11Distant Travels and Tragic News

FIRST VISIT TO SWITZERLAND

I RECEIVED AN INVITATION TO visit Switzerland from Chözé Yugyal, a member of the Sadutshang family from Trehor, who insisted that I travel there at once for medical treatment and that he would bear all of my travel expenses. So I decided to go to Switzerland. On the twenty-second of the fifth month, I had an audience with His Holiness to take my leave. On the twenty-fourth Palden and I traveled from Dharamsala to Delhi. When I departed Delhi on an Air India flight at around eleven o’clock in the morning on the twenty-seventh, the representative and staff from the Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Delhi as well as the director and staff of Tibet House came to the airport to see me off.

I arrived at the airport in Geneva, Switzerland, at around five in the afternoon, which would have been around nine in the evening India time. I was personally welcomed there by His Holiness’s representative in Europe Phalha Thupten Öden,312 His Holiness’s elder brother Losang Samten, and my benefactor, Chözé Yugyal, whose house we went to.

Since that night happened to be a Swiss holiday, a great crowd of people had gathered at Lake Geneva, and a huge display of fireworks were going off in the sky. Seeing flowers of every color appear and fall like sparkling rain from space really helped improve the way I visualized the emission and dissolution of light and the purifying rain of nectar during my daily practices. I gave Chözé Yugyal four thangkas as objects of veneration, including a thangka depicting Sukhāvatī heaven. After a few days, we moved to Mr. Phalha’s apartment, as it was more spacious. Dakpo Bamchö Rinpoché left his attendant Thupten with us to assist Palden with the daily work of preparing food and drink. He was very helpful throughout my stay in Switzerland.

At the request of Ratö Khyongla Rinpoché, I gave him, Bamchö Rinpoché, Rakra Tulku, Mr. Phalha, and Geshé Khedrup Thupten of Sera Mé the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī. They sponsored a long-life ceremony with tsok offering conjoined with the Cakrasaṃvara ritual. At that time Khyongla asked me to record a spiritual song into a tape recorder, so I sang the following:

In this Swiss city, a meeting place of happiness and joy,

as if Brahma, with a movement of his mind, has placed here

the wonders of the celestial realms on high,

we master and disciples, patron and teacher of unsullied bond,

enjoy fully this secret gathering, an auspicious festival,

bringing together these delightful faces.

Looking up, the kind root and lineage lamas,

their dense, limitless clouds of compassionate blessings

let fall the gentle rain of supreme and ordinary siddhis

of the mandalas of peaceful and wrathful meditation deities,

and the ḍākas and ḍākinīs of the three worlds perform their dance.

Oh, so happy to have the fortune to enjoy the wheel of secret offerings.

I yearn that in the succession of our lives we will be together,

enjoy equal shares of the nectar of the Mahayana,

and in the Akaniṣṭha realm of effortless pleasure,

together attain supreme enlightenment.

Chözé Yugyal arranged for me to see a private doctor named Dr. Weisman for a physical examination. Over two days my body, urine and feces, blood, and so on were closely examined. Other than low blood pressure and having a minor intestinal worm, there was nothing seriously wrong with me. The doctor prescribed some medicine and injections to strengthen me physically and various other treatments. I did everything I was told. Chözé Yugyal bore all of the costs for the doctor’s visit and medications himself.

On the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month, I traveled by air from Geneva to Zürich, where I stayed at the home of a Dutch woman, Mrs. Kalff,313 who was the sponsor of Geshé Losang Chödrak of Sera Mé. Mrs. Kalff took me to the Zürich Zoological Garden, a place where there were all sorts of animals, including wild carnivores and every variety of bird.

I decided to visit each Tibetan resettlement area, not only because a number of them had invited me, but because I hoped that visiting each place in person might help in some small way to preserve our culture and religion. First I visited Tibetans living in the settlements of Oetwil and Rüti and gave teachings and advice to them. I stayed at the home of Gyaltsen Namdröl from Drepung Gomang in Rikon. One day I went to the settlement in Münchwilen, gave teachings, advice, and so on, and returned to Rikon.

Mr. Phalha had arranged a get-together for the Tibetan boys and girls that a number of wealthy families in Switzerland had adopted from the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala. With the exception of a few families who were opposed to their adopted children having contact with Tibetans, most of the children came one at a time to see me with their Swiss families. I offered each child a gift and advised them that they should not forget their heritage and so on. Most of the children did not speak Tibetan, let alone observe Tibetan customs. They had to rely on physical gestures to try and communicate with me, which made me sad, but there was nothing I could do about it.

One day I gave about sixty people — the Tibetans living in the Rikon resettlement area along with some who had come from other settlements — the long-life empowerment of White Tārā and recited oral transmissions of the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita, Praises to Tārā, the refuge prayer, and the prayer for the long life of His Holiness. I gave them a Dharma talk on topics such as refuge and karma and conveyed the importance of abiding by the laws of the host country. I advised the children to be friendly and behave well, that they must try their best not to give up their cultural traditions, such as their language and religion, so that they could have both a secular and religious education. The next day, Tibetans from the settlement in Rikon gave me a long-life ceremony in connection with a Guru Puja and tsok. Not only did the two responsible for the settlement, Dr. Peter Lindegger and his wife, wear Tibetan clothing the whole time and participate in all the gatherings, but he also knew how to speak Tibetan quite well.

On the fourth day of the eighth month I traveled from Rikon to the settlement area of Reitnau. After giving Dharma teachings and advice, I traveled to Trogen, where there was a Tibetan school.314 There I was greeted with offerings presented in the Tibetan style by a reception party that lined the road on the way to the Yumbu Lagang Tibetan home315 comprised of Rakra Rinpoché,³¹⁶ who was overseeing the Tibetan children, Söpal,³¹⁷ the director of the village Arthur Bill,³¹⁸ the staff of the Red Cross, and the Tibetan children. There with everyone present we held a small reception with tea and ceremonial rice as a token of Tibetan tradition. Afterward I spent five days at Luksung Ngön-ga, another of the Tibetan houses, where arrangements had been made for my stay. While there, I went to visit Arthur Bill and presented him a small gift. He seemed to genuinely care about Tibetans and expressed his goodwill and sympathy for us in our conversation.

I left Trogen and spent one day in the Tibetan settlement in Waldstatt. When Mrs. Schwarzenbach, a member of the Red Cross who was in charge of all ten Tibetan settlements, came to meet me there, I gave her gifts, thanked her profoundly for her excellent work on behalf of the settlements, and expressed my hope that all future efforts would be as good as hers.

The next day I traveled to a Tibetan settlement in a small village called Samedan near the foot of a snow mountain where Lamdrak Tulku of Trehor, among others, was living. We were exhausted at the end of the day because the trip was quite long, winding around many mountains and through many tunnels. I stayed at Lamdrak Tulku’s home. There I met Losang Nyima, the nephew of Gyümé Chabril Tsultrim Dargyé from Trehor, with whom I was as close as if we were family in Tibet, and my own niece Tashi Drölma and her husband and children. I gave around forty Tibetans, young and old, oral transmissions of quite a few Dharma texts, including Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī, Praise of the Exalted,³¹⁹ Praises to Tārā, and the prayer for the long life of His Holiness, as well as advice on religious and secular matters. An extensive tsok offering in association with a Guru Puja was sponsored by the Tibetan community.

One day we took a small electric train that went straight up the side of a mountain near Samedan,³²⁰ did some sightseeing at the peak of the mountain, and ate in a restaurant there. From Samedan I visited the four Tibetan settlements at Landquart, Buchen, Ebnat-Kappel, and Unterwasser one at a time, spending a day at each settlement giving teachings and advice similar to what I have mentioned above. In Unterwasser, at the request of Geshé Khenrab Thupten of Sera Mé, who oversaw a group of more than ten boys and girls, I gave an explanation and transmission of the Foundation of All Good Qualities, and when I did the Guru Puja with tsok with them, the children could recite the Guru Puja fluently. When I asked them to enumerate the eight freedoms and ten opportunities of a precious human life, the ten positive and negative actions, the sevenfold causes leading to the result of bodhicitta, and so on, the children answered correctly. I was delighted and thought how useful it is to have geshé from one of the great seats of learning as a headmaster.

I returned to Yumbu Lagang in Trogen, where over the course of an eight-day stay, I fulfilled each and every request for Dharma teaching. I gave Rakra Tulku the permission for Jé Tsongkhapa as the triple deity and the life-entrusting initiation for Shukden. I gave about seventy people, including students and staff of the Tibetan school, permission to practice Avalokiteśvara Who Liberates from All Lower Realms, the long-life empowerment of White Tārā, and oral transmissions of a number of Dharma texts, including the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita and Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī, and advised them on religious and secular activities. At the request of Chözé Yugyal I gave seven people, including Mr. Phalha and Rakra Tulku, the great initiation into single-deity Vajrabhairava.

One evening the students put on a play about the tale of Lha Lama Jangchup Ö’s efforts to invite Atiśa to Tibet. It was well done and very moving.

GERMANY AND ENGLAND

I then went to a German region called Wahlwies, where twelve Tibetan children, their religious teacher Gyalsur Tulku of Loseling, and house parent Losang Namdröl and his wife were staying.321 I spent a day there, and the children appeared to be quite good at drawing and Tibetan writing.

Then, at the invitation of the headmaster and the general body of students and teachers of Trisong Ngön-ga Tibetan Home in England, on the thirtieth Palden, Mr. Phalha, and I left Zürich together by air, landing at the airport in the English capital, London. Geshé Tsultim Gyeltsen of Ganden Shartsé and retired government official Thupten Ngawang, who was overseeing the children, had come to welcome me. We traveled together by car to Trisong Ngön-ga in the Tibetan Children’s Village, where I stayed for ten days.

I gave Geshé Gyeltsen, the headmaster, and the children the long-life empowerment of White Tārā and oral transmissions of some Dharma texts, including the refuge prayer and Praises to Tārā. The students gave a performance of Tibetan songs and dances. The music and the performances were excellent in every respect.

At the urging of the geshé and retired government official, one day at eight in the morning we boarded a small train and went sightseeing in London. One museum had a huge number of remarkable wax likenesses of famous leaders from all over the world — including current leaders like the queen of England and her ministers, previous kings and queens of England, prime ministers Nehru and Shastri of India, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai of China, and the American president, and a great number of artists and performers from the past and present. We then took an elevator up a thirty-seven-story tower to a viewing platform from which we could see the city of London.322 The city appeared vast, reaching beyond the horizon. The houses and lanes were well arranged, and the many low family houses looked like husked rice spilled from a bag among the grass on a plain. I couldn’t get enough of that view. When we finished looking, we went to a hotel where we stayed the night.

The following day we went to see a large, magnificent Christian church, famed as the place where prayers and benedictions were offered when the English monarchs were crowned.³²³ In a church as prominent and imposing as that, all of the details carved in relief in the bishop’s pulpit and so on are most majestic. It seemed like the preaching and listening were done with great reverence. We went around to see a few other famous places and then returned to the Trisong Ngön-ga Tibetan home.

Over the course of my stay there, to a woman who was assisting Rechung Tulku named Marianne Winder,³²⁴ a faithful Buddhist who daily recited the mantra of White Tārā, I gave a recitation transmission for the mantra and advised her on what to visualize during prayers. I gave Geshé Tsultim Gyeltsen instruction in the Seven-Point Mind Training, and I gave some Tibetans, including the staff and students at Trisong Ngön-ga, permissions to practice Red and Yellow Mañjuśrī and oral transmissions of the Guru Puja, the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita, and so on.

One day we went to the city of Hastings and to the seaside nearby. We walked on the long pier extending into the sea and visited shops and restaurants.

After my visit to England was finished, Dagyab Chetsang Hothokthu in Bonn, Germany, invited me to come see him. When I arrived at the airport in London on the eleventh day of the ninth month, Mr. Richardson,325 the former British representative in Lhasa, came to meet me. We spent quite some time having a lengthy discussion in Tibetan before I boarded the plane that took me to Cologne, Germany.

Dagyab Rinpoché came to welcome me with Phukhang Khentrul of Ganden Shartsé, Dza Rongphu Tulku, E Lama, and Pema Tsering of the Nyingma tradition, and I spent a few days at Dagyab Rinpoché’s home near Bonn. While there, Khentrul and Dza Rongphu Tulku accompanied me to visit the Bonn Zentralasien Seminar,³²⁶ an institute for the academic study of Central Asian, Mongolian, and Tibetan culture. At the department I met a professor of Indology named Hahn³²⁷ and an ecumenical religious studies professor named Gustav Mensching. Because my visit coincided with the director of the department’s visit to Japan, we were looked after by Dr. Sagaster,³²⁸ the assistant director, who asked us many questions, such as what was the symbolism of the Buddhist depictions of the wheel of Dharma. I replied by explaining how the hub that holds the wheel, the spokes that cut, and the rim that keeps the wheel together symbolize the three higher trainings.³²⁹ Then I was taken around to see a few libraries and various departments.

A car and guide specially provided by the tourism department of the German government took me to see an old Christian abbey called Maria Laach in order to show me the temple and the buildings in which the monks engaged in various arts and crafts with which they earned their living. I returned home when it was just getting dark. The assistant director of the Central Asian program, Dr. Sagaster, came to visit me again to ask some more questions. He expressed how happy he was with my answers. I also made a quick visit to Phukhang Khentrul’s home.

At the invitation of the Kalmyk Mongolian monk Achunor and the Mongolian community in Munich, on the sixteenth I flew by Lufthansa to Munich, where I was welcomed by Venerable Achunor, Panglung Tulku of Sera Mé, Yerpa Tsenshap Tulku of Sera Mé, and a Hungarian scholar named Stephan Palos, the head of a Buddhist group who had faith in the teachings.³³⁰ We all went together to the Mongolian temple. Over the course of the seven days that I stayed there, at the invitation of Professor Anton Spitaler, who was the head of the department where Panglung Rinpoché and Yerpa Tsenshap were working, I went to the university.³³¹ He gave me some reproductions of sections from very old Tibetan texts unearthed at Dunhuang and asked me a few questions about Tibetan political and religious history, which I answered.

When the opening ceremonies for the monastery that Venerable Achunor had founded were held, the minister from the welfare department of the German government and his colleagues, the Buddhist community, Mongolians living in the area, and many other foreign guests attended. During the ceremony I cut the ribbon after chanting some preliminary auspicious verses along with Losang Dargyé of Gomang College and Panglung Tulku. I gave a brief speech about why the founding of the monastery was important. I placed ceremonial scarves on the principal statues, made offerings, performed the consecration, and gave the monastery the name Thekchen Chöphel Ling.

One day I went into the city of Munich to the huge German Museum, where I saw a variety of things, including models of ships and airplanes illustrating the history of shipping and aviation. There were exhibits on the historical development of coal mining, on the history of science and atomic energy, and on the practice of medicine in the past and present. I saw a model of a rocket with figures of people inside and an exhibit on how it is launched, travels in space, and so on.

The results of the dedicated efforts of individuals who had attained the fruit of patience through enduring great hardship and applied their human intelligence toward the development of science and technology is comparable to that of the miracles of the mahāsiddhas of the past. Considering this, the achievements of those of us who strive on the paths of sutra and tantra taught by the Buddha — who understood the ultimate nature of the four noble truths and who possessed the threefold qualities of the tathāgatas with complete command of all abandonments and insights — should be considerable. Yet people like myself can show no such accomplishments. This is because our intelligence and efforts are weak. Just as if one is wrong on the first of the month, one will be wrong to the last day of the month, likewise if one fails to establish the root of the spiritual path, guru devotion, all successive stages of the path will also fail. It is only due to our own faulty practice that attainments do not occur. We should not project our own faults onto the Dharma.

I went to see a church called Alte Peter, famous as one of the oldest Christian churches. On another occasion I went to a show with Mr. Phalha, Panglung, and Palden where only the rich and famous are allowed in and no ordinary people. The hall had five tiers of viewing galleries and was indescribably wonderful. However, due to my unfamiliarity with that type of entertainment, I was unable to really enjoy the show. At the invitation of the welfare department of the German government, I had a meeting with the director and general secretary, after which we went to visit a museum that had an exhibition of Japanese paintings, artifacts, and images as well as a great deal of African art and objects on display.

On the twenty-second, the anniversary of the Buddha’s descent from Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, we and the Mongolians, as a group, performed a tsok offering with a Cakrasaṃvara Guru Puja, which greatly delighted the Mongolians. I offered detailed responses to questions that Pema Tsering of the Nyingma tradition had asked about developing ultimate bodhicitta according to the Seven-Point Mind Training. He was satisfied with my answers.

FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND ITALY

At the invitation of the supreme incarnation of Dakpo Bamchö Rinpoché, Jampa Gyatso, in France, I flew to Paris on the twenty-third. Bamchö Rinpoché, former abbot of Gyümé Ngawang Lekden of Gomang College, and some members of the French Mongolian community came to welcome me, and I traveled with them back to Bamchö Rinpoché’s home. As soon as I got there, many more Mongolians came to visit.

The following day the former Gyümé abbot came to visit me. He was so incredibly knowledgeable with regard to both sutra and tantra that his words were like the blossoming of a thousand-petalled lotus. Given his extensive intellect and enthusiasm, we passed an entire day sharing our opinions with one another on every variety of topic, from the global situation in general to the religious and political affairs of Tibet in particular.

Bamchö Rinpoché and his benefactor, Ama Yvonne Laurence (Thupten Drölkar), took me to have a look around a museum near Paris that had once been the palace of the royal family. The building was enormous, and the old frescoes and paintings inside it were very elegant. In one of the many apartments, the prior king’s extremely valuable antique furniture was on display, as well as Arabian and Japanese paintings and various commodities. There were so many rooms that if one were to look closely at each one, one wouldn’t finish looking at them in two or even three days.

I took an elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower, a very tall iron tower with a restaurant on top. When I looked out at the city I saw that it stretched on, beautifully arrayed, without any end in sight.

One day at the invitation of the French professor named Stein332 I visited him and we discussed Tibetan history. He was quite enthusiastic about the epics of Gesar.

At the sincere request of Bamchö Rinpoché, Palden and I went with Rinpoché himself and Mr. Phalha to the houses on a piece of land that had been acquired for a Tibetan monastery in a small town called La Chapelle on the outskirts of Paris. Former Abbot Ngawang Lekden, Amdo Yönten, Ngawang Drakpa, and Jamyang Mönlam were already living there. I stayed there for five days. Together with five monks who were living there, including the former abbot, and the elderly woman who was their benefactor, I offered a Guru Puja and tsok. At the former abbot’s sincere request, I gave a brief explanation and oral transmission of the first few pages of the Great Treatise on the Stages of Path and a brief explanation and oral transmission of the Foundation of All Good Qualities.

Twenty young Tibetan boys and girls who were in the village of Bléneau to study and their host parents, Shödrung Norgyé and his wife, came to have an audience with me. I gave them teachings on the refuge prayer, the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita, Praises to Tārā, and so on and advised them about the importance of maintaining our national heritage, having faith in the teachings, and behaving well. Afterward the students nicely performed some Tibetan and French songs and dances and returned to their village that evening.

I once again visited Bamchö Rinpoché’s house in Paris and visited the Grévin Museum. In this museum there were many statues of French royalty as well as contemporary leaders of various countries. This was similar to the wax museum in London. There were also many models depicting the French Revolution, when the people rose against the last king of France. The models showed many aspects of the revolution, including how the members of the royal family were put in prison. At another place, I was fascinated by the special effects achieved by colored lights and mirrors in which one could see infinite reflections of a single house or person. This was similar to the legend of the palace of the cannibal king with ten necks.³³³

On the twelfth day of the tenth month, I flew from Paris to Geneva, where I received medical treatment over several days. One day I went to visit the United Nations complex there. Surkhang Lhawang Topgyal and Lady Dekyi Lhazé came to see me, and we discussed recent events in our lives. They conveyed to me the regrets of the former cabinet minister Surkhang Wangchen Gelek at not being able to come to visit me due to some work he was doing in an American university. Surkhang Wangchen Gelek is a man of great intellect with a vast knowledge of both religious and worldly matters. He should have served His Holiness, but due to the slander and lies of certain people with the character of hungry spirits, it was impossible to make use of his services. As Sakya Paṇḍita wrote in his Jewel Treasury of Wise Sayings (5.6):

Because the thieves called it a dog,

the brahman lost the goat he was leading.

I had great regrets about this, but I was powerless to change the situation.

I returned to the settlement in Rikon once again, where at the request of Mr. Jacques Kuhn, the owner of a metalware factory, I performed a short ground ritual and consecration with auspicious verses at the site of the Tibetan monastery that Mr. Kuhn wished to build. At the invitation of the Red Cross, I went to their headquarters in Bern. There I met Mrs. Helene Vischer, vice-president of the Swiss Red Cross, and enjoyed a banquet with her. I thanked Mrs. Vischer and the Red Cross for all the help and aid they had given to the Tibetan refugees and the Tibetan settlements in Switzerland. I requested them to make provision for more Tibetans in the future, and she assured me that they would. After that I returned to Geneva for a few days.

On the ninth day of the eleventh month, I flew from Geneva to Rome, where I was met at the airport by Geshé Jampal Sengé of Sera Mé, his Italian students, and the Kagyü tulku Namkhai Norbu.334 I stayed at Namkhai Norbu’s house for three days.

In accordance with a wish expressed by His Holiness in a letter, I went to meet Pope [Paul VI], head of the Catholic Church. With me were Mr. Phalha, Palden, and Namkhai Norbu, who translated. On one corner of the Vatican complex was the Pope’s multistory palace. Passing many guards, we reached the upper floor, where we were met by someone akin to a lord chamberlain. We were placed in a room for some time and then were escorted in to meet the Pope, who was standing there to receive us. I presented the Pope with a nangzö ceremonial scarf and a pair of antique cymbals. When we were all seated on chairs, I told the Pope that I had come upon the instruction of the Dalai Lama to extend his greetings to him. I expressed my thanks and appreciation for the aid given by various Christian organizations to the Tibetan refugees who had had to escape from their homeland. I also described how the Communist Chinese had violently invaded our humble country, with its peace-loving people, and said that since we are the same in adhering to religious principles, I am sure that we both would exert all efforts to bring peace and harmony to the world by way of our individual faiths. The Pope told me that he was pleased to receive the Dalai Lama’s message of greetings and that he took a great interest in the affairs of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans. He said that if there were anything he could do to please ask, and he asked whether there were anything he could do for me personally. I replied that I did not need any assistance but requested that he might consider providing suitable material assistance to the religious people of Tibet. We had a very cordial meeting that lasted almost an hour. He presented me with an illustrated book and a greeting card for His Holiness and a silver medallion for myself.

RETURN TO INDIA: DHARAMSALA AND SARNATH

On the morning of the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, I left Italy by plane. After a brief stopover in Beirut, we arrived safely at New Delhi airport at five o’clock in the afternoon, Indian standard time. I was met by His Holiness’s elder brother Gyalo Thondup, the representative and staff of the Tibetan Bureau in Delhi, and the director and staff of Tibet House. I stayed at Tibet House.

Constantly traveling, I journeyed through various countries in Europe. My impression of these countries was that the West is very prosperous and extremely developed; the cities and the towns are clean and well planned and full of many great marvels. On the other hand, people there lack spiritual depth; they are concerned with this life only and have a strong sense of grasping after permanence in all things. They are preoccupied with indulging in the mere illusion of joy and happiness. Therefore I did not feel fully satisfied.

As it says in the sutras: “The final result of accumulation is exhaustion; beings of high status fall low.” Mighty and powerful kings and queens once lived in great luxury and dignity in palaces and fortresses that ordinary beings could not even step inside. Now such luxurious places and royal palaces along with all the personal belongings of kings and queens have become objects for public viewing, and their glory remains only in name. When I saw the statues and heard the stories about the popular revolt against these powerful kings and how they were put into dark prisons and finally denied even the right to own their lives, I was convinced that even the highest marvels in existence must ultimately fall. Such a conviction should have become a deeply rooted realization, but these were only temporary thoughts of renunciation. As Jé Milarepa said:

Trijang Rinpoché and attendant Palden Tsering visit with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican, 1966
COURTESY OF PALDEN TSERING

Solid trees and firm horns, if impacted, bend slightly,

but at no time does this stubborn mind bend.

The fact that the calloused mindstream will not bend is due to the strength and stability of negative instincts ingrained from beginningless time. What else could it be?

I left Delhi on the night of the fifteenth and arrived in Dharamsala the following day. Immediately after I arrived, His Holiness came to call on me at my house, so I had the great fortune and pleasure of seeing the mandala of his body and receiving the nectar of his speech. On the eighteenth I went to pay my respects to His Holiness and presented him with some gifts. I reported to His Holiness about my visits to the Tibetan settlements and the situation of the tulkus, geshés, and the Tibetan students in the West. I also gave His Holiness a report on my visit with the Pope, and His Holiness was very pleased.

One day I gave His Holiness the exclusive permission of Palden Lhamo Maksorma from the collective permissions of the Rinjung Hundred. At the conclusion His Holiness made a tsok offering.

On the twenty-seventh I left Dharamsala for the Tibetan monastery at Sarnath. Before I went to Switzerland, I had asked Khemé Sönam Wangdü of Kunsangtsé and Losang Sherap to manage and supervise the painting of murals of the thousand buddhas, the host of confessional buddhas, and the sixteen arhats on the inner walls, and the four guardian kings on the walls of the entrance, of the Tibetan monastery Shedrup Dögu Khyil. This was jointly sponsored by our labrang and the Kunsangtsé family on behalf of Lhabu and my nephew Tsipön Tsewang Döndrup of Kunsangtsé. The paintings were half completed. They were being painted by the artist Ngakram Ngawang Norbu of Gyümé Tantric College and his assistants. I instructed Ngawang Norbu on a few corrections to the paintings of the sixteen arhats and the four guardian kings.

At the request of Sera Mé’s Pomra House, I started the procedure to prepare Drakpa Samdrup, son of the late medium of the protector of Panglung Hermitage, to receive the protector in trance. As this was the first attempt at an invocation, he did not go into trance. I advised Drakpa Samdrup to do the invocation frequently and to do the retreat of a hundred thousand miktsema recitations as well as the approaching retreat of Vajrabhairava and Secret Hayagrīva. I also advised him to do a lot of purification.

At the request of Döndrup Tsering from the Hayak Nyachok area of Chatreng, I gave a long-life initiation of White Tārā to about four hundred lamas, monks, and religious and lay pilgrims. Baba Kalsang Lekshé was having a maṇi wheel made at the Tibetan monastery in Sarnath, to which I contributed a thousand rupees. As I could not go to Bodhgaya, I sent sums of money for offerings to Tutor Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché, a thousandfold offerings to the stupa, and offerings to the monks.

On the tenth day of the twelfth month, I performed the sindūra ritual of Vajrayoginī together with a tsok offering. That day I received a small bronze statue of Vajrayoginī made in ancient China sent to me by Khatsarwa Jampa Söpa from Nepal. It was very auspicious.

Sangra Tulku of Loseling’s Trehor House came to see me, and I sent a thousand rupees with him to Buxa to the supreme incarnation of Kyabjé Phabongkha toward the expense of his geshé celebrations.

Khatsarwa Sönam Chöphel returned from his visit to Nepal. He told me that according to some people who had arrived in Nepal from Lhasa, the Chinese red guards and the youths in Lhasa had rampaged the temples, destroying all the statues in the Ramoché Temple except in the Tsepak Lhakhang. The main statue of the Buddha and of Songtsen Gampo with his queens in the Tsuklakhang had been spared, but all other statues had been broken and thrown into the streets of Lhasa. All the books had been burned — the Shöl Kangyur Press and even the books and statues in private chapels in people’s homes were destroyed. The murals in the Tsuklakhang had been covered in white paint. Due to this unprecedented tragedy, many people committed suicide, throwing themselves into the Tsangpo River. Hearing this, I was despondent, thinking of how the legacies of the deeds of great religious kings of the past, those who were emanations of the protectors of the three lineages,335 and the great translators had been brought to such a state of destruction. Their deeds, intended to last for eons, were demolished so quickly under these precipitous circumstances. Contemplating how the situation had been caused by the actions of beings, my sorrow was beyond measure.

On behalf of all those living or dead who have had connections with me, I made offerings before the sacred objects of refuge. I also made a daylong offering of food to seventy lamas and monks and thousandfold offerings and a tsok offering conjoined with the Cakrasaṃvara Guru Puja were also made. The abbot and the chant master of Ganden Shartsé came from Buxa and presented me with a long-life ceremony and gifts marking my return from Switzerland.

On February 11, 1967, the second day of the first Tibetan month of the fire-sheep year, my sixty-seventh year, Venerable Thupten Jungné, the manager of the Tibetan monastery in Sarnath, sponsored an offering to the resident and visiting monks and lamas of all the Tibetan religious traditions. The assembly of monks recited auspicious prayers for my long life in conjunction with a Guru Puja and tsok offering.

The chant master of Shartsé asked me to clarify various points about the newly made notation of the long and intermediate melodies for the propitiation rituals and other prayers in the tradition exclusive to Ganden Shartsé Monastery. As the original notation had been left in Tibet, they had made new notation in Buxa. Previously, when I was studying in the monastery, I knew the melodies very well, but almost forty-eight years had passed since my geshé examination, so I had forgotten most of them. As far as my recollected extended, I offered corrections. I also composed some prelude verses for the new notation of the melodies.

On the tenth, when the murals on the walls of the monastery were completed and the pillars and beams were freshly painted, I, along with Trehor Trungsar Rinpoché, Dromo Geshé Rinpoché, the senior and junior Rongtha Rinpoché of Sera Jé, and many other monks, performed a brief consecration ritual. On that day, our labrang and the Kunsangtsé family made a joint offering of a whole day’s food and funds and a Guru Puja with a tsok offering to all the monks. We feasted and paid the seven artists, including Ngawang Norbu of the Gyümé Tantric College, Chatreng Rigang Aga Jamyang, Thupten Tharpa of Sera Mé, and their assistants. We also gave them each gifts.

RETURN TO DHARAMSALA

On the thirteenth I left Sarnath for Dharamsala. One day I invited His Holiness and his ritual assistants and made offerings to the front and wrathful faces of the statue of Avalokiteśvara that the Chinese had damaged in Lhasa and that had been brought to India at great risk.336

Beginning on the nineteenth, I presided for five days over special offerings made to the twelve tenma goddesses, who are bound by oath to protect Tibet. The entire assembly of Namgyal monks participated in the prayers offered for the benefit of the religious and secular affairs of Tibet. Dilgo Khyentsé Rinpoché of the Nyingma tradition also presided over the prayer.

The former cabinet minister Shenkhawa Gyurmé Sönam Topgyal was very old and had become seriously ill. Because I had a close connection with him as a Dharma teacher, I called on him to inquire about his health and to give him instructions on mind training. He understood them very well.

Following the advice of the Nechung oracle, His Holiness performed the rituals of the Innermost Essence Blade based in the tradition of Tertön Sögyal Lerab Lingpa’s Phurba Yangsap deity.337 His Holiness presided over the ritual, and it was attended by Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché, Dilgo Khyentsé, and the assembly of Namgyal monks. I also attended it for five days.

Mrs. Tsamchö Drölma of Lhasa had requested me to give the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī, and I had promised her I would do so. She requested this in her will, as I was in Switzerland at the time of her passing. In order to sow roots of virtue on her behalf, I gave the blessing of Vajrayoginī on the tenth of the second month to over three hundred disciples from Dalhousie, Mussoorie, and Dharamsala in the hall of the Tibetan Children’s Village. We made offerings at the conclusion of the blessing. From the next day, I gave eight days of experiential teachings on the generation and completion stages of Vajrayoginī in accordance with the undergenerated traditions of the lamas of the past. These teachings were given to 304 disciples who, in addition to the commitment to perform the sādhana daily, pledged to do the approaching retreat of 400,000 mantra recitations. I gave the life entrustment of Gyalchen Shukden to Trehor Geshé Tamdrin Rapten and Geshé Ngawang Dargyey of Sera Jé. I went to the Tibetan Transit School at their request and, at the retreat house in upper Dharamsala, gave the oral transmission of the prayers that the students recite daily.

At a meeting in Bodhgaya in 1965, a resolution had been passed at the wishes of His Holiness to reconstruct in exile the monastic headquarters for each of the four traditions. There had been no plans yet to build the Geluk monastery, so the monks in Buxa assembled and decided together to construct the monastery. They appointed six representatives, one each from the colleges of Gomang, Loseling, Jé, Mé, Shartsé, and Jangtsé. These representatives then came to Dharamsala to convey the decision to His Holiness through the Religious Affairs Office of His Holiness. They visited Throneholder Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché and myself and informed us in detail of the situation. We each donated a thousand rupees toward their immediate expenses.

On the twentieth day of the third month, the sacred statue of Avalokiteśvara called Ārya Wati Sangpo of Kyirong was brought to Dharamsala. This statue is one of four statues of Avalokiteśvara known as the “four siblings” that were all self-generated from the trunk of one sandalwood tree. Another of the four is the Ārya Lokeśvara in a temple in the Potala. The statue was brought to Nepal by the monks of Dzongkar Chödé and was kept in Nepal for a few years. When the statue arrived in Dharamsala, it was received with a procession of incense bearers. His Holiness, the two tutors, and the monks of Namgyal Monastery then made offerings and performed a purification ritual before the statue.338

In addition to the pieces of the head of the statue of Avalokiteśvara in Lhasa that had arrived earlier, another wrathful head of the same statue, the silver right foot of one of the four Maitreya statues in the Jokhang, and a piece of the wooden central pole of the Maitreya statue were also brought here. In addition, His Holiness received the golden statue of Guhyasamāja that Jé Tsongkhapa gave to Jetsun Sherap Sengé when he charged him with the responsibility for establishing the study and practice of tantra.

One day Ngari Rinpoché of Kyorlung came to see me to ask me some questions regarding the Madhyamaka view. I was pleased with his keen interest in Madhyamaka philosophy despite his youth, and I responded to his questions directly and spontaneously. However, Rinpoché had been examining the Madhyamaka view for a few years, and he had come to the conclusion that that which is found by the reasoning analyzing the ultimate is a coarse material form subsumed under the first of the four noble truths!

One day Ta Lama Thupten Norsang, who wished to do another Vajrayoginī retreat, asked me some questions on the practice of the three bodies of a buddha. At his request I also gave instructions on the meditation of the nine mixings of the completion stage.³³⁹

THE PASSING OF THE INCARNATION OF KYABJÉ PHABONGKHA RINPOCHÉ

On the seventh of the fourth month I received a telegram from Buxa saying that the supreme incarnation of my refuge and protector, Kyabjé Phabongkha Vajradhara, was critically ill. I was distressed and worried and immediately asked His Holiness and Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché for divinations and for their prayers. I sent sums of money to the monks of Sera Mé in Dalhousie to recite the Fortunate Eon Sutra (Bhadrakalpika Sutra) and to perform the prayers to the sixteen arhats as many times as Rinpoché’s years.

On the thirteenth, Shenkhawa Gyurmé Sönam Topgyal, who was a former cabinet minister and a senior official of the Tibetan government, passed away at the age of seventy-two, and I offered prayers for him. The late minister had received many teachings on sutra and tantra at the feet of Phabongkha Vajradhara, Khangsar Rinpoché of Gomang, Kangyur Lama Rinpoché Losang Dönden, and many other great masters. He had managed the restoration undertaken by the government at Samyé Temple and the assembly hall of Ganden. He was a Gelukpa in the pure sense of following the views and practices of the virtuous tradition (dge lugs). He was a devoted practitioner, well read in the vast scriptures, and deeply familiar with the teachings of the stages of the path, such that one would hesitate to speak in his presence.

At the instruction of His Holiness, the Religious Affairs Office of the Central Tibetan Administration asked me to confer the Mahayana vows. So on the fifteenth I gave the vows in Mortimer Hall to the staff of the Central Tibetan Administration, the Namgyal monks, and a large crowd.

On the afternoon of the seventeenth I received a telegram from Kurseong, Darjeeling, with the news that the supreme incarnation had passed away at nine-thirty at night on the sixteenth at a hospital in Kurseong, where he had been transported from Buxa. When I heard that the manifestation of his three secrets had been absorbed into the dharmadhātu at the young age of twenty-six, it was as if the sun had suddenly vanished from the sky. My sorrow was unfathomable. I felt as if I had lost my one and only beloved child. He had all the qualities of learning, ethical discipline, and compassion and the ability to carry the responsibilities of upholding the teachings of the Geluk tradition. He was one of the best and most promising of all the lamas who had come to India and was praised by all unbiased and learned people. Both Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché and I had enthusiastically given him initiations, oral transmissions, explanations, and teachings on sutra and tantra in the hopes that he would become a preeminent bearer of the Geluk lineage.

As soon as I received the telegram, I sent a message to Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché. I made offerings before the statue of Ārya Wati Sangpo and fervently prayed for the accomplishment of the precious incarnation’s wishes. I sent one thousand rupees to labrang manager Trinlé Dargyé for offerings for the late Rinpoché and as a token of condolence for Trinlé Dargyé along with a copy of a prayer I composed for the quick return of Rinpoché’s incarnation.

Later I gave the initiation of single-deity Vajrabhairava to Geshé Palden Sengé of Loseling and to eight students of his who came from the Khunu area.

Mongolian Lama Guru Deva was publishing the biography of Jé Tsongkhapa,340 and I contributed a thousand rupees for the printing of on behalf of all those connected with me, both living and dead. I contributed another thousand rupees on behalf of the late Lhabu, and I passed on twenty-eight hundred rupees donated by the late Venerable Kangyur Rinpoché. I also composed the foreword and verses of dedication for the biography.

To Geshé Ugyen Testen, Dzongtsé Tulku, and Lodrö Tulku of Sera Jé, who were going to the new Tibetan monastery in Rikon, Switzerland, I gave gifts and advice on proper conduct in both religious and secular contexts. I gave instruction to Geshé Ugyen Testen on the diagrams of the earth deity Sadak Toché for the site-consecration ritual of the monastery. I discussed with Mongolian Lama Guru Deva about giving a thousand copies of the biography of Jé Tsongkhapa to the committee for the reconstruction of a common Geluk monastery, and Lama Guru Deva agreed to this proposition. I presented a garment made of yellow brocade with a silk scarf to Lama Guru Deva for the successful publication of the biography.

I had been requested to write a commentary on the elaborate biographical praises for the protector Shukden that was composed by Kyabjé Phabongkha Vajradhara. I had previously been asked to write this commentary by a number of individuals in Lhasa, including Trungsar Rinpoché of Trehor, the resident master of Tashi Chöling Monastery Losang Chöphel, the scribe Losang Dorjé, the lord and lady of Lhalu Gatsal, and many others, and to prepare for writing the commentary, I had compiled notes from relevant biographies and documents. But then came my escape following the Chinese invasion, and in those unforeseen circumstances, I left behind all my notes and, with them, the hope of composing the text. In the meantime, however, some people who had come from Lhasa brought me my notes as well as a thangka of Shukden that was one of the very old religious artifacts of our labrang. I was fully convinced that this was due to the celestial assistance of the protector himself. When I received further requests from many individuals such as Dagyab Hothokthu and Dromo Geshé Rinpoché, I composed the commentary Music to Please the Host of Oath-Bound Protectors.³⁴¹

On the ninth day of the seventh month, I finished giving His Holiness the oral transmission of the collected works of Jé Tsongkhapa and his two disciples. I also gave His Holiness the oral transmission of the Later Tantra of the Root Tantra of Guhyasamāja.342

Gyümé Tantric College was asked by the Tibetan government to construct a three-dimensional mandala of Avalokiteśvara for an exhibition in Bombay. In order to do this, ritual master Denma Tsültrim Dönden of Gyümé Monastery asked me to clarify some points on the mandala, and I gave him detailed instruction.

On the seventeenth day of the second seventh month, the incarnation of Lochen Rinpoché of Tashi Lhunpo came to see me from Kyil Monastery in Spiti. He was six years old and came with his teacher, Kachen Losang Gyaltsen, and twenty others. The tulku was very lively and recited the Tibetan Trailblazer tea-offering verse without any hesitation when tea was offered to him.³⁴³ On a subsequent day, I gave Lochen Tulku and his entourage and many people from Spiti the initiation of Life-Sustaining Jé Tsongkhapa. I conferred lay vows on the tulku and cut the first snip of his hair. Afterward I gave him a bronze statue of the Buddha and a vajra and bell.

To mark the occasion of the recognition ceremony for the incarnation of Phara Rinpoché of Ganden Jangtsé, I sent a ceremonial scarf and a token offering of funds for the symbolic offerings of body, speech, and mind to Buxa. During the ceremony when the scarf I had sent was presented to him, he rose from his throne, placed the scarf around his neck, and then made three prostrations and joined his hands together in reverence. He then sat for some time with a serious expression on his face. I learned of this from a letter from Yeshé Tsewang of Phara Labrang in Buxa. The tulku’s predecessor was a devoted disciple of mine, so it could be that such instincts were awakened.

In the eighth month, at the request of Tsechok Ling Tulku and his main attendant, I gave the permission of outer, inner, and secret Mañjuśrī, as taught in the cycle of Mañjuśrī teachings, to Rinpoché and others including Thepo Tulku, Lati Rinpoché, and many geshés.

NEW RESIDENCE

I was given a house on the property purchased by the Tibetan government in the mid-level of Dharamsala. Because there was a shortage of space for offices and staff, I told them that I did not need to shift my residence for the time being. However, the cabinet minister for Home Affairs, Wangdü Dorjé, and the chairman of the Tibetan People’s Deputies, Kalsang Dradul, came to see me and insisted that I move to Gangchen Kyishong.344 I therefore agreed to move. As the twenty-first day of the eighth month was an auspicious day, I sent my attendant Palden with a thangka of the Guru Puja merit field and a text of the Eight Thousand Verse Perfection of Wisdom Sutra to the new house. On the way he first encountered a person carrying milk and shepherding a herd of white goats. He then met a person who was on his way to deliver complimentary copies of a White Tārā long-life ritual text sent to me from Buxa. So these were auspicious encounters.

In the meantime I visited Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché at his request and gave him explanations on, and the oral transmission of, the Guru Yoga of Vajrabhairava That Is a Treasury of Attainments and the related texts the Ways to Accomplish the Activities of Pacification and Increase, the Methods for Restoring the Degenerated Commitments by Relying on the Five Buddha Families of Yamāntaka, and the Peaceful and Wrathful Protection of Mañjuśrī. All of the above were from the sealed works of Thuken.³⁴⁵

On the auspicious day of the third of the ninth month, I moved from Nowrojee House. Upon departing the house, my neighbors, the monks of Namgyal Monastery, presented me with scarves and bid me farewell. When I arrived at Tashi Rabten, my new residence at Gangchen Kyishong, I was ushered in by the staff of the Tibetan secretariat and the abbot of Namgyal Monastery, Ratö Rinpoché, all holding burning incense. After settling in my room, the members of the council of ministers and the Religious Affairs council offered me scarves and representations of the holy body, speech, and mind. They were followed by many individuals who came with house-warming presents to wish me well. Ratö Rinpoché privately gave me a long-life ceremony with a Guru Puja and tsok offering.

The following day at the request of Mr. Manithang, the bursar of the Shedra family, and his wife, I gave the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī and made tsok offerings. In the afternoon His Holiness came to my house for a leisurely visit. He declared that my house was comfortable and stressed that I should make strong intentions to live a long life. I told His Holiness that due to my deep-seated habit from time immemorial of grasping at permanence, I hope and will myself to live a long time even in my dreams.

Following the wishes of Rikya Tulku of Sera Jé, I gave the most secret Heart Absorption permission of Cittamaṇi Tārā, which is only given to single recipients. I also gave the oral transmission of the Diamond-Cutter Sutra and the Heart Sutra.

On the twenty-third His Holiness came to my house to tell me about his visit to Thailand, where he had attended a Buddhist conference. He told me of how the king and the people there have great respect for Buddhist monks. His Holiness also told me of how he was deeply impressed with the calm, peaceful, and sincere demeanor of many monks of the Theravada tradition and with their rigorous observance of the Vinaya monastic rules. He related his discussion with them on various Buddhist topics, including concentration meditation, penetrative insight, the thirty-seven aspects of enlightenment, and so on.

Tutor Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché visited me on his way to Bodhgaya. I gave him the oral transmission of the methods for averting frost by the four letters relying on Vajrabhairava and performed the purification ritual of the Ḍākinīs that Dispel Obscurations. I sent Losang Yeshé to Bodhgaya on a pilgrimage to make twenty thousand butter-lamp offerings on behalf of the late Lhabu and another twenty thousand on behalf of all others connected with me. I told him to divide the offerings between Bodhgaya and Varanasi.

On the fourth day of the eleventh month, based on the root text and His Holiness Kalsang Gyatso’s commentary the Source of All Attainments,346 I taught the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita to Lati Rinpoché of Ganden Shartsé, Thepo Tulku, and Geshé Rapten of Sera Jé.

On the tenth day of the twelfth month, on the anniversary of the parinirvāṇa of Serkong Dorjé Chang, Assistant Tutor Serkong Rinpoché requested me to give the blessing of the four sindūra initiations of Vajrayoginī. At his wish I gave the blessings to Rinpoché himself and other lamas and geshés, including Ratö Rinpoché, to monks from Namgyal and Dzongkar Chödé monasteries, and to some lay practitioners, a hundred people in all. At the conclusion we offered an extensive tsok.

On February 29, 1968, the first day of the Tibetan earth-monkey year and my sixty-eighth year, I paid my New Year’s respects at the feet of His Holiness, and I attended the offerings to Palden Lhamo. After the New Year celebration, I visited with His Holiness at his residence, and we discussed various topics. His Holiness asked in particular about whether nirvana is emptiness and about the distinction between the delusions that arise from grasping the I as self-sufficient substantially existent, asserted by the lower schools of tenets, and the delusions arising from grasping the I as truly existent, asserted by the Prāsaṅgikas. According to the Prāsaṅgikas, all delusions are similar to that of the grasping of true existence, but if that is the case, then it is not possible to abandon even the coarse delusions by the method of meditation on selflessness that accords with the teachings of the lower tenets.

To these and many other questions His Holiness asked, I answered that there are differences of opinion as to whether nirvana is emptiness, and that there are coarse and subtle differences between the above-mentioned delusions. According to the Prāsaṅgikas, coarse delusions can be suppressed by meditating on selflessness as taught by the lower tenets, but they cannot be entirely abandoned. That is the reason for the explanation of the arhat found in the Abhidharma. I offered these replies according to what struck me at the time, but I do not know whether they served any purpose.

On the eleventh His Holiness came to my house and told me about the discourse he was going to give on the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path beginning on the fifteenth at the request of His Holiness’s ritual assistant. I expressed my profound gratitude for this kindness on behalf of the Buddhadharma and for all beings. In this connection I presented His Holiness with the old Ganden edition of the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path that I had received in the water-rabbit year, as mentioned above,347 together with a ceremonial scarf and a token sum for the three representations. On the first page of the text I wrote the following:

This text of the supreme path of millions of buddhas and bodhisattvas,

with its complete stages, to be completely traveled,

well illumined by the conquering Losang, treasure of wisdom,

containing the four supreme and excellent features,

is offered by an ignorant one with no excellent qualities of mind,

but with firm faith from time immemorial,

to the great guide of samsara and nirvana so that he may turn

the wheel of the Mahayana for as long as samsara lasts.

On the fifteenth, at the request of the Religious Affairs Office, I gave Mahayana vows to seventy staff members of the Central Tibetan Administration and other monks and laypeople. On the twenty-sixth I finished compiling the outlines of the stages of the path to incorporate further subdivisions into the text of the Middle-Length Stages of the Path by Jé Tsongkhapa. I had started to do this many years ago and had put a great deal of effort into it. Denma Jampa Chögyal started to write the master copy for publication.

On the fifth day of the second month, the abbot and disciplinarian as well as the monks of the Gyütö Tantric College recited prayers for my long life in connection with a Guru Puja and tsok offering. At the request of Trehor Samten of the Gyümé Tantric College, I gave explanations on the exclusive practice of the Hundred Deities of Tuṣita based on the recitation text compiled by Kyabjé Vajradhara. I gave these teachings on the lawn of my house to about four hundred disciples, including monks from Namgyal and Dzongkar Chödé monasteries as well as the monks of the three seats and the two tantric colleges in Dalhousie. On the first of the third month, at the request of Chogyé Trichen Rinpoché of Phenpo Nalendra, I bestowed a White Tārā long-life initiation on Rinpoché and his entourage.

Geshé Rapgyé of Sera Jé’s Tsangpa House came to see me. He confided that he had been unable to accomplish śamatha despite applying himself to single-pointed concentration for over six months. He asked me for special methods to rein in the mind from habitual wandering. I instructed him to imagine the mind mixing with or dissolving into the object of concentration. I also told him that it is possible to stabilize the mind by thinking that the mind abides within the object. If that did not help, then he should take a break from meditation and instead engage in the practices of accumulating merit, purifying mental obstacles, and making requests to the gurus. He later told me that my suggestions had been helpful.

Ganden Shartsé Monastery had written to Thepo Tulku and other lamas and geshés in Dharamsala to arrange for a long-life offering to remove obstacles to my longevity. On the third, they organized a long-life ceremony with a Guru Puja and tsok offering. This was attended by all the Shartsé monks in Dharamsala.

HIS HOLINESS REQUESTS BODHISATTVA VOWS

On the twentieth, His Holiness, Tutor Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché, and I attended the ceremony commemorating the founding of the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala. There, in the course of our private conversations, His Holiness raised the topic of the twelve links of dependent origination as they appear in the teachings on the stages of the path. His Holiness said that it is not possible to complete one full cycle of the twelve links in fewer than four or five lives.348 He gave the example of a being in the bardo destined for hell who is transferred by force of its virtue to the bardo of a god. Such a being does not take birth in hell even though it had the establishing links of desire and craving that propelled it into the hell bardo. When the being does land in hell at some point in the future, does the earlier activation of desire and craving suffice, or must that series of links repeat itself? If it does suffice, then the full cycle can be completed within four or five lives. I told His Holiness that it seems that desire and craving would have to be activated again before the being is again born in hell, so the cycle may not necessarily be completed in four or five lives. His Holiness also raised many issues regarding the Cittamātra view on external phenomena.

In the evening the children presented a play reenacting the story of Atiśa being invited to Tibet by Lha Lama Yeshé Ö and his nephew Jangchup Ö. The play was well performed. It had been drawn from reliable sources and had engaging narration.

On the twelfth day of the fourth month, a long-life ceremony conjoined with the ritual of sixteen arhats was offered to me by the monks of the three seats settled in Dalhousie along with the monks who had come to receive His Holiness’s discourse on the stages of the path. The long-life ceremony was sponsored by the monks from Dalhousie, and I gave back to them the offerings they made to me.

His Holiness asked me to arrange for an elaborate offering for the occasion for him to take the bodhisattva vows from me, and for these offerings, he contributed a thousand rupees. Since my house had insufficient space and inadequate facilities in which to arrange extensive offerings, I had three hundred large torma offerings prepared with the best ingredients, including the three sweets and clarified butter.³⁴⁹ I also filled several baskets with a variety of the highest-quality fruit.

On the thirteenth, the prescribed day, His Holiness came to my house at eight in the morning to take the bodhisattva vows. I had risen at dawn that day and had taken the aspiring and engaging bodhisattva vows myself in conjunction with the practice of the six preliminaries.³⁵⁰ After that, His Holiness and I made offerings with the six preliminaries first, and then I offered His Holiness the aspiring and engaging bodhisattva vows simultaneously according to the tradition of Śāntideva. His Holiness then gave me a monk’s begging bowl filled with fruit as a token of bodhicitta, and we recited the “On that day in Bodhgaya” verse three times351 and the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. After following the uncorrupted traditions established by the lamas of the past in this manner, His Holiness returned to his compound and gave bodhisattva vows to those attending his discourse on the stages of the path. Thus he planted the seeds of enlightenment in the minds of many.

On the eighth day of the fifth month, the people of Chatreng offered me a long-life ceremony. At their invitation, the ceremony was conducted by Song Rinpoché and Dzemé Rinpoché, among other lamas and monks. Later, following a unanimous decision by the people of Chatreng to form an association, I contributed two thousand rupees to the association’s general fund.

On the eighth day of the seventh month (August 31, 1968), I attended the celebration to mark the shifting of His Holiness’s residence from Swarg Ashram to Thekchen Chöling. I presented a scarf and the three representations during the ceremony. The remaining faces of the Lhasa Lokeśvara statue and the Kyirong statue of Ārya Wati Sangpo were invited to the ceremonial hall in procession. Afterward, His Holiness, the two tutors, and the monks of Namgyal Monastery made offerings to the statue and performed the rituals of purification and consecration. The auspicious confession ceremony was then held, after which the pages of the sutra Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines were distributed, so that the entire text could be recited.

On the twelfth, ten monks from the Gyümé Tantric College, including the abbot and the disciplinarian along with a few monks of Namgyal Monastery, performed the elaborate ritual of consecration related to Guhyasamāja in the new palace. Then ten monks from the Gyütö Tantric College, including the abbot and the chant master along with eight Namgyal monks, performed the consecration according to the Cakrasaṃvara ritual. On the day of the consecration, Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché presided over the Guhyasamāja ritual, and I presided over the Cakrasaṃvara ritual. At this time Denma Jampa Chögyal of Sera Jé had finished copying the text of the Middle-Length Stages of the Path with my supplementary outline. One thousand copies of the text were printed at the press in Dharamsala. Jampa Chögyal was well rewarded for the work.

The incarnation of Muli Khentrul Thupten Lamsang of Shartsé was brought to see me by a disciple of his predecessor named Gendun. The predecessor had been the abbot of Richung Pothö Monastery in Phakri, and his eight-year-old incarnation had been born in Bhutan. I took the first snip of his hair and gave him the name Losang Dönyö Palden.

The monks of Seudru Monastery and the people of Tsakha Lhopa asked me to discover the reincarnation of Gangkar Lama Rinpoché Könchok Chödrak of Seudru Monastery. As described above, his prior incarnation had died from illness during the war with the Chinese. I sought out his incarnation not simply because they asked me to but also because I had very close karmic connections with the two previous incarnations. I therefore asked the Gadong oracle for predictions about the whereabouts of the incarnation on three separate occasions, and all three predictions were unanimous. Each time the oracle said the incarnation would be found to the east of Dharamsala, born among his own townspeople.

My own divination indicated that the boy was called Karma Lhundrup and was born to a mother named Kalsang from Tsakha Lhopa. She was working at a road workers’ camp in Gangtok. I instructed Apho Wangden, an old-time attendant of Gangkar Lama, to test the boy secretly. On the morning of the day Wangden was to arrive at the house, the boy said a visitor would come that day. After Wangden arrived at the house, the boy put a silver butter lamp and a set of seven water-offering bowls that belonged to the family into Wangden’s bag. This, and many other circumstances, gave convincing proof that this was the correct incarnation. I therefore made a final determination that the boy was the true incarnation of Gangkar Lama.