Khampa tradition, since the great tertön’s sons had no children, his daughter’s offspring were then highly respected as descendants and representatives of Chokgyur Lingpa. We speak of two kinds of grandchildren: “bone line” and “blood line.” To be a grandchild from bone means being born in the family of a son, while a grandchild from blood would be in the family of a daughter.
The continuation of Chokgyur Lingpa’s terma teachings was primarily due to my grandmother’s having borne four sons, each of whom performed an immense service in propagating this lineage. My father was the second of the four sons; his name was Chimey Dorje. My mother’s name was Karsa Yuri.
So that’s a short history of both the spiritual and worldly aspects of the Tsangsar lineage and, particularly important, how it connects with Chokgyur Lingpa when his daughter, my grandmother, was given in marriage to Orgyen Chöpel of the Tsangsar family. At this point, you may wonder just who this Chokgyur Lingpa was and what his New Treasures are—and what exactly are terma teachings? Also, what’s so important about propagating a Dharma lineage? All this will be my main topic in most of the following stories. And it is due to the kindness of my grandmother that I even know many of these tales.
