(By Tsem Rinpoche)

Dear friends,

I wanted to share some of my interactions with one of the greatest scholars, teachers, abbot emeritus, and masters of the Gelugpa tradition of our time – the great Mongolian Abbot Emeritus of Drepung Gomang Monastery, who was renowned for his scholarly knowledge and his pure monkhood within Gaden, Sera, and Drepung Monasteries. But before I step into that, I would like to share a little bit of background information, which will help to relate the story.

The great Mongolian lama and abbot emeritus of Drepung Gomang Monastery, Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima. Click to enlarge.

When I was 18 years old back in 1983, I had the immense good karma to meet and receive teachings from His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. It was during my time with Zong Rinpoche that I had requested divination from him, whether to be an actor because I thought if I could make money I could support the Dharma centre I was living in at that time, which was Thubten Dhargye Ling; or to be a monk. I wanted to be both, and the reason for both was to practise Dharma. I thought if I could do Dharma by making money for the Dharma centre, which needed the money very much, it would support my teacher, and at the same time I thought if I could become a monk, I could engage in retreats, study, practices, and also support my teacher that way. So either way, I was OK and decided to bring this up to His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche who did divination for me. Divination is the art of foretelling the future, and sometimes the past, using dice. Divination would require the teacher to be highly practised and very connected to a certain deity so that the future, or in some cases the past, would be revealed through the dice. There are instances of teachers who use the dice to humbly cover up their clairvoyance, through which they can actually see directly into your question and answer it. However, since they don’t want to reveal their clairvoyance, they use the dice to mask it.

In any case, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s dice divination came out that I should be a monk, and that it would be more beneficial. The minute Kyabje Zong Rinpoche gave me that answer, I folded my hands and I promised him that I would become a monk. For me, a promise of that nature to my teacher is a promise that I will hold for the rest of my life. I’m not a very flippant person when it comes to Dharma. I’m not a person that changes my mind, or thinks too much when it comes to Dharma. When I make a promise, I make a promise, because I have thought about it thoroughly. So when I made that promise to Kyabje Zong Rinpoche when I was 18, over 30 years ago, it was for life. I believe keeping promises to my teacher, as stated in the tantras, is the root of all attainments in meditational practices. So to be flippant with one’s teacher is to actually create the causes for us not to gain higher insight in our meditations, according to Vajradhara.

After I promised to become a monk, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, immediately without me prompting, said to me, “If you are going to become a monk, you can come to Gaden Monastery and you can stay in my personal house, which is Zong Ladrang [residence of a lama] and I will take care of you, and you will join Pukhang Khangtsen.” Khangtsens are fraternity houses in the monastery that house monks from certain regions. If you come from one region, you will join a certain fraternity house because the language, the customs, and the practices will be easier. So let’s say you get one person from one part of Tibet, their accent and their language can be completely different from another part of Tibet. So if you mixed them up in one house, it would take many years to master each other’s dialect before you can give teachings. So the purpose of having these houses or khangtsens was that monks from different regions can join the same regional house. Therefore the communication would be instant until they mastered the central dialect, which was more predominant.

When I made the promise to my root guru Kyabje Zong Rinpoche to become a monk, he cut some of my hair in acceptance of my promise. Here Kyabje Zong Rinpoche is cutting a part of my hair to mark my promise. We must always keep our promises to our guru as he is the source of our knowledge in spirituality. I was 18 years old at the time. This was in Los Angeles, California, USA.

So Kyabje Zong Rinpoche told me to go into Pukhang House and I said, “I promise.” So basically I had promised Kyabje Zong Rinpoche to enter Gaden Shartse Monastery and to enter Pukhang Khangtsen fraternity house, and to live in Zong Ladrang. These are the three promises I had made Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, to him directly and there was no other two ways about that. It was as simple and straightforward as that. So once I made such I promise, I kept that promise. From then on, until I was 22-23 years old, my plan was to get to Gaden Shartse Monastery which I eventually accomplished.

A giant statue of Altan Khan in Dazhao Monastery. The monastery is located in Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia. Click to enlarge.

To backtrack a little, during the time of His Holiness the great 3rd Dalai Lama Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso, he was issued a threat from the then-leader of the Mongols, Altan Khan. The threat said that he was to go to Mongolia to meet Altan Khan, or Altan Khan would invade Tibet. The threat came about because Altan Khan had met a student of the 3rd Dalai Lama, who was an ordinary monk but had shown unprecedented calmness in his nature, learning in his speech, and sacredness in his countenance. This impressed Altan Khan very much, and when Altan Khan asked this monk, “Where did you learn from? Who did you learn from? What are you? Who are you?”, this monk had told him, “My teacher is Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso.” And so Altan Khan thought that if the student was this great, so learned, so calm in his countenance and so sacred in his appearance and behaviour, his teacher must be even greater. So he wanted to see this monk’s teacher.

Due to that chance encounter with the student of Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso, Altan Khan demanded to see Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso for himself and being the Mongol ruler, conqueror, invader and leader that he was, he got what he wanted. He didn’t request, beg, ask, and get on his knees – he demanded. In that way, he wrote a letter demanding the 3rd Dalai Lama to travel to Mongolia. So the 3rd Dalai Lama, to stave off invasion, although he wasn’t a leader but a well-known lama of Tibet, went to Mongolia to meet Altan Khan.

His Holiness the 3rd Dalai Lama Sonam Gyatso, with the yidam Guhyasamaja on the top right, and the Dharma protector Brahmarupa Mahakala on the bottom left. Click to enlarge.

According to legend, it is said that when he first arrived, Altan Khan had pitched a tent on the Mongolian side of the border to receive the Dalai Lama. When the Dalai Lama arrived, Altan Khan immediately said to the Dalai Lama, “I heard you are a very powerful lama and that you are a great being. Prove to me you are powerful.” So it is said that the 3rd Dalai Lama gave an occult glance over to a nearby river and it flowed backwards instead of the normal forward. This impressed Altan Khan very much. The Dalai Lama then made requests to Altan Khan, after Altan Khan had become his disciple. During that time in Mongolia they practised the worship of a fire god called Ogdan, who demanded human blood and animal sacrifices. Altan Khan replaced this god with Six-Armed Mahakala and instead of blood, offered up milk and yoghurt, as requested by Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso. This was the beginning of the end of the warlike nature of the Mongols, who through Altan Khan being devoted to Sonam Gyatso, became Buddhist. He not only became Buddhist, he also ordered his subjects to become Buddhists and follow the Gelugpa school of Buddhism. So this relationship with the Mongols became very strong and bonded, and so all of Mongolia and the majority of Mongol peoples over all came to practise the Gelugpa school of Buddhism. The Gelugpa school spread all over Mongolia and countries such as Kalmykia, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, and all the other places where Mongols have settled, Siberia too. And because of this, Mongol people started to trickle into Tibet, from the time of the 3rd Dalai Lama up till today, where many young Mongol men join Gaden, Sera and Drepung Monasteries. Less join Gaden, but more join Sera, and there are many in Drepung, especially Drepung Gomang Monestery. They joined to study and become great scholars. In fact, there were many great Mongolian scholars, masters, abbots, and teachers that arose from the studies of the three great monasteries of Tsongkhapa. It is in that way that the Mongol connection came about, which stemmed from the 3rd Dalai Lama Sonam Gyatso.

Fast forward to present day. Back in January 1988, I arrived at Gaden Shartse Monastery in South India, Mungod, Karnataka State for the first time in my life. I arrived in the nearby city of Hubli, took a taxi with a few other monks, we shared the costs, and entered Gaden Shartse Monastery. I was dropped off in front of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s house. Before I entered, I prostrated three times to my guru’s house and requested permission to enter because I thought it was a great honour to live in my guru’s house, to be invited into my guru’s house, to eat his food, use his property, walk the ground he walked on, and to generally be in my guru’s house. I thought it was an extremely great honour, a great blessing, and I thought that by living in my guru’s house, it would exponentially bless my spiritual path to gain more insight because it is such a blessed place. It was said by Milarepa that the holiest pilgrimage spot we can ever go to is the residence of our guru. It is even more profound than any other pilgrimage site because we have a special relationship with our guru, who confers the Dharma to us.

So, like that, if this person is our living personal Buddha, wouldn’t his residence be a holy and sanctified place to practise, meditate, learn, and do retreats? So knowing this, entering my guru’s house was a great honour and a great privilege for me. Knowing that, I prostrated three times before I entered the gate and started using the facilities and living there. Nothing should be taken for granted, nothing that anyone gives you, or that you use should be taken for granted because everything can be taken away at any time. The accumulative positive karma that we have that would ripen into us getting positive help for our spiritual practice can be taken away at any time. After all, how much positive karma did we each accumulate? How long will it last us? How do we know? Therefore to live in my guru’s house was the greatest of all honours, the greatest of all accumulations and the opening of positive karma, this is what I thought. So after prostrating three times on the ground to my guru’s house, it was in the afternoon, I walked in, and I was greeted by his assistant who I had met in the US. After some tea, some rest, and a little talk I was shown to my room there. I cleaned up my room and unpacked my few possessions. At that point I had already been ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama just two months prior, in north India.

I was elated, happy, excited, and joyous to finally make it to Gaden Monastery as a monk, living in my guru’s house, as I had fulfilled my promise to Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. Of course, the promise is ongoing. I didn’t just show up and disappear. I have to show up and remain. So my promise is ongoing. But there was a lot of sadness and melancholy because when I entered the prayer hall of Zong Ladrang, instead of meeting my guru, I saw this stupa in which his cremated remains were enshrined, as per tradition. It was very sad to see my guru inside a stupa and not meet the living Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. But in any case, whether my guru is alive or passed away, a promise is a promise and that’s what I kept thinking. I was glad to fulfil it and had no regrets. You have to understand, I was not negatively compelled to fulfil the promise to my guru, but I was happily fulfilling the promise, because the root of all attainments is keep our samaya with our guru. And that was how I did it.

Now I was settled into my house. I don’t know Gaden Shartse, I’ve never been in Gaden Shartse before, I have not even gone on a tour of the monastery. I don’t know what is nearby, I don’t know what other monasteries are nearby. I had never been there and I didn’t hear much at all and everything was brand new to me. As I settled in, after a few days, I think on the second or third day, a car appeared in front of Zong Ladrang. And in it was a very heavy-set jovial monk and everybody affectionately called him Chonphel Gyakpa. He was said to eat seven large Tibetan breads and one full huge thermos of tea every day for breakfast. He had a healthy huge appetite. He was laughing and he was jovial. He was massive and looked like a sumo wrestler, a Tibetan one. But he was always smiling and laughing and he was very bright.

Drepung Gomang Monastery in South India which Gaden Monastery is very nearby also. This place is called Mundgod and the nearest city is Hubli in Karnataka state.

He came out of the car with another monk and came to Zong Ladrang, talked to the assistants there and they were brought to my room. He told me, through a translator, that the great abbot emeritus Kensur Ngawang Nyima of Drepung Gomang Monastery requested me to come down to meet him. I had never heard of this lama, I had never heard of Drepung, I didn’t know anything. So I said to the assistant of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, “Should I go?” and the assistant said, “Yes, you should go. He is a great lama, he is very well-known, and obviously he wants to see you. He even sent a car.” Mind you in Mungod, in 1988, sending a car was a big deal because nobody had cars. Everybody rode bicycles. So here I am, a big nobody, and a car was sent to see me, to escort me, and monks from the monastery, monastic officials of Drepung Gomang. So I was like, “OK.” I grabbed a khata. I went in the car with Gen Chonphel Gyakpa and the other monk. I was taken on a 20-minute ride, out of Gaden, past Camp No. 3 Tibetan Settlement, to Drepung Monastery. I was dropped off a short distance away from the private residence of Kensur Rinpoche Ngawang Nyima.

I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what was going on. So I alighted from the car, walked into the room and saw this great master. He was frail-looking but he was not frail. He was petite but his personality and character filled the room. He was quite daunting. He had a very low but strong voice, and he spoke Mongolian. At that time, I spoke Mongolian. My dialect could match his dialect, although there were differences in words, the dialects could match. It’s kind of like an English person who speaks Cockney with a person from Texas, who speaks with Southern slang meeting together and speaking to each other in English. You know, there are differences, differences in idioms but you can still understand each other.

I walked in and prostrated three times, offered a khata and he told me to sit down. He promptly told me that he is Mongolian, and in the past in Drepung Gomang there was hundreds of Mongolian masters and teachers and monks but due to the 1959 Cultural Revolution, a lot of the monks were left behind and new ones were not able to come to Drepung from Mongolia anymore because Mongolia had their own little revolution. So he was one of the few Mongol monks left and they predominantly congregated in Hamdong Khangtsen. He continued to tell me that Mongol monks enter Drepung Gomang Monastery, they don’t enter Gaden and they don’t enter Sera, they enter Drepung Gomang Monastery. He promptly told me that he is a Mongol, I am a Mongol, we are very direct and we talk to each other directly, so he is going to come out with it. And this is what he said, “You are in the wrong monastery. You are in the wrong khangtsen. You are in the wrong place. So I have escorted you here because I heard you are an American Mongolian, and I want you to join Drepung Gomang Monastery. Come here and study with us.” And that was the point of him inviting me over. Needless to say, I was honoured, taken aback and also a little confused.

So I folded my hands, I respectfully told Kensur Ngawang Nyima of my promise to Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, and why I had to be in Gaden, and why I am in Pukhang Khangtsen. He listened. We had a translator but I spoke mostly Mongolian with him, and a little bit through the translator. He again repeated himself, this time much more assertively, “You are a Mongol. You don’t belong in Gaden. You belong in Drepung Gomang and you should come here. You are in the wrong place.” So I questioned him gently, “Zong Rinpoche is wrong for inviting me there?” He ignored that question. And he said to me, “You are in the wrong place. You have to come to Drepung Gomang Monastery.”

Dharma protector of the Great Scope of the Lam Rim and protector of Drepung Gomang Monastery, Six-Armed Mahakala. His practice is prevalent among Mongolian Buddhists thanks to His Holiness the 3rd Dalai Lama.
Click to enlarge.

By now I didn’t fold my hands; I was very irritated and I said to this great lama, “Look, I made a promise to Kyabje Zong Rinpoche to stay in Gaden, to stay in Pukhang Khangtsen, to stay in Zong Ladrang, and I cannot break that promise. I have to stay there. Anyway, I don’t know you, I don’t know Drepung, I’ve never heard of you, I don’t know anything about this place. Why should I come here? I don’t know anything about you.” So Kensur Rinpoche manifested some irritability with me and this is what he said, he raised his skinny arm into the air, pointed upwards with his index finger and said, “If you stay in Gaden Shartse Monastery, the protector of Gomang, the Six-Armed Mahakala will not leave you alone.” That inferred that he would disturb me until I went to Drepung. So I thought to myself, “Geez!” I was irritated and I said back to him – which I shouldn’t have – “Well if Six-Armed Mahakala doesn’t have any compassion and bodhicitta, I guess he will disturb me!”

Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima was a very learned master, loved and respected throughout the monasteries. Click to enlarge.

Promptly Kensur Rinpoche replied to me that I am rude, an upstart and how dare I say that to him. So I folded my hands and said, “I’m very sorry. I’m very sorry I said that but let me reiterate: I cannot come to Drepung. I cannot join Drepung, I already made a promise.” At that I folded my hands and I excused myself, “I must return back, it’s quite late.” So I got up and I left to go to the car. Just before I was able to step into the car, Kensur Rinpoche sent his assistant over and told me to come back inside. So I went back inside. In a very calm, very affectionate voice, he said to me, “Look, there are not many of us Mongols in the monastery any more. It’s just the two of us. We had our little difference. You are not going to listen to me because you are very stubborn, but let’s not part as enemies, let’s part on good grounds.” Then he gave me some biscuits and he gave me a yellow inner shirt called a ngulen with a khata. He said, “You may not be coming to Drepung, you are going to stay in Gaden. Never mind. Study well, do your studies well, don’t waste time.” He said, “You see I am an old man and people feed me because I have some knowledge. So when you are an old man, if you want people to take care of you, you should have some knowledge too.” And he affectionately blessed me and told me to not be a stranger, to come to see him from time to time, and update him on what I am studying. He basically told me not to hold to heart what our discussion was and he sent me off. And I thought, “What a gentle and kind lama he is.” And I was very moved and very touched.

So I went back to the car with his gifts in my hand, and was very honoured that I had gifts from a high lama. Chonphel Gyakpa and all that didn’t look very pleased with me but they were courteous, because I had dared speak up to the great lama of the monastery. What an upstart! They gave me that look like, “We have to be nice to you, but we are not very pleased.” They took me back to Gaden, they didn’t walk me in this time and then they left. And it spread all over Drepung that I spoke back and some people found it amusing, but a lot of people thought that I was quite daring.

Drepung Gomang Monastery’s Mongolian Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima was a great teacher of the Buddhist doctrine, and the teachings of Tsongkapa’s golden lineage in particular

I will never forget the words of this great Mongolian abbot emeritus, which was to study hard, that I had come from far, and also not to waste time. It wasn’t just the words; it was the affection, it was the warmth, the care he exuded for a person he had just met – a fellow Mongol countryman. Later, I heard from various monks of Drepung Monastery that this Kensur Ngawang Nyima was highly respected by the Dalai Lama. And at one time, the Dalai Lama had come to the monastery to give some teachings. He was sitting on a high throne and all the other abbots, ex-abbots and abbot emeriti were sitting in front of the Dalai Lama in the teaching hall, among thousands of monks. And it was said there was one passage that His Holiness the Dalai Lama could not remember very clearly. He asked the abbots there, “Who said this? And in what text?” All the other abbots were scratching their heads because the passage was very obscure. But Kensur Ngawang Nyima, in his typical Mongol directness, pointed to the Dalai Lama and said, “It’s in this text. It’s said by this scholar.” And what was amazing was that something as obscure as that, this great scholar lama could remember and immediately tell the Dalai Lama. Then the Dalai Lama thought about it and remembered and said, “Yes, that was the text,” because he was reminded. As he was thinking about it, Kensur Ngawang Nyima was pointing and saying, “Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Aren’t I right? Aren’t I right?” And this was seen by the sangha there, that the Dalai Lama bowed his head gently and said, “Yes, you are right, sir. Yes, sir.” Even the Dalai Lama was very humble and gentle with this old scholar because everybody knew what a great master he was. He was even respected by His Holiness. This story showed a lot of warmth and affection, and also the fiery direction of this master, the descendant of the Mongol conquerors.

These are the kinds of stories I heard about him, but also he was highly respected in Drepung and had hundreds of students. The great geshes and scholars of the monastery were all his students, even the preeminent master, scholar and yogi Kyabje Dagom Rinpoche was one of his students.

Drepung Gomang’s Mongolian Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima. Click to enlarge.

Over time, I went back and visited this great Mongolian Kensur Rinpoche at least a few times a year, and this time I went back more humble, with gifts, with khatas, and whenever I went to see him I would prostrate three times, I would make offerings to him, I would speak in a very humble manner because I realised who he was, I was told who he was, I was told about his greatness and his dedication. And that he had been offered a comfortable house and position in Switzerland. And that moving there, people would have taken care of his illnesses, his finances, and just be in a more comfortable environment and better weather conditions because it is very hot for him down there [in south India]. But he refused that offer because he said he could not abandon his students, he must return back to Drepung Gomang Monastery and give teachings, to pass the knowledge to them to create the next generation of teachers. It was this type of dedication to the Dharma and his students that brought him up to another level in the eyes of others in the monastery, which was that he was a real monk, he was dedicated to teaching, he was dedicated to the spreading of Dharma, towards creating the next generation of masters. Many of the older generation of Masters are this way, very dedicated to pass their knowledge to future generations and will endure much hardship in order to do so.  He was one of the last few great ones who had been fully educated in Tibet, among the other greats, and brought that knowledge across the Himalayas into exile.

So it was because of this that he was highly respected because he gave up offers of moving to foreign countries to live in the monastery with all the other monks, and to bear the hardships of the South Indian heat and so on, in order to disseminate the Dharma. So as I heard more and more tales and stories of his dedication, his purity as a monk, his knowledge, his scholarliness, and his dedication to education, I was very much humbled, so I went back again and again to visit him until his death. A few years later, his death was a great blow to the monastery and the whole monastery just sunk into sadness. I was very sad. I heard Kyabje Dagom Rinpoche was leading the death rites and rituals for this great master. There were seas of butter lamps lit in dedication to him and his works in the monastery. So I would like to say that I didn’t receive any personal teachings from him, but I did visit him often and that was my encounter with him. One of the greatest lamas, teachers, masters, and Abbot Emeritus of Drepung Gomang Monastic Institution in South India. One of the great scholars of our generation. And I had the great honour to meet him in this way and visit a few times. Here, I have come across some teachings by Drepung Gomang Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima, which I would like to present to the world, which have been recorded, which I found on the internet. It will be a blessing to see and hear this great Mongolian master.

With great humility and humbleness, I request Most Venerable Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Ngawang Nyima to always bless me that I may become a seasoned practitioner like himself.

Tsem Rinpoche

Khensur Rinpoche Ngawang Nyima’s Commentary on Prajnaparamita

Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/KhensurNgawangNyimaPrajnaparamitaFull.mp4

 
For more interesting information:

• H.H. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s Biography
• Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s Advice on Dorje Shugden’s Practice
• Kyabje Zong Rinpoche: Birth, Death & Bardo
• His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang
• Enthroning a Dharma king: the 13th Dagom Rinpoche
• The Passing of a Great Master: Kensur Konchok Tsering Rinpoche
• H.E. Kensur Rinpoche Jetsun Jampa Yeshe (1928-2011)
• Assisting Khensur Rinpoche Jetsun Lobsang Phende

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