Rilbur Rinpoche, a venerable high lama and historian who was imprisoned for many years by the Chinese, tells of several adepts who managed to eject their consciousness at will (the practice of powa) while imprisoned with him. ‘I saw many people who sat down in the corner of their cell and deliberately passed away to another realm. They weren’t ill and there was nothing wrong with them. The guards could never believe it!’ he said.
In his recent best-selling book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche explains precisely what the rainbow body is and how it is achieved:
Through these advanced practices of Dzogchen, accomplished practitioners can bring their lives to an extraordinary and triumphant end. As they die they enable their body to be reabsorbed back into the light essence of the light elements that created it, and consequently their material body dissolves into light and then disappears completely. This process is known as the ‘rainbow body’ or ‘body of light’ because the dissolution is often accompanied by spontaneous manifestations of light and rainbows. The ancient Tantras of Dzogchen, and the writings of the great masters, distinguish different categories of this amazing otherworldly phenomenon, for at one time, if at least not normal, it was reasonably frequent.
Sogyal Rinpoche goes on to quote a case of Sonam Namgyal, a man who actually achieved the rainbow body in East Tibet in 1952.
He was a very simple, humble person, who made his way as an itinerant stone carver, carving mantras and sacred texts. Some say he had been a hunter in his youth and had received teaching from a great master. No one really knew he was a practitioner; he was truly what was called a ‘hidden yogin’. Some time before his death, he would be seen to go up into the mountains and just sit, silhouetted against the skyline, gazing up into space. He composed his own songs and chants and sang them instead of the traditional ones. No one had any idea what he was doing. He then fell ill, or seemed to, but became, strangely, increasingly happy. When the illness got worse, his family called in masters and doctors. His son told him he should remember all the teachings he had heard, and he smiled and said: ‘I’ve forgotten them all and anyway, there’s nothing to remember. Everything is illusion, but I am confident that all is well.’
Just before his death at seventy-nine, he said, ‘All I ask is that when I die, don’t move my body for a week.’ When he died his family wrapped his body and invited lamas and monks to come and practise for him. They placed the body in a small room in the house, and they could not help noticing that although he had been a tall person, they had no trouble getting it in, as if he were becoming smaller. At the same time an extraordinary display of rainbow-coloured light was seen all around the house. When they looked into the room on the sixth day, they saw that the body was getting smaller and smaller. On the eighth day after his death, the morning on which the funeral had been arranged, the undertakers arrived to collect his body. When they undid its coverings, they found nothing inside but his nails and hair.
My master Jamyang Kyentse asked for these to be brought to him and verified that this was a case of the rainbow body.
Tenzin Palmo had her own stories: ‘It’s well known that the third Khamtrul Rinpoche’s body shrank to eighteen inches,’ she said.
‘It’s not a first-class rainbow body, where everything disappears, but it’s pretty good. Actually these feats can be achieved even by Westerners. A lama called Khunnu Rinpoche told me that once back in Kham all these rainbows appeared above the monastery. At the time there was an American staying there and he rushed to get him to show him the fantastic light show that was appearing in the sky. When he opened the American’sdoor he found nothing there except his clothes, his nails and his hair. Often it is said to happen like this to seemingly “ordinary"people, like old Norbu down the street, who nobody knows is an accomplished practitioner.’
But in 1981 Tenzin Palmo was caught up in the drama of her own guru’s death and the fascinating series of events that were to follow. Immediately after hearing the news she had gone into retreat. But she emerged to return to Tashi Jong for the cremation. The occasion is etched deeply on her mind.
‘It was an incredible time. There was this very strong sense of being together and sharing. The weather had been extremely rainy and cloudy and the night before cremation there was this terrific storm. They’d been building this beautiful stupa (funeral reliquary) and I thought everything was going to be washed away. All the banners would be soaked, including the wood for the funeral pyre. But the morning of the funeral dawned incredibly clear. There was this translucent, blue sky and everything looked washed and clean. Nothing was amiss at all. It was wonderful. Interestingly, the following day it clouded over again and began to pour with rain.’
Khamtrul Rinpoche’s remains were duly placed in the stupa that had been erected next to the very temple that he had designed and helped to build with his own hands. It was a tall, impressive structure, gleaming white, built according to the laws of sacred geometry and containing a small glass window behind which sat a statue of the Buddha. Strangely a bodhi seed implanted itself behind the glass and over the years a bodhi tree forced its way out of the very centre of the container. It had grown from the heart of the Buddha. No one knew how it had got there, nor how it had grown without any soil. Coincidence maybe. To the believers, however, it was further evidence of the awakened state of Khamtrul Rinpoche’s mind.
According to the Bodhisattva rule, masters of Khamtrul Rinpoche’s calibre are not meant to stay away for long, however. Consequently immediately after his cremation his disciples began to look for clues as to where his future rebirth might be found. Like trackers following spoor, they examined any sign that the eighth Khamtrul Rinpoche might have left behind indicating in which direction he was planning to make his re-entry into this world. They discovered a poem he had written just before he passed away and, scrutinizing it, realized that the names of his future parents were concealed as anagrams at the end of each line. They were now hot on the trail. At the same time two eminent lamas, Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche and the Karmapa, who were both extremely close to Khamtrul Rinpoche, each had significant dreams.
Tenzin Palmo took up the story: ’Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche dreamt he was going up a hill when he came across a temple from which came Khamtrul Rinpoche’s voice. He went in and found all these monks inside and Khamtrul Rinpoche sitting on a throne teaching. Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche went up to him and said, “What are you doing here, you’re supposed to be dead?” And Khamtrul Rinpoche replied, “I am beyond birth and death.” Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche then asked, “Out of compassion for beings where have you chosen to be reborn?” and Khamtrul Rinpoche gave him the name of his parents. The Karmapa also received the parents’ name in a dream. They also discovered that the rebirth had taken place “in the cradle of Buddhism", which meant India. This was a relief - at least it was not Tibet, which would have been impossible to search!’
India, however, is a vast country in which to find one small if special baby. More specific clues were needed. Finally the Karmapa, on his deathbed in Chicago, gave the vital missing piece of jigsaw- the name of the place where Khamtrul Rinpoche had been reborn – Bomdila, in Arunachal Pradesh, a Himalayan town close to Bhutan. Although it was the other side of India from Tashi Jong and the Kangra valley, relatively speaking, the discovery of the ninth Khamtrul Rinpoche was in the bag. The child was found, recognized, and reinstated in Tashi Jong to take up his spiritual duties where his predecessor (himself) had left off.
The ninth Khamtrul Rinpoche was a quiet boy, as introverted and small as the eighth Khamtrul Rinpoche had been large and outgoing. In Tenzin Palmo’s mind he was still her guru – the reincarnation of the man whom she had loved so deeply. He was three years old when she first saw him. She approached the meeting with some trepidation, anxious that the rapport she had shared with his predecessor would not be the same.
‘I was afraid. I wondered what he’d think of this “strange looking Westerner”. I thought he’d probably burst into tears,�
�� she admitted. It did not turn out as she had anticipated. ‘I went in, started prostrating and this small child began laughing. "Oh look, that’s my nun, that’s my nun,” he burst out. He was so excited. His monk attendant turned to him and said, “Yes, that’s your nun, she’s been your disciple for so long.” The young Khamtrul Rinpoche was laughing and smiling at me and giving me his toys. We spent the whole morning playing and running around together. The monk said such behaviour was very unusual, as he was generally very shy and withdrawn with strangers.’
If the young tulku had instantly recognized ‘his nun’, Tenzin Palmo had to look a little longer to find similarities with the former Khamtrul Rinpoche. ‘He is and he isn’t like the past Khamtrul Rinpoche. For a start this one is so much younger than I am, whereas the other one was like a father to me, so there is a different type of relationship. I’m also told that the previous Khamtrul Rinpoche had been a real terror when he was a child, while this one is very sweet, gentle and delicate. But he looks at me – right through my eyes – exactly the way the other Rinpoche did, for minutes at a time. And sometimes when I am with him, not thinking of anything in particular, this incredible devotion wells up from my heart. It’s so strong and spontaneous I burst into tears.’
But the memory of the beloved eighth Khamtrul Rinpoche was still fresh in her mind. She rushed back to her cave even more determined to continue with her quest. ‘I felt that the only thing that I could really do to repay my kind lama was practise, practise, practise,’ she said.
Chapter Ten
Yogini
The scenery outside her cave may have been awesome, but what of Tenzin Palmo’s inner world? This, after all, was what she had gone to the cave to discover. What was she seeing on that long journey inwards? Was she sitting there having visions, like watching TV? Was she being bathed in golden light? Hearing celestial voices? Experiencing waves of transcendent bliss? Or was she perhaps being tormented by the devils of her psyche, disturbed from the depths of her subconscious by those penetrating tools of meditation designed to dig deep beneath the surface?
According to the legends of solitary mediators, this was what cave-dwelling was really all about. Up in his icy, barren cave the great yogi Milarepa, founder of Tenzin Palmo’s own lineage, after years of terrible deprivation and unwavering endeavour, found himself in a realm of surreal splendour. The walls and floor of his cave melted with the imprint of his hands, feet, buttocks where he pressed them into the rock. Goddesses appeared bringing him delicious morsels to stave off his hunger. His emaciated body, turned green from eating only nettle soup, was filled with intense ecstasy. In his dreams he could turn his body into any shape he wished, traversing the universe in any direction unimpeded. In his waking state he learnt to fly, crossing the valleys of his homeland at great speed, much to the consternation of the farmers ploughing the fields in the valley below.
Was the fishmonger’s daughter from Bethnal Green experiencing any of this?
No one will ever know exactly what Tenzin Palmo went through in all those years of solitary retreat, the moments of dazzling insight she might have had, the times of darkness she may have endured. She had learnt well from the Togdens, those humble yogis whose qualities had touched her so deeply, that one never reveals, let alone boasts, of one’s spiritual prowess. Getting rid of the ego, not enhancing it, was the name of the game. Besides, her tantric vows forbade her to divulge any progress she may have made. It was a long-held tradition, ever since the Buddha himself had defrocked a monk for performing a miracle in public, declaring the transformation of the human heart was the only miracle that really counted.
‘Frankly I don’t like discussing it. It’s like your sexual experiences. Some people like talking about them, others don’t. Personally I find it terribly intimate,’ she said.
When pressed, she conceded the barest essentials: ‘Of course when you do prolonged retreats you are going to have experiences of great intensity – times when your body completely melts away, or when you feel the body is flying. You get states of incredible awareness and clarity when everything becomes very vivid.’
There were visions too – occasions when her guru Khamtrul Rinpoche appeared to her to advise her on her meditations.
Other holy beings manifested in her cave as well. But these signs, normally taken as indications of supreme spiritual accomplishment, she dismissed as events of little true significance.
’The whole point is not to get visions but to get realizations,’ she said sharply, referring to the stage when a truth stops being a mental or intellectual construct and becomes real. Only when the meditation dropped from the head to the heart, and was felt, could transformation begin to take place. ‘And realizations are quite bare,’ she continued. ‘They are not accompanied by lights and music. We’re trying to see things as they really are. A realization is non-conceptual. It’s not a product of the thinking process or the emotions – unlike visions which come from that level. A realization is the white transparent light at the centre of the prism, not the rainbow colours around it.’
As for the bliss, that most attractive of all meditational states, did Tenzin Palmo know this? To the average lay person, sitting at home in her house reading about the heroic meditators, it was the bliss that made it all worthwhile – all the terrible hardships and deprivations, the lack of comfort and human companionship. Bliss, in short, was the reward. Certainly the one or two photographs taken of Tenzin Palmo at this time show a face suffused with happiness.
’There are states of incredible bliss. Bliss is the fuel of retreat,’she confirmed in her matter-of-fact voice. ‘You can’t do any long-term practice seriously unless there is inner joy, because the joy and enthusiasm is what carries you along. It’s like anything, if you don’t really like it you will have this inner resistance and everything is going to be very slow. That is why the Buddha named Joy as a main factor on the path.
’The only problem with bliss is that because it arouses such enormous pleasure, beyond anything on a worldly level, including sexual bliss, people cling to it and really want it and then it becomes another obstacle,’ she added, before launching on a story to illustrate her point.
‘Once when I was with the Togdens in Dalhousie there were two monks who were training to be yogis.’ One day they were standing outside shaking a blanket and they were so blissed out they could hardly stand up. You could actually feel these waves of bliss hitting you. The Togdens turned to me and said, “You know, when you start, this is what happens. You get completely overwhelmed by bliss and you don’t know what to do. After a while you learn how to control it and bring it down to manageable levels.” And it’s true. When you meet more mature practitioners they’re not completely speechless with all this great bliss, because they’ve learnt how to deal with it. And of course they see into its empty nature.
‘You see, bliss in itself is useless,’ she continued. ‘It’s only useful when it is used as a state of mind for understanding Emptiness – when that blissful mind is able to look into its own nature. Otherwise it is just another subject of Samsara. You can understand emptiness on one level but to understand it on a very subtle level requires this complement of bliss. The blissful mind is a very subtle mind and that kind of mind looking at Emptiness is a very different thing from the gross mind looking at emptiness. And that is why one cultivates bliss.
‘You go through bliss. It marks just a stage on the journey. The ultimate goal is to realize the nature of the mind,’ she insisted.
The nature of the mind, she said, was unconditioned, non-dual consciousness. It was Emptiness and bliss. It was the state of Knowing without the Knower. And when it was realized it wasn’t very dramatic at all. There was no cosmic explosion, no fanfare of celestial trumpets. ‘It’s like waking up for first time – surfacing out of a dream and then realizing that you have been dreaming. That is why the sages talk about all things being an illusion. Our normal way of being is muffled – it’s not vivid. It’s like breathing in stale
air. Waking up is not sensational. It’s ordinary. But it’s extremely real.’
Nor apparently does the real thing happen in a Big Bang. ‘At first you get just a glimpse of it. That is actually only the beginning of the path. People often think when they get that glimpse that it is the whole thing, that they’ve reached the goal. Once you begin to see the nature of the mind then you can begin to meditate. Then after that you have to stabilize it until the nature of the mind becomes more and more familiar. And when that is done you integrate it into everyday life.’
At other times Tenzin Palmo’s revelations were decidedly more ordinary, although in her eyes equally valuable. There was the occasion one spring when the thaw of the winter snows had begun and her cave was being systematically flooded. ‘The walls and the floor were getting wetter and wetter and for some reason I was also not very well,’ she related. ‘I was beginning to think, “Oh dear, what they say about caves is really true,” and started to feel very down.’
Suddenly the Buddha’s First Noble Truth which she had learnt when she first encountered Buddhism struck her with renewed force. ’I thought, “Why are you still looking for happiness in Samsara? and my mind just changed around. It was like: That’s right- Samsara is Dukka [the fundamental unsatisfactory nature of life]. It’s OK that it’s snowing. It’s OK that I’m sick because that is the nature of Samsara. There’s nothing to worry about. If it goes well that’s nice. If it doesn’t go well that’s also nice. It doesn’t make any difference. Although it sounds very elementary, at the time it was quite a breakthrough. Since then I have never really cared about external circumstances. In that way the cave was a great teaching because it was not too perfect,’ she said.
Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment Page 13