Ngawang Gyatso
Ngawang Gyatso was one of Dudjom Lingpa's first and most valued disciples. Ngawang Gyatso was a nephew of Gili Wangli, [1] of Golok, one of the two major patrons of Dudjom Lingpa (the other patron being Gönten).
According to Dudjom Lingpa himself, 'Ngawang Gyatso—and [Lama] Puntsok Tashi—was “a custodian of his teachings”.[2][3]
In his outer autobiography, Dudjom Lingpa recounts a vision he had of Ngawang Gyatso in 1893, when he himself was 58 [4]:
- That same year, at night on the tenth day of the first summer month, my student Ngawang Gyatso appeared adorned with the complete regalia of the utter enjoyment body of enlightenment. From the expanse of intermingled clouds and rainbows, he prostrated to me, saying:
- Namo! Hommage! Precious Lama, lord of refuge,
- Having reached the consummation on my life,
- At the edge of fifty-two I passed on:
- I’ve manifested in Manifest Joy Pure Land.
- All of your karmically destined disciples
- Should utilize the united path of Trekchö and Tögal.
- Of these karmically destined ones, courageous in practice,
- Some will gain liberation in the illusory rainbow body
- And some will gain liberation in the supreme wisdom [body].
- This year in the middle month
- My best friend, Puntsok Tashi,
- Will pass on to the concealed region of Pemakö.
- Taking the form of a magnificent spiritual hero,
- He will serve as the master of a vajra feast of an assembled retinue of a hundred thousand.
- Your disciple Rikzin Gyatso, as well,
- Having arrived at that place [of Pemakö] will become a spiritual hero.
- We’ve reached the ground of eternal happiness,
- And I offer you this sweet song.
- May the lama’s life be stable!
- Then he vanished.
- That same year, at night on the tenth day of the first summer month, my student Ngawang Gyatso appeared adorned with the complete regalia of the utter enjoyment body of enlightenment. From the expanse of intermingled clouds and rainbows, he prostrated to me, saying:
Notes
- ↑ Dudjom Lingpa is still commonly known as Gili Tertön due to his steadfast connection with that family (source: Appendix of 'A Clear Mirror', Translated by Chönyi Drolma)
- ↑ Dudjom Lingpa, ‘A Clear Mirror’, The Visionary Autobiography of a Tibetan Master’, The Outer Biography, translated by Chönyi Drolma, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2011, page 72.
- ↑ Gyatso can refers to several students of Dudjom Lingpa whose future accomplishments were revealed by the Dakini Kuntu Gyuma to him in 1882. In his autobiography, Dudjom Lingpa recounts: [In 1882], on the tenth day of the middle winter month, a woman appears saying she was Dakini Kuntu Gyuma Saljéma, Wandering All-Illuminator, and sang to me, ‘A superb person named Gyatso, Ocean, should apply himself to the essential practices. If he has practiced his whole life long, he will attain true and perfect enlightenment.’ (Traktung Dudjom Lingpa, ‘A Clear Mirror’, The Visionary Autobiography of a Tibetan Master’, The Outer Autobiography, translated by Chönyi Drolma, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2011, page 158).
- ↑ Dudjom Lingpa, ‘A Clear Mirror’, The Visionary Autobiography of a Tibetan Master’, The Outer Autobiography, translated by Chönyi Drolma, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2011, p.180