My Eight Main Teachers — part 4
To come to a much more famous figure, certainly more famous perhaps in the West at least by reputation, I’ll speak a bit now about Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche. I met him in 1956 or ’57 I think, and I met him in Kalimpong when he was on a visit. He was the greatest of all the Nyingmapa incarnate lamas of this century. He was a very learned man indeed, and at the same time he was deeply versed in meditation. He was the head of the Sakyapa monastery, but belonged mainly to the Nyingmapa tradition. And he also belonged to that newer tradition which is known as Rime, which started in the last century in eastern Tibet. Rime means ‘no boundaries’. A number of lamas, including Jamyang Khyentse, who belonged to different traditions, met together and exchanged different initiations. They initiated one another into all the different practices that they had, so as to create a sort of unified tradition. I’ve always believed it was quite significant that I had this strong personal connection with Jamyang Khyentse, a representative of what one might call an ecumenical Tibetan Buddhism, Because the FWBO tries to be ecumenical with regard to the whole Buddhist tradition. I met Jamyang Khyentse quite a number of times; there’s quite a lot I could say about him. There are three incidents which stand out. I’m just going to talk about those three incidents.
The first one I think occurred either the first time I met him or the second time. We greeted each other and he looked up from his book — he was only about 55 or 56, a very grave, dignified figure, a very regal figure, a very kind figure — and he said to me: Do you know anything about dancing?
So I had to say that, Well, no, sorry I didn’t. So he said Pity — I’ve been reading about dancing in the Tanjur
— that’s the supplement of the Tibetan cannon containing all the writings of all the great Mahayana philosophers — he said In the Tanjur there’s 14 works on the dance. I’ve been studying them recently.
And of course those Indian works on dance, on Martishastra, are the basis, that is the choreographic basis, of the Tibetan so-called Lama Dance, that’s why he was interested in them, why he was studying them. But this just illustrated the extent of his study and his researches. He was reading all sorts of texts, I think it was fourteen, it may have been twelve; but anyway he was reading these texts on dance, and he wanted to gather further information on dance if he could, even perhaps from Western sources. So he was a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t tell him anything about dance.
Some time later I received Tantric initiation from him. I’m going to say something about that. I went over to Darjeeling and made my request and I asked him for the Manjughosha practice. I was very keen to do that in addition to the Green Tara practice. I should mention that he regarded himself as an emanation of a tulku of Manjugosha. He said I’ll give you four initiations, but I don’t have the texts with me, I have to get those from Gangtok in a few weeks time, I’ll send for you when I’m ready.
So I went back to Kalimpong. About two weeks later, I received a message saying Come tomorrow, I shall give you the initiations
. I was ill in bed, I had a fever and a raging toothache. The side of my jaw was all swollen. I was in very great pain. So I thought Well, no choice, if he says come tomorrow, I shall have to go tomorrow.
So I got up and despite the fever and despite the pain, I got to Darjeeling in about two hours, down 4000 feet from Kalimpong and then up 8000 feet to Darjeeling — all in two hours or less. Not very good for the stomach. Anyway I arrived, I won’t say more dead than alive, but feeling a bit groggy; and I went along for this initiation. I can’t remember very much about it, it was all in Tibetan anyway, but I remember, yes I do remember certain things. I remember while he was giving the initiation, chanting and invoking Manjughosha, he was sort of looking up with what one could only describe as a quite heavenly smile. And it was just as though he could see Manjughosha floating up there and sending down his blessing. It was just like that; I remember this very vividly. He gave me the initiations of Manjughosha, Avalokitesvara, Vajrapani and Green Tara. I went back to Kalimpong and went back to bed. And I got better. So that was my experience of my initiation.
Some months later I went up to Gangtok and he was staying there in the Palace monastery and I went to see him, and his attendant monk — he was by the way himself a monk — his attendant monk asked me just to wait a few minutes and after a while I was called in. And Jamyang Khyentse said Sorry to keep you waiting, but I was performing a ceremony for a lama who died recently.
So I asked him what ceremony he’d been performing, and he said that he was chanting, he was reciting the Vajrasattva mantra. So that’s the first half of the story. Several years later I happened to be in Kalimpong on my sort of farewell journey, when I’d been in the West for two years and I’d decided to stay on in the West. I went back to India, to Kalimpong, to say goodbye to my friends. So I was staying at my vihara and some years previously I’d had a western disciple called Jivaka, a rather awful person. Anyway he’d been dead several years, and what happened was this: in the middle of the night I woke up, it was pitch dark, but I could see, I could see quite clearly. And by the side of my bed there was a deep pit, literally a pit as if someone had dug it. So I looked down and there was this old disciple of mine, he was standing in this pit with his head just level with the edge. And he was standing there like that, very sad and very sorrowful. So it had occurred to me that he must be in a not very happy state, and I wasn’t surprised knowing what he’d been like and how wilful he’d been. So I wondered what could I do, feeling I should help him or try to help him in some way. Then I remembered Jamyang Khyentse, and I remembered that he had recited the Vajrasattva mantra for this dead lama. So I started reciting the Vajrsattva mantra; and as I did I saw the letters of the mantra come out of my mouth. And the letters of the mantra, and there are 100 of these letters — it’s called the 100 syllable mantra — went down into the pit like a sort of chain, like a garland or like a mala, and were sort of circling round; and this disciple seized hold of it, like you do on a rope, and hauled himself up out of the pit. I saw this just as clearly as I see you all sitting here, and when he hauled himself out of the pit, everything vanished and it was pitch dark. And I heard the sound of a ram’&rsqo;s horn in the distance, and the ram’s horn was being blown by the Jogi. Now what was the Jogi? The Jogis are a caste in Nepal who are sent out at certain times of the year by the king: the king sends them a special instruction and they go around the whole Himalayan area gathering the souls of the dead, and people are very afraid of them. And the dogs are very afraid, even the fiercest dog won’t go near the Jogis. And just as darkness fell again, pitch darkness, I heard the sound of the Jogi. I looked at my clock, it was two o’clock in the morning. The following morning of course a Jogi came round with food. They are not poor, they don’t do it for money; it’s just the custom. And they are very, very strange people. People don’t like to talk to them. But I used to talk with the Jogis and ask them about their work and all that sort of thing. I was quite interested. But anyway — I’m not going into all that — my servant and disciples were very, very afraid: they wouldn’t go near the Jogi, they’d run away. I’d say Come out, bring out some rice and money for the Jogi
. They’d bring it and put it down and run away. I used to ask a Jogi to sit down and I’d start talking with him, because I could speak Nepali. We used to have a bit of a chat. The Jogis looked very strange, almost haunting — not surprisingly. They had a little bag over their shoulder; some people believed that the souls of the dead were in that little bag. They came on the night of the new moon when it was very dark. But anyway, that’s just by the way, that’s just to illustrate my contact with Jamyang Khyentse and the use — the efficacy even — of the Vajrasattva mantra. And this is one of the reasons why in the FWBO we always recite the Vajrasattva mantra in connection with after-death ceremonies.
So, that was, or that is, Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche. As I said he was a very kindly, in a sense a very regal, sort of person. When I met him for the first time he struck me as being very like an old Burmese mahathera, or senior monk — he was quite monastic but at the same time he had this regal air. I believe he came from a princely family in eastern Tibet. He died in 1959, after I’d known him and had contact with him for about two years.