Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

SUKASIDDHI
Sukasiddhi’s accomplishment equaled that of Niguma. Although
they were both born in Kashmir, there is no record of any meeting
between them. They are cited together only as teachers of the same disciple,
Kyungpo Naljor, yet according to the Nyingma tradition, they are
related from past lives. Jamgon Kongtrul writes in The History of the Sources
of the Profound Treasures and the Treasure Revealers (p. 32b), that Niguma
in a past life was none other than Mandarava, Guru Rinpoché’s foremost
Indian disciple. The identification of Sukasiddhi with Yeshé Tsogyal, Guru
Rinpoché’s foremost Tibetan disciple, and with her reincarnation as
Machik Lapdrön, is well known. 30
Sukasiddhi arrived at tantric Buddhism late in life. She lived as an
impoverished housewife and mother of six children until the age of fiftynine.
She was thrown out of her home by her husband and children, who
were irate at what they considered her misplaced generosity to a stranger
who came begging at their door. She wandered westward to Oddiyana
(Swat Valley in modern Pakistan), where she acquired a measure of grain,
with which she made alcohol. Her business proved a modest success, and
she allowed herself to again be generous, this time to a female adept referred
to as Avadhuti-ma, who regularly bought alcohol for her companion, an
adept in retreat. Sukasiddhi’s gift of free alcohol intrigued the adept,
Virupa, who asked whether his surprising benefactor wanted to receive
Buddhist teaching. She did. Sukasiddhi’s story relates that she brought as
offerings to Virupa two containers of alcohol and some pork. Although
this meeting predates the Muslim domination of India, pork and alcohol
were far from what would have normally constituted suitable offerings for
spiritual teaching, even to tantric masters. Nevertheless, Virupa was no
normal master, and Sukasiddhi would prove an exceptional disciple.
Upon receiving empowerment and instruction from Virupa, Sukasiddhi,
then a sixty-one-year-old, attained full enlightenment that very evening.
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