The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  6. The four greater schools of the Kagyü tradition are the Karma Kagyü, Barom Kagyü, Tsalpa Kagyü, and Phagdru Kagyü. The eight lesser schools are the Taglung, Drukpa, Drikung, Martsang, Trophu, Yelpa, Yabsang, and Shuksep Kagyü.

  7. OM MANI PADME HUM.

  8. The sixth Chetsang Rinpoche, the first having been one of the eight mystics and a very great teacher.

  13

  The Later Trungpas

  Although I have no intention of continuing the Trungpa line, the energy is still there. When you give this energy to someone else, you do not give it away, you radiate it. But having done so, you have the same amount of energy left, exactly the same volume. So energy is not a separate entity. A sunbeam coming through the window is not different from the sun itself.

  THE SIXTH TRUNGPA: TENDZIN CHÖKYI GYATSO

  The sixth Trungpa, Tendzin Chökyi Gyatso (1715–1734 est.), lived during the eighteenth century. Very little is known about him. He died when he was very young. Some time after he was discovered as the Trungpa tülku, when he was about eighteen or nineteen years old, one of his students was carrying him in order to help him cross a bridge. They both slipped and fell, and the sixth Trungpa died on the spot. So much for the sixth Trungpa.

  THE SEVENTH TRUNGPA: JAMPAL CHÖKYI GYATSO

  The seventh Trungpa, Jampal Chökyi Gyatso (1743–1768 est.), lived during the eighteenth century. He was a very intelligent person who studied a great deal. But he also died young, around the age of twenty-five. When he was an infant, his mother accidentally dropped him on the floor, which caused a concussion, and after that he was sick throughout his life.

  There is no particular monument that he left behind, except that he wrote a lot of poetry. Many of his poems were lost, but some of them were kept in the archives of the Surmang monasteries. It was a very romantic type of poetry, somewhat adolescent, but insightful nevertheless. It was not particularly good as poetry, because he was still developing. If his life had been prolonged, he could have written many more poems and become a great poet-saint.

  THE EIGHTH TRUNGPA: GYURME TENPHEL

  The eighth Trungpa, Gyurme Tenphel (b. 1771), lived during the nineteenth century. He was a very eccentric person and a great artist. Gyurme Tenphel used to love drinking a very thick tea, and he was very kind and gentle. He spent a long time practicing meditation, something like ten years, locked in the top part of his castle, which had been given to him and his lineage earlier on. He also paid a visit to the fourteenth Karmapa.

  The Tibetan Book of the Dead

  According to Surmang tradition, when The Tibetan Book of the Dead1 was first discovered by the fourteenth-century tertön, or treasure discoverer, Karma Lingpa, he presented it to Gyurme Tenphel and asked him to take care of it. He said that Gyurme Tenphel should help in promoting this particular teaching. And the eighth Trungpa became a very powerful source in presenting the teachings of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. So Surmang people, we regard The Tibetan Book of the Dead as a part of our tradition, and as one of our contemplative disciplines.

  Ekajati2

  Gyurme Tenphel incorporated a great number of Nyingma teachings. His role was similar to the role of the third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje in unifying the Kagyü and Nyingma teachings. Gyurme Tenphel actually adopted the Nyingma protector Ekajati as a protector of Surmang Monastery. Before that, the Kagyüs did not have Ekajati.

  Artistic and Literary Activity

  Gyurme Tenphel was a gentle, artistic, and well-meaning person. Supposedly, he had only two fights during his whole life. The first time, a cat jumped on his dish of food and was trying to lick his soup. He pushed the cat aside and got very angry. The second time, his attendant cut his bamboo calligraphy pen in the wrong way, and Gyurme Tenphel again lost his temper. So he lost his temper twice in his life. Isn’t that shocking?

  Gyurme Tenphel was a very articulate person in terms of visual dharma. I have seen some of his illuminated manuscripts and artworks, and they were fantastic and very beautiful. His handwriting was impeccable. He was a great calligrapher and a great painter, and he was also a great composer who produced music for monastic chants. He collected and edited the works of the previous Trungpas and of the Surmang tradition, and he also collected the songs and life stories of Trung Ma-se. He compiled the library of Surmang, which was later destroyed at the time of the tenth Trungpa.

  We had some of Gyurme Tenphel’s art in our monastery. We used to have some of his handwriting, calligraphies, and thangkas. Some of those thangkas were similar to the ones I have seen depicting the kings of Shambhala. He also painted little thangkas of the eighty-four siddhas. They were very beautiful Gardri school paintings and fantastic works of art.

  Gyurme Tenphel’s taste was extraordinarily rich, in terms of creating mountings for these thangkas. He would buy brocades and use them to mount the scrolls, and he would cover books with silk scarves of all kinds. His taste was impeccable and very rich and wealthy, with a somewhat aristocratic flavor. In fact, he was supposed to have come from a wealthy aristocratic family.

  THE NINTH TRUNGPA: TENPA RABGYE

  The ninth Trungpa, Tenpa Rabgye, lived during the nineteenth century. He was supposedly a very shameful person. He was not shameful in the sense of being wild or anything like that, but he just spent his life sitting around outside in the sun, chatting with people and taking anise snuff. He was very peasant-like. The only thing he composed in his life was a four-line offering to Mahakala, which we used to chant in our monastery, and which does not say very much. It goes like this:

  Chief protector of the teachings,

  I supplicate you, Mahakala, the four-armed one.

  Accept this offering.

  Fulfill the four karmas.3

  He was very ordinary. I think at the time there was not very much learning or intellectual work going on, and there was also not very much practice going on. So Tenpa Rabgye just existed. However, his death was supposed to have been quite interesting. He announced, “Tomorrow I am going to die. Since I am going to die tomorrow, at least I’m going to die in a dignified way.” So he called his attendant to come and take off his old clothes and put on his yellow robe. Then he sat up in the cross-legged vajra posture, and he was gone. That was the only testament that Tenpa Rabgye, the ninth Trungpa, knew what he was doing.

  THE TENTH TRUNGPA: CHÖKYI NYIN-JE

  The tenth Trungpa, Chökyi Nyin-je (1879–1939), my own predecessor, lived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

  Leaving the Monastery

  The tenth Trungpa was quite a different person from the ninth. He was born to a local chieftain of Surmang, and he was raised with very strict discipline by his uncles, as well as his tutors, his bursars, his secretaries, and others. In the early part of his life, he took everything in the Kagyü teachings extraordinarily seriously. He took his ngöndro practice, his shamatha-vipashyana practice, and everything else very seriously. He did every practice step-by-step very successfully.

  Chökyi Nyin-je did not like being told what to do. In particular, he felt that people were trying to make him into a good moneymaker. In those times, it was traditional for the monastery to set up a winter trip, a summer trip, and an autumn trip to collect donations from the locality. During the summer trip, the monks would collect dry cheese and butter. In the autumn, they would collect turnips, potatoes, and vegetables. And during the winter, the monks would collect grains, predominantly wheat and barley, with some beans and peas, or whatever was available. So the poor tenth Trungpa was pushed to make these trips all the time; it was always time to make the next round.

  That became problematic for Chökyi Nyin-je, and he did not like it. He wanted to practice instead of constantly involving himself with the work of collecting donations. One night, he decided to leave his monastery and his camp, and try to seek teachings from Jamgön Kongtrül the Great. (This is all written about in Born in Tibet.4 You can read the story of the tenth Trungpa there, which is quite colorful.) Chökyi Nyin-je manag
ed to do this, and he decided to stay with Jamgön Kongtrül for a long period of time, continuing his practice, his discipline, and his study. It was a very rare situation to become a student of Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, and as a result, Chökyi Nyin-je became one of the world-renowned teachers of the Kagyü tradition.

  Chökyi Nyin-je was very short of funds at that time, but the monastery wanted to lure him back, so they did not give him any resources. There was not even enough butter for him to create a butter lamp so that he could read the scriptures in the evening. He had to buy sticks of incense in order to try to read the texts, studying and memorizing them by the glow of an incense stick. Supposedly, when Chökyi Nyin-je was memorizing texts and trying to practice, he tied his hair to the ceiling with a cord, and he stuck nettles around himself. If he dozed and started to fall over, he would be pulled up by his hair or he would be stung by the nettles. He kept himself alive by practicing constantly under Jamgön Kongtrül the Great.

  Political Problems and Court Case

  Chökyi Nyin-je also had his political problems. The same old problem kept coming back again and again in our province: our monastery kept being attacked by a local Geluk monastery. The Gelukpas raised legal points questioning Surmang’s power over them, and Chökyi Nyin-je spent something like three months in the local capital, Jyekundo, arguing his case. There were no lawyers, like we have these days, so he had to create his own case by writing out each point, one by one. He had to write everything out at night and present the points during the day. Chökyi Nyin-je spent three months presenting the case for the survival of Surmang Monastery, fighting for its existence.

  Chökyi Nyin-je asked his friends for suggestions and help. He also asked those who were well versed in Tibetan law to contribute. One of the local chieftains gave him advice that became famous. He told him, “It is okay even for a lama to argue a court case. That is fine. But you must accept one thing, which is that you should tell the body of truth with the tentacles of a lie. Otherwise, if you are constantly truthful and honest, you will not win.” This was actually very helpful to Chökyi Nyin-je in winning his court case.

  When he won the case, a lot of the local people were infuriated. His monastery was attacked by the troops of the Tibetan Central Government, and was completely burnt down and looted. The tenth Trungpa was taken prisoner, although he was eventually rescued by friends. The general of the Central Tibetan Government, who was also a local king, the king of Lhatok, saved him. It is interesting that the political neuroses of the country were still taking place even as late as the 1920s.

  The Rebuilding of Surmang

  After Surmang and its libraries had been looted and burnt down, some people said that it was great that the monastery had been destroyed, because then they could create a fresher and much grander one. And that actually was the case at Surmang. Having recovered control of his monastery, Chökyi Nyin-je rebuilt it completely and fully, much better than it had been before.

  In rebuilding the monastery, the ambition of the tenth Trungpa was to change the shape of the situation altogether. Instead of having a monastery alone, he also established a community center for contemplative practice and study. Through this process, Chökyi Nyin-je reestablished monasticism and contemplative discipline at the same time. He was a great and dedicated contemplative, who united all this in one situation. Because he was so powerful, open, and fearless, he was able to hold on to his basic integrity in spite of all the chaos that occurred in his life. I have been told that he had fantastic integrity.

  Photo 9. Chögyam Trungpa wearing the robe of his predecessor, the tenth Trungpa Tülku, one of the few relics that Trungpa Rinpoche managed to carry out with him from Tibet.

  Chökyi Nyin-je died at the age of sixty-three, still trying to raise funds for the monastic establishment. The tenth Trungpa was an example of a hard worker and a political visionary. He was a powerful person who was able to win people over and conquer other people’s false concepts.

  So those are the Trungpas. And as we discussed previously, all the Trungpas were blessed tülkus, blessed incarnations, rather than a one-shot deal.

  THE ELEVENTH TRUNGPA: CHÖKYI GYATSO (CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE)

  [Editor’s Note: A brief biography of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche is included at the end of this volume. For an account of Trungpa Rinpoche’s early life and training, see his autobiography, Born in Tibet.]

  THE SURMANG KAGYÜ TEACHINGS

  In some accounts of the various Kagyü sects, the Surmang Kagyü is considered to be a separate sect, of which the Trungpas are the head. There are certainly some unique aspects of the Surmang teachings. For example, as noted above, the eighth Trungpa incorporated a lot of Nyingma teachings and he adopted Ekajati as a protector. And earlier, the fourth Trungpa’s chö teaching made him very special. Other characteristics of the Surmang Kagyü include the research work done on the six yogas of Naropa, and the many studies on mahamudra, particularly the fourth Trungpa’s commentary.

  Based on that, the Surmang people had a great deal of information about mahamudra: they were experts on that. In fact, the fifteenth Karmapa, Khakhyap Dorje, invited Surmang Tendzin Rinpoche to teach him the Surmang Kagyü’s ideas about mahamudra. But soon after, the fifteenth Karmapa died and Tendzin Rinpoche also died, so there was no chance to do that. So mahamudra seems to be one of the Surmang Kagyü specialties, in which they are expert. Altogether, not in a particularly flashy or extraordinary way, but in a very subtle way, the Surmang people have managed to maintain their intelligence and wisdom.

  Bringing the Nyingma tradition into the Kagyü is also a Surmang specialty. The tenth Trungpa, Chökyi Nyin-je, was very emotional about the Nyingma tradition. He visited Shechen Monastery to see Shechen Gyaltsap Rinpoche, who was Jamgön Kongtrül of Shechen’s teacher. Chökyi Nyin-je and Shechen Gyaltsap had a sort of spiritual love affair. The tenth Trungpa would say, “I wish I was born in your monastery,” and vice versa.

  It was a very moving experience when Chökyi Nyin-je left and they parted. He and Shechen Gyaltsap went up to the roof. They sat together and chanted a tune of invocation to Ekajati, so that Ekajati would keep an eye on them after they parted and they would still be together.

  CHAKRASAMVARA DANCES AT SURMANG

  The Surmang tradition includes a version of the complete Chakrasamvara sadhana translated into a form of dance.5 This dance was the discovery of the first Trungpa’s teacher, Trung Ma-se.6 The Chakrasamvara dance is very elaborate. It has 360 moves or themes, and the performance usually lasts about a day and a half. There is a three-hour performance first, which is the preparation of the ground; then there is a five-hour performance that establishes the shrine and creates the mandala; and finally there is a twenty-four-hour dance, concerned with the actual mandala itself. As you chant and dance along, there are certain movements connected with taking refuge and with the bodhisattva vow. Then there are movements for exorcising the hostile environment and for calling upon blessings. And then you have visualizations. All of these are in the form of dance.

  This Surmang dance is different from basic Tibetan dances that you might have seen in films, where the dancers are wearing robes. In this Chakrasamvara dance, everybody wears the same costume. In a certain part of the dance, all the dancers are divided into pairs. In this section, the rhythms are the same for you and your partner, but the movements are opposite, so it is very difficult to do. This is the part when you visualize Chakrasamvara and his consort.

  The dancers are all dressed in heruka costumes, with bone ornaments and crowns, usually made from ivory, or mule or horse bones, and carved and inlaid with jewels. This is supposed to represent the various yogic exercises, and it is the hatha yoga part of the practice. The idea is that there are what are known as the “fast dance” and the “slow dance.” The slow dance is like competing with a cloud; you are barely moving at all. And in the fast dance, you speed that up.

  The Chakrasamvara dances are a complete practice, and as you dance you begin to
get into it more and more. I started to learn to dance when I was about sixteen. And not having had enough exercise previously, the first three days my whole body completely ached and I had the flu. And my tutors said, “You shouldn’t just lie down. You should come down and do at least three hours of practice.” And I kept hanging on, and finally I felt much better and I was able to get into the rhythm and energy of the whole thing.

  Chakrasamvara dances are more like tai chi than traditional Tibetan dance, which is jumpy and very fast. Instead, the movements in these dances are very slow. You have a drum in your right hand and a bell in your left hand, and you have to learn to use them properly. After every full beat, you ring your bell. So everybody—the orchestra and all the dancers—have to be synchronized. And it is very defined, six beats of one movement, and seven of another, and then ten more repetitions. The leaders of the dance make certain moves, which indicate which part of your body you are going to use at the beginning as a main movement. It is very much like the feeling of Chakrasamvara: you dance all the time and you radiate out passion, constantly. You relate with your passion, and the more you relate with your passion, the more you get into it.