The Treasury of Lives

Meben Rinchen Lingpa was born in Tsedrong (tshe grong) in Loro Karpo (lo ro dkar po), in a place said to be to the east of Yuru called Do, in southern Tibet. His father was the physician Godorbum (dgos rdor 'bum) and his mother was the Nepalese Yangbumpa (g.yang bum pa). His birth year is only recorded as being an ox year; given that he was closely associated with the discovery of the Heart-Essence of the Dākinī (mkha' 'gro snying thig) by Pema Ledreltsel (padma las 'drel rtsal, 1291–1319) in 1313 and seems to be still alive after Longchenpa's return from Bhutan around 1360, his birth year was almost certainly 1289.^[1] His birth is said to have been prophesied in various versions of the Pema Kathang (padma bka' thang) in these verses:

This prophecy situates Rinchen Lingpa in the historical context of the unification of central Tibet in the middle of the fourteenth century by Tai Situ Jangchub Gyeltsen (ta'i si tu byang chub rgyal mtshan, 1302–1371), following his defeat of the Sakyapas ("Earth" is a pun on the sa of Sakya) and their Mongol backers. The "evilly behaving demon" may be Tai Situ Jangchub Gyeltsen himself and his "teachings" would then be that of the Pakmodrupa Kagyu, but this remains unclear.

Rinchen Lingpa pa was regarded (according to prophecies found in his own terma) as the emanation of many beings, such as the eighth-century Indian master Prajñākaragupta.

Some sources say that he was mute during his first three years because of some undescribed defilement. He received teachings such as the Yangdrol Purpa (yang grol phur pa) from his grandfather. It is also said that when he was playing as a child, he produced a complete imprint of his body on a rock.

Then, having become a monk, he received the name Rinchen Gyeltsen Pelzangpo (rin chen rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po). Having gone to the monastery of Geri (dge ri) in Lower Nyel (gnyal smad), he made a thorough study of all that concerns philosophy. From a lama in Drukdril Monastery (drug dril dgon) in Loro, he received all the instructions of Rechungpa (ras chung pa'i gdams pa) (ras chung pa, 1085–1161), practiced them, and experienced infinite pure visions.

Then at some point he went in pilgrimage to Lhasa and one night, in a dream, saw a white man telling him: "Tomorrow morning there is something important to do." That morning, a crippled yogi saying he was Jangsem Kunga (byang sems kun dga')—a figure associated to the early Zhije school—and that he was from Dingri, asked him, "[Are you from] this Loro that is beyond Dakpo to the east?" and about such things as Koro Drak in Dritang, about his father's clan being from Minyak, their original region being Tseledre (tshe las 'gras), and whether his name was Rinchen Gyeltsen Pelzangpo. As he happened to match with what was asked, this yogi told him:

I have the prophetic guide for Padmasambhava of Oḍḍyāna's profound mind-treasure [to be] extracted from the top of the red rock of Padrotsel (spa sgro btsal), hidden in Koro Drak of Dritang. But I cannot get there. You are the man that fits the treasure prophecy, and as this is so, I offer you the prophetic guide.

Then he gave him a paper scroll wrapped into silk from under his armpit.

In 1311 at the latest, Rinchen Lingpa went to Koro Drak. According to the treasure histories, in a cave, there was a rock in which copper nails were embedded as signs of the hidden treasure. There was a slightly protruding triangular part of the rock and from it he extracted a dark red chest of rigid leather. In this leather chest there were five compartments, each of which had five divisions identified in the sources with geographic terms, in a way strangely prefiguring Rigdzin Godem's discoveries at Zangzang Lhadrak (1366). In the eastern one, there was the cycle endowed with the five special qualities; in the south, the cycle of the five jewel-like sādhanas; in the west, the fivefold cycle of the wish-fulfilling auspicious connections; in the north, the fivefold cycle of the fierce mantras; and in the center, the fivefold jewel-like cycle of the prophecies.

In this treasure cache, there were also self-multiplying relics of the Buddha and pearl-like relics, plus nectar from Padmasambhava, rakta and amṛta from Yeshe Tsogyel (ye shes mtsho rgyal) and other blessed substances, plus a catalog of all these things.

He also extracted the cycle of Mañjuśrī King of [Occult] Science Nāgarakṣa ('jam dpal rigs pa'i rgyal po na ga ra kSha). This is a very wrathful form of Yamāntaka, with two snakes instead of legs and three rows of three heads, like the protector deity Rāhula, with many arms, used mainly to fight against illnesses caused by the nāgas, especially leprosy. Rinchen Lingpa's cycle is the most extensive one for this deity in the Treasury of Revelations (rin chen gter mdzod) and, unlike his other revelations, this one had a continuous, uninterrupted lineage of transmission down to the time when Jamgon Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul, 1813–1899) compiled that famous collection of treasure texts.

On his way back, the protectors of the treasure are said to have displayed storms and other wonders that he pacified. He then set himself into a retreat cell in Shar Monastery (shar dgon) in his homeland.

Meeting Pema Ledreltsel

Various sources, although not all, assert that it was Rinchen Lingpa who gave to Pema Ledreltsel the prophetic guide to that famous terton's treasures—including the Heart-Essence of the Dākinī—around 1311 and that this prophetic guide was found with the Koro Drak terma.

Nyoshul Khenpo (smyo shul mkhan po, 1931–1999), after a narrative of the discovery of Pema Ledreltsel's 1313 treasure revelation, says that Pema Ledreltsel then returned to the cliff of Koro Drak on the plateau of Dritang and spent seven months in meditation. During that time, he conferred on Gyelse Lekpa, also known as Lekpa Gyelsen (rgyal sras legs pa, legs pa rgyal mtshan, 1290–1366/7), all the oral transmissions for his spiritual instructions. Pema Ledreltsel then went to a site in front of the cliff of Chotendrak (mchod rten brag) and spent three months practicing while Gyalse Lekpa stayed below the cliff.^[2]

It must have been in 1314 that Rinchen Lingpa visited Pema Ledreltsel. As the latter was in retreat, it was impossible to meet him, so he asked Gyelse Lekpa to give him the transmissions of the newly found terma.

Nyoshul Khenpo then records that after Pema Ledreltsel had completed his retreat, he journeyed to lower Nyel, and the three of them met near Sechen Bumpa (se chen bum pa). The three young men then traveled together to Dritang. On their way, at Choling Monastery (chos gling dgon), Pema Ledreltsel gave Rinchen Lingpa pa the key to a treasure concealed within a black boulder "shaped like a tortoise" on a mountain path on the route to India.^[3]

The story is reported in slightly different terms in The Dynasty of the Lineage Masters (bla ma rgyud pa'i rim pa), found in a version of the Heart-Essence of the Dākinī connected to the tradition of Rinchen Lingpa:

The emanation-body endowed with the proper karma and predestination was Rinchen Tsuldor [rin chen tshul rdor = padma las 'brel rtsal], who was born [1291] in Chojung (chos 'byung) in Dritang. In his sixteenth year [1306], after this was prophesied by Lama Khandro (bla ma mkha' 'gro), the karma of his past training was revived and he realized all phenomena to be the dharmakāya—his own mind. As the masters of the place, the dākinīs, the mātṝkas and the guardian lords of the treasure had prophesied to this master, the prophetic guide and the key fell to him. In the female water-ox year [1313], in the night of the twenty-seventh of the last autumn month, having offered a gaṇacakra to the master, the tutelary deity, the dākinīs, [and another one] to the lords of the treasure, he made supplication prayers, then extracted the treasure. It was prophesied by Padmasambhava of Oḍḍyāna that this emanated master would have twenty-one disciples. Among them, one was called the king of dharma, Rinchen Lingpa.

The "Lama Khandro" is as-yet unidentified. With this complementary piece of information, we have the feeling that Rinchen Lingpa then left the young Pema Ledreltsel, maybe never to see him again alive, as he was to die either in 1315, or, according to the most trustworthy sources, in 1319.

Between 1314 and 1320 Rinchen Lingpa unearthed his next treasures at a place either near or over the border with India, having endured infinite hardships, according to Guru Tashi, along the way in places such as steep-sided gorges.

The different narratives of the revelation have the treasure site as a boulder shaped like a tortoise or as a frog. From under the rock, marked with the sign of the treasure—a crossed vajra—there was a two-headed frog made of sealing wax, one of the heads of which was on its back. In this head there was a copper vase from which he extracted five groups of texts and sacred items: The Heart-Essence of Oḍḍyāna [Padmasambhava], The Master's Blissful Three Kāyas; The Great [Cycle] of Dzogchen, the Single Principle that Liberates All; The Great [Cycle] of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities in which Great Bliss is Fully Complete; and The Dharma Cycle of the Great Array of Sacred Substances, plus a silver vajra the size of a nail.

The Single [Principle] that Liberates All is the cycle also known as the Self-Sufficient Perfect [Principle] (a ti rdzogs pa chig chod), of which large selections are anthologized in the Treasury of Revelations. Seventeenth-century masters such as the Fifth Dalai Lama (ta la'i bla ma 05, 1617–1682) possessed an uninterrupted lineage for this beautiful and profound cycle, but the lineage was broken, probably in the early eighteenth century during the Dzungar invasion. It was, however, made available again by Khentse Wangpo (mkhyen brtse'i dbang po, 1820–1892) who "retreasured" (yang gter) it in the nineteenth century. Some texts of the corpus of The Master's Blissful Three Kāyas also survive. The root tantra of this cycle, The Secret Tantra of the Triple-Body Guru's Great Bliss (bla ma sku gsum bde ba chen po'i gsang rgyud) is found in volume fourteen of the Tsamdrak edition of the Collection of Nyingma Tantras (mtshams brag rnying rgyud, pp. 534–560). However, the lineage for the practice seems to be lost.

Rinchen Lingpa replaced the texts he extracted with those he had previously found, presumably in Koro Drak, as instructed by the treasure inventory, as a "treasure substitute" (gter tshab), something frequently depicted in treasure literature as a way to forestall negative consequences from the extraction.

On his way back to Tibet he made a retreat in the dākinī's cave of the Domtsangrong (dom tshang rong) in Shawuk Takgo (sha'ug stag mgo), a forested region on the border between Tibet and India. According to his hagiography, near the cave was a rock in the shape of a five-pointed vajra with a protruding svāstika-drawing as a terma mark. Inside a vajra made of sealing wax, one cubit long, and a rock-crystal spiral, Rinchen Lingpa discovered a yellow scroll, luminous and perfumed, from which came the treasure called The Three Sealed Cycles (rgya can skor gsum). All or most of these texts seem to be lost. He extracted all that were there, our sources say, and inserted in their concealment place, as treasure-substitutes, the paper scrolls of the black tortoise. Then, it is said that according to Yeshe Tsogyel's prophecies and because he was invited by the goddess Kongtsun Demo (kong btsun de mo), he went to Kongpo, and the protector deity Dorje Lekpa (rdo rje legs pa) in person presented him with a treasure-key with which he discovered many more termas.

During this retreat, in a bird year, most likely 1321 (the first one after Pema Ledreltsel's death), Rinchen Lingpa had a vision of this master who bestowed on him the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī. Pema Ledreltsel also told him he would receive the texts of this cycle and that of Pema Ledreltsel's revelations about Rāhula from the region of Dakpo (dwags po). It seems that although Rinchen Lingpa had received all the transmissions from Gyelse Lekpa, no copy of the texts had yet been made. This is probably, as we will see in the next few lines, because the originating "yellow scrolls" of the revelation had not yet been fully deciphered. Presumably Pema Ledreltsel could not complete the "translation" of the Ḍākinīs' code writing. For this reason, Rinchen Lingpa can be considered a co-revealer of the corpus.

Rinchen Lingpa later practiced in retreat in Kongpo Drakgang (kong po brag gangs), in Tsari Sarma (tsa ri gsar ma) and in Drakmar Namdzong (brag dmar ze chung gnam dzong).  Then he came back to Loro and took responsibility for some monasteries such as Rinchending (rin chen lding). Various sources mention the "vast and profound story" of his travel to Padmasambhava's pure land Zangdokpalri (zangs mdog dpal ri) in a pure vision, but this text seems to be lost.

Some sources say that he transmitted all his termas to the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (karma pa 03 rang byung rdo rje, 1284–1339), whom he declared was their predestined heir (chos bdag). It is said that this occurred in Samye Monastery (bsam yas), and that on that occasion he prophesied to Rangjung Dorje that his teachings would spread to the shores of the ocean. This must have occurred prior to the Karmapa's departure to Mongolia around 1331.

Longchenpa

Rinchen Lingpa is mentioned in two of the oldest biographies of Longchenpa, and in both of them the motive is clearly to claim Longchenpa's legitimacy as the main lineage holder of the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī. Longchenpa never met its discoverer, Pema Ledreltsel; he is regarded as a reincarnation of this terton, despite having been born in 1308, before Pema Ledreltsel's death in 1315 or, more probably, 1319. Longchenpa received the transmissions for the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī from Pema Ledreltsel's disciple Gyelse Lekpa—maybe quite late in the lives of both and probably after Longchenpa had already started to teach, edit, and comment on that cycle; there are traces in his biographies about doubts regarding whether he was entitled to teach it or not.

When Longchenpa started teaching the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī, its officially legitimate masters were Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, Gyelse Lekpa, and Rinchen Lingpa, the latter two of whom both outlived Longchenpa. In Longchenpa's biographies his relations with Gyelse Lekpa appear peaceful, but there are hints of  disparagement of Rinchen Lingpa, with Longchenpa suggesting that he, not Rinchen Lingpa, with whom he shared at least two disciples, was the predestined lineage holder of the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī.

What is at stake in this rivalry is in fact that the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī was regarded as Padmasambhava's highest teaching on Dzogchen. What is more, the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī is a more yogic presentation of the "innermost essence" of Dzogchen than the equally prominent—and much older—Heart-Essence of Vimalamitra (bi ma snying thig). It appears that, from the early fourteenth century, the idea of a synthesis of the two "Heart-Essences" was viewed as the most desirable thing. The Third Karmapa, who received both lineages, must have envisioned it, but only Longchenpa fully realized the merger, which he would not have been able to achieve without being viewed as a legitimate master not only of the Heart-Essence of Vimalamitra, but also of the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī.

There is also good reason to think that Pema Ledreltsel's premature death did not allow him to leave the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī in a fully finished form. We have seen Rinchen Lingpa completing and correcting the deciphering of the Ḍākinī scripts around 1321, and it is very likely that the Heart-Essence of the Ḍākinī was later heavily edited by Longchenpa, and not only supplemented by his Hyper-Essence of the Ḍākinī (mkha' 'gro yang tig). Some of the puzzles about Pema Ledreltsel's chronology are probably linked to the fact that Longchenpa signed some of his own compositions or revelations by this name in the colophons—with dates that, then, do not match with any possible year in the short life of the first Pema Ledreltsel.

Rigdzin Godemchen

It is also very likely, although not known to the tradition,^[4] that Rinchen Lingpa was Rigdzin Godemchen's (rig 'dzin rgod lde chen, 1337–1408/9) main master. Godemchen's first large biography by his disciple Nyima Zangpo (nyi ma bzang po) mentions a few masters who trained him, among whom is one Draklungpa Khetsun Rinchenpel (brag lung pa mkhas btsun rin chen dpal), who reportedly taught Godemchen "all Dzogchen." Rinchenpal is Rinchen Lingpa's religious consecration name (rin chen rgyal mtshan dpal bzang po); he was a well-educated monk (mkhas btsun), and the name "Draklungpa" works pretty well with what we know of his southern origin and adventures.

It is also quite possible that Rinchen Lingpa was already the Dzogchen teacher of Rigdzin Godemchen's father, Lopon Sidudulpel (slob dpon srid bdud 'dul dpal), presented as a practitioner of the "Brahmin's Dzogchen" (rdzogs chen bram ze), which, in context, may, for various reasons, refer to Rinchen Lingpa's cycle, the Single Self-Sufficient Perfect [Principle].

Lopon Sidudulpel would have been Rinchen Lingpa's student sometime between 1314, the earliest possible date for the revelation of this cycle, and the early 1340s, as we known Lopon Sidudulpel died when Rigdzin Godem (born 1337) was a child. Further evidence of this early connection of Rinchen Lingpa with Godem's family is the fact that the first practice (the Wheel of Activities of Black Leprosy; mdze nag las kyi 'khor lo) by which Rigdzin Godem is said to have obtained, in his thirteenth year (1349), signs of realization is akin to Rinchen Lingpa's cycle Mañjuśrī King of [Occult] Science Nāgarakṣa.

As for Dzogchen, it is a fact that Godemchen's largest Dzogchen cycle, the Unimpeded Access to Samantabhadra's Mind (dgongs pa zang thal), includes 40-60% of what we can suppose to be the original core of the Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī and that Rigdzin Godemchen was viewed, in his later life, as a distinguished specialist of the Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī, which was then still a very rare corpus. The only person who may have taught it to him, according to Nyima Zangpo's biography of Godemchen, was the above-mentioned Drakungpa Khetsun Rinchenpal. In the 1350–60s Rinchen Lingpa was one of the very few available specialists of this cycle, even more so because Longchenpa was in exile in Bhutan precisely ca. 1350–1360.

We know from the biographies of some of his disciples that Rigdzin Godemchen also taught them the Heart-Essence of the Vimalamitra, and the Unimpeded Access to Samantabhadra's Mind incorporates large rewritten sections of that cycle as well. Obviously, he must have received these from Draklungpa Khetsun Rinchenpel—Rinchen Lingpa— as well. Thus, we could say that two large syntheses of the two Heart-Essences produced in the fourteenth century are still available to us; one is the famous Fourfold Heart-Essence by Longchenpa, and the other is the Unimpeded Access to Samantabhadra's Mind, revealed by Rigdzin Godemchen and certainly in some regards the fruit of Rinchen Lingpa's teachings. It is not impossible, although this remains to be researched, that other revelations of Rinchen Lingpa were absorbed into Rigdzin Godemchen's termas.

Rinchen Lingpa passed away in Loro, in his eightieth year.

We know nearly as little about Rinchen Lingpa's disciples as about his masters. From a careful reading of the colophons and lineage prayers of what remains of his revelations, we can set up a list of nine names of direct disciples, and more of indirect disciples. None save those mentioned above are known to history.

Rinchen Lingpa's revelations fell into disuse, except for the Nāgarakṣa cycle. An initial reincarnation was identified in the person of Tulku Zhonnu Lhundrub (sprul sku gzhon nu lhun grub) and a subsequent in a man named Tulku Gyeltsen Pelzang (sprul sku rgyal mtshan dpal bzang). The third, reflecting the absorption of Rinchen Lingpa's legacy into the Karma Kagyu tradition, was Chowang Lhundrub (chos dbang lhun grub, 1414/1455–1503), later given the title of the First Pawo Rinpoche (dpa' bo 01).

 

This biography is a short, simplified version of Arguillère 2024 in which all the required background (sources, edition of Tibetan texts, arguments in favor of Rigdzin Godem's master Draklungpa Khetsun Rinchenpel being Rinchen Lingpa, etc., can be found.)