Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal (31 page)

He could hear the adepts chanting in the nearby chapel. Tertön Sogyal knew that the power of the Vajrakilaya practice would transform their perception of reality and alter the way they engaged with the world. His disciples were sealed for three months of continuous tantric practices, secured by their oath not to walk beyond the confines of the small temple room. Tertön Sogyal silently commanded the local mountain spirits to assist the yogis in their practice.

Atrin entered the master’s meditation chambers with a full pot of salted butter tea. Tertön Sogyal sat on a wolf-skin pelt on the floor with a simple prayer table in front of him. After pouring the steaming brew into Tertön Sogyal’s wooden cup, Atrin placed the blackened pot on a mound of hot coals.

“I will see the two mendicants now,” Tertön Sogyal said, before Atrin could inform him that two pilgrims had arrived requesting an audience. The attendant was used to Tertön Sogyal reading his mind.

Atrin motioned for the two young monks to enter the room. They touched their foreheads to the feet of Tertön Sogyal and nervously presented him with a tattered silk offering scarf along with their only money—two silver coins—and a small bouquet of purple flowers they had picked along a nearby streamside.

Both monks had long heard of Tertön Sogyal. This was the meditation teacher of the Dalai Lama. This was one of the most powerful tantric masters of his day. This was a representative of none other than Padmasambhava himself. The two monks had heard that Tertön Sogyal could halt hailstorms with mantra, summon rain for crops, and exorcise demons from possessed villagers. By now, many in Golok spoke of the tertön’s ability to predict the future. Trust in his clairvoyance was such that devotees would travel months to seek the opportunity to ask Tertön Sogyal for a single divination.

The monks Lobsang and Gelek were not seeking such clairvoyant answers. They came with the heartfelt wish to receive a blessing from one they considered a buddha in the flesh, and to ask for advice for their pilgrimage.

Scroll painting of Tertön Sogyal circa 1915
that has the tertön’s thumbprints on the back.

“We will begin tomorrow prostrating to Lhasa,” Gelek said to Tertön Sogyal of their impending seven-month, 1,000-mile pilgrimage, body-length by body-length, from Golok to sacred shrines in central Tibet.

“I have prayed for years for the opportunity to meet you, precious master,” Lobsang said. “Please give us advice for our spiritual practice.”

“Whether you are sitting quietly in a meadow, conducting elaborate tantric rituals, or bowing continuously all the way to Lhasa, your mind must never part from that state we call meditation.” Tertön Sogyal never wasted a moment to strike the crucial point.

He continued, “In meditation, you take care of your mind like a mother looks after her baby.”

Atrin called Khandro Pumo and Rigdzin Namgyal from the kitchen. They sat on their heels in the door frame with keen attention to Tertön Sogyal’s advice to the pilgrims.

“But if at the time of meditation, the nature of your mind, your
rigpa
, is not radiantly aware, then you will not be able to liberate even one single thought.”

Tertön Sogyal sat upright, eyes unblinkingly still, his shoulders spread downward like an eagle getting ready to take flight. He demonstrated with his body and mind how to rest in the innermost nature of mind, where, when the clouds of turbulent thoughts and emotions dissolve, the sky-like nature of the mind is revealed.

Atrin and Khandro Pumo never knew when Tertön Sogyal would expound on Dzogchen or introduce disciples to the nature of mind. It seemed Tertön Sogyal recognized when an auspicious moment arose, and then whoever was present, be it one student or hundreds of disciples, would receive the precious instructions. To Lobsang and Gelek, two students he had never before met, Tertön Sogyal was offering the view of Dzogchen meditation.

“What is it your mind must liberate?” Tertön Sogyal asked the two monks, who had lifted their gazes to his face.

Holding his thumb and forefinger in the air, he said, “Attachment to good and aversion to bad circumstances. These two.” The firm hand gesture reassured the two monks.

“Seemingly good circumstances can creep in stealthily, like thieves, and if you are not on guard, to notice them and liberate them, they will become a demonic force, enticing and seducing you, leading you into mindless distraction.

“Bad circumstances will come more obviously, aroused by lustful attachments to forms, or aversion toward an enemy. If your mind is not able to liberate your attachment or aversion at that precise moment, then, when you meet the actual circumstances themselves, your true failing as a spiritual practitioner will be exposed.”

Tertön Sogyal emphasized to his disciples the importance of diligently applying themselves in practicing the Dharma in formal meditation sessions so that when they were off their meditation carpets, awareness would be integrated into all actions of thoughts, words, and deeds. The point was not that disciples mechanically repeat mantras and prayers, or mindlessly perform rituals, or simply sit peacefully in meditation posture. Rather, the vital point was maintaining undistracted awareness every moment, regardless of the activity.

“Now, what is it that liberates?” Tertön Sogyal asked, his eyes widening like those of the wrathful deities painted in the temples. “The wisdom of rigpa—the nature of mind.”

Tertön Sogyal sat unmoving like a mountain. Simply hearing the word
rigpa
from the famous teacher’s mouth suspended the moment for the two monks, their minds expanding like space. In the silence, any rising thoughts in the minds of the two monks evaporated like mist in the sun. Devotion rose within Lobsang’s and Gelek’s hearts.

In the adjacent chapel, the yogis continued beating a drum as part of their daily rituals. Lobsang’s mind wandered from Tertön Sogyal’s meditation instructions and followed the percussion. He pondered if he might know the yogis and what liturgy they were reciting, and he began thinking of his schedule for the coming weeks. Like a leaping monkey, his mind jumped toward the future and back to the past. Lobsang’s awareness was everywhere but in the present moment.

Tertön Sogyal slammed his hand on the table, causing his cup of tea to spill on the floor.

“What is it you liberate?” he yelled.

Lobsang did not say a word, but the clarity of his own awareness struck like lightning illuminating itself. Tertön Sogyal was not teaching about meditation, he was giving them the experience of meditation. He caused Lobsang’s razor-like awareness of the nature of mind to slice through thinking, leaving his mind unaltered in a state of equipoise. Tertön Sogyal was bestowing the most profound instruction of liberating thoughts upon arising—for it is thinking about thoughts, as in the links of an iron chain, one after another, that prevents a meditator from abiding in wakeful awareness.

“What is it you liberate?” Tertön Sogyal asked again. “All these rising thoughts in your mind, whether good or bad. That is what is liberated—thoughts themselves.”

He continued with the severing of the monk’s habitual tendency to chase after each rising thought. Tertön Sogyal asked, “How do you liberate them? Upon its arising, allow each thought to move like a wave dissolving back into the vast ocean from which it came.”

Tertön Sogyal paused again, hands resting on his knees. He offered the two monks a lasting impression of his face for their pilgrimage, to remind them of their glimpse of pure awareness—the true, unchanging nature of mind. Indeed, it was this stoic impression of Tertön Sogyal resting in the most profound state of meditation that the monks carried in their hearts and minds for the rest of their lives.

Tertön Sogyal told the monks they would surely encounter hardship day after day while on their journey to Lhasa, but this meditative tool—liberating thoughts upon their arising—would be their refuge.

“The real, true sign of whether you can liberate thoughts or not is when you actually meet negative circumstances face-to-face. When thoughts arise like a blazing fire or bubble up like boiling water, if, at that very moment, you are able to liberate them, then that is truly the same as a miracle.

“If you are able to liberate one attachment, one aversion, one negative thought, then many lifetimes of negative karma are purified.”

Tertön Sogyal’s ability to transmit experientially, viscerally, the power of his meditative mind was born of his own profound realization of the Buddha’s teachings, the devotion of his disciples, and the authentic blessings he carried. Whether he was teaching two wandering monks in eastern Tibet or the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, students cherished Tertön Sogyal’s pith instructions on meditation as dearly as their own hearts. And this single instruction—liberating thoughts upon their arising—was one such meditation tool that Tertön Sogyal felt was more powerful than any mantra, any prayer, or any ritual.

“Such a person who can liberate thoughts upon their arising,” Tertön Sogyal declared, “I call the greatest of meditators; such a person I call clairvoyant—even omniscient.”

CHAPTER 21

CREATING PEACE
between
TIBET
and
CHINA

D
ODRUPCHEN AND
D
ZOGCHEN
, E
ASTERN
T
IBET

Year of the Wood Hare to the Water Dog, 1915–1922

At the beginning of the Wood Hare year (1915), a request came from the tribal chiefs and lamas from the neighboring province of Sertar to Tertön Sogyal to give teachings and consecrate a recently built stupa. The request confirmed what Tertön Sogyal had seen in a vision a few months earlier. In the vision, he had met three girls adorned with many jewels circumambulating a massive stupa. The girls asked Tertön Sogyal, “Will you be able to remove the difficulties for our guru? They are formidable!”

“Who is your guru?” Tertön Sogyal asked.

“Our guru is the omniscient Thubten. He is under the spell of obstacles.” And they told Tertön Sogyal to recite various practices at a newly constructed stupa for the benefit of Thubten Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and for all of Tibet. Such practices accomplished in front of the stupa had the power to subdue evil intention. The stupa was one of the largest to have ever been built in eastern Tibet. Dodrupchen told Tertön Sogyal that he too would perform the consecration at the same time, but from his hermitage.

In the sixth month of the year, Tertön Sogyal went with Atrin, Khandro Pumo, and others to the stupa on the southern edge of the one-road town of Sertar. The enormous four-story, whitewashed, conical-shaped brick reliquary, with a golden spire on top, could be seen rising out of the golden plains from 50 miles away. Surrounded with prayer wheels that devotees turned as they circumambulated, the structure’s base was a temple that could hold more than 100 monks, and there was a second floor that could be reached by ladder. The inner sanctum housed representations of enlightened body, speech, and mind—hundreds of statues, thousands of volumes of scripture and mantra, and relics of the historical Buddha and saints.

Tertön Sogyal was met miles before reaching the town by an escort party who hoisted flags, waved white scarves, and hollered greetings from their horses. They were taken to their hosts in a large nomad tent that served as their residence. With the grass plentiful in the summer pastures, the yogurt and cheese offered were sweet and abundant. Thousands of nomads and farmers arrived for the ceremony, setting up their own tents on the edge of the town’s meandering river, racing horses during the day and bartering rope, reins, and saddles. The consecration of the stupa brought together the entire community; women and men wore their finest dress and coral and turquoise jewelry, danced and sang in the evening, and caught up on gossip from the nearby valleys.

The ceremony lasted for a week, which included rituals in the morning and Tertön Sogyal teaching to the thousands gathered in the afternoon. He sat on a throne under a tent outside of Auspicious Temple in front of the stupa. Hundreds of monks surrounded him. During the consecration, Tertön Sogyal held a large mirror and slowly moved it through the space in front of him to catch the reflection of the sacred stupa and the whole of the environment—the sky, hills, stupa, village, people. Tertön Sogyal then took a ritual vase with consecrated water and, while chanting purifying mantras, poured water over the mirror to cleanse and empower all that had been reflected. Tertön Sogyal and the monks prayed and invoked blessings from the buddhas and bodhisattvas in all directions to rain down. At various points during the ceremony, Tertön Sogyal took a handful of rice and barley grains and tossed them toward the stupa, visualizing a descent of blessings from the lineage masters. At one point, Tertön Sogyal and others saw grains of barley fall from high in the western sky and land on the stupa. He knew that these were the blessed substances that Dodrupchen had cast in the direction of the stupa from his hermitage three days’ ride away.

On the final day of the ceremony, Tertön Sogyal saw 21 dakinis in the sky make offerings—perfumed water, flowers, incense, butter lamps, and sumptuous food and drinks—to the stupa. He took this as a sign that the consecration was successful. The following day, Tertön Sogyal was asked to perform a blessing in an adjacent village. During the ceremony, Tertön Sogyal again saw many dakinis in the sky— thousands of them—their bodies made of rainbow light. They were singing and dancing in silk dresses with flowing hair, holding many kinds of nourishment and adornments and ritual implements. The dakinis began to merge into one another, as when mist becomes raindrops, eventually leaving 16. Tertön Sogyal recognized some of the 16 dakinis he had met in Amnye Machen, Lhasa, and elsewhere, and some he had met only in dreams. Tertön Sogyal recognized two of the dakinis in the vision from 20 years before, when they had persuaded him against his will to dance in order to deepen his Dzogchen realizations.