The following is an excerpt from Her Majesty the Royal Grandmother of Bhutan's to Brilliant Moon: The Autobiography of Dilgo Khyentse.

Queen Mother [now Her Majesty the Royal Grandmother] Kesang Chödrön Wangchuk is the wife of the previous king of Bhutan and the mother of the present [now retired Fourth] King Jigmey Senge Wangchuk. She was a devoted disciple of Dilgo Khyentse, and with his guidance, she and her mother, Mayum Choying Wangmo, sponsored the annual sacred drupchens performed by Dilgo Khyentse in the Paro Kyechu temple, the Punakha Dzong Chakrasamvara temple, and the Bumthang Kurje temple. She also sponsored the building of many beautiful temples and holy images in Bhutan.

For a bit more insight into this extraordinary person, see Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's recollection and tribute to her.

Loppön Pemala is a lama from Nyimalung Monastery in Bumthang, and is a great scholar and historian. He was a close disciple of Dilgo Khyentse and received all the teachings that Rinpoche gave in Bhutan.


After the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet, Dilgo Khyentse with his wife, daughters, elder brother Nyenpa Rinpoche, and a group of refugees escaped the oppression in the second month of the female earth-pig year, 1959. Fleeing via Lhodrak, they eventually arrived at the Bhutanese border. On behalf of the Bhutanese government, Prime Minister Jigmey Palden Dorje went to the border to meet the Tibetan refugees at Jakar Dzong and offered support to the refugees in the form of tsampa, and so forth. The prime minister helped those who wanted to go to India, as well as those who wanted to stay in Bhutan.

The Prime Minister also took care of Dilgo Khyentse and his entourage, and Dilgo Khyentse told him that he was extremely grateful that he and his group of refugees were looked after so well. The Prime Minister asked Khyentse Rinpoche to stay in Bhutan, and Rinpoche answered that he would really like to stay in such a free place endowed with the Dharma, but because his elder brother Sangye Nyenpa had to follow the Karmapa to India, he had to go there as well and go wherever the Karmapa went.

During a pilgrimage to Tibet in the male earth-dog year, 1958, Bhutanese Minister Sangye Paljor had met Khyentse Rinpoche, and so later on, when Rinpoche was leaving Jakar in Bumthang, he invited him to Pangto Monastery to give his sick mother the Supreme Heruka empowerment from the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse cycle. Then Rinpoche went to Tashi Choling where he stayed in a tent for a while, at which point Ani Rigzin Chödrön invited him to Longchenpa’s residence at Tharpaling and from there to Lorepa’s residence at Chötrak. At Chötrak Monastery, Rinpoche performed a hundred thousand feast offerings according to the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse cycle, and he gave the monks and nuns participating in the feast offerings the Self-Liberation of Clinging empowerment. Then he gave the reading transmission of Patrul Rinpoche’s Spontaneous Vajra Song pith instructions, and thinking of the omniscient Longchenpa, he spontaneously wrote a song of his own.

Dilgo Khyentse with Queen Mother Kesang Chödrön and Loppön Sonam Zangpo. Photograph by Matthieu Ricard.

Ashe Pema Dechen, the Junior Queen Mother, sent Rinpoche a letter from Tekchog Choling saying that she would like to see him, and she asked him to pray for her. Dilgo Khyentse sent her a reply from Tharpaling. Then he received a letter from Ashe Chökyi and Dasho Urgyen Wangdu from Wangdu Choling, also requesting an audience and his prayers for them. While doing the hundred thousand feast offerings according to the Three Roots of the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse cycle in the temple of the eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara at Chötrak Monastery, Khyentse Rinpoche felt very happy and composed a ground, path, and fruition supplication, which he wrote on the back of Ashe Pema Dechen’s letter. Then he performed the Spontaneous Fulfillment of All Aspirations feast offering in the old Chötrak temple and returned to Tashi Choling, where he gave the reading transmission for Khenpo Ngakchung’s Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher.

From Bumthang, Rinpoche went by horse to Chokor Rabten, the Tongsar Dzong, where he was requested to give the Kalachakra empowerment. Then Rinpoche continued on to India via the main road from Thimphu and settled in Kalimpong. Some of his faithful students who had received teaching from him at Chötrak Monastery went to see him in Kalimpong, where for one month he gave the complete empowerments and reading transmissions of the Heart Essence Root Volumes, as well as the Heart Essence of Mother and Son, the Heart Essence of the Dakinis, the Quintessence of the Dakinis, the Guru’s Innermost Essence, and the Profound Quintessence to many disciples at Durpin Monastery in Kalimpong. After that he gave the Guhyagarbha Tantra as well as Mipham Rinpoche’s Collected Works to some lamas and tulkus. As the texts were not complete, he sent a message asking to borrow four volumes from Chumey Naktsang, which they did, so he was very pleased. When Dudjom Rinpoche was giving the Treasury of Precious Termas empowerments in the twelfth month of the iron-mouse year, 1960, at Durpin Monastery in Kalimpong, Rinpoche went there to receive the Mindroling Vajrasattva empowerment as a Dharma connection.

Prior to Dilgo Khyentse’s arrival, my mother, Mayum Choying Wangmo Dorje, had always told me to take good care of Simtokha Dzong, as it was such a beautiful and historical dzong. Due to this advice, I suggested to His Majesty King Jigmey Dorje Wangchuk to make Simtokha Dzong into a Buddhist school. His Majesty agreed and told me to ask his mother who would be a good teacher to appoint. I then went to Kalimpong to give birth to my third daughter Ashe Pem Pem and to stay with my mother for a bit; the Queen Mother Puntsök Chödrön also went along with me.

When I was in Kalimpong, I asked Queen Mother Puntsök Chödrön which lama would be a good teacher for the new Buddhist college in Simtokha Dzong, so she suggested that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche would be the most suitable. His Majesty then told his ministers that it was very important to establish a Buddhist college and to start making the necessary arrangements to accomplish it. So the ministers started organizing the college and the necessary books on disciplines such as grammar, poetry, and spelling, and had more than a hundred copies of the root texts and commentaries of The Way of the Bodhisattva and other texts printed.

Later, during the first month of the iron-bull year, 1961, several lamas from the central congregation of monks in Thimphu were sent to Kalimpong to invite Dilgo Khyentse to become the principal of the monastic college. He accepted the post and left Kalimpong for Bhutan on the twenty-fifth of the first month. After arriving in the Bhutanese capital of Thimphu, while Simtokha Dzong was still being prepared, Rinpoche first started the college at Wangdutse for over a hundred intelligent young monks and laymen. Later the college moved to Simtokha Dzong, where the students also added Sanskrit to their studies.

The monastic college was founded to prevent the degeneration of the Buddhist doctrine in Bhutan. So spiritual teachers were invited from India to restore the teachings that had been corrupted and spread those that had not. Altogether there were over a hundred students from different monasteries and communities, who were told to endeavor in studying culture and tantra. Once they had learned the traditional science of grammar and spelling, they could leave, but if they also wanted to study philosophy, they were welcome to continue their studies. After having learned traditional science and philosophy they had the option of staying on to study the four tantras.

The books that were made available were a hundred copies each of the Lamp of Speech Grammar root text and its commentary, the grammar root text and its Sublime Light of Excellent Discourse commentary, Situpa’s detailed commentary, the root poetry text and commentary, the Letter to a Friend root text and commentary, the Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva root text and commentary, and The Way of the Bodhisattva root text and commentaries.

Khyentse Rinpoche taught at the college until the winter of 1962 when he had to go to India as his brother Sangye Nyenpa had passed away in Rumtek and his youngest daughter was seriously ill in the hospital in Lucknow. Khyentse Rinpoche arrived just in time to see his daughter before she passed away. He took her body to Varanasi to be cremated and then went to Rumtek for the funeral ceremonies of his elder brother. Some years later, while Khyentse Rinpoche was in Dharamsala with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a man from Kham brought the Dalai Lama a piece of the self-arisen Avalokiteshvara statue from the Potala that had been rescued during the Cultural Revolution. Khyentse Rinpoche received a part of it and used it to build an Avalokiteshvara statue at Paro Kyechu in memory of his daughter. After leaving for India that winter, Khyentse Rinpoche didn’t return to Bhutan for a few years.

 

In 1965 Nyimalung Monastery’s vajra master Jamyang Yeshe Senge and chant master Tsering Dondrup discussed with Queen Mother Puntsök Chödrön their wish of inviting Khyentse Rinpoche to become the principal at Nyimalung Monastery. Queen Mother Puntsök Chödrön then invited Khyentse Rinpoche to come from Darjeeling to Nyimalung, and when Rinpoche arrived at Dechen Chöling in Thimphu, he gave Tertön Sangye Lingpa’s Embodiment of the Master’s Realization empowerments and transmissions to Jamyang Yeshe Senge and many fortunate lamas and students, both monks and laypeople.

There was a lot of turmoil in Bhutan at that time. In 1964 Prime Minister Jigmey Palden Dorje had been assassinated in Puntsoling, so Khyentse Rinpoche came to see me in Kalimpong to offer his condolences. There had previously been a civil war between East and West Bhutan, and at that time the subjugation rituals for spirits causing recurrent obstacles had not been performedproperly. The Dharma King Urgyen Wangchukhadaskedthe Fifteenth Karmapa Kakyab Dorje for advice, and he had sent his heart son Tertön Zilnon Namkai Dorje from Tsurphu to Bumthang to give empowerments and transmissions. He started by giving teaching on The Way of the Bodhisattva and then turned the Dharma wheel of the inconceivably profound maturing and liberating teachings. To avert the influence of spirits causing recurrent obstacles for the king’s son, Zilnon Namkai Dorje appointed four monks to do a Raksha Thotreng recitation retreat, to last three years and three months until they completed the signs. For this retreat, he gave the transmissions, taught all the rituals, and also performed a Vajrakilaya drupchen.

The Je Khenpo Simpuk Lama, who was from the lineage of Dorje Lingpa and was a student of both Khyentse Rinpoche and Bomta Khenpo, had a book of prophecies by Guru Padmasambhava that had been revealed by Tertön Drukdra Dorje about the birth of His Majesty. Guru Rinpoche gave thirteen prophecies and described the birth of the present king. The king was born in the wood-sheep year, 1955, in Wang Drong, which is now Dechen Chöling Palace. It said that the one born in the wood-sheep year would greatly benefit the Dharma, but due to a negative spirit, the one born in the iron-dragon year, 1940, would try to harm the glorious Drukpa Kagyu teachings, so many ceremonies should be done and treasures should be revealed in Bumthang Chumey. If the demon succeeded there would be a sea of blood in Bhutan, but if the demon failed there would be many years of peace.

While Khyentse Rinpoche was staying in Thimphu, I sent him the book of prophecies and asked if this prophecy concerned the crown prince. Khyentse Rinpoche said that indeed it did concern the crown prince and that he would do all the averting rituals in Queen Mother Puntsök Chödrön’s place at Dechen Chöling. So I sent a reply, saying, “If it really concerns my son, please come to Paro and perform the ceremonies in Paro Taktsang or the Jowo Temple in Paro Kyechu.” Loppön Nyabchi then asked Khyentse Rinpoche whether it would be good to have aVajrakilaya drupchen per- formed to avert the obstacles. Khyentse Rinpoche answered that Vajrakilaya was very special, but there was nothing better than the Supreme Heruka from the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, since all the deities are included in Chemchok Heruka. So in the ninth month of the wood-snake year, 1965, on Divine Descent Day, he started the first Supreme Heruka Assembly ceremony from the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse cycle in the Jowo Temple at Paro Kyechu, for the stability of the country.

Because of this, instead of going to Nyimalung, Khyentse Rinpoche went to Kyechu in November 1965, and because of Tertön Drukdra Dorje’s prophe- sies about the birth of His Majesty and the rituals to be performed, Khyentse Rinpoche did the drupchen of Jigmey Lingpa’s Supreme Heruka Assembly in the Jowo temple at Paro Kyechu. During the drupchen he bestowed the empowerment on crown prince Jigmey Senge Wangchuk, who was then ten years old. I said to Rinpoche, “I wish you would always stay here,” and Rin- poche said he would like to. So I sent a message to His Majesty asking if Khy- entse Rinpoche could stay in Paro instead of going to Nyimalung. “Yes, it is more important that he stays there,” the king replied. This is how Bhutan came to be blessed with the presence of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.