Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's foreword to Wisdom Nectar
Lord of one hundred families of enlightenment, illustrious holy spiritual master, at your feet I bow!
In general, on this subject of their enlightenment’s manifestations, some are related in a linear progression, from former to latter; some are manifestations that appear at the same time; and others include the appearance of blessed manifestations. These cannot be restricted to a single, definite pattern: in as many water vessels of disciples as there are, their moon’s compassionate form will appear; they are unlimited. Thus, my mind, limited to my own experience, is incapable of fathoming this lord’s physical incarnations, and naming them as this one or that one.
Nevertheless, here I will follow the common histories of his series of lifetimes, arranged in a linear fashion from former to latter. I will use as my basic source the supplication to his own series of incarnations, Pearl Necklace, written by this great treasure revealer, king of Buddhist teaching throughout the three realms. Further, this treasure revealer’s son, whose realization is of one taste as his father’s, Lord Jikmé Trinlé Norbu Gélek Nampar Gyalwé-dé, wrote a volume of detailed commentary to Pearl Necklace, entitled The Ruby Garland, A Necklace That Delights Awareness- Holding Dakinis. Moreover, the most senior of all this great treasure revealer’s direct disciples, a great learned, accomplished master of the definitive meaning, Chadral Sangyé Dorjé Rinpoché, wrote a supplication to the life of the incarnate great treasure revealer Jikdral Yeshé Dorjé Drodul Lingpa Tsal called The Seed of the Three Kinds of Faith. Apart from these texts, this supreme great treasure revealer’s own treasure texts contain information concerning his past lives in such places as the treasure texts’ proclamations and histories, where I ask that you learn the details.
In the past, you were awareness holder Capable Vajra Adept.
This refers to a time during this present age, one in which one thousand and two buddhas have accepted disciples and lit the lamp of the sacred Teachings. Thus, this age is called the age of illumination or the fortunate age. The spiritual master whose empowerments, predictions, and profound blessed aspirations consecrated this fortunate age’s thousand and two buddhas, and who became the chief of these thousand guides’ family, was the great lord of contemplative adepts named Capable Vajra Bearer: the first in this great treasure revealer’s series of lifetimes.
During the life of our teacher Shakyamuni, his heart son whose realization equaled the Victor’s own and who was foremost among the Buddha’s disciples in transcendent knowledge, known as exalted Shariputra, was the second in his series of lifetimes.
Amoxho dwelled on a great stage of awakening yet intentionally took rebirth and ruled powerfully the entirety of Tibet was the Buddhist king known as Drogön Pakpa, eleventh in his series of lifetimes.
The great treasure revealer who mastered forceful miraculous powers, known as Drum-gyi Khar-nak, was the twelfth in his series of lifetimes.
The master who used the wrathful activity of manifest conduct to eradicate evil, untamed demons, and who mastered the strength to liberate them upon the ground of lasting happiness and definite excellence, was known as Hépa Chö-jung, the thirteenth in his series of lifetimes.
An emanation of Drok-ben became the spiritual master of the learned, accomplished masters throughout Tibet who were known as great lamas of the Original Translations, and he had dominion over innumerable treasure sites, including those of sacred places, teachings, and substances. He was known as the great treasure revealer Dudul Dorjé, fourteenth in his series of lifetimes.
Dudul Dorjé’s subsequent emanation, who preserved the Victor’s Katok Monastery with the three cycles of teaching and meditation practice, was known as Gyalsé Sönam Déu-tsen, fifteenth in his series of lifetimes.
Gyalsé Sönam Déu-tsen’s reincarnation held the treasury of teachings of great mystery, from which the dakini’s breath had not evaporated, and raised the victory banner of the Victor’s Katok Monastery’s doctrine. He was known as the great treasure revealer Dudul Rolpa-tsal, sixteenth in his series of lifetimes.
Dudul Rolpa-tsal’s reincarnation did not have to rely in his lifetime on the fleeting hardship of diligent training: from teachers that were non-human beings’ natural manifestations he received the ultimate lineage. Thus, he naturally liberated the seal of the great treasury of the nature of reality’s expanse of space within the basic space of Ever-Excellent’s wisdom mind. This was the great treasure revealer Garwang Dudjom Lingpa, seventeenth in his series of lifetimes.
Thus, the words “in the past” imply this series of lifetimes until the present, although the name of Capable Vajra Bearer is the one explicitly mentioned. This concludes a short commentary to the first line of this supplication.
The second line states,
In the future, you will be Joyful Buddha Infinite Devotion.
Not only that, his manifestations will appear in the future as art, as incarnate beings, and as supreme manifestations who will work for sentient beings’ good, appearing spontaneously, without movement or effort, in whatever form can tame each being. This results from two causes—his compassion’s blessings and beings’ flourishing positive acts, appearing in the same way as water, the moon’s reflection, and the moon’s circle. Just as the moon can leave a reflection, the body of perfect rapture’s moon can appear as a manifestation to its disciples. Likewise, just as a vessel of water can contain the moon’s reflection, disciples have the merit to perceive enlightenment’s manifestation. Just as the moon appears effortlessly on water when there are disciples, the autumn moon’s emanated reflection appears without being veiled for an instant; thus, this lord’s dance of emanated magical displays will continue uninterrupted and boundlessly until the ocean of the wheel of life runs dry.
Specifically, among the six regions of this world, the Land of Jambu, the northern kingdom of Shambhala is an especially exalted region. There, bodhisattvas on awakening’s tenth stage of culmination appear as a series of kings. This lord will take rebirth as the lineage bearing monarch Wrathful Sharp Vajra with an Iron Wheel. He will defeat armies of wild barbarians who always impair living beings’ happiness and have both hostile attitudes and violent behavior. That king, guide on the path to awakening’s peace, will be an emanation of this great treasure revealer.
Further, in the past, when this fortunate age’s buddhas each formulated vows and aspirations to work for sentient beings’ benefit, the youngest of the thousand guides, Boundless Intellect, said, “The Buddha’s qualities are like space and sentient beings as well are endless; therefore, I make the aspiration to equal the sum of all your acts as buddhas, including your longevity.” The moment he said this, gods’ voices arose from space proclaiming, “Excellent!” The force of this aspiration will result in Transcendent Buddha Infinite Devotion being the last buddha of the thousand; that buddha is definitely this great treasure revealer’s future emanation.
This concludes a very brief presentation of the second line’s meaning. The third line states,
At present, you are Lotus-Born’s representative, Drok-ben incarnate.
Our supreme, incomparable spiritual guide, the king of the Buddhist teaching throughout the three realms, the sublime Dudjom Jikdral Yeshé Dorjé, was an emanation of Drok-ben Translator’s body, an emanation of the queen of the basic space of phenomena Yeshé Tsogyal’s speech, and an emanation of the powerful sovereign Padmakara’s mind. He has been thus lauded by Guru Rinpoché, Dudjom Lingpa, and others in the texts of many ancient treasures. As foretold, the lotus of his marks and signs of physical perfection newly blossomed in the hidden land of Péma-kö during the Wood Dragon Year (1904). His father belonged to a family descended from the Buddhist king Trisong Déutsen; his mother belonged to a family descended from Ratna Lingpa.
From an early age, the excellent patterns of his natural affinity awakened: Guru Rinpoché and his consort manifestly revealed their faces to him and empowered him as the chief of their profound treasures. When they enthroned him as Lotus-Born’s representative, they gave him the name Orgyen Garwang Drodul Lingpa-tsal. He became satisfied drinking the nectar of ripening and liberating instructions, with supporting transmissions, granted him by many great, authentic learned, accomplished masters. His innate transcendent knowledge overflowed in relation to the view, meditation, and philosophical systems: he became a lord of scholars unrivalled in the past, present, or future. As a great bodhisattva, he used the six transcendent perfections and the four means of attracting disciples to lead beings to temporary uplifted states and to the ultimate definite excellence of awakening. Without having to take the path of hardships based on expedient meanings, he traversed the direct path of Ati’s essence of luminosity and reached a high level of accomplishment where his manifest realization’s qualities blazed together. The wisdom dakinis openly gave him such treasures as the inventory of his yellow parchment treasures, and the guardians and protectors of the Teachings watched over him as if he were their own son. His mastery of the three forms of blazing and three kinds of gathering led him to become worthy to be carried on the crown of the heads of all living beings, be they high, low, or middle.
During a degenerate time such as ours, his profound aspiration that the teaching and practice of the Ancient Translation School’s doctrine not decline but spread in one hundred directions led him to build Buddhist institutions widely. He set aside the effort involved in overtly revealing the earth treasures designated as his, and turned his attention to very meaningful projects: to preserve the Kagyu and Nyingma doctrines, he raised to the four continent’s skies the victory banner of teachings that unite all lineages, such as Jamgon Kongtrul’s Five Treasuries. To serve as a place of offering for beings of the degenerate age, who need to accumulate merit, he built a replica of both the structure and contents of the palace of Lotus Light on Tail-Fan Island’s Copper Colored Mountain, and a new retreat center connected to it. He thus completely relieved the doctrine and beings’ decline.
He newly constructed an inconceivable number of the three sacred supports, such as nourishing the doctrine by reprinting ancient texts that had become very rare. He thereby became the single source of help and happiness throughout Tibet. The activity he fostered proved as true the scriptures that foretold him to be Lotus-Born’s representative. Moreover, his feet touched the ground of every large area of this world, including Tibet, all provinces of greater Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, India, China, America, and Europe. He fulfilled the prophecy that every being with whom he made a connection through sacred substances, seeing his face, hearing his voice, or talking with him would be led to Tail-Fan Island’s pure land of Lotus Light. Groups of learned and accomplished high lamas and high ranking monarchs, officials, and great leaders bowed their heads at his feet, yet pride or arrogance never influenced him. He remained in equanimity in relation to the eight worldly concerns and lived with the discipline of concealing himself in the guise of an ordinary person. He saw infinite arrays of visions, including those of inconceivable buddhas’ pure lands, deities and spiritual masters, and receiving dakinis’ prophecies, yet he bound these with a strict seal of secrecy and never allowed himself such acts as bragging, praising himself, or considering himself important.
When his disciples’ karma and aspirations came to fruition, the seal of his realization’s expanse was naturally released; this produced his cycles of mind treasures—the Three Roots’ outer, inner, secret, and innermost secret practices, with those of the Teachings’ protectors, their activity rituals, supportive instruction manuals, and other texts. These treasures, like the essence of the dakinis’ heart blood, are concise, clear, come with the lineage’s forceful blessing, and bring swift accomplishment. In these and other ways, these treasures satisfy whomever comes into contact with them, like the essence of nectar. He composed definitive texts, then granted their entire empowerment and transmission to their respective foretold responsible recipients and designated heirs of the lineage, filling this world’s lands with these profound teachings’ flourishing harvest. He became known as a great treasure revealer, chief of every accomplished treasure finder.
Further, the collections of many ancient treasures texts, such as the trio of practices of the spiritual master, Great Perfection, and Great Compassion, and another trio of the eight transmissions, the compendium of the spiritual master’s intention, and Vajra Dagger had lost coherence: he revised them and made explicit what had been concealed, clarifying a whole range of rituals and pith instructions. These delighted the learned and prevented uneducated persons from performing rituals with omissions or additions by making them easy to perform correctly. For his own tradition’s New Treasures and Ancient Treasures’ cycles of ordered rituals, he composed such texts as outlines, replicas, commentaries to intensive mantra practice, vajra feast activity, manuals, and supplementary texts; concise or extensive profound texts of instruction related to the process of the four empowerments; histories, such as accounts of the Tibetan kings, the history of Buddhism, and the outline of the Nyingma doctrine; as well as records of his studies and supplementary teachings. In all, his collected works span twenty-five volumes. Moreover, he gathered dispersed ancient texts from the Original Translations’ Canon, proofread them, produced definitive versions, and put them into order—a total of forty-eight volumes.
In brief, this example of his preservation of the Canon and Treasure texts’ continuity exemplifies his elucidation and spreading of the teachings that lead to spiritual maturity and liberation, along with their supportive texts. Both India and Tibet have never seen such deeds, which is why he is known today as a second Lotus-Born Master. His kindness restored from its foundations the precious doctrine of the sublime secret essence of luminosity. At the completion of his enlightened activity, in the Fire Tiger Year (1986), the display of his wisdom form’s miraculous appearance dissolved into the basic space of phenomena; the basis of his manifestation merged with the expanse of Ever-Excellent Lotus-Born Master’s enlightened mind, to become of an identical flavor. This concludes a commentary on the third line’s meaning.
The last line states,
Jik-dral Yeshé Dorjé, to you I pray.
“Jik-dral Yeshé Dorjé” is one of this great treasure revealer’s names. A supplication he composed to his list of names states,
The dakinis told my noble father Jampal Norbu, who belonged to a royal family,
“A son greater than his father will appear!” As predicted, this was my name before birth: To you known as Yeshé Dorjé, I pray.
As stated, his father, Jampal Norbu Tenzin, a Katok Monastery reincarnate master descended from King Trisong Déutsen, received his son’s name “Yeshé Dorjé” in the dakinis’ prophecy. “Jik-dral” was added by Karmapa: this is an oral account I have heard. In all, this is this noble master’s most widely known name.
When you pray to this chief of enlightenment’s family, the supreme refuge who has this name, with the certainty that he embodies all victors, and with the wish, “Grant your blessings to my stream of being and to that of all sentient beings!,” the connection between your devotion and this spiritual master’s compassion will blend his mind with yours. This will manifestly awaken the result that dwells in the basis of your being, the ultimate spiritual master—Yeshé Dorjé (literally, “vajra wisdom”)—and you will attain enlightenment within the inner space of the youthful vase body, the deep and clear body of ultimate enlightenment. This concludes a short commentary to the fourth line of this supplication and ends this foreword on an auspicious note.
I, an infirm vagabond from the region of Repkong (Tibet), Tsédrup Tharchin, the least among the servants of this lord great treasure revealer, the father and son of the Dudjom lineage, composed this. I used their writings as my source, and added on occasion whatever seemed suitable from my own mind, as a supplication. May my words cause readers to become the disciples of this ever-excellent lord spiritual master.
