Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

270 Timeless Rapture
When Kyungpo Naljor died, Rinchen Tsöndru first meditated for two
years and then went to Gampopa for further guidance. Gampopa told
him they had often been teacher and disciple in past lives. Their reunion
moved both to tears. Although Gampopa was able to provide some
instruction, he informed his new disciple that he had taken a vow to no
longer impart Naropa’s Six Doctrines. The two circumvented this promise
by meeting in a dream, since Rinchen Tsöndru had already gained mastery
of lucid dreaming. During the year they spent together, Gampopa’s
main contribution to Rinchen Tsöndru’s spiritual life was complete
instruction in Great Seal that led him to certainty in the view.
At their parting, Gampopa told his disciple to go into retreat and not
to concern himself with the spiritual community’s work, let alone worldly
work. Rinchen Tsöndru stayed for twelve years in retreat at Mokchok,
after which some students gathered. Eventually their numbers outgrew
the retreat place and Mokchok-pa (Rinchen Tsöndru’s nickname) founded
a small monastery, which he maintained with mixed feelings for the last
decade and a half of his life. Rinchen Tsöndru was a meditator at heart, and
his autobiography relates his dream experiences more than details of his
active life. Both Niguma and Sukasiddhi appeared to him in visions; the
fact that Niguma did so when Rinchen Tsöndru was performing a ritual
of offering to Gampopa led him to comment, “Spiritual masters all share
the same life force; only cultivation [of merit and wisdom] and devotion
are important, I think.” (Ibid., pp. 200-201)
It is in Rinchen Tsöndru’s life that we find the Shangpa lineage’s lasting
character, lifelong dedication to all tantric teachings impartially, expressed
through renunciation and meditation.