Читать книгу Blazing Splendor - Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche - Страница 18

5

My Great-Grandfather, the Treasure Revealer

Chokgyur Lingpa was born near the royal palace in Nangchen and grew up as a simple monk in the Tsechu monastery. Once during the annual tantric dances, he fell out of rhythm and danced on independently of the others. This upset the dance master who then wanted to give him a beating.

Present in the assembly was Adeu Rinpoche, who was the guru of the king of Nangchen. He also happened to be the son of the previous king and therefore a very powerful personage in the kingdom; during those days, there was no higher lama in Nangchen. Adeu Rinpoche, who had clairvoyant abilities, saw that the young tertön was participating in a dance of celestial beings taking place in the young monk’s vision of Padmasambhava’s pure realm—Chokgyur Lingpa had simply joined that dance instead.

Adeu Rinpoche came to Chokgyur Lingpa’s rescue, saying, “Don’t beat him! He has his own style. Leave him to himself.”

Soon after, Chokgyur Lingpa asked permission to leave the monastery and Adeu Rinpoche consented, saying, “Yes, you can go. Travel freely wherever you like and benefit beings!”

Before leaving, Chokgyur Lingpa gave a statue as an offering to the king of Nangchen and requested a mount and provisions. But the king was a hardheaded character and not happy that he was leaving.

8. Chokgyur Lingpa—the revealer of hidden treasures

“That crazy monk has given me a statue of Padmasambhava that is neither clay nor stone,” the king said, not realizing it was one of the extremely precious terma objects Chokgyur Lingpa had already discovered. “Give him an old horse and a saddle blanket.” As a result of the king’s lack of appreciation, Chokgyur Lingpa never settled in Nangchen.

My great-grandfather had not gone through any formal studies, yet Old Kongtrul later called him a true pandita, a great scholar.³⁵ This change took place while Chokgyur Lingpa remained in a strict traditional retreat, lasting three years and three fortnights, at his residence above Karma Gön in Kham. During this retreat, he, to use his own words, “slightly unraveled the intent of the tantras, statements, and instructions,” referring to the profound three inner sections of tantra—Maha, Anu, and Ati Yoga.³⁶

9. The lotus crown of Chokgyur Lingpa

Chokgyur Lingpa was not just an authentic tertön; his revelations are pivotal to our lineage. He was the reincarnation of Prince Murub, the second son of the great king Trisong Deutsen, who established Buddhism in Tibet. Another of his former lives was Sangye Lingpa.³⁷ Chokgyur Lingpa was the “owner” of seven distinct transmissions and is often counted as the last of one hundred tertöns of major importance.

He is regarded as the “universal monarch of all tertöns,” in part because no other tertön has revealed a teaching that includes the Space Section of Dzogchen. There are several Mind Section revelations and all major tertöns reveal the Instruction Section; but only Chokgyur Lingpa transmitted the Space Section. This is why his Three Sections of the Great Perfection is considered the most extraordinary terma he ever revealed.³⁸

Most of the stories I know about how Chokgyur Lingpa revealed termas I heard from my grandmother. Being Chokgyur Lingpa’s daughter, she witnessed these events as a child. My grandmother was never known to lie or overstate anything; she was an extremely truthful person who didn’t brag or slander.

She told me how Chokgyur Lingpa once revealed a terma before a crowd.³⁹ “Often my father would take a terma out in the presence of more than a thousand people. It had to be this way, because Tibetans, especially those in the eastern province of Kham, were known to be extremely skeptical. They didn’t blindly believe everyone who claimed to be a tertön. But Chokgyur Lingpa was beyond dispute, because he repeatedly revealed termas with numerous witnesses present.

10. The Lotus Crystal Cave—sacred place of the Three Sections

11. Kala Rongo—where the Tukdrub was revealed

“The purpose of revealing a terma publicly,” she continued, “is to ensure complete trust, free from doubt or skepticism. There is no trickery involved; the terma is revealed before the eyes of everyone present. If it were just a magic trick, there would be no actual, material terma to show afterward, no representation of enlightened body or speech.⁴⁰

“Otherwise, it was no simple feat to convince people that Chokgyur Lingpa was in fact an emissary of Padmasambhava. Khampas were even more hardheaded than Central Tibetans; they were much more suspicious. Among Khampas, the people from Derge were the most skeptical; there was no way in the world they would simply believe any impostor professing to be a tertön! They would only trust someone they had personally witnessed revealing a terma in public.

“We call such a revelation tromter, meaning ‘public terma,’ a terma revealed amid and witnessed by many people. When a terma treasure was about to be revealed as a tromter, it would first be announced: ‘A terma will be revealed in public!’ As word spread, a lot of people would gather to watch.

“A tertön would also miraculously receive a ‘location-list,’ which is like a key showing exactly where the terma is hidden. Such a text is necessary to be able to find the terma and take it out; and having received the location list—a mystical guidebook—the tertön can see in his mind’s eye the layout of the landscape and the location of the mountains, valleys, rocks, caves and so on. This list also contains a description of the ‘terma sign,’ a certain mark placed by Padmasambhava or Yeshe Tsogyal, for instance the syllable HUNG. The terma site could be a certain rock or cave, a place described as looking like a gaping lion, a tortoise or another animal of a particular shape indicating the character of the location. The terma sign might be found at the throat, between the eyes, at the heart or at another such place on that particular animal.

“The location list will also indicate the proper time to reveal the terma and the particulars of the spirit guarding it. Sometimes three different spirits would be involved: zhidag, neydag, and terdag. The zhidag, the lord of the land, is, for example, like Maheshvara, who guards the entire Kathmandu valley, while the neydag, the lord of the locality, is, for instance, like Tarabhir, who guards the sacred place of the female buddha Tara near Nagi Gompa. The terdag,⁴¹ the terma owner, is the particular spirit who was entrusted with the terma’s safekeeping at the time it was concealed.

“How is it possible for anyone to steal a terma? Perhaps when Guru Rinpoche was concealing the terma he was seen by birds and other animals, who then knew where it was hidden. In one of their subsequent lives, they could become a terma thief. So the command would be, ‘Don’t allow a terma thief to take this! Don’t let it fall into the hands of samaya violators! Entrust it to no one but the representative of me, Padmasambhava!’

“In this way, the guardian would already have been instructed by Padmasambhava to hand over the terma to the destined tertön. The treasure revealer however must then give a tribute in return, a kind of bribe. In addition, he must place something as a substitute, either a teaching or something precious, such as a sacred substance; he cannot just carry off the terma like a thief making off with some loot.

“As soon as the news spread that something amazing was about to take place, of course a lot of people would turn up—and why not! Sometimes five or six hundred people would be present, once even a thousand. But other times when the terma was revealed as a tromter there would only be a small group present consisting of seven, twenty-one or more people.

“On one such occasion, Chokgyur Lingpa presented a ritual drink to the guardian of the terma, accompanied by a request to release custody of the terma. He then drew a design on the surface of a rock, which opened up like the anus of a cow and the stone just poured out to reveal a cavity containing the terma. As the interior became visible, we saw that it was filled with scintillating rainbow light. We also noticed an unusually lovely fragrance that seemed to permeate the entire valley. A vast quantity of scarlet sindhura powder came spilling forth as well. Chokgyur Lingpa handed some of this powder out and people collected it for safekeeping.

My grandmother continued, “Everyone was slowly chanting the supplication to the Lotus-Born known as Spontaneous Fulfillment of Wishes:

When revealing termas for destined people to benefit beings,

With the courageous confidence of pure samaya,

Free of hesitation and doubt, I supplicate you;

Grant your blessings to spontaneously fulfill all wishes!

“Someone had already arranged a table nearby covered with a brocade cloth to place the precious articles on. The terma articles were often too hot to touch when taken out and my father was the only one who could hold them. Some were so hot in fact that they scorched the brocade”⁴² My grandmother described these to me as “objects from which the heat of blessings had still not vanished.” Sometimes this is used as a metaphor, but, in actuality, sometimes people did get burned. Once I actually saw some of these scorched pieces of red and yellow brocade in a box containing some of Chokgyur Lingpa’s sacred belongings.

After the great tertön took out the terma, he blessed everyone. At this time he also gave an explanation of the terma’s historical background, how and why Padmasambhava concealed it, with what particular aspiration it was buried, why it was revealed now, the benefits of receiving its blessings and so forth.

She said, “I saw the crowd weep out of faith and devotion, the air humming with crying. Even if you were a stubborn intellectual, all skepticism would melt away. Everyone was struck with wonder.

“After the revelation, he placed a substitute for the terma inside the rock cavity. For example, if there were two statues of Padmasambhava, then Chokgyur Lingpa replaced one of them. If the terma was a scroll of dakini letters, written in their symbolic script, he would place some other precious article in its place. Then he finished by walling up the cavity, sometimes with stones, sometimes even melting the rock as if coating it with plaster. If Chokgyur Lingpa simply set some rocks in the crack, people who later went back to check discovered that the surface had naturally ‘healed,’ all by itself.”

My grandmother was not the only person I knew who actually saw Chokgyur Lingpa reveal termas. Once, while I was living at our Tsangsar family home, Pema Trinley, who had been the great tertön’s servant, came to stay. He spent the last year of his life with us and was about ninety years old when he passed away. Being young and curious, I questioned him about his days with the tertön and he told me all that he remembered. Here is one of his stories:

“Once, while Chokgyur Lingpa was in a small village at the foot of beautiful Mount Karma, he was given the opportunity to reveal a ‘cattle terma.’ Believe it or not, he announced that he would bring forth real animals! Hearing this, many people gathered around him, proceeding with much commotion to a steep cliff that rose up the side of Mount Karma.

“In those days there were no matches, and Chokgyur Lingpa’s cook, Lhagsam, had forgotten to bring along a fire kit of flint and steel. Without a fire kit, he couldn’t make tea, so he sent his helper down to the village to fetch one. But all the villagers were out collecting wild, sweet droma potatoes on the hillsides, so the cook’s helper had to return empty-handed.

“While the helper was heading back up the mountain, Chokgyur Lingpa had been at work in his tent in front of the cliff. Already people could hear cattle lowing and bellowing from deep within the mountain. It sounded as if the animals were just about to break through the surface of the rock. Everyone heard it—some were even frightened, thinking they were about to get trampled.

“Right then, the cook’s helper yelled out, ‘Hey, Lhagsam! I’ve got no fire kit! There was no one at the village!’ The great tertön heard this from within his tent and asked, ‘What did he say? They vanished? They are gone?’ You see, in the Khampa dialect, the word for fire kit, which is mesa, and the cook’s name, Lhagsam, can also sound like the word for ‘vanished,’ ‘gone.’ While Chokgyur Lingpa asked what was said, the sounds of the animals gradually vanished.

“Chokgyur Lingpa then exclaimed, ‘The auspicious circumstance has passed! The cook’s helper bungled it! We shouldn’t stay here! Let’s pack up and leave!’ Everybody then left in a flurry. They didn’t even have a cup of tea, since they couldn’t start a fire.”

My grandmother once told me why we in the lineage of Chokgyur Lingpa don’t need to fear local spirits like Gyalpo Pehar or Samten Kangsar.⁴³

On one of Chokgyur Lingpa’s trips to Lhasa by the northern route, the party was caught in a terrible snowstorm on the vast plains. Even after the main storm subsided, a tremendous amount of snow continued to fall for a week or so, preventing them from continuing their journey. The travelers started to fear for their lives. They grew so desperate that they began to burn any flammable objects they could find—even the wooden frames of their saddles.

At an emergency meeting someone said, “We still have a long journey ahead of us. We haven’t even crossed the pass. What’s going to happen to us? With this snow I fear the worst. Let’s ask the tertön for help; it’s our only choice.”

When the crisis was brought before the tertön, he responded, “The elemental forces of the valleys and the mountain spirits have ganged up to test us. They are taunting me, insinuating that I am not the lineage holder of Padmasambhava. But don’t worry, just wait and see what happens. Divide the practitioners up into two groups: the ngakpas should stay with me in my tent and the monks should remain in Karmey Khenpo’s charge. Prepare yourselves by training in the tummo yoga, for tonight we will perform the practice of the soaked cotton garments. It is the only way to deal with this.”

The two groups began to practice the yoga that very afternoon and they produced so much heat that people outside could see clouds of vapor rising from both tents. At midnight the heavy snow clouds began to disperse and by morning the sky was clear, without even a wisp of cloud. Not only that, but all the snow around Chokgyur Lingpa’s tent had melted; you could see the stones on the bare ground. The sun rose in a blue sky to reveal splendid weather and the snow continued to melt across the entire plain. The streams became swollen to their banks with all the melted snow.

Chokgyur Lingpa suggested they stay for a few days and during that time the snow continued to melt. At one point he exclaimed, “I’m still not done with those guys! Samten Kangsar, Nyenchen Tanglha and some of the other spirits still seem to have their minds set on putting us through an ordeal. Samten Kangsar needs to be taught a lesson today. Please prepare a big white torma and bring it to me.”

That afternoon, after the petitions to the guardians, Chokgyur Lingpa heated up the torma until the butter decorations on top melted down to its shoulder. Meanwhile, looking at Mount Samten Kangsar—from which the spirit has his name—in the distance, everyone saw that the snow on its peak had begun to melt and was gushing in streams down the mountainside. The next morning, large patches of black rock were visible.⁴⁴

After Chokgyur Lingpa had subdued Samten Kangsar, the weather was brilliantly clear for three days straight; there was not a single cloud in the sky. The melting snow caused quite a flood in low-lying areas.

Wherever Chokgyur Lingpa traveled, he was accompanied by many learned and accomplished masters. His splendorous dignity and sphere of influence were comparable to those of the great Karmapa—so that even spiritual masters served as his attendants. One such was Karpo Sabchu, a yogi adept in Naropa’s Six Doctrines and especially accomplished in the feat of swift walking. It was said that he could cover the distance from Kham to Lhasa—ordinarily a two-month journey—in a day, bringing back fresh vegetables.

Once, when she was still a girl, my grandmother was sitting outside the great tertön’s tent with her mother, Lady Degah.⁴⁵ In the distance, they saw a man approaching on horseback. As he rode closer, they recognized him to be a Northerner, a balding old nomad with braided hair and glaring eyes, wearing an unusually short goatskin coat. His mount was an albino with bloodshot eyes. Such horses are rare and known to have bad eyesight in the snow.

Usually a visitor would, out of respect, dismount quite a distance from the central tent; but this man surprised my grandmother by riding straight up to Chokgyur Lingpa’s tent, dismounting and going inside without looking right or left.

Lady Degah said, “Did you see that brazen Northerner heading straight for the tertön’s tent? He was just about to ride right into it.”

“He was staring straight ahead without the slightest glance right or left,” commented my grandmother. “Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to see the drönyer first?” The drönyer is an attendant in charge of receiving guests.

As Chokgyur Lingpa was always in the company of his close disciples, the two women had no cause to worry about his safety and thought nothing more of the strange visitor. They went about their business.

Inside the tent, the great tertön was seated upon a makeshift throne of stone and wood collected from around the camp.⁴⁶ The visitor plopped himself down right in front of the tertön and just sat there without saying a word.

The servant Karpo Sabchu felt no suspicion and served him tea, thinking to himself, “These Northerners have no sense of etiquette, as we well know. Look at this brash old geezer; he’s so pushy he didn’t even wait to be let in.”

In addition to being a yogi, Karpo Sabchu was also quite playful with people. He sat down next to the old man and rubbed his knees affectionately while remarking on how cold they were. The stranger was carrying a plain crooked stick in his belt that Karpo Sabchu tried to grab in fun, playing the fool with the old nomad.

At some point, the old man and Chokgyur Lingpa seemed to be making gestures and faces at each other. Suddenly the great tertön assumed an awesome air, raising his right hand high, quite majestically poised. The stranger let out a sharp howl and suddenly disappeared—vanishing completely into thin air. Karpo Sabchu looked outside, to reassure himself that he hadn’t been hallucinating, but he discovered that the horse too had vanished without a trace.

As the day wore on, Karpo Sabchu began to feel sick to his stomach. Because Chokgyur Lingpa’s close disciples knew to bring only the gravest of matters to his attention, Karpo Sabchu kept his mouth shut and quietly went to the kitchen to prepare for the meal. But before long he began to feel a gnawing pain, something like worms writhing about, eating away at his stomach. Although by now he felt extremely sick, he still didn’t want anyone to tell Chokgyur Lingpa. As time went on, though, Karpo Sabchu became so ill he was certain he was going to die. Finally, he told someone to inform the great tertön.

My grandmother had heard Karpo Sabchu’s cries of anguish. Soon she saw Chokgyur Lingpa and the drönyer heading for Sabchu’s tent and tagged along to see what was happening. She poked her head in the door and saw Karpo Sabchu curled up on his bed, writhing in pain. She saw Chokgyur Lingpa frown, as he said, “He’s sure to die. Who else would be foolish enough to touch—and even play around with—a demon? He even grabbed hold of the demon’s stick and so he has lost his life force⁴⁷. There’s no doubt about it: he’s not long for this world.”

The others then beseeched the great master to do something, if anything could be done to save the life of the poor yogi. After some pleading, Chokgyur Lingpa finally growled, “Prepare a burnt offering outside; I’ll take care of the rest.”

When Chokgyur Lingpa came out of the tent, he threw some tsampa in the fire and blew on it, and immediately Karpo Sabchu’s moans subsided. When Karpo Sabchu was well enough to get up, he slunk back to the tertön’s tent. “I suddenly felt this worsening pain. It got so bad I couldn’t stand on my feet. Then, just as suddenly, it went away. What on earth happened?”

“The old man who came to see me today,” Chokgyur Lingpa explained, “is actually an infamous spirit with quite fierce powers. He had assumed a human form. Your days were numbered the moment you touched his walking stick. The spirit asked me, ‘Aren’t you the emissary of Padmasambhava? In all the snowy ranges of Tibet, there is nothing I need, no advice I seek. I am very powerful. Even so, I have one small problem: There are two other spirits who just won’t leave me alone. They bother me at every opportunity. If it weren’t for those two, I would be one of the greatest spirits in all Tibet. So how can I subdue them? If you will just give me some helpful instructions, I promise not to harm or bother anyone in your lineage.’

“I replied, ‘Are you willing to constantly visualize the Lotus-Born guru above your head in the form of the glorious Subjugator of All Appearance and Existence, one inch in size?’ I told him that if he answered yes, I would give him instructions.

“But the spirit replied, ‘No, I definitely will not!’

“So, I said, ‘Well, then, if that is the case, this is what the glorious Subjugator of All Appearance and Existence looks like in his full splendor!’

“But all you saw was me raising my hand. It was then that the old man gave out a yelp and disappeared without a trace. But before scaring him off, I extracted his promise never to bother my descendants, lineage holders or their followers.”

One day, Chokgyur Lingpa was invited to the large monastery at Samye. The main courtyard was elaborately decorated with brocade and banners, and the master was requested to take his seat upon a lofty Dharma throne. People filled every inch of the courtyard, creating a multicolored array dominated by the maroon and yellow of monk’s robes, just like at the famous prayer festivals in Lhasa.

This was no small event; it lasted for almost seven days and had great significance, both secular and religious. At some point, an elaborately dressed monk, wearing layers of brocade garments, approached the throne and engaged the master in conversation. As it happened, Chokgyur Lingpa’s personal tea server and cook was the reincarnation of the great tertön Mingyur Dorje—which was not unusual, since his attendants were often tulkus.⁴⁸

Mingyur Dorje saw the elaborately costumed monk talking with his master and thought, “Who is that proud old guy taking up our guru’s time? He may be a dignitary—they are all so proud—but he has been here long enough and I need to serve tea.” So under the pretext of serving tea to the master, he put his arm on the old monk to push him aside. The stranger, however, didn’t yield; quite the contrary, he held his ground. A small scuffle broke out between the two.

Finally, after a while, the man turned and walked off. As he did so, Chokgyur Lingpa gave a command for him to be escorted through the tightly packed crowd and the man departed with great dignity into the main temple.

Not long after this incident, Mingyur Dorje felt sharp pains in his belly. They grew so acute he soon couldn’t even stand up. Chokgyur Lingpa, of course, could not be approached about anything but important matters. So Mingyur Dorje just told the drönyer, “I’m not feeling well—I need to be excused. Please ask the master if he could give me his blessing.”

Hearing this, Chokgyur Lingpa exclaimed, “What does he expect after trying to wrestle with Gyalpo Pehar? Doesn’t he know that one shouldn’t let one’s shadow fall upon a powerful spirit? Not only did he cover Pehar with his shadow, but he tried to manhandle him as well—all for the sake of a cup of tea! It’s a given that anyone who touches a spirit will lose his life.”

So, though Mingyur Dorje was in unbearable pain, instead of being consoled, he was scolded—like Karpo Sabchu, who had fooled around with that spirit masquerading as an old Northerner—and told that he was soon going to drop dead!

The drönyer acted as a go-between for Mingyur Dorje, asking Chokgyur Lingpa if anything could be done. Chokgyur Lingpa, softening, told him to get a certain text and chant four particular lines about “undoing the web” and “untying the knots” and to accompany this with an offering at the temple to Gyalpo Pehar. They carried out his instructions—and sure enough Mingyur Dorje recovered.

My grandmother told me this story when I was a child. She added that Chokgyur Lingpa was not in the habit of bragging about seeing supernatural beings. On the contrary, he mentioned it only on rare occasions, when specifically asked. Indeed, he rarely volunteered a word about any of his exceptional powers, such as clairvoyance. There were a few rare exceptions, however, as the following story shows.

One fine day, the tertön and his following were riding up the Tölung valley on their way to Tsurphu. As my grandmother rode along behind him, she heard him tell stories of the political infighting and skirmishes that occurred between the factions of the two potential successors to the fifth Dalai Lama, Sangye Gyamtso and Lhabsang.

The two men were excellent friends, and each insisted the other should rule the country—they didn’t want a struggle. So finally they agreed to settle the shift of power with a throw of the dice. Sangye Gyamtso, who was skilled in astrology, picked a favorable day for the event to take place, but the calculations showed that everything had to be settled and completed on that same day. He told Lhabsang, “If I win, you have to pack up and leave with your entire following and all your possessions. If you win, I promise to immediately do the same.”

The dice were thrown and fell in Sangye Gyamtso’s favor. Lhabsang went to prepare to leave, but soon he returned to say, “My wife is pregnant, and it appears she is soon to give birth.”

So Lhabsang stayed on, and during that time political intrigues began to fester. As you know, the wish for political power can exert a tight grip on people’s heart, one not easily relinquished. What happened next would be a long and involved tale, but the long and the short of it is that, at some point, the fledgling regent Sangye Gyamtso found himself alone on horseback trying to escape a band of Lhabsang’s soldiers.

“They caught up with him right there where the road bends,” said Chokgyur Lingpa, pointing at the roadside to everyone’s amazement, “I’m the only one now who knows what happened, since that was one of my previous lives. In those days, important captives were not brought back home but immediately beheaded. See that row of mani stones? That’s where my body fell. My head rolled all the way over there.”

Wide-eyed and amazed at her father’s clairvoyance of past lives, my grandmother rode past the site and continued on to Tsurphu.

Karmey Khenpo told my grandmother the following story: Chokgyur Lingpa decided to go to the marketplace in Lhasa. On one street, all the butchers line up their meat on tables, and all you can see is blood and guts. They hack the flesh off the carcasses and sell it right on the spot.

“Off by herself was a tall woman with a strange look in her large eyes. I thought she had a bluish hue to her face, and in her hand she wielded a large knife. With great skill, she carved off large chunks of meat that she sold to the customers who were lined up.

“What occurred next really took me by surprise. Before we knew what was happening, the tertön had not only walked up to her but bowed his head, and her large hand covered the crown of his head. This was something we had never seen before, and we wondered what he could be up to now. Not only was he asking a woman to bless him, but a butcher at that!

“‘My oh my! How inauspicious!’ I thought. We were flabbergasted, and it wasn’t until we had headed on that I had the chance to ask the tertön who the woman was.

“‘What do you mean, who is she?’ the tertön asked. ‘It seems no one among us is as fortunate as I, for I was the only one to be blessed by the female buddha Vajra Varahi in human form. You could so easily have received her blessing too, but not one of you even thought of asking.’

Karmey Khenpo was a very strict monk who rigorously upheld his vows, including the vow not to touch women. As he later told my grandmother. “There’s no way in the world I would have asked a woman for a blessing!”

My great-grandmother Dechen Chödrön was known as Lady Degah. Chokgyur Lingpa’s personal consort, she was the daughter of one of the twenty-one district governors of Derge. Lady Degah was also regarded as an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal, the closest disciple of Padmasambhava.

I don’t like saying this, for it may sound like I’m bragging about my family line, but there are scriptures in which the Lotus-Born predicted that Chokgyur Lingpa’s three children would be emanations of the three chief bodhisattvas: Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Vajrapani. The Manjushri emanation was supposed to be his son Wangchok Dorje; the Avalokiteshvara emanation his other son by a different consort, Tsewang Norbu; and the Vajrapani emanation my grandmother.

Lady Degah could be quite wrathful. On several occasions, she set her will against the great tertön—not too seriously, but she was sometimes stubborn enough to start a squabble. She was strong-headed and liked to have a drink now and then, which didn’t bother Chokgyur Lingpa. But he didn’t appreciate her drinking from a garuda claw that he had discovered when revealing a terma. One day, he said, “I didn’t go to the trouble of recovering this rare garuda claw for you to use as a shot glass! I won’t stand for you pouring liquor into it—it’s only for sacred substances!”

12. Yeshe Tsogyal—the great dakini of the Lotus-Born

Lady Degah retorted, “Whether it’s made from a garuda’s claw or a yak’s horn, it holds a drink really well! And that’s what I’m going to use it for!” And she immediately poured herself a drink.

Chokgyur Lingpa fired back, “How easy do you think it is to come by the claw of a real garuda? Such a bird lives only on the summit of the fabulous Mount Sumeru. Padmasambhava concealed it in a terma for the benefit of this time. Its real purpose is to help cure epidemics caused by naga spirits. But day and night, you with your brazen attitude use it for nothing better than having a drink.”

Someone later said that it was Lady Degah’s obstinacy that caused their second child, my grandmother, to be born a girl. But I still feel that my grandmother’s life—whether she had been a boy or a girl—fulfilled the Lotus-Born master’s prophecy that she would be an emanation of Vajrapani. It was thanks to her having four sons, who performed immense service for the continuation of Chokgyur Lingpa’s terma teachings, that they are so widespread today. This stems from her being an emanation of a bodhisattva.

Truly remarkable!

Karmey Khenpo told Könchok Paldrön this story as well:

“During one journey, Chokgyur Lingpa was passing through an area that lies on the road between Lhasa and Kham that was well known as a favorite spot for bandits and thieves to prey on travelers and pilgrims. At this point, the road forks off to the Amdo region, leading into another area full of bandits.

“The leaders of the gangs from each region held a meeting, and for a good reason. ‘We have received news that a large caravan of seven or eight hundred Khampas are coming our way. Some of them are rich and have many pack animals. We must combine our forces and strip them of all their valuables,’ proposed one of them.

“As a result, we saw a gang of bandits following us, but they never came closer. Each day, a dozen or so would appear on a hilltop to keep an eye on us; we felt like goats being stalked by a leopard. Chokgyur Lingpa was kept abreast of developments with regular reports.

“Among his revealed treasures, Chokgyur Lingpa had a particular practice—from his past life as the chief disciple of Sangye Yeshe of Nub—that was a certain way of calling upon the Dharma protectors. So Chokgyur Lingpa summoned me to his tent and said, ‘Take up your pen; we need to teach those bandits a lesson once and for all! Write down what I say.’ Chokgyur Lingpa then dictated the full practice that he had learned in his previous life from Sangye Yeshe. It contained lines on how the great Nubchen master commanded the guardians of the Dharma, including instructions on how to blow their bone trumpets in a particular way. When I had finished writing the practice down. Chokgyur Lingpa asked us to perform this ritual together with a torma offering.

“That night, the bandits made their move, but they found the camp encircled by a pack of ravenous wolves! The roles of predator and prey were suddenly reversed, and they found themselves fleeing the gaping jaws. The story spread far and wide that two or three bandits weren’t fast enough and were torn apart.

“But some bandits were still around and decided to try again the following night. That night we performed this ritual again and we had barely completed it, in fact the bone trumpets had only sounded a couple times, before the bandits began closing in on the camp. One of the bandits yelled, ‘You see, there’s nothing to be afraid of!’

“Then, all of a sudden the bandits saw Chokgyur Lingpa’s trident catch fire, and his tent burst into flames. To their amazement, the flames grew and spread until the entire camp was engulfed in a raging sea of fire.

“Not a single bandit dared walk into the inferno. Instead, they sat down and waited. They later claimed that the fire continued blazing the entire night. Most of the bandits lay down to sleep and, to their surprise, when they woke up in the morning they saw that the camp was totally intact with people milling about, packing up.

“The bandit leader told his second-in-command, ‘These Khampa lamas are more than we can handle! Put out the word to let them go back where they came from—the sooner the better!’ Word proceeded the caravan and so they never encountered another bandit the rest of the way to Lhasa.

“While we were in Lhasa,” Karmey Khenpo added, “news of what the bandits had experienced began to arrive—how some were eaten by wolves and others consumed by flames. With that, the bandits’ faith grew, and, one by one, they came to receive Chokgyur Lingpa’s blessing.”

Terma predictions had described how Chokgyur Lingpa’s remains should be enshrined in a golden stupa upon his death and Old Khyentse personally came to supervise the enshrinement. The stupa had been gilded in gold that the great tertön had revealed from his termas. It was a very large stupa; I remember it to be unusually high, approximately three stories in fact. Chokgyur Lingpa’s body was placed inside as the main relic.