18
The Invasion of Tibet and the
Passing of Jamyang Khyentse
Chökyi Wangchug

NO ONE WOULD BE ABLE to count the deeds linked to the three enlightened states of body, voice, and mind of my lama uncle, nor can I, in this brief biography, mention all those I have come to know about.

At the start of spring in the year of the Fire Monkey (1956), I went to Galingteng for a few days with my friend Pema Kunkhyab to consult with my uncle, who, at that moment, however, was in retreat at the Shuglung hermitage above Lhalung valley.

When we met, we discussed in detail the upheaval in progress, and since the entire Norsang¹ family had in mind a move from Kham toward central Tibet, and from there to India and Sikkim, I insistently asked Heka Lingpa to join us, but he responded:

“For the time I have left to live, I want to practice in the retreat place and monastery that were the residence of Drubje Kunga Palden. I am becoming ever older, my body is fat and heavy, and I have no intention of senselessly tiring myself wandering around in neighboring countries. Moreover I fear that if I should arrive somewhere the lama, emanation of Mañjuśrī, Jamyang Chökyi Lodrö, resides, persons blinded by jealousy will again create problems that cause suffering. In no way do I want to create disturbances for the lama.

“Whatever circumstances occur, I wish to remain in a state of equanimity as regards happiness and suffering. In his testament, Drubje Kunga Palden repeated many times that I should dedicate myself to practicing the essential points of the teaching at his residence. Even if it were only for one day, I want to dedicate myself to this.

“You, who are young and have many qualities and who will certainly benefit beings and the teaching, should follow your penchant before obstacles arise. You as well, if you were to find yourself in the vicinity of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, must always be very alert, because some of those jealous individuals could create problems for you.”

Before my departure he entrusted me with the statue of Vajrapāṇi, the terma discovered by him and his master, and he conferred upon me the empowerment making me the holder of the transmission of that teaching.² Given that the revolutionists had already blocked the roads, my friend Pema Kunkhyab and I met with countless obstacles in finding a way to flee across the Drichu River to reach its western bank.

At the beginning of winter of the year of the Fire Monkey (December 1956), violent skirmishes, revolts against the Chinese invasion, broke out in the whole of Kham and in Derge Gönchen. All the inhabitants felt like bardo beings,³ fleeing in every direction without finding a place of refuge. I, my whole family, and those close to us sought shelter on the high plateaus in valleys toward the south; in an effort to keep safe, we remained in our tents during the day, and at night we advanced through the mountains.

In that period, Chökyi Wangchug Heka Lingpa remained in solitary retreat at the Shuglung⁴ hermitage without establishing any contact with the inhabitants of the area, his survival based on the practice of absorbing the essence of the elements.⁵

Toward the end of spring of the year of the Fire Bird (1957), passing through Nangchen,⁶ we began gradually to move across eastern Tibet, and in the middle of autumn we reached Lhasa safely and in good health. Finally, by Losar (new year’s day) of the year of the Earth Dog (February 19, 1958), I arrived in India. At one point I heard from travelers coming from Kham that the activists of the revolution had summoned my uncle to Khorlomdo and had harassed him.

From that moment on, I remained almost without news of the situation in eastern Tibet. In particular, after the insurrection in the year of the Earth Pig (1959), travel between Tibet and India was completely blocked, and if it was already difficult to receive news from central Tibet, it was that much harder to get any information about what was happening in Kham.

The sixth Dzogchen Rinpoche. (List of Illustrations 18.1)

Until the end of the year of the Earth Sheep (1979), and thus for twenty-one years, I knew nothing more of what had happened to my relatives and friends in eastern Tibet, not even whether they were alive or dead.

From the year of the Iron Monkey (1980) on, news of the dreadful situation in Tibet gradually began to filter out, and finally I came to know that Chökyi Wangchug was dead. In the year of the Iron Bird (1981), when we went to Lhasa to see relatives, we met my older sister Jamyang Chödrön and others, and came to learn the whole story in detail.

Years before, in the year of the Fire Monkey (1956), the revolutionists had captured and imprisoned almost all the lamas and tulkus of Kham. Those arrested in the monasteries were accused of being the proprietors of the monasteries and its possessions; others, seized while in retreat in mountain hermitages, were found guilty of not working. Alluding to the characteristic colors of monastic robes, the Chinese, addressing the populace, proclaimed that their lama overlords were red thieves and yellow bandits.

In the year of the Fire Bird (1957), the revolutionists coerced Chökyi Wangchug, who was still in retreat at Shuglung, to return to the monastery. In fact, one of the tenets of the revolution stated, “He who does not work has no right to eat.” Thus he was forced to remain there with no freedom of movement.

In the year of the Earth Dog (1958), the activists, on the pretext that as the proprietor of a lama residence he belonged to the ruling class, conducted him to Khorlomdo, where he was formally accused and subjected to maltreatment on several occasions. However, the rabble-rousers who instigated others and who participated in these actions were truly very few, because all the inhabitants of the village of Sulpa and the monks of the monastery were deeply afflicted by these happenings, and no one succeeded in compelling them to participate.

At the end of that spring (April 1958), the people of that place and the monks of the monastery repeatedly insisted that Chökyi Wangchug Rinpoche flee to the nomadic regions on the northern plateaus. At the beginning of the summer, consenting to their wish, he escaped from Khorlomdo during the night with about one hundred monks and laypeople and moved to the region of Dzachuka.⁷ Subsequently, Shechen Rabjam⁸ and Dzogchen Drugpa Kuchen⁹ also transferred to that zone, and thus the three vajra brothers were reunited. In the same period Dzogchen Rinpoche¹⁰ and many lamas and tulkus were captured, and each day suffered humiliations and torture of every kind at the hands of the activists of the revolution.

During that span of time, the three vajra brothers remained together until nearly the end of the year, exchanging profound instructions and benefiting the teaching and beings. On the evening of the eighteenth day of the first month of the year of the Earth Pig (February 26, 1959), the large encampment where they lived was suddenly surrounded by Chinese soldiers. Bullets clattered like hail. Drugpa Kuchen and many other monks and laypeople were captured by the Chinese military and, it was said, were deported to Sershul for a certain period.¹¹ Shechen Rabjam and his people momentarily succeeded in escaping capture, but like bardo beings, they did not know where to go or where to stay.

My uncle and his entourage, having traversed various zones on the high plateaus, finally reached a dense forest not far from Kharsumdo.¹² They stopped there for a while, awaiting an opportune moment to travel in order to ford the Drichu (Yangtze) River and to head toward central Tibet across the southern tableland region.

In those days, however, the bad news reached them that Dzogchen Rinpoche had been killed during a riot,¹³ though it was unclear if by Chinese or by Tibetans. Chökyi Wangchug said, “We will stop calmly in these woods for a few days because we must conduct the funeral rituals for Dzogchen Rinpoche.” They did this, but in the evening of the fourth day of the second month of the year (March 13, 1959), a hundred or so Chinese and Tibetan revolutionary activists suddenly appeared, surrounding the master and his followers, and capturing them. Tied one to another, they were conducted to prison in the capital of Derge.

There they learned that Drugpa Kuchen was in the same prison, and after more than two weeks, they came to know that Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche had also been brought there.

My sister, the yoginī Jamyang Chökyi Drönma, who, dedicating herself to virtuous actions, had followed for many years the lama, emanation of Mañjuśrī, Chökyi Wangchug, found herself in the same place. As a young girl, reared with the children of the king of Derge, she had learned all the traditional sciences following the courses of Khunu Tendzin Gyaltsen;¹⁴ she had been able to dedicate herself to the teachings of Jamdrag Rinpoche of Drukhog,¹⁵ and to apply herself to the study of astrology and of the Kālacakra.¹⁶ She was therefore extremely cultured, and for this reason she too, along with five hundred others, was taken to the prison of Derge Dzong, where she was compelled to labor ceaselessly day and night.

Shechen Rabjam. (List of Illustrations 18.2)

One day, Jamyang Chödrön encountered Chökyi Wangchug, who spoke of the situation in the prison in the following terms:

“As far as living conditions are concerned, sleeping and eating, I don’t have much difficulty, and I also find time to dedicate myself tranquilly to practice at every moment. But we three vajra brothers have had no possibility to meet each other and not even to exchange notes. If you should encounter Shechen Rabjam and Drugpa Kuchen, relate the following words to them: ‘Existence arises from the symbol.’ ”

Jamyang Chödrön once had the opportunity to encounter Shechen Rabjam for a few moments, and had just enough time to find out about his health and to transmit the words of Chökyi Wangchug. Contacting Drugpa Kuchen was more difficult, although she succeeded in asking a prisoner who was his disciple to pass on the message to him, but she was never certain that it had reached its destination.

A few weeks after this occurrence, Trongnge Dorje Phuntsog¹⁷ was brought before a mob, accused, beaten, and finally shot. Before that, in the year of the Fire Bird (1957), the tulku of Samten Lodrö¹⁸ was taken to the hall of columns in the monastery of Derge Gönchen and left there for several months with hands and feet chained, until one day he was shot before the populace.

Every day, brought before an assembly convoked for the occasion, individuals, male and female, monks and laypeople, after having been arraigned and beaten without respite, were finally shot. Some, with the hope of saving themselves, accused others of every kind of crime. Those who engaged in these appallingly brutal lynchings were called hurtsönpa, which means “activists.” By incriminating others of iniquities, they hoped to save themselves, and for some time had the impression that they were free. Many of them, however, once the consequences of their evil actions matured, ended in a terrible way.

For example, when the tulku of Samten Lodrö was brought before a lynch mob, collaborators from the village of Ngulphu¹⁹ put a saddle on his back and placed a bit with reins in his mouth. Shoving him onto all fours, they mounted him in turns, forcing him to carry them back and forth. One of the squad, a girl named Mardzi, filled a cup with her urine and forced Samten Lodrö to drink it. A few months later, those activists of Ngulphu were accused of having stolen barley and were imprisoned. After a year Mardzi went insane, and for years she was excluded from the ranks of the revolutionists. A long time afterward, she returned to a virtuous outlook. These evident manifestations of the infallible nature of the law of cause and effect have always and will always happen, demonstrating with clarity an intrinsic characteristic of saṃsāra.²⁰

The morning of the fifteenth day of the first month of the year of the Iron Rat in the Tibetan calendar (March 13, 1960), the three vajra brothers, Chökyi Wangchug, Shechen Rabjam, and Drugpa Kuchen, died in the same moment while in meditation. When the guards of the prison came to bring them their morning tea, they found all three in the same position, dead in the same identical way. The following day, the three saintly masters were to have been taken before an assembly of the people and subjected to a public lynching. Because at that time, many others, once brought before a mob, were humiliated, beaten, and finally shot, everyone suspected, and it was often said, that this was the reason for their choice of death. Knowing the past, present, and future, the three holy protectors of beings died together at the same moment. Because they had the liberty to decide their birth and their death, they chose a period of rest in the state of peace.

A few weeks later, another three tulkus, Drugpa Kuchung,²¹ the son of Rongtrul,²² and Tsatrul,²³ were dragged before a mob, subjected to public accusation, and shot. Tulku Thogme of Shechen, who was less than nineteen years old, was incarcerated in the same prison with my older sister, Jamchö, and another five hundred people. Twice a day they were made to carry a load of excrement for use as fertilizer from Derge Dzong to the Moshö bridge near Changra.²⁴ Because of this maltreatment, many people died. After days of uninterrupted fatigue, Tulku Thogme, unable to endure the hardship, died as well.

Though continuing to be subjected to many ordeals, my older sister, Jamyang Chödrön, survived, and thus she had the opportunity to hear the story of the extraordinary simultaneous death of the three lamas from many people, Chinese and Tibetan. Thus in a moment of great obstacles for the teaching of the Buddha, the three holy men withstood adversity without fear and acted in a way to benefit beings and the Buddhist teaching. This is something to be praised by all.

Today, all think that the venerable people in the Land of Snows, the good land blessed by Avalokiteśvara, who followed the teachings of the Buddha, did not merit such intolerable distress. If we think for a moment, however, we realize that such events are none other than the fruit of karma. This is the meaning of what Lord Atīśa²⁵ said with so much emphasis: “If not practiced correctly, the dharma itself becomes the cause of the inferior states.”

What else if not the fruit of their negative actions could those individuals with limited minds obtain, who, full of the hatred and attachment of religious sectarianism and bigotry, develop ever more useless fears and expectations? Many, persisting in this sectarian vision, still continue through their rancor and narrow-mindedness to accumulate negative actions in the same way that, as the proverb has it, “one stretches one’s legs in a bed that is already warm.”

Alas! Masters, manifestations of Mañjuśrī, father and son,²⁶ you who dwell in the condition of peace, behold the ignorance that darkens our minds shut in the cage of narrow-mindedness. With the power of the light of compassion’s rescuing lasso, dispel in an instant the dense shadows of ignorance due to narrow vision. Develop in us the vision of wisdom.