Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal (20 page)

During the ceremony, Kongtrul presented the key—the golden scroll—to Tertön Sogyal with a mandate to decipher its meaning.

Padmasambhava prophesied two holders for
The Razor
treasure: Khyentse Wangpo and Thubten Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

By the time Jamgön Kongtrul and Tertön Sogyal discovered the key to
The Razor
, Khyentse Wangpo had already passed away; therefore the responsibilities to disseminate the Vajrakilaya treasure rested with the Dalai Lama.

The significance of
The Razor
treasure discovery for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan nation cannot be overstated. The majority of the treasure revelations, visions, and prophetic dreams that came to Tertön Sogyal throughout his life were tailored by Padmasambhava to remove obstacles to the Dalai Lama’s life and to protect the nation of Tibet, and
The Razor
was supreme among them. In addition to guaranteeing the health and longevity of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, its practice promised to quell the internal strife in the Dalai Lama’s court, as well as to subdue the damsi demons within the influential monasteries in Lhasa. If
The Razor
rituals were carried out in the specified manner, including strategic protection of Lhasa by placing a phurba before the sacred Jowo Shakyamuni Buddha statue in Jokhang Temple, then, as a prophecy within
The Razor
states:

As with all treasure revelations, the tertön himself must practice it for a period of time to reignite the blessing and power within himself before it is taught to others. It would still be three years before Tertön Sogyal would offer
The Razor
to the principal individual whom it was meant to protect, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

CHAPTER 12

The
DARK FORCES COALESCE

L
HASA
, C
ENTRAL
T
IBET

Year of the Fire Monkey to the Earth Dog, 1896–1898

The Nechung Oracle issued a prophecy in the Fire Monkey year (1896) that Tertön Sogyal must return to Lhasa and deliver recent treasure revelations to their owners. Official summons were issued from the Potala Palace, and Tertön Sogyal was soon riding west on horseback to central Tibet on his third trip to Lhasa.

Before Tertön Sogyal was summoned to Lhasa, he spent some months with his wife, Khandro Pumo, and son. Theirs was a relationship founded on the practice of the Dharma and on creating auspicious conditions for each other’s swift awakening.

When Khandro Pumo left her life in Gonjo, she quickly adjusted to the meditative space around Tertön Sogyal. She had a natural disposition for spiritual practice and devotedly assisted Tertön Sogyal, as she had not only taken him as her spiritual partner but also as her Dzogchen teacher. For Khandro Pumo, Atrin, and others who assisted Tertön Sogyal, the opportunity to work closely with the tertön provided them continual glimpses into a meditator’s mind that did not separate from a state of nondistraction. Discursive thoughts seemed to be swallowed into the enormity of Tertön Sogyal’s presence. Serving a cup of tea or adjusting the treasure revealer’s shawl was as much a part of their spiritual practice as prostrating and making offerings before images of Padmasambhava in a temple. To see their lama immediately sparked the recognition in themselves of their own enlightened nature. When Tertön Sogyal traveled without them, Khandro Pumo and others did not relax but rather diligently remained in meditation retreats.

Before his trip to Lhasa, the astrologically appropriate day had arrived for Tertön Sogyal to replace the sacred substances he held within his braids of hair tied atop his head. His yogic braids reached well below his chest when let down. Khandro Pumo rolled and cleaned the locks. Few words were exchanged. Tertön Sogyal was not one for banter. Winding a lock around a cloth sachet of medicinal powder and relics, Khandro Pumo placed it upon Tertön Sogyal’s crown aperture. Taking each matted dread to hold the sachet in position, she layered them into the finished crown-like arrangement.

Lay tantric yogis on the high plateau, like the wandering
sadhu
mendicants in India, often let their hair grow long. The mass of hair tied in a bundle of a lay yogi in Tibet reminds the community at large that the yogi had dedicated his life to spiritual practice, not unlike one of the external purposes of the shaved head of a monk or nun. Internally, the lay yogi’s hair reminds him to be free of convention and mundane concerns, while the shaved head of a monastic constantly reminds him that his path to liberation is through discipline. Ultimately, however, the outer form—red or white robes, tonsured head or long hair—serves only as support for the essential point of Dharma practice, which is to release spontaneously all appearances and rising thoughts into the space of unborn awareness.

Tertön Sogyal relied on Khandro Pumo’s advice, for she had the uncommon ability to see into the future. Looking into a doorway or a cave entrance, or even her thumbnail, she received predictions that were luminously written in the empty space. Because her inner winds and energies flowed smoothly in the channels of her subtle body, the ability to peer into the future came almost effortlessly. Though aware of her power, she never offered counsel unless she was asked. When Atrin and others around Khandro Pumo asked her advice, she shied away from the attention and said her only ability was to recite mantras. Later in her life, villagers and farmers continually sought her advice for the best time to plant their crops or the most favorable day to begin a long journey, or to find out whether an illness was going to be fatal. Her predictions were accurate.

An image of Khandro Pumo, the spiritual wife
of Tertön Sogyal, from her stupa at Kalzang Temple in Nyarong.

Khandro Pumo gathered Tertön Sogyal’s personal and religious items for his impending journey, including his prayer beads and a large silver amulet that contained blessing substances and relics of past masters. She presented Tertön Sogyal with a copper tube that had been fashioned by a metalsmith in Derge. She suggested that Tertön Sogyal place his ritual phurba in the container, as it had an eyelet through which a leather tie could thread. Khandro Pumo had premonitions that Tertön Sogyal’s phurba dagger might be lost during the long journey ahead of him. She also wanted to ensure that no hand other than Tertön Sogyal’s ever touched the sacred object. Like all treasure revealers, Tertön Sogyal was never separated from his phurba, which he concealed in his waist belt—it was a physical reminder of his duty as Padmasambhava’s representative.

Tertön Sogyal took his phurba dagger out of his belt. This was the phurba given to him by Nyoshul Lungtok. Tertön Sogyal employed the phurba as a support for his Vajrakilaya meditation, placing it before him and visualizing the wrathful deity emerging from and dissolving into it. The phurba was made of meteorite. Meteorite’s ability to slice effortlessly through sky and earth is a metaphor for the Vajrakilaya adept who cuts through confusion and obstacles with the force of his meditation. Tertön Sogyal had such a profound connection with this particular phurba that when he was feeling unwell, or if any of his disciples developed an impure view of the teachings or of their teacher, the blades would secrete rusty-colored oil. At other times, when prophetic visions of Padmasambhava unfolded in Tertön Sogyal’s mind or when the auspicious time approached to reveal a treasure, the phurba would vibrate and a whitish substance would trickle from the edges. Holding the phurba in the air, Tertön Sogyal recited an auspicious prayer and lightly touch Khandro Pumo’s crown as a blessing, and then placed it in the protective container.

When Tertön Sogyal arrived in Lhasa after five weeks of travel, he went straight to see the Dalai Lama. He wasted no time in showing the Dalai Lama the golden scroll for a Vajrakilaya practice known as
The Deepest Heart Essence of Vajrakilaya
. As Tertön Sogyal had not practiced and matured the blessing in his own mind with
The Razor of the Innermost Essence,
it was not the time to expose it, even to the Dalai Lama. When the Medium of the Nechung Oracle saw the scroll for
The Deepest Heart Essence,
he grabbed it and said, “I must have this!”

“Before you decipher this text, the precious tertön himself must make grand offerings in the Jokhang Temple in front of the Jowo Shakyamuni Buddha statue and the
Wish-Fulfilling Jewel Guru Statue That Liberates Upon Seeing
.”

Tertön Sogyal took up residence in a small room at the Norbulingka Palace of the Dalai Lama, and after he accomplished the rituals Nechung had ordered, he completely deciphered
The Deepest Heart Essence
liturgies into 13 chapters. During this time at the summer palace, monks from the Dalai Lama’s personal monastery, Namgyal, performed phurba dagger rites in the temple adjacent to Tertön Sogyal’s residence.

Before his arrival in Lhasa in 1896, Tertön Sogyal had gone to Nyarong to check on the young man from the village of Shayul that Tertön Rangrik had mentioned. The boy’s mother was indeed pushy in her manner, but Tertön Sogyal simply deflected her insistence to recognize her son, Nyagtrül, as Nyala Pema Dündul’s reincarnation. Still, Tertön Sogyal thought the 20-year-old Nyagtrül could use some tutoring, especially since he had displayed some minor meditative accomplishments, such as summoning thunderstorms. After the mother’s persistent requests over tea and dumplings, it was agreed that Nyagtrül could travel with Tertön Sogyal’s large entourage to Lhasa.

Upon their arrival in Lhasa, Tertön Sogyal found himself too busy to look after Nyagtrül. Tertön Sogyal was bestowing Vajrakilaya empowerments and meditation instructions on the Dalai Lama, and performing rituals for the Tibetan government, which took all of his time and energy. Nyagtrül stayed with a tea-trading Nyarong family residing in Lhasa. They helped the young lama with the language barrier between the Lhasa and Nyarong dialects. But Nyagtrül was precocious enough to navigate his way around Lhasa alone. While he found entertainment in the bazaar and sweet teahouses in the market area, Nyagtrül maintained a strict regimen of meditation and ritual. But a dark force was shrouding Nyagtrül’s heart, and his actions began to be taken over by the demon of self-cherishing.

Given that Nyagtrül had arrived in Lhasa with Tertön Sogyal, some believed the young Nyarong lama was his close disciple. Nyagtrül took advantage of this impression and claimed that Tertön Sogyal had taught him how to perform prosperity rituals. Nyagtrül’s ability to read people’s thoughts led some aristocratic families to bring him to their homes to preside over elaborate rituals to increase wealth in the family.