Today, at Bokar Monastery, Karma Kagyu master HE 12th Gyaltsab Rinpoche began the initiation of the Five Tantric Deities of the Shangpa Kagyu tradition to Bokar Yangsi, Khenpo Donyo Rinpoche, tulkus, monastics and the public. I was fortunate to be in attendance (see photo below):
HE Gyaltsab Rinpoche’s oral translator told me today that the vast majority of the existent main commentaries and Sadhanas on the Five Tantric Deities practise of Shangpa Kagyu were composed by Tāranātha. For example, the empowerment text used today was written by Tāranātha. Both Jetsün Tāranātha and Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, certainly two of the greatest minds ever to appear in Tibet, considered the Shangpa Kagyu unique among all Tibetan lineages of Buddhism and wrote about it in various of their works. In his “jo nang khrid brgya’i brgyud pa’i lo rgyus kha skong” or “Supplement to the Transmission History of the 100 Instructions of the Jonangpas”, Tāranātha writes: “Even though the Shangpa lineage has spread throughout countless lineages of masters, the instructions and their meaning have never departed from each other. This is due to the firm seal of the dakini’s words. Since there are no polluting embellishments, the Shangpa Kagyu are at the very summit of all lineages of meditation practice.”
For more information on the Shangpa Kagyu lineage, one of the eight main practice lineages of Buddhism, see here.
What a small, small world indeed! Karma ripening. PHUN SUM TSOK!
དེ་རིང་འབོ་དཀར་དགོན་པ་ལ་རྒྱལ་ཚབ་རིན་པོ་ཆེས་ཤངས་པ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་རྒྱུད་སྡེ་ལྔའི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་དབང་ཀུར་གནང་པ་རེད། ཇོ་ནང་རྗེ་བཙུན་ཏཱ་ར་ནཱ་ཏ་ཤངས་པ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་བླ་མ་ཆན་པོ་རེད། དཔེར་ན་དེ་རེང་གི་དབང་ཀུར་ཀྱི་གཞུང་དཔལ་རྒྱུད་སྡེ་ལྔའི་དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་གྱི་ཆོ་ག་དོན་གསལ་རྒྱས་བྱེད་ཟར་ཏཱ་ར་ནཱ་ཏས་རྩོམ་པ་པོ་རེད།
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