Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal (21 page)

After some time, however, the Nyarong merchants in Lhasa conveyed messages to Tertön Sogyal that they felt Nyagtrül had turned to the dark side. Their messages to the tertön did not state their reasoning exactly, but they sensed Nyagtrül was up to sorcery because of the dreadful odors, akin to burning flesh, and ominous cries coming from his room, which he never allowed anyone to enter.

“What rituals or black magic is Nyagtrül up to?” they questioned Tertön Sogyal.

Aware that yogis, if they have not steeped their minds in the ethos of the bodhisattva—that deep longing to benefit all sentient beings—can become overwhelmed by their own self-cherishing thoughts, Tertön Sogyal sent a message to Nyagtrül to leave Lhasa immediately and enter a long-term retreat at the holy caves near Samye Temple, southeast of Lhasa. Tertön Sogyal would arrange for a retreat attendant and food. Nyagtrül ignored the directive.

Tertön Sogyal’s activities in Lhasa in 1896 included finding and deciphering treasures texts, teaching them to the Dalai Lama, and conducting rituals for the benefit of the nation, and he also visited holy places associated with Padmasambhava.

The Dalai Lama had ascended to power in 1895. It was a critical time, with increasing political pressure on Tibet from its neighbors, and he began to pay even closer attention to Padmasambhava’s prophecies, which came to him from those lamas who were tasked with the protection of Tibet. Tertön Sogyal was the foremost of these tantric practitioners. The need for the Dalai Lama to follow in the footsteps of his imperial predecessors by following Padmasambhava’s advice can be seen in official sources about the Dalai Lama’s temple-building activities:

In Tertön Sogyal’s tantric worldview, the ability of enemy forces to attack was because Tibet had become a spiritually diminished nation. The weakness of Tibet in the 19th and 20th centuries was not so much due to an ill-equipped army, but because Tibetans had amassed negative deeds in the name of religion. As Padmasambhava repeatedly warned, the nation’s power was damaged by sectarian rivalries between monasteries, the illicit use of money donated to monks and nuns, and the practice of praying to enlightened beings for prestige and wealth. But the most pernicious deed that weakened both individuals and the nation was the failure to obey the instructions of their spiritual guides. Because Padmasambhava was the father of Buddhism in Tibet, when the Tibetan government did nothing to enact his instructions that treasure revealers had provided, and when sectarian abbots and monks publicly opposed Padmasambhava, the foundation of the Tibetan nation began to crumble.

The treasures that Padmasambhava concealed and that Tertön Sogyal and others discovered were a medicine, an antidote for the spiritual sickness. The Nechung Oracle continually urged the Dalai Lama to seek teachings, empowerments, and direction from Tertön Sogyal and other representatives of Padmasambhava because the threat to the Tibetan nation was as much from internal spiritual pollution as it was from external military aggression. The Nechung Oracle declared that Tertön Sogyal must continue to reveal treasures that would remove obstacles from the Dalai Lama’s life and pacify conflict with forces from India and China and beyond. The need for the Nechung Oracle to continually direct Tertön Sogyal’s activity was in fact a sign that the Tibetan nation was deeply polluted; no sooner had one ritual or revelation been accomplished than another was needed. Even during Tertön Sogyal’s third visit, conflict broke out near his home area with the invasion by Qing troops from Dartsedo in 1897, and the British were eyeing an invasion of Lhasa from the south, which came about seven years later.

Tertön Sogyal stayed only six months in Lhasa before returning to Kham in the Fire Bird year (1897). Before he left, the Nechung Oracle told him not to be away from Lhasa for too long. Tertön Sogyal exchanged teachings and empowerments with Jamgön Kongtrul upon his return to eastern Tibet and also discovered a number of treasures in the summer, including a phurba dagger known as the Life-Force Phurba of the Dharma King of Tibet. The Life-Force Phurba belonged to the reigning Dharma King, the Dalai Lama. Its associated prophecy told Tertön Sogyal to deliver it to its owner by the autumn so that its full effectiveness in pacifying conflict could be utilized.

Tertön Sogyal came back to Lhasa on the less-traveled route on horses provided by the Office of the Tibetan High Commissioner in Nyarong. Tertön Sogyal’s wife and son traveled as far as Kongpo and remained there while he continued to the capital.

At one campsite in the lush forests of Kongpo, Tertön Sogyal took time to decode additional liturgies of
The Razor
and wrote them down in his own hand or dictated to Kongtrul’s scribe, who traveled with the group. Along the banks of the Three Cliff Lake, as smoke rose from the smoldering juniper reflected in the deep green waters, Tertön Sogyal called upon the One-Eyed Protectress of Mantras and the local treasure guardians to assist him.

Local guardians delivered a treasure to Tertön Sogyal’s hands, which included a prophecy entitled the
Luminous Garland of Sunlight
that Padmasambhava had originally given to King Trisong Detsen. The prophecy told of methods to repel harmful demon spirits in Lhasa who were intent on causing divisions among Dharma practitioners. Part of the prophecy called for the construction of various temples and stupas throughout Tibet, including at the historically significant royal chapels in Lhasa, Samye, and Tandruk, new border-protecting structures near Kalzang in Nyarong, among others. These temples, chapels, and stupas, empowered through mantras and filled with sacred substances, could ward off demons that invite military incursions bent on destroying the Buddhist teachings in Tibet. The prophecy warned that if the chapels and temples were not built at the specified time, “the Tibetan ruler and bodhisattva incarnation [the Dalai Lama] would be killed by the Chinese and the life spans of kings and ministers, both Chinese and Tibetan, will become short.” If, on the other hand, the temples were built, “law would be established and invaders repulsed, and the sun of happiness will shine in Tibet for a long time to come.” Tertön Sogyal arrived in Lhasa in 1898 for his penultimate visit. He offered the Life-Force Phurba, as well as the
Luminous Garland of Sunlight
prophecy, to which the Dalai Lama listened intently; he then ordered that every detail be attended to straightaway, including construction of the strategically placed temples. Preparations were also made for Tertön Sogyal to bestow upon the Dalai Lama
The Razor
phurba teachings. The empowerment ceremonies and complex explanations lasted weeks. Because
The Razor
protected Tibet and the Tibetan leader, both the Dalai Lama’s personal chapel of Namgyal and the temple of the State Oracle incorporated the practice into their calendar of rituals, and woodblocks were carved so that texts could be distributed to the initiated.
The Razor
had effectively become part of Tibet’s national defense policy.

The morning after
The Razor
empowerments, the Dalai Lama experienced a vivid dream in which he found himself before the palace of Padmasambhava where two dakinis met him and sang prophetic verses that referred to the empowerment that Tertön Sogyal had just bestowed. The celestial dakinis told the Dalai Lama that if he performed apposite ritual offerings according to
The Razor
, the three poisons—desire, anger, and ignorance—would be eradicated and profound spiritual realizations would unfold. They said:

The Dalai Lama awoke, remembering the words very clearly, and wrote them down. When he told Tertön Sogyal about the dream, they discussed its meaning. The Tibetan leader wasted no time in accomplishing the 1,000 feast offerings to Vajrakilaya as he was told to do in his dream.

Even though constant rituals and a host of other protective measures were carried out to avert external threats to the Tibetan nation, dangers to the Dalai Lama’s life persisted. Indeed, the foreign menaces were coalescing and gathering strength. But Tibet’s internal dark forces would strike first.

CHAPTER 13

SORCERER’S ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
on the
DALAI LAMA

L
HASA
, C
ENTRAL
T
IBET

Year of the Earth Pig, 1899

In 1886, when the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was 11 years old, Demo became Tibet’s regent. Demo was the head of the Tengyeling Monastery, and its estate was the largest and most powerful in Lhasa at the time. Demo served the young Dalai Lama well, and thanks to his position, his monastery increased its already substantial wealth. In the Wood Sheep year (1895), Demo stepped aside and the Dalai Lama was enthroned as the spiritual and political ruler of Tibet. Many in Demo’s court were not pleased with their loss of power. In particular, Norbu Tsering, Demo’s nephew and manager of the Tengyeling estate, was distressed at the sudden reduction in Tengyeling’s political clout after the Dalai Lama ascended to the throne.

The wealth of Tengyeling in the late 1800s was a testament to Norbu Tsering’s proficiency in worldly ways. He not only employed financial skills and real estate management, but he also relied heavily on tantric practitioners to perform wealth rituals. But now Tengyeling’s influence was waning.

Increasingly discontent with Tengyeling’s lot, Norbu Tsering believed the regency would be returned to his uncle Demo if something suddenly caused the Dalai Lama’s life to end. So he began to conspire against the Tibetan leader. Unable to gain access to anyone who worked with and served the Dalai Lama’s food, Norbu Tsering felt that poisoning, a common method used in China and Tibet at that time to eliminate enemies, was not an option. Then, on the occasion of hosting a ritual in their family home in the west part of Lhasa, presided over by Nyagtrül, the young tantric practitioner from Nyarong, Norbu Tsering hatched a plot to assassinate the Dalai Lama.

Nyagtrül’s rise to prominence in Lhasa had been quick. He had chosen to ignore Tertön Sogyal’s directive to leave Lhasa for an extended meditation retreat. He had not studied under a teacher since arriving in Lhasa and had not seen Tertön Sogyal or Tertön Rangrik. Nonetheless, his occult powers had increased greatly.

Before coming to Lhasa, Nyagtrül had been taught sorcery. A combination of the shamanism of Tibet’s past and Indian tantra, certain spells were the source of his magical powers to influence others, make matter invisible, or control the weather. The efficacy of this sorcery is ignited when a prescribed ritual is performed by a yogi who has mastered, among other talents, undistracted visualizations and mantra recitation. Such practices were taught rarely, for fear they would be misused.