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Tertön Sogyal in Golok and collaboration with Dodrupchen Rinpoche

Extract from "Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal"

Tertön Sogyal, with his wife and son and attendants, had crossed the Yellow River watershed and entered Golok. This gigantic landscape swallows travelers in dust storms and wind that can knock a sturdy Tibetan horse flat to the ground. Tertön Sogyal relied upon the treasure guardians to show the route. They steered the reins past the southern turnoff toward Kandze and ventured due east across the highland ranges with its rolling golden grasslands that extended as far as the eye could see. As they entered the sparsely populated region of southern Golok, the number of flat-roofed, stone-stacked houses in any village was no more than a dozen. Corn and barley sheaves hung among drying chilies from the three-story houses with the ubiquitous Tibetan mastiffs guarding the perimeter from sand foxes and wolves. Above the riverbanks where the barley terraces were planted, nomad children and women ran after Tertön Sogyal seeking his blessing, their devotion inspired by his tantric attire and nest of hair. In the high mountain meadows and pastures of rhododendron shrubs, and along the river basins, Tertön Sogyal’s caravan passed herds of yaks numbering in the thousands, tended by nomads.

This was the first time Tertön Sogyal had come to Golok, a region that rivaled Nyarong in its reputation of rugged nomads and roaming bandits. When locals camped for the night in Golok, horses were picketed under strong guard and men slept with their boots laced and their weapons at hand. Outsiders, including the few British and Russian explorers or Christian missionaries who tried to move through Golok in the late 1800s, were told to turn around or quickly fell to the swords of the Golok warriors or roaming bandits.

The warriors of Golok, clad in fox pelt and felt hats with thick yak hide coats, were legendary in their warring prowess on horseback. Even the monasteries needed protection by the various ruling tribal chiefs. When frontier scouts, with their long rifles slung over their backs, approached Tertön Sogyal’s party to question his entourage, the tertön quietly recited pacifying mantras. Golok was never directly ruled by the Qing dynasty in Peking or the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The vast plains, upland pastures, and mountains were the domain of three prominent chieftains. Soon after Tertön Sogyal arrived in Golok, he met one of the powerful chieftains, Dorde of Upper Wangchen.

There would have been little chance Tertön Sogyal could travel through, much less reside in Golok, without the protection of such a chieftain. It was known that Tertön Sogyal was Khyentse Wangpo’s close disciple, which in Nyingma-strong Golok was as strong a credential for the tertön as being the Dalai Lama’s teacher.

Tribal chiefs like Dorde wanted the protection of powerful tantric yogis like Tertön Sogyal. Tertön Sogyal was shown into Dorde’s large tent. Armed guards stood on either side of the tent’s entrance, long daggers hanging from their waist belts. Unlike the Nyarong warriors, who wind their hair in a single braid around their heads, these Golok warriors had two braids that extended down their backs and were tied together at the end with colorful red or blue silk string. Their faces were as weather worn as a saddlebag. They did not bow in respect when Tertön Sogyal walked past them. Their stoic silence was as fierce as the snarling mastiffs staked out around the tent’s perimeter. Dorde stood when Tertön Sogyal entered, and welcomed him to sit on the carpeted cushions that had been laid out in his honor. As tea was served, the chief’s daughters offered bowls of thick curd with small wild yams. Dried goat and yak meat still on the bone was brought on a wooden tray with a large bowie knife laid to the side, followed by milky barley beer. Tertön Sogyal offered Dorde a white silken scarf with a blessed statue of Padmasambhava that he had discovered as a treasure en route to Golok, telling the chief to pray to Padmasambhava to avert the same troubles that befell Lhasa, Litang, and Batang. He said he had been guided to Golok by visions and prophecy regarding the need for him to reveal treasures in the region. And he said that the chief would certainly share in the positive merit should he grant refuge in Golok and support his treasure revealer’s activity.

Dorde guaranteed Tertön Sogyal’s security. The chief sent scouts to inform locals that if the tertön or anyone in his party passed through, they should be provided with tents and barley flour, and feed for their horses. Dorde in return requested Tertön Sogyal’s spiritual guidance and protection.

Having secured patronage from the local chieftain, Tertön Sogyal’s next stop was a visit to the scholar and highly realized practitioner, the Third Dodrupchen Rinpoche. Just as Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgön Kongtrul were the spiritual pillars in the Derge region, Dodrupchen was a spiritual giant in Golok. Prophecy indicated that Dodrupchen and Tertön Sogyal would collaborate to enhance each other’s Dharma activities. They had spent time together in their younger years when they studied under many of the same masters, including Khyentse Wangpo, Patrul Rinpoche, Khenpo Pema Vajra, and Ju Mipham Rinpoche. They made a strong connection at that time, but because Tertön Sogyal was traveling to and from central Tibet, their relationship did not develop. The time and conditions now presented themselves to bring the connection with Dodrupchen to full maturity, as well as with some of the hermit’s seven brothers who lived in the region.

Dodrupchen, the son of the famed tantric adept Dudjom Lingpa, was an extremely learned master who lived his monk’s vows purely and maintained a strict schedule of study, contemplation, and meditation in his hermitage. As one of the most highly realized masters on the Tibetan Plateau, he revitalized philosophical study and debate not only in Dodrupchen Monastery, but throughout eastern Tibet. His reputation as a scholar began as a boy when he was studying with the great Patrul Rinpoche.

One day, Patrul Rinpoche asked the young Dodrupchen to give a teaching to a large public gathering on The Way of the Bodhisattva. After the teaching, Patrul Rinpoche was so inspired by the sermon, he wrote a letter to Khyentse Wangpo, saying, “Concerning the Dharma of learning, Dodrupchen has given teachings on The Way of the Bodhisattva at the age of eight. As for the Dharma of realization, Nyala Pema Dundul has just attained the rainbow body. So the doctrine of the Buddha has not yet been diminished.”

The collaboration of the two lamas resulted in one of the definitive commentaries on the Secret Essence Tantra, the foundational Vajrayana scripture of the Nyingma school. For days the scholar-hermit spoke about the origin of the tantric teachings in this world, and laid bare the most sublime meaning of mantra, mudra, mandala, empowerment, samaya, and other elements crucial to a yogi’s practice. Tertön Sogyal sat by his side working as the scribe with a bamboo quill and rice paper. The commentary was entitled The Key to the Precious Treasury, and Dodrupchen would say after they finished composing the treatise that it exposed his heart.

In another of Dodrupchen’s unique expositions, Wonder Ocean, a book on the treasure tradition of Tibet and authenticating tertöns and termas, he relied upon Tertön Sogyal to elucidate difficult points. During their work together, Tertön Sogyal presented four dakini scripts that he had discovered but had not decoded. While Dodrupchen was not known publicly as a tertön, he and Tertön Sogyal decoded them together, with Dodrupchen serving as the scribe. In the second month of the Wood Hare year (1915), Tertön Sogyal offered Dodrupchen the empowerments and oral transmissions for all of his treasure revelations, at that time more than a dozen volumes. Their time was spent alone without any attendants. Dodrupchen infrequently allowed visitors, and only a handful of monks who stayed at the hermitage ever saw him.
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