Homage and Preliminary Remarks

The immutable essence of all the victorious ones’ ineffable body, speech, and mind is manifest in the form of my protectors, my twenty-two kind and venerable teachers. At their feet, I remain humbly devoted until my awakening.

Long have I lain in the bed of samsara. I despair

on seeing, in life after life, the pattern of happiness and suffering

that is like the front and back of a single brocade

woven from countless threads of karma and affliction.

But as with a flash of lightning in the dark of night,

by the kindness of the holy lamas I have caught a glimpse

of the stainless path of Dharma, and so I have hope

that my life in this world will have meaning.

Yet my heart is gripped by the demon

of clinging to things as real and lasting,

and so I tell this story of high aspiration tossed on the wind

by the ceaseless distractions of the monkey-dance appearances of this life.1

I AM AN ORDINARY man called Losang Yeshé Tenzin Gyatso. It is said that I am the reincarnation of the Eighty-Fifth Ganden Throneholder² Losang Tsultrim Palden, who was himself the reincarnation of the Sixty-Ninth Ganden Throneholder Jangchup Chöphel. I am said to be this reincarnation, but my mind is no mystery to me, and the qualities that make those supreme beings worthy to be called incarnations of the Awakened One are no more present in me than are flowers in the sky. It is only through the immutable force of actions in previous lives that I now enjoy the fortune to have been given the title of a high incarnation.

Jé Gungthangpa³ once said that if one has purposely reincarnated for the sake of propagating the Dharma, then one must leave a legacy of teachings and accomplishments. It is daunting to read the biographies of the holy men who were my predecessors. Their qualities arouse faith and have the power to plant the seeds of complete liberation in the minds of disciples who hear them.

Like hair on a turtle, how could any such qualities exist in one such as me, a mass of stupidity and the three poisons [of attachment, ignorance, and hatred], renowned for three things [only — sleeping, eating, and defecating]? Indeed, I have no such qualities; I possess merely the name of a master. Still, so as not to squander the name of that which I am supposed to be, I must leave at least a meager legacy of protecting and spreading the Dharma that I have heard, studied, taught, and practiced.

If one does not look closely, it may appear that I have the qualities of my predecessors or something similar to them, but these apparent qualities do not stand up to scrutiny. The qualities of greatness appearing to be mine are an illusion with the ephemeral nature of a colorful rainbow. In fact, I am an ordinary person overwhelmed by confusion about this phenomenal world. For me to write about my life may upset discriminating people because it might seem as if I, like a bat mistaking itself for a bird in the sky, have the temerity to imitate those great masters, my predecessors, who wrote their autobiographies.

Be that as it may, in the wood-dragon year (1964), the Omnipresent Protector, the Supreme Lord of the Victorious Ones, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, said to me, “You must write the story of your life,” and I received his holy command on the crown of my head. Subsequently, Geshé Tamdrin Rapten of Sera Jé and other faithful disciples insisted that I do so; the former cabinet minister Neshar Thupten Tharpa presented me with a bronze statue of the Buddha together with a ceremonial silk scarf and made this request; and more recently Dagyab Hothokthu Rinpoché asked me to do so in a letter from Germany. Moreover, Palden, who has been with me in close attendance for many years and saw everything firsthand, made a special point of taking careful notes on the conversations he overheard, and he has insisted time and again that I put them in order and edit them.

I have decided, therefore, to write candidly the story of my life, and I feel that there is nothing very wrong with this if it is considered in the context of autobiographies such as those of Depa Kyishöpa, also known as Taktsé Shabdrung Dorjé Namgyal, the cabinet ministers Gashiwa Doring Tenzin Paljor4 and Dokhar Shabdrung Tsering Wangyal,⁵ and other well-known statesmen.

Mine is the story of how I wasted the freedom and opportunity that this life affords in the pretense of Dharma, while the happiness and suffering brought forth by my own ignorance and good and bad deeds came in turns throughout the seasons of my life. It is the story of how I received religious instructions on the vast and profound sutras and tantras from many qualified spiritual masters, who were like the Buddha himself, and yet I remained unable to show even one point that I mastered or to demonstrate with any confidence that, apart from recollection of those instructions, any of them took root in my heart through practice. As the Seventh Dalai Lama Kalsang Gyatso (1708–57) said:

Those who teach the path to freedom to others,

if they lack the quality of mind merged with holy Dharma

and possess just the appearance of working for the welfare of others,

cause nothing but weariness for themselves and others.

How sad to see them fool themselves in such a way.

In brief, the feeble way in which I have propagated Dharma by teaching earnest seekers is akin to a tape recorder or a parrot reciting mantras. The Tibetan scholar Mipham Gelek once said:

The grove of peace that has grown in my heart

serves only to deceive myself and others,

for I have been given a wobbly staff of morality.

Who gave me this staff? My own unconscionable acts.

Likewise, I have deceived others and distracted myself by turning the wheel of virtuous and nonvirtuous actions, the three poisons, and the eight worldly concerns.⁶ My story is one of an empty-handed vagabond in want of Dharma. It is crudely written, but it is without fabrications. I will not present what did not happen as if it had. I will not present as having been done what was not. Whatever I recall, I will openly and truthfully relate.