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| Foreword | 9 | (2) | |||
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| Letter | 11 | (2) | |||
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| Preface | 13 | (4) | |||
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| Appendices | 201 | (12) | |||
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207 | (1) | |||
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208 | (5) | |||
| Glossary of Names | 213 | (3) | |||
| Glossary of Terms | 216 | (5) | |||
| Sources of Quotations | 221 |
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Chapter One
My Life and Experiences of
the Teaching
* * *
My Parents and Early Childhood
When the Chinese overran Tibet in 1959, both my parents, who came from different parts of Tibet, fled through Nepal to India, where they met and married. My father was a Nyingmapa "Dunglu Lama" (of a lineage that is transmitted through family) and his name was Shampa Tentar. My mother's name was Yeshe Lhamo; she was a Bonpo and came from an important family in the Bon area of Hor. I am their only son and was born in Amritsar in northwest India. I spent my early years in the Tibetan Treling Kasang kindergarten in Simla in north India. When it closed, all the children were sent to different schools, and I went to a Christian school, which I attended until I was ten years old.
After my father died, my mother remarried and my stepfather was a Bon Lama. He and my mother decided I should not stay on in the Christian school. First I received some education from the Kagyupas, from whom I received the name Jigme Dorje; then my parents sent me to Dolanji in north India, where there is a Tibetan Bon village. Coming to live in a Tibetan community was a completely new experience for me.
Life at Dolanji
After one week I became a novice monk in the monastery. Because my stepfather was an influential Lama, I had two personal tutors. One, Lungkhar Gelong, taught me reading and writing and basic education, while the other taught me "worldly knowledge." He also took care of my clothes, cooked my food, and so forth. He was one of the respected elder monks and his name was Gen Singtruk.
I spent a couple of years with them living in the same house, and at that time I started to read the ritual texts, to write different Tibetan scripts, and to learn the prayers and invocations of the monastic practices. In those days my teacher Lungkhar Gelong used to study logic and philosophy together with a small group of people under Geshe Yungdrung Langyel. He was a "Geshe Lharampa" (the highest level of Geshe) in both the Bon and Gelugpa orders. Later Geshe Yungdrung Langyel was my main master in philosophy when I studied for my geshe degree.
The years with these two teachers were some of the hardest periods in my education, because I never had time to play with friends of my own age. All my time was spent in intensive study, and I was even happy when I could cook and clean the house because it was a break from studying. I saw that other young boys studied in a group, and my situation seemed much harder.
Receiving the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud Teachings
One of the elder monks at Dolanji asked the master Lopon Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche to give the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud teachings of Bon Dzogchen, and, when he agreed, my stepfather went to ask him if I could also receive these teachings. He gave his consent, saying that at the same time I should also start doing the ngondro (preliminary practices), powa , and zhiné meditation.
In order to be admitted to the teachings, before starting we were asked to recount our dreams to the master. These dreams served as signs, and as some practitioners did not dream, which was a bad sign, the master waited until everybody had dreams. According to the various dreams, he advised practices for purification, to remove obstacles, and to have contact with the Guardians in order to get their permission to receive the teachings. In my dream I was a bus ticket inspector, checking tickets that were like white A 's printed at the center of pieces of cloth or paper of five colors like five-colored tiglés . The master said this was an auspicious sign. A group of us, including Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, started to receive the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud teachings. The group consisted of about fifteen monks and one layman, and all were over forty years old. I was the only young boy with all these adults.
After finishing the nine cycles of ngondro , I practiced powa with two other persons. We practiced individually, and I used to do the powa practice by myself in the storeroom of Lopon Tenzin Namdak's house. (The powa involves the transference of the consciousness principle in the form of a tiglé through a hole at the top of the head.) I also did my dark retreat in the same room. Since I was not practicing intensively, it took me about a week to get the result, which consisted of the fontanelle's softening and eventually forming an actual opening. On a couple of mornings, I went to Lopon Sangye Tenzin before the other students arrived and he looked at the top of my head but saw that the fontanelle had not yet softened. My friends teased me, saying my head was like stone, and Lopon Sangye Tenzin suggested I do some group powa practice, with me at the center and the older monks around me. Next morning when Lopon looked, he was at last able to insert a blade of kusha grass, which must stand upright in the hole in the fontanelle to demonstrate that the practice has been successful. The blade of grass was about twelve inches long and remained upright for three days. Sometimes I forgot I had it in my head and felt a painful sensation when I pulled my robe over my head, yanking the blade of grass. Also, if I walked in the street when it was windy, I felt as if an electric current were being channelled into the center of my body through the grass.
After powa I did zhiné meditation on A with Lopon Sangye Tenzin for quite a long time, and through this meditation I received the direct introduction to Dzogchen.
The Dzogchen teachings lasted three years. The only interruptions were for ganapujas and personal retreats. In fact, these were very sacred kanye teachings (teachings about which the Guardians are very sensitive). Often, even though a master may have the Guardians' permission to give a teaching, if there are any samaya (commitment) breakages or if respect for the teachings is lacking, the master will receive indications about this in dreams from the Guardians manifesting their displeasure. When this happened, Lopon Sangye Tenzin would interrupt the teaching for one or two days so we could do the Zhang Zhung Meri ganapuja to purify our intentions.
Lopon Sangye Tenzin used to teach at his big retreat house in Dolanji village. Nearby I could see a group of about five monks studying logic and debating during the intermissions in the monastic rituals. I watched them excitedly. Not being able to participate with them, I was fascinated by all their gestures and movements. When I told them what I was learning about Dzogchen, they couldn't understand me, and when they told me what they were debating, I couldn't understand them. These were the people who became geshes at the same time as I did, just like the teacher who taught me reading and writing.
Lopon Sangye Tenzin was not only very knowledgeable about Dzogchen, he had studied for many years in Drepung Monastery of the Gelugpa order and had also studied under masters of the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. He was very strict and taught in a way that was very direct and clear, making things understandable without needing to use a lot of words. Often, just being in the group made it easy to understand the teachings.
After we finished this cycle of teachings, we discussed what we should do next. By then Lopon Sangye Tenzin was not in good physical health, so we students decided to ask to receive the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud again. As the traditional instructions require, Lopon started again with the biographies of the lineage masters (which instruct by explaining the meaning and results of practice in masters' lives); then, as he couldn't continue, he said we should stop at that point, adding that it was a good sign that we had started and that now we should continue to receive the teachings from Lopon Tenzin Namdak. He told Lopon Tenzin Namdak that he should take over this great responsibility and told him very precisely that he should consider each aspect of the teaching, such as drawing the mandalas, etc., as equally important. Lopon Sangye Tenzin died a few months later, in 1977.
Life with Lopon Tenzin Namdak
I remember seeing Lopon Tenzin Namdak when he first arrived from Delhi. I went to greet him with a number of people, and I immediately felt a close connection with him. After some time he called me and told me that since one of his close disciples, Sherab Tsultrim, was ill and needed help, I should come and stay in his house to help him. Then one morning Lopon Tenzin Namdak called me and told me about a dream he had had. In the form of a black man, the deity Midu Gyampa Trangpo had come into his room, opened a partition curtain and, pointing at me, had told him, "You should take care of this young boy; he will be of future benefit." Lopon said this was an important dream and added that, as this deity was connected with Walse Ngampa, one of the five main Bon tantric deities, and as I was connected with these two deities, I should do the practices of these deities more assiduously.
When I lived in his house, Lopon Tenzin Namdak looked after me like a son; we slept in the same room, he cooked for me, and even sewed my clothes. At first I was the only person living there, then an old monk called Abo Tashi Tsering came to live with us and cook for us; eventually three other young boys came to live with us, and Lopon often jokingly referred to us as his "four sons without a mother." One of these boys was a fellow student at the Dialectic School, and we became close friends. He is Geshe Nyima Wangyal, who accompanied Lopon to the West in 1991.
When I first went to live with Tenzin Namdak he was already a lopon . He went to Lopon Sangye Tenzin's teachings because he wanted to refresh and improve his understanding of Dzogchen. We used to go together to receive the teachings and initiations. While I received the formal Dzogchen teachings of the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud from my first (in time) master, Lopon Sangye Tenzin, most of my personal growth came about in the period I spent with my second master, Lopon Tenzin Namdak.
From my early adolescence until I was a young man, my whole life took place in the presence of the Lopon. He was my father, mother, friend, teacher, and caretaker. It was an extraordinary and beautiful way to grow up, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Apart from formal class sessions, every moment of being with him was Teaching.
It was while I was living with Lopon Tenzin Namdak that I met Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, when he came to receive the initiation of Zhang Zhung Meri from the Lopon while travelling in India with a group of Italians who had come to make a film about Tibetan medicine. The initiation of this deity is necessary in order to study and practice the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud teachings. I was attracted by Norbu Rinpoche's general openness, his efforts to present the practice of Dzogchen in the West, and particularly his freedom from cultural bias against the Bon religion.
The Dialectics School
Lopon Sangye Tenzin had asked that after his death the money he left be spent to found a dialectics school leading to a geshe degree (equivalent to a Ph.D. in philosophy and metaphysical studies from a Western University). As soon as the school was founded, Lopon Tenzin Namdak was the first master to teach there, together with Lharampa Geshe Yungdrung Langyel, who taught philosophy and logic. I was among the first students, twelve in number, and we followed a very precise program of study of dialectics, philosophy, logic, poetry (I won top marks in a poetry competition), grammar, Tibetan astrology, and medicine. There was also a course in debating, which fascinated me very much, so much so that I became very skilled in debate.
In this school I was elected president among the six student representatives (there were also a vice-president, a secretary, vice-secretary, treasurer, and a gekhod , who was responsible for discipline). We met every ten days and held general meetings with the other students once a month. We became responsible for the administration of the school, planning courses and timetables; the monastery was responsible for providing two meals and tea every day, while the masters were responsible for the teaching. As president, I brought in some innovations, such as a course in creative writing and debates between classes.
The schedule at the dialectics school was very intense. We never had a fixed day off; we always had to attend six days in a row of classes and six evenings of debates; on the sixth night there was debating until three o'clock in the morning. This was followed by a holiday; but if a day of special practice interrupted the six days, then we lost the day of holiday. Every day we attended classes for eleven hours, with very short breaks. In the morning, Lopon Tenzin Namdak would teach from eight until twelve, and after lunch he would dedicate half an hour to giving transmissions from the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud , so that in nine years he was able to complete the transmission of the entire teachings. In the afternoon, he taught until around four or five, when he would retire to his room to meditate in the dark while we continued with our evening debating session. As soon as I finished, I would run home and switch on the light in his room, and he would immediately cover his eyes with his arms. Then he would teach me and Abo Tashi Tsering, or we three would practice together, or sometimes simply sit and talk.
Sometimes after school I would go to visit my mother, who lived nearby in Dolanji. To get there, I had to walk along a road that was supposedly haunted by demons. Lopon Tenzin Namdak would stand outside his house and talk to me continuously as I walked down the road, so I would not be afraid. When I could no longer hear his voice, I would run the rest of the way down to my mother's house in the village. As I did not sleep at her house, when I left, my mother would talk to me as I walked up the hill. As soon as I could no longer hear her voice, I would run the rest of the way back to Lopon's house.
In the morning Lopon would wake me up early (although sometimes I woke up before him) to repeat the texts I had memorized the previous evening and to write poems.
After a few years, the number of students at the dialectics school increased to over sixty and two teachers were no longer sufficient, so I started to teach. One of my first students was the current temporary Lopon at Dolanji, Yangal Tsewang, who is descended from a famous family of jalupas .
My Dark Retreat
Before he died Lopon Sangye Tenzin did something quite special. One day he called me and told me he had done some practice and written the names of some deities on pieces of paper and thrown them onto his altar He asked me to pick up one of the pieces of paper; the name on the paper was the deity I was to practice. The deity I chose was Sherab Gyammo, a kind of Tara who is especially effective for developing the intellectual faculties. He also told me to do a dark retreat. I was very happy. Two years later, I asked for permission from Lopon Tenzin Namdak and my mother to do a dark retreat. They agreed, although my mother said she was worried because it was very unusual for such a young person to do a dark retreat. Some people in the monastery, who were probably envious, even said that I would probably go mad. Anyway, I arranged to do it in Lopon Tenzin Namdak's storeroom, which had been converted into a toilet for visiting guests. It was very small, around two by four meters, with cement walls, so the air circulation was very bad. My mother brought me food three times every day. During the dark retreat, I never spoke to her. Lopon and my mother became worried because I was not eating much at lunch or dinner during the retreat, perhaps because of the bad air, and thought that perhaps I should come out of the retreat early, but I completed the full forty-nine days.
Every day Lopon would come and sit outside the retreat hut and talk with me for half an hour. It was very important for me to be close to the master during this time. I could not remember all the teachings in advance, and as I had to change practices and visualizations every week, he would instruct me on these as appropriate. My mind was very void, empty, and without concepts during the times of practice; my experience was that it was good not to receive external information such as news. News creates a disturbance, giving rise to whole successions of thoughts that distract the mind from the practice. It was better to concentrate entirely on remaining present and developing clarity of mind. It was also very pleasant to think about the constructive way in which I was passing my time.
My dark retreat was very successful and brought about a great change in my personality. During the first few days it was not easy for me as a young boy with a lot of dynamic energy to stay confined and still in such a small, dark room. The first day I slept quite a lot; but already the second day was much better, and every day there was an improvement in my experience of the practice and my capacity to remain in the dark. It was a great experience in terms of being in contact with myself. Losing touch with influential external stimuli, such as eye sense-consciousness objects, became a way of totally entering into myself. I had heard stories and jokes about the problems people encountered while doing dark retreat, in which practitioners had visions they were sure were real, but I understood the way these could arise. In everyday life external appearances deflect us from our thoughts, but in the dark retreat there are no diversions of this kind, so that it becomes much easier to be disturbed, even to the point of madness, by our own mind-created visions. In the dark retreat, there is a situation of "sensory deprivation," so that when thoughts or visions arise in the absence of external reality-testing devices, we take them to be true and follow them, basing entire chains of thoughts on them. In this case it is very easy to become "submerged" in our own mind-created fantasies, entirely convinced of their "reality."
After the first week, my subjective sensation of time changed, so that seven days felt like two. In this way the last six weeks of the forty-nine day retreat felt like twelve days. Starting from the second week, I started to have many visions of rays of light, flashes of tiglés , rainbows, and different symbols. After the second week, the first forms resembling concrete reality started to appear.
The first of these visions came during the second morning session of the second week. While I was in the state of contemplation, I saw the huge, bodiless head of Abo Tashi Tsering before me in space. The head was enormous. The first few seconds I was afraid, and then I resumed my practice. The head remained in front of me for over half an hour; the vision was as clear as that of normal everyday external reality, and at times even clearer.
Gradually I had more experiences. For example, I saw a man with his hair in a topknot like a mahasiddha . The feeling was very strong and positive and empowering. Perhaps the most impressive vision was one that was accompanied by a lot of movement. Not all visions have movement; some are like watching a film; in some, you can find yourself inside the vision; in some, the vision is above you in space, or at the same level, or below. In this case I found myself in a big valley with hills covered with red flowers on both sides. The wind was blowing through beautiful trees, and there was a long, winding path along which five people were walking towards me. At the start they were so far away I could not distinguish their features, but after half an hour they had come so close I recognized them as Indians. Two were wearing Sikh turbans. They came up to me and then turned around and walked back, without saying anything.
Another time, I saw a long-lasting vision of a nude woman with long hair sitting straight ahead of me but turned away so that I couldn't see her face. When I saw these visions, they were not something appearing externally; they were the manifestations of my own mind in the form of light. Even when I closed my eyes I saw the visions in the same way but somehow sensed they were in different directions and locations.
Sometimes the visions changed from one form to another; for example, one vision of a plate of food with potatoes, tomatoes, and beans appeared and then transformed into a beautiful river with fish and stones. I could see fish swimming around in the limpid water very clearly. These were not the only visions I had but were simply the most remarkable ones.
Almost at the end of my retreat, my clarity increased greatly, so that I seemed to see what was going on outside the retreat hut. Once, with my mind's eye, I was aware of my mother bringing me food, "seeing" every step she took coming towards the house until she reached the door and knocked to tell me she had arrived. At the same time, I heard a knock on the door as my "real" mother told me she had come with my meal, so that the movements of my mother in my vision and the movements of my real mother had been synchronous.
There was no sound accompanying any of these visions, nor did I have any idea of trying to talk with the visions. Only after finishing the retreat did my intellectual mind start to think it would have been good to talk to them.
Through the retreat I purified many things in myself and developed my practice and clarity. One of my dreams after the retreat, which Lopon said was a sign of having achieved purification, was that I cut a vein in my left ankle with a knife and insects and blood came out. After my retreat, I became so calm and quiet that my mother said that all my sisters should do a dark retreat!
My Experiences in the West
Since my youth I have always felt a strong attraction for Western scientific methodology and the academic approach to religious studies, and after completing my studies in India, when I obtained my geshe degree, I wanted to continue my studies in the West. In Dolanji I met a number of Western scholars who were studying Bon, such as Professor Snellgrove, Professor Kvaerne, and Professor Blondeau. Per Kvaerne invited me to Norway to do a Ph.D. on the Bon Tantric deities at Oslo University, and Anton Geels, Professor of Psychology of Religion, invited me to Lund University in Sweden to work on research with his wife, who was translating the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud . At the same time Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche invited me to Merigar, the center of the Dzogchen Community in Italy. I waited two months to get an Italian visa and then finally with great difficulty managed to go to Italy. This was in January 1988. It was my second visit to Europe; I had already visited France, Belgium, and Germany in 1983 with the first tour of Bonpo Sacred Masked Dancers as group leader and performer.
When I arrived in Italy, I already had a number of Italian friends among the people who had visited Dolanji over the years. I stayed with Andrea dell'Angelo and Giacomella Orofino in Rome, and, since my residence permit was very short, after one week I went to extend it. At the same time I went with Enrico dell'Angelo to the IsMEO Institute in Rome where I was immediately offered a job, and since then I have worked there in the Library. Then I went up to Merigar: this was the first spiritual community I visited in the West.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Copyright © 2000 by Tenzin Wangyal. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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