Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa - greatliberation.org · 4 Thar Lam APRIL 2009 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF...

2 APRIL 2009 Thar Lam INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PALPUNG

Athe ocean an island developed, and on the island twokinds of creatures lived: one was a monkey and the otherwas a cannibal. The female cannibal and the malemonkey got involved and six children were born fromthem. They are known as Miwu Dongdruk. On theTibetan national flag there are six rays of the sun, whichrepresent them. The six children had individualcharacteristics: one was very happy and proud like a god;one was very jealous like an asura (demi-god); one wasvery passionate like a human; one was quite stupid likean animal; one was very stingy like a hungry ghost, and;one was very angry like a hell being. So each of the sixchildren had their own characteristics, and that way theiroffspring also had their own characteristics.

Now this went on and on for a long time and thepopulation became quite sizeable; then the lake vanishedand the land developed. So the Tibetan land is quite

Tibetan Buddhist Historyby

Chamgon Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche

Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa

TIBETAN BUDDHIST HISTORY

EARLY TIBETAN HISTORY

As requested I will go through the Buddhist history ofTibet. We have three types of history in Tibet with manyalterations: the history of the kings and the country; thedharma history (Buddhist history) in India from Buddhauntil now; and the Buddhist history of Tibet. Of coursethey are not in conflict with each other, but emphasizespecific areas.

What I am going to share with you here is a verybrief form of the Buddhist history of Tibet, not of India,and it will involve some of the history of the kings andthe country also, because the main patrons of dharma inTibet were the Tibetan kings. So they will come into thepicture once in a while.

Originally Tibet was a lake; it was an ocean a longtime ago—we are talking millions of years ago. Then, in

APRIL 2009 3INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PALPUNG Thar Lam

new compared to many other lands in this world. Onvery high mountain tops in Tibet you can find fossils ofsea creatures, and if you break some of the stones on avery high mountain you may find shells, fish, and allkinds of things from the bottom of the sea. This wayTibet is quite recent in the galactic age, but of course inhuman age it is very old, we are talking about millionsof years.

Then from these descendents many small groups andtribes developed. One place, which is considered the firstvillage of Tibet, is in the area of Kongpo, a sub-tropicalpart of Tibet. There is a valley of Brahmaputra, whichflows from east to west and has lots of flora and faunawhich is not found in northern or the western parts ofTibet. In this valley was the first valley, which was knownas ‘Nose of the Monkey’. Maybe it was described likethat due to the shape of the mountain on which thevillage was established. In Tibetan it is called KongpoTrelna. Trelna means monkey’s nose. Most of the peoplein that area were hunters and also cultivated the land.

At that time there was an Indian prince from therace or the tribe of Litsambi. One time he was wandering;why he was wandering was not very clear. Maybe he justleft everything and wandered, or maybe there were toomany princes in the family and he did not want to havecompetition with them, or maybe he did somethingwrong and he got kicked out from the family. In thosedays they did that, they called it banishment.1 So thisprince was wandering in the forest and some huntersfound him, but he was very different from them. Hewas very handsome and civilized, very graceful, anunusual human being. They were immediately taken byhim and asked, “Where do you come from?” They didnot speak each other’s language so he pointed to the sky.So the people thought he came from the sky, that he wasa god or something. Then they really respected him andimmediately made a kind of carrying chair out of woodand carried him on their shoulders to the village. Theymade him the king of that village and he was known asNyatri Tsenpo. Tsenpo means king, nyawa means neckor shoulder and tri means throne; so the king who wascarried on the shoulders of the people, their shoulders were

the throne. He was supposed to be the first Tibetan king.Lhari Chantor was the name of the place where he

was found. Lha means god, ri means mountain, so hewas found on the Mountain of the Gods. From him,after twenty-six generations, there was a king whose namewas Lha Thothori Nyantsen. He built the first castle inTibet, known as Yumpu Lhakar, which is a little bit aboveLhasa, near the airport. If you fly to Lhasa then fromthe airplane you can see it. To go there of course youhave to take a little turn. It is on top of a mountain, avery small castle. But that was the first, the biggest castlebuilt by Lha Thothori Nyantsen, the twenty-sixth kingafter Nyatri Tsenpo.

After he had completed that castle—the originalcastle was destroyed by the Chinese during the CulturalRevolution. The Cultural Revolution was such that theChinese somehow instigated Tibetans so that Chineseand Tibetans went together and destroyed things. Soactually, mainly, it was physically done by our ownpeople, it wasn’t only the Chinese; it was the Tibetanswho were following the Chinese. They also destroyedthings in my area. My monastery is quite far away fromYumpu Lhakar; on horseback it takes one and halfmonths to get there. They destroyed Yumpu Lhakarbefore or during the Cultural Revolution. But now it isrebuilt in the same shape because there were lots ofphotographs of the original one, but of course it is notthe same. Many Europeans who went to India, and someIndians actually, also some Russians andCzechoslovakians who went to Tibet, had lots ofphotographic records. So this is very well known andimpressive, a very beautiful castle with a tower.

Anyway, one day Lha Thothori Nyantsen was in thetower praying and his castle was then totally coveredwith lights, rainbows and clouds, and a miraculous thinghappened. In the midst of this mysterious display heended up with a box in his hands. He was on top of thecastle praying, and suddenly a box appeared in his hands,just like that, out of thin air. When the box was opened,inside there was a sutra known as Samatok Köpa, SamatokKöpeto (Sutra Designed like a Jewel Chest), and one calledPangon Chag-gyapa (Sutra of a Hundred Invocations and

1. The child’s feet and hands were webbed like a swan and his eyelids closed upwards like a bird’s. His father, thinking thathis son must be of non-human origin declared that he should be banished. As soon as the boy grew up a little he was sentaway. from The Words of My Perfect Teacher


Prostrations), and then Cittamani (wish fulfillingjewel), that is the mantra OM MANI PEME HUNG, anda little golden stupa. So these were all found in thebox in his hands. So Lha Thothori Nyantsen, ontop of Yumpu Lhakar, found these. That isconsidered, historically, the first time Buddhismcame to Tibet, miraculously. Then in a dream hesaw that in the future, five generations from him,they would know the meaning of the content ofthese objects: the stupa, the texts and the mantra.

The fourth generation after Lha ThothoriNyantsen was a Tibetan king called NamriSongtsen. His queen was Deza Ökar and they hada son, Songtsen Gampo, who was the fifthgeneration from Lha Thothori Nyantsen.

When Songtsen Gampo (6l7-698 A.D.) wasthirteen years old he became the king of Tibet.Through his might and wisdom and power heunited all of Tibet and is known as the unifier ofall of Tibet. Tibet then was two and a half millionsquare kilometres, a huge place, occupied withlittle kingdoms and tribes and Songtsen Gampounited that after he was thirteen years old. At thattime he had a very special minister, Gönpo Gar,who was a genius. The king sent this minister toNepal and a Nepali princess, Özer Korza, wasbrought to Tibet to be the queen for SongtsenGampo. The king also sent the minister to China,

and from there, a Chinese princess, Ungchen Kongcho, wasalso brought to Tibet to become his queen.

So he had two queens, a Nepalese princess and a Chineseprincess. The Nepalese princess brought her favourite Buddhafrom Nepal and the Chinese princess brought her favouriteBuddha from China. The Buddha brought from China wasactually the personal Buddha image worshipped andcommissioned by the king Ashoka. It is the most importantreligious relic in all Tibet, we call it Jowo Rinpoche. It is stillin Lhasa, even today. During the Cultural Revolution, orbefore, it was very badly damaged, but it survived, and it isenshrined at Jokhang temple. It is worshipped by all Tibetansand many other Buddhists who go to Tibet. The Jowo wasoriginally from India, it belonged to king Ashoka, then it wentto China, where it was the favourite Buddha of the princess.When the emperor, her father, told her, “you have to go andmarry the Tibetan king,” she said, “I will only go if I can takemy Buddha with me.” It is a big Buddha statue, so manypeople had to carry it on a palanquin all the way from Chinato Lhasa. It was a big task.

Songtsen Gampo’s minister, Gönpo Gar, had a son inKham, East Tibet, and he was our king. Kham is where Icome from. Where I was the Rajguru is called Derge, and thefirst king of Derge was the son of this minister. The last king,the descendent who died in 1992 or 1993, was the fiftieth inthe dynasty, a very long dynasty from the time of Gönpo Gar.

So the minister Gönpo Gar brought two princesses toTibet, the king Songtsen Gampo married them both, and theybrought two precious Buddhas to Tibet. At that time Tibetansdid not have a complete form of writing, a script, but of coursehistorians are such that many of them say there was Tibetanwriting, there was Tibetan civilisation and there were Tibetanvillages before. There are lots of disagreements among Tibetanhistorians but I am going with the main stream. These thingsare popping up these days, but when I was a teenager andlearned about Buddhist history, I did not hear about thosethings, but I hear about these things today; one or two decadespass and lots of new things come. They even have scripturesand say that it is Tibetans’ original writing! But I have noclue what those writings really mean and I don’t know howto read them.

There is a common historical belief that there was a personcalled Trinmey Abu, who had a son who was sent to India andlearned Sanskrit from a very learned Sanskrit master there,Lha Rigpe Senge. Lha means god, rigpa means intelligence,senge means lion. I don’t know what his name is in Sanskrit;

King Songtsen Gampo with hisNepalese and Chinese Queen


but he was a very learned Indian pandita and inTibetan his name is Lha Rigpe Senge.

So this son was sent to Kashmir, a part of Tibet,to Katshe—Katshe means Kashmir—and he wasgiven the name Sambhota. Bhutia, bhota meansTibetan. Sam means good. Thönmi was his familyname, so Thönmi Sambhota. Then he came backand he created the Tibetan alphabet which has thirtyletters and four vowels; i, u, e and o.

That was the beginning of Tibetan writing,which was based on Sanskrit. In Tibetan we haveka, kha, ga, nga; cha, ch’a, ja, nya; ta, tha, da, na;pa, pha, ba, ma; tsa, tsha, dza, wa; zsha, za, a’, ya;ra, la, sha, sa; ha, a; as the alphabet. In Sanskritthey have ka, kha, ga, ghaa, nga; ca, cha, ja, jaa,nya; ta, tha, da, daa, na. So in Tibetan we don’thave those extra things. Thönmi Sambhota did itthat way because it had to match the Tibetanlanguage. The Tibetan language already existed,but not in a written form; a complete efficientwritten Tibetan language did not exist, that is howit is expressed, historically. That means there musthave been some means of recording things butnot with complete grammar etc.

So Thönmi Sambhota added grammar andall the other necessary things for literature. In total,seven stages of grammar were made, but now mostTibetans only use two of them. That is sufficientfor the functioning of Tibetan literature right now.The other five of them are somehow included inthese two, or were not that important. At thattime maybe it was made that way because it wasfresh from Sanskrit. Therefore, many of the rulesof Sanskrit he tried to apply to Tibetan language.But later, over the centuries, it was not thatnecessary and not that useful, so it disappeared.So now we are dealing with two, we learn two ofthem. The other five are supposed to havedisappeared. It is general knowledge for allTibetans that the text on grammar written by theeighth Tai Situpa over 200 years ago is the mostfamous and most comprehensive text on grammarin the Tibetan language. It is called the Rosary ofPearls. It is supposed to have the resonance of allthe five other grammars in it because the eighthTai Situpa was so good in grammar that somehow

he rediscovered them through the literature. Anyway, ThönmiSambhota created the Tibetan script.

Now this king, Songtsen Gampo, who conquered all ofTibet and greater Tibet, he developed in greater Tibet—whichhe occupied and where he established his authority— he createdlaws based on Buddhism. There were laws to award those whoconducted the ten virtues and laws to punish those whoconducted the ten non-virtues. So the law was based on theten virtues and ten non virtues.

The ten virtues are: 1. giving, being generous; 2. beingphysically moral, no misconduct and; 3. saving lives. Thesethree are virtues of the body. 4. Telling the truth; 5. bringingpeople together instead of slandering; 6. saying kind wordsand; 7. having meaningful conversations. These are the fourrules of speech. Then the three positive activities of the mindare: 8. Appreciating what other people have, saying that it isgood and not wanting it for yourself; 9. being kind to others,having a kind heart towards others and; 10. having the rightview; right view means the philosophy of karma, the philosophyof the ultimate… that everyone is good, those sort of basicphilosophies, correct understanding. Those are the ten virtues.

The ten non-virtues are the opposites to those: killing,stealing, misconduct, lying, slandering etc.

So the king punished those who engaged in the ten non-virtues and rewarded those who engaged in the ten virtues.That was his rule, his law throughout Tibet, and all the rulesand laws are based on that. For example, in the kingdom whereI am from, Derge, there is a constitution which ends: “If you

Thonmi Sambhota


don’t feed your dog it is an offence of the law.”That is the last law in the constitution. That waylaw and order was established.

Also both the king and queen visited templesand villages according to very important principlesof the Vastu shastra (Geomancy). Tibetans call itshastje. Tibet is like a female cannibal on her backand on all the spots… for example, the rightshoulder, left shoulder, right leg and left leg, theybuilt four temples on those places that are knownas lu shi temples. Then the right elbow, left elbow,right knee, left knee, they built four thadul templeson those places. Then the right palm, left palm(in Derge), the right sole of the foot, the left soleof the foot (Bumtang in Bhutan), are the yangdultemples. These are the twelve main temples thatwere built on the different spots of this femalecannibal lying on her back; that is how the greaterTibetan kingdom looks.

Then where the heart is was a small lake,which was covered, so the lake was made a bigplain and there the main temples of Jokhangand Ramoche were built, the main temples of

Lhasa. It is known as the lake of milk field, field of milk, Otang tso.

Together with that there were 108 temples and 108 stupasbuilt all over the greater Tibet in important spots. That iswhy, without any doubt, I believe the ancient civilisationtogether with the precious teachings of Buddha and thatlineage was preserved in Tibet, even with all the terriblepolitical upheaval, such as the Cultural Revolution. All theseterrible things happened, but still, they really could not totallydestroy it. Even the cultural heritage and lineage survivestoday, which I think has a lot to do with this, how Buddhismwas established there.

Actually many of the temples and stupas were believed tobe constructed through the miraculous power of the king. Ofcourse he had tremendous secular power as well, but a personwho can unite such a big area with such a wild civilisation atthe age of thirteen has got to be pretty able. So with spiritualpower as well as temporal power, all this might, I think hemanaged to establish this.

INVITING BUDDHIST MASTERS TO TIBET

Also at that time, from India, Nepal and China, quite a fewmasters were invited. For example, from India a great acharyaknown as Kasara and also a pandita known as Sankara wereinvited. From Nepal a great master known as Shri la Manjurwas invited. And from China Hasang, which means monk—these days in Taiwan and Malaysia they call monks Hasang.So Hasang and also Mahadeva were invited and they translatedquite a few sutras, such as Dorje Samatok Köpa, the originaltext which came into the hands of Lha Thothori Nyantsen,the Samatok Köpeto and Pangon Chag-gyapa, all these thingswere translated then. So as it was prophesized, five generationsfrom Lha Thothori Nyantsen’s time, it happened and theprophecy was fulfilled.

The king, Songtsen Gampo, ruled Tibet for sixty-nineyears. He was a very good ruler for those sixty-nine years andfinally the king and his two queens dissolved into anAvalokiteshvara image. This was an Avalokiteshvara imagewhich had spontaneously arisen, and the king and his twoqueens dissolved into it like light. They really did not die orleave a physical body behind. The king himself is known as anemanation of Avalokiteshvara and his minister as an emanationof Vajrapani.

Sixty-nine years is a very short time but during this timedharma was established in all of Tibet, in all of greater Tibet,

King Trisong Detsen


not in little Tibet, which nowadays they put on the mapas TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region), which is noteven half or one third of Tibet! Maybe it is fair to say itis one third of Tibet. But what Tibet was at that timewas much bigger than what you see on the map today asTAR, which is what the Chinese call it. I am not involvedin politics, but knowing history I find it very strangethat even some of our own people just put TAR on aTibetan map. History is history. What happened in thepast happened in the past, so they should write itaccording to the history. It doesn’t mean you are fightingfor it or you are arguing about it, but truth is truth.There is no reason to make it bigger or smaller, this wayor that way; cut the ear or nose there, make the hairshorter. What it was, it was.

Also during this time Tibet did not have anybhikshus or bhikshunis, no ordained sangha. Tibet thenwas very much like the Protestants, with no monks ornuns, there was no ordained sangha there. After that,five generations from the time of king Songtsen Gampo,the king then built quite a few temples including LhasaDra Karpo, the Temple in Lhasa on White Rock. Healso invited quite a few sangha from Liul, from theNorthwest of Tibet, and from China he invited Hasangs,Buddhist masters.

During this time sutras such as the HundredDharmas and Golden Light were translated. The kinghad a son who was an emanation of Manjushri, knownas Trisong Detsen (742-798 A.D).

When Trisong Detsen was very young his father died.At that time there were a few ministers who were notvery good; they were against the dharma, anti-dharma.They expelled and banished many of the great masters.They really corrupted the original law set by the greatgrand-king (the ten virtues and ten non-virtues rule).All these things were corrupted by those ministers becauseTrisong Detsen’s father had died and he was too youngto do anything.

Then the ministers wanted to send the BuddhaShakyamuni (Jowo Rinpoche statue) back to China.They tried to lift the statue, but 300 people could notlift it so they gave up and buried it in sand near Lhasa.Buddha wouldn’t go—before four people had carried thestatue, so this was a miracle.

During this time Tibet became chaotic and was notunited anymore. It became many small kingdoms and

tribal areas again. These ministers caused tremendousdamage to the unified kingdom of Tibet.

When they were doing all this terrible thingshappened. Some of the worst ministers had a terribledeath, they had a kind of disease which made their backsopen and they died. It is believed that the dharmaprotectors caused this, to make them pay for doing thesethings. Many of them died with this kind of disease oftheir backs opening up. Some of them became completelydry, fell apart, and died. They just became like ash. Finallythey got afraid and thought it had something to do withburying the Buddha statue in the sand. So they tried toexcavate it, and when they did it, it only took two mulesto carry the Buddha and put it on the altar. Previously ithad taken 300 men to bury it.

When Trisong Detsen reached the age of thirteenhe became the king. Then he found out what theministers had been doing during this short period afterhis fathers death, before he became king. In about tenor twelve years they had caused so much damage. Whenhe found this out he made them re-open the texts. Someof the texts he read himself and got very inspired. Hebanished many of his bad ministers and re-appointed

Jowo Rinpoche


many of the good ministers of his father. Some of thebad ministers such as Shamgön Trompa confessed to himand he forgave them.

Then the Tibetan masters, mahapanditas andtranslators who were sent out of the country or to theoutskirts of the country, they were brought back.

These people, who were originally banished, wereable to come back and make the king understand theoriginal inspiration of his great grandfather, fivegenerations before, and also that of Lha ThothoriNyantsen, twenty-six generations before. They were ableto inspire him and this way the king again started tosend intelligent Tibetan masters and ministers to Indiaand out of Tibet to search for the dharma. The Chinesemonks who were brought to Tibet by the great father ofthe king did not manage to do much because it wasterrible time; the king was very young, the old king haddied and all the ministers who were very corrupt andtotally anti-dharma were very powerful, so there wasn’tanything anybody could achieve at that time.

Trisong Detsen sent four very intelligent people toChina to find the dharma. With the help of the thenkings of China, about one thousand volumes—textvolumes, not book volumes (a text volume is 500 shlokas,I believe, but I’m not certain. One shloka is foursentences). So with about one thousand volumes onemonk came to Tibet.

During this time one very important person inBuddhist history was Sangshe. He was originallybanished to the southern borders of Tibet. Together withthree friends and one Lotsawa (translator) called LhasangWang, who was also expelled, they went to India, visitingBodhgaya and Nalanda. Then they came back to Nepaland met a very great Indian Buddhist master called AbbotBodhisattva (Shantarakshita).

The Bodhisattva Shantarakshita was actuallyoriginally from India, he was a prince of the king of Sahoraand became a monk, a bhikshu, a very learned one. Whenthe minister Sal Lhang met with Shantarakshita,Shantarakshita told of his previous lives and the future ofTibet, it was a prophesy. Also the ministers were able tobring back these messages to the Tibetan king, TrisongDetsen, who sent messengers to the king of Nepal andrequested the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita to come to Tibet.So the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita, accompanied by someNepalese translators and panditas came to Tibet.

At that time Trisong Detsen sent some messengersto check out how this Bodhisattva Shantarakshita was:whether he was really a great master or just some kind ofcharlatan. This was also influenced by some of the badministers. The ministers who went to test him broughtback a message to the king saying that he was someonewho does good things and doesn’t do bad things andthat his god is Buddha, and Buddha’s teaching is not toharm anyone and to benefit everyone. This they said iswhat the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita is all about. Thiswas told to the king, and the king finally accepted andreceived Bodhisattva Shantarakshita to the red palace,known as the Palace of the Red Rock, and madeprostrations to the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita.

At this time the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita askedhim, “Do you remember me?” The king said, “I havenever seen you before.” The Bodhisattva Shantarakshitasaid, “During the time of Buddha Dipankar there werethree of us, we were young kids and we were very poor.We made a stupa out of sand, and during that time wemade a very serious aspiration. I said that I will becomea mahapandita, you said you will become a king, andSangshe was one of the boys who said he will be themessenger. All three of us, together, one as a mahapandita,one as a king, and one as a messenger, will bring dharmato the backward, barbaric places, we will bring dharma tothem, we will make them all follow the dharma andbecome good, we will make all these barbarians becomecivilized. We made this aspiration. Do you remember?”The king said, “No, I don’t remember.”

Then Shantarakshita wanted to see the signs, whatkind of things were going to happen, how to establishand re-establish dharma in Tibet. He made some testsand he wanted to check the signs. He said, “You, theking, are wearing a turban so your domain will be likethe size of a hat.” A hat is only enough for a head, it isnot very much. Had the king wore a Mexican cowboyhat it would have been much better! A turban doesn’tcover very much. So he said it will be only that much.Then he said, “You are wearing shoes; your subjects willbe about the size of a shoe.” That means just enough.He went on—I don’t know what kind of clothes theywore but he said, “You are not wearing a belt; therefore,the rule of law will not stand (because the belt is like alaw); the rule of law will fall apart.” That is what theAbbot Bodhisattva said. Then he said, “If you give me a


lot of gold as an offering the dharma will flourish. Butyour kings’ rule will not and you will have a domain thesize of a turban and subjects like the size of a shoe.” Sonot much, but a lot of gold was offered so that the dharmawould be good and flourish.

At this time there was a palace called Lungtsub,‘Hurricane’. Lung means wind, tsub means going aroundlike a hurricane. In this palace Shantarakshita taughtmany things, such as the twelve links of interdependentorigination etc. It went on for about four months. Butduring that time the Tibetan gods… here, when we saygods, in Tibet, every part of the land, every mountainand lake, everything has a god. We have lots of gods.Even today they reveal themselves. For example, veryclose to my village there was a girl who was told by thelocal god that he wanted to marry her. She was not crazybut her family thought that she was going crazy. Shetold the family, “The god is coming and you have tomake preparations for him.” Then during the time theywere making preparations the family started to take her

seriously. When they were preparing cushions and thingslike that, the girl only carried one side, three sides werecarried by itself; servants of the gods and all these peoplecame to help her. She made her house very beautifuland nice and only had to do one quarter of the job, asthe other things were done by themselves. For example,if she wanted to hang a thangka, it would go up there byitself. So everybody was convinced.

Then she wanted to make a very special seat for thegod that was to be her husband. So they made a verynice new seat, very thick and made out of wool andcovered it with good materials, especially for him. Thenhe came and sat the whole day there. She sat next tohim, on another seat—nobody sat on the new cushion.When she was talking to him the family could hear somemale voices but could not really hear the words, but shewas laughing and talking just like she was talking tosomeone. And the cushion, which before was very thick,wasn’t very thick, because the god was sitting on it. Alsoshe described all the gods that came there that day, which

Khen Lop Chö Sum: Bodhisattva Shantarakshita, Guru Rinpoche and and King Trisong Detsen


was according to our pujas. But she could not even read, shejust looked after the animals, taking them up to the mountainsetc. She was a shepherd and didn’t know anything but describedall the gods and godheads and what kind of animals camewith them, exactly according to the texts.

There was one thing which she saw that was not in thetext. She said, “All of the gods sat one way and all of theiranimals sat the other way. But on top of all the animals, thehighest ranking animal was only this certain size; it was blackin colour, hairy, and with a head and tail. That was above allof them. Then right next to them was a tiger, then next tothem leopards, then all the other animals sat below. But thiswas the king of the animals.” We never had that animal in ourtexts, it was a new discovery. But the other things were exactlyaccording to our pujas. We have pujas for the local gods, thesethings are there.

Anyway, back to Shantarakshita. At that time the gods ofTibet were not happy because they were not receptive to thesethings. They made so many problems that the BodhisattvaShantarakshita found that his spiritual power was not enoughto subdue these gods. So he was not going to be able to hold onvery long and would not be able to establish dharma in Tibet.So he told the king that there was a great prince from Uddiyana,whose name is Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, and he has toinvite him. His power can take care of these naughty gods,otherwise I will not be able to manage to establish dharma inTibet. After that was said king Trisong Detsen sent messengersto bring Guru Padmasambhava to Tibet.

You can see in the life story of Guru Padmasambhava thathis arrival was very dramatic. All the evil spirits of Tibet’s

mountains, lakes and passes were subdued andthe dharma was finally established in Tibet. Asyou know, Guru Rinpoche is supposed to havebeen born from a lotus and adopted by a king asa prince, that was in the Sahor area. A lot ofresearch has been done about the location and forsome years it has been said that it is somewherein North-East Afghanistan, in the North-Westpart of Jammu-Kashmir, somewhere there. Thereare still ruins of old palaces and holy sites whereGuru Padmasambhava was born, on a lotus.

So, as suggested by the Indian prince, thegreat mahasiddha and mahapandita, theBodhisattva Shantarakshita, according to hissuggestion, king Trisong Detsen sent aninvitation to Guru Rinpoche. He sent two mainpeople, Basa Lhang and Sengkor Lhalung Zig,who were accompanied by another five. So intotal he sent seven people to invite GuruRinpoche to Tibet. Through his miraculousomniscient power Guru Rinpoche came to knowthat they were coming, so he came all the way toNepal and they met him there. Guru Rinpochetold them, “You people go ahead and I will comemy own way.” He then came in a miraculousway. The Tibetan gods tried to give him a lot oftrouble but he manhandled them one by one andthey all became his subjects.

There are details about which spirit gave whatkind of trouble, for example, there was a mountaingoddess called Gankar Shame. At that time shewas known as Gankarma, White Snow Mountain.She manifested in front of Guru Rinpoche bycreating thunderstorms, avalanches and all kindsof obstacles. Guru Rinpoche just looked into hereyes very strongly and her eyes melted and shewas exposed. She ran away and went into a lakewhich is known as Paltso. Guru Rinpoche pointeda mudra towards the lake and the lake boiled andher whole body was cooked. She had no flesh leftbut as a skeleton she still tried to oppose him,because two of her eyes were still left. All of herflesh was cooked and separated from the body,but she still had two eyes and tried to fight withGuru Rinpoche. Guru Rinpoche threw his vajraand then she only had one eye left.

Samye Monastery


So with only one eye then she finally said, “Okay,enough is enough, I bow to you, I submit to you and Iwill be a dharma protector.” Guru Rinpoche acceptedand she became known as Gankar Shame DorjeShinzigma. Gankar means white mountain, shame meansno flesh, dorje means vajra, shinzig means one eye, andma is mother. So she is one of our protectors and that ishow we draw her, with one eye and as a skeleton. Thisway there were so many; such as ‘twelve ladies’, all ladygoddesses who were very powerful and tried to stop himbut did not manage to. Also not only ladies but malemountain gods, so many types, all of them tried to stophim but they could not. Guru Rinpoche managed toget through all of those obstacles.

Finally Guru Rinpoche met with the Tibetan kingin Lungtsug, the hurricane palace. During that time someof the bad ministers were able to influence the king toexpel the Bodhisattva Shantarakshita to Nepal; theyblamed many of the problems that happened on him,they said that he was creating them by practicing blackmagic etc. In one way it was wonderful that the kingwas doing many good things but in another way theking seemed to have been a little bit weak, because hewas listening to all these people, and even expelling theBodhisattva Shantarakshita back to Nepal. So it was alittle bit strange, but what happened is what happened,and Bodhisattva Shantarakshita went back.

At that time Samye became the most importantdharma seat for Guru Rinpoche, which he chose as thesite for the building of the Samye temple. Samye was avery beautiful temple until the Chinese occupation; ithas four main temples on the four sides and a centraltemple with a very big wall around it.

Samye is supposed to be one of the most importantgeographical places in all of Tibet. Anyway, finallySamye temple was built in the shape of a mandala.Mainly the mandala of the planet Earth, our solarsystem; so Mt Meru in the middle and the fourcontinents on the four sides, the sun and the moon,the stupa on top, of which the sun-stupa normally hassmoke coming out on specific days of the year andwithout fire, the moon-stupa, is supposed to have dropsof water coming out of it during certain times of theyear. These are architectural marvels, whichunfortunately were destroyed so these special signs arenot there anymore, just the stupas remain.

When I went there for the first time in 1984, mostof Samye was occupied by villagers and they were raisingpigs, they were farming and it was really a village. Butwhen I went again in 1992 it was very nicely rebuilt.

Anyway, these three, Guru Rinpoche, BodhisattvaShantarakshita and King Trisong Detsen, are known as‘Khen Lop Chö Sum’. Khen means khenpo, the AbbotBodhisattva Shantarakshita, lopön means acharya, GuruPadmasambhava, and chö, means chögyal, dharma-king,dharmaraja, Trisong Detsen (sum is three).

They also gathered lots of Tibetan kids and tried toteach them Sanskrit, but most of them did not get it,they did not manage to study and pronounce it. It madethe king very sad. Guru Rinpoche finally told him,“Don’t worry, there are special kids who I can find.”

Guru Rinpoche prophesized one very special child,Bairotsana, and sent for him. When the king’s messengerreached the village and met the child he asked him,“Where has your father gone?” His father and motherwere not there. He said, “My father went to buy eyes.”Actually his father went to buy some oil for the lamp. Soit is ‘eyes’. Then they asked, “Where did your mothergo?” He said, “My mother went to buy chit-chat.” Youknow, talking. Actually she went to buy some wine.When people drink wine they talk a lot. So they foundhe was very intelligent. He did not say that his fatherhad gone to buy oil and that his mother to buy wine.He described it in a very interesting way. The little boyproved himself. So he, Bairotsana, one called KawaPaltseg and one called Chogrung Luyi Gyaltsen, thesethree, and many others like them were chosen and trainedin Sanskrit and Tibetan. They translated the Vinaya,Prajnaparamita and many of the Tantras and most ofthe Sutras that are the outer, relative teachings.

At that time Guru Rinpoche, BodhisattvaShantarakshita and the king wanted to know whetherordained sangha would be possible in Tibet or not. Totest for that they chose seven people, known as se mi midun. Se means awake. If you have doubt you want tomake sure, to awaken, to find out. So they had doubtabout whether ordained sangha was possible or not andthey chose seven boys to test it. They found three oldermen, one middle-aged man and three young men.

Bodhisattva Shantarakshita, who was a bhikshu,ordained them and the king built twelve monasteriesacross Tibet for the ordained sangha. It was successful


and they all managed, it was possible. They also choseeight very young boys and taught them Sanskrit andTibetan language, which was already there. They allbecame quite good. Out of them they chose five, headedby Drugu Khepak (Drugu is a part of Tibet and hisnane was Khepak). So these five were ordained and sentto India to learn Buddhism. They met with greatmahasiddhas such as Humkara from who they learnedall the medicine texts, the medicine tantras. So the fiveLotsawas (translators) were sent to India with DruguKhepak and learned Tibetan medicine and also blessingmedicine. They did not learn medicine only, but amrita,blessing medicine. Also they brought many texts backto Tibet.

Out of this group one did not make it back to Tibet,he was eaten by a very big snake next to a lake in Nepal.So one of them got killed and the other four came back

to Tibet. At that time there was a queen who was not avery good person. She somehow slandered these four tothe king and temporarily they were expelled to theoutskirts of the country.

Bairotsana and Legdrub (another translator), weresent to India and they received Ati tantras (Maha, Anuand Ati, the three levels of tantra), they receivedtransmissions for them. When they were returningBairotsana managed to come back but Legdrub was killedby custom officers.

Bairotsana went to Bodhgaya and receivedtransmissions from great masters such as Shri Simha,Paltseg Senge etc; he received twenty-five tantras andeighteen major texts. He found out that he needed aspecial ability to return, because some of the translatorsreturned without obstacles but some of them got killedby the border security customs officers and some wereeaten by snakes etc., so it was very dangerous. So hepracticed the ‘quick walk’ (Tib. kangjor) in which youcan walk many hundreds of miles without stopping andwithout getting tired. So he practiced that, the fast legpractice, a special tantric siddhi, and managed to returnto Tibet.

As some of the ministers were again making troublefor the king, the king had to do a terrible thing. He hadto hide Bairotsana, and to do so he had to kill a poorpilgrim saying it was Bairotsana. All of the ministersseemed to be very powerful so the king had to get rid ofBairotsana and kill somebody—he ordered somebodyto be killed in place of Bairotsana, pretending it wasBairotsana while the king hid Bairotsana in his palace.When Bairotsana was translating the texts into Tibetan,there was a place in the palace where quite a few pillarswere close together, so the king built something inbetween those pillars and he was hiding Bairotsana therein the palace.

Finally the not very nice queen found out; becauseshe was the closest person to the king she foundBairotsana hidden there and told all the ministers. ThenBairotsana was arrested and expelled again to the veryfar borders of Tibet. So there were lots of obstacles. Nowwhere Bairotsana was expelled to, the family whose homeBairotsana had taken refuge in, they had a son. Legrub,who was killed by the border security guards, he wasborn in that family and Bairotsana recognised him asthe little boy born there. So Bairotsana taught him

Nyingma Lineage


Sanskrit and Tibetan and later he became known as YudraNyingpo, a very famous disciple of Bairotsana.

Guru Rinpoche was still in Tibet, but the king hadto do all these things, the queen was behaving very badly,all the ministers who were not so good were with thequeen and things were not going smoothly. But GuruRinpoche was still there and his activity was still goingon. Finally Guru Rinpoche told the queen that she wasreally a problem and that it was coming from karmicconnections during many past lives. He also told theking why she had to be his queen and why all thesethings were happening. He also told many of theministers why these things were happening. Then finallythey were all convinced and they became conducive tothe spread of the dharma.

Finally from India and China many Buddhistmasters were invited and in Samye there was one placewhich was known as a translation place where many ofthe sutras and tantras were translated.

Also, through Guru Rinpoche’s miracles and manyof the great masters’ wisdom, the original Tibetan Bön-religion, which was very much like shamanism andinvolved lots of sacrificial practices—they sacrificedanimals and even sacrificed humans—these wereabolished. Then in Tibet there were no more human oranimal sacrifices for religious purposes. That was doneafter all these things took place. Then the Bön, whichseems to be positive and beneficial to people, to sentientbeings, was left and incorporated into VajrayanaBuddhism. Now we have, for example, rituals for longlife, rituals for good luck, rituals for the quintessence,rituals for warriorship, all those kind of original Bön-oriented rituals and practices are incorporated intoBuddhism, and we still practice these today.

So during that time Buddhism was finally establishedin Tibet without any major obstacles. After that all themajor obstacles were created by followers of the ancientreligion, which were involved with worldly worshipping,not for the purpose of enlightenment; for worldlypurposes and also black magic. For example, in Tibetshowing your tongue is very important. Why? Becausein those days people who practiced black magic had ablack tongue, so in order to show that you are not ablack magic practitioner you show your tongue.Whenever you see the king or the leadership you haveto show your tongue. Also nowadays it is a habit for old

Tibetans, the young generation Tibetans do not showtheir tongue, but older generation Tibetans still showtheir tongue. When the British envoy for Tibet camefrom India his photos had dozens of people lining upshowing their tongues! It is actually saying that they arenot black magicians. That is what it is. The Bön practicedblack magic and it was banned, so you had to prove thatby showing your tongue, that you don’t have a blacktongue. That is one small example.

THE EIGHT LINEAGES

After that Tibetan Buddhism flourished and manyschools for the lineages have developed. It is like a trunkof a tree that has grown into many branches. There areeight major branches in Tibetan Buddhism. Everybodylikes to say there are four schools in Tibetan Buddhism—

Kadampa Lineage


Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Gelugpa—but that is a verysimplistic and lazy description. There are not four buteight schools, eight major lineages: Nyingma, Kadampa,Sakya, Marpa, Shangpa, Zhijed, Jordrug, and DorjeNyendrub.

Nyingma Lineage

The first one is known as Nyingma. Until AtishaDipamkara, who was from Bangladesh, until he came,all of Tibetan Buddhism is Nyingma, Nyingma means

‘old’. For example, an old bag can be called nyingpa, SoNyingma is the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism,starting from Guru Rinpoche. Before Guru Rinpochethere were many generations, there was dharma, but fromwhen Guru Rinpoche came to Tibet until AtishaDipamkara came to Tibet, it is known as Nyingma.

During the time of Guru Rinpoche it was known asNyingma Kama, Kama means command, so GuruRinpoche’s teaching is known as Nyingma Kama. Butafter Guru Rinpoche left Tibet, all the teachings thatderived after that are known as Nyingma Terma, so Kamaand Terma.

Guru Rinpoche and his disciples put certain textsinto hiding for later rediscovery, and they prophesizedwho was going to find what and when. According tothose prophecies the texts were found and the lineage oftransmission was received from Guru Rinpoche by thosepeople. Guru Rinpoche is immortal, so you can receivetransmission from him today, if you are prophesized andan enlightened person. So these people received directtransmissions from Guru Rinpoche and discoveredhidden treasures, Termas. So Nyingma Terma means this,it means treasure.

Then the dharma is: dharmakaya is Kuntu Zangpoeand sambhogakaya is Vajrasattva. From these two GuruRinpoche received transmissions. From Guru Rinpocheto all his disciples, such as Garab Dorje and others (thereare twenty-five enlightened masters), all these are theNyingma lineage. There are many things, but if you reallylook into it, it is summarised into two things. First isDzogchen, which is the final and most profound teachingof Nyingma. It is about the nature of mind and themethods to realize the nature of mind. Dzogchen hasmany levels of practice. The second thing is, there areeight aspects of deity practice: body, speech, mind,knowledge, activity, wrathful, offering, and peaceful. Thebody is Manjushri-oriented, speech is lotus-oriented,mind is Yandak-oriented, knowledge is amrita-oriented,

2. 1) Yamantaka (Tib. Jampal Shinje, ’jam dpal sku) the wrathful Manjushri, the deity of body. 2) Hayagriva (Tib. Pema Sung,padma gsung) the wrathful Avalokiteshvara, the deity of speech. 3) Vishuddha/Sri Samyak (Tib. Yangdak Thuk, Wylie: yang dagthugs) the wrathful Vajrapani deity of mind. 4) Vajramrita (Tib. Dudtsi Yonten, bdud rtsi yon tan) the wrathful Samantabhadra,the deity of enlightened qualities. 5) Vajrakilaya/Vajrakumara (Tib. Dorje Phurba, phur ba ‘phrin las), the wrathfulNivaranavishkambin, the deity of action. 6) Matarah (Tib. Mamo Botong, ma mo rbod gtong) the wrathful Akasagarbha, the deityof calling and dispatching. 7) Lokastotrapuja-natha (Tib. Jigten Chotod, ’jig rten mchod bstod) the wrathful Ksitigarbha, the deityof worldly offering and praise. 8) Vajramantrabhiru (Tib. Mopa Dragnak, mod pa drag sngags) the wrathful Maitreya, the deity ofwrathful mantras.3. This teaching was given in 1985, many years prior to the passing of Minling Trichen Rinpoche.

Garab Dorje


and activity is Vajrakilaya-oriented etc.2 These areeight aspects of the deity of the Nyingma lineage.Dzogchen and that somehow cover most of theNyingma practice. But of course each of them haveso many elaborated sub-practices.

Then there are six main seats for theNyingmapas. In upper Tibet there are the twomonasteries of Dorje Drak and Mindroling. Inmiddle Tibet there are the two main monasteriesof Shechen and Dzogchen. Then in lower Tibetthe two main monasteries are Katok and Palyul.The head of Dorje Drak is Dor Drak RinchenChenpo, the head of Mindroling is MindrolingTrichen Rinpoche, the head of Shechen is ShechenRabjam, the head of Dzogchen is Dzogchen PemaRinchen, the head of Katok is Katok Shejong,and the head of Palyul is Palyul Urgyen. So theseare the six main masters of the Nyingma lineage.But out of all of them, the supreme head of all ofthe Nyingma is His Holiness Minling TrichenRinpoche (1931-2008),3 the hereditary successorof Minling Terchen, and head of Mindrolingmonastery. This post as hereditary is from fatherto son, he must marry and he must have a sonand that son becomes the head of the Nyingmalineage. So, that is the Nyingmapa, one of theoldest lineages.

Kadampa Lineage

The second of the eight lineages is the Kadampa.Ka is command, dam means instruction. All thecommands of the Buddha are instructions forthe liberation of sentient beings. That is whatKadam means.

During the time of Muné Tsenpo, a son ofTrisong Detsen, the Tibetan king who invitedGuru Rinpoche to Tibet, he made a very specialpolicy for Tibet; that there were to be no rich andno poor people, everybody was equal. That washis mission; he did not want any rich or poorpeople, everybody was to be equal. After MunéTsenpo the throne was later passed to his brotherSadnaleg. He had a problem with his neck so hehad a nick name, Jingön, ‘crooked neck’. His othername was Tsite Chenpo. When he became king,

during his time, he built a very important temple called KajungGyalte. His son was Je Ralpacan (806-841 A.D), who was avery devout king. When he invited monks to his palace heused to undo his hair and put it on the ground and make allthe monks walk on his hair; he respected ordained sangha thatmuch. He was also supposed to be an emanation of Vajrapaniand prophesized in the White Lotus Sutra.

During that time five Indian abbots, Acharya Jinamitra,Surandrabodhi, Shri Dalandhabodhi, Danashila andBodhimitra, and the Tibetan abbots Rinchen Sungwa andChösum Tsultrim (Skt. Dharmashila), along with four Tibetantranslators, Janasingha, Jnanarangshita, Manjushriwarma andRatnashila, these main people under the patronage of kingRalpacan, who made his hair as a doormat for sangha to walkon, they translated most of the texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan.The old translations, which were not very clear, theyretranslated and made them clearer. And the translations whichwere word for word translations and not clear, they mademeaning translations of them. For example, in English when

Atisha Dipamkara


you say “how are you,” that doesn’t make any sense inTibetan. It has to be translated into the Tibetanequivalent of ‘how are you’ rather than translating itexactly as ‘how - are - you’. In previous translationsmany texts were left as word for word translations. Sowhen they were changed into meaning translations,what it meant in Sanskrit, the same meaning, wasconveyed into the Tibetan language. Also at that timemany of the texts that were very difficult to understandwere made understandable.

At this time there were many problems between theneighbouring countries, there were fights and disputes,but they were settled and many treaties were written.Many of the treaties were written on stone pillars. Theoriginal greater Tibetan border is actually carvedeverywhere on stone. Orders were carved on stone, butI’m sure if the modern governments find them they willremove them, it’s very easy! From north to south all theTibetan borders were marked with stone carvings, stonepillars and disputes were settled. Also many religiousplaces were established. Unfortunately one of theministers killed king Ralpacan, then his son, the crownprince, was expelled to the Tsang area. From the maincapital to Tsang it is not very far, but they expelled himto there.

At that time there was a very important ministercalled Palgyi Yönten. He slandered about the queen andlamas being involved, so the lamas were killed and thequeen killed herself. These things happened when kingRalpacan was very young, actually when his ministerkilled him he was only thrity-five years old. Actuallythey held him and twisted his head, it is said that hisface was twisted backwards, they killed him that way.

Because the crown prince was expelled then the king’solder brother, known as Lang Darma (who was supposedto have had a horn growing on his head), became theking. Lang Darma was very bad and a total non-believer,he destroyed most of the monasteries and made monksand nuns disrobe. Quite a few very important mastersescaped to Eastern Tibet, to Kham, and the king lostthat part of Tibet. They resisted against him, they didnot want to destroy the temples and go against thedharma. In central Tibet, Lang Darma, as the king,wanted to destroy everything. East Tibet was fightingwith Central Tibet and these masters escaped to EastTibet with lots of dharma texts.

King Lang Darma threw the Buddha statue into acellar and also dumped many of the Buddhist texts there.Nobody was allowed to read the texts and he also burnedmany of them. At that time there was a great masterwho was born in Lhalung, his name was Lhalung PalgyiDorje. The king was reading stone carvings on a pillarin Lhasa; he had made some alteration and was readingit. Lhalung Palgyi Dorje wanted to kill him, becauseotherwise he would go on destroying everything. SoLhalung Palgyi Dorje—as he was prophesized and toldfrom higher sources—created a big hat, which is calleda black hat nowadays in lama-dances. Also he made agarment with very long sleeves, because one sleeve wasto hide an arrow and the other sleeve to hide a bow. Soa bow and arrow were hidden in the sleeves and hepainted his horse totally black, and then he was dancing.The king was enjoying his dance while he was readingthe stone carving in the pillar and then, in the middleof all of that, he shot the king in the head and killedhim. Lhalung Palgyi Dorje then jumped on his horseand rode through the river Tsangpo, which washed allthe black colour from his horse, so his horse becamewhite. So he managed to escape on a white horsebecause everyone was looking for a guy on a black horse.Lhalung Palgyi Dorje was a great hero, even though hehad to kill a person.

Lang Darma had a son called Ösung, ‘Protected byLight’. Because his father was so paranoid he wanted toprotect his son twenty-four hours a day. So the wholenight he wanted light to be in the room of his son witharmed guards to protect him in the light.

Buddhism was revived again in the 10th centuryunder king Khorre of Ngari. He developed an interestto re-establish the dharma in Tibet. He sent quite a fewpeople to India to invite enlightened masters, but theydidn’t really manage to find any. Many of the people hesent died, and those that came back came back emptyhanded. Finally one person, Döndrup Senge, met withAtisha Dipamkara.

After so many problems trying to find the right guru,finally one of the people he sent managed to find AtishaDipamkara. But Atisha Dipamkara did not accept theinvitation to come to Tibet. Then Lama Yeshe Ö, whohad given the throne to his younger brother and becamea monk, went to different parts of Tibet to find gold andtake this gold to India to invite great masters, such as


Atisha Dipamkara. He went to the Tibetan borders andon one of the borders, which was known as Kharlok,somewhere on the south-western side of Tibet, one ofthe tribes there captured him. They found out he was aTibetan prince who had come to collect gold in order togo to India to invite great masters. When they foundthat out, they did not kill him but wrapped him in clothand kept him like money. Then his brother’s son,Jangchub Ö, found out about this and returned withone hundred horsemen to save him. The Kharloks’ kingtold them to give the weight of the person in gold inexchange. They gave all the gold they had, but the weightof the head was lacking. Therefore they did not let himgo and killed him. So Lama Yeshe Ö died searching forthe dharma. But before that he told his cousin, who wassent for him, “Don’t do anything for me, there is nothingto do for me, take all this gold and invite AtishaDipamkara to Tibet. You don’t have to save me. Takethis gold and invite Atisha Dipamkara and let them killme, it’s okay.” Then the Kharloks killed him. He diedby being thrown into a pit filled with insects. TheKharloks threw him there and the insects ate him alive,which was their way of killing people. Before thishappened he sent a message to Atisha Dipamkara, hesaid, “In my future life may I become your disciple. Idied for it.”

When the Tibetans went to see Atisha Dipamkarawith the gold, they told him the whole story. “For invitingyou our prince went to search for gold and then thesethings happened and he died for it. Now please come toTibet.” Then Atisha Dipamkara accepted and came toTibet. He taught the view according to Madhyamaka,the action according to Vinaya, and the instructionsaccording to the Bodhisattvas’ way. These teachings areknown as Kadampa. Atisha had three main disciples:Khu, Ngog, and Drom. Khu was the incarnation ofManjushri, Ngog the incarnation of Vajrapani, andDrom the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. Drom hadthree main disciples: Putowa Rinchen Sal, ChengawaTsultrim Bar and Phuchungwa Shyönnu Gyaltsen. Thesesix great masters were responsible for continuing theKadam lineage, which was transmitted to Tibet by AtishaDipamkara as the result of all this: the prince who gaveup his life, the one who went to save him but did notmanage to come back, and the king who then sent othermessengers to bring Atisha to Tibet.

After these great masters, then Tsongkhapa, anincarnation of Manjushri, was born. When he was fifty-three years old he built Geden (Ganden) monastery, themain seat of the Gelugpa. Gelugpa by definition is thetradition of Geden. Ge means Geden monastery, lukmeans tradition, lineage. So the lineage of Gedenmonastery built by Tsongkhapa: Tsongkhapa, DharmaRinchen, and Geleg Pelsang. In Gelugpa monasteriesthree masters sit there: the middle one is Tsongkhapa,the right one is Dharma Rinchen and the left one isGeleg Pelsang.

There is also Manjushri Zangpa Seven Lineage:Gyaltsab Je, Khedrub Je, Shalu Khepa Gyaltsen, LodroGyaltsen, Shogyi Gyaltsen, Shanpa Loden, NyendrubManang Pal. These are known as great lineage holdersof the Gelugpa lineage, known as Manjushri Zangpaseven masters.

One of the direct disciples of Tsongkhapa, JamyangTashi Pelden, built Drepung monastery eight years afterthe construction of Ganden monastery. Then anotherdisciple and great master, Jamchen Chöje Shakya Yeshe,built Sera monastery eleven years after the building ofthe previous monastery. Then the incarnation ofDromtönpa Gyalwe Jungne, one of the six mentionedearlier and born before Tsongkhapa, so Gendun Trup,built Tashi Lhunpo twenty-nine years after theconstruction of Ganden monastery. All the Dalai Lamasare incarnations of Gendun Trup.

Gendun Geleg Pelsang’s incarnation Sönam TobjeLangpo, his incarnations are known as the PanchenLamas. They head the Tashi Lhunpo monastery. Thenthere are three other very great masters known as threeincarnate masters of the Gelug lineage. So from thereup until now it continued and spread to many places.

The original birthplace of Tsongkhapa was in Amdo.There they built Phumpo monastery, a very specialmonastery. When a baby is born, there is the placenta,which attaches the baby to the mother. WhenTsongkhapa was born and this was cut and thrown away,where it was thrown a tree grew. This tree is there inAmdo, Phumpo monastery, and each one of the leavesof that tree has a Sanskrit or Tibetan character: OM, AH,HUNG etc. The tree is still there and the characters arenaturally visible to anyone.

That is roughly about the Gelugpa lineage. Up untilTsongkhapa we call it Kadampa and after Tsongkhapa


built Ganden monastery at the age of fifty-three thenthe Gelugpa started. But before that it was Kadampaand until that Tsongkhapa was a follower of Kadampa.

Lamdre/Sakyapa Lineage The Sakyapa lineage was originally known as the Lamdrelineage. Lam means path, dre means result. This startswith the ‘descendent from heaven’. The father’s side wecall ‘bone’ and the mother’s side we call ‘blood’. Aparticular bone descendent from heaven was known as

‘Khön’ bone.4 He had two brothers: one was Dorjeand one was Rinchen. These two received directtransmission from Guru Padmasambhava in a veryspecial way. From there until Khön Sherab Tsultrimthere were ten generations: from father to son tengenerations went by. So during that time the Khönspracticed Nyingma teachings, because they receivedtransmissions from Guru Rinpoche.

All the generations had practiced the Nyingmalineage but Khön Sherab Tsultrim, the tenth generation,his younger brother, Könchok Gyalpo, became a discipleof Drogmi Lotsawa Shakya Yeshe. He became a greatmaster of the later translations of Nyingma, instead ofthe earlier translations. When he was forty years old hebuilt the Tsang Sakya monastery in the Tsang area. Sameans land and kya means grey, so the land is barren;there are no trees or grass, the land is like Ladakh. Thename Sakya started because of the visual description ofthe land on which Könchok Gyalpo (the first SakyaTrizin) built the monastery. This was also prophesizedby Atisha Dipamkara, who said that there will be sevenincarnations of Manjushri and one incarnation ofVajrapani born on this grey land area. The prophesy wasthus fulfilled when this happened.

Drogmi Lotsawa Shakya Yeshe was the master ofVinaya, Prajnaparamita and some of the tantras, whichhe received from great masters such as Shantipa andViravajra. He received tantric teachings, Lam Khor Guwe call it, the Sakyapas main practice of tantra; ninemain paths. The first one is Lamdre. Then in the secondone, the main tantra is the Hevajra tantra, but there isvisualisation which has nine stages and completion whichhas one stage, like subtle energy. The third is also basedon tantra, but it is about the practice of bodhichitta.The fourth one is the same Hevajra tantra, but is aboutspontaneously arising visualisation practice. The fifth isabout mudra yoga, which is based on one tantra calledYeshe Tigle. The sixth one is the tantra of great union.The seventh is the practice of Chakrasamvara. This hasall aspects of outer, inner and secret practices. The eighthis based on Guyhasamaja, which originally does not have

4. The hereditary line known as the ‘Khon’ (to quarrel) descended from the ‘Heavenly Realms’ approximately eight generationsbefore the time of King Trisong Detsen. They were known as the ‘Lharig’, Divine Race. At the time of Padmasambhava, KhonLui Wangpo Srungwa received the early Nyingmapa transmissions. Passing unbroken through the family line the practices ofVajrakilaya and Samputa (Yangdak Thug) have continued unbroken to the present day and are famous as the ‘Khon Lug DorjePhurba’, the only Kama lineage of these practices to survive.

Sakya Lineage


any written instructions. It is from master to disciple,from mouth to ear lineage. I don’t know how it is thesedays, but originally it was never written down. It is aboutGuyhasamaja Mahamudra. The ninth one is aboutmother tantra, the essence of mother tantra. This isknown as ‘One that straightens which is not straight’. Itis about nadis and bindus, to make straight that whichis not straight, opening of the chakras etc. The greatIndian mahasiddha from whom the Tibetan Lotsawasreceived these teachings came to Tibet three times, andthe Sakyapa master Drogmi Lotsawa received it.

There is a simple way to describe these nineteachings. The first one is a simple way described as earlyLamdre and all the other eight are later Lamdre, but it isactually the same thing; it is like preliminary Lamdreand the actual Lamdre or the preliminary Lamdre andlater Lamdre. Lamdre means path and result.

One of the main masters of the Sakya lineage wasKönchök Gyalpo’s son, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, anincarnation of Vajrapani, who received transmissionsfrom Bari Lotsawa, his main guru. He encountered LordManjushri in person and received direct transmissionsfrom him. Also he attained high realization throughreceiving transmission from the great Indian masterVirupa and himself became a great master. Of the fivemain figures of the Sakyapa lineage, three were notbhikkus and two were. Sachen Kunga Nyingpo had foursons: Kungabar, Sonam Tsemo, Jetsun Dakpa Gyaltsenand Palchen Wopa (the father of Sakya Pandita). SonamTsemo, Jetsun Dakpa Gyaltsen and Palchen Woparemained as tantric practitioners, tantric yogis, they werenot monks. Of course monks can also be tantric yogis.Anyway, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo and two of his sons,Sonam Tsemo and Jetsun Dakpa Gyaltsen, are knownas ‘The Three White Ones’. Then ‘The Two Red Ones’,Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen and Drogön ChögyalPhagpa, the nephew of Sakya Pandita, means the two

who became bhikkus, monks. All five of them make thefive main figures of the Sakya lineage. The descendentsof the Khön throne are the heads of the Sakya. Rightnow His Holiness Sakya Trizin is the descendent of theKhön. That is the Sakya lineage, briefly.

There is a lot more but time is flying and I don’t

want to go into history tomorrow. I want to finish this

history today! The Sakyapa actually has a few more

branches: Sakya, Ngorpa and Tsarpa.5 The head of the

Sakya is Sakya Trizin.

Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo founded the Ngor school,

and established Ngor E-Vam monastery which was

continued by the great master Muchen Sempa. This

monastery has four main abbots known as Thartse,

Luding, Khangsar and Phende.6 So this is known as

Ngorpa. The Tsar school was founded by Tsarchen Losel

Gyatso. His two foremost disciples were Khyentse

Wangchug and Lhundrub Gyatso.

So the Sakya has three main lineages just like theNyingma have six main monasteries and the Gelugpa havethree main monasteries: Sera, Drepung and Ganden.

This way I think Sakya is roughly covered.

Kagyu Lineage

Ka means command, gyu means lineage, ‘The lineage ofthe command of the Buddha’. There are two lineageswhich hold the name Kagyu: one is the Shangpa Kagyuand the other is Marpa Kagyu. When we say eightlineages of Tibetan Buddhism it is: Nyingma, Kadam,Lamdre, Marpa Kagyu, Shangpa Kagyu, Zhijed, Jordrug,and Dorje Nyendrub.

Now I will talk about Marpa Kagyu. The greatmaster Tilopa was a very important mahapandita andhe finally achieved all the realizations as a mahapandita.

5. Like other traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, a number of sub-divisions emerged within the main Sakya tradition. The lineageof teachings within the discipline instituted by Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo and successive masters such as Könchok Lhundrup,Thartse Namkha Pelsang and Drubkhang Pelden Dhondup have come to be known as the Ngor lineage, whereas, the lineagesof Tsarchen Losel Gyatso, called the whispered-lineage of Tsar, concerning the Thirteen Golden Texts of Tsar, including thesecret doctrines of the greater or lesser Mahakala, Vajra Yogini, Jambhala and others, is known as the Tsar tradition. Thus, theSakya school of the Khon lineage represents the main trunk of a tree, of which the Ngorpa and Tsarpa schools are branches.These are the three schools (Sa-Ngor-Tsar-gsum) in the Sakya tradition. From the office of Tibet website.

6. The leadership of Ngor monastery traditionally rotates between four monastic houses every three years; the Luding Labrang,Thartse Labrang, Khangsar Labrang and Phende Labrang.


Then he went into the stage of tantric transformation.In tantric practice he received four main transmissionsof lineage from Sariapa, Nagarjuna Lvabapa,

Sukhasiddhi, Indrabhuti and Matangi who were his mainmasters. All the transmissions that he received from themare the four streams of transmission; we call it Ka gigyupa.7 This involves, Illusory Body, Clear Light, GuruYoga, Bardo (intermediate state), Transferring ofConsciousness, Tummo (practice of the bindu, heat),wisdom practice, the tantric transformation of negativesamsaric duality into positive enlightenment, non-duality. Then drong jug which is another form of Phowa,which is to transfer consciousness from one state toanother. Tilopa received all of these teachings andpracticed twelve years in a very small place. He chainedhimself there so that he would not do anything else butpractice. He was chained for twelve years and practicedall these sacred transmissions that he had received. Finallyhe attained realization and then received transmissiondirectly from Buddha Vajradhara. There is a very longstory—I wrote a whole book on this8 —which is abouthow he went through all the stages and finally attainedrealization.

These transmissions he transmitted to manydisciples, but one of his main disciples was Naropa.Naropa, after many hardships, finally received thetransmission and then he practiced and attainedenlightenment equal to that of Tilopa. For example,Tilopa was practicing while as a servant for a lady whowas selling wine and also involved in prostitution. Shewas a dakini, but externally she was involved in this.Tilopa was pounding sesame seeds to make oil for her.In the evening she sent her customers to him to takehome and to bring new customers to her. He was doingall this as his practice, and finally, one day he attainedrealization. The next morning Tilopa was in the sky at a

7. The general simplistic description of Ka gi gyupa is, Mahamudra, Tummo, Clear Light and Karma Yoga (Leja). These four are akind of simplistic general description of these four streams of lineages: Mahamudra is from Saraha, Tummo is from Nakpopa, ClearLight is from Nagarjuna, and Karma Yoga (Leja) is from Indrabhuti. There are quite a few Indrabhutis, so this one we callIndrabhuti Marpa, which means second Indrabhuti.

There is another description, which does not conflict with this, which is that Tilopa received transmissions from great mastersof the four directions; from the east, south, west and north, four of each. From the east, Sukhamahasiddhi, Thanglopa, Shinglopaand Karnaripa. From the south, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Chandrakirti and Matangi. From the west, Dombipa, Vinapa, Lvabapa(Kambala) and Indrabhuti. And from the north, Luyipa, Dengipa, Darikapa and Sukhadhari.

When it comes to such sacred practices, the essential practices like the Six Yogas, then there are four: from Caryapada, Tummo(the inner heat); from Nagarjuna, Illusory Body and Clear Light; from Lvabapa (Kambala), Dream Yoga and; from Sukhasiddhi,intermediate Bardo and Phowa (transferring of consciousness). That way the Six Yogas were received from four great masters.Anyway, all of that is not in contradiction, because at the end, all the teachings of the Buddha, its essence, Tilopa received from fourstreams of lineages. — Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche

Marpa Kagyu Lineage


height seven times that of a tree known as tala inIndia, a date palm. He was singing songs to allthe city—he was the servant of this woman, andthe whole city attained realization. They all gotenlightened because of his teaching from a heightseven times that of a tala. It is said that if thehead of a tala is cut it will never grow. ManyTibetans mistake a tala for a banana tree. Butbanana trees they always cut and they still grow.So it is not that, it is a date palm.

Naropa followed Tilopa and went throughtwelve main tests and hardships before Tilopafinally decided to teach him, and he then attainedenlightenment. Then the Tibetan master MarpaLotsawa went to India three times and spenttwenty-one years in India, out of which exactlysixteen years and seven months he spent withNaropa and Maitripa, who were his main gurus.He had 108 gurus but his main gurus were Naropaand Maitripa. He spent time with them andreceived transmissions of fourteen main tantras,now known as the fourteen main tantras of theMarpa lineage, such as Hevajra, Guhyasamaja,Vajravarahi, Yamantaka, Mahamaya,Chakrasamvara etc. These tantras were receivedby Marpa, who practiced them, and finallybrought them back to Tibet.

Marpa’s main disciple was Milarepa. Milarepawanted to see Marpa, so he went all the way toMarpa’s village. When he got to the village therewas a middle-aged man, a big man, ploughingthe ground with oxen. Milarepa asked him, “Doyou know Marpa?” He said, “Yes. Do you wantto see him?” Milarepa said, “Yes.” So the mantold him, “Wait here.” He had a container of wineand said, “Drink this, and I will go and callMarpa.” So Milarepa sat there and drank the wine.He finished it and was still sitting there, but noMarpa showed up. Finally Marpa’s wife came andtook Milarepa in and the person who he had meton the hill, [who was actually Marpa], was sittingon the throne. That is how Milarepa met Marpafor the first time. Then Marpa gave him a veryhard time; he purified all his bad karma,

demolished his ego, and finally transmitted to him the lineagehe had received from Naropa, Maitripa etc.

Another disciple of Marpa was Ngokton Chöje Dorje.Most of Marpa’s transmissions about practice were transmittedto Milarepa, and most about the intellectual teachings weretransmitted to Ngokpa. So shepa and drupa; two lineages weretransmitted to these two disciples. Of course Marpa had manyother disciples also.

Milarepa’s main disciple was Gampopa, who was a monk.How he became a monk is interesting. He was a young andvery handsome layperson with a very beautiful wife, but shegot sick and was dying. She was in agony for days and monthsand she said to Gampopa, “I don’t want you to marry anybodyelse.” Finally he promised her that he would not marry again.Then she died and Gampopa got ordained and became a monk.He went to Milarepa and the first thing Milarepa did was…he had a kapala (skull-cup) with alcohol and he told Gampopato drink it, in front of all the people. Gampopa was a monkand now he had to drink a kapala full of wine, so he felt a littlebit strange. Then he thought, “It is my guru’s word.” So he

8. Tilopa: Some Glimpses of His Life. Published by Dzalendara Publishing, Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre.

Gampopa and the first Karmapa


drank it and not even a drop was left. Milarepa thendecided, “This disciple can receive all the transmissionsthat I have.” It was a very auspicious sign that Gampopawas a worthy disciple for Milarepa. So Milarepatransmitted all his transmissions to Gampopa. Thenfinally Milarepa prophesized that Gampopa should builda temple in a certain place and described the shape ofthe mountain and all of that.

Milarepa had many disciples, such as Rechungpa,many men and women disciples, but the top, the mostenlightened disciples of Milarepa were three men andfour women and eight repas.

Two of the main disciples, whom Milarepa describedas the son and moon, were Gampopa and Rechung DorjeDrakpa (Rechungpa). Gampopa was like the sun becausehis lineage was involved with great propagation and hewas also an ordained bhikshu. Rechungpa was like themoon because his lineage was very precious andprofound, but not that glorious like Gampopa’s, it wentfrom mouth to ear. That way it did not spread likeGampopa’s lineage. So they were the two main disciplesof Milarepa.

Gampopa had four main disciples from whom camewhat is known as the ‘four greater Kagyu lineages’, oneof which is the Karma Kagyu, starting with the firstKarmapa, who was born in the Teshö part of Kham ineast Tibet, which was a small kingdom right next to thekingdom of Derge. He was born there and became adisciple of Gampopa. He received all the transmissionsand as it was prophesized he established Tsurphumonastery. First there were small buildings in groups offive, which still stand, and later it became the seat of theKarmapas. All the followers of that lineage are known asKarma Kagyu. The other three greater lineages are thePhagmo Kagyu from Phagmo Drupa; the Barom Kagyufrom Barom Darma Wangchuk, and; from Zhang TsalpaTsondu Dakpa, a student of one of Gampopa’s maindisciples Ongom Tsultrim Nyingpo, the Tsalpa Kagyu.These four lineages are known as the greater Kagyubecause they are from the direct disciples of Gampopa.

Out of the four main disciples Phagmo Drupa hadeight main disciples, from which came those known asthe eight lesser Kagyus, not because they are lesser, butbecause they are the disciples of the disciple of Gampopa.So from Phagmo Drupa came the Drikhung Kagyu,Lingre Kagyu, Taklung Kagyu, Yasang Kagyu, Trophu

Kagyu, Shuksep Kagyu, Yelpa Kagyu and MartsangKagyu schools. The Lingre Kagyu is now known as theDrukpa Kagyu; originally it was Lingre Kagyu but nowit is called Drukpa Kagyu. These are the eight sublineages of the Kagyupa and under the Karma Kagyuthere are Surmang Kagyu, Nyendo Kagyu and GyaltönKagyu, three sub lineages which have developed further.All these lineages that developed, like a tree into branches,they are not something that got split because people didnot get along. It was according to the prophesy of themaster: the disciples spread the lineage and it has itsown identity.

Then there were three main seats for the KarmaKagyu, but over the years these three main seats were allinterrupted because of Ghenghis Khan, Kublai Khanand all those episodes. Then the Karma Kagyu lineagehad two seats: Tsurphu and Palpung. Tsurphu is likeGanden monastery for the Gelugpa, where the regent ofTsongkhapa is the Ganden Tripa, the head of the Gelugpais the Ganden Tripa, not the Dalai Lama. Many peoplehave this strange misconception that His Holiness DalaiLama is the head of the Gelugpa, which is not true. HisHoliness Dalai Lama is the temporal and spiritual headof Tibet and all of greater Tibet. But the head of theGelugpa is the Ganden Tripa, which is by graduation,not incarnation. He starts as an ordinary monk and goesall the way; he goes through all the stages and finallybecomes the Ganden Tripa. The present Ganden Tripais the 101st or 102nd Ganden Tripa. So it is by graduation.

The Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu—actually the Karmapa in Tibet is respected by all theschools as well as the head of all of the Kagyu, becauseout of the four schools (Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu andGelugpa) which we have right now, the Karmapa is theonly one who is by incarnation. The Nyingma and Sakyaare by heritage and Gelug is by graduation, but Kagyuis by incarnation. The Karmapa leaves a writteninstruction and according to that the next Karmapa isfound. Although in Tibetan Buddhism we believeeverybody dies and is born life after life, the master diesand re-incarnates and has the same name and continuesthe activity started from the first Karmapa. Until thefirst Karmapa prophesized his incarnation and the secondKarmapa was found there was no such thing as areincarnate lama. But later, the reincarnated masterstraced back their sources. For example, Tai Situpa, the


first Tai Situ title started in 1407, but the previousincarnations in Tibet trace back until Lord Marpa. Fromthere it traces back to India as Dombi Heruka, one ofthe eighty-four mahasiddhas, then from there to GuruPadmasambhava and to Lord Maitreya etc.

Many of the reincarnations in Tibet count all of that,so they say they are the twenty-sixth incarnation, thethirtieth incarnation, the fortieth incarnation, butactually, truly, the counting should be from when thefirst incarnation is recognised as an incarnation ofsomebody, is enthroned and takes the seat of thepredecessor. It should start from there. That way, I myselfam the twelfth Tai Situ. Otherwise I can call myself thefiftieth Tai Situ, but that’s not correct.

Anyway, the Karma Kagyu has two main seats:Tsurphu, the Karmapas seat, like Ganden monastery andPalpung, which is like Sera, Drepung and all the others.Palpung, is my seat. In Tibet Palpung monastery had 13monastic estates and 180 monastic branches all overgreater Tibet. That is what I am, and all the things thatI have been doing since I was eighteen months old untilnow is to try to catch up and uphold all the things thatthe previous Tai Situs have done. Whether somebodyunderstands it or not, misunderstands it or not, likes itor not, agrees with it or not, there is nothing I can do. Ifthey don’t like me doing my job then they’d better shootme. Really, there is no other way to stop it. So that is theKarma Kagyu Lineage.

Shangpa Kagyu Lineage

During the time of Marpa there was another masterknown as Khyungpo Naljor from a place in Tibet calledShang-Shung. In the beginning he was a Bönpo, not aBuddhist, but a Buddhist type of Bönpo, which we havein Simhla, that type of Bönpo. It is very much Buddhist.Then he became Nyingma, but finally he went to Indiaand he met with the sister of Naropa, Niguma, a greatenlightened mahasiddha. Then he met another greatenlightened lady master called Sukhasiddhi. From thesetwo enlightened mahasiddha women, another thirteengreat masters, four root masters and 150 enlightenedand learned masters, he received transmissions.

Mainly he received five tantric transmissions. Marpareceived fourteen. The five Khungpo Naljor receivedwere: Hevajra, Chakrasamvara, Guyhasamaja,

Mahamaya and Yamataka. These five are the main tantrasand all the practices are similar to the Marpa Kagyu,which are the Six Yogas, but all are based on these fivetantras. Khedrup Khungpo Naljor brought these fromIndia to Tibet and established his seat in the Shang area,called Shang-Shung, and therefore his lineage becameknown as the Shangpa Kagyu. He lived until a very oldage, 150 years old. In the history of Tibetan Buddhismhe is one of the masters who lived the oldest.

This lineage is very rich actually; it has so manygreat masters and many branches, it really flourished.But a few hundred years ago everything fell apart andthe Shangpa Kagyu was almost finished. But then, atthat time, the ninth Tai Situ discovered a young boywho was serving as a secretary to one of the head ministersof the king of Derge. He told this minister, “I want to

Shangpa Kagyu Lineage


bring your secretary up, he is a great person, he is not justa young boy.” So he took him and gave him transmissionsand named him Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye.

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye became one of themost important renaissance masters of TibetanBuddhism. His seat was Palpung monastery, mymonastery, which has Jamgon Kongtrul, JamyangKhyentse, and a few of the Öntruls as the mainRinpoches. Then later quite a few other Rinpochesalso resided at Palpung monastery, such as ThutopTulku, Gungri Tulku etc. Originally Tai Situ, thenlater Jamgon Kongtrul, Jamyang Khyentse and othersalso resided there.

During the time of Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thayehe revived the Shangpa Kagyu lineage. Otherwise itwould have been gone. In Palpung monastery there werethree main retreats: the upper retreat, which was theresidence of Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, that is theShangpa Kagyu retreat; the middle retreat, which wasmy summer home, in summer I stayed there, that is the

Marpa Kagyu lineage, the Six Yogas of Naropa etc.; thenthe lower retreat, which was Jamyang KhyentseWangpo’s. They practiced many other practices there,and also did short retreats, like one year and six monthretreats etc.

The main administration of the Palpung Labrangwas established by the eighth Tai Situ. Up until the timeof the eighth Tai Situ the seat of the Tai Situs was inKarma Gön, which is very close to Chamdo, in centralTibet. When the eighth Situ was born, around that timeGyalwa Kelsang Gyatso, the seventh Dalai Lama, wasborn and Kelsang Gyatso had some difficulties residingin Lhasa, so he resided in Kham and during that timethe king of Derge and the eighth Tai Situpa served him.I have it written in brocade in very big letters: “Fromthe beginning until now, the unchanged descendent ofthe king of Derge and his guru served me well when Iwas young, and this should never be forgotten.” His seal,Kelsang Gyatso’s, is there. Anyway, during that time theking of Derge did not want the eighth Tai Situ to goand reside in Karma Gön. He said, “This is a preciousjewel born in my country, I want to offer him half mykingdom, half of the sky and earth. I want him to settlein my kingdom.” So that is how Palpung monastery wasestablished. All the branches of Palpung monasterydeveloped from there, including the Karma Gönmonastery and its branches, which were originally there.

Karma Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu right now arealmost one. The Shangpa Kagyu’s lineage masters wereKalu Rinpoche and Bokar Rinpoche. The previous KaluRinpoche did three-year retreats at Palpung monasteryin both Shangpa Kagyu as well as Marpa Kagyu. Theeleventh Tai Situ then appointed him as the retreat masterof both the Shangpa Kagyu and Marpa Kagyu retreatcentres. When we lost our country and when we allbecame refugees, Kalu Rinpoche was at a very good age,so he was able to establish a three-year retreat in Rewalsar,in Dalhousie, Sonada, in Darjeeling, then in Europe andAmerica, Canada, in many places. Now there are morethan a thousand people in Europe and America, morethan a thousand Europeans and Americans, who havecompleted a three-year-retreat. The credit for this verymuch goes to Kalu Rinpoche. In the west there aredharma establishments started by Kalu Rinpoche,Chögyam Trungpa and Akong Rinpoche. These threeestablished the dharma there and many others followed

Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye


afterwards, but before that there was very little VajrayanaBuddhism there, maybe only in universities, somecurriculum. Then Madame Blavatsky from theTheosophical Society had some things about VajrayanaBuddhism, but you know, I would not dance with her,she is great but I think very scary! She is like QueenVictoria, if Queen Victoria ever had that energy.

Anyway, that’s the Shangpa Kagyu lineage and nowthat is the Kagyu.

Zhijed Lineage

Zhi means pacifying, jed is a grammatical word (it meansdo): the pacifier, zhiwar jepar, pacifier. Everybody knowsZhijed from Chöd practice. This is based onPrajnaparamita. So what does it do? The practice of theparamitas will pacify all the defilements, the suffering ofsamsara. This comes from the great master Kamalashila,who received transmission from many great masters butespecially fifty-four great enlightened masters and put thepractice of this altogether. This lineage went to Tibet fivetimes as well as to China. Kamalashila, known in Tibet asPadampa Sangye9 , is known in China as Dhamo. He isdepicted with bushy hair, bushy eyebrows, and big eyes.Some also call him Bodhidharma. He was a great Indianprince, a highly enlightened master, a practitioner of thePrajnaparamita practice, but everybody called himPadampa Sangye and Bodhidharma.

He came to Tibet the first time through Tsari, whichis in Aruna Tsa Pradesh. He then came to Kham . Thesecond time he came from Kashmir through NorthernTibet, the Kailash area. The third time he came throughNepal and went into Tsang. The fourth time he camethrough Shoutago to Central Tibet. The fifth time wasfrom China, where he had taught dharma for twelve

9. Kamalashila was a brilliant Indian pandita who defeated the Chinese master Hashang in a great debate at Samye monastery inTibet. It is also said that he was very handsome. When Kamalashila left Tibet, he went to India. There is a story that on his way toIndia, he came across the corpse of an Indian man who had died of a terrible disease. Because the illness was contagious no onedared come near the corpse. Kamalashila wanted to help the people of the area, so he transferred his consciousness to the corpse inorder to move it; walked it to a distant place and dumped it there. Then his consciousness came back to the place where he had lefthis own body. However, an Indian yogi, who had a very ugly body, came across Kamalashila’s body, which was not only handsomebut also free from any illness. He thought, “This body of mine is not good. That fresh corpse is good and handsome. I would likemy consciousness to move to that body.” His consciousness then moved into the body of Kamalashila, and he walked off, leavinghis own body behind. When Kamalashila’s consciousness returned, the only body around was the ugly corpse of the Indian yogi,into which the consciousness of Kamalashila entered. Thus, the mind was Kamalashila’s but the body was not. That is why it isrecounted that Kamalashila returned to Tibet, in the body of Padampa Sangye, and disseminated the methods of Chod, in thatbody. — Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

years. The Shaolin temple and Shaolin kung-fu traditionall are descendent of the lineage of his teaching. That isbased on Prajnaparamita and Chöd.

In Chöd practice we make very strong PHET sounds,in kung-fu they say ahhu! It is very similar, just different

Zhijed Lineage


countries and cultures which somehow transform thisinto all kinds of ways. But definitely there is force, andto implement force you have to be forceful. The biggerthe cannon the louder the noise and the further theammunition goes, so we have lots of cannons, generalsand admirals and brigades here, you all know this, it hasto make noise, really shout it. Chöd is based on this,and the lineage in Tibet is… actually there are so manygreat masters but the two main masters are PadampaSangye and Machik Lapkyi Dronma, who was a Tibetan

lady from the Lap area, an enlightened Tibetan masterof the Chöd lineage.

From Padampa Sangye’s last visit to Tibet, the thirdtransmission lineage,10 during that time he had manyaccomplished disciples, but there were forty-nine specialenlightened disciples and twenty-four enlightened femaledisciples. Through these disciples the great transmissionscontinue today, which are sometimes known as the ‘FourYogis of the Four Directions’. The twenty-five malemasters are described as, ‘whose illusions fell apart’. Theyhave no more illusions. One was called Chokro Nyunpa,‘Crazy Chokro’. Chokro was his family name and nyunpameans crazy. He is described as crazy because if you haveno more illusion, you don’t care. Then other people whodo care so much will call you ‘crazy’. So including him,there were twenty-five of them. Then Tsomo Sangye wasone of the twenty-four enlightened female masters ofthe Chöd lineage. Chöd is practiced now by everybodyso today there is no one organisation or onedenomination known as the Zhijed. It is in everything,we practice Chöd, and so many people practice it. Sothe Zhijed lineage is alive but it doesn’t have its ownorganised religious structure.

Jonangpa/Jordrug Lineage

Jonangpa is also known as Jordrug, six aspects ofimplementation (Jorwa means something likeimplementation or application, and drug means six). TheJordrug lineage is actually the practice of Kalachakra, itis based on the Kalachakra tantra, which was transmittedby Buddha to the king of Shambhala. Kalachakra andall its related lineages are protected in Shambhala becausethis world is going to be occupied by barbarians in thenext 300 years. There are two different calculations: onehas one zero less and one has one zero more. So in 30 or300 years this whole world will be occupied bybarbarians. That means this world will have no place or

Jordrug Lineage

10. The first lineage Padampa Sangye transmitted is the one to a Kashmiri disciple who became the mahasiddha known as Jhanaguhi.The second lineage was transmitted to his three disciples from Central Tibet known as Ma, So and Kam: for Ma Choshe he gave thetransmission mainly related with bodhichitta and then eighteen very sacred transmissions, which is like a mouth to ear lineage; toSo Gendunbar he transmitted a lot of transmissions of the Zhijed, especially those related with Manjushri Lion’s Roar, and; to KamYegyal he transmitted Prajnaparamita related transmissions. Machik Lapkyi Dronma’s transmission is also a part of this. — KentingTai Situ Rinpoche


anybody except them. Whoever those barbarians are, theyare going to dominate this world. It is not the end of theworld, but this idea, this religion, this philosophy, thisway of life, will be imposed on every human being onthis planet Earth. So there is no room for anybody else.

And these barbarians will succeed, they will managethat. If one of the predictions is right then it will be in30 years, or if the other one is right it will be in 300years. The world will be totally influenced by them.When that happens, then the last, the twenty-fifth kingof Shambhala, who will be ninety-nine years old, willconquer the Earth and bring the Kalachakra teachingsto Earth, and he will make this Earth a heaven on Earth.That unification and positiveness will remain for 500years and this 500 years will be the renaissance periodfor humanity on Earth. After 500 years then againeverything will change and go back to something likewhat we have now.

This lineage, known as Jordrug, is sometimes knownas Jonangpa because one of the Tibetan masters whotransmitted this lineage in Tibet was called JonangpaTaranatha. This lineage is now dissolved into everything.His Holiness Dalai Lama gives Kalachakra initiationfrom this lineage and we also practice the Kalachakrafrom this lineage, the Jordrug.

Now the Jonangpa lineage is trying to revive itsidentity, by itself. This is under the instruction of HisHoliness Dalai Lama; that the Jonangpa lineage is tryingto revive itself. It wouldn’t take very much, because allthe teachings are there and all the lineage is there. Sothey have to receive it and practice it and pull themselvestogether, and pull their acts together. Then they will havean identity.

Dorje Nyendrub

Now Dorje Sumgyi Nyendrub, which means the practiceof the three vajras: the body vajra, speech vajra, and mindvajra. Actually one of the great masters, DruptopOrgyenpa, during the time of the third KarmapaRangjung Dorje, about 800 or 900 years ago, the lineagewhich was continued by him is known as OrgyenNyendrub. Orgyenpa was his name and Nyendrub is

Dorje Nyendrub Lineage

the practice. This is very much based on the practice ofyoga. It involves breathing (pranayama), physicalexercises, visualisation, all kinds of tantric yoga practicesand exercises. This lineage is also somehow dissolved intoeveryone. There are four main masters in this lineage:Rinchen Pal, Shangtön, Kuntön Nyendowa and BotaSönäm Öser, but this lineage does not stand on its ownas another organized lineage. It is mixed with everyone.

So these are the eight major lineages of Tibetan Buddhism.This definitely does not complete the Tibetan Buddhisthistory, but I hope it is somewhat informative so that younow know a little bit more than you knew before.

With thanks to Ani Sherab for transcribing and editing.

Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa - greatliberation.org · 4 Thar Lam APRIL 2009 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF...

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Transcript of Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa - greatliberation.org · 4 Thar Lam APRIL 2009 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF...