NYINGMA

  Guru Rinpoche

The Buddha, like a skillful physician, treated his followers with a wide range of different spiritual remedies that perfectly matched their individual varying mental caliber and temperaments.  Because of this, the Buddhist world inherited a great multitude of spiritual ideals. However, this diversity of tenets and schools can be categorized into two sets of thoughts: the greater and the lesser vehicles, better known as Mahayana and Hinayana.  They can be further divided into nine Yanas (schools).

The Three Sutrayanas of

(1)            Sravakas (2)            Pratyeka Buddha’s (3)            Boddhisattvas

The Three Outer Tantrayanas of  (1)        Kriya Tantra (2)        Charya Tantra (3)        Yoga Tantra

The Three Inner Tantrayanas of (1)            Mahayoga (2)            Anuyoga (3)        Atiyoga

These nine Yanas constitute the entire pronouncements of the Buddha.  The teachings of the nine Yanas flourished in India where they were practiced and propagated by great saint-scholars both en masse and in parts.

In 433 AD, during the reign of the twenty-eighth Tibetan monarch, Lha Thothori Nyentsen, Tibet first saw the scriptures and symbols of Buddha dharma.  The real advent of Buddhism began during the rule of Songtsen Gampo, the thirty-third king, who is believed to have been an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of compassion.  By the middle of the eighth century, the propagation of the Buddha’s teachings on the roof of the world peaked under the reign of Tibet’s thirty-eighth monarch Trisong Deutsen.

The great Guru Padmasambhava, Acharya Shantarakshita, Mahapandit Vimalamitra and hundreds of other Indian saint-scholars were invited to Tibet, and several Tibetan translators were sent to India and Nepal to bring back the sacred words of the Buddha.  The Monastery of Samye was built under the patronage of King Trisong Deutsen.  Acharya Shantarakshita ordained the first Tibetan monks, thus initiating one of the world’s largest systems of monasticism. The Tibetan and Indian masters engaged in translating the teachings of the Buddha from Indian languages into Tibetan language.  Besides the teachings then extended in Central India, Guru Padmasambhava, through his superhuman powers, retrieved the Dharma prevalent in Oddhiyana, Burma, China, West Asia, Naga and Deva realms and brought them to Tibet.  At the same time, Guru Padmasambhava and other masters widely dispensed the instructions and practices of the nine Yanas with emphasis on the supreme Dzogchen teachings, thereby enlightening thousands of Tibetan neophytes.

This dispensation, which later came to be known as Ngagyur (Earlier Translation) went down in Tibetan history as an unequaled era of Buddhist civilization that was the most complete, flourishing and flawless.  To fully appreciate this event, one might well consider the words of Atisha, a Bengali sage who visited Tibet in the eleventh century.  Atisha, when he saw the voluminous ancient manuscripts in Samye Monastery, remarked, “such a dispensation as this (during Trisong Deutsen’s time); so complete, widespread and lively, has seldom occurred even in India.”

The Dharma prospered continuously for over one and a half centuries.  The forty-second king, Tri Ralpachen, worked towards the furtherance of Dharma by strengthening the religious code of conduct.  He drafted a new set of rules for translation and built new monasteries.  The thirty-second (Songtsen Gampo), thirty-eighth (Trison Deutsen) and the forty-second (Tri Ralpachen) monarchs became the most celebrated royal heritage of Buddhism in Tibet and are referred to as the “Three Righteous Hereditary Kings”.

The entire Tibetan Buddhist culture received a major setback at the hands of Langdarma, the forty-third king. Convinced by anti-Buddhist and Shamanistic councilors and ministers, he launched a massive attack on the Dharma and its accessories until his assassination five years later.  Hundreds of monks and lay practitioners were forcibly disrobed, banished, tortured or killed.  Many monasteries were destroyed and some of them were converted into slaughterhouses.  As a result, the Dharma was banned from public view.  Tibet underwent a severe debacle (should it not be decline?) and broke off into small sovereign states.  Despite the grave situation, the Ngagyur teachings continued to thrive without much harm or deterioration. The silent yogies in solitary caves and scholars who had escaped to Eastern Tibet preserved the teachings and revived them immediately after Langdarma’s demise.  The Light of the Dharma began to shine once again in the Land of Snows.

By the beginning of the eleventh century, Tibet emerged from its decline and saw a renaissance of her Buddhist heritage.  As the Dharma began to spread again, large numbers of people adhered to the existing old system but many others followed the new teachings pouring in from India and Nepal through new pundits and translators.  The old system came to be known as Ngagyur or Nyingma (Nyingmapa)—Ancient sect—and the later system as Sarma—New sect.  In the centuries that followed, the new tradition further divided into three major and many minor sects.

The Ngagyur teachings, since its establishment by “Khen Lop Choe Sum” (Khenpo Shantarakshita, Lopon Padmasambhava and Chogyal Trisong Deutsen) passed through three different stages—the Nyag, Ngub and Zur eras—upheld by successive generations at each stage.  From the beginning of the current millennium, the Ngagyur School has received frequent augmentations to its canonical corpus of teachings.  The Tertons or Treasure Revealers rediscovered the hidden teachings that Guru Padmasambhava had buried in safe places in order to protect them from damage and defilement.  During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Ngagyur Order gradually grouped into six separate mother monasteries with hundreds of smaller affiliated monasteries.  Mindrolling and Dorjedrak monasteries were established in what is now central Tibet.  Shechen and Dzogchen were founded in central Kham, while Kathog and Palyul were set up in the south - eastern part of upper Kham.

In spite of repeated political discord and anarchy, the Ngagyur tradition flourished unimpeded in the great monasteries, edifying hundred and thousands of its followers.  It gave birth to unexcelled Tibetan masters like Longchenpa, Rangzom, Jigmed Lingpa, Mipham and many others who were thoroughly enlightened saints and scholars of profound erudition.  The school took up both philosophical study and practice of the entire teaching of Buddha in the context of the nine Yanas with emphasis on the meditational practice of the three inner tartars.  Dzogchen, the supreme and secret aspect of the Buddha dharma, became the central theme of teaching and path of practice.  The instructions of Dzogchen (Great Perfection) are unquestionably the swiftest path to enlightenment for practitioners, whether from monastic or lay communities.

The Tibetan culture as a whole encountered yet another critical juncture in its history under Communist China in 1959.  The Cultural Revolution of Mao brought death to many religious people and the destruction of objects of religious importance.  As a result, the world witnessed an exodus of Tibetan masters and their teachings to India and elsewhere.  The Tibetan Buddhist culture, under the august leadership of His Holiness The Dalai Lama and owing to the unwavering faith of its adherents, has survived and regained momentum and is now flourishing in unprecedented dimensions.

We must be deeply grateful to H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche, the first supreme head of the Ngagyur Nyingma tradition, H.H. Dilgo Khyentse, the second and H.H. Penor Rinpoche, the third supreme head, and all other masters of the sect for their selfless and untiring service towards the furtherance of Ngagyur teachings.  Most of the Nyingma monasteries in Tibet have been renovated and most of them have twin centers in India or other parts of the world.  Once again, they are overflowing with monks and lay devotees engaging in the ardent pursuit of learning and mediation on the Kama, the teaching of lineal transmission, and the Terma, the “re-discovered secret teachings”.

We are indeed fortunate to have inherited the precious gift of the complete teachings of Lord Buddha intact in the form of nine Yanas with their original flavor and authenticity, so pure and pristine.

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