The following is a brief history of Kunzang Palyul Choling:
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Ahkön Norbu Lhamo
The following is respectfully quoted from “Reborn in the West” by Vicki Mackenzie:
After Penor Rinpoche had left, the group dwelt on all that had happened and what he had said. Dutifully they began looking for a property, and sure enough, they found a beautiful place which would suit their purposes perfectly. It had white pillars all along the front. But the price was astronomical. Scraping together whatever money they could, and taking out a huge mortgage (which now necessitates many ingenious fund-raising schemes), they bought what is now KPC and established what over five years later has become the largest ordained Tibetan Buddhist community in the USA. Every Sunday over 120 people came here from the surrounding area to hear Jetsunma’s teachings.
At this stage Jetsunma still didn’t know precisely who she was. That was still to come.
A year after Penor Rinpoche’s visit Jetsunma felt the urge to see again the small, round man who had come into her life and touched her so deeply. She decided to go to India, to his monastery in Bylakuppe in Karnataka state. For the girl from Brooklyn who had never set foot outside the USA, landing in Bombay with its chaos, colour and poverty was merely a prelude for the greater revelation that was to follow.
Facing Penor Rinpoche on his own territory, she said she wanted to take the bodhisattva vows. This is the ceremony in which you formally promise to dedicate your life to the well-being of others. She asked if he would give her a spiritual name, as was the custom at such an occasion.
‘When the time is right,’ replied Penor Rinpoche.
‘When will the time be right?’ pushed Jetsunma, with typical Western impatience.
‘I’ll give it to you when the right day comes,’ continued Penor Rinpoche.
‘When is the right day going to come?’ persisted Jetsunma, not giving up.
‘When I say so,’ retorted Penor Rinpoche firmly.
Jetsunma gave up.
One day, when the moon was in a particular place in the heavens, Penor Rinpoche called her to him and announced: ‘Now I am ready to give you your name.’
He then wrote out her spiritual name on a piece of paper, rolled it up into a scroll, put his personal seal on it, then handed it to her with the white katag (scarf) of respect wrapped around it. ‘That’s your name–Ahkön Norbu Lhamo,’ he said.
There was no apocalyptic vision, not instant flashback to another time, another place, another body. There wasn’t even shock or surprise. Just a sense of intense familiarity.
‘I experienced serious dejà vu,’ was how Jetsunma recalls the occasion. ‘I felt a strong connection to that name. I asked him to say it again. It was like milk to my ears.’
Through his translator he then uttered the monumental words: ‘I now recognize you as the sister of Kunzang Sherab. Her name was Ahkön Lhamo. In that life she and Kunzang Sherab co-founded the Palyul tradition. I recognize you as her incarnation.’
And in those few simple sentences Penor Rinpoche made sense of the extraordinary life that Jetsunma had teched out for herself and the otherwise inexplicable abilities she possessed. This, at last, was the official explanation of how a woman with no Buddhist training whatsoever, no books on Tibetan Buddhism, no teacher, no outward example to follow, had been driven to enter years of strict meditation by herself and to emerge with not only profound wisdom but also the wish and the ability to help others fulfill their spiritual potential.
Peerless Guru: His Holiness Penor Rinpoche
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Love Now, Dzogchen Later”
At the same time I first got to know His Holiness and we began to actually have conversations, I was talking a great deal to Gyaltrul Rinpoche, because I met him soon after that visit. But I remember first learning about Dzogchen, not from my teachers, but from other students, which was kind of horrible. I kept hearing the term. I questioned; I tried to find out what it was. I tried to read some books. I asked my teachers, and His Holiness particularly said, “Soon I’ll give you plenty of explanation so you will understand.” And I questioned. Actually I didn’t question His Holiness, but I questioned Gyaltrul Rinpoche, “ Why is it then that some people are talking about Dzogchen, but His Holiness seems to be holding back on Dzogchen.” And at that time Gyaltrul Rinpoche told me, “Well, you should ask him directly; but from the conversations I’ve had with him, Americans are not ready for Dzogchen. He says that they are, you know, too prideful, too arrogant. They don’t really understand the benefit. It would be like throwing something precious on the ground where it can’t be used, for instance, like a seed. You would want to throw it into fertile ground or put it into fertile ground. You wouldn’t want to put it on, you know, a highway where it’s never going to sprout.”
So that was the explanation I got, and I was satisfied with that. But then later on I kept seeing that more and more, particularly in Dudjom Rinpoche’s lineage, they were always talking about Dzogchen this and Dzogchen that. And if you didn’t know Dzogchen, they thought you were a little silly. You know, they didn’t think you were quite there. So I persisted in trying to find out. And His Holiness reiterated again and again, “You have to get the preliminaries. You have to build a foundation. Americans are not ready.” For quite a number of years, even though His Holiness returned here many times, he did not want to give out Dzogchen. And it was like that until he set up the summer program in New York where you could go Shedra style—step by step, stage by stage, from one level to the other. When he did that, he kind of reversed his direction in a sense, because he was real hesitant to give Dzogchen and really held back for a long time. And then suddenly he was offering it; and I remember thinking, ‘Well, students will have to go stage by stage no matter what.’ You know, they’ll have to do like in India where if a student wants to go to level 3, he has to graduate from level 2. That sort of thing.
And then I heard that His Holiness had totally opened it up where he left it to the student in conference with the teacher there to decide what practice, to say what practice they had accomplished and what they had done. And if you receive Year 2 the year before, you could always go on to Year 3 unless you were having terrible obstacles. You could always go on to Year 3, and then the next. It’s kind of like the “No child left behind.” No Dharma student left behind here. I remember at that time being completely blown away by that. I was so completely blown away because it was such a reversal for him, such a change. And I tried to seek the reason for that. His Holiness had switched his tone so thoroughly. He was saying, “Not much time left.” And, of course, that scared me. I thought he meant for him. “No, it’s not like that,” he said. “No, not much time left for sentient beings.”
And so, that was his decision. He is peerless. There is no lama like him. There is no lama that can top him in any way. He is extraordinary. He is a living Buddha. I mean he is extremely orthodox and yet extremely flexible, an unbelievable combination, because with orthodoxy comes dogma and rigidity. He is fully qualified and fully able to be the head of his lineage and to steer the course of this great ship, the Buddhadharma. Yet, he is completely flexible.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved
The Importance of Samaya
The following is respectfully quoted from “Perfect Conduct: Ascertaining the Three Vows” by Dudjom Rinpoche:
6.b.1(e.4) Restoring through the general cleansing of three yogas:
As is taught in the Hasti-upapraveśya-tantra, the general cleansing yoga of the nest of remorse is the “Stirring the Depths.” By confessing in this way, there is nothing that cannot be purified. Practice this accordingly.
According to the tantra called Hasti-upapraveśya and the Vimaladeśanā contained within it, this is the sole text for practitioners of all three yogas who, having engaged on the path and then allowed their samaya to deteriorate, wish to confess and perfectly restore it. The king of all confessions is Narakakhadāpravāsaprasphotana (Stirring the Depths of Vajra Hell). Here, it is clearly taught that by offering the external gathering of substances, the internal gathering of own’s own aggregates, and the secret gathering of the awakened mind of bodhicitta on the fifteenth, thirtieth, or eighth day of the lunar month, all deteriorations will be fully purified. If that is not possible, but one still makes prostrations and recalls the deity in order to confess, purification will occur. It is important to persevere in this practice as much as possible.
As is said in this text, “To all the enlightened peaceful and wrathful deities and to their mandalas, I pay homage. I pray that I may cleanse all of my broken commitments without exception. There is no doubt that the five limitless non-virtues can be cleansed and that even the lower realms can be emptied from their depths and that beings will be led to the well-known pure realm of the enlightened beings of pure awareness. Since Vajrasattva is the essential nature of secret mantra and cleanses all of our karmic obscurations and obscurations caused by broken commitments, in order to empty the realms of cyclic existence, recite the mantra.”
Accordingly, if one just hears the names of the deities in this mandala, all deteriorations of one’s root and branch words of honor can be repaired. Signs of accomplishing the purification through confession include indications in the dream state; indications from the lama or deity; and dreams of bathing, putting on white clothing, ascending to the peak of a mountain, and the arising of the sun and moon and so forth. Until such signs arise, one should continue to make confession and apply the four remedial powers.
6.b.2 The faults of failing to restore broken words of honor:
If one fails to make confession in this life, extremely unpleasant consequences will ensue. In the next life, one will be born in the vajra hell of irreversible torment and suffering.
If mantra words of honor are left unconfessed, this becomes a cause for rebirth in what is called “vajra hell.” There is no place of greater suffering. As it says in the Guhyagarbha, “If the root or branch of words of honor deteriorate, the result is that falls to the lower realm.”
In the Prakativavictra-tantra, it states: “If a root word of honor deteriorates and no effort is made to restore it, one will fall to the vajra hell. If all the suffering of the ordinary hells were to be combined, that suffering would not equal one fraction of one hundred-thousandth of the suffering experienced in vajra hell.”
It can thus be understood that even an association with an individual who has accrued this degree of negativity can cause one’s own words of honor to deteriorate. Strong adverse effects may occur for those who even come into contact with such an individual. As it says in the Sarvasamudita, “Just as spoiled milk will taint are pure milk with which it mingles, a singe mantra practitioner who has allowed his words of honor to deteriorate can spoils the words of honor of everyone with whom he comes into contact.” Even if one precedes the breaking of samaya by discussing this with others as a means to communicate one’s intention, this too must be immediately confessed. As it says in the Mahānyūha, “If one harms lama, his or her retinue, or the vajra brothers and sisters by casually speaking negatively or by just a subtle sign of dissent, even if only in the dream state, this must be confessed and cleared from the mind. Actual and inadvertent neglect of samaya that remains unconfessed will cause one to fall headfirst into the hells.”
According to these teachings, it is clear that the loss of any root or branch word of honor is a cause for rebirth in vajra hell. However, there are differences in the degree and duration of the suffering experienced, which vary according to the severity of the downfall.
7. The benefits of guarding the words of honor:
With no deterioration, the maximum will be sixteen consecutive rebirths; the minimum will be in this life, at death, or in the intermediate period. Other benefits include accomplishment of the eight common powers; and obtainment of the seven features of a divine embrace. For this purpose, spontaneously accomplish the twofold purpose of self and others.
The words of honor are the source of all noble qualities and are the very support for the stability and presence of such qualities. As it says in the Samānya-sūtra, “Just as the planting of a seed is dependent upon the earth in order for the result to mature, the life essence of the Dharma remains within the words of honor, which fully mature into the unsurpassed state of awakening as the precious life-essence of virtue.”
Temporary benefits include the accomplishment of all that one aspires to obtain; an appearance that is pleasing to all; becoming an object of the veneration of others, including the most powerful worldly gods; and being blessed by the buddhas, bodhisattvas, dākas, dākinis, and all objects of refuge, who guard one like their own child. Having understood the importance of pure samaya by entering the path of all the buddhas, one will quickly ascend the stages of vidyādharahood to realize enlightenment.
If in one’s immediate life one is unable to persevere in the accomplishment of the two stages, yet never allows the words of honor to become defiled, then after taking sixteen successive rebirths enlightenment will be realized. This is the longest possible period of time it will take just through the force and purity of the words of honor alone. After at least seven rebirths, one will meet with the profound path of the two stages and gradually be liberated. The speediest result occurs if one maintains pure words of honor coupled with diligence in the two stages of practice, resulting in the realization of nondual vidyādharahood in that very life. Those of average sensibility will realize the illustrative clear light, which will become the actualization of absolute clear light at the time of their death, and the obtainment of nondual kāya that arises from training. If absolute clear light itself is realized, then at death the nondual kāya (arising from no-training) will be obtained. Those of common sensibility, due to their practice, faith in the lama, and strong aspiration for the pure realms, will be liberated in the bardo (antarābhava) [intermediate state] by arriving in the natural nirmānakāya pure realm.
These are not the only noble qualities that arise from pure samaya. In addition, both extraordinary and mundane spiritual attainments are obtained. The eight mundane spiritual attainments include the power to make an eye medicine, which, when applied, allows one to see without impediment or physical obstruction; speed walking; the sword accomplishment; seeing underground; making power pills; flying in space; disappearing; and extracting the essence. These eight powers are called mundane because they are still of this world and can also be accomplished by non-Buddhists. They qualify as accomplishments belonging to the paths that are both worldly and transcendental. According to Vajrayāna, these qualities are developed during the two yogic states and are thus termed common because they are not the ultimate result. In addition, the eight sovereign qualities are achieved.
Understanding Duality
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Art of Dispelling Anger”
So what happens in the awakening? Well, we’ve worked with our poisons sufficiently. We have some inner knowledge and honesty. We’ve worked some method and now we’re accomplishing view. That’s where we really start to get cooking is where we practice the view. The view is—I love this part—every woman you see is a goddess and I’m the queen. We see that all beings are Buddha. We see that the females, whether they look like goddesses or act like goddesses, are goddesses in their nature. They are Tara. They are, as are you, the primordial pristine state. We look at men, and rather than list their faults, which most of us do, we look at them and think, ‘This is Buddha. When you think of your husband, your child, your friend, your enemy and even President Bush, you think, ‘Yeah, this is Buddha, in his nature.’ And when we look around and we see that the appearance in relative view doesn’t look like Buddha, we shouldn’t take that as proof that the teaching is wrong and that we have a good excuse to hate. We should take that as a reasonable display of the fact that we are lost in samsara. Here we are in our nature, the very Lord Buddha. When we awaken, we are Buddha. And yet we are in prisons; we are in hell realms; we are in abusive situations; we are hungry; we are angry; we are at war; we suffer. And yet we are the very Buddha we aspire to follow.
In Buddhism we are taught there are the ground, the path, and the fruit. All three must be present in order for liberation to be possible. And this is one way in which we understand our natures. The ground is the basis of accomplishment. If you did not arise as phenomena from the fundamental primordial self-luminous view, if you did not arise from that, if you were not the very bodhicitta in its display form, if the Buddha seed did not rest within you, if it were not so that each and every cell of your body is replete with the entire mandala of peaceful and wrathful deities, if that were not true, there would be no basis for accomplishment. But in our nature, we are Buddha. That is the basis.
And then there is the path. The path is as important as the basis, because while we have the Buddha seed, we may not have method or a way in which to awaken to that or to bring it forth. A fly is Buddha. He also arises in the display of duality in the samsaric world; and yet his nature is Buddha. His nature is the very same, no different. We each of us stand in the presence of our root teacher, whether it’s in our private practice or whether it’s here at the temple, and we could be a fly. But the difference between you and the fly is the fly has no method. The fly cannot practice method. The thing he is doing is not prostrations. He’s wiping his thighs or something. So we have to apply method. That’s what the Buddha’s teaching is all about. It’s all about different methods at different stages for different people.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo All rights reserved
Relative Bodhicitta: HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
The following is respectfully quoted from “Enlightened Courage” by His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche:
If I do not give away
My happiness for others’ pain,
Buddhahood will never be attained.
And even in samsara, joy will fly from me.
Enlightenment will be ours when we are able to care for others as much as we now care for ourselves, and ignore ourselves to the same extent we now ignore others. Even if we had to remain in samsara, we should be free from sorrow. For as I have said, when the great Bodhisattvas gave away their heads and limbs, they felt no sadness at the loss of them.
Once, in one of his previous lifetimes, the Buddha was a universal monarch whose custom it was to give away his wealth without regret. He refused nothing to those who came to beg from him, and his fame spread far and wide. One day, a wicked brahmin beggar came before the king and addressed him, saying, “Great king, I am ugly to look upon, while you are very handsome; please give me your head.” And the king agreed. Now his queens and ministers had been afraid that he might do this, and making hundreds of heads out of gold, silver, and precious stones, they offered them to the beggar.
“Take these heads,” they pleaded. “Do not ask the king for his.”
“Heads made of jewels are of no use to me,” the beggar replied. “I want a human head.” And he refused to take them.
Eventually they could no longer deter him from seeing the king.
The king said to him, “I have sons and daughters, queens, and a kingdom, but no attachment do I have for any of them. I will give you my head at the foot of the tsambaka tree in the garden. If I can give you my head today, I shall have completed the Bodhisattva act of giving my head for the thousandth time.”
And so, at the foot of the tree, the king took off his clothes, tied his hair to a branch, and cut off his head. At that moment, darkness covered the earth, and from the sky came the sound of the gods weeping and lamenting so loudly that even human beings could hear them. The queens, princes, and ministers all fell speechless to the ground. Then Indra, the lord of the gods, appeared and said, “O king, you are a Bodhisattva and have even given away your head, but here I have the life restoring ambrosia of the gods. Let me anoint you with it and bring you back to life.”
Now, the king was indeed a Bodhisattva, and even though his head had been cut off and sent away, his mind was still present, and he replied that he had no need of Indra’s life-restoring ambrosia, for he could replace his head simply by the force of his own prayers.
Indra begged him to do so, and the king said: “If in all those thousand acts of giving my head away beneath the tsambaka tree there was nothing but the aim of benefiting others, unstained by any trace of self seeking–if I was without resentment or regret, then may my head be once again restored. But if regrets there were, or evil thoughts, or intentions not purely for the sake of others, then may my head remain cut off.” No sooner had the king said this than there appeared on his shoulders a new head identical to the first, which had been taken away by the brahmin. Then all the queens, princes, and ministers rejoiced and administered the kingdom in accordance with the Dharma.
For those who can practice generosity like this, there is no suffering at all. Enlightened teachers, Bodhisattvas, come into the world to accomplish the welfare of beings, and even when they are ignored by people in the grip of desire, anger, and ignorance, who stir up obstacles and difficulties, the thought of giving up never occurs to them and they are totally without anger or resentment. As it is said:
To free yourself from harm
And others from their sufferings,
Give away yourself for others;
Guard others as you would protect yourself.
Confession: His Holiness Penor Rinpoche
The following is adapted from an oral commentary given by His Holiness in conjunction with a ceremony wherein he bestowed the bodhisattva vow upon a gathering of disciples at Namdroling in Bozeman, Montana, November 1999:
The next branch involves [making] confession. From beginningless time, throughout countless life-times, we amassed negative karma and non virtue before we encountered the dharma. As followers of the teachings in this lifetime, we still engage in non-virtue and accumulate negativity. Consider all that negativity to be like [the result of] having ingested poison. Knowing that as poison that will certainly end your life unless you apply an antidote to neutralize it, you immediately apply the antidote. That is exactly how you should feel about the nonvirtue accumulated in the past and present.
With tremendous remorse, confess your accumulation of non virtue and vow that from this time onward, even at the cost of your life, you will no longer repeat the same pattern of negativity. Then focus on the objects of refuge in the space in the front, the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions. Supplicate, knowing that in your omniscience they will always look upon you and bless and purify you. Pray to them with heartfelt faith and devotion, and with genuine remorse for your accumulation of negativity, feel confident that all negativity is completely purified. Confession is the antidote for anger. In anger, people commit many grave errors, such as even the taking of others’ lives.
Holding Back the Darkness
The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Reclaiming Our Merit”
This is a really difficult time, not only for the Sangha, but it’s really a direct reflection of what we’re seeing on our planet right now. There is corruption in business and government like I’ve never seen before. Many of us have become professional samaya breakers, meaning that we have not kept our commitments and, in many cases, have dropped our robes, or whatever. And because we are lost in samsara, we simply don’t understand cause and effect. Not only are they connected, but they arise interdependently. Time and space is our delusion. Cause and effect arise at the same instant.
So exacting is cause and effect. Yet we have not really milked the essence out of that understanding so that we can create better lives for ourselves, or practice for ourselves and make a deeper commitment for ourselves. We simply have not utilized what we have received. And here in this time, you don’t know where to look, left or right. What is pure, what is sacred, what is wholesome? All of it seems to be confused and dark; and right now our hearts are heavy. We were so innocent when we were younger, and some of you that are still young are still innocent, so innocent thinking that can never happen to us. So learn.
In this time of debilitating darkness and confusion, we have to strengthen ourselves. I’ve had students propose the question to me: What is the benefit of the robes? I look around at you and I say to myself, ‘Aren’t you terrified to be without them?’ Well you should be, because these robes now are like a shield of virtue. You are what we have. The power of the Buddha’s blessing is such and the robes are so potent that a quorum is considered four ordained monks and nuns with yellow robes. That quorum has the power and the stamp of the Buddha’s blessing. We can get four other people together and you won’t have the same conditions. And even knowing that, we barely use it. It’s so powerful. It’s such refuge in these dark times. And yet we don’t call up three of our friends and say, ‘Hey, you know, let’s get together and pray for the world. Or maybe we should get together and pray for our Sangha.’
You have, on your bodies, the most excellent and extraordinary tool one can have in this time other than realization and giving rise to the bodhicitta. If you think somehow that compassion and realization and awakening are separate, you are fooling yourself because they are the same essence, the same taste.
We are approaching this really dark time, where lamas are sick, things are happening to people that we know and love; monks and nuns that we had great hope for, great hope for, have gone. And so what are we left with? We are left with this. How many lifetimes do you think it took you to earn wearing these robes? And for those of you who are in the halfway step, wearing your red and white robes, I appreciate that, too. The genyen population and the genyen Sangha, myself included, having been genyen for many lifetimes, many lifetimes, this is a support. But the real princes and queens of our Sangha, our Dharma, this is the ordained community. The more often you get together with your yellow robes and make prayers together with depth and honesty and true compassion; and seeing what is happening in this world, give rise to that compassion in a certain way, the power that you wield is phenomenal. But we’re kind of like this: ‘Oh, I can’t do it. Oy, oy, oy.’ We suddenly all became Jewish. Oy, oy, oy. I’m half Jewish. I can say it.
But that’s how we are. We got into kind of crying, kind of whining like babies. We have so much power if we will only utilize it with faith. The reason I wanted to talk about that is because it’s important that you guys who are ordained have real confidence in the fact that you are wearing the Buddha’s robes. You have to think, ‘I have this jewel. I have this nourishment that I can pass on and give to others.’ I want you to be cognizant of the power of the commitment that you keep. And you must keep it squarely and purely in order for it to provide for you the protection and nourishment that you need. So as far as I am concerned, the ordained community are the nectar of what we can do here. I would love to see you all take more initiative in practicing together and understanding that four is a quorum and that you can change things.
And even beyond that, I want to talk about not only the corruption of this time and the darkness of this time, but I’d like to say that this time has been predicted and taught about and we knew it was coming and nobody believed. This is the time when even the most profound Dzogchen teachings are passed out like candy; and I’m afraid it’s often passed out like seeds thrown onto cement. And why is that the case? Well, lamas predicted when the conditions might be right to give Dzogchen teachings, so you either get them or you don’t. You get them based on the capacity and generosity and accumulated virtue of the lama, or you don’t get them.
And the reason why this is happening is because we haven’t bothered to create the foundation upon which these kinds of practices, wisdoms and awarenesses are built. And if they are practiced with no foundation, there is no result. You are at the circus. You are seeing phenomena in your head. And once phenomena is perceived, you’re off. You’re lost without a compass.
His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: Revealed Treasures
The following is respectfully quoted from “Journey to Enlightenment” by His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche:
Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö asked Khyentse Rinpoche to go to Amdo province and give the Treasury of Rediscovered Teachings. Here is Rinpoche’s wife’s account of the journey:
Rinpoche traveled to Rekong, in Amdo, near Lake Kokonor. One very cold day, some herdsmen invited Rinpoche to their tent and offered them and his party a large quantity of butter, dried meat, and sweet cheese for the journey. Rinpoche usually warned one of his attendants to look after the horses carefully. When the time came to leave, the attendant rushed in exclaiming that the horses had disappeared; he had left them for a while and they must have been stolen. Fortunately, the herdsmen had many yaks and gave some to Rinpoche, who reached Rekong after a month’s journey.
In Rekong, Rinpoche gave the empowerments of the Treasury of Rediscovered Teachings over four months to 1,900 yogis. When Rinpoche’s hosts heard from his monks about the theft of his horses, they were quite upset; but Rinpoche told them that he had arrived safely and so it was now of no concern. However, some of the Rekong yogis, known for their magic power, said they could not just leave the matter like that. Two weeks after Rinpoche started teaching, the robbers arrived with all the stolen horses and begged Rinpoche to take them back. Rinpoche replied that he no longer needed the horses and they could keep them, but the robbers refused to listen. After the theft of the horses, they said, everything had gone wrong for them. When they milked their cows, they got not milk but blood. One boy had been attacked by vultures–something quite unheard of–and many of the clan had fallen ill. Finally, they just left the horses near the monastery and rode away.
Rinpoche stayed at Rekong monastery for a year, and gave teachings at a beautiful hilltop site where the famous nineteenth-century yogi Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol had lived. There was a large rock, with a tree behind it, on which Shabkar use to sit and sing his famous spiritual songs. The local people offered this seat to Rinpoche, and when he improvised songs there, rainbows appeared and snowflakes fell gently, like flowers. Everyone said that he must be a reincarnation of Shabkar.
Rinpoche had an attendant, a ritual master called Achog, whom he often had to reprimand. One night Achog ran away, leaving a piece of cloth as an offering and a note saying that he felt unable to serve Rinpoche properly and had therefore decided to leave. After walking for a month, he reached a herdsmen’s camp in Golok, and in one of the black yak-hair tents a mother and daughter asked him to perform some ceremonies in exchange for food and lodging. It was freezing cold and he had nowhere else to go, so he agreed. By then he had fallen quite ill.
One day the mother called out to Achog that a stranger, a tall lama on a big horse, was approaching the tent. Achog looked through the door and saw Khyentse Rinpoche with an attendant riding straight up to the tent. Rinpoche dismounted, came in, and asked: “Achog, how are you?” Achog was so astounded that he began to cry. Rinpoche told him there was no need to cry and that he had better come back with them. The old mother offered Rinpoche tea, milk, and curd. In answer to Achog’s questions, Rinpoche’s attendant said that no one had told them where to find him; nor had they met anyone in the snow-covered landscape to give them directions to the camp. Rinpoche said it was time to go, and all three came back home together. In those days, people use to say Rinpoche had incredible clairvoyance.
On their travels they stopped at many pilgrimage sites and monasteries. Khyentse Rinpoche writes of one such occasion when he revealed one of his main spiritual treasures (terma), the Pema’s Heart Essence of Longevity cycle, which encompasses the whole spiritual path:
Stopping at Ladrö Monastery along the way, we went to the Gyamgyal Crystal Lotus Mountain, a pacifying holy site of the vajra family and one of the twenty-five important sacred places in Dokham. There we went to the Infant Milk Lake in front of Dothi Gangkar, where I made offerings to the local deities and performed the feast offering of Dharmakaya Master Amitayus from The Heart Practice Dispelling All Obstacles for a few days and even wrote a guidebook to the sacred place. There were many pilgrims at the light blue lake, and as the waves were stirred by the wind, a vivid pattern of a peaceful mandala complete with doors appeared on the lake, along with other auspicious signs. I also saw the Black Lake at Gyam and performed a feast offering. That night in a dream, I saw a text of The Nine Deities of Infinite Life in Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s handwriting. This appeared to me as a mind treasure, Pema’s Heart Essence of Longevity, which I wrote down.
His spouse, Khandro Lhamo, added to this:
Once, at the monastery called Karma Monastery, the seat of the first eight Karmapas, there was a very precious dharmaphala temple, which contained an image of Palden Lhamo and the protector Bernakchen in union. When the door of the room was opened, Khyentse Rinpoche saw Mahakala as if in reality and was given a yellow scroll–many people saw the scroll emerging from Palden Lhamo’s sleeve. The scroll contained dakini script for the Kilaya cycle according to Nyak Jnana Kumara’s tradition, which is one of Khyentse Rinpoche’s main spiritual treasures. Another time, Rinpoche went to Crystal Lotus Mountain, where he had a vision of Guru Padmasambhava in the form of Amitayus, the Buddha of Eternal Life, and received the mind treasure of Pema’s Heart Essence of Longevity. He received many termas in similar ways.
When recognizing a tulku, generally more than one Lama recognizes the tulku. In the case of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche confirmed her recognition with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was, at that time the Supreme Head of the Nyingma Tradition, and Second Dzongnang Jampal Lodro Rinpoche. Jetsunma received teachings from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche when visiting Nepal in 1987.
The Meditation Upon the Four Immeasurable
The following is respectfully quoted from “Buddha in the Palm of the Hand” Nam Chö Terma Revelation by Terton Migyur Dorje:
MA NAM KHA DANG NYAM PAI SEM CHEN THAM CHED
May all motherly sentient beings equal to space
DEWA DANG DEWAI GYU DANG DEN PAR GYUR CHIG
Achieve happiness and the causes of happiness
DUG NGAL DANG DUG NGAL GYI GYU DANG DRAL WAR GYUR CHIG
May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
DUG NGAL MED PAI DEWA DAM PA DANG MI DRAL WAR GYUR CHIG
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless
NYER RING CHAG DANG DANG TRAL WAI TANG NYOM CHEN POI NGANG LA
And free from the partiality of attachment and aversion. May they live believing in
NEI PAR GYUR CHIG
The equality of all that lives.
Sending and Receiving:
While exhaling from both nostrils, consider that all of one’s merit and the root of all virtue
Is sent forth to all parent sentient beings who equally receive it. Meditate that all sentient beings
Experience immeasurable happiness.