Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 269
man away to study with other teachers. Years later, when Rinchen Tsöndru
returned to report on his stellar progress in meditation, Kyungpo
Naljor thought that he was lying and dismissed him. As he did so, Buddha
Boundless Light, and many deities and dakinis visited Kyungpo Naljor
and informed him that the seemingly impertinent youngster was the lineage
holder he had waited so long to find. He called Rinchen Tsöndru
back and gradually gave him the entire Shangpa lineage during the nineteen
months he had left to live.
Kyungpo Naljor suggested that his protégé act as his attendant in order
for them to have the proximity that would allow the transmission process.
Rinchen Tsöndru’s worries at that moment are curious: “I can’t be your
attendant among these wild and very powerful Khampas and monks.”
(The Collection of Shangpa Masters’ Biographies, p. 164) He felt intimidated
by the persons around his teacher; soon thereafter, at Kyungpo Naljor’s
death, disputes erupted between the great master’s many disciples from
eastern, western, and central Tibet over the fate of their teacher’s remains.
Despite Kyungpo Naljor’s explicit advice to preserve his body, they cremated
it.
I mention this because the so-called Shangpa Kagyu monastic lineage
seems to have been centered at Shang only for a few years between its
founding and the death of its founder. Kyungpo Naljor never enthroned
Rinchen Tsöndru as the head of his institution; he told him to go into
retreat and to meditate alone. Later in life, at no time does Rinchen Tsöndru,
nor any of the main “Shangpa” masters, report being invited to
assume responsibility for Shang Monastery; only the last of the lineage’s
“seven jewels” visited it (in the thirteenth century), and then only close to
the end of his life. Shang Monastery continued to function, but it seems
to have been irrelevant to the Shangpa Instruction Lineage, for only one
master at a time held the entire lineage and all of them lived and taught
without directing the monastery that lent its name to their teachings.
No Shangpa master was purely—that is, exclusively—Shangpa. Each
received and meditated upon a wealth of Buddhist teachings, both before
and after they received the Shangpa transmission. Each taught others but
maintained the same ecumenical approach as they had developed in their
training. They taught from a variety of lineages, according to others’ needs,
and did not concern themselves with establishing institutions and administrations
that would outlive them. This is the story of Rinchen Tsöndru’s
life; his lineage descendants would follow his example.