Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

366 Timeless Rapture
the home the two lamas shared at Palpung, they would keep only the food
they would eat that day, to better recall the imminence of death and the
futility of storing food and possessions for an imaginary future. Thus,
when Kalu Rinpoché inherited the Shangpa lineage, it was these examples
he received, not land, buildings, riches, or followers.
Rinpoché spent his early life mastering the entire range of Buddhist
meditation techniques; he sought instruction from masters of all schools.
He was fiercely impartial and ecumenical, never missing an opportunity to
cut through sectarian bias. Uncomfortable with a label often given him as
a “Kagyu” lama as this came to be understood, he would sometimes say
that he was a human department store of Buddhist meditation—you could
find anything you want. Or he might say, “Yes, I’m a Kagyu lama. A
Nyingma Kagyu lama, a Kadampa Kagyu lama, a Lamdré Kagyu lama, a
Kagyu Kagyu lama, a Shangpa Kagyu lama,” and so on. This was difficult
to translate, as Rinpoché used “Kagyu” here in its literal sense, “Oral
Instruction Lineage,” and applied it to names most people in his audience
were unaware of, the eight Tibetan schools of tantric meditation. 63 Nevertheless,
it is worth repeating in this context, as Rinpoché would have resisted
the label “Shangpa Kagyu lineage holder” as much as any other. He was
fond of saying that there is no such thing as a “Nyingma Buddha” or a
“Kagyu Buddha” or any buddha limited to a single school of Buddhism.
Or to Buddhism. Rinpoché gave Bön empowerments on occasion and
made a point at every new city to proclaim his faith in all spiritual traditions,
both theistic and nontheistic, as paths to the same goal and as evidence
of Buddha’s enlightened activity.
I hope this information helps explain why, as head of the Shangpa lineage,
Kalu Rinpoché did next to nothing to give the lineage public exposure.
For all the public meditation centers he founded worldwide, he never established
a “Shangpa Kagyu” center. For all the public talks he gave, he rarely
mentioned the Shangpa lineage. Even at his home monastery in India, visitors
to the old temple are greeted by statues of Buddha Boundless Light,
Bodhisattva All-Seeing One, and Guru Rinpoché; the wall paintings behind
his seat in the new temple are of Guru Rinpoché and his twenty-five disciples.
The new temple was built not for a Shangpa conclave but to host Rinpoché’s
six-month transmission of Guru Rinpoché’s treasure texts.
What Kalu Rinpoché did do for the Shangpa lineage was to establish
three-year retreat centers where the entirety of the Shangpa meditations
were passed on to new generations, which included Tibetans from all