Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

402 Timeless Rapture
11 The three versions of this song available to us—A Sea of Blessing, p. 10b.; The Collection
of Shangpa Masters’ Biographies (Sonada edition), pp. 77-78; The Collection of Shangpa
Masters’ Biographies (Lhasa edition), p. 14)—diverge considerably in these last four
verses. This passage from a modern Tibetan history has informed my reading of them:
[Kyungpo Naljor] lived for one hundred and fifty years and taught Buddhism
widely. To summarize his style of teaching, he gathered all subjects into
three graded paths—explanation, debate, and meditative practice.
The graded path of explanation employs the discourses and their treatises
and the tantras and their commentaries to correctly present the Way of Characteristics’
four great philosophical systems and the Vajra Way’s four great
classes of tantra.
In the graded path of debate, it could be said that he had studied such texts
as The Seven Treatises on Valid Cognition in the custom of dialecticians of later
times, yet he mainly employed earlier forms of valid cognition—to use the
four proofs to define the three characteristics and, within valid cognition, to
differentiate among direct perception, logical inference, and belief to reply
fully to objections.
The graded path of meditative practice comprises the entire range of experiential
cultivation in the Way of the Transcendent Perfections, which employs
the causes [of awakening as the path] and the Vajra Way, which employs the
result [of awakening as the path]. [Kyungpo Naljor] would teach these by
means of pith instructions that encapsulated how to engage in experiential
cultivation using the common and special vital points of the subject of awakening’s
thirty-seven aspects.
[Kyungpo Naljor] was exceedingly kind in thus improving Tibetan methods
of education and reflection. (The Ruby Key: A General History of Tibet, vol.
1, pp. 468-469).
This passage would seem to support Matthew Kapstein’s statement, “In brief it is
clear that the original Shangs-pa teaching was not merely a vast collection of miscellaneous
doctrines, but was also a complete system embracing all major aspects of
Buddhist study and practice.” (“The Shangs-pa bKa’-brgyud”, p. 140.)
The passage from The Ruby Key echoes a passage from Kongtrul’s A Catalog of
Shangpa Texts: The Beryl Key, pp. 5b-6a.
12 According to Bokar Rinpoché, the three rains are of physical comfort, verbal power,
mental realization; the three gatherings are of humans, wealth, and food.
13 The names of Kyungpo Naljor’s six heart sons and their respective specialties in meditation
are listed in the supplication to Kyungpo Naljor by Jamgon Kongtrul, on
page 254.
14 There would seem to be a line missing in the original text at this point.
15 According to Bokar Rinpoché, the three characteristics are to hold a lineage, to have
experience in meditative practice, and to maintain an altruistic, loving attitude.
16 According to Bokar Rinpoché, the three facets of spontaneous presence are the basis,
path, and result.
17 According to Bokar Rinpoché, yid shes in the text should be read ye shes (wisdom).