Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal (14 page)

Khyentse confirmed the signs were correct.

Tertön Sogyal explained to Khyentse a vision he had experienced when he was told, “In the place of Gonjo, born in the Wood Ox year [1865], there will be a daughter from the Khangsar house who will have strong renunciation toward samsara, will be interested only in the Dharma, and will be quick to learn, to read, and to write.” In the vision, Tertön Sogyal saw the daughter’s parents had secretly attempted to arrange a marriage for her at the age of 16 with a district official.

“I do not want to get married to that old man,” the girl said, and withdrew a knife and handed it to her parents, telling them to cut her hair off. “I’ll be a nun instead!”

In the vision, Tertön Sogyal saw the girl’s parents pleading with her to marry the high-ranking official, but she became like an uncontrollable yak, running throughout the house and around the estate.

“Your clairvoyance is correct. She holds all the auspicious signs of the prophesied consort,” Khyentse said. “My root guru’s name is Minling Jetsuma Trinley Chödrön. You should give your consort part of her name—Trinley Chödrön.” Tertön Sogyal bowed in gratitude for the blessing he would carry to Pumo of Gonjo.

Tertön Sogyal returned to Drikok encampment to speak with Lama Sonam Thaye and Nyoshul Lungtok about the prophecy and to seek their blessing before he ventured off to Gonjo. They gave him protection for the journey and assured him that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of Padmasambhava.

Tertön Sogyal left for Gonjo with a few of his yogi friends on their stout Tibetan ponies. They were traveling southwest across the heart of the “Four Rivers, Six Ranges” where the headwaters of the Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yalong cut between six parallel mountain ranges. Brown bears, wild boar, wolves, and marmots scurried away as the group descended into the deep valleys. They moved with ease on horseback through fields of spiked blue poppies, edelweiss, and golden cobra lilies, and through forests of oak, birch, and scarlet rhododendron. Riding before dawn after consuming a bowl of roasted barley porridge, butter tea, and hardened cheese, they stopped several times a day to brew tea, and while the others were gathering wood, Tertön Sogyal set up a three-rock tripod upon which he balanced his blackened and dented kettle. As the fire was boiling the tea, Tertön Sogyal would sometimes poke one of the rocks with his phurba dagger, whereupon an aperture would appear from which he extracted small treasures—sometimes a small statue of Padmasambhava, or simply a blessed dzi onyx stone. These treasures were not connected to a specific teaching as such, but rather were objects to inspire devoted practitioners. As the yogis passed through mountain hamlets and tent encampments, Tertön Sogyal blessed the locals with these objects, sometimes leaving a treasure relic behind to increase the vitality of the sacred landscape.

The One-Eyed Protectress led Tertön Sogyal and the group across the Drichu River, around the limestone escarpments, and through the densely fir-spruce forested region of Gonjo. She guided them to avoid the fortified
dzongs,
or fortresses, of the local rulers towering above the terraced barley fields. When the group arrived to the Khangsar estate after a week of travel, smelling of oiled leather saddles and campfire smoke, they were feared to be nothing more than a group of bandits.

“How could you possibly ask for our daughter?” the matriarch of the aristocratic Khangsar household asked incredulously on beholding the dust-covered tertön. Tertön Sogyal handed over the letter from Khyentse.

“We can see this letter comes from Master Khyentse, and we have heard stories that you may be a treasure revealer. But, if you are a charlatan with long hair and white robes, you certainly won’t be the first!”

“For my daughter’s hand,” Pumo’s father bellowed, “you must prove yourself.”

Tertön Sogyal was up for the chllenge. The group from Nyarong erected yak-hair tents in one of the estate’s fields. The Khangsar family was generous with butter, jerky, and roasted barley flour, sending large portions to the yogis. Servants from the household carried pails of water from the river and tended to other needs. Before the sun rose, and in the dying hours of the day, the beautiful Pumo could hear Tertön Sogyal’s drum and bell as he practiced rituals invoking Vajrakilaya’s wisdom mind and convening local protectors. Pumo held back her yearning to meet with Tertön Sogyal. In the afternoon, when local spirits roam in search of sustenance, a burnt
sur
-offering of roasted barley flour, butter, and dried cheese smoldered outside of Tertön Sogyal’s tent. Days turned into weeks in Gonjo as Tertön Sogyal waited for the auspicious conditions to ripen and for positive omens to signal that it was time to prove himself to Pumo’s parents. During this period, Tertön Sogyal’s dreams indicated an imminent treasure revelation associated with Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion.

On the morning following a prophetic dream, Tertön Sogyal told his attendant to get Pumo and meet him at a granite cliff by the river. She was to carry a ritual long-life arrow decorated with five-colored silken tassels. Word spread around the village quickly that the Khangsar daughter might soon take the hand of the Nyarong treasure revealer. By the time Pumo went to meet Tertön Sogyal, most of the village had assembled at the cliff, including her mother and father and the household staff.

Tertön Sogyal told the local villagers to make a juniper smoke offering and asked for everyone to begin reciting the supplication prayer to Padmasambhava:

As everyone recited the prayer, Tertön Sogyal’s attendant, Atrin, set a small chalice on a flat boulder and poured rice wine until it overflowed—an offering to telluric spirits. Tertön Sogyal threw blessed barley seeds into the water and against the rock wall as a pre-payment for the treasure he was going to reveal.

As he made his way through the crowd, Tertön Sogyal stopped to gaze into Pumo’s auburn eyes. The arm-length tassels from the long-life arrow she held upright waved with the flowing tresses of her black hair. In that moment, the perceptions of both of them were transformed. She saw Tertön Sogyal as none other than Padmasambhava, and for him, she was Yeshe Tsogyal in the flesh. Still, they had never spoken a single word to each other.

Tertön Sogyal continued to the rock wall and took his seat on the ground. Pumo followed, and before kneeling close behind him, she blew a conch shell three times. Everyone placed their palms together in supplication to Padmasambhava while Tertön Sogyal chanted. Tertön Sogyal prayed that, if marrying Pumo was the proper course of action to benefit beings, may he be able to prove his worth to the family. Upon raising his eyes at the end of the prayer, Tertön Sogyal saw an aperture slowly being stretched open in the granite cliff. Villagers held their breath in awe.

He reached into the opening and retrieved several treasures, including a ritual phurba and a small statue and a scripture of the Buddha of Compassion. Tertön Sogyal handed the blessed objects to Atrin, who wrapped them in silk scarves. Reaching into his wool overcoat, Tertön Sogyal took his own teacup and placed it where the treasures had been so as not to leave the land empty of blessing. He nodded his head toward the rock wall, thanking the local earth and water spirits whom he had befriended with his nightly offerings, and the rock-portal sealed closed in response.

“Padmasambhava is still before us,” some in the crowd gasped. “Treasure revelations in public are as rare as a white yak.”

Handing over the phurba dagger, Tertön Sogyal told Pumo’s father to place the treasure in the Khangsar family’s main shrine. The 23-year-old Pumo approached Tertön Sogyal and offered him the long-life arrow, symbolizing their spiritual union, and thereafter was known as Khandro Pumo. Before sunrise the next day, Tertön Sogyal, Khandro Pumo, and the Nyarong congregation had broken camp and were heading back to Drikok.

CHAPTER 8

OFFICIAL SUMMONS
from the
DALAI LAMA

D
RIKOK
E
NCAMPMENT
, E
ASTERN
T
IBET

Year of the Earth Rat to the Earth Ox, 1888–1889

Accounts of Tertön Sogyal’s spiritual power spread throughout eastern Tibet to the marketplace and teahouses of Lhasa. Devout pilgrims arriving in central Tibet from Kham told of the emerging treasure revealer from Nyarong who was pulling termas out of granite and appearing in different villages at the same time. Traders brought stories of Tertön Sogyal’s blessed talismans that safeguarded them from the dangers of robbers and the punishing hailstorms. Even the monks and teachers in Lhasa at the great monastic universities of Sera, Drepung, and Ganden began hearing about Tertön Sogyal.

At the beginning of the Earth Rat year (1888), a messenger on horseback was dispatched from the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace in Lhasa to eastern Tibet with a message for Tertön Sogyal. The horseman found Tertön Sogyal at Drikok encampment where he was staying with Nyoshul Lungtok.

“You must come immediately,” Tertön Sogyal read from the communiqué from the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. “Without delay!” He showed the letter to Nyoshul Lungtok and Khandro Pumo.

Soon thereafter, Tertön Sogyal received another summons from the Dalai Lama saying that his presence in Lhasa would benefit Tibet and the Buddhist teachings in general, and, specifically, that he needed to meet with the Tibetan leader. Khandro Pumo began arranging Tertön Sogyal’s belongings for the five-week overland journey to Lhasa, and she told others in their encampment to prepare the saddles and tack.

Tertön Sogyal was being called to Lhasa to perform tantric rituals capable of turning back the British army that was deploying on Tibet’s southern border. Mantras recited by Tertön Sogyal were believed to provide protection from the threat of foreign invasion. The State Oracle had told the young Dalai Lama that Tertön Sogyal must serve the nation. This was Tertön Sogyal’s effective appointment as chaplain to the Dalai Lama. Becoming Tibet’s tantric defense minister, Tertön Sogyal was charged with the special responsibility of using his mastery of the Vajrayana for the protection of the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Within the short arc of Tertön Sogyal’s life, he had gone from being a yak herder to a bandit to a mountain yogi, and was soon to become the teacher to the Dalai Lama and defender of the realm.

Tertön Sogyal’s meeting with the Dalai Lama would reenact the spiritual dynamism between the Great Guru Padmasambhava and the imperial kings, a period in history thought of as a golden age of Tibet. The Dalai Lamas are the embodiment of the Buddha’s compassion, and just like previous kings, they were responsible for maintaining the political and spiritual vitality of the nation-state. And Tertön Sogyal, as Padmasambhava’s emissary, was charged with protecting Tibet, repulsing threats to the nation so that its Dharma practitioners would find there the most conducive conditions for the spiritual path. This was the time for Padmasambhava’s concealed treasure teachings that specified exact rituals for Tibet in times of crisis. Extremely fierce practices were vital, such as phurba dagger rites and other rituals, and the erecting of strategically placed temples and stupas that can ward off or even destroy invaders.

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso was the spiritual
and political ruler of Tibet and a disciple of Tertön Sogyal.

When Tertön Sogyal arrived in Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama, it appeared to some as though this was their first encounter. But both the tertön and the Dalai Lama knew that this was but a continuation of the bodhisattva promise they had made together many lifetimes ago.

The Dalai Lamas are both the protectors and patron saints of Tibet. Like many other gurus in Tibet, they receive their devotees’ most sincere prayers and highest aspirations. But it is to the Dalai Lama that the hopes of the nation are directed. In no other lama or lineage of incarnations in the recent history of Tibet have the Tibetan people so fully invested their aspirations and prayers.