Jikme Lingpa

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Jikmé Lingpa

Jikmé Lingpa (Tib. འཇིགས་མེད་གླིང་པ་, Wyl. 'jigs med gling pa) (1729-1798) is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Nyingma lineage. Also known as ‘Khyentsé Özer’, ‘Rays of Compassion and Wisdom’, he was a great scholar and visionary, and discovered the Longchen Nyingtik cycle of teachings and practice through a series of visions from the great fourteenth century master, Longchenpa. With the patronage of the Dergé royal family, Jikmé Lingpa published the compilation of Nyingma tantras known as the Nyingma Gyübum and composed a catalogue to accompany it.

Biography

Revelation of the Longchen Nyingtik

Jikmé Lingpa discovered the Longchen Nyingtik teachings as mind ter at the age of twenty-eight. Tulku Thondup writes:

In the evening of the twenty-fifth day of the tenth month of the Fire Ox year of the thirteenth Rabjung cycle (1757), Jikmé Lingpa went to bed with an unbearable devotion to Guru Rinpoche in his heart; a stream of tears of sadness continuously wet his face because he was not in Guru Rinpoche’s presence, and unceasing words of prayers kept singing in his breath.
He remained in the depths of that meditation experience of clear luminosity for a long time. While being absorbed in that luminous clarity, he experienced flying a long distance through the sky while riding a white lion. He finally reached a circular path, which he thought to be the circumambulation path of Jarung Khashor, now known as Boudhanath Stupa, an important Buddhist monument of giant structure in Nepal. [1]

In this vision, the wisdom dakinis gave Jikmé Lingpa a casket containing five yellow scrolls and seven crystal beads. One of the scrolls contained the prophetic guide of Longchen Nyingtik, called Nechang Thukkyi Drombu. At the instruction of a dakini, he ate the yellow scrolls and crystal beads, and all the words and meaning of the Longchen Nyingtik terma were awakened in his mind.

Jikmé Lingpa kept this terma secret for years, and he did not even transcribe the terma until he entered another retreat in which he had a series of visions of Longchen Rabjam. Tulku Thondup explains:

In the earth-hare year (1759) he started another three-year retreat, at Chimpu near Samye monastery. During that retreat, because he was inspired by three successive pure visions of Longchen Rabjam, and he was urged by repeated requests of dakinis, he transcribed his terma as the cycle of Longchen Nyingtik. On the tenth day of the sixth month (monkey month) of the monkey year (1764) he made his terma public for the first time by conferring the transmission of empowerment and the instructions upon fifteen disciples. [2]

Writings

He composed many original texts of which the Treasury of Precious Qualities (Yönten Dzö) is the most well known. His collected writings fill some fourteen volumes in the Adzom Chögar edition and nine volumes in the set produced in Dergé.

Students

Jikmé Lingpa's foremost disciples were known as the 'Four Jikmés'. They were

  1. Dodrupchen Jikmé Trinlé Özer of Golok
  2. Jikmé Gyalwé Nyugu of Dzachukha
  3. Jikmé Ngotsar of Dzachukha
  4. Lopön Jikmé Küntröl, or Jikmé Kundrol Namgyal of Bhutan

Incarnations

In his biography of Patrul Rinpoche, Khenpo Kunpal tells us that Jikmé Lingpa had three incarnations:

See Jikmé Lingpa Incarnation Line for more details

Notes

  1. Masters of Meditation and Miracles, by Tulku Thondup, pages 122-123.
  2. Hidden Teachings of Tibet, An Explanation of the Terma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, by Tulku Thondup, pages 122-123.

Further Reading

  • Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, Its Fundamentals and History, trans. and ed. Gyurme Dorje (Boston: Wisdom, 1991), vol.1 pp.835-840
  • Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1998
  • Michael Aris, 'Jigs-Med-Gling-Pa's Discourse on India of 1789: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Lho-Phyogs Rgya-Gar-Gyi Gtam Brtag-Pa Brgyad-Kyi Me-Long', The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of ICABS, 1995
  • Nyoshul Khenpo, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage, Padma Publications, 2005
  • Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Methods of Dzogchen Practice in the Longchen Nyingtig, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003
  • Sam van Schaik, 'Sun and Moon Earrings: the Teachings Received by ‘Jigs med gling pa' in The Tibet Journal 25.4 (2000): 3–32. Also available online here
  • Steven D. Goodman, 'Rig-'dzin Jigs-med gling-pa and the kLong-Chen sNying-Thig' in Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation edited by Steven D Goodman and Ronald M. Davidson, SUNY, 1992
  • Tulku Thondup, Masters of Meditation and Miracles, Boston: Shambhala, 1996, pp.118-135

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