Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

The Shangpa Masters and Their Lineage 365
old Tibet. The first time, his father refused to give his young son to the
monks (from Dzokchen Monastery), who arrived at the door with offerings
for the family and an invitation to the child to return to the monastery
with them. The second time (later in Rinpoche’s life, after his twelve-year
period of retreat), it was Karmapa who predicted that although Kalu Rinpoché
was Jamgon Kongtrul’s rebirth, to enthrone him would limit his
activity and shorten his life. Thus, Kalu Rinpoché was a nobody in terms
of Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, yet his lack of confinement to a specific
institution allowed him to live his own life to the fullest. He valued his
independence and wished the same for anyone close to him. His whole life
long, he never rested on his laurels; instead, he always changed, gave himself
new challenges, and called himself into question.
He grew up in far eastern Tibet (Kham), much closer to China than to
Lhasa. His valley (close to Ganzé in eastern Tibet) is gentle and fertile,
with a mighty river cutting through it. The people of his region speak a
dialect distinct from that of central Tibetans; people a couple of valleys
away on either side of his homeland speak and dress differently. The road
through his village is a main highway linking China and Lhasa; to this
day, pilgrims prostrate along it, on their way to the holy places of central
Tibet. Kalu Rinpoché’s background was not monocultural or monolingual,
and his spiritual journey would force him to leave his homeland
repeatedly. When he walked to Palpung Monastery at the age of fifteen to
enter three-year retreat, he found that his language was unintelligible to the
residents of his new home. He undoubtedly learned the Dergé area dialect
and, later, central Tibetan, although it must be admitted that his accent
when speaking his version of Lhasa Tibetan remained atrocious his whole
life. These experiences, of contact with foreigners and of being a foreigner—he
spent relatively few years in his homeland—served him well
later in life, when he traveled the world and managed to make us feel as if
he understood us completely, despite significant age and culture gaps.
Kalu Rinpoché was head of the Shangpa lineage, recognized as such by
his teacher Norbu Döndrub, who dreamed of Six-Armed Protector welcoming
the new lineage holder on the eve of Kalu Rinpoché’s arrival at
Palpung Monastery. Norbu Döndrub was the retreat master at Tsadra; he
spent most of his life in seclusion. He inherited the lineage from two of
Jamgon Kongtrul’s disciples, Tashi Özer and Tashi Chöpel, whose final
years were spent in complete renunciation. Kalu Rinpoché related that in