Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 291
tice for one’s entire life. The reader might assume from this and the absence
of details of his active life that Sangyé Tönpa had few students. Not so; two
supplementary biographies by his disciples reveal that he had students
“from the seas of China to Jalandhara in India.” One hundred eight disciples
were “hidden adepts” foretold by Niguma when she visited Sangyé
Tönpa and gave him a string of prayer beads made of 108 pearls. This was
her reassurance that he could teach widely, that her secrets could finally be
told to more than one chosen heir. The fact that Niguma calls the 108
“hidden” refers not to antisocial behavior but to the discipline of silence
in relation to one’s spiritual life. I believe that she did not envision them
as public, active teachers, just as discreet meditators, content to practice
rather than to preach.
Sangyé Tönpa confesses to some pride during his extraordinary exercises
in control of lucid dreams, but he points out that as soon as his pride
arose, his experience faded until he had rid himself of that stultifying attitude.
Even the thought during lucid dreams that his offerings and elaborate
dream creations were positive proved the occasion for a warning from
an anonymous dakini that attachment to things as positive was a golden
chain he could well do without.
Like his spiritual master, Sangyé Tönpa was a monk, although unlike
Sangyé Nyentön, he adhered closely to the external appearance of discipline.
Nevertheless, he too had to urge his disciples to look beyond his
physical state. He reports that sickness troubled him most of his life, infirmity
he blamed on doubts that he had entertained during a past life in
India concerning tantra’s third empowerment (that of wisdom engendered
by an embodiment of transcendent knowledge). Sangyé Tönpa claimed to
be an invalid by day and a buddha by night. He exercised extraordinary
control during lucid dreams and in the clear light of deep sleep. His autobiography
also provides vivid testimony to the strength of his devotion to
his teacher. Nevertheless, he does not give any indication that he busied
himself with institutions. He taught many disciples but did not found a
monastery of his own. Close to the end of his life, he paid a short visit to
Shang Monastery, the first of the Shangpa masters to do so since Rinchen
Tsöndru’s meeting there with Kyungpo Naljor.
In the Shangpa tradition, Sangyé Tönpa’s life had been foretold for generations
and he was designated repeatedly during his lifetime as the one
who would take Niguma’s teaching to the world. His qualifications for that
task define the Shangpa tradition: perfect renunciation, outward discretion