by Marco Pallis
The following day the monks made a further search in another part of the village, then returned to say good-bye. As they made prostration before me, I placed my hand on their heads as if I knew that I should give them my blessing, then the monks were certain that I was the incarnation of the tenth Trungpa. They spoke to my mother asking her to tell them in confidence who had been my father. She told them that I was the son of her first husband, Yeshe Dargye, but that I had always been known as the son of my stepfather. This made everything clear to the monks, who immediately returned to Dütsi Tel. The news was taken to Gyalwa Karmapa who was sure that I, the child of Tungtso Drölma, was the eleventh Trungpa Tulku.
Gyalwa Karmapa was about to leave Palpung Monastery on a tour in which Surmang would be included, and the monks realized that if he was to perform the ceremony of my enthronement it was necessary to bring me there immediately. Kargyen, the senior secretary of Dütsi Tel, with a party of monks came to my native village of Dekyil to fetch me. He had to proclaim his mission to the whole area and to consult all the heads of the villages and the representatives of the people, since ordinarily it was expected that they would demand land or money. However, everyone was cooperative and modest and no one asked for any gain for himself. Next, my parents had to be asked if they wished to live near Surmang, or would prefer to receive property in their own village. My parents decided that they would like to be given the land on which they lived; however, they told the secretary that at some future time they would be glad of permission to visit me at Surmang.
When these things were settled we set off, with both my parents traveling in the party, for they were anxious to see Surmang. My mother stayed on in a house near Dütsi Tel in order to look after me until I was five years old, but my stepfather returned to his village.
A messenger had been sent ahead to inform Dütsi Tel when we would arrive, and a great welcome was prepared. All the monks from Surmang and many from neighboring monasteries assembled some five miles distant from Dütsi Tel to form a procession to escort me. On that day the valley was misty, and a rainbow appeared in the sky forming an arch over the procession, but as we drew near the monastery the surrounding mists dissolved, and the low clouds spread like a canopy hiding us from distant onlookers.
At the monastery everything was in festival; all the monks were rejoicing. There were special ceremonies and a great feast was arranged. I have been told that, though I was only about thirteen months old at the time, I immediately recognized those monks in whom the tenth Trungpa Tulku had placed confidence, and that I behaved with the greatest decorum throughout the day and did not even cry once.
A few days later I was put through a test; pairs of several objects were put before me, and in each case I picked out the one that had belonged to the tenth Trungpa Tulku; among them were two walking sticks and two rosaries; also, names were written on small pieces of paper and when I was asked which piece had his name on it, I chose the right one. Now the monks were certain that I was the incarnation, so a letter was sent to Gyalwa Karmapa telling him the results of the examination and inviting him to officiate at my enthronement ceremony.
Every morning my mother brought me to the monastery and took me home with her in the evening. My earliest memory is being in a room with several monks who were talking to me, and I was answering them. I was told later that my first words were “OM MANI PADME HUM”; probably, I did not say them very correctly. When lamas came to visit me, I have been told that I used to clutch at their rosaries and try to imitate them. Every day that month, I held an audience and received visits from the friends and disciples of my past incarnation who took a great interest in me, and I always seemed to enjoy meeting people.
At the end of the month my enthronement ceremony was to take place, and so I was taken to the larger monastery of Namgyal Tse. This time, instead of the joyous informality with which I had been welcomed at Dütsi Tel, a procession came to escort me and everything was done with pomp and ceremony.
Gyalwa Karmapa arrived with some senior lamas from Palpung; other people came from all parts of East Tibet: About one thousand Surmang monks and twelve thousand other monks and laity finally assembled. My monks were delighted, for this enthronement was to be one of the largest in living memory. There were several incarnate lamas already at Surmang including Garwang Tulku the regent abbot of Namgyal Tse. Rölpa Dorje the regent abbot of Dütsi Tel was appointed to act as my sponsor and give my responses at the enthronement. Both were regent abbots of their respective monasteries in the interregnum after the death of the tenth Trungpa and during my minority, and they remained so later when I was absent from Surmang.
Rölpa Dorje Rinpoche was the fifth incarnation of the great Rölpa Dorje, a contemporary of the fifth Trungpa Tulku, and he had been the teacher of Tai Situ Chökyi Jungne in the early part of the eighteenth century; the latter was the second most important lama in the Karma Kagyü school; Tai Situ is a Chinese title. He had written many scholarly works and had revived the pictorial art of the “Gardri school.” His teaching had been widely disseminated in Tibet, China, and India.
My enthronement took place in the large assembly hall. The lion throne (seng tri), on which all tulkus are traditionally enthroned, stood at the farther end of the hall on a dais. It was made of gilt wood, square in shape, with white lions carved on the sides which appeared to be supporting it. On the throne there were three cushions, red, yellow, and blue, covered with two strips of brocade. A table was placed in front of it with all my seals of office. I was carried up the hall by the senior secretary of Dütsi Tel, escorted by a procession of the higher dignitaries. Rölpa Dorje Rinpoche stood at the foot of the throne, and my secretary handed me to him; he then mounted the dais and sat down in my place holding me on his lap and gave all the responses which should have come from me.
According to tradition, the service began with the rite of the primary upasaka ordination, the entrance to the Buddhist congregation. Gyalwa Karmapa cut my hair to symbolize a cutting away from the material, and entering the spiritual, life. Then the regent abbot spoke in my name.
From today I take refuge in the Buddha.
From today I take refuge in the dharma (the norm, embodied in the doctrine).
From today I take refuge in the sangha (the assembly or church both earthly and heavenly).
At the moment when he put the scissors to my hair there was a clap of thunder, sudden rain, and a rainbow appeared. This was thought to be very auspicious. After this I was given my personal name Karma Tendzin Trinle Künkhyap Pal Sangpo: All monks of the Karma Kagyü school are given the first name karma after their founder; roughly translated the remaining words mean: “the universal action of the holder of the doctrine, the gloriously good.” Later that day I was given all the seals and official documents of the tenth Trungpa Tulku. Everyone came to receive my blessing and offered me ceremonial scarves. The incarnate lamas and heads of monasteries led the way, followed by monks and laypeople; they presented me with robes and many other gifts.
After a few weeks Gyalwa Karmapa Rinpoche left for his own center close to Lhasa, and the senior tulkus from Palpung, after escorting him halfway, likewise returned to their monastery.
The umbrella of protection.
TWO
The Founding of Surmang
FOR MY LIFE as the eleventh Trungpa Tulku to be understood, it is necessary to know the history of the Kagyü school to which the Surmang monasteries belonged. The basic teaching was introduced into Tibet by Marpa the Translator, a great adept. He made three journeys to India under most difficult conditions to study with Naropa and other Indian Buddhist gurus and brought back many precious teachings which he translated from the Sanskrit. He was one of the leading scholars of what is known as the New Translation period. Milarepa, later to become one of Tibet’s greatest saints, became his chief disciple to whom he handed over the spiritual authority to carry on his work. Milarepa’s poems and the moving story of his life were written down soon after his death by sever
al of his own disciples; there is a good translation into English by Evans-Wentz, and an outstanding one into French by Professor Bacot.
The monastic tradition of the Kagyü school was founded by Gampopa, a pupil of Milarepa born in 1079. His classical work The Ornament of Precious Liberation is still a leading manual in this school and has been translated into English by Dr. Herbert Guenther.
Following Gampopa’s teaching, separate schools developed under three of his disciples and one of them, Karmapa, founded the Karma Kagyü school and established the abbey of Tsurphu near Lhasa which continued to be the principal monastery of the order. Karmapa’s first incarnation Karma Pakshi (1203–1282), an eminent teacher, was invited to China by the emperor Kublai Khan, and the second incarnation became the spiritual teacher of Kublai’s successor. He was followed in this function by all the incarnations up to the tenth, who refused to go to China saying he would rather give his blessing to a dog’s skull than to the emperor; he evidently disliked court life and did not wish to be connected with it even occasionally! The fifth Karmapa is especially known as the teacher of the Ming emperor Yung-lo and his influence on the spiritual and cultural thought of China was very great.
At the end of the fourteenth century Trung Mase Rinpoche, the son of the king of Minyak in East Tibet left his father’s palace to seek spiritual guidance. He traveled from place to place and came to the monastery of Tsurphu: There he met the fifth Karmapa Teshin Shekpa, who became his guru and under whom he remained in retreat for ten years, in conditions of the utmost austerity. Karmapa then told him that the time had come for him to go out to found a monastery and to begin teaching himself.
He traveled around Tibet to find somewhere to establish it, and when he came to the valley of Yöshung he had the feeling that this was the place his teacher had predicted. He walked around the village with his begging bowl reciting the sutra (sacred treatise) Arya-manjushri-nama-sangiti, i.e., “the Perfect Song of the Name of Holy Manjushri,” and felt that his search had come to an end when a woman came out of her doorway to put food in his bowl at the very moment that he had reached the words Chökyi gyaltsen lekpardzuk, which mean “Plant well the banner of the victory of dharma.” This seemed to be such an auspicious sign that he immediately decided to build his monastery on that spot. This was the beginning of Surmang; and when its monks recite this sutra, they will pause at these words and repeat them a second time.
At first Trung Mase built a small hut made with reeds: It was very primitive, with many corners. Disciples flocked to him, and some of them suggested that the monastery should now be given an imposing name, but he said that he was proud of his hut and since it was so irregular in shape it should be called Surmang, which means “many cornered.”
More and more disciples joined the monastery, of whom eleven were especially notable: Three of these remained with their guru in the hut while the eight others, who were spiritually advanced teachers (togden), carried their doctrine round the country. Trungpa Künga Gyaltsen was one of these: He was looked upon as an incarnation of Maitreya Bodhisattva, destined to be the buddha of the next world cycle, also of Dombipa, a great Buddhist siddha (adept), and of Milarepa.
As his guru had also done, Künga Gyaltsen looked for a place for his monastery, and at one of the villages on his travels he was told the story of Dombipa, who when he came there was holding a cup of amrita (symbolically the elixir of immortality) in his hand, which he threw into space, saying, “Wherever this cup falls will be the place for my reincarnation.” It fell on a hill in the valley which has since been called Dütsi Tel (Hill of Amrita).
This story interested Künga Gyaltsen, and when thinking about it one night he had a dream in which his guru said, “You are an incarnation of Dombipa, and this is the place for your monastery.” He was deeply moved, and the next day he felt that he must also throw a cup. He said, “If I am an incarnation of Dombipa, may my cup fall in the right place.” He was five miles from the village but with the power of his word, the cup fell on the roof of Adro Shelu-bum, a large landowner’s castle on the hill of Dütsi Tel. It made a ringing sound and at the same moment there was an earthquake. When he was told about Künga Gyaltsen’s miraculous powers Adro Shelu-bum realized that he must be a disciple of Trung Mase, invited him to his palace, and was so deeply impressed by him that he became his devotee. He offered part of his home to his new guru to be used as a monstery, and undertook to feed the monks. As Trungpa Künga Gyaltsen intended to continue his own life of traveling and camping with his disciples, he did not want to establish a large monastery; he therefore thankfully accepted Adro Shelu-bum’s offer and used it as a house of retreat for his monks. His camps became known as the Surmang garchen tengpa (the great camps of Surmang); many disciples joined them, and this mode of life was followed by his next three incarnations who were abbots of Dütsi Tel.
In the meantime, Trung Mase in his hut monastery had gathered a great many disciples around him. It became overcrowded, and Adro Shelu-bum gave him a second gift. This time it was the entire castle of Namgyal Tse which was much larger than Dütsi Tel and had a spacious assembly hall; much land was included in the endowment, together with rocky mountains where there were several caves suitable for meditation. Trung Mase transferred his hut monastery to Namgyal Tse, but retained the name of Surmang for the entire group.
As death approached he said that he would not reincarnate, as his teaching was both his incarnation and his portrait. Garwang, one of the eight notable togdens of the hut monastery, followed him as abbot. Surmang now included Namgyal Tse, Dütsi Tel, and several small monasteries, each of which had its own abbot.
The fourth incarnation, Trungpa Künga Namgyal did not follow the camping way of life of his three predecessors, and a descendant of Adro Shelu-bum gave him the entire castle of Dütsi Tel for a separate monastery. Brought up by the disciples of his predecessor and also by the lamas of Namgyal Tse, he became a renowned teacher throughout East Tibet, and was widely known for his ability to continue for a long period in meditation without any bodily movement. Because of his reputation, Dütsi Tel, though a smaller monastery and with fewer monks than Namgyal Tse, was considered to be the more important.
However, Trungpa Künga Namgyal wished to devote his life to meditation, and for six years he remained as a hermit in a cave about a mile from Dütsi Tel; then, having reached a high degree of spiritual insight he returned to his monastery. After a year or two he felt that he must travel to give his teaching outside. Asking his brother to take charge of Dütsi Tel, he left without any attendant and only a white yak to carry his books and baggage. It was a hornless breed of yak used for riding and easy to control by a single man by means of a ring in its nose. Trungpa Künga Namgyal made a tour of the holy places, traditionally 108 in number; these included caves where renowned gurus had meditated, ruined cities where one could contemplate the impermanence of life, and past battlefields and graveyards.
Toward the end of his life he no longer needed to travel, for after he returned to his monastery disciples flocked to him, and he became the teacher of the whole Karma Kagyü school. He then wrote some sixteen treatises on various spiritual themes and founded further monasteries.
Following in such footsteps, the fifth Trungpa Tulku was generally recognized as an important abbot. He was honored by the Chinese emperor early in the seventeenth century and received the official rank of hutukhtu, the Mongolian equivalent for a great teacher, with its particular seals, hat, and robe; the charter conferring the title was written on yellow silk. He became the supreme abbot of all the Surmang monasteries and his authority also extended over the whole province.
At that time Dütsi Tel was extremely flourishing: The third Tulku Chetsang Rinpoche, himself a great artist, had superintended most of the decoration and had painted many of the thangkas (pictorial scrolls mounted on silk). The walls of the assembly hall were frescoed from floor to ceiling in red and gold with scenes from the life of Gautama Buddha, and above them were depicted one tho
usand buddhas of the past, present, and future, of whom Gautama was the fourth, while Maitreya will be the fifth to guide us toward enlightenment.
Unfortunately the unusual beauty and wealth of Surmang was a cause of jealousy and the monasteries were attacked (in 1643) by the fanatical followers of Gusri Khan, a Mongol chief whose personal devotion to the then Dalai Lama and to the Geluk order of monks of which he is the head expressed itself in the incongruous form of destroying houses belonging to earlier monastic foundations; such exhibitions of sectarian bigotry have been rare in Buddhist history. This time the seventh Trungpa Tulku was captured, together with the artist the fifth Tulku Chetsang and the abbot of Namgyal Tse, who was a noted philosopher. Though cast into prison, each continued doing the things he considered to be of most importance: Trungpa meditated and recited on his rosary the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM one hundred million times; Tulku Chetsang painted thangkas; and the abbot revised his doctrinal treatises.
During their incarceration there was a prolonged drought in Tibet; many prayers were offered up but no rain fell. Finally, Trungpa Tulku was approached in prison. He handed the messenger the rosary he had used for the hundred million recitations and told him to dip it in a certain spring. When this was done a cloud rose from the spring and came down in rain over all the country. After this the three prisoners were released; Tulku Chetsang needed three mules to transport the thangkas he had completed.
