A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality Read Free Page A

Tulshuk Lingpa we had to go right back to Padmasambhava, the eighth-century visionary and mystic wizard often credited with bringing the dharma, or Buddhist teachings, to Tibet. Padmasambhava established the teachings by travelling through the high central Asian plateau, subduing the local deities belonging to the Bonpo (the indigenous religion of Tibet with strong shamanic elements), and turning them into protectors of the dharma.
     
    Padmasambhava
    Kunsang explained that Padmasambhava not only understood the past and had mastery of the present but could see into the future as well. He gave only the teachings that were right for the founding of Buddhism in that remote corner of the world in the eighth century. Other teachings that he knew would be better imparted at a later date, even hundreds or thousands of years later, were hidden by him. These hidden teachings are known in Tibetan as ter or terma, which means treasure. Those who find terma are known as tertons , treasure revealers.
    Padmasambhava hid things like tantric scriptures. He hid certain ritual objects that, once found, would give tremendous powers. He hid great spiritual insights. But most important, Kunsang explained, he hid the secret valleys like the one in Sikkim—Beyul Demoshong. These valleys are Padmasambhava’s most precious treasures, and the most difficult to find. Kunsang was both eloquent and enthusiastic about Padmasambhava’s tremendous insights. Knowing the teachings of the Buddha would become endangered in Tibet, Padmasambhava also knew what would be needed and when. Some of the most important Tibetan Buddhist scriptures were protected over vast expanses of time in the changeless layers of a terton’s consciousness. Terma remains hidden from the world until time itself ripens, until a particular terton takes incarnation and ‘opens’ it.
    I told Kunsang I could imagine how Padmasambhava hid a text or even a dorje , the two-sided brass implement lamas use in rituals representing the thunderbolt. But when I told him I didn’t understand how an insight could be hidden, especially a spiritual insight, he burst out laughing.
    ‘You only imagine you can understand how Padmasambhava hid his texts! To be sure, he didn’t just take a text and bury it in a cave or stuff it in a crack in a cliff. It wasn’t like that at all.’
    He explained how there are five places where Padmasambhava hid his terma. He hid some in the earth, this is known as sa-ter ; he hid some in the mountains. This is ri-ter . Some, chu-ter , he hid in water, and yet others are called nam-ter . These are the treasures Padmasambhava hid in the sky. Others, gong-ter , he hid in the mind itself.
    Hiding terma is one thing; finding it, another. As Padmasambhava hid each of the terma, he appointed a newly subdued ‘protector of the dharma’ to guard it and keep it hidden until that particular teaching, powerful object or insight was needed.
    At the same time that he was hiding a terma in the world outside, he was also planting it inside, in the mind of one of his disciples. Not on the surface of his mind, the part that changes, that holds memories and is lost from one lifetime to another. He planted the knowledge of the terma in the unchanging layer of his disciple’s mind, where the teaching would be protected.
    What happens is this: when the time comes and a particular terma is needed, the right disciple takes an incarnation. He is a bit crazy. He has the ability to enter a mystic state and have revealed to him by a dharma protector or a dakini —a female messenger or guide—the teaching or empowerment given directly by Padmasambhava.
    When a terton is given a scripture it isn’t actually in the form of a book. Or not at first. Sometimes what the terton has revealed to him is only a few scratches on a stone. Other times he reaches his hand inside a stone and pulls out a tightly rolled scrap of yellowed paper. On it will be a few ‘letters’ in an alphabet only a terton