Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 285
young age and whose words are sometimes quoted in later Shangpa lineage
treatises. I think that the early Shangpa masters lived the meaning of
these words and tried to steer their lineage toward single-minded dedication
to renunciation, meditation, and freedom.
Chökyi Sengé also advised Sangyé Nyentön that he would be wiser to
keep the ten good disciples his master foretold (eight men and two
women) than to have tens of thousands of others. Again, such counsel
helped preserve the Shangpa lineage values but did little for its public
image and presence.
To the body of teaching identified as the Shangpa Instruction Lineage,
Sangyé Nyentön added a number of supplementary meditations taught to
him by Sukasiddhi and a series of exercises called the Immortal Body exercises,
which he received from an adept called Latö Gönpo. For Sangyé
Nyentön, these exercises untied a knot in his channels that had long produced
what he refers to as a “blockage at my secret [genital] area.” Unfortunately
for us, the Shangpa lineage at some point crossed the line from
carefree to careless, and the transmission for these exercises has been lost,
although the text itself is extant. In the Tibetan tradition, it is not enough
to have a book’s clear explanation; each of us must receive the empowerment,
reading transmission, and personal guidance in an unbroken lineage
for the teaching to become alive. Jamgon Kongtrul reported in the
nineteenth century that the transmission for these exercises had already
been irremediably interrupted.
Sangyé Nyentön is also known for his close relationship with the
Shangpa lineage’s main protector, Six-Armed Mahakala. He was able to
converse with the protector and his entourage as we speak to other human
beings. Nevertheless, some of the minor protectors who are pictured
around Six-Armed Mahakala were so eager to help him that he had to
repeatedly ask them to not harm his enemies. In Jamgon Kongtrul’s supplication
to Sangyé Nyentön below, he mentions a statue of Six-Armed
Mahakala that remained intact at Rigong until the Cultural Revolution.
The statue was called a “self-manifest statue” as it was an emanation of the
protector who sculpted and consecrated it. Many pilgrims, including
Kunga Drolchok, Taranata, and Kalu Rinpoché, visited it over the centuries
and marveled at its blessing and the continued purity of Rigong’s
atmosphere as a meditation place.