Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 277
lineage was made possible by his control of dreams. He went to visit Guru
Rinpoché in the course of a lucid dream, and he asked for and received
empowerment in a wrathful form of Bodhisattva Great Compassion called
Hayagriva in Sanskrit, literally Horse Neck. This deity with an unflattering
name is an important tantric meditation. Guru Rinpoché told Chökyi
Sengé where he could find the master on earth who held the texts that
corresponded to the empowerment he had just received. After having
found the lama (named Nyémo Zhuyé), he returned in a lucid dream to
seek Guru Rinpoché’s confirmation that he had received the entire transmission.
No, said Guru Rinpoché, the lama had withheld one part, which
Chökyi Sengé then was able to receive. This may seem an unlikely story,
but this meditation is still treasured by Shangpa meditators; it has become
very popular and widespread in the Gélug tradition; Jamgon Kongtrul
included the entire transmission in his Treasury of Precious Rediscovered
Teachings (in Volume 25).
Chökyi Sengé also continued the Shangpa tradition of excellence.
Kyungpo Naljor’s Indian teachers said there was no disciple equal to him
in India at that time. Kyungpo Naljor considered Rinchen Tsöndru’s meditation
to be better than his own; Rinchen Tsöndru in turn told Chökyi
Sengé that “a cow has given birth to a dzo!” The cow, the lama, had given
birth to a much larger animal, a dzo (a male cross between a yak bull and
a cow), the disciple. In the series of Shangpa masters’ biographies, Kyergang-pa’s
is the first in which this story is told, but it is repeated in each
successive generation. Each great master repeatedly praises his foremost
disciple as better than himself. On a human level, this is a very touching
event, and for the lineage it situates all students’ focus in the present, unlike