extract from "Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal" about Kalzang Temple, which became the seat of Tertön Sogyal:
Nyala Pema Dündul frequented many hermitages and caves during his life-long wanderings, but it was this peak where he chose to spend nearly a decade in retreat in the Cave of Blazing Expanse of Great Bliss on the mountain’s southeast side. He sustained himself during those years on the water that dripped in his shallow cave and the herbs that grew by the entrance. Pema Dündul’s austerities mirrored those of the 11th-century Tibetan saint Milarepa. The last years of retreat in his cave, Pema Dündul perfected an alchemical practice whereby he ate only wild rhubarb flowers and berries, and eventually subsisted by sucking on pebbles to extract the life essence of the substances through yogic exercises, and mantra, earning him the nickname “The Rock Eater.”
One day in the Iron Monkey year (1860), soon after he had completed nine years of retreat, Pema Dündul was meditating under the cobalt sky near his home village of Khangtseg, which lies below Lhangdrak Peak. Pema Dündul rested his gaze in the space in front of the soaring peak, and soon the sky began to fill with shooting rainbows, one after another. Coils of light sprang in all directions, and a shower of five-colored effervescent spheres of light descended like a spring rain. Scintillating lights continued to arc and swirl as a crash of cymbals and trumpets filled all of Nyarong with hymns of invocation and a mist of sandalwood fell from the heavens. In a sudden flash, the vision coalesced into a ball of light and dissolved into a grassy knoll below the peak. In the silent wake, Pema Dündul saw thousands of buddhas, enlightened deities, and past saints of India and Tibet dissolve one after another into the hillside.
Pema Dündul wasted no time in securing sponsorship to construct Kalzang Sangye Chöling Temple: Dharma Sanctuary of One Thousand Buddhas of This Fortunate Age—on that very spot.
Nyala Pema Dündul frequented many hermitages and caves during his life-long wanderings, but it was this peak where he chose to spend nearly a decade in retreat in the Cave of Blazing Expanse of Great Bliss on the mountain’s southeast side. He sustained himself during those years on the water that dripped in his shallow cave and the herbs that grew by the entrance. Pema Dündul’s austerities mirrored those of the 11th-century Tibetan saint Milarepa. The last years of retreat in his cave, Pema Dündul perfected an alchemical practice whereby he ate only wild rhubarb flowers and berries, and eventually subsisted by sucking on pebbles to extract the life essence of the substances through yogic exercises, and mantra, earning him the nickname “The Rock Eater.”
One day in the Iron Monkey year (1860), soon after he had completed nine years of retreat, Pema Dündul was meditating under the cobalt sky near his home village of Khangtseg, which lies below Lhangdrak Peak. Pema Dündul rested his gaze in the space in front of the soaring peak, and soon the sky began to fill with shooting rainbows, one after another. Coils of light sprang in all directions, and a shower of five-colored effervescent spheres of light descended like a spring rain. Scintillating lights continued to arc and swirl as a crash of cymbals and trumpets filled all of Nyarong with hymns of invocation and a mist of sandalwood fell from the heavens. In a sudden flash, the vision coalesced into a ball of light and dissolved into a grassy knoll below the peak. In the silent wake, Pema Dündul saw thousands of buddhas, enlightened deities, and past saints of India and Tibet dissolve one after another into the hillside.
Pema Dündul wasted no time in securing sponsorship to construct Kalzang Sangye Chöling Temple: Dharma Sanctuary of One Thousand Buddhas of This Fortunate Age—on that very spot.