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The Treasures of the Lotus-Born

At the end of the eighth century, Padmasambhava, the Lotus-Born, arrived in Tibet. As the primary master of Vajrayana, he accompanies every one of the thousand buddhas of this eon.³¹ He had twenty-five main disciples; in later incarnations those disciples were reborn as tertöns, who revealed teachings Padmasambhava had hidden to benefit people of coming times.

My root guru, Samten Gyatso, had incredible faith in Padmasambhava and would tell me how he marveled at the words of the Lotus-Born. Although Samten Gyatso was extremely erudite and had studied vast volumes of literature, he continued to find many fresh levels of meaning in Padmasambhava’s teachings.

“There is no one greater than Padmasambhava,” he would often say. “Of course, Buddha Shakyamuni is the root, but the Lotus-Born made the Vajrayana teachings spread and flourish throughout India—and especially in Tibet. If you look closely, you can see just how amazing his terma teachings are! And if you compare his terma revelations with any other treatise, you can see their unique quality. The reason is that they were from Padmasambhava himself.

“The beauty of their prose is astounding! It is very difficult for anyone to write with such beauty and depth as you find in terma practices. Unlike treatises by people who are merely learned, in a terma each word can be understood on increasingly deeper levels. That special quality of Padmasambhava’s vajra speech means that whenever you read his teachings, you inevitably feel faith and devotion, trust and complete confidence!

“We see that similarly worded teachings appear in the revelations of several tertöns. The reason is they are all the unmistaken speech of Padmasambhava deciphered from the symbolic script of dakinis,”³² he said, referring to female tantric deities. “One need not harbor any doubts. For instance, the Seven-Line Supplication starting with ‘On the northwest border of the land of Uddiyana’ appears in numerous different termas; the different revealers tapped the same source.

“Before he left Tibet, Padmasambhava concealed an abundance of termas containing teachings, precious stones and sacred articles for practitioners in later centuries to follow.” Out of great kindness, the Lotus-Born concealed termas for the benefit of future beings—within solid rock, in lakes, even in the sky. Thinking of this immense kindness evoked my awe.

Yet, there are people who can’t appreciate this kindness. These days some skeptics object saying, “Tertöns probably don’t possess the unbroken lineage of empowerment and reading transmission from Padmasambhava for their teachings. They just dig up a few articles they themselves hid!”

But in fact, the tertöns who later appeared to reveal these treasures had, in their past life as his disciples, been blessed by the Lotus-Born master, receiving empowerment and reading transmission for those termas. Every tertön has already received the complete lineage—and in an authentic way far superior to the superficial manner empowerments so frequently are given these days, which bear only the semblance of blessings.

All the great tertöns were masters who, in body, speech and mind, were personally blessed, and empowered by the Lotus-Born. To claim they didn’t have transmission is childish. Such statements demonstrate the speaker’s ignorance of the seven traditional ways of transmission.³³ The terma teachings are amazingly profound and are concealed within the treasure chest of the four modes and six limits, ten levels of increasingly profound meaning at which each of the tantric scriptures can be explained. This is how Samten Gyatso introduced me to Padmasambhava’s teachings.

“If you are interested in exploring them, the layers of meaning in a terma are vast. From childhood, a great tertön is unlike other children,” my guru continued. “He has pure visions of deities, and realization overflows from within. Tertöns are not like us ordinary people who must follow the gradual path of study and practice. Ordinary people don’t have instantaneous realization!”³⁴

As another of my teachers, Dzongsar Khyentse, told me, “Termas are like crops that ripen in the autumn. Every year, there’s a new crop, and each season it is freshly harvested and enjoyed, since that is the crop for use at that time. Terma teachings were concealed to be revealed at particular periods later in history, and they appear in forms most appropriate to the particular time periods in which they are revealed.”

When the time came for the different terma teachings to be revealed, great tertöns would appear in this world. They were able to dive into lakes, fly up to impossible locations in caves and take objects out of solid rock.

My great-grandfather, Chokgyur Lingpa, was one of those masters who revealed the Lotus-Born master’s hidden treasures.