Fifteen years ago this October, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche arrived in the United States for the first time. Today, twenty-one Chagdud Gonpa Foundation centers span the North and South American and European continents and the outer, inner and secret teachings of the Buddhadharma are ripening in students' minds. Padma Publishing has translated and produced dozens of texts as well as three of Rinpoche's own books and one by his mother, and the Mahakaruna Foundation, established by Rinpoche, supports many individuals and monasteries in Asia.
Rinpoche's students in the West know him for his vast wisdom and compassion and, above all, his profound transmission of the Buddhadharma. We glimpse his deep insight when he speaks to our innermost thoughts, correcting our view, meditation or conduct and witness his compassion and spiritual accomplishment in outer circumstances as well. This summer, for example, eight-year-old Rigdzin Ling sangha member, Neilly Joe Gracia, was dying from a brain tumor. Rinpoche, teaching in the Bay Area, learned that Neilly Joe's condition had changed for the worse. Although he would be returning to Rigdzin Ling a few days later and had planned to give the boy an empowerment at that time, Rinpoche instead drove through the night to Rigdzin Ling after finishing an evening teaching, concerned that Neilly Joe receive the empowerment before his death. He performed the ceremony early in the morning and drove back to the Bay Area to continue his teaching schedule that afternoon.
Neilly Joe didn't die until a month later when Rinpoche was teaching in Moscow. Having received the message of his death, Rinpoche performed p'howa, or transference of consciousness practice, for him. Students doing p'howa by the boy's side felt the power of Rinpoche's practice, but had not yet checked for signs when, on a return call, Rinpoche said, "I did it. Go check," explaining exactly how to find the crown aperture. Upon following his instructions, the students discovered very clear signs of successful transference.
Of such siddhis, or spiritual powers, many Western students may feel like his wife, Jane Tromge, who said recently, "I'm too earth-bound to see much. But when I see the people Rinpoche brings together in harmonious effort, this seems a miracle. What he has accomplished since 1978 seems a miracle. That he could turn the mind of someone like me seems a miracle."
Yet Jane also tells stories, such as one about the time she traveled to Tibet with Rinpoche and met a man who opened his gau, or reliquary,to display a stout knife bent into folds. "You did this," he told Rinpoche, "and I always carry it with me." Astounded, Jane attempted to photograph it, only to have the picture come out black. Rinpoche's comment when he saw the bent blade was, "I must have been drunk."
Lama Tsering Everest, as well, recalls Rinpoche's clairvoyance when he asked her, years ago, what she had been doing, lying on the floor with her legs in the air. Home alone, she had been on her back doing bicycle exercises while watching T. V. Lama Inge speaks of interpreting for Rinpoche in an interview with a woman with severe thyroid problems who experienced a spontaneous healing even before beginning the meditation practice he gave her.
Maile Wall, a Rigdzin Ling sangha member, tells of trying to serve Rinpoche tea as he worked on the roof during a winter retreat construction project several years ago. As she tried to hand the cup up to him, it slipped and began to fall. Seeing her expression, he reassured her, "Don't worry. It won't break." It landed on the floor unharmed." I feel he did that out of compassion for me," says Maile. She also tells of an instance, before she moved to Rigdzin Ling, when Rinpoche visited her home briefly. He threw rice as he recited prayers, blessing the shrine. A half hour later he had to leave, and Maile left the rice where it had fallen on the floor. The next morning, the floor was clean and a clam shell on the shrine was filled with rice.
Because Rinpoche recounts his autobiography with such humility, most of his students are not aware of his spiritual accomplishments or the innumerable ways in which he tirelessly benefited others during his twenty years in India and Nepal. Two Tibetan lamas currently in the United States have offered a glimpse of Rinpoche's activity during those years. Khanpo Gyurmed Tinly, a renowned scholar, founder of the Nyingma Institute in Gangtok, Sikkim, and former abbot of the shedra, or training school, of Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan, came to the United States" .... to meet again with my lama .... My connection with Chagdud Rinpoche is so significant that I have held it to be one of the most important in my life."
The following remarks are excerpted from an interview with him and from a transcript of one of his teachings.
"Once, when I went to Delhi to visit some cousins, I found that Chagdud Rinpoche was staying there .... I was very eager to meet him and felt a kind of instinctive faith in him, knowing that he was from my home country and that he commanded a great deal of respect and devotion there ....In my area of Tibet, known as Nyarong, the Tromge family was renowned as a line of siddhas. Chagdud Rinpoche is the incarnation of Chagdud Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud Tulku, who was instrumental in bringing the dharma to Nyarong. To the Nyarong people, he was like the Buddha in India. He established Chagdud Gonpa, the central monastery of thirteen he founded in that area, which created a very strong and vibrant tradition of Buddhism.
"Sherab Gyaltsan also served as court chaplain to the Chinese ruler. One year, he did not return from China in time for Losar, or New Year. The people of Nyarong did not begin the ceremonies, dances and smoke offerings until their lama returned on the thirteenth day of the new year. As far as I know, they still celebrate Losar thirteen days late in Nyarong for this reason. They don't call it Losar; they call it the Thirteenth Day.
"Rinpoche is an emanation of Gyalwa Chhog-yang, one of the twenty-five intimate students of Padmasambhava, who gained siddhi through the practice of Hayagriva. Guru Rinpoche prophesied that there would be future emanations of Gyalwa Chhog-yang who would bring great benefit in Tibet."
" .... During my first meeting with Rinpoche in Delhi, he told me that he had received a sign that I needed to do a one week retreat immediately to avert some difficulties. I took his advice to heart. The retreat was very successful and a significant turning point for me. Shortly thereafter, I asked him for some indication of who the local deities were of my home country, because I wanted to do practice that would establish a connection with them. I knew that Chagdud Rinpoche was quite famous as a visionary who often had deep insight into such things. We started to do ceremonies .... and on the second day Rinpoche had a vision on the basis of which he wrote a text. I still have the original manuscript....a very treasured text.
"When we did the smoke offering portion of a ceremony together, Rinpoche suddenly asked, "Who is that?" He saw something that none of the rest of us could see, someone who seemed from his description very much like (the great dharma warrior) Gesar riding a horse. That was the start of my ongoing connection with Gesar and the local spirits of my area of Tibet. The liturgy Rinpoche wrote based on his vision was instrumental in enriching my practice.
"During Rinpoche's stay in Delhi, I was impressed by the fact that people from all four schools (of Tibetan Buddhism) came to see him, without sectarian concern, especially when they were sick or encountering an obstacle. He did whatever was necessary to help them avert obstacles, dispel negative forces, tame demons or to exorcise or heal them ....
"Rinpoche told me at that time that he wanted to go to the United States. My first thought was, 'What for?' I felt he was making a mistake, that the language barrier was too great and that Westerners might not really be interested in what he had to offer. Now that I myself am here, years later, and have seen what is taking place, I know that he did not make a mistake at all. Since coming to the States, Rinpoche has accomplished great benefit here and abroad through his teaching and activities ....
"You Western students are incredibly fortunate that such a teacher has made his home here, that you have the opportunity to serve and rely upon him .... Look to your teacher as an example of real commitment to benefiting others. Even though his body is aging and he has less strength than he used to, he is tireless in his activity. He keeps going, ceaselessly, even though he is getting older and physically weaker."
Lama Chodag Gyatso, who worked closely for several years with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a representative of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, now resides in the United States as one of the Chagdud Gonpa lamas. In 1969, when tracing his Nyingt'hig lineage roots, he first sought out Chagdud Rinpoche. His tutor, Sang-sang Lama Donyod Rinpoche, a great siddha in his own right, advised him "at any cost" to find Do Drubchen Rinpoche and Chagdud Rinpoche, saying of Chagdud Rinpoche that he was "a vast ocean of knowledge of the lineages, traditions and translations of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya schools, that he held all the Kama and Terma traditions within the Nyingma school and that he was considered to be the accomplished living master of the Nyingt'hig lineage at that time.
Lama Gyatso heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was in Orissa, India, a major settlement of the Tibetan community in exile, where he was acting as the representative of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma lineage. According to Lama Gyatso, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche had chosen Chagdud Rinpoche as his representative there because he felt that he was the most qualified to assume the major responsibility of imparting all the oral transmissions, empowerments, and teachings to new practitioners as well as to advanced practitioners doing intensive Nyingma practice.
"In Orissa at that time, things were really difficult in every aspect....The Tibetans had nothing. Everything had to be established. These days we have so many talented khanpos (scholars) and very good practitioners from that area, all as a result of Rinpoche's farsighted programs."
Lama Gyatso was unable to meet Chagdud Rinpoche until 1975 in New Delhi. "The moment I saw him," he recounted, "I had such a strong feeling–like that of a child reunited with his parents after decades of separation. Without uttering a word, I prostrated before him .... Rinpoche didn't say much. He gave me his boundless compassionate gaze and that was more than enough to quench my thirst....
"Immediately I requested an oral transmission of a particular text. When I told him that the text was too long for me to recite on a daily basis, Rinpoche without hesitation recited a very concise version of the practice, revealing a terma, or mind treasure, right there, as if it were a play of a recording that already existed. When I re-copied it and gave it to him to correct, Rinpoche was so humble that he erased all the terma marks I had inserted to indicate it was a terma.
"This is briefly how I came to the feet of this great living Buddha .... and ever since, I have been following Rinpoche closely. I had the fortune to receive many empowerments, teachings and transmissions from him, as well as to be with him during some very private retreats. My experiences were so amazing they convinced me that I had fulfilled some of my long-held aspirations."
Lama Gyatso said that when Chagdud Rinpoche taught on important occasions in Tibetan settlements in New Delhi, highly educated Tibetan scholars praised him as one of the gems of the Buddhadharma, recognizing his qualities of erudition in all four schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Noting that the great 19th-century master Patrul Rinpoche had said that one should be able to see the soul of the deceased in order for p'howa to be effective, Lama Gyatso recounted an instance in New Delhi in which Rinpoche performed p'howa for a senior Tibetan official. Another official, a tulku, who questioned both the power of the practice itself and Rinpoche's ability to perform it, was instructed by Rinpoche, as if unaware of the man's doubt, to examine the cranial aperture for signs of successful transference. Astonished at the seemingly magical ease with which he could pull a large clump of hair from the softened cranium, the official begged Rinpoche's pardon for his wrong view.
Lama Gyatso also accompanied Rinpoche when he was requested to help a woman who had become possessed. Her face was red and wrathful, and she had such strength that she threw off the six men attempting to control her. A number of lamas had conducted ceremonies to help her, to no avail. As soon as Chagdud Rinpoche's right foot touched the doorstep, she fell on the bed and began to cry, "Rinpoche, please save me!" He performed a brief ceremony, after which the woman, though weak and exhausted, was normal.
"These are a few drops from the ocean of Rinpoche's manifestation of spiritual attainment." Lama Gyatso continued, "I can comfortably say that amongst the Buddhist spiritual masters today, especially in the Western world, there are none who even parallel Rinpoche's spiritual accomplishment, realization and academic insight.
"This is why I feel that to refer to Rinpoche, who is the very embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots and the Three Kayas, simply as "Chagdud Tulku," without honorific title, amounts to a kind of disrespect in terms of our samaya, or Vajrayana commitments. In a recent letter, Gonjang Tulku Rinpoche, a very high lama, addressed our Rinpoche as His Eminence and I feel this is appropriate ....
"I'm here because I cannot stay separated from Rinpoche, my root master. ... And I want to thank his Western students for creating a situation in which we can all be with him as one family and receive his precious teachings. You are all so fortunate that Rinpoche is right in your lap ....
"Soon we will be doing longevity practice for Rinpoche in Los Angeles, but the real longevity practice is within our minds as his students–keeping intact the relation of disciple and vajra master, maintaining our samaya. We students, especially those of us who have received Vajrayana and Dzogchen transmissions from Rinpoche, are directly responsible for the health of his mandala of activity.
"As Vajrayana practitioners, our samaya is more precious than the eyeball–it is the backbone of spiritual existence. No matter how smart we may be, how many lamas we may go to, if our samaya is strained, our foundation is rusted. No matter how many layers we try to build atop it, it will not be solid, and there will be no real development. For example, students who find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught have some obstacles due to impaired samaya.
"Maintaining pure samaya not only involves preserving a pure lama-student relationship. It also means keeping our relationships within the sangha pure. Samaya extends to all our activities, even mopping the floor, recognizing the floor as the base of the celestial palace within the pureland, seeing the act of mopping as one of cleansing, of purification.
"Upholding these commitments provides a very fertile base for spiritual accomplishment and the merit accumulated through such practice is very great. If we practice like this, Rinpoche will live a long, healthy life and his dharma activity will flourish in this country without bounds."
Fifteen years ago this October, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche arrived in the United States for the first time. Today, twenty-one Chagdud Gonpa Foundation centers span the North and South American and European continents and the outer, inner and secret teachings of the Buddhadharma are ripening in students' minds. Padma Publishing has translated and produced dozens of texts as well as three of Rinpoche's own books and one by his mother, and the Mahakaruna Foundation, established by Rinpoche, supports many individuals and monasteries in Asia.
Rinpoche's students in the West know him for his vast wisdom and compassion and, above all, his profound transmission of the Buddhadharma. We glimpse his deep insight when he speaks to our innermost thoughts, correcting our view, meditation or conduct and witness his compassion and spiritual accomplishment in outer circumstances as well. This summer, for example, eight-year-old Rigdzin Ling sangha member, Neilly Joe Gracia, was dying from a brain tumor. Rinpoche, teaching in the Bay Area, learned that Neilly Joe's condition had changed for the worse. Although he would be returning to Rigdzin Ling a few days later and had planned to give the boy an empowerment at that time, Rinpoche instead drove through the night to Rigdzin Ling after finishing an evening teaching, concerned that Neilly Joe receive the empowerment before his death. He performed the ceremony early in the morning and drove back to the Bay Area to continue his teaching schedule that afternoon.
Neilly Joe didn't die until a month later when Rinpoche was teaching in Moscow. Having received the message of his death, Rinpoche performed p'howa, or transference of consciousness practice, for him. Students doing p'howa by the boy's side felt the power of Rinpoche's practice, but had not yet checked for signs when, on a return call, Rinpoche said, "I did it. Go check," explaining exactly how to find the crown aperture. Upon following his instructions, the students discovered very clear signs of successful transference.
Of such siddhis, or spiritual powers, many Western students may feel like his wife, Jane Tromge, who said recently, "I'm too earth-bound to see much. But when I see the people Rinpoche brings together in harmonious effort, this seems a miracle. What he has accomplished since 1978 seems a miracle. That he could turn the mind of someone like me seems a miracle."
Yet Jane also tells stories, such as one about the time she traveled to Tibet with Rinpoche and met a man who opened his gau, or reliquary,to display a stout knife bent into folds. "You did this," he told Rinpoche, "and I always carry it with me." Astounded, Jane attempted to photograph it, only to have the picture come out black. Rinpoche's comment when he saw the bent blade was, "I must have been drunk."
Lama Tsering Everest, as well, recalls Rinpoche's clairvoyance when he asked her, years ago, what she had been doing, lying on the floor with her legs in the air. Home alone, she had been on her back doing bicycle exercises while watching T. V. Lama Inge speaks of interpreting for Rinpoche in an interview with a woman with severe thyroid problems who experienced a spontaneous healing even before beginning the meditation practice he gave her.
Maile Wall, a Rigdzin Ling sangha member, tells of trying to serve Rinpoche tea as he worked on the roof during a winter retreat construction project several years ago. As she tried to hand the cup up to him, it slipped and began to fall. Seeing her expression, he reassured her, "Don't worry. It won't break." It landed on the floor unharmed." I feel he did that out of compassion for me," says Maile. She also tells of an instance, before she moved to Rigdzin Ling, when Rinpoche visited her home briefly. He threw rice as he recited prayers, blessing the shrine. A half hour later he had to leave, and Maile left the rice where it had fallen on the floor. The next morning, the floor was clean and a clam shell on the shrine was filled with rice.
Because Rinpoche recounts his autobiography with such humility, most of his students are not aware of his spiritual accomplishments or the innumerable ways in which he tirelessly benefited others during his twenty years in India and Nepal. Two Tibetan lamas currently in the United States have offered a glimpse of Rinpoche's activity during those years. Khanpo Gyurmed Tinly, a renowned scholar, founder of the Nyingma Institute in Gangtok, Sikkim, and former abbot of the shedra, or training school, of Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan, came to the United States" .... to meet again with my lama .... My connection with Chagdud Rinpoche is so significant that I have held it to be one of the most important in my life."
The following remarks are excerpted from an interview with him and from a transcript of one of his teachings.
"Once, when I went to Delhi to visit some cousins, I found that Chagdud Rinpoche was staying there .... I was very eager to meet him and felt a kind of instinctive faith in him, knowing that he was from my home country and that he commanded a great deal of respect and devotion there ....In my area of Tibet, known as Nyarong, the Tromge family was renowned as a line of siddhas. Chagdud Rinpoche is the incarnation of Chagdud Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud Tulku, who was instrumental in bringing the dharma to Nyarong. To the Nyarong people, he was like the Buddha in India. He established Chagdud Gonpa, the central monastery of thirteen he founded in that area, which created a very strong and vibrant tradition of Buddhism.
"Sherab Gyaltsan also served as court chaplain to the Chinese ruler. One year, he did not return from China in time for Losar, or New Year. The people of Nyarong did not begin the ceremonies, dances and smoke offerings until their lama returned on the thirteenth day of the new year. As far as I know, they still celebrate Losar thirteen days late in Nyarong for this reason. They don't call it Losar; they call it the Thirteenth Day.
"Rinpoche is an emanation of Gyalwa Chhog-yang, one of the twenty-five intimate students of Padmasambhava, who gained siddhi through the practice of Hayagriva. Guru Rinpoche prophesied that there would be future emanations of Gyalwa Chhog-yang who would bring great benefit in Tibet."
" .... During my first meeting with Rinpoche in Delhi, he told me that he had received a sign that I needed to do a one week retreat immediately to avert some difficulties. I took his advice to heart. The retreat was very successful and a significant turning point for me. Shortly thereafter, I asked him for some indication of who the local deities were of my home country, because I wanted to do practice that would establish a connection with them. I knew that Chagdud Rinpoche was quite famous as a visionary who often had deep insight into such things. We started to do ceremonies .... and on the second day Rinpoche had a vision on the basis of which he wrote a text. I still have the original manuscript....a very treasured text.
"When we did the smoke offering portion of a ceremony together, Rinpoche suddenly asked, "Who is that?" He saw something that none of the rest of us could see, someone who seemed from his description very much like (the great dharma warrior) Gesar riding a horse. That was the start of my ongoing connection with Gesar and the local spirits of my area of Tibet. The liturgy Rinpoche wrote based on his vision was instrumental in enriching my practice.
"During Rinpoche's stay in Delhi, I was impressed by the fact that people from all four schools (of Tibetan Buddhism) came to see him, without sectarian concern, especially when they were sick or encountering an obstacle. He did whatever was necessary to help them avert obstacles, dispel negative forces, tame demons or to exorcise or heal them ....
"Rinpoche told me at that time that he wanted to go to the United States. My first thought was, 'What for?' I felt he was making a mistake, that the language barrier was too great and that Westerners might not really be interested in what he had to offer. Now that I myself am here, years later, and have seen what is taking place, I know that he did not make a mistake at all. Since coming to the States, Rinpoche has accomplished great benefit here and abroad through his teaching and activities ....
"You Western students are incredibly fortunate that such a teacher has made his home here, that you have the opportunity to serve and rely upon him .... Look to your teacher as an example of real commitment to benefiting others. Even though his body is aging and he has less strength than he used to, he is tireless in his activity. He keeps going, ceaselessly, even though he is getting older and physically weaker."
Lama Chodag Gyatso, who worked closely for several years with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a representative of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, now resides in the United States as one of the Chagdud Gonpa lamas. In 1969, when tracing his Nyingt'hig lineage roots, he first sought out Chagdud Rinpoche. His tutor, Sang-sang Lama Donyod Rinpoche, a great siddha in his own right, advised him "at any cost" to find Do Drubchen Rinpoche and Chagdud Rinpoche, saying of Chagdud Rinpoche that he was "a vast ocean of knowledge of the lineages, traditions and translations of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya schools, that he held all the Kama and Terma traditions within the Nyingma school and that he was considered to be the accomplished living master of the Nyingt'hig lineage at that time.
Lama Gyatso heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was in Orissa, India, a major settlement of the Tibetan community in exile, where he was acting as the representative of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma lineage. According to Lama Gyatso, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche had chosen Chagdud Rinpoche as his representative there because he felt that he was the most qualified to assume the major responsibility of imparting all the oral transmissions, empowerments, and teachings to new practitioners as well as to advanced practitioners doing intensive Nyingma practice.
"In Orissa at that time, things were really difficult in every aspect....The Tibetans had nothing. Everything had to be established. These days we have so many talented khanpos (scholars) and very good practitioners from that area, all as a result of Rinpoche's farsighted programs."
Lama Gyatso was unable to meet Chagdud Rinpoche until 1975 in New Delhi. "The moment I saw him," he recounted, "I had such a strong feeling–like that of a child reunited with his parents after decades of separation. Without uttering a word, I prostrated before him .... Rinpoche didn't say much. He gave me his boundless compassionate gaze and that was more than enough to quench my thirst....
"Immediately I requested an oral transmission of a particular text. When I told him that the text was too long for me to recite on a daily basis, Rinpoche without hesitation recited a very concise version of the practice, revealing a terma, or mind treasure, right there, as if it were a play of a recording that already existed. When I re-copied it and gave it to him to correct, Rinpoche was so humble that he erased all the terma marks I had inserted to indicate it was a terma.
"This is briefly how I came to the feet of this great living Buddha .... and ever since, I have been following Rinpoche closely. I had the fortune to receive many empowerments, teachings and transmissions from him, as well as to be with him during some very private retreats. My experiences were so amazing they convinced me that I had fulfilled some of my long-held aspirations."
Lama Gyatso said that when Chagdud Rinpoche taught on important occasions in Tibetan settlements in New Delhi, highly educated Tibetan scholars praised him as one of the gems of the Buddhadharma, recognizing his qualities of erudition in all four schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Noting that the great 19th-century master Patrul Rinpoche had said that one should be able to see the soul of the deceased in order for p'howa to be effective, Lama Gyatso recounted an instance in New Delhi in which Rinpoche performed p'howa for a senior Tibetan official. Another official, a tulku, who questioned both the power of the practice itself and Rinpoche's ability to perform it, was instructed by Rinpoche, as if unaware of the man's doubt, to examine the cranial aperture for signs of successful transference. Astonished at the seemingly magical ease with which he could pull a large clump of hair from the softened cranium, the official begged Rinpoche's pardon for his wrong view.
Lama Gyatso also accompanied Rinpoche when he was requested to help a woman who had become possessed. Her face was red and wrathful, and she had such strength that she threw off the six men attempting to control her. A number of lamas had conducted ceremonies to help her, to no avail. As soon as Chagdud Rinpoche's right foot touched the doorstep, she fell on the bed and began to cry, "Rinpoche, please save me!" He performed a brief ceremony, after which the woman, though weak and exhausted, was normal.
"These are a few drops from the ocean of Rinpoche's manifestation of spiritual attainment." Lama Gyatso continued, "I can comfortably say that amongst the Buddhist spiritual masters today, especially in the Western world, there are none who even parallel Rinpoche's spiritual accomplishment, realization and academic insight.
"This is why I feel that to refer to Rinpoche, who is the very embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots and the Three Kayas, simply as "Chagdud Tulku," without honorific title, amounts to a kind of disrespect in terms of our samaya, or Vajrayana commitments. In a recent letter, Gonjang Tulku Rinpoche, a very high lama, addressed our Rinpoche as His Eminence and I feel this is appropriate ....
"I'm here because I cannot stay separated from Rinpoche, my root master. ... And I want to thank his Western students for creating a situation in which we can all be with him as one family and receive his precious teachings. You are all so fortunate that Rinpoche is right in your lap ....
"Soon we will be doing longevity practice for Rinpoche in Los Angeles, but the real longevity practice is within our minds as his students–keeping intact the relation of disciple and vajra master, maintaining our samaya. We students, especially those of us who have received Vajrayana and Dzogchen transmissions from Rinpoche, are directly responsible for the health of his mandala of activity.
"As Vajrayana practitioners, our samaya is more precious than the eyeball–it is the backbone of spiritual existence. No matter how smart we may be, how many lamas we may go to, if our samaya is strained, our foundation is rusted. No matter how many layers we try to build atop it, it will not be solid, and there will be no real development. For example, students who find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught have some obstacles due to impaired samaya.
"Maintaining pure samaya not only involves preserving a pure lama-student relationship. It also means keeping our relationships within the sangha pure. Samaya extends to all our activities, even mopping the floor, recognizing the floor as the base of the celestial palace within the pureland, seeing the act of mopping as one of cleansing, of purification.
"Upholding these commitments provides a very fertile base for spiritual accomplishment and the merit accumulated through such practice is very great. If we practice like this, Rinpoche will live a long, healthy life and his dharma activity will flourish in this country without bounds."
Fifteen years ago this October, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche arrived in the United States for the first time. Today, twenty-one Chagdud Gonpa Foundation centers span the North and South American and European continents and the outer, inner and secret teachings of the Buddhadharma are ripening in students' minds. Padma Publishing has translated and produced dozens of texts as well as three of Rinpoche's own books and one by his mother, and the Mahakaruna Foundation, established by Rinpoche, supports many individuals and monasteries in Asia.
Rinpoche's students in the West know him for his vast wisdom and compassion and, above all, his profound transmission of the Buddhadharma. We glimpse his deep insight when he speaks to our innermost thoughts, correcting our view, meditation or conduct and witness his compassion and spiritual accomplishment in outer circumstances as well. This summer, for example, eight-year-old Rigdzin Ling sangha member, Neilly Joe Gracia, was dying from a brain tumor. Rinpoche, teaching in the Bay Area, learned that Neilly Joe's condition had changed for the worse. Although he would be returning to Rigdzin Ling a few days later and had planned to give the boy an empowerment at that time, Rinpoche instead drove through the night to Rigdzin Ling after finishing an evening teaching, concerned that Neilly Joe receive the empowerment before his death. He performed the ceremony early in the morning and drove back to the Bay Area to continue his teaching schedule that afternoon.
Neilly Joe didn't die until a month later when Rinpoche was teaching in Moscow. Having received the message of his death, Rinpoche performed p'howa, or transference of consciousness practice, for him. Students doing p'howa by the boy's side felt the power of Rinpoche's practice, but had not yet checked for signs when, on a return call, Rinpoche said, "I did it. Go check," explaining exactly how to find the crown aperture. Upon following his instructions, the students discovered very clear signs of successful transference.
Of such siddhis, or spiritual powers, many Western students may feel like his wife, Jane Tromge, who said recently, "I'm too earth-bound to see much. But when I see the people Rinpoche brings together in harmonious effort, this seems a miracle. What he has accomplished since 1978 seems a miracle. That he could turn the mind of someone like me seems a miracle."
Yet Jane also tells stories, such as one about the time she traveled to Tibet with Rinpoche and met a man who opened his gau, or reliquary,to display a stout knife bent into folds. "You did this," he told Rinpoche, "and I always carry it with me." Astounded, Jane attempted to photograph it, only to have the picture come out black. Rinpoche's comment when he saw the bent blade was, "I must have been drunk."
Lama Tsering Everest, as well, recalls Rinpoche's clairvoyance when he asked her, years ago, what she had been doing, lying on the floor with her legs in the air. Home alone, she had been on her back doing bicycle exercises while watching T. V. Lama Inge speaks of interpreting for Rinpoche in an interview with a woman with severe thyroid problems who experienced a spontaneous healing even before beginning the meditation practice he gave her.
Maile Wall, a Rigdzin Ling sangha member, tells of trying to serve Rinpoche tea as he worked on the roof during a winter retreat construction project several years ago. As she tried to hand the cup up to him, it slipped and began to fall. Seeing her expression, he reassured her, "Don't worry. It won't break." It landed on the floor unharmed." I feel he did that out of compassion for me," says Maile. She also tells of an instance, before she moved to Rigdzin Ling, when Rinpoche visited her home briefly. He threw rice as he recited prayers, blessing the shrine. A half hour later he had to leave, and Maile left the rice where it had fallen on the floor. The next morning, the floor was clean and a clam shell on the shrine was filled with rice.
Because Rinpoche recounts his autobiography with such humility, most of his students are not aware of his spiritual accomplishments or the innumerable ways in which he tirelessly benefited others during his twenty years in India and Nepal. Two Tibetan lamas currently in the United States have offered a glimpse of Rinpoche's activity during those years. Khanpo Gyurmed Tinly, a renowned scholar, founder of the Nyingma Institute in Gangtok, Sikkim, and former abbot of the shedra, or training school, of Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan, came to the United States" .... to meet again with my lama .... My connection with Chagdud Rinpoche is so significant that I have held it to be one of the most important in my life."
The following remarks are excerpted from an interview with him and from a transcript of one of his teachings.
"Once, when I went to Delhi to visit some cousins, I found that Chagdud Rinpoche was staying there .... I was very eager to meet him and felt a kind of instinctive faith in him, knowing that he was from my home country and that he commanded a great deal of respect and devotion there ....In my area of Tibet, known as Nyarong, the Tromge family was renowned as a line of siddhas. Chagdud Rinpoche is the incarnation of Chagdud Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud Tulku, who was instrumental in bringing the dharma to Nyarong. To the Nyarong people, he was like the Buddha in India. He established Chagdud Gonpa, the central monastery of thirteen he founded in that area, which created a very strong and vibrant tradition of Buddhism.
"Sherab Gyaltsan also served as court chaplain to the Chinese ruler. One year, he did not return from China in time for Losar, or New Year. The people of Nyarong did not begin the ceremonies, dances and smoke offerings until their lama returned on the thirteenth day of the new year. As far as I know, they still celebrate Losar thirteen days late in Nyarong for this reason. They don't call it Losar; they call it the Thirteenth Day.
"Rinpoche is an emanation of Gyalwa Chhog-yang, one of the twenty-five intimate students of Padmasambhava, who gained siddhi through the practice of Hayagriva. Guru Rinpoche prophesied that there would be future emanations of Gyalwa Chhog-yang who would bring great benefit in Tibet."
" .... During my first meeting with Rinpoche in Delhi, he told me that he had received a sign that I needed to do a one week retreat immediately to avert some difficulties. I took his advice to heart. The retreat was very successful and a significant turning point for me. Shortly thereafter, I asked him for some indication of who the local deities were of my home country, because I wanted to do practice that would establish a connection with them. I knew that Chagdud Rinpoche was quite famous as a visionary who often had deep insight into such things. We started to do ceremonies .... and on the second day Rinpoche had a vision on the basis of which he wrote a text. I still have the original manuscript....a very treasured text.
"When we did the smoke offering portion of a ceremony together, Rinpoche suddenly asked, "Who is that?" He saw something that none of the rest of us could see, someone who seemed from his description very much like (the great dharma warrior) Gesar riding a horse. That was the start of my ongoing connection with Gesar and the local spirits of my area of Tibet. The liturgy Rinpoche wrote based on his vision was instrumental in enriching my practice.
"During Rinpoche's stay in Delhi, I was impressed by the fact that people from all four schools (of Tibetan Buddhism) came to see him, without sectarian concern, especially when they were sick or encountering an obstacle. He did whatever was necessary to help them avert obstacles, dispel negative forces, tame demons or to exorcise or heal them ....
"Rinpoche told me at that time that he wanted to go to the United States. My first thought was, 'What for?' I felt he was making a mistake, that the language barrier was too great and that Westerners might not really be interested in what he had to offer. Now that I myself am here, years later, and have seen what is taking place, I know that he did not make a mistake at all. Since coming to the States, Rinpoche has accomplished great benefit here and abroad through his teaching and activities ....
"You Western students are incredibly fortunate that such a teacher has made his home here, that you have the opportunity to serve and rely upon him .... Look to your teacher as an example of real commitment to benefiting others. Even though his body is aging and he has less strength than he used to, he is tireless in his activity. He keeps going, ceaselessly, even though he is getting older and physically weaker."
Lama Chodag Gyatso, who worked closely for several years with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a representative of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, now resides in the United States as one of the Chagdud Gonpa lamas. In 1969, when tracing his Nyingt'hig lineage roots, he first sought out Chagdud Rinpoche. His tutor, Sang-sang Lama Donyod Rinpoche, a great siddha in his own right, advised him "at any cost" to find Do Drubchen Rinpoche and Chagdud Rinpoche, saying of Chagdud Rinpoche that he was "a vast ocean of knowledge of the lineages, traditions and translations of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya schools, that he held all the Kama and Terma traditions within the Nyingma school and that he was considered to be the accomplished living master of the Nyingt'hig lineage at that time.
Lama Gyatso heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was in Orissa, India, a major settlement of the Tibetan community in exile, where he was acting as the representative of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma lineage. According to Lama Gyatso, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche had chosen Chagdud Rinpoche as his representative there because he felt that he was the most qualified to assume the major responsibility of imparting all the oral transmissions, empowerments, and teachings to new practitioners as well as to advanced practitioners doing intensive Nyingma practice.
"In Orissa at that time, things were really difficult in every aspect....The Tibetans had nothing. Everything had to be established. These days we have so many talented khanpos (scholars) and very good practitioners from that area, all as a result of Rinpoche's farsighted programs."
Lama Gyatso was unable to meet Chagdud Rinpoche until 1975 in New Delhi. "The moment I saw him," he recounted, "I had such a strong feeling–like that of a child reunited with his parents after decades of separation. Without uttering a word, I prostrated before him .... Rinpoche didn't say much. He gave me his boundless compassionate gaze and that was more than enough to quench my thirst....
"Immediately I requested an oral transmission of a particular text. When I told him that the text was too long for me to recite on a daily basis, Rinpoche without hesitation recited a very concise version of the practice, revealing a terma, or mind treasure, right there, as if it were a play of a recording that already existed. When I re-copied it and gave it to him to correct, Rinpoche was so humble that he erased all the terma marks I had inserted to indicate it was a terma.
"This is briefly how I came to the feet of this great living Buddha .... and ever since, I have been following Rinpoche closely. I had the fortune to receive many empowerments, teachings and transmissions from him, as well as to be with him during some very private retreats. My experiences were so amazing they convinced me that I had fulfilled some of my long-held aspirations."
Lama Gyatso said that when Chagdud Rinpoche taught on important occasions in Tibetan settlements in New Delhi, highly educated Tibetan scholars praised him as one of the gems of the Buddhadharma, recognizing his qualities of erudition in all four schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Noting that the great 19th-century master Patrul Rinpoche had said that one should be able to see the soul of the deceased in order for p'howa to be effective, Lama Gyatso recounted an instance in New Delhi in which Rinpoche performed p'howa for a senior Tibetan official. Another official, a tulku, who questioned both the power of the practice itself and Rinpoche's ability to perform it, was instructed by Rinpoche, as if unaware of the man's doubt, to examine the cranial aperture for signs of successful transference. Astonished at the seemingly magical ease with which he could pull a large clump of hair from the softened cranium, the official begged Rinpoche's pardon for his wrong view.
Lama Gyatso also accompanied Rinpoche when he was requested to help a woman who had become possessed. Her face was red and wrathful, and she had such strength that she threw off the six men attempting to control her. A number of lamas had conducted ceremonies to help her, to no avail. As soon as Chagdud Rinpoche's right foot touched the doorstep, she fell on the bed and began to cry, "Rinpoche, please save me!" He performed a brief ceremony, after which the woman, though weak and exhausted, was normal.
"These are a few drops from the ocean of Rinpoche's manifestation of spiritual attainment." Lama Gyatso continued, "I can comfortably say that amongst the Buddhist spiritual masters today, especially in the Western world, there are none who even parallel Rinpoche's spiritual accomplishment, realization and academic insight.
"This is why I feel that to refer to Rinpoche, who is the very embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots and the Three Kayas, simply as "Chagdud Tulku," without honorific title, amounts to a kind of disrespect in terms of our samaya, or Vajrayana commitments. In a recent letter, Gonjang Tulku Rinpoche, a very high lama, addressed our Rinpoche as His Eminence and I feel this is appropriate ....
"I'm here because I cannot stay separated from Rinpoche, my root master. ... And I want to thank his Western students for creating a situation in which we can all be with him as one family and receive his precious teachings. You are all so fortunate that Rinpoche is right in your lap ....
"Soon we will be doing longevity practice for Rinpoche in Los Angeles, but the real longevity practice is within our minds as his students–keeping intact the relation of disciple and vajra master, maintaining our samaya. We students, especially those of us who have received Vajrayana and Dzogchen transmissions from Rinpoche, are directly responsible for the health of his mandala of activity.
"As Vajrayana practitioners, our samaya is more precious than the eyeball–it is the backbone of spiritual existence. No matter how smart we may be, how many lamas we may go to, if our samaya is strained, our foundation is rusted. No matter how many layers we try to build atop it, it will not be solid, and there will be no real development. For example, students who find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught have some obstacles due to impaired samaya.
"Maintaining pure samaya not only involves preserving a pure lama-student relationship. It also means keeping our relationships within the sangha pure. Samaya extends to all our activities, even mopping the floor, recognizing the floor as the base of the celestial palace within the pureland, seeing the act of mopping as one of cleansing, of purification.
"Upholding these commitments provides a very fertile base for spiritual accomplishment and the merit accumulated through such practice is very great. If we practice like this, Rinpoche will live a long, healthy life and his dharma activity will flourish in this country without bounds."
Fifteen years ago this October, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche arrived in the United States for the first time. Today, twenty-one Chagdud Gonpa Foundation centers span the North and South American and European continents and the outer, inner and secret teachings of the Buddhadharma are ripening in students' minds. Padma Publishing has translated and produced dozens of texts as well as three of Rinpoche's own books and one by his mother, and the Mahakaruna Foundation, established by Rinpoche, supports many individuals and monasteries in Asia.
Rinpoche's students in the West know him for his vast wisdom and compassion and, above all, his profound transmission of the Buddhadharma. We glimpse his deep insight when he speaks to our innermost thoughts, correcting our view, meditation or conduct and witness his compassion and spiritual accomplishment in outer circumstances as well. This summer, for example, eight-year-old Rigdzin Ling sangha member, Neilly Joe Gracia, was dying from a brain tumor. Rinpoche, teaching in the Bay Area, learned that Neilly Joe's condition had changed for the worse. Although he would be returning to Rigdzin Ling a few days later and had planned to give the boy an empowerment at that time, Rinpoche instead drove through the night to Rigdzin Ling after finishing an evening teaching, concerned that Neilly Joe receive the empowerment before his death. He performed the ceremony early in the morning and drove back to the Bay Area to continue his teaching schedule that afternoon.
Neilly Joe didn't die until a month later when Rinpoche was teaching in Moscow. Having received the message of his death, Rinpoche performed p'howa, or transference of consciousness practice, for him. Students doing p'howa by the boy's side felt the power of Rinpoche's practice, but had not yet checked for signs when, on a return call, Rinpoche said, "I did it. Go check," explaining exactly how to find the crown aperture. Upon following his instructions, the students discovered very clear signs of successful transference.
Of such siddhis, or spiritual powers, many Western students may feel like his wife, Jane Tromge, who said recently, "I'm too earth-bound to see much. But when I see the people Rinpoche brings together in harmonious effort, this seems a miracle. What he has accomplished since 1978 seems a miracle. That he could turn the mind of someone like me seems a miracle."
Yet Jane also tells stories, such as one about the time she traveled to Tibet with Rinpoche and met a man who opened his gau, or reliquary,to display a stout knife bent into folds. "You did this," he told Rinpoche, "and I always carry it with me." Astounded, Jane attempted to photograph it, only to have the picture come out black. Rinpoche's comment when he saw the bent blade was, "I must have been drunk."
Lama Tsering Everest, as well, recalls Rinpoche's clairvoyance when he asked her, years ago, what she had been doing, lying on the floor with her legs in the air. Home alone, she had been on her back doing bicycle exercises while watching T. V. Lama Inge speaks of interpreting for Rinpoche in an interview with a woman with severe thyroid problems who experienced a spontaneous healing even before beginning the meditation practice he gave her.
Maile Wall, a Rigdzin Ling sangha member, tells of trying to serve Rinpoche tea as he worked on the roof during a winter retreat construction project several years ago. As she tried to hand the cup up to him, it slipped and began to fall. Seeing her expression, he reassured her, "Don't worry. It won't break." It landed on the floor unharmed." I feel he did that out of compassion for me," says Maile. She also tells of an instance, before she moved to Rigdzin Ling, when Rinpoche visited her home briefly. He threw rice as he recited prayers, blessing the shrine. A half hour later he had to leave, and Maile left the rice where it had fallen on the floor. The next morning, the floor was clean and a clam shell on the shrine was filled with rice.
Because Rinpoche recounts his autobiography with such humility, most of his students are not aware of his spiritual accomplishments or the innumerable ways in which he tirelessly benefited others during his twenty years in India and Nepal. Two Tibetan lamas currently in the United States have offered a glimpse of Rinpoche's activity during those years. Khanpo Gyurmed Tinly, a renowned scholar, founder of the Nyingma Institute in Gangtok, Sikkim, and former abbot of the shedra, or training school, of Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan, came to the United States" .... to meet again with my lama .... My connection with Chagdud Rinpoche is so significant that I have held it to be one of the most important in my life."
The following remarks are excerpted from an interview with him and from a transcript of one of his teachings.
"Once, when I went to Delhi to visit some cousins, I found that Chagdud Rinpoche was staying there .... I was very eager to meet him and felt a kind of instinctive faith in him, knowing that he was from my home country and that he commanded a great deal of respect and devotion there ....In my area of Tibet, known as Nyarong, the Tromge family was renowned as a line of siddhas. Chagdud Rinpoche is the incarnation of Chagdud Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud Tulku, who was instrumental in bringing the dharma to Nyarong. To the Nyarong people, he was like the Buddha in India. He established Chagdud Gonpa, the central monastery of thirteen he founded in that area, which created a very strong and vibrant tradition of Buddhism.
"Sherab Gyaltsan also served as court chaplain to the Chinese ruler. One year, he did not return from China in time for Losar, or New Year. The people of Nyarong did not begin the ceremonies, dances and smoke offerings until their lama returned on the thirteenth day of the new year. As far as I know, they still celebrate Losar thirteen days late in Nyarong for this reason. They don't call it Losar; they call it the Thirteenth Day.
"Rinpoche is an emanation of Gyalwa Chhog-yang, one of the twenty-five intimate students of Padmasambhava, who gained siddhi through the practice of Hayagriva. Guru Rinpoche prophesied that there would be future emanations of Gyalwa Chhog-yang who would bring great benefit in Tibet."
" .... During my first meeting with Rinpoche in Delhi, he told me that he had received a sign that I needed to do a one week retreat immediately to avert some difficulties. I took his advice to heart. The retreat was very successful and a significant turning point for me. Shortly thereafter, I asked him for some indication of who the local deities were of my home country, because I wanted to do practice that would establish a connection with them. I knew that Chagdud Rinpoche was quite famous as a visionary who often had deep insight into such things. We started to do ceremonies .... and on the second day Rinpoche had a vision on the basis of which he wrote a text. I still have the original manuscript....a very treasured text.
"When we did the smoke offering portion of a ceremony together, Rinpoche suddenly asked, "Who is that?" He saw something that none of the rest of us could see, someone who seemed from his description very much like (the great dharma warrior) Gesar riding a horse. That was the start of my ongoing connection with Gesar and the local spirits of my area of Tibet. The liturgy Rinpoche wrote based on his vision was instrumental in enriching my practice.
"During Rinpoche's stay in Delhi, I was impressed by the fact that people from all four schools (of Tibetan Buddhism) came to see him, without sectarian concern, especially when they were sick or encountering an obstacle. He did whatever was necessary to help them avert obstacles, dispel negative forces, tame demons or to exorcise or heal them ....
"Rinpoche told me at that time that he wanted to go to the United States. My first thought was, 'What for?' I felt he was making a mistake, that the language barrier was too great and that Westerners might not really be interested in what he had to offer. Now that I myself am here, years later, and have seen what is taking place, I know that he did not make a mistake at all. Since coming to the States, Rinpoche has accomplished great benefit here and abroad through his teaching and activities ....
"You Western students are incredibly fortunate that such a teacher has made his home here, that you have the opportunity to serve and rely upon him .... Look to your teacher as an example of real commitment to benefiting others. Even though his body is aging and he has less strength than he used to, he is tireless in his activity. He keeps going, ceaselessly, even though he is getting older and physically weaker."
Lama Chodag Gyatso, who worked closely for several years with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a representative of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, now resides in the United States as one of the Chagdud Gonpa lamas. In 1969, when tracing his Nyingt'hig lineage roots, he first sought out Chagdud Rinpoche. His tutor, Sang-sang Lama Donyod Rinpoche, a great siddha in his own right, advised him "at any cost" to find Do Drubchen Rinpoche and Chagdud Rinpoche, saying of Chagdud Rinpoche that he was "a vast ocean of knowledge of the lineages, traditions and translations of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya schools, that he held all the Kama and Terma traditions within the Nyingma school and that he was considered to be the accomplished living master of the Nyingt'hig lineage at that time.
Lama Gyatso heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was in Orissa, India, a major settlement of the Tibetan community in exile, where he was acting as the representative of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma lineage. According to Lama Gyatso, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche had chosen Chagdud Rinpoche as his representative there because he felt that he was the most qualified to assume the major responsibility of imparting all the oral transmissions, empowerments, and teachings to new practitioners as well as to advanced practitioners doing intensive Nyingma practice.
"In Orissa at that time, things were really difficult in every aspect....The Tibetans had nothing. Everything had to be established. These days we have so many talented khanpos (scholars) and very good practitioners from that area, all as a result of Rinpoche's farsighted programs."
Lama Gyatso was unable to meet Chagdud Rinpoche until 1975 in New Delhi. "The moment I saw him," he recounted, "I had such a strong feeling–like that of a child reunited with his parents after decades of separation. Without uttering a word, I prostrated before him .... Rinpoche didn't say much. He gave me his boundless compassionate gaze and that was more than enough to quench my thirst....
"Immediately I requested an oral transmission of a particular text. When I told him that the text was too long for me to recite on a daily basis, Rinpoche without hesitation recited a very concise version of the practice, revealing a terma, or mind treasure, right there, as if it were a play of a recording that already existed. When I re-copied it and gave it to him to correct, Rinpoche was so humble that he erased all the terma marks I had inserted to indicate it was a terma.
"This is briefly how I came to the feet of this great living Buddha .... and ever since, I have been following Rinpoche closely. I had the fortune to receive many empowerments, teachings and transmissions from him, as well as to be with him during some very private retreats. My experiences were so amazing they convinced me that I had fulfilled some of my long-held aspirations."
Lama Gyatso said that when Chagdud Rinpoche taught on important occasions in Tibetan settlements in New Delhi, highly educated Tibetan scholars praised him as one of the gems of the Buddhadharma, recognizing his qualities of erudition in all four schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Noting that the great 19th-century master Patrul Rinpoche had said that one should be able to see the soul of the deceased in order for p'howa to be effective, Lama Gyatso recounted an instance in New Delhi in which Rinpoche performed p'howa for a senior Tibetan official. Another official, a tulku, who questioned both the power of the practice itself and Rinpoche's ability to perform it, was instructed by Rinpoche, as if unaware of the man's doubt, to examine the cranial aperture for signs of successful transference. Astonished at the seemingly magical ease with which he could pull a large clump of hair from the softened cranium, the official begged Rinpoche's pardon for his wrong view.
Lama Gyatso also accompanied Rinpoche when he was requested to help a woman who had become possessed. Her face was red and wrathful, and she had such strength that she threw off the six men attempting to control her. A number of lamas had conducted ceremonies to help her, to no avail. As soon as Chagdud Rinpoche's right foot touched the doorstep, she fell on the bed and began to cry, "Rinpoche, please save me!" He performed a brief ceremony, after which the woman, though weak and exhausted, was normal.
"These are a few drops from the ocean of Rinpoche's manifestation of spiritual attainment." Lama Gyatso continued, "I can comfortably say that amongst the Buddhist spiritual masters today, especially in the Western world, there are none who even parallel Rinpoche's spiritual accomplishment, realization and academic insight.
"This is why I feel that to refer to Rinpoche, who is the very embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots and the Three Kayas, simply as "Chagdud Tulku," without honorific title, amounts to a kind of disrespect in terms of our samaya, or Vajrayana commitments. In a recent letter, Gonjang Tulku Rinpoche, a very high lama, addressed our Rinpoche as His Eminence and I feel this is appropriate ....
"I'm here because I cannot stay separated from Rinpoche, my root master. ... And I want to thank his Western students for creating a situation in which we can all be with him as one family and receive his precious teachings. You are all so fortunate that Rinpoche is right in your lap ....
"Soon we will be doing longevity practice for Rinpoche in Los Angeles, but the real longevity practice is within our minds as his students–keeping intact the relation of disciple and vajra master, maintaining our samaya. We students, especially those of us who have received Vajrayana and Dzogchen transmissions from Rinpoche, are directly responsible for the health of his mandala of activity.
"As Vajrayana practitioners, our samaya is more precious than the eyeball–it is the backbone of spiritual existence. No matter how smart we may be, how many lamas we may go to, if our samaya is strained, our foundation is rusted. No matter how many layers we try to build atop it, it will not be solid, and there will be no real development. For example, students who find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught have some obstacles due to impaired samaya.
"Maintaining pure samaya not only involves preserving a pure lama-student relationship. It also means keeping our relationships within the sangha pure. Samaya extends to all our activities, even mopping the floor, recognizing the floor as the base of the celestial palace within the pureland, seeing the act of mopping as one of cleansing, of purification.
"Upholding these commitments provides a very fertile base for spiritual accomplishment and the merit accumulated through such practice is very great. If we practice like this, Rinpoche will live a long, healthy life and his dharma activity will flourish in this country without bounds."
Fifteen years ago this October, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche arrived in the United States for the first time. Today, twenty-one Chagdud Gonpa Foundation centers span the North and South American and European continents and the outer, inner and secret teachings of the Buddhadharma are ripening in students' minds. Padma Publishing has translated and produced dozens of texts as well as three of Rinpoche's own books and one by his mother, and the Mahakaruna Foundation, established by Rinpoche, supports many individuals and monasteries in Asia.
Rinpoche's students in the West know him for his vast wisdom and compassion and, above all, his profound transmission of the Buddhadharma. We glimpse his deep insight when he speaks to our innermost thoughts, correcting our view, meditation or conduct and witness his compassion and spiritual accomplishment in outer circumstances as well. This summer, for example, eight-year-old Rigdzin Ling sangha member, Neilly Joe Gracia, was dying from a brain tumor. Rinpoche, teaching in the Bay Area, learned that Neilly Joe's condition had changed for the worse. Although he would be returning to Rigdzin Ling a few days later and had planned to give the boy an empowerment at that time, Rinpoche instead drove through the night to Rigdzin Ling after finishing an evening teaching, concerned that Neilly Joe receive the empowerment before his death. He performed the ceremony early in the morning and drove back to the Bay Area to continue his teaching schedule that afternoon.
Neilly Joe didn't die until a month later when Rinpoche was teaching in Moscow. Having received the message of his death, Rinpoche performed p'howa, or transference of consciousness practice, for him. Students doing p'howa by the boy's side felt the power of Rinpoche's practice, but had not yet checked for signs when, on a return call, Rinpoche said, "I did it. Go check," explaining exactly how to find the crown aperture. Upon following his instructions, the students discovered very clear signs of successful transference.
Of such siddhis, or spiritual powers, many Western students may feel like his wife, Jane Tromge, who said recently, "I'm too earth-bound to see much. But when I see the people Rinpoche brings together in harmonious effort, this seems a miracle. What he has accomplished since 1978 seems a miracle. That he could turn the mind of someone like me seems a miracle."
Yet Jane also tells stories, such as one about the time she traveled to Tibet with Rinpoche and met a man who opened his gau, or reliquary,to display a stout knife bent into folds. "You did this," he told Rinpoche, "and I always carry it with me." Astounded, Jane attempted to photograph it, only to have the picture come out black. Rinpoche's comment when he saw the bent blade was, "I must have been drunk."
Lama Tsering Everest, as well, recalls Rinpoche's clairvoyance when he asked her, years ago, what she had been doing, lying on the floor with her legs in the air. Home alone, she had been on her back doing bicycle exercises while watching T. V. Lama Inge speaks of interpreting for Rinpoche in an interview with a woman with severe thyroid problems who experienced a spontaneous healing even before beginning the meditation practice he gave her.
Maile Wall, a Rigdzin Ling sangha member, tells of trying to serve Rinpoche tea as he worked on the roof during a winter retreat construction project several years ago. As she tried to hand the cup up to him, it slipped and began to fall. Seeing her expression, he reassured her, "Don't worry. It won't break." It landed on the floor unharmed." I feel he did that out of compassion for me," says Maile. She also tells of an instance, before she moved to Rigdzin Ling, when Rinpoche visited her home briefly. He threw rice as he recited prayers, blessing the shrine. A half hour later he had to leave, and Maile left the rice where it had fallen on the floor. The next morning, the floor was clean and a clam shell on the shrine was filled with rice.
Because Rinpoche recounts his autobiography with such humility, most of his students are not aware of his spiritual accomplishments or the innumerable ways in which he tirelessly benefited others during his twenty years in India and Nepal. Two Tibetan lamas currently in the United States have offered a glimpse of Rinpoche's activity during those years. Khanpo Gyurmed Tinly, a renowned scholar, founder of the Nyingma Institute in Gangtok, Sikkim, and former abbot of the shedra, or training school, of Ganteng Monastery in Bhutan, came to the United States" .... to meet again with my lama .... My connection with Chagdud Rinpoche is so significant that I have held it to be one of the most important in my life."
The following remarks are excerpted from an interview with him and from a transcript of one of his teachings.
"Once, when I went to Delhi to visit some cousins, I found that Chagdud Rinpoche was staying there .... I was very eager to meet him and felt a kind of instinctive faith in him, knowing that he was from my home country and that he commanded a great deal of respect and devotion there ....In my area of Tibet, known as Nyarong, the Tromge family was renowned as a line of siddhas. Chagdud Rinpoche is the incarnation of Chagdud Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud Tulku, who was instrumental in bringing the dharma to Nyarong. To the Nyarong people, he was like the Buddha in India. He established Chagdud Gonpa, the central monastery of thirteen he founded in that area, which created a very strong and vibrant tradition of Buddhism.
"Sherab Gyaltsan also served as court chaplain to the Chinese ruler. One year, he did not return from China in time for Losar, or New Year. The people of Nyarong did not begin the ceremonies, dances and smoke offerings until their lama returned on the thirteenth day of the new year. As far as I know, they still celebrate Losar thirteen days late in Nyarong for this reason. They don't call it Losar; they call it the Thirteenth Day.
"Rinpoche is an emanation of Gyalwa Chhog-yang, one of the twenty-five intimate students of Padmasambhava, who gained siddhi through the practice of Hayagriva. Guru Rinpoche prophesied that there would be future emanations of Gyalwa Chhog-yang who would bring great benefit in Tibet."
" .... During my first meeting with Rinpoche in Delhi, he told me that he had received a sign that I needed to do a one week retreat immediately to avert some difficulties. I took his advice to heart. The retreat was very successful and a significant turning point for me. Shortly thereafter, I asked him for some indication of who the local deities were of my home country, because I wanted to do practice that would establish a connection with them. I knew that Chagdud Rinpoche was quite famous as a visionary who often had deep insight into such things. We started to do ceremonies .... and on the second day Rinpoche had a vision on the basis of which he wrote a text. I still have the original manuscript....a very treasured text.
"When we did the smoke offering portion of a ceremony together, Rinpoche suddenly asked, "Who is that?" He saw something that none of the rest of us could see, someone who seemed from his description very much like (the great dharma warrior) Gesar riding a horse. That was the start of my ongoing connection with Gesar and the local spirits of my area of Tibet. The liturgy Rinpoche wrote based on his vision was instrumental in enriching my practice.
"During Rinpoche's stay in Delhi, I was impressed by the fact that people from all four schools (of Tibetan Buddhism) came to see him, without sectarian concern, especially when they were sick or encountering an obstacle. He did whatever was necessary to help them avert obstacles, dispel negative forces, tame demons or to exorcise or heal them ....
"Rinpoche told me at that time that he wanted to go to the United States. My first thought was, 'What for?' I felt he was making a mistake, that the language barrier was too great and that Westerners might not really be interested in what he had to offer. Now that I myself am here, years later, and have seen what is taking place, I know that he did not make a mistake at all. Since coming to the States, Rinpoche has accomplished great benefit here and abroad through his teaching and activities ....
"You Western students are incredibly fortunate that such a teacher has made his home here, that you have the opportunity to serve and rely upon him .... Look to your teacher as an example of real commitment to benefiting others. Even though his body is aging and he has less strength than he used to, he is tireless in his activity. He keeps going, ceaselessly, even though he is getting older and physically weaker."
Lama Chodag Gyatso, who worked closely for several years with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a representative of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, now resides in the United States as one of the Chagdud Gonpa lamas. In 1969, when tracing his Nyingt'hig lineage roots, he first sought out Chagdud Rinpoche. His tutor, Sang-sang Lama Donyod Rinpoche, a great siddha in his own right, advised him "at any cost" to find Do Drubchen Rinpoche and Chagdud Rinpoche, saying of Chagdud Rinpoche that he was "a vast ocean of knowledge of the lineages, traditions and translations of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya schools, that he held all the Kama and Terma traditions within the Nyingma school and that he was considered to be the accomplished living master of the Nyingt'hig lineage at that time.
Lama Gyatso heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was in Orissa, India, a major settlement of the Tibetan community in exile, where he was acting as the representative of His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma lineage. According to Lama Gyatso, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche had chosen Chagdud Rinpoche as his representative there because he felt that he was the most qualified to assume the major responsibility of imparting all the oral transmissions, empowerments, and teachings to new practitioners as well as to advanced practitioners doing intensive Nyingma practice.
"In Orissa at that time, things were really difficult in every aspect....The Tibetans had nothing. Everything had to be established. These days we have so many talented khanpos (scholars) and very good practitioners from that area, all as a result of Rinpoche's farsighted programs."
Lama Gyatso was unable to meet Chagdud Rinpoche until 1975 in New Delhi. "The moment I saw him," he recounted, "I had such a strong feeling–like that of a child reunited with his parents after decades of separation. Without uttering a word, I prostrated before him .... Rinpoche didn't say much. He gave me his boundless compassionate gaze and that was more than enough to quench my thirst....
"Immediately I requested an oral transmission of a particular text. When I told him that the text was too long for me to recite on a daily basis, Rinpoche without hesitation recited a very concise version of the practice, revealing a terma, or mind treasure, right there, as if it were a play of a recording that already existed. When I re-copied it and gave it to him to correct, Rinpoche was so humble that he erased all the terma marks I had inserted to indicate it was a terma.
"This is briefly how I came to the feet of this great living Buddha .... and ever since, I have been following Rinpoche closely. I had the fortune to receive many empowerments, teachings and transmissions from him, as well as to be with him during some very private retreats. My experiences were so amazing they convinced me that I had fulfilled some of my long-held aspirations."
Lama Gyatso said that when Chagdud Rinpoche taught on important occasions in Tibetan settlements in New Delhi, highly educated Tibetan scholars praised him as one of the gems of the Buddhadharma, recognizing his qualities of erudition in all four schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Noting that the great 19th-century master Patrul Rinpoche had said that one should be able to see the soul of the deceased in order for p'howa to be effective, Lama Gyatso recounted an instance in New Delhi in which Rinpoche performed p'howa for a senior Tibetan official. Another official, a tulku, who questioned both the power of the practice itself and Rinpoche's ability to perform it, was instructed by Rinpoche, as if unaware of the man's doubt, to examine the cranial aperture for signs of successful transference. Astonished at the seemingly magical ease with which he could pull a large clump of hair from the softened cranium, the official begged Rinpoche's pardon for his wrong view.
Lama Gyatso also accompanied Rinpoche when he was requested to help a woman who had become possessed. Her face was red and wrathful, and she had such strength that she threw off the six men attempting to control her. A number of lamas had conducted ceremonies to help her, to no avail. As soon as Chagdud Rinpoche's right foot touched the doorstep, she fell on the bed and began to cry, "Rinpoche, please save me!" He performed a brief ceremony, after which the woman, though weak and exhausted, was normal.
"These are a few drops from the ocean of Rinpoche's manifestation of spiritual attainment." Lama Gyatso continued, "I can comfortably say that amongst the Buddhist spiritual masters today, especially in the Western world, there are none who even parallel Rinpoche's spiritual accomplishment, realization and academic insight.
"This is why I feel that to refer to Rinpoche, who is the very embodiment of the Three Jewels, the Three Roots and the Three Kayas, simply as "Chagdud Tulku," without honorific title, amounts to a kind of disrespect in terms of our samaya, or Vajrayana commitments. In a recent letter, Gonjang Tulku Rinpoche, a very high lama, addressed our Rinpoche as His Eminence and I feel this is appropriate ....
"I'm here because I cannot stay separated from Rinpoche, my root master. ... And I want to thank his Western students for creating a situation in which we can all be with him as one family and receive his precious teachings. You are all so fortunate that Rinpoche is right in your lap ....
"Soon we will be doing longevity practice for Rinpoche in Los Angeles, but the real longevity practice is within our minds as his students–keeping intact the relation of disciple and vajra master, maintaining our samaya. We students, especially those of us who have received Vajrayana and Dzogchen transmissions from Rinpoche, are directly responsible for the health of his mandala of activity.
"As Vajrayana practitioners, our samaya is more precious than the eyeball–it is the backbone of spiritual existence. No matter how smart we may be, how many lamas we may go to, if our samaya is strained, our foundation is rusted. No matter how many layers we try to build atop it, it will not be solid, and there will be no real development. For example, students who find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught have some obstacles due to impaired samaya.
"Maintaining pure samaya not only involves preserving a pure lama-student relationship. It also means keeping our relationships within the sangha pure. Samaya extends to all our activities, even mopping the floor, recognizing the floor as the base of the celestial palace within the pureland, seeing the act of mopping as one of cleansing, of purification.
"Upholding these commitments provides a very fertile base for spiritual accomplishment and the merit accumulated through such practice is very great. If we practice like this, Rinpoche will live a long, healthy life and his dharma activity will flourish in this country without bounds."
