An
Illiterate Attains Rainbow Body
When
I went to my master Changchub Dorje, I was educated up to the hilt in
the intellectual sense. My mind was filled with everything I'd
learned in the monastic colleges. I thought that to receive
transmission of the teachings, elaborate ritual initiations were
essential and I asked Changchub Dorje to give me
a certain initiation. I asked him every day for days and days, but he
always refused.
'What's
the use?' he'd say. 'You've already received so many of those
initiations from your other masters; initiations like that are not
the principle of the Dzogchen teachings. Transmission isn't only
received in formal initiations.' But no matter what he said, I
remained fixed on the kind of perfectly performed ritual initiations
other masters had always given me. I wasn't satisfied with his
replies, and I wanted him to put on a special hat, prepare a mandala,
and pour a little water on my head, or something like that. That was
what I really, sincerely wanted; but he always continued to refuse.
Finally,
I insisted so much that he at last agreed. He promised that about two
months later, on the day of Padmasambhava, the tenth day of the
Tibetan lunar month1, he would give me the initiation I wanted, the
empowerment of Samantabhadra and the peaceful and wrathful divinities
of the Bardo. This initiation is actually not very complicated, and a
master skilled in such things
could
have completed it very quickly. But Changchub Dorje had never
received a formal education, and he was not used to giving
initiations. When the long-awaited day finally came, the initiation
took him from about nine in the morning till midnight. To begin with,
he had to prepare himself by performing a rite of self-initiation.
This took him until mid-day to complete. Then he began the initiation
for me. But, not being formally educated, not only
couldn't he read the text himself, but on top of that I could see
that he didn't know how to do all the ritual things he was supposed
to do. He wasn't that kind of a master.
So
Changchub Dorje had a disciple present as an assistant who was
himself an expert teacher, and it was he who prepared all the
mandalas and ritual objects. Then this disciple began to read the
text to tell the master what he had to do next. But when he read out
that a certain mudra, or gesture, should be done by the master giving
the initiation, Changchub Dorje didn't know how
to do it, so they had to stop while he learned it. Then there was a
whole long invocation that was supposed to be chanted, invoking all
the masters of the lineage, and while chanting it, the master is
supposed to sound a bell and a
damaru, or small drum. Someone who is used to rituals can perform all
this very quickly, but Changchub Dorje wasn't used to such things,
and the whole situation became outrageous, a complete farce.
First
of all he worked out with his assistant what was written in the notes
to the text. 'Ah!' he said. 'It says here that you have to
sound the bell!' So he took the bell, and for about five minutes
all he did was sound it over and over again. Then it was read out to
him that you have to sound the damaru. So he sounded
the little drum over and over for about another five minutes. Then he
suddenly said: 'Oh, now I see! You have to sound the bell and
damaru together!' So he did that. But by then he had forgotten
what it was that he was supposed to chant, so he had to go through it
all again with the help of the disciple who could read.
Changchub
Dorje himself hadn't had the kind of education that involves study,
but was a practitioner who had manifested wisdom and clarity through
the development of his practice, and it was because of this wisdom
and clarity that he was considered to be a master. So he hadn't
received the kind of monastic training that would have prepared him
to give all the various kinds of
formal empowerment, and he stumbled through the initiation he gave me
taking all day and a good deal of the evening to do it. By the time
he had finished, I was almost in a state of shock, as, given my own
background, I knew very well how an initiation should be done, and it
was nothing like this.
But
by then it was nearly midnight, and we were all very hungry. We sang
the Song of the Vajra together many times. This is a short,
slow, anthemic chant, characteristic of the way Dzogchen works with
ritual, that leads the practitioner into contemplation through
integration with its actual sound, the
structure of its syllables and melody ensuring deep, relaxed
breathing. Then we recited a short Gana Puja offering, and we ate.
After the meal the master gave me a real explanation of the true
meaning of initiation and transmission, and I realized that despite
all the formal initiations I had received at my college, I had never
understood or entered into the true meaning of them.
Then,
without interruption, for about three or four hours, Changchub Dorje
gave me a real explanation of Dzogchen, not teaching me in an
intellectual style, but talking to me in a very straightforward and
relaxed, friendly, conversational way. Despite all my education, this
was the first time a master had
really made such a direct attempt to get me to understand something.
What he said, and the way that he said it, was exactly like a tantra
of Dzogchen, spoken spontaneously, continuously aloud, and I knew
that even a very learned scholar would not be able to speak like
that. Changchub Dorje was speaking from clarity and not just from an
intellectual understanding.
Copied
from Crystal and the Way of Light by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche.
Nyala Rinpoche led a community of Dzogchen practitioners in Nyalagar in the Dedrol area of Kham. He attained the rainbow body. Copied from here.
