PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY TO CHATRENG
IN MY TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR, the year of the wood-rat (1924), I decided to travel to Chatreng at the joint invitation of the monasteries and towns there. After the Great Prayer Festival I sought resignation from the tantric college and withdrew my monastic seat cover. That day the supreme incarnation Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché enrolled at the tantric college and placed his seat cover there. By this coincidence we were together for one session at the morning assembly.
After the Subsequent Prayer Session at Tashi Rapten, my Lhasa residence, I gave the reading transmission of the collected works of Jé Tsongkhapa and his spiritual sons at the request of Samling Geshé Yönten of Dokhang House of Shartsé. At that time I was reading a volume a day. Unlike some others, it was beyond the capacity of my tongue to read two or three volumes a day.
At this point once again Geshé Palchuk Dapön of Chatreng, who was from Pomra House of Sera Mé, and Troti Tsultrim appealed to His Holiness through Minister Tsarong Dasang Dradul, whom His Holiness held in regard, causing further trouble regarding my visit to Kham. Being uncertain about entrusting the affairs of the labrang to the monastic house during the visit to Kham, I sought the prophecy of the protector in trance.
At Chusang there was a very good monk living dedicatedly in accordance with the advice of Lama Vajradhara. He was known as Shidé Tā Lama and had resigned from government service. As Shukden would rarely enter him in trance and only in strict secrecy, one day I invited him to our house. The prophecy that he delivered while in trance was as follows:
The precious umbrella (His Holiness the Dalai Lama) is the best protection from heat.
The golden fish rely on the support of the vast ocean (the monastic houses).
The wish-fulfilling vase has many enemies (wrong practices).
The sun, friend of the lotus, need not doubt the moon. (The Dalai Lama will not consider the other.)
If you hold the sound of the Dharma conch, the Ganden oral tradition,
with the endless knot that is your secret heart,
I, the spirit, will turn the wheel of assistance
for the conquering victory banner of Dharma (Trijang Rinpoché).
And everything happened in exactly this way.
After that, at the request of Trungsar Rinpoché of Karzé, Trehor, I gave a reading transmission of the collected works of Thuken Chökyi Nyima, including his most exclusive sacred works, to the all-pervading master, the great Kangyurwa Losang Dönden, and to eighty other lamas and monks. At the request of nun Trinlé Dechen of Pangda, I gave the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī and teachings on its generation and completion stages to a group of sixty monks and laypeople. This was followed by initiations into five-deity Cakrasaṃvara and Secret Hayagrīva for a group of two hundred sincere people.
Nearing the time of my departure for Kham, I had an audience with His Holiness at the Norbulingka to pay my deepest respects at his lotus feet, and I received much advice for my activities in Kham. On the way up I had my farewell audience with Lord Kangyurwa Losang Dönden, who was residing at the Potala Palace to recite the extensive Pratimokṣa Sūtra at Namgyal Monastery during the rainy-season session at the holy command of His Holiness. The synthesis of all refuges, Phabongkha Vajradhara, was giving a discourse on Jé Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path at the Loseling College of Drepung. He was staying in the Kungarawa Palace of the Dalai Lamas, and I had an audience at his feet. With great fondness he gave me gifts and much advice, essence of nectar, on the need to propagate the Geluk tradition in Kham in a pure form.
Because of the rather poor conduct of Rikzin mentioned above, and in order to prevent further negligence in the maintenance of our labrang, we requested Dokhang House to look after our residence at Ganden and to administer the affairs of our farm at Maldro Jarado, which we had taken on lease from Ganden Lachi.107 We left the affairs of our labrang in Lhasa, our land on lease from Shartsé, Dechen Lamotsé, and our farms on lease in Deyangpa in the care of manager Rikzin. Of the three hundred tam for payment of past debts, we gave two hundred tam to Dokhang House and one hundred tam to Rikzin and gave them the responsibility to clear all the debts.
Kyabjé Trijang Rinpoché in Lhasa bestowing empowerments of Vajrayoginī, 1924
COURTESY OF PALDEN TSERING
Later, on my return from Kham, Dokhang House in addition to paying all the debts had managed to amass a large amount of barley and money. Rikzin had taken an additional loan on top of existing loans. Due to the death of various managers of our labrang and continuous expenses for my geshé offerings and so on, and the lack of competent staff able to bear the responsibility, we were so poor in cash and other material possessions that we ran into great difficulty while preparing for our trip to Kham. Nevertheless, we were just able to manage to make all of our arrangements by taking loans from my patron disciples. At the beginning of the seventh month we set out from Lhasa.
THE JOURNEY TO CHATRENG
Our party consisted of myself, attendant Lhabu, Ngakram Budor of Gyütö Tantric College from Markham Seudru Monastery, ritual assistant Phukhang Losang Tashi of Gyütö Tantric College, cook Namgyal Dorjé, tailor Tenzin Lhawang, Sönam Wangdü and one other to look after the horses and mules, and Tendrong Palbar Thokmé and three other escorts from Chatreng. On the way we spent two nights at Gungthang. There we invoked my birth deity Drakshul Wangpo, his attendant Nyima Shönu, and so on through an oracle in trance. Although Rikzin only came along to escort us for a short distance and would not be accompanying us to Kham, Tsengö Nyima Shönu, the chief attendant of Drakshul, advised him at length regarding his attention to my food and health and to journeys through paths, narrow passages, and rivers along the way. This made no sense to me, and I thought it ludicrous.
Leaving there I spent one night in Dechen Kharap Ogong Kotsang with my mother and sister Jampal Chötso. The next day we arrived at Ganden and spent a few days at leisure visiting my teacher Losang Tsultrim. While staying there I gave an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava, together with its preparation, for two days in the hall of Dokhang House. I also made offerings before the golden stupa of Jé Tsongkhapa and an incense offering on top of Wangkur Hill.108 At the invitation of Shartsé College, I attended their farewell reception for me, at which time the incumbent abbot, Losang Khyenrap of Phukhang, presented me with the symbolic mandala offering along with accompanying verses. He recited the following with the presentation of the stupa:
For inconceivable millions of eons,
you remain, acting as a stupa.
It was patently obvious, when he recited this verse, that although he was well known for his command of philosophy, he lacked skill in literary arts.
What with the reputation of the people from Chatreng for their undaunted spirit and vigor in fighting and looting, and the existence of the faction that showed me no favor, everyone doubted my safe return to Central Tibet from Chatreng. Whatever the reason, soon after my departure from Ganden, the abbot [Losang Khyenrab] took advantage of the situation and created many problems, making accusations against Rikzin and the appointed representatives of Dokhang House. It was just as the supreme refuge Vajradhara had said:
From the raincloud that should protect
comes hail, lightning, and thunderbolts.
The myriad rays of the sun on which we should rely
are like a noose of burning hellfire.
After completing my activities of paying respect to the sacred objects and visiting friends and classmates, I made offerings to the golden stupa with the monetary gifts I had received there. Keeping about fifteen sang in silver for expenses, I offered the rest to my precious teacher. The day I left Ganden, my teacher, in deep grief, tears in his eyes, gave me a great deal of spiritual and worldly advice on my course of action ahead, which I carried in the innermost drop of my heart. I was forced to proceed with deep anguish, unable to bear our parting.
After spending two nights at the estate of Jarado in Maldro, we went on to Rinchen Ling, Özer Gyang, Tsomorak, Ba Pass, and Gyada in the Kongpo region. Traveling through many hazardous and fearfully difficult passages and bridges by way of Tro Pass, Lharigo, Bendha Pass, Nupgong Pass, and Alarong, we arrived in the town of Ngödroké. There I spent one night at Arik, hometown monastery of the late Ngakrampa, and made offerings there in a token form. The next day I went to visit Ayik Thango, Ngakrampa’s home, and presented gifts to his relatives. At the invitation of Gyatso Ling Labrang, I stayed one night at the monastery. As I had received many teaching from the predecessor of Gungtrul Rinpoché and his lineage, I made offering to his memorial stupa. The present incarnation, Gyatso Ling Tulku, was residing there and, being young, was at play.
Crossing Shargong Pass, we arrived at Chakra Palbar. There at the request of Palbar Geshé Ngawang Chöjor, a tantric master of Gyümé Tantric College, and others I gave full ordination to a group of ten monks of Palbar Monastery. Then in Dzitho after passing through Lhatsé and Shopado with its two monasteries Nyinpa and Sipa, I spent three nights at Nyinpa at their request. I presided over the consecration of the newly made statue of the future Buddha, Maitreya, along with the ritual assembly of the monastery. The ritual performed was based on the elaborate consecration ritual Causing the Rain of Goodness to Fall.109 I also gave longevity initiations to the people of that area.
In between religious activities, I went to Sipa Monastery and Draknak Labrang at their invitation, where I performed consecration rituals. Then I stayed at the house of Pönying Tsang, a patron of my successor in Lhozong. There, at the invitation of Shitram Monastery, I went for a brief visit and gave a short teaching to the monks. Passing through Yidak Pass, I crossed the big Right Foot Bridge over the Gyalmo Ngulchu River. Also crossing Chutsul Pass, I arrived at Wako Mari. There we met with a messenger specially dispatched from Khyungpo Tengchen by the ministerial secretary Yuthokpa Wangdü Norbu, who was the government’s representative of the northern provinces, saying that he was coming to Wako Mari personally to meet me and that I should wait for him there.
After a day in Mari, the representative arrived with his entourage. I spent a whole day with him, giving him the longevity initiation in the tradition of Drupgyal. He gave me a generous sum of money as a farewell gift. I gave him a sum of money, including his gift and other offerings received on the journey, requesting him to commission two pairs of gilded bronze tsipar heads110 to ornament pillar banners that I would present to Dokhang House. This ministerial secretary, in accordance with the wishes of His Holiness, had previously been in charge of the government project to restore the temple complex at Sangphu in the earth-horse year (1918). I attended the summer session that year and went daily to the courtyard to engage in the debates for the study of logical reasoning and scriptural doctrines. Seeing this, he was pleased with me, and at his request to write a complete catalog and history of the restoration to be inscribed on a wall of the temple, I wrote an opening verse of homage to His Holiness with the syllables of his full name interlaced in a poetical context.
Friend who brings forth words of great faith and an enticing fragrance to the lotuses of the senses;
prophesied by the Sage, a beacon of samsara and nirvana, arising from the mighty ocean of Dharma;
fearless, without rival, lord of illumination, your armies victorious over all demons and opposition;
a sun for humankind, I raise you to the crown of my head.111
From there we proceeded through Pomda Dzogang of Tsawa region and so on, and we spent one night at the base of a pass called Jola in the Markham area. That night I dreamed of someone like my sister, Dekyi Yangchen of the Kunsangtsé family, dressed in fine clothes, wearing ornaments, and displaying many expressions of joy and happiness. In this dream she led me into a stupendous building like that of the Potala Palace. Inside a large temple with many chapels were objects of worship, statues, scriptures, and stupas and many monks making offerings. Even the staircases inside were all made of gilded bronze. This lady led me through the rooms and gave me food. The next day some people in that area told me that there was a local deity known as Tachangma who was the sister of Pawo Trobar. Later [in 1964] in Dharamsala, when I met Tachangma in a trance through the medium of Namgyal Dölma, a lady from Kham, she said, “When you came to our town previously, I indicated myself to you, meeting you in a dream. You must remember it!” It was quite convincing.
The next day we had to cross the great river Dzachu by a yak-skin ropeway called Sampa Dreng, where people and animals were tied to a rope and slid across the river to the other side. As none of us had any previous experience of using such means of travel, everyone was apprehensive, but without any mishap and after a safe journey, we arrived at Garthok in Markham, where I stayed in the residence of Özer Monastery. As I had known the previous Özer Rinpoché intimately during his residence in Lhasa, they extended warm hospitality to me during my stay in Markham. After departing Garthok, I visited the temple at Lhadun that contained a statue of Vairocana. This stone statue is known to have been carved by the Chinese princess Wencheng on her way to Lhasa [to wed King Songtsen Gampo].
On my arrival at Seudru Monastery, also in Markham, Gangkar Lama Rinpoché Könchok Chödrak, a highly accomplished being, came to greet me at the foot of the monastery. There in the monastery I spent a few days in the newly constructed rooms of the labrang. Gangkar Rinpoché previously lived at Loseling, Drepung, but as he had not studied for any length of time, his scriptural knowledge was not advanced. Yet since he had reached a high level of insight, he possessed unobstructed clairvoyance and was a great practitioner who revealed many hidden religious objects such as statues in lakes, mountains, rocks, and so on. Still, he remained a simple monk, faithfully observing the rules of conduct of the fully ordained monks while developing the view and pursuing his practice in the pure lineage of the Geluk tradition. Although I had not met him in person, I used to receive many letters from him in Lhasa expressing his feeling that we had strong karmic connections through many of our past lives.
At the monastery I gave an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava to the monks and the initiation of the Great Compassionate One to the general public. The Rinpoché gave me a bronze statue of one-face, two-arm Cakrasaṃvara with consort that he had removed from a rock hill on an island in a lake called Bumtso. I have carried the statue with me to this day. Then we crossed Drichu River through Gönsar Tengon Monastery in Gowo, and traveling through the very hazardous cliff passage of Tramkolam, arrived at Dzedzé Monastery. There I went to meet Dranak Lama, also known as Lama Chöphak, who had been among us when I received the oral transmission reading of the Kangyur earlier in Lhasa. This lama, for reasons of spirit possession or some other circumstances, performed chö rites112 after his audience of followers had gathered around in the darkness of night, during which time much noise of conversations in Chinese and Tibetan would be heard from invisible bodies, and weapons would fire off by themselves. Many noises, such as cries of pain and agony and sounds of coins being counted, filled the room. Because of such demonstrations of supernatural powers, he gained the respect and admiration of many people, who widely talked of him as an emanation of Padmasambhava.
As people had tremendous faith in him, the lama’s activities increased, and later he recruited people to fight in battles between Chinese and Tibetans and became a commander of his fighting unit. There were a large number of soldiers equipped with weapons both inside and outside the monastery. In consideration of our previous Dharma relationship, I gave him my opinion that such behavior was not proper. To this he replied that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of His Holiness. He was going to ignore my advice like wind behind the ears and place the blame upon the lama.
At the monastery I gave some teachings to the monks. Then in the town of Shokdruk Drodok, I spent one night at the home of His Holiness Tsultrim Gyatso, the Ninth Dalai Lama (1806–15). About fifty people on horseback arrived there from Chatreng to escort me. I spent one night in the Nenang household of Chatreng, passing through Raktak Monastery and others. There the abbot of Samling Monastery in Chatreng, Geshé Losang Tharchin of Nyanang Drodru, and other officials of the monastery arrived to greet me. While I was in Ganden Shartsé and this Drodru Geshé was the chant master, he used to seek forgiveness on my behalf whenever I received a scolding and punishment from my teacher. As we were very fond of one another, we were both very happy when we met. The next day, on the third of the eleventh month, we arrived at Samphel Ling Monastery in Chatreng. I rested for some time to relax and met a variety of people, who although similar in external appearance were of diverse mental attitudes and dispositions.
TEACHINGS AT CHATRENG
When I was twenty-five, in the first month of the wood-ox year (1925), I went daily to the discourse yard during the monastery’s prayer ceremony. I thought that it would not be suitable if, in accordance with ancient custom, I gave a discourse on Āryaśūra’s Garland of Birth Stories, due to the poetical nature of the text and because most of the population had not heard such a religious discourse for a very long time. So I explained in colloquial Chatreng dialect the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish for the sake of its easy comprehension, and because most people there had become so accustomed to a lifestyle of looting over the intervening years that they had grown ignorant of the law of cause and effect. At the request of the monastery and the region, I gave an initiation into the Great Compassionate One of the Lakṣmī tradition in the monastery courtyard after the prayer festival. On the day of the initiation, during the vase initiation, there was a sprinkle of rain and a rainbow appeared. I took these as signs that the deities and nāgas were pleased. The monastery was virtually destroyed due to the recent incursions by the Chinese army, and its inhabitants were scattered in the mountains. Due to these circumstances, the vital essence of the place and the gods, nāgas, and local deities had waned. I consecrated about twelve hundred earth vases with the miktsema recitation and also performed the burial rites for the vases, distributing them in all corners of the region in order to revive its vital energy.
In the third month I gave a discourse on the Quick Path for fifteen days to a group of two thousand people, including monks and others from various parts of the Chatreng region, in the assembly hall of the monastery. At the conclusion of the discourse, I gave the bodhisattva vows in the common dedication of everyone’s virtues and good deeds toward the development of the mind of great compassion. After that I gave a teaching on the six-session guruyoga and then an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava for two days to a group of five hundred monks who made a commitment to recite one hundred miktsemas daily. Then I gave an initiation into single-deity Vajrabhairava to a group of forty-eight monks who committed to performing the sādhana of self-generation daily, and to a group of sixty-three who committed themselves to completing a full meditational retreat of Vajrabhairava, I gave teachings on the generation and completion stages of Vajrabhairava on a retreat text for twelve days, all in accordance with the tradition practiced by Lama Vajradhara.
With plans to make a new gilt image of Maitreya Buddha as the main statue in the monastery, in the fourth month of the following year I sent my attendant Lhabu with some assistants to Lhasa to buy necessary materials and ornamental jewels for the image. Through Lhabu I sent offerings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabjé Phabongkha Rinpoché, Kangyur Lama Rinpoché, my teacher Losang Tsultrim, Geshé Sherap Rinpoché, and others from whom I had received teachings directly. To Kyabjé Phabongkha I sent a letter in poetic composition requesting his prayers. I also sent a letter to Dromo Geshé Rinpoché Ngawang Kalsang and a letter to the oracle of Shukden at Dungkar Monastery in Dromo with details of the situation and circumstances at Chatreng, requesting his prediction and guidance in trance.
FIGHTING
In the previous year, prior to my arrival in Chatreng, it was suspected that Chaksha Tenpa and others of his clan had assassinated a well-known figure in the region, Butsa Bugen, out of jealousy and resentment. On top of that, Tenpa was also accused of being an accomplice to the theft of a large sum of money from the treasury of the monastery. A number of influential leaders who favored Bugen, including principal monks of the monastery and laypeople from the towns, caused much disturbance by way of “shaking the mountains and stirring up the lakes” in the name of a common cause with a grudge at heart. They recruited a large contingent of fighters from among their associates and supporters in various parts of the region including Gangkar Ling, Dapa, Mewo, and Mongra. Furthermore, aided by troops under the Chinese commanding officer Ma of the Division 8 border force, they made plans to capture Chaksha Tenpa on charges of being an accomplice to the theft.
While Chaksha Tenpa was staying in Dzedzé Monastery with a large party seeking the protection of the aforementioned Dranak Lama Chöphak, the militants of Chatreng were preparing to deploy for a confrontation. Although I tried to advise them against this by explaining the pros and cons to the best of my ability, just as it isn’t sure that a horse’s gait will match the wish of the rider, a large number of fighters set off without listening to my advice given out of kind concern. They were set against accepting any advice whatsoever and followed their own wishes. Without giving any warning, they even set fire at night to the residence in the monastery of two monks who were supporters of Chaksha Tenpa, killing them and keeping all this secret from me. They committed many perverted acts, even killing people in their own homes. As Shangshung Chöwang Drakpa said:
Even Indra cannot lead
those with noses of stone
over steps of stainless crystal
to the noble hall of victory.113
There was nothing I could do but think to myself that a lama of the degenerate age, such as I am, ends up with disciples like this.
Dranak Lama had a strong force of soldiers at Dzedzé, so the Chatreng fighters could not enter the monastery. They kept the monastery under siege for months without any actual confrontation. During the rainy-season retreat at the monastery, I did a meditation retreat on the Guhyasamāja of Akṣobhyavajra. When it concluded, there was still no peace due to the unrest caused by partisan fighting.
TRAVEL TO GANGKAR LING
In compliance with an invitation from the monastery and the people of Gangkar Ling, I went with a small entourage to Gangling Tsothok Pöntsang via Mongra. I spent fifteen days there and gave the initiation of five-deity Cakrasaṃvara, the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī, and brief teachings on the generation and completion stages at the request of a few earnest seekers. Gangling Sherap Tulku, a former classmate of mine at the monastery, also came to greet me.
At Gangling Monastery I was received with an elaborate reception by the monks. There I gave an initiation into Guhyasamāja Akṣobhyavajra with a painted mandala, complete with preparation, to the monks and others, about four hundred in all. I also gave Great Compassionate One and longevity initiations to more than a thousand people. At the strong request and in the company of Sherap Tulku, I then traveled for two days to visit Bumzé Belsé Pön. His family had been one of the oldest patrons of my predecessor, the Ganden Throneholder. I spent about ten days giving initiations into the Great Compassionate One and longevity to members of his estate and his people. While there I also consecrated the family’s Kangyur temple and their protector chapel with the concise “horseback” consecration.114 In their treasure chamber, I performed the enhancement of prosperity ritual of Vaiśravaṇa.
On the way back I visited a pilgrimage place known as Protectors of the Three Lineages115 at Gangkar. I did an additional retreat on five-deity Cakrasaṃvara there at Tsogo Hermitage, reciting the mantras of the deity as many times as I could for three weeks. My stay there was very pleasant and peaceful, as I heard no contentious conversation.
The reason Gangkar Lama Rinpoché of Seudru Monastery is called Gangkar Lama is that his predecessor had lived at this place for a long time to pursue his meditational practices. While at the hermitage I gave a long-life initiation and permission for the Protectors of the Three Lineages to the resident monks and some pilgrims.
ASSASSINATION PLOT
While I stayed at this place, the personal attendant of Lama Chöphak of Dzedzé Monastery conspired with a party from Chatreng who opposed the lama to kill him. They paid off a person who fought in the lama’s contingent to go see the lama at night under the pretext of seeking divination advice for the lama’s sister, pretending that the lama’s sister was seriously ill. As soon as he called at the door, the attendant opened the gate. The person stabbed the lama with a pocket knife and killed him in his bed. Although the lama had a reputation for clairvoyance and miraculous powers, those powers failed him in his time of need. Just as when Maudgalyāyana could not remember any tricks, let alone perform miracles, when assaulted by parivrājakas,116 so too this lama could not demonstrate any special qualities.
The supporters of the lama were thus left leaderless, like a corpse without its head. Their enemies could not cope with the situation either, as they had been in the battle zone for so long. Most of them drifted back to their own regions one after the other. As the fighting came to a standstill and no alternative course appeared from either side, they ultimately decided to settle the matter by a tribunal decision, and the situation was finally resolved.
RETURN TO CHATRENG
I left Nenang and visited the Siwapön household on the way, giving long-life initiations and an oral transmission of the maṇi mantra to people who had assembled there. After spending a few days at Gangkar Ling Monastery, I returned to the monastery of Chatreng via the Mewo region in the twelfth month.
In my twenty-sixth year, the year of the fire-tiger (1926), I continued the teaching of the previous year on the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish during the discourse sessions of the prayer festival at the monastery. Lowa Goba and some others at the discourse commented that I was telling worldly stories as I had run out of religious topics to discuss.
That spring I did meditational retreats on Cakrasaṃvara of the Luipa tradition and on Sarvavid Vairocana. During the rainy-season retreat session I initiated the monks into Cakrasaṃvara of the Luipa tradition and into Sarvavid with permissions for the Rinjung Hundred.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE MAITREYA STATUE
My attendant Lhabu and the rest returned from Lhasa in the fourth month of that year. Through Lhabu, I received letters from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabjé Phabongkha, Geshé Sherap Rinpoché — both of the latter written in verse — and from my teacher and friends. Lhabu also brought with him various ornamental jewels and printed prayers for the statue of Maitreya Buddha. Along with Lhabu, two master craftsmen from Dzachukha region of Chamdo district arrived. On my instructions, Lhabu on his way to Central Tibet had requested cabinet minister Trimön Norbu Wangyal, then governor general of Chamdo’s Domé province, to dispatch some craftsmen to construct the Maitreya statue. Thus work on the statue was begun.
In concert with some master craftsmen from Chatreng, the artisans erected a large, three-story statue of Maitreya made of gilded copper over a period of three months. In it were placed printed prayers of the four aspects of relics, the five categories of great consecration, and so on, as well as dharmakāya relics, multiplying relics of the Tathāgata, and a statue of Jé Tsongkhapa consecrated by himself, which was a treasured relic of Lower Shedra. Other relics included were self-produced sacred pills from the entombed bodies of many Indian and Tibetan masters, printed diagrams of male and female yakṣas, treasure vases, and many other items that were accumulated with great care. These were produced according to ritual, and I personally installed the relics in the statue and placed it in the inner temple of the main assembly hall. A catalog or description of the benefits of constructing statues, paying respects, and making offerings was inscribed on one wall of the Maitreya temple. Also included in the inscription was a comprehensive list of the special prayers and relics contained in the statue as well as the material and the cost of making the statue in all stages. I had also provided a complete set of water bowls and butter lamps for the thousandfold offerings, large butter lamps for daily offerings, as well as other sets of water bowls and implements in all sizes needed at the monastery for making offerings.
After the completion of all these requirements, we performed the elaborate consecration ritual Causing the Rain of Goodness to Fall according to the deity Vajrabhairava, complete in its stages of preparation, actual rite, and conclusion. I participated as the presiding master along with twenty other monks who had completed the approaching retreat of Vajrabhairava. At the section of the ritual for honoring the patrons, the staff of the committee in charge of making the statue and the senior members of the monastery’s governing body were given the eight auspicious symbols and substances. The ceremony was conducted in a rather grand way.
At the end of autumn I went to Yangteng Monastery at their request and gave a discourse on the Quick Path for ten days. I also gave an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava and many other initiations and permissions to those with earnest interest. Before returning to Chatreng Monastery, I visited towns and villages including Salha Dechentsang in the vicinity of the above monastery. In each place I gave various teachings in accord with the wishes of the people. Following the ancient custom of the monastery, self-initiation of Guhyasamāja, Cakrasaṃvara, and Vajrabhairava with the offering of the mandalas were performed in the style of Gyütö Tantric College. The music and chanting melody of the rituals for propitiating protectors Mahākāla and Dharmarāja were also done in the style of Gyütö. The music, chanting, and prayers for Palden Lhamo, Vaiśravaṇa, and Setrap117 were done in the style of Ganden Shartsé.
As the monastery had been in decline for many years, only a few elder monks remained, and even they could not remember the exact melodies of the chants, which resulted in a serious deterioration of monastic activities. As this was the case, I invited Ngakrampa Bu Sönam of Gyütö Tantric College from Lura Monastery in Markham district. He and the incumbent abbot of Chatreng Monastery, Drodru Geshé Losang Tharchin, who was the former chant master of Shartsé College, were asked to train some fifty monks in the melodies of the various ritual prayers. Ngakrampa Bu Sönam and the two master craftsmen from Chamdo who had been invited to construct the image of Maitreya returned to their respective places content with their payments and gifts.
Since the costumes for the ritual dance on the occasion of the winter ritual were incomplete and mismatched, I refurbished all the costumes in matching material, having made efforts to obtain brocade the previous year. In addition to the existing dances for the winter ritual in the eleventh month, I specially invited one monk from Özer Monastery in Markham to reinstitute the ritual dances of “ācāryas and skeletons” according to the tradition of Tengyé Ling Monastery.
In the twelfth month, on an invitation from the region of Nangsang, I went to Phelgyeling Monastery of Nangsang via Palshar and Gowo Palbar monasteries. There I gave an initiation into Guhyasamāja Akṣobhyavajra to an audience of seven hundred monks, and a Great Compassionate One and a long-life empowerment to a general audience. I presented gifts of clothing and money to the family members of my esteemed teacher Losang Tsultrim.
In my twenty-seventh year, the year of the fire-rabbit (1927), I returned to Chatreng Monastery for the New Year celebrations. During the prayer festival, I gave a discourse on the Son Teachings of the Book of Kadam from the start. After the prayer festival, at the request of the abbot Geshé Drodru, I gave a discourse on the Guru Puja to about eighty monks who made the commitment to recite it daily. The discourse lasted about fifteen days.
OVERCOMING RITUAL OBSTACLES
According to a message from Gangkar Lama Chödrak Rinpoché, it was said that someone with harmful intent in the time of my predecessor had buried a ritual object of black magic on a mountain peak in Chatreng. According to the physical description of the site, the mountain was shaped like a downward-facing fish with a stream running from it that merged at the mountain’s base into a large river, on the bank of which lived a few lepers. He said that the harmful items had been entrusted to nāgas who live in the mountain. He stated in his message that he would be able to expose the items if the lama could come personally to the site, but doing so was inconvenient due to circumstances. Thus it was of utmost importance that a ritual counteragent be properly produced and buried at the base of the mountain. He also indicated in his letter, with a sense of great urgency, that “this mountain can be seen from the seat in your room at the monastery.” Accordingly, ten monks, including the abbot Geshé Drodru, all of whom had completed a full meditational retreat on Vajrabhairava, properly produced the counteracting ritual object. Later when Geshé Drodru and my attendant Ngakram Budor went to the site to bury the substances of the counteracting ritual object, they found that the site accorded exactly with the description of Gangkar Lama in every respect.
In the eleventh month of that year, a loud sound like that of cannon fire was heard twice from the south side of the monastery just before midnight. Although I wondered what the sound might have been, I later heard a roar barely recognizable as thunder. The sound of thunder had never been heard in the winter at Chatreng before, and I therefore had some apprehension about it. After investigation, we learned from the reports of people living in the vicinity who had witnessed it that the lightning had struck the peak of the mountain where the talisman was buried at the base.
Later, soon after my return to Lhasa, I met a Nyingma lama named Tsewang Gyaltsen, the resident lama of the Kashöpa family. This lama told me that during my predecessor’s time, black-magic ritual objects had been buried by others both in Kham and Central Tibet. “The one in Kham was destroyed,” he said, “as you caused lightning to strike the area twice. The other is in front of Ganden, where there is a natural spring. There you must perform a rite for counteracting black magic.” As no one in Lhasa knew about the events in Chatreng except myself and Lhabu, my suspicion that Lama Tsewang Gyaltsen had clairvoyance was confirmed. It seems the counteragent ritual was done properly.
SHADY DEALINGS
While at Chatreng, Palbar Lagen Chödrak and Palchuk Dampa Chödrak came to tell me that in connection with my return from Kham there would be great expenses for making offerings at the three seats,118 at Gyütö and Gyümé tantric colleges, at the regional houses, and so forth, as well as at the Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa. They said that the offerings that I received while in Chatreng would not begin to suffice. The two of them decided to jointly dispatch a merchant to Chamdo with horses and mules. They told me that if I sent whatever amount of money I had and joined in the trading venture, the two of them would assist me and return the capital together with profits to my table without any involvement or work on my part. Sakya Paṇḍita’s Jewel Treasury of Wise Sayings says:
The pleasant speech of cunning people
is for their own ends, not to be polite.
The laughter-like hooting of an owl
delivers a bad omen; it’s not done out of joy.
I accepted this offer without realizing that it was a deceptive scheme “to lead a calf with temptation of green grass.” Assuming that their offer of assistance was genuine and that they truly intended to help me, and because they were among the senior and influential members of the monastery’s governing body, I believed their words.
I made arrangements to supply them with twenty mules complete with packs and thirty thousand tamchen, a Chinese currency, which was all the cash that I was able to gather. The two of them made a pretense of having large sums of money as their investment, not making clear the precise amount of capital. Later, when we gathered the funds on the eve of the merchants’ departure, there were the following sums from the other parties in the threeway venture in addition to my own contribution: ten thousand tamchen from the Palbar Tsang household and only three thousand tamchen — and a person called Dampa Tharchin to go on the trip with his horse — from Palchuk Dampa Chödrak. Palbar Tsang also sent twenty mules with packs as a separate business undertaking along with a person called Tenzin as his representative in our joint trading venture and in his own unrelated business.
Not only did they take for granted that any profit from their private transactions would be solely their income, but also they demanded that the net profit from our joint venture should be equally divided among the three of us, regardless of our respective contributions to the initial investment. Further, they did not offer any interest on our capital. It is quite evident that this was a deceptive act with selfish motives, to make use of my investment to do business in the name of Trijang Labrang for their private gain. Although this was the case, I went along with it, unable to withdraw from the venture because of our close connection through religious and secular relationships.
VISIT TO TREHOR
The Shitsé Gyapöntsang family of Trehor and Yatruk Tsongpön, the manager of Beri Monastery, were known to me through their previous religious patronage in Lhasa. They had written to me many times requesting that I visit the Trehor area. That summer I left Chatreng Monastery with a small entourage and traveled through Tongjung and the nomadic colony of Gemo Ngachu. In a part of the Lithang district we traveled through a meadow area called Deshung Nakhathang, which was swathed in a riot of wildflowers in full bloom. The people, horses, and pack animals were transformed by the brilliant colors of the blossoms. The meadow, which was lined with herds of migrating antelope, extended for two days’ journey.
Then through Tromthar and so forth, parts of Nyakrong district, we arrived at Trehor Beri. There, on the banks of the Beri River, the monks of Beri Monastery came to greet me headed by Getak Tulku. I arrived at Yatruk’s house in a ceremonial procession. At the request of the monastery and the two patrons, I gave a discourse on the Easy Path to about seven hundred resident monks and others gathered there from various places. Over the next month I also gave initiations into Guhyasamāja, Cakrasaṃvara, Vajrabhairava, Sarvavid, and the Great Compassionate One as well as permissions for Mahākāla, Dharmarāja, Palden Lhamo, and Vaiśravaṇa, a long-life empowerment for Amitāyus in the tradition of Machik Drupai Gyalmo, and other teachings that they desired.
After that, at the invitation of Trungsar Rinpoché of Trehor Karzé, I went to Trungsar Hermitage and there gave Trungsar Rinpoché oral transmission of the collected works of Gyalwa Ensapa and Khedrup Sangyé Yeshé and of the Miktsema Compendium. In the assembly hall of the hermitage, I gave an initiation into Sarvavid to a large number of monks and laypeople. At the request of the monastery, I paid a visit to the assembly hall and the three temples, and I scattered flowers for their consecration. At the invitation of Khangsar Kyabgön Tulku, I went to his labrang and returned to Trungsar Hermitage that afternoon. At that time I wished to go meet Drakar Rinpoché of Trehor, who was widely known for his knowledge, and the previous incarnation of Lamdrak, who lived like a realized yogi. However, Drakar Tsang and the previous Khangsar, Losang Tsultrim, were exchanging criticisms with one another due to differences of religious view, and Lamdrak was ill-favored by the patroness of Khangsar, whose power and influence intimidated Trungsar Rinpoché, Gyapön Bu, and others, so it was not convenient for me to meet them.
A temple known as Dé Gönkhang, which sat in a field in front of Karzé Monastery, was known to have been built by Drogön Chögyal Phakpa119 on his return from China. Inside were sacred images of the eight deities of Pañjaranātha Mahākāla, each one story tall, and I went to pay a visit. Once again I returned to Beri Monastery.
At that particular time Dargyé Monastery in Trehor had a large number of monks and was prosperous. The monastery was administered by members of a governing board, who were mostly of the merchant class and lacked religious education. Because of this most of the monks there took greater interest in horses, swords, guns, and so on, and monks pursuing a correct course of religious practice were few and had no influence over the religious and temporal affairs of the monastery. The father of the Gyapöntsang clan, Chögyal Gyalu, was a patron of the monastery, and he asked me to give a discourse at the monastery on the stages of the path, to which I agreed. He did this with a good intention and motive, hoping to guide the monks onto a peaceful and proper course. When he consulted the governing members about the discourse, they told him that a discourse on the stages of the path takes a long time, they had no time, and instead they requested initiation into Sarvavid Vairocana, as a large number of monks died of stroke and they often had to perform the ritual of Sarvavid for the deceased and their survivors. Gyalu, astonished and disappointed, requested me to give an initiation into Sarvavid as they wished.
When the supreme Kyabjé Phabongkha Vajradhara traveled to Dakpo for the first time to hear a discourse on the stages of the path from Kyabjé Jampal Lhundrup, Gyalu had provided all the horses and mules and had accompanied him himself. He showed me a tooth that Dakpo Lama Rinpoché [Jampal Lhundrup] had given him that had a distinct, self-produced image of the Four-Armed Avalokiteśvara on it. Gyalu himself engaged in virtuous practices and recited the manual of the preliminary practices120 every day. At Gyalu’s request, I left for Dargyé Monastery from Beri and gave the initiation of Sarvavid to the monks and people of the area, complete with preparation, for two days in a tent on the field in front of the monastery. Although I could not give a discourse on the stages of the path, I gave an elaborate introduction to the initiation, and I visited the temples in the monastery, scattering flowers for their consecration.
After that I left to visit the Shitsetsang estate, where I stayed for two weeks. There were many sacred objects in the temple, including a statue of Avalokiteśvara as the principal image and a set of the Kangyur. With the assistance of the monks of Dargyé Monastery, I did an elaborate consecration ritual for three days. I also performed the prosperity-securing ritual of Vaiśravaṇa in the family treasury. After giving a discourse on the Seven-Point Mind Training and a long-life initiation to a large gathering, I began my return to Chatreng.
On the way I spent one night on a slope with green grass and a stream. It was a restful place situated on a low hill in upper Tromkhok, which is part of Nyakrong. Gyapön Döndrup Namgyal, his son, and others including Tsongpön Yatruk were there to see me off. At their request I gave a brief explanation on the longevity practice of Amitāyus before they returned. In the late afternoon of that day, a black cloud suddenly formed and caused a violent hailstorm. The hail were the size of dried apricots, and it was as if earth and sky were being rent asunder by the thunder and lightning. We could see the flashes of lightning even inside the tent, and there was a smell like gunpowder, as if a thunderbolt were about to fall.
I performed the burning ritual of Sur, made offerings to local spirits, and offered tea to the protector deities and sought their active assistance. I also recited mantras of protection from lightning and hail, doing visualizations as best as I could. As these were not effective, I hastily burned some fresh human excrement in the fire, and immediately the sky directly above became clear, like the opening of a skylight. The lightning and hail vanished and sunlight shone through. Around about the middle of that night, the horses and mules suddenly became alarmed for no apparent reason, broke away from their ropes, and straying to the four directions, could not be gathered until sunrise next morning.
Later, when I arrived in Lithang, some older people informed me that owing to a certain local Bönpo spirit, lightning struck in 1567 when His Holiness the Third Dalai Lama, Sönam Gyatso, came to the area. They also told me that the weather had become very turbulent when my predecessor had visited the place as well.
VISIT TO A NOMADIC COMMUNITY
When I arrived at a place in Lithang called Bum Nyakthang, a vast green prairie, all the nomadic communities under the jurisdiction of Yönru Pön, a leader from the Washul Yönru district of Lithang, had gathered there. Geluk, Sakya, Nyingma, and other monks of Yönru district were also celebrating an annual religious festival called the Yönru Session there, in individual group assembly tents, each doing rituals of their own tradition. As I happened to arrive on this occasion, Tromthok Tulku, the incumbent abbot of the Geluk monastery of Rabgyé Ling, came to see me along with officials from the monastery. They told me that my predecessor also came there on this occasion and stayed at leisure, giving them religious discourses. They also said there were many monks and older laypeople who had seen my predecessor, and, occasioned by the unarranged spontaneity of my own visit, they insisted that I stay there until the conclusion of the session. Although I could not stay long there, I participated in the Geluk sessions, known as the Garchen Session, for about two weeks.
There were five hundred monks to whom I gave a discourse on Jé Tsongkhapa’s Song of Spiritual Experience, an initiation into Cakrasaṃvara according to the system of Luipa together with its preparation, as well as permission for Jé Rinpoché as the triple deity.121 The monks made ritual offerings to the mandalas of Guhyasamāja, Cakrasaṃvara, Vajrabhairava, and Sarvavid for five days each, and I attended the ritual offering to the mandala of Cakrasaṃvara for one day. The style of their ritual was almost the same as that of Gyümé Tantric College. There were a pair of brocade ornamental hanging decorations that my predecessor had presented to the monastery, in addition to which I also made an offering for the entire day with monetary gifts.
The Geluk monastery had four very large tents that could comfortably seat five hundred monks. Each tent was about two stories high and supported by four tall poles, and each tent was decorated inside with excellent religious banners. The abbot and the incarnate lamas sat on thrones made of grass bundles stacked on top of each other and covered with woolen drapes and woven carpets. It seemed quite impressive and dignified. Although I was at a nomadic monastery, meat was not allowed in accord with a good custom established by previous masters. Only tsampa, rice, melted butter, and other dairy products were given as offerings, which I found admirable.
At the invitation of the Sakya and Nyingma groups nearby, I went to visit, make offerings, and give teachings to them. During my stay I was invited by the nomadic communities living in the vicinity. Each day I visited fifteen to twenty tent dwellings, performed consecrations, and gave teachings as they wished. The nomads gave me many horses, and I ended up with about a hundred of them. Because we were staying in open fields, it was difficult to keep the horses together as they kept returning to their previous owners. I sold the horses to the nomads and offered the money from their sale as an endowment for annual offerings of food and money at Rabgyé Ling.
LITHANG MONASTERY
Then at the insistent invitation of Lithang Monastery, whose abbot and a few of the monastic officials had come specially to see me, I arrived at Lithang Thupchen Chökhor Monastery in a procession on horseback accompanied by the leaders of the monastery and a large number of its monks. There in the courtyard of the main assembly hall, at the request of the monastery, I gave an extensive initiation into the Lakṣmī system of the Great Compassionate One together with its preparation and an Amitāyus long-life initiation according to the system of Machik Drupai Gyalmo to about three thousand monks and a large number of local people. Then in the old assembly hall, I gave a discourse on the Quick Path and an initiation into single-deity Vajrabhairava to about five hundred incarnate lamas and monks, including Tsatak Rinpoché and Gosap Rinpoché. In the temple of Thupchen I gave full ordination to about thirty monks, including Yongya Tulku. At this ordination I acted as the preceptor, Tsatak Rinpoché was the ritual master, and Gosap Rinpoché acted as the interviewing master. At Tsosum House I gave permission for Six-Armed Mahākāla as well as the longevity practice according to the system of Machik Drupai Gyalmo, and I gave permission for Jé Rinpoché as the triple deity to Gosap Tulku and members of his labrang. In addition I tried to fulfill the wishes of many others with a variety of teachings at their individual request. I offered food and money to the main assembly and presented gifts and funds to the monastery.
At the invitation of members of the family of His Holiness the Seventh Dalai Lama Kalsang Gyatso, who was from the town of Lithang, I went there for a day and performed rituals of purification and consecration for the image of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other representations of the holy body, speech, and mind. I also gave a short teaching to the members of the family. At the invitation of the Otok leader of the Lithang nomadic tribes, I went there to do the rituals for securing prosperity, consecration, and to give a variety of teachings. These included a permission for Avalokiteśvara and initiation into long-life practice to the leader, Achö, members of his family, his people, monks of Otok Monastery, and many others.
The nomadic people of Washul Yönru and Otok Sumpa had great faith in religion, and there were many people who had recited the six-syllable maṇi mantra and the miktsema prayer a hundred million times each. At that time there were also many people who pledged to recite the maṇi, miktsema, and the Prayer of Samantabhadra a hundred million times each and do the nyungné fasting rite a hundred times. Like the steady flow of a stream, many families came for these, which was really something meaningful. I heard that it was the custom of the nomads to offer a feast of meat from specially slaughtered animals to lamas whom they had invited. So I made it known to anyone who came to invite me that I would accept only vegetarian food and that no meat dishes should be served. I visited many nomadic communities in Otok, where I did rituals for purification and consecration and gave various types of teachings.
PILGRIMAGE TO KAMPO
After completion of my activities in Lithang, I made a pilgrimage to Kampo, a holy place of Cakrasaṃvara, on the way back. Kampo was the place where the First Karmapa, Düsum Khyenpa, spent a long time and achieved insights. In later times his religious tradition came to be known as Kamtsang Kagyü after that place. I stayed on the upper floor of Nego Monastery, and there I did the approaching-retreat recitation of the Cakrasaṃvara deity for one week and the elaborate consecration of Cakrasaṃvara for three days. I gave an initiation into five-deity Cakrasaṃvara according to the Ghaṇṭāpāda tradition to the fifty resident monks of that place. I returned all the offerings of money and objects received at the initiation, keeping only a small thangka of Cakrasaṃvara for the sake of auspiciousness. I had it with me later even in Lhasa as an object of veneration.
I made offerings to the monks and one day visited the actual pilgrimage spot situated in the upper part of Kampo. There was a large rock with a self-emerged image of the letter ka. The name of the place, Kampo, was designated based on this holy rock. I made tsok offerings there. On the way there was a temple that had a display of the arms and armor of the heroes of the legendary King Gesar of Ling, such as the sword called Yasi Kardren that had belonged to Gyatsa Shalkar. At the Kampo pilgrimage site there was a large snow mountain where the principal Cakrasaṃvara deity abides and a row of smaller snow mountains for the retinue deities. As soon as you arrive at this place, the mind becomes clear and peaceful.
I had intended to stay there in leisure, but a messenger dispatched by the families of Palbar and Dampa arrived unexpectedly from Chatreng. The message said that our merchants, along with the pack animals and merchandise, had been robbed by a bandit militia that had lain in wait for them at Upper and Lower Bumpa. Four people — Palbar’s nephew Tenzin, Dampa Chödrak’s nephew Tharchin, one of Palbar’s mule herders, and my mule herder — were all killed on their return from Chamdo as the merchants traveled through a narrow trail near a town called Tarkha, prior to crossing Khangtsek Pass in the region of Upper Bumpa. The bandits made off with all the merchandise, including the animals. This being the situation, the message stated that I should return immediately as retaliation was inevitable.
AVERTING RETALIATION
When I arrived at Chatreng, Palbar Chödrak and Dampa Chödrak stated many reasons for reprisal. In response to this I told them that as my name was involved in this three-way venture, I strongly objected to plans to enact vengeance and made it clear to them that I had taken a vow to drop this matter totally. I told them that the first thing I had done upon my arrival at the monastery was to give many teachings on sutra and tantra in compliance with my position as a lama, and that to in the end engage in retaliation before my return to Central Tibet was of no use to either my reputation or activities. I said that I had given up any grasping at the people, things, and animals taken by the bandits and that I was determined not to fight and strongly objected to fighting.
Furthermore, upon later investigation, I discovered that previously Palbar Thokmé was a leader of the fighters from Chatreng when they fought the battle with Dranak Lama at Dzedzé Monastery. On that occasion many arms, ammunition, and large quantities of food provisions were taken from the people of Bumpa. Palbar Thokmé became sick and died in the war zone without having made any arrangement to repay them, so there was no one left with the responsibility for their repayment. So the reason for the robbery by the people of Bumpa was the relentless grudge that they held against the Palbar clan. They had taken it for granted that the caravan was a Palbar family business venture because a member of Palbar’s group was among the traders, and so their act was not an intentional affront to me or done with knowledge of my partnership in the business.
Thus it was decided that the war on the people of Bumpa would be postponed and that we would meet in person for talks. Tendrong Samphel Tenzin represented the Palbar clan, Chödrak himself stood for Dampatsang, and our secretary Gönpo and Ngakram Budor were dispatched for discussions. Sangden, a well-known figure and manager for Jema Lama of Upper Gönsar Monastery in Gowo, near the Bumpa region, came to act as intermediary at the talks, which were held at Goworong.
The people of Bumpa, without considering our concerns or our efforts to avoid the hardship and devastation of conflict, stirred up further confusion out of spite, as a result of which the talks lasted about three months and never clearly settled the dispute. In the end the Bumpas compensated us with a small sum of cash, a few aged mules, and some clothing and objects of varying value, claiming they were of much higher value than they were, for each of the people killed. Most of the cash was counted as credit for Palbar and Dampatsang’s two casualties, their bulletproof amulet boxes, meteorite vajras, weapons, and various other things that they had made claim of losing. Although the remainder of the small sum of cash, clothing, and miscellaneous things was supposed to have been divided according to the share of the original investment of capital when the caravan was dispatched, it was instead divided into three equal portions, and I received only a small amount. “Liberation and cyclic existence are of one taste,” as the saying goes. We suffered losses one on top of the other, from both within and without. As Dharmarakṣita, Atiśa’s guru, said:
When I am duped by others’ treachery,
this is the wheel weapon of the wrongs I have done
turned back on me for my vanity and selfish greed.122
As stated, I, a man of small mind, instead of quietly abstaining, followed the influence of others without restraint, blazing with greed. The consequences of such acts fall upon oneself. But I have no regrets and am fully satisfied that I refrained from participating in the ill deed of a conflict involving murder. Although it was their heartfelt desire to accomplish their own benefit, the others lost two of their key people and suffered other losses against their wishes, like a rain of unpleasantness. As the maxim says, “One hundred unwanted things for a single wish fulfilled.”
A PLOT AGAINST ME
At that time Beda Tsultrim, uncle of the aforementioned Beda Troti Tulku who had enrolled in Pomra House at Sera Mé, arrived from Lhasa. He held a meeting consisting of prominent persons, both monks and laypeople, from Upper Chatreng under the pretext of collecting donations in the Chatreng area to cover the expense of offerings and feasts on the occasion of the tulku’s geshé graduation ceremony, using it as a cover to transform “the sound of an arrow into the sound of a flute.” They met for many days in the old manager’s office, outwardly holding discussions about the affairs of the offering while internally conspiring with some of the tulku’s relatives and prominent people closely connected with him to mount a secret surprise attack in order to assault, capture, assassinate, rob, or do whatever they could to us.
In their discussions they consulted Tendrong Samphel Tenzin, who was a relative of the tulku. He told them that they should try to capture the key person, me, first. Whether or not the people of Chatreng would rise in support of Trijang was unknown, but if they did rise up, Samphel Tenzin would stop them in the assumed guise of being nonpartisan. It would not be proper if he involved himself directly, he said, as he had a patronage relationship with Trijang Labrang. In actuality — as in the expression “Dogs collaborate with foxes” — it became apparent that they were about to launch a grave undertaking, at which point some of the people at the meeting, who were unbiased and men of discrimination, walked out. This was confided to me by Tsakha Lagen, Bali Khedrup, and others of Upper Chatreng who were loyal and faithful to me.
As we were few in number, we sought the help of some monks whom we trusted, under the pretext of their assisting us with our preparations to return to Central Tibet. We locked the doors of our residence on top of the assembly hall with additional door blocks. In my room we made a hiding place to fit one person behind my bed, between the wall and the hangings. The monks of Dargyé Ling and others in the vicinity, as well as monks from within Chatreng Monastery devoted to me, assured my attendants that if they could defend us for a short while, the monks would be prepared to come to our defense. My attendants made preparations for my temporary protection. As for myself, I prayed to the Triple Gem, requested the assistance of the protectors, and entrusted myself to the truth of karma, the results of which are inevitable once committed and cannot arise from actions not committed.
With no alternative but to wait for the results of whatever karma was in store, we had to endure under these circumstances for one month. Without our knowledge, iron bars at the gate were broken and door blocks disappeared. In this state of foreboding doom of a disaster that could happen at any time over the next ten days, one day just after nine in the evening, someone abruptly knocked on the door of our horse stable, calling us from outside. When our attendants apprehensively replied to the person, they discovered it was Wangyal, the brother of Samphel Tenzin. Wangyal had married into the family of Palbar Chödrak. He came to announce that Samphel Tenzin had just suffered a serious stroke and was afflicted with an unbearable headache, as if his head were about to split open. He came to ask that blessed substances be burned and also to ask that I come to their house to do rituals of admonition and expulsion of interference. I was unable to turn down his request, because of the close patronage relationship between myself and Samphel Tenzin, so I sent relics and so on and had to promise to go there the following day.
Ngakram Budor and other attendants suspected that it was a duplicitous scheme, but judging by Wangyal’s physical and verbal demeanor, I thought the situation was probably true and was extremely pleased, unable to disguise the smile in my heart. Despite the teachings on mind training I had received at the feet of my lamas many times, I was unable to use the experience to benefit my mind, and instead I simply felt relief at the hope of escaping mortal danger. As Gungthang Jampalyang has said:
Religious when warmed by the sun, with a full stomach;
worldly when confronted with difficult circumstances.
Although it was most difficult for me to bestow the blessing of initiation and such on someone with a degenerate word of honor, the next day I went to Tendrong Samphel’s house with a few of my attendants, outwardly for the sake of religious patronage connections. We went there fearing it might be a ruse and with other such feelings of hope and trepidation. When I arrived Tenzin was bedridden, and he told me that because I had prevented them from retaliating against the people of Bumpa and the bandits had not paid enough to recompense the damage and loss, he had in his annoyance some criticisms to level against me, but in the depths of his heart, he said, there could never be any significant change in his respect for and faith in me. He also said that if his criticism had in any way offended the Dharma protectors, who are uncompromising, he declared his faults with remorse and vowed not to repeat such actions. He requested permission for Jé Rinpoché as the triple deity, which he said that a lama in the Gorong area foretold he must receive from me. Unable to bear the weight of guilt, he insisted that I give the permission right then. I understood that he was hoping to recover from his sickness, like the retraction of a magic spell to its source, by receiving the initiation from me under the pretext of repenting his concealed wrongdoings. Judging the sincerity of his repentance, I accepted his plea for remission and gave the initiation to accord with his need. As the great Ra Lotsāwa said:
You offer gold like a mandala,
and I explain Yamāri like Vajrabhairava.
Signs of improvement in his condition appeared the following day, and he was able to walk within the next twenty days. Despite his recovery, he and Palbar Chödrak again continued to discuss their previous schemes to rob us. They did this while having a meal of meat and broth on the roof of their house. Thereafter Tenzin suffered another serious stroke and lost his speech. He died that night and early next morning someone was sent to fetch me to the house. I performed the ritual for transferring the consciousness and said prayers of dedication to the best of my ability.
Like the collapse of the supporting pole, the evil plans of [the uncle] Troti and his group vanished following the death of Samphel Tenzin. Just before he suffered the stroke, I dreamed that a person killed a large yak, which was indicative of the accomplishment of wrathful assistance by the protector allied with me from long ago. It was not only in this particular instance, but whenever I dreamed of the killing of yaks, sheep, and other living animals, the death of a person with perverted intentions soon occurred, either directly or indirectly. This has happened on numerous occasions.
AT CHAKRA TEMPLE
At the conclusion of the prayer festival in my twenty-eighth year, the year of the earth-dragon (1928), I visited various households at the invitation of the towns of Rigang and Chakragang, which are parts of Trengshok district of Chatreng. While there I gave teachings according to the wishes of the people. I spent a few days at Chakra Temple, a pilgrimage place where the Sixth Karmapa Thongwa Dönden resided for a winter. Here one could see a bodhi tree grown from a rosary bead planted by the Karmapa and a sacred image of Thongwa Dönden. I gave a long-life initiation and oral transmission of the six-syllable mantra to the general population.
In this part of Chatreng the Karma Kagyü lineage had been prevalent, and there were remains of many Kagyü temples all over the area. Each town had a descendant in the line of ngakpas, tantric ritualists, called Anyé who performed ritual services such as the thread-cross rites123 and so forth. The people there made offerings on the tenth of each month to Guru Rinpoché and made propitiatory offerings in allegiance to protectors such as Bernak Mahākāla (an oath-bound protector of Tsurphu), Shingkyong Trakshé, Tashi Tseringma, and others.
All the ngakpas from the upper and lower regions gathered and requested initiations and oral transmissions. In the temple at Chakra, at their request, I gave permission for the wrathful and peaceful aspects of Guru Rinpoché according to the Second Dalai Lama Gendun Gyatso’s writings concerning the practice of mind-seal deities. Permissions for Lekden, Bernak Mahākāla, Trakshé, and Tsering Chenga were given according to the Rinjung Hundred. When I gave the blessing of Guru Rinpoché, I received a bouquet of white, eight-petalled lotus blossoms from a family called Padma in Chakra. I took this as a spontaneous and impromptu sign of the auspiciousness of the occasion.
That night in my dream a person dressed in black came and spoke to me about the need to renovate the temple. Understanding this as the protector’s urging or direction, the next day I made a personal request to the people of Chakra to reconstruct the temple with special chambers to be built above. They rebuilt the temple in the following year, but many years passed without the chambers being constructed. Later, in the wood-horse year (1954), the special rooms were built, and I stayed in them the following year when I visited Chakra Temple for one night on my return to Chatreng from my visit to China. Although this was no more than mere coincidence, the people believed that I had told them to build the rooms with knowledge of future events. I feel that most prophecies seemingly foretold with clairvoyance by lamas like myself are like the saying “A credulous disciple makes a fallacious lama.”
VISITING MY PREDECESSOR’S BIRTHPLACE
Then I went to Upper and Lower Rakpo and for health reasons spent three days at a hot spring in Upper Rakpo. At the request of the people, I composed a history of Tashi Temple of Upper Rakpo with an explanation of the benefits of circumambulating it. I visited the three towns of Dongsum at their invitation and in particular stayed for one week in the Riknga Temple in the Dongsum region, the birthplace of my predecessor, Throneholder Jangchub Chöphel. I presented a set of ten thangkas of the thousand buddhas, mounted on brocade, to the regional institute. I gave public initiations into the Great Compassionate One and long-life practice. Then I visited the home of my predecessor at Chusang Gön, where I did a consecration ritual and presented gifts of clothing and many other things to the members of the family.
I visited all the places in the upper and lower regions of Chatreng, without consideration of difficulty or hardship, in order to give teachings and do rituals at the request of people on various occasions to satisfy their wishes — with the exception of all the families in Chagongshok, who were supporters of Troti Tulku, and a few families in the town of Söpa and Palgé, who didn’t invite me because of their strong bias. As Staff of Wisdom124 says:
What can a washerman do
in a city of naked people?
There would have been no benefit or purpose to my staying there. As the Garland of Birth Stories says:
Wherever people become envious,
they always resent the fortune of others.
With hostile minds they become disingenuous.
It is then I leave for a place more to my liking.
OBSTACLES TO MY RETURN TO LHASA
As I have said, I decided to return to Central Tibet the same year. In a letter received from Gongkar Lama Rinpoché of Seudru Monastery, I was told that there would be serious obstacles if I were unable to leave Chatreng by the fifteenth of the fourth month. But because I had to visit the families in Chakragang, Rakpo, and Dongsum, and because of insufficient preparations for the journey, my departure was postponed. That summer the Chatreng monks who had gone to study in Lhasa and merchants who had been to Lhasa the previous year reached Garthok in Markham district at the beginning of the fourth month on their return. At Markham, some local citizens, because they bore a grudge against Chatreng due to a prior conflict, used it as an excuse to charge the travelers from Chatreng with tax evasion. These people from Markham challenged them with a court case before Shelkar Lingpa, the commander in chief of the Markham border security force. The monks and fellow travelers, including the son of Drodok Chödrak, were stopped, placed under arrest, and their animals and goods were seized.
While the case was pending, Palbar Chödrak, out of firm loyalty to the late Samphel, planned to obstruct our journey to Lhasa. With malicious intent, he advised Shewa Phaktruk and other monks, the families of the traders, and Drodok Chödrak, who was very influential in Drodok area, that if they could cause a delay in our journey to Lhasa, it would be of great help in getting the governor and commanding officer of Markham to release the monks and the goods. Like wind in the folds of paper,125 Drodok Chödrak and others, acting on the advice they received, insisted that I postpone my departure to Lhasa until their legal case was settled. I did not agree to postpone our journey and told them that it was my firm decision to leave for Central Tibet and that I had also sent a letter to His Holiness in the capital.
Palbar Lagen and Drodok Chödrak allied to recruit some armed men and prepared to rob us in ambush somewhere in the Drodok area. A monk with a goiter named Palgé Gyakser Yapa, an uncle of Troti Tulku, claimed that people should see for themselves if he would let the party of Trijang Labrang safely pursue their journey to Lhasa. This monk had previously received teachings on the stages of the path and initiations into Vajrabhairava together with its commentaries from me. He had even taken the commitment to do the full retreat of the deity. Yapa later suffered an infection of the goiter and long lingered in a limbo between life and death. Although he later sent a letter to Lhasa seeking my forgiveness, he died without any benefit.
As I mentioned above, peril confronted us from every side. Lutak Tashi Tsongpön, Nenang Phuntsok Dargyé, Shap Gyatso Nyima, and other influential people offered to escort us up to Markham with a thousand armed horsemen, saying it was better to travel straight through Drodok. Although we could have traveled without any fear if they had escorted us, they would have doubtlessly suffered tremendous casualties in conflicts on their return. Therefore we made plans to leave via Nangsang. We sent a messenger in secret to Nangsang Monastery, and in reply they said that they would take full responsibility for our safety and that we must come in that direction, so we confirmed our decision.
Drodok Chödrak, having learned of our plan, sent a warning message to Nangsang Monastery saying that he had requested me to stay for some time in order to secure the release of the detained monks and merchants and that if the monastery arranged to take us through Nangsang, even if the lama succeeded in decamping via their region, the act would become a cause for contention. In reply, the people of Nangsang said that whatever response the opposition may plan, they would take full responsibility for my journey. Thus, although we were leaving from Nangsang, the situation remained intractably difficult, and the threat of future disputes loomed.
Although we had already plans in place to depart Chatreng on the third of the sixth month, the exact route of our journey was not finalized until the day before. On that day, in desperation, I performed the dough-ball divination,126 and in connection with the ritual of propitiation and the prayer to invoke the actions of the protectors, I asked after the best route: Drodok, Nangsang, and Lithang, as some had suggested, or via Gyalthang. It came out that Gyalthang was the better route, and we made final arrangements among ourselves in secrecy, outwardly indicating that we would depart Chatreng heading north through Drodok.
On the morning of the third, an advance party consisting of mule drivers left by the main gate of the monastery, heading south out of Chatreng in the direction of Gyalthang. Until this point, no one knew of our secret plan, and so some of our travel companions — monks and people coming to accompany us for a short distance to see us off — had already left for Shokdruk Drodok and had to return to Gyalthang. That day, after our departure from Samphel Ling Monastery of Chatreng, when I and other members of our group reached the other side of the bridge in front of the monastery, as I reflected on the hardship I had undergone on account of the various harmful acts that had flouted my good intentions, I felt like a prisoner being liberated from a dark prison cell.
Although I thought to myself that I would not return to that place ever again, in retrospect I remembered that I had left my monastic seat cover and pandit’s hat on my throne in the assembly hall of the monastery. It therefore occurred to me that I might have to return to the scene, like the expression says, “to see the bad omen and smell the bad odor again.” Later, when I was fifty-five years old, in the wood-sheep year (1955), I came to Chatreng again on my return from China and visited the Geluk monasteries in Lithang, Chatreng, Ba, and so forth as His Holiness’s representative to southern Kham. At that time I recognized that my leaving of things behind had been a karmic sign, for it is difficult to sever the ties secured by the thread of good and bad karma, no matter how hard one tries. Further, as I joined the line of incarnations of Throneholder Jangchup Chöphel by coincidence, from my side I tried my best to act in ways that would further develop what had not degenerated and that would restore what had, by any means, for the benefit of the monastery and people of Chatreng, regardless of the physical and mental hardship involved.
The majority of monks and laypeople were very faithful, loyal, and genuinely respected and maintained good relations with me. Nonetheless, as Thuken Chökyi Nyima said:
Harassment in return for religious teachings,
harm in return for kindness,
deception in return for trust:
it is difficult to remain with the people of degenerate times.
Chöjé Surkharwa Lekshé Tsöl said:
Though I have benefitted beings with great fairness, without discriminating whether their status is high or low, many have caused me great anguish, ungratefully returning dust for flour.
As recounted here, some people and their followers, to say nothing of repaying the kindness of the teacher, attempted on various occasions to harm me with both thought and deed, as if crushing sesame seeds on the head. However, by the compassion of the lamas and the Triple Gem, the power of the truth of cause and effect, and the ever-attentive actions of the protector with the name Dorjé, who from long ago has always been with me like a shadow with the body, I escaped the narrow ravines of all the obstructing circumstances, like the moon emerging from clouds.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
We spent the night following our departure from Chatreng Monastery at a temple called Tashi in Upper Rakpo. Then, traveling through Wangshö, Gumnak, and so on, I arrived at Sumtsen Ling Monastery of Gyalthang to a grand reception held by the present and former abbots, tulkus, monastic administrators, and monks. At the monastery I stayed in a room above the assembly hall that overlooked the courtyard. I gave a commentarial discourse on the Quick Path and initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava to about two thousand monks in the assembly hall. I also visited the eight regional houses, including Chatreng House, at their invitation, and gave teachings and performed consecration rituals according to their wishes. I stayed there for about three weeks.
A few times during the visit I met the previous Lhakhar Rinpoché of Gyalthang Tongwa, who was in his sixties. When I first met him, he tested me by asking many questions regarding sutra and tantra. He was pleased when I was able to respond to his questions without being short of reply and came to hear my discourse on the stages of the path. Also, every year until he passed away, he sent me letters with gifts of gold through travelers from Kham. Later in Lhasa, Phabongkha Vajradhara told me that while Lhakhar Rinpoché studied in the monastery, they were in senior and junior classes and that he was very learned. I also visited Panglung Labrang, Kangyur Tsang, and other labrangs at their invitation.
Gyalthang Sumtsen Ling was established at the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–82). Due to the patron-priest relationship between successive Dalai Lamas and emperors of China, many decrees issued by Gushri Tenzin, Desi Sangyé Gyatso, and the Dalai Lamas, printed on yellow brocade, hung from the large pillars like decorative banners.127 As for the ritual traditions and chant melodies, each of the eight houses had its own style, and the assembly hall was known to have its own as well. At their insistent request to enroll myself in the monastery, I registered my name in their book. I made token offerings with gifts of money to the assembly hall and to the houses with which I was affiliated.
After leaving Gyalthang through the upper and lower Rongpa valleys, we descended a steep mountainous track for a day, approaching the bank of the Drichu River. After the descent we arrived at Dapthang, a portage on the Drichu. There, on a raft made of logs lashed together and without any railing, we crossed the broad river with great trepidation. Then proceeding for two days on a very rough trail along the river, we arrived at the town of Kongtsé Rak or Pomtsé Rak, where Shalngo lived.128 Then on the road up, we were well received by the previous Trathang Tulku at Shipal Hermitage.
The next day, we arrived at Jöl Döndrup Ling Monastery to a reception by the tulkus and administrators and spent a few days at Ludrup Labrang. The predecessor of the current Ludrup Tulku was then a youth of seven or eight years. I gave an initiation into the five-deity Cakrasaṃvara to Trathang Rinpoché and the entire assembly of lamas and monks. At Dechen Ling Monastery in Jöl, I stayed at Samdong Labrang for three days and gave the permission for Jé Rinpoché as the triple deity, a long-life initiation, and so forth to the monks as needed. The previous Samdong had been a good Dharma friend with whom I had received many teachings together in Lhasa. After returning to his native town, he was killed by bullets fired from a forest by a few people in the area while he was giving a long-life initiation to the townspeople.
After passing through a town called Jöldong and crossing a small pass, we spent a few days at a lake called Kamkha. There the monks of Seudru and Gangkar Lamatsang monasteries came to greet me. The escorts from Chatreng returned through Nangsang. We arrived via Tsa Pass at Dranak Monastery, where I gave teachings and oral transmissions of Jé Tsongkhapa’s Foundation of All Good Qualities to Nyira Tulku and the monks. Again, via the towns of Chusumdo and Khawo Butsa, we arrived at Seudru Monastery and stayed more than ten days.
MEETING WITH GANGKAR LAMA RINPOCHÉ
While there, Lamatsang extended warm hospitality to all of us with lavish feasts. Because of our very close association with Lama Rinpoché and his labrang, I felt quite at home, like being in my own house. In a relaxed state, I gave an initiation into the Great Compassionate One to the monks and laypeople there and an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava to the monks. One day Lamatsang presented me with a long-life prayer and elaborate offerings.
On this occasion, Lama saw me as Guru Padmasambhava in a vision. Then Lama also remembered his birth at one time as the great translator Vairocana and our connection through several successive lives. He related this to Ngakram Budor and others. Although various reflections can appear to the vision of a yogin, due to our close bond and connections, and his strong liking for me, the things that appeared to him may have been reflected in a pure manner. For myself, I do not have even a whiff of such instincts and am nothing more than my present state. I did not feel the least pride, even as if in a dream, on account of Lama’s vision. I, too, presented a long-life ceremony with offerings to Lama.
While I had been in Chatreng, commander Shelkar Lingpa had dispatched five hundred soldiers of the Drashi armed forces unit and regional recruits from the nine sectors of Markham district with the intention of seizing the salt flats at Tsakha Lho, which were under Lama’s jurisdiction. Lamatsang was surrounded by soldiers in a surprise attack, and shots were fired from cannons and guns. Following a prophetic dream, Lama had taken relic pills called “bulletproof immortal iron pills from Jakhyung Drakar Dzong” just before the forces arrived. He opened the hidden treasure box and gave one pill each to seven specially selected monks. Arming the monks with only swords, he instructed them to drive the enemy away, up to the stupa at the foot of the monastery, which was halfway up the hill, a point from where the monks were told to return without going beyond. When the monks charged at them as instructed, the large contingent of enemy forces were driven away like a herd of sheep chased by a wolf. The soldiers were forced to flee, leaving behind weapons, rations, and so on. An artillery shell that the soldiers fired at Lama in his room did not explode. The eighteen-inch shell was there to be seen.
A medicinal odor permeated the room where the treasure box containing the iron pills was kept. One day Lama let us view the treasure box and opened it to give each of us an “iron pill.” The container looked as if it were made of clay, was six inches in height and one and a half wide, with a variety of self-emerged images of deities on its sides. Inside it was filled to the brim with pills. Lama gave a large amount of pills to about twenty members of our group, including the escorts from Chatreng. The pills within the box immediately multiplied, leaving the box so full again that the Lama had to put the overflowing pills away in small packages. It was utterly convincing and extraordinary.
Before I departed, I asked Lama to perform a divination for the activities of my body, speech, and mind. Lama told me of a dream he had the previous evening in which a few people were hurriedly making a new throne in front of a large old throne in a spacious hall. Then a majestic monk official who resembled the lord chamberlain came into the room, and the people making the throne grew quiet. Someone in red garments, seemingly the official’s attendant, destroyed the new throne completely, swept away its remains, and expelled all the people from the hall. Lama said, “It is certain that no external interfering forces will affect your life or activities. I will guarantee that Shukden will take care of everything.” He told me this with great confidence and assurance.
Later during the Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa, in the water-monkey year (1932), Palchuk Dapön Geshé of Chatreng, who was one of the principal supporters of Troti Tulku, suffered sickness and died. Seven days later Troti Tulku himself became ill and passed away. Before that, many people in Kham who had caused me harm also died under a variety of unpleasant circumstances.
Incidentally, when Gangkar Lama Rinpoché was consulted for the discovery of new incarnations of lamas or lost objects, he would sometimes examine his dreams, and at others he would go into contemplation with his eyes half-closed and immediately point out clearly the direction of the place, town, village, or gate of a house and the family and its name. Everything happened exactly according to his prophecy. I have personally experienced it several times. Also, on my first journey to Chatreng, Lama’s hair was grey, yet when I met him later on my return, his hair was black.
Lama had great devotion for His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and had said that as long as His Holiness lived, he too would live. Later, as soon as he heard the news of His Holiness’s passing, he said that it was also time for the old monk to depart. He took upon himself a mild water disease, and just before he died he called his attendants into his presence, where they recited the Heart Sutra together. He passed into the state of peace at the end of the recitation of the mantra in the text, following his utterance of the syllable phat in a loud voice. He convinced others by clearly demonstrating his achievement of insight. Lama’s daily practice consisted of the Guru Puja, Vajrabhairava, Secret Hayagrīva, chö “accomplished in one sitting,”129 and the protector Setrap. He practiced no deities or protectors apart from these.
LAST PHASE OF TRAVEL HOME
After leaving from Seudru Monastery, I arrived at Garthok via Lhadun, Goshö Pomdatsang, and so on in Markham. There I visited the governor, Taiji Drungkhor Pelshiwa, in the district headquarters at his invitation. I gave the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī to some of the monks of Öser Monastery, the governor, and his wife and gave an initiation into the Great Compassionate One to the general public. Then at the request of the commander Shelkar Lingpa, I went to army headquarters and gave a long-life initiation to him and members of his family.
Öser Monastery had been moved from its original location and newly constructed in the upper region of Garthok. I was invited and performed a brief consecration ritual there. Then at the invitation of Khyungbum Lu Monastery, I gave the monks an initiation into thirteen-deity Vajrabhairava. Along the way I spent a night at Ribur Monastery, where I gave miscellaneous teachings and answered some questions and enquiries regarding the construction of a three-dimensional mandala of Guhyasamāja that was under preparation.
I stayed at Chakna Mutik Monastery for some days, where there lived a monk who had been master of ritual dance at Tengyé Ling Monastery in Lhasa. I was told about the good ritual performance of the deities Mahākāla, Dharmarāja, and Palden Lhamo and of the Black Hat dance in which the monks trained. They performed the dances for me, which were just the same as the dances of Demo I had previously seen at Tengyé Ling.
After crossing the Dzachu River at Sampa Dreng, I passed through Rong Dukda, Dzogang Sang-ngak Ling, Uyak, Lur Monastery, Kochen Thang, Pangda Monastery, Wako Mari, Shapyé Bridge, Lhozong Shitram Monastery, Dzitho Monastery, Shodo Monastery, Poti Monastery, and Lhatsé Monastery. After giving initiation and a variety of teachings in the monasteries and towns along the long route, I arrived in Chakra Palbar district. There at the request of the tantric adept Ngawang Chöjor of Gyümé Tantric College, I gave an explanatory reading of Tsongkhapa’s Song of Spiritual Experience to the monks.
At that monastery there was an oracle deity called Gönpo Tsedu Nakpo. The oracle spoke through an entranced medium, whom Ngawang Chöjor brought to see me. We conducted rites to invoke the oracle and to induce trance. At the beginning of the trance, the medium held a large drum in his left hand and a drumstick in his right, participating in the invocation ritual by beating the drum. When the deity entered the medium, the drum stood alone next to the seat, and the deity made prophecies regarding the development of circumstances while beating the drum. I thought what he said was quite reliable and convincing. His prophecies regarding some of my future activities proved accurate.
Crossing Shargong Pass, I arrived at Arik Monastery. There I met the relatives of the late Ngakrampa and gave them presents. Our cook Namgyal Dorjé had preceded us on the journey and had died after falling from a cliff early one morning between Alachak Gong and Dothuk. I spent one night there to cremate his body and performed the transference of consciousness and offered prayers. Having crossed Nupgong Pass via Lharigo, Kongpo Gyada, and so on, I arrived at Özer Gyang, where some monks representing Dokhang House and Samling House had come from Ganden to greet me.
I spent one night at Tsunmo Tsal Monastery, where Dokhang House had made arrangements for my stay. There I made offerings before the stupa containing the holy body of Dulzin Drakpa Gyaltsen.130 Not only had it been long known that the body of Dulzin Rinpoché was at Tsunmo Tsal Monastery, but it was reputed that at some point in time, when the temple housing the stupa required renovation and the monastery invited the predecessor of the current Gyalsé Tulku of Lhopa House at Ganden and Geshé Chödrak of Dokhang House to perform the construction ritual,131 after the stupa was dismantled, the entire body was found in excellent condition in a box inside the vase structure of the stupa. Quite a lot of hair had grown on its head; the body had remained in an upright position, wrapped in two sets of monastic robes — an old and a new set — and an old wooden monk’s teacup filled with dried fruit still sat in his lap. The fragrant scent of pure moral discipline permeated the entire place.132 I had heard of this previously while at Ganden from Geshé Chödrak himself.
ARRIVAL HOME
I postponed my visit to Ganden for some time in order to prepare the offerings that I would make on my return to the monastery. At the beginning of the tenth month, I arrived safely in Lhasa at my residence, where my eyes took in the ambrosial sight of the mandala of the bodies of my teacher whose kindness is beyond measure, Geshé Sherap Rinpoché, and others. We reunited with many a tashi delek,133 and while enjoying this great happiness, we exchanged news of our lives continuously for days and nights. I met with many close associates and friends who came to call upon my return.
In accordance with ancient custom, I went to pay my respects to His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in the sunlight room of the Norbulingka Palace. In a private audience in the Jangchup Gakhyil chamber on the top floor, I paid my respects with the crown of my head at His Holiness’s lotus feet, at which all the celestial and other supreme heads of worldly existence paid tribute with their glowing crown jewel. I made symbolic mandala offerings of body, speech, and mind as well as offering one gold sang, five thousand Chinese silver dollars, and some goods indigenous to the province of Kham. His Holiness asked many questions about the situation in Kham, and I answered directly and frankly, without any pretense.
Afterward I went to Chusang Hermitage to be present at the feet of Kyabjé Phabongkha Vajradhara. Upon seeing the mandala of his face, meaningful to behold and like the jewel of supreme equanimity polished a hundred times, I prostrated before him, bowing the highest part of my body. I also made clouds of offerings of gold, silver, and other objects to my satisfaction and then had the pleasure of speaking fondly with him for a great length of time. The glorious Choné Lama Rinpoché Losang Gyatso Trinpal Sangpo was also staying at Chusang, so I paid my respects to him and asked permission to attend all his future discourses.
In the eleventh month I went to Ganden, where I met the incumbent abbot of Shartsé College, Losang Dargyé, and other administrators who came to greet me at a welcome reception in Bönpo Gönsar134 at the foot of Ganden. After traveling through Nyakrong Pass, I dismounted at the market ground, where monks of Shartsé had formed a ceremonial reception line. The abbots of Shartsé and Jangtsé colleges and incarnate lamas, holding burning incense sticks in their hands, led the procession to the assembly hall of Dokhang House, where they had arranged a reception with stacked ceremonial cookies. There I accepted scarves and gifts presented to me by the main administrators of the monastery, the colleges, the houses, the regional affiliates, and many other groups and individuals. In celebration and thanksgiving for our safe return from our visit to Kham, free of tragedy, and as a token of my gratitude and appreciation, I made offerings of tea and shethuk pudding.135 I also offered one sang, five sho, and one khal136 of barley grain to each of the monks and established a capital fund to give one tam to each monk annually as an offering to the general assembly of Ganden Monastery. At Shartsé I made offerings of tea, shethuk, three sang, and one khal of barley to each monk. To the monastery, I presented long woven yellow carpets with lotus designs for each of the eighteen long rows of seats in the assembly hall, several handwoven square cushion covers with red woolen borders for the seats of the ranking monastic administrators, and a capital fund to give one tam to each monk annually. At Jangtsé I offered tea, shethuk, and three sang to the monks and established a capital fund to offer one tam annually. At Dokhang House I offered tea, shethuk, three sang, and one khal of barley. As a general offering to the house, I offered banners made of fine Russian brocade with gilded bronze tsipar ornamental heads for each of the four pillars, two large triangular multicolored banners, a victory banner made of chanden (brocade with lotus designs manufactured in Benares, India), and a capital fund to offer one tam annually to each monk. To the regional affiliates of Dokhang, Samling, and Serkong houses, I offered tea, money, and an annual pledge.
I made offerings of tea and money at Sang-ngak Khar Monastery at Dechen on my way from Ganden to Gongkotsang, where I met and offered gifts to my mother and other family members. At Chötri and Simshar monasteries at Gungthang, I made “daylong” offerings and monetary offerings. I also made a thanksgiving offering and presented a token sum as is customary to each of my birth deities, Drakshul Wangpo and Nyima Shönu, and their retinues through their mediums in trance and thereafter returned to my residence in Lhasa.