Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 359
plicity and evident disinterest in large institutions seem totally in keeping
with the character of Niguma’s lineage. No Shangpa text that I have seen
gives directives to lineage holders to restrain their institution-building
impulses, yet Kongtrul’s minimalism is consistent with Shangpa masters
before or since. What made the Shangpa tradition different from its better-known
sister traditions was only its outer poverty and humility, not
deficiencies in the lineage, its masters’ realization, or the effectiveness of its
instructions.
Another contribution Kongtrul made to the Shangpa tradition was to
include its main empowerments, practice texts, and commentaries and
this collection of songs in two volumes (numbers eleven and twelve) of his
Treasury of Profound Instructions, an eighteen-volume compendium of the
main instructions of Tibet’s eight lineages of meditation practice. This had
two effects: first, it ensured that many copies of the essential Shangpa
teachings spread far and wide in Tibet, some copies of which left to India
and Nepal with the refugees. Second, it placed the Shangpa teachings on
the same stage as other better-known cycles of instruction. After lamas of
any school received the treasury’s empowerments and transmission, as
many prayed to have the fortune to do, they needed to familiarize themselves
with the Shangpa tradition to understand and experience what they
had received before they passed it on to another generation. Kongtrul thus
made a lasting place for the Shangpa tradition, where its true value could
be appreciated.
In the following supplication, written to himself, Kongtrul follows a
pattern he set when writing the supplication to Kyentsé Wangpo: although
he included the prayers in a collection of supplications to the Shangpa
masters, he makes not a single mention of the Shangpa lineage. In fact, he
introduces himself as a leader of the Karma Kagyu. The Shangpa tradition
did not have walls without or within to restrict it.
For the most complete picture of Jamgon Kongtrul’s life and past lives,
please read Richard Barron’s excellent translation The Autobiography of
Jamgon Kongtrul. This monumental work, impeccably done, is worth the
effort: readers learn both of Kongtrul and his times and of the sources of
modern-day tantric Buddhism.