Urgyen Sangharakshita And The Genesis Of A New Buddhist Sangha
Time Place Teacher Disciple and Topic
The Tibetan tradition holds that at the moment of initiation five factors are paramount; time, place, teacher, disciple and the topic or content of the transmission. Who is Urgyen Sangharakshita, what is his connection with the tradition, who were his teachers, and what did he learn from them? What were the augers of time and space, and what does it all mean to us?
This pilgrimage aims to strengthen our awareness and connection with these auspicious five, Time Place Teacher Disciple and Topic, as they constellated in the life of our founder Urgyen Sangharakshita. Pilgrimages are trails of tales. The tales and the trails of this pilgrimage take us into a magical world; the Hidden land in which Sangharakshita unfolded, and the crucible in which our Movement was forged.
An Ancient Connection Re-Awoken
Some of the most familiar objects from Sangharakshita’s childhood were Tibetan ritual implements from the famous Lama Temple in Peking; favourites included a Thanka of the Buddha and a large Vajra bell - which “rarely could I refrain from ringing”. At nine Bhante studied the life of the Buddha, and at 11 began praying daily to the Buddha and wrote “The Life of Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha” “which when finished I copied out in purple ink on my best notepaper”.
By the age of 17, Bhante had already regained Insight. “At John Watkins, which thereafter I visited frequently, I bought the two books by which I have been most profoundly influenced. These were the Diamond Sutra, which I read first in Gemmell's then in Max Muller's translation, and the Sutra of Wei Lang (Hui Neng). If, when I read Isis Unveiled, I knew that I was not a Christian, when I read the Diamond Sutra I knew that I was a Buddhist. Though this book epitomizes a teaching of such rarefied sublimity that even Arahants, saints who have attained individual nirvana, are said to become confused and afraid when they hear it for the first time, I at once joyfully embraced it with an unqualified acceptance and assent. To me the Diamond Sutra was not new. I had known it and believed it and realized it ages before and the reading of the Sutra as it were awoke me to the existence of something I had forgotten. Once I realized that I was a Buddhist it seemed that I had always been one, that it was the most natural thing in the world to be, and that I had never been anything else. My experience of the Sutra of Wei Lang, which I read in the original Shanghai edition of Wong Mou Lam's translation, though taking place at a slightly lower level, was repeated with much greater frequency. Whenever I read the text I would be thrown into a kind of ecstasy.”
Going Forth
Within two years, in 1944, two days before his nineteenth birthday, the British Army dispatched Bhante to the land of the Buddha. After a further two years with the Army in Delhi, Sri Lanka and Singapore, during which he furthered his studies and took up meditation and a further six months in India testing the waters, on the 18th of August 1947, at Kasauli in the foothills of the Himalayas, Bhante ritually and actually went forth.
“There was only one way out. Religious societies, organizations, and groups, far from being a help to spiritual development were only a hindrance. However lofty the ideals with which they were founded, they had a natural tendency to degenerate, in the hands of selfish human beings, into instruments for the acquisition of money, position, power, and fame. Instead of trying any longer to work with them we would follow the example of the Buddha and sever at one stroke our connection with an incorrigible world. We would renounce the household life and go forth into the life of homelessness as wanderers in search of Truth. For the last few months we had only sat hesitantly on the shore of the vast ocean of the spiritual life. Now, casting aside all fear, we would plunge boldly in…
“Having made this resolution, we lost no time putting it into effect. With the help of a handful of gerua-mati, the reddish-brown earth used since time immemorial by Indian ascetics, we dyed our shirts and sarongs the traditional saffron of the world-renunciant. Suitcases and watches were sold, trousers, jackets, and shoes given away, identification papers destroyed. Apart from the robes that we were to wear we kept only a blanket each and our books and notebooks. As for the last three months hair and beard had been allowed to grow we did not need shaving tackle.”
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“As we left Kasauli it was raining, but, as in the course of our descent we emerged from the clouds into the bright sunshine below, we saw arching the road, at intervals of a few dozen yards, not only single but double and triple rainbows. Every time we turned a bend we found more rainbows waiting for us. We passed through them as though through the multicoloured arcades of some celestial palace. Against the background of bright sunshine, jewel-like glittering raindrops, and hills of the freshest and most vivid green, this plethora of delicate seven-hued bows seemed like the epiphany of another world.” The Rainbow Road
Entering the Mandala
In many ways the original Hippy; a free-lance wanderer, Passport and ID burned, clothes dyed in mud, barefoot, money less, without shaving or cutting hair: Bhante walked India for three years with a single companion. Then on the 12th of May 1949, Bhante became a Sramanera in Kushinagar, with U Chandramani as his Preceptor, and in March 1950, Jagdish Kashyap took Bhante to Kalimpong and left him there.
Only in London has Bhante lived as long as he has lived in Kalimpong; 14 years – 1950 - 1964. No other place recurs so frequently in Bhante’s lectures, seminars or literary work. Here Bhante wrote A Survey of Buddhism, The Eternal Legacy, The Three Jewels, much of The Rainbow Road, and The Religion of Art together with numerous essays and articles on Buddhism. And more poetry burst forth from Bhante here than at any other place. Kalimpong is also unique in that here Bhante met with all of his eight main teachers. In Kalimpong Bhante received his Bodhisattva Ordination, and all of his tantric initiations took place in Kalimpong or Darjeeling. In Kalimpong Bhante was given the name Urgyen and discovered a connection the ancient Nyingma tradition. It was in Kalimpong that Bhante started Teaching, and it was also in Kalimpong, in 1967, that Bhante made the decision to start a new Buddhist Movement; the FWBO.
Hidden Lands
So our movement was conceived in Kalimpong, but where is Kalimpong, what sort of place is it, and what does it signify?
In every culture, there are stories, typically associated with mountains, which go something like this: A farmer misses a cow and goes looking for it. While searching he finds the entrance to a valley he had never seen before despite being familiar with the place. He goes inside, finds his cow and meets kind good folk who invite him to stay for a meal of simple food - usually cereals. After eating, he returns home to discover his parents, friends and wife dead and his children very aged, no one believes who he is – many decades had passed in a single afternoon.
Lord Dunsany, in his book “The King of Elfland’s Daughter” describes the process by which time expands in such a magical place. Siting on his throne the King of Elfland takes a moment of his experience and develops ever deeper contentment with it. As his contentment deepens, time slows down around him. As his contentment spreads and expands it creates a realm where others can live long happy lives.
Padmasambhava is King of numerous Elflands. In the Himalayas these Elflands are know as Beyul – Hidden Lands. High up in the snow mountains of India, Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal there are several famous Hidden Lands. Pretapuri – Vajravarahi’s Hidden Land, is near Mt. Kailash; Tsari is near the Tibetan border with Arunachal Pradesh; and Pemako – where Dudjom Rinpoche was born, is near the great bend in the Brahmaputra where it enters India from Tibet.
In Nepal are several important beyul; Khembalung is near Mount Chamlang - south of Mt. Makalu; another is near Mt. Manaslu. Lapchi is one of the holiest beyul to Tibetans. Converted to a Buddhist holy site by Vajrapani and his zombie-consort Vajra-vetali, Guru Rinpoche blessed it and finally Milarepa, who meditated there for several years, opened it up.
North of Kathmandu is the hidden land of Yolmo in the district of Helumbu. This ancient hidden land is where Yeshe Tsogyal received her highest Dzogchen initiation, and where Milarepa had one of his most important retreats. Many important terma were discovered and within this ancient hidden land of Yolmo Chatral Rinpoche has discovered and opened up a new hidden land; a high remote valley especially auspicious for practice. Called Pemthang, like all hidden lands it is a space of many dimensions in which spiritual beings live-not the least a fearsome Dakini inhabiting a sacred lake.
Hidden Lands are both lands that ‘anyone’ can visit – though few people do – and within those lands places accessible only to those in harmony with Hidden Land’s inhabitants; practitioners of a high level: be they gods or humans.
Hidden lands are places of practice. Practice is the path and the door to the Hidden land. Even if one does not find the entrances to the innermost parts of the Beyul proper, the landscapes outside or beneath them are abundantly bathed in spiritual energies and blessings. Hidden Lands are filled with auspiciousness, radiating blessings. They are places where practice finds quick results because they are sources of ‘other power’; places perfumed with the transcendental.
Wild Rice The Sikkimese Hidden Land
The modern Indian state of Sikkim only came into existence in 1974; but Sikkim contains one of the most important of all Beyul. Guru Rinpoche is reported to have said that of all the hidden lands that he had blessed Denjong in Sikkim was the most auspicious, and will be a place of refuge in troubled times. Vast stores of Terma were hidden here for future generations. For us this Hidden Land certainly is a place of refuge and renewal, containing as it does so many places of such significance in the origins of our Movement.
Variously designated Dremo Jong, Denjong and Dejong – Tibetan contractions meaning Fruit Bowl, and centred on Tashiding in west Sikkim, the Fruit Bowl Hidden Land extends its influence over the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong - as the bird flies less than a dozen miles from Tashiding. Both Darjeeling and Kalimpong were once part of the Nyingmapa Kingdom of Sikkim. These eastern Himalayas above Bengal- itself an ancient seat of Tantric Buddhism, hold special significance in the Tara Rahasya Tantra. But from well before our earliest written records, Buddhist wanderers would have found their way into the mandala of valleys and mountains that the Teesta and Ranjeet rivers have created here; valleys endowed with a very beneficial climate.
The Fruit Bowl beyul was largely uninhabited but it was a paradise for practitioners, containing not only plentiful fruits and vegetables, but also an abundance of potent medicinal herbs and fields of self-sown rice – Wild Rice becoming one of the beyul’s appellations. In this tiny Himalayan pocket of 7096 sq.kms and 540,000 people, we find 535 different orchids, more than 400 different wild flowers and, after the Amazon, the second largest concentration of butterflies and moths in the world. Hot springs rise at several places, caves are plentiful, wood seemingly unlimited. There are now 107 Monasteries in Sikkim, and 175 Prayer Halls (Mani Lhakhang), 35 major stupas, 32 important shrines, 30 sacred caves, 29 sacred lakes, 11 meditation centres (Tsamkhang), and 9 hot springs with curative powers.
Padmasambhava
The only pre-Padmasambhava references to Buddhism in the Sikkimese hidden land, which I have been able to find, and they are just traces, are references in the life story of Krishnacharya or Kanha, and the Tara Rahasya Tantra.
One of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas, Kanha went, at the end of his life, to a lake at the foot of the big Mountain above Bengal. There, he had an altercation with a powerful witch who cursed or poisoned him; he succumbed when the right herbs did not arrive in time. It is quite possible that the Mountain was Kunchenjunga and the lake Kechupalri; which means Abode of Witches in Sanskrit, viz. Kechari Puri.
There is a possible reference to Kalimpong in Yeshe Tsogyal’s biography. On page 140 of Keith Dowman’s translation of the life of Yeshe Tsogyal; “Sky Dancer,” one finds; “Yeshe Tsogyal visited Kaling Sinpo Dzong and concealed treasure there.” Kaling Sinpo Dzong – Kalim pong? Sinpo Dzong means Fortress of Cannibals. Kalimpong is said to mean Inverted Skull. Cannibals are frequently associated with hidden lands.
Legend has it that Padmasambhava wandered over a vast area – from Sri Lanka in the South to Siberia in the North, from Burma in the East to Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the West. And of the incomparable Yeshe Tsogyal they say that there is not a single handful of earth that has not been blessed by her, in which she has not hidden treasures of Dharma.
Sikkim contains many important Padmasambhava sites. A remote cave in North Sikkim is amongst the most important of Guru Rinpoche’s power places. Then there are the four main caves (we visit two), several sites in the far north and Tashiding and Kechupalri. The Hidden land of Sikkim is close to Paro Taksang, a very important Padmasambhava site in Bhutan, where Guru Rinpoche manifested as Dorji Drolo – one of his eight main forms.
Guru Rinpoche entered opened up and tamed the Sikkimese hidden land. In particular Padmasambhava defined it, envisioned and blessed it as the mandala of Lama Gongdu, one of the three main Nyingmapa tantras.
Ridzin Godem and the Northern Ter
After Padmasambhava, the next Tibetan reference to Sikim comes in the fourteenth century with Terton Sangay Lingpa and Terton Ridzin Godem.
Sangay Lingpa (1340 - 1396) was an early and great Terton who revealed the famous Lama Gondu cycle of teachings, which includes the Denjong Ney-Yik, the first guide to the hidden land of Denjong. Tashiding is described as a celestial palace of Padmasambhava - Padmavajra, the surrounding peaks as the abodes of the deities of his mandala - the Lama Gongdu.
Ridzin Godem (1337-1408) was the tulku of Nam Dorji Dudjom (one of Padmasambhava’s 25 closest disciples). More importantly Ridzin Godem is renowned as one of the three supreme emanations of Guru Rinpoche himself -along with Guru Cho-bang and Nyang Nyima Odzer. Ridzin Godem was the body incarnation of Guru Rinpoche. At 11, three feather-like growths appeared on his head, and by the time he was 23 there were five – hence his name Godem – Vulture Feathers.
The Nyingma Gyubum - a collection of the Nyingma exegetical tradition - preserves an enormous 780 texts attributed to Ridzin Godem. The Rinchen Terzo – a more recent collection of Treasure Texts – contains 49 texts revealed by the great Terton.
One of the most important Termas Ridzin Godem revealed was the Gongpa Zang thal, said to be the distilled essence of one hundred thousand Termas. Another, the Chang Ter - the Northern Ter, became the basis of one of the most important sub-schools of Nyingma tradition. Ridzin Godem is also renowned for his discovery of the guidebooks to seven Hidden Lands - including one for Denjong in Sikkim.
So important is the Nyingma Northern Ter considered to be, for the wellbeing of all Tibet, successive Dalai Lamas dedicated elite Gelugpa monasteries to its practice. Thus, Namgyal - the personal Monastery of the Dalai Lama, together with the Monasteries of the State Oracles; Nechung and Gadong, uphold the Northern Ter Tradition of Ridzin Godem.
A great siddha, Ridzin Godem came to Sikim in his old age subjugating the deities and blessing the land; preparing the way for those who would come later. He established meditation centres at Tashiding and Pawo Humri – Hum Mountain – an enormous hill above Tashiding that is depicted in thankas emblazoned with an enormous blue hung. Ridzin Godem recovered Ter from the central peak of Kunchenjunga; images of Guru Rinpoche and the goddess Thing-kha. At Zilon, a spur of Humri just above Tashiding, in the year 1408, at the age of 71, Ridzin Godem attained the rainbow body, dissolving the karmic residue of the five great elements; earth, water , fire, air and space into the five lights yellow, white, red, green, and blue, leaving nothing behind but his hair and nails.
Ngari Rigdzin Chenpo Legdan Dorji 1512-1625Born in Lo-Mantang in Mustang Nepal, (and the younger brother of the great Ngari Mahapandita Padma Wangyal), Legdan Dorji was a master of the Northern Ter and an important link in the transmission of Anuyoga. He lived to be over one hundred and thirteen and was the second tulku of Ridgzin Godem. His root guru was Sakya Zangpo of Yolmo, who discovered the Legend of the Great Stupa and restored Boudhanath in Nepal.
In 1568 Legdan Dorji journeyed to Sikim where at the northern cave of Lhari Rinchen Nyingpo / Lhari Sang Phu, the Secret Cave of The Mountain God’s Precious Heart, he discovered terma including a sadhana of Amitayus, and in the western cave of Great Bliss many other profound teachings.
The Three Holy Ones and the birth of Sikkimese Buddhism
After being tamed and blessed by Guru Rinpoche in the tenth century, and tamed and blessed again by Ridzin Godem in the fourteenth century, it was not until the last half of the seventeenth century that Sikkim began to emerge as a Buddhist society.
In Tibet, Nyingmapas being oppressed by ascendant Gelugpas began to look for new lands where they could practice freely. Sikkim was the prize; and they guarded it jealously. It wasn’t until the reign of the fourth Sikimese Chogyal or Dharma King that the Nyingmapas permitted another Dharmic tradition to be established here; the Karma Kargu. The Fourth Chogyal, disguised as a layman, had gone on pilgrimage to Tibet. When he reached Tsurphu-chief monastery of the Karma Kargu, the Karmapa recognized him, rose from his seat and gave the Chogyal a welcome fit for a king. The Chogyal, pleased and impressed, promised to build several Kargupa Gompas in the up-until-then exclusively Nyingma Sikim. Perhaps significantly, the Karma Kargu sect differs from other Kargu schools in following the Terma tradition of Jatson Nyingpo; the Konchog Chidu – from which comes our Tharpe Delam. Even today there is only one Gelugpa and one Sakyapa monastery in all Sikkim.
Four Founders
Interestingly, the four people credited with founding Buddhist Sikim represent four distinct archetypes; a layman, a scholar-monk, a hermit meditator and a tantric yogi. They form a four-fold model for the Sangha and one often sees their images on Gompa walls throughout Sikim. The scholar-monk, the hermit and the yogi were from Tibetans from three important Nyingma sub-schools; the layman was a local Lepcha whom the Tibetans crowned as King at a place they called Norbugang. Norbugang is Yuksom in Lepcha; both names mean The Three Jewels.
Given our own emphasis on the Three Refuges, it is at least interesting to learn that this Kingdom, so interconnected with our own tradition, was founded at, one could even say founded on, The Three Jewels. It is also interesting that the main Terma tradition established here was Jatson Nyingpo’s Konchog Chidu or Unity of the Three Jewels – a very FWBO/Sangharakshita sounding title.
The Three Nyingma Schools
The three Tibetans came from different Nyingmapa sub-schools associated with important Tibetan monasteries; Mindroling in Central Tibet, Dorji Drak southeast of Lhasa, and Katok Dorji-den in the east. Not surprisingly Bhante, and we, are connected to those monasteries and their teaching traditions through several of his teachers.
The Tantric Yogi: Lhatsun Chenpo
Lhatsun Chenpo was allied to Mindroling Monastery [1676] which practices the terma tradition of its founder, Ridzin Terdak Lingpa - the Southern Ter.
In addition to the Southern Ter of Terdak Lingpa, Lhatsun Chenpo also established the Termas of Jatson Nyingpo, together with his own discoveries in the monasteries that he founded in Sikkim; Dubdi [1701], Pemayangtse [1705], and Sanga Choling [1705]. Lhatsun Chenpo also built the large Wish-fulfilling Chorten at Tashiding Gompa, but mainly he wandered from place to place living in caves and mountain recesses, discovering Ter, writing texts and selecting auspicious sites for future Shrines, Gompas and Chortens. “He blessed and showed us thousands of caves and rocky terrains as places of meditation.” Khenpo Dechen Dorji
“While residing, and in accord with a prophetic declaration of the dakinis, in the Dhaki-nying Cavern at Trakar Tashiding, the Doctrinal Cycles of the Vital Attainment of the Awareness-holder, which are the extraordinary instructions of Ati, the unsurpassed innermost Spirituality, emerged in a pure vision.” Dudjom Rinpoche
This terma of Lhatsun Chenpo, discovered in the Ancient Dakini cave of Tashiding, became the basis of the Sikimese Dzogchen tradition. The central figure of the Refugee Tree is Padmasambhava in the form of Vajrasattva, in union with a white concert; perhaps Mandarava the white long-life Dakini.
Subsequently, tulkus of Lhatsun Chenpo, now know as Khachu Rinpoche, founded many monasteries including Enchey Gompa {1840}, and Phensang Gompa {1840}, and now most Gompas in Sikim follow Lhatsun Chenpo’s tradition.
The founder of the Southern Ter, Ridzin Terdak Lingpa was both teacher and disciple of ‘the great fifth’ Dalai Lama who entrusted Mindroling with State rituals that the monastery has kept up until today.
Also know as Terchen Chokyi-Gyalpo and Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje, Terdak Lingpa had a daughter Migur Paldron who was exiled to Sikim during a period of Gelug inspired Mongolian suppression of the Nyingmas. Jetsunma Migur Paldron was a great practitioner and Dharma teacher, the four vehicles of Mindroling where established by her in 1718. In the top temple of Mindroling in Tibet, Migur Paldron is portrayed holding a rosary and a vase with leaves. Choshaygang; a stone throne used by the Jetsunma when teaching, is still visible between Pemayangtse and the royal ruins of Rabdentse.
Dudjom Rinpoche was the lineage holder of Mindroling and worked tirelessly to re-establish Mindroling in Dera Doon. “From Mindroling Vajracharya, Namdrol Gyatso, Dudjom Rinpoche learned the rituals, mandalas, songs, dance and music of Tertag Lingpa, along with many other teachings.”
Khachu Rinpoche is closely associated with Jatson Nyingpo’s Konchog Chidu, Lhatsun Chenpo’s Dzogchen tradition and Terdak Lingpa s Southern Ter. At present, the young Khachu Tulku is studying in the new Mindroling Monastery that Dudjom Rinpoche re-established in Dera Doon.
Dhardo Rinpoche, who was a Nyingma tulku three lives ago, also practiced the Terdak Lingpa’s Southern Ter and was associated with Mindroling Gompa. However, the Dhardo Tulku lineage is considerably older than Mindroling and the Southern Ter. Rinpoche had a monastery in Dharsendo called Dorji Drak, [Vajra Rock] so it is likely that Dhardo Rinpoche also has roots in the Northern Ter tradition of Ridzin Godem based at the original Dorji Drak Gompa south-east of Lhasa.
Bhante’s teacher Jamyang Khyentse Choki Lodro had a connection with the Mindroling tradition. After being ordained at Katog (see below) Rinpoche took monastic Ordination for a second time at Mindroling from Sangye Kunga, the seventh Throne-holder of Mindroling. This was because his predecessor Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo had received his Ordination and the Bodhisattva Vows at Mindroling.
The Hermit: Nadak Sempa Chenpo
Nadak Sempa Chenpo Phuntshog Ridzin (1591 - 1654). Nadak is Tibetan for Nil Kanth, which means blue throat and is a reference to Avalokitesvara whose throat turned blue after drinking the poison of the world. Nadak Sempa Chenpo was an emanation of the great Terton Nadak Nyangral Nyima Odzer (1124-1192).
Nyima Odzer, one of the three supreme emanations of Padmasambhava, was the first of the Five Great Tertons; 550 texts by him are preserved in the Nyingma Gyubum and 43 in the Rinchen Terzo. He was prophesied by Padmasambhava; "There will be so many fugitives that the land will become deserted. Warned by these signs not to fail, and to bring to light the treasure hidden among the Mons of the South, Nyima Odzer, Jarong the Cynosure of Ekara will appear, who will know how to revive the dead."
Nadak Sempa Chenpo entered Sikim from the South in 1642, shortly before Lhatsun Chenpo, and founded a gompa at Yuksom, then others at Tashiding [1716], Silnon [1716], Namchi, Thangmoche and Nadak all of which follow the Northern Ter tradition of the terton Ridzin Godem as practiced in the Dorji-Drak Vajra-rock Monastery southeast of Lhasa.
Bhante’s teacher Chatral Rinpoche is an important practitioner and lineage holder of the Northern Ter.
The Monk: Katog Ridzin Chenpo
Katog Ridzin Chenpo Tsewang Norbu (1698-1755) entered Sikim from the west and founded a monastery at Yuksom as well as Katog Gompa, Doling Gompa, and the Dorji-ling Gompa, which once stood in Darjeeling. These monasteries adopted the Terma tradition of Terchen Dorje Lingpa (1346-1405) as practiced at Katog Monastery.
Katog is one of the oldest [1159] and most important of all Nyingma monasteries, it had 112 branch monasteries in Mongolia, China and Sikim and is entrusted with State rituals. Prophesied by Guru Rinpoche Katog Dorji-den Gompa was founded on the slopes of Yul-ri – the Hidden Mountain in Dergey district in Kham east Tibet.
Terchen Dorje Lingpa started discovering ter at 13 and had revealed so many texts by the age of 20 that they are called the mad treasures (ternyon). Dorje Lingpa was the first Terton to discover Ter by public revelation (tromter) whereby the terma is extracted in public. Ridzin Jatson Nyingpo also discovered much of his Ter in public. Dorje Lingpa spent many years at Bumthang in neighbouring Bhutan.
Significantly, Katog Ridzin Chenpo Tsewang Norbu is the fourth lineage master or guru of the Tharpe Delam. “An important teacher of vast learning, a peacemaker, a preceptor, an author prolific and eclectic, and an advanced yogi and Terton”, Katog Ridzin Tsewang Norbu journeyed three times to Nepal where he restored both Svayambhu and Boudhanath stupas.
Katog Ridzin Chenpo Tsewang Norbu also did much to revive the Zhentong “other voidness” teachings that had earlier been suppressed by the Great Fifth Dalai Lama.
Katog Ridzin Chenpo was the heart incarnation of Namkhai Nyingpo. Namkhai Nyingpo was one of Guru Rinpoche's 25 closest disciples and became one of the most important early Nyingma masters, even writing and concealing termas -including the life stories of Yeshe Tsogyal and Padmasambhava. He was amongst the first five Tibetan’s sent by Padmasambhava and Tri Song Detsen to India in search of tantric texts. He journeyed several times to India, meeting several important teachers, and attained there the non-dual Jnanakaya. As a fruit of his practice, he could ride the rays of the sun and he is usually depicted soaring in the sky with arms outstretched. "Pebbles blessed by this miracle worker yielded fruit and flowers when planted. He could turn rocks into turquoise and leave hand prints in the rocky cliffs as signs of his accomplishments."
Namkhai Nyingpo was a tulku of Maha Laksminkara – the sister of King Indrabhuti and like him one of the 84 Mahasidddha’s. She is a very important teacher in the lineage of the Guhyasamaja and Vajrayogini tantras. Laksminkara is credited with initiating the tradition of visualizing bija-mantras on the power points of ones body and with revealing the sadhana of Jal Lus Phagmo or the severed-head Chinnamunda form of Vajravarahi, together with a system of practice called the Seven Topics of Laksminkara. Laksminkara is also credited with taking the Dharma to Sri Lanka.
Chatral Rinpoche is closely associated with Katog Monastery. Katog Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (Khenpo Ngakchung), 1879-1941, the abbot of Katog and one of the greatest Dzogchen teachers of the 20th century, was Rinpoche’s root Guru.
Predictions of Chatral Rinpoche’s birth included references to Katog. “A supreme emanation of the great scholar Vimalamitra, will appear in the area of Katok with the name Buddha.“ (Sange Dorje = Buddha Vajra)“This present Gyalwa Lodro will in future times, to the south of Katok, have the name Buddha, endowed with wisdom. It is to that person you must give this teaching.” Chatral Rinpoche has founded Pakyong Katok Monastery in Sikkim.
Dudjom Rinpoche’s father was Katog Tulku Norbu Tenzing, a famous tulku from Katog monastery. Previous lives of Dudjom Rinpoche include Dampa Deshek: the founder of Katog Gompa, Trakthung Dudul Dorje: the Terton who revived Katog and second guru of the Tharpe Delam lineage, and Gyeltse Sonam Detsen: a spiritual head of Katog Gompa.
Jamyang Khyentse Choki Lodro also had a connection with the Katog tradition; in fact he was originally known as Katog Khyentse Rinpoche. Rinpoche was born close to Katog monastery. When he was seven, he was taken to Katog and was recognized as the activity-manifestation of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo by Katok Situ Chokyi Gyatso-the nephew of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. Katok Situ, who also performed the hair-cutting ceremony and named him Jamyang Lodro Gyatso, became the most important person in Rinpoche’s spiritual and secular life. Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche took charge of Katog Monastery for about 15 years after the death of his teacher Katog Situ.
The Tip of the Iceberg
Guru Rinpoche, Yeshe Tsogyal, and Mandarava, Dorji Lingpa, Ridzin Godem and Terdak Lingpa, The Mad treasures, The Southern Treasure, and The Northern Ter, Katog, Dorji Drak and Mindroling gompas, Lhatsun Chenpo, Ngadak Sempa Chenpo and Katog Ridzin Chenpo; we are connected to these illustrious teachers and teachings through Bhante, his teachers, and through the Hidden Land of Denjong. Wonderful as they are these connections are just the tip of the iceberg.
Sangharakshita connects us, in a pure and direct way, with so many Dharma traditions one is compelled to see the hand of fate at work. This essay just begins to recollect the blessings that emanate from Padma’s Sikimese Hidden Land, the crucible of our Movement. We have seen how these connections are strengthened by Bhante’s teachers who themselves uphold and transmit those blessing lineages. But Bhante’s teachers also connect us to a much wider tradition, Tibetan, Indian and Chinese that is beyond the scope of this tentative exploration.
