LITMIR.BIZ

      Chokgyur Lingpa had immense confidence in the great master Paltrul and all his children—including Wangchok Dorje—became Paltrul’s disciples. After Chokgyur Lingpa passed away, Wangchok Dorje journeyed to Paltrul’s encampment. Since many of his disciples were masters in their own right, it was said throughout Kham that his camp was like a den of snow lions, who later spread the roar of the sacred Dharma in all directions.

      Being the son of the great tertön, Wangchok Dorje arrived at the camp with great pomp and circumstance, on horseback and with a large retinue.

      By contrast, Paltrul was a dedicated monk and of course had no consort. Rather, he would often speak about being “a child of the mountains, wearing the mountain mist as one’s garments” and about the virtues of following the simple lifestyle of the early practitioners of the Kagyu lineage.

      One day, Paltrul spoke of following their example by giving up elaborate involvements. “To practice the true Dharma, one should always take the lower seat and wear castaway clothing,” Paltrul told the gathering. “It has never been said that one should put oneself above others and dress up in brocade.”

      Inspired, Wangchok Dorje thought, “That’s fine by me!” So he shed all his brocade garments and wore a simple cloak made of inexpensive felt instead. He also dismissed his entourage and sent all his horses back to Chokgyur Lingpa’s monastery, keeping but a single attendant. He then shaved off all his hair and took monk’s vows from Paltrul. He remained there for three years, having abandoned all possessions.

      But after he took the pledge to be a wandering renunciate with no possessions and had shaved off all of his wondrous hair, his majestic presence and splendor faded; he became just like an ordinary person. He turned pale and frail, and his back started to bend.

      This austere way of life seemed to have a very negative effect on his status as the holder of the terma teachings. In particular, cutting off his hair broke a samaya bond with the dakinis. In order for a tertön to transcribe the sign script of a terma, the syllables have to hover clearly in his vision. But now, he found, they were blurred, darted about, and became smaller and smaller. As a result, he was unable to decode and write down a single terma.

      Wangchok Dorje’s journey home was in stark contrast to his imposing arrival—in his father’s fashion—in the company of forty horsemen and a herd of yaks. Instead, he walked on foot all the way from Golok in the northeastern part of Kham, carrying only a staff like a mendicant beggar. He traveled with just two attendants and a single hornless yak as pack animal. All they carried were a few books and the makings for tea.

      As they were walking down toward Dzongsar monastery in Derge, Wangchok Dorje fell ill. It must have been quite a severe illness, because in only five or six days he passed away at Khyentse’s mountain retreat, the famous Gathering Palace of Sugatas. No one in the world could prevent this sad event. A procession carried the body back to Chokgyur Lingpa’s seat. The tertön’s cook Pema Trinley, whom I knew as a small kid, was present when Wangchok Dorje passed away. He was then the monastery’s bursar and got stuck with the task of delivering the sad news to the great Khyentse, who was staying nearby.

      Pema Trinley, who passed away near the age of ninety, gave me every detail of this story. Upon hearing of Wangchok Dorje’s death, Khyentse was deeply displeased. Feeling that there had been no need for the son of a realized ngakpa to cut his hair,⁶⁶ he cried out: “Damn! Crazy Paltrul made Wangchok Dorje cut his hair and turned him into a renunciate—and now look what has happened! How tragic! This proves how little merit there is in the present age of decline. Padmasambhava himself made the prophecy that this son of the tertön would have spread his termas from the Chinese border in the east all the way to Mount Kailash in the west, benefiting beings like unfurling an immense sheet of white cloth. Now crazy Paltrul has messed everything up!”

      Khyentse then slapped his fists against his chest, expressing despair in typical Khampa fashion. “The auspicious coincidence didn’t hold up,” he moaned with a very morose expression. “He was supposed to be the one to reveal and propagate the remaining termas.”⁶⁷

      Pema Trinley presented an offering on behalf of the deceased and said, “Rinpoche, please give us an indication of where we can find his rebirth. I have given you an offering and I need to return with the information.”

      “Goodness!” replied Khyentse. “Before they were sister and brother; now they may be son and mother.”

      The great Khyentse continued to look upset and beat his chest. That was all he said by way of prediction.

      No more than a year had passed when Khyentse confirmed that in fact my grandmother Könchok Paldrön’s newborn son was Wangchok Dorje’s reincarnation.

      “Listen up!” Old Khyentse said. “Isn’t it true that Könchok Paldrön has just given birth to a boy? I tell you, there is no doubt that he is Wangchok Dorje!”

      Then Old Khyentse ratified it in writing.

      Old Khyentse continued, “Her second son doesn’t have a long life, but naming him Immortal Vajra will provide an auspicious circumstance for prolonging his life.” And that is how my father got his name: Chimey Dorje.

      Chokgyur Lingpa’s collected works—apart from the forty volumes of his termas—comprised two volumes and Wangchok Dorje’s writings a single thick volume. Both had been laboriously written out by hand rather than printed with woodblocks. I kept one copy of both these collections. After I left for Central Tibet, I wrote my monastery asking them to send me these texts. Later I heard that the caretakers

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