Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

356 Timeless Rapture
entire doctrine when it was about to expire. The extent of his teaching,
principally contained in his wonderful Five Treasuries, fills
ninety volumes. 60 When we consider this aspect of his life of freedom,
we have the impression that he spent his entire life writing.
An examination of how he performed the intensive practices of
an ocean of meditations from the Later and Original Schools’ discourses
and tantras gives the impression that he spent his entire
life [meditating] within a strictly sealed meditation room.
Only awakened persons can understand this master’s life of freedom;
[to persons like us] it is inconceivable. This account is not a
dishonest exaggeration written in memory of my own master; it is
an account reflecting the whole truth. Its accuracy will be clearly
evident to the wise. (The Last Days, pp. 6a-b)
If we look back to Jamgon Kongtrul’s past lives, it is easy to understand
why his life led him to the Shangpa lineage—he is the reincarnation of
Kyungpo Naljor, Kunga Drolchok, and Taranata, three pillars of the tradition.
The Shangpa lineage was not the sole beneficiary of his brilliant
energy, but he definitely revitalized it at every level. Kongtrul’s name can
be found at every junction in our contact with the Shangpa teachings.
What Taranata left unfinished or overly complex, Kongtrul completed or
simplified—empowerments, meditation texts, commentaries, and supplementary
texts, such as this collection of songs and the supplications.
His influence was also felt in training meditators in the Shangpa lineage:
when he established a three-year retreat at his home, the program was
heavily weighted toward the Shangpa tradition. The first year and a half
was devoted to the full range of Shangpa meditations, the next half-year
to the Jonang meditations on the Kalachakra Tantra’s phases of creation
and completion, and the third year to Great Completion meditation. Practically,
this meant that the first two years of Jamgon Kongtrul’s three-year
retreat program immersed meditators in Taranata’s work. In a fortunate
confluence of events, Taranata’s work had been liberated by Losal Tenkyong
in 1859; the first three-year retreat Kongtrul led began the following
year.
Kalu Rinpoché related the following account of Kongtrul’s original
impulse to found a meditation center, here retold by Lama Drubgyu Tenzin
of Canada: