“Students who wish to practice these profound instructions finally have a reliable source in English…the graphic illustrations of the Kālacakra worldy cosmos are also a beautiful addition to the work. Adele Tomlin’s fine translation of Bamda Gelek’s work will be of great benefit to anyone who studies and practises these teachings.” –Dr. Cyrus Stearns
“According to legend, once, while he was teaching, he discerned, through his extrasensory powers, that a group of monks in the audience had doubts about whether he possessed the full transmission of the Six Yogas, and more importantly, whether he had achieved realisation. He immediately scolded them, telling them that he had received the transmission from Jamgon Kongtrul himself, and that few people had devoted themselves more to the practice than he had. The monks were amazed that he had been able to read their minds, and terribly remorseful, never entertained such doubts again. The schedule for Yutok Monastery that Bamda Gelek created – which included six daily sessions of meditation and occasional lectures on the lives of famous masters – is said to have been so effective that even beginners could quickly achieve realisation….
…Toward the end of Bamda Geleg’s life, a vision of Mañjuśrī appeared to Bamda Gelek and told him that, ‘Even though you have not been of extraordinary benefit to others in your own lifetime, you will be of great benefit in the next one, when you will be reborn in the northern kingdom Shambhala as one of its rigden (rigs ldan) kings.’ Shortly after this vision of Mañjuśrī, in his sixty-first year, he passed away in meditative equipoise (thugs dams).” —from Introduction to The Chariot to the Four Kāyas (Tomlin, 2026)
Introduction
For the second day of the Saga Dawa month (according to the Tibetan calendar) am happy to announce and introduce the second edition publication and printing of my English-language translation of an important Jonang and Kālacakra instruction text The Chariot that Transports to the Four Kāyas, (longer title Stages of Meditation that Accomplish the Excellent Path of the Six-Branch Yogas of the Completion Stage of Glorious Kalacakra) by Tibetan Buddhist master, Thubten Bamda Gelek Gyatso (the Common Preliminaries section only).
There is a foreword to the book, by eminent scholar-translator, Dr. Cyrus Stearns, renowned in particular for his work on Jonang founder and master, Kunkhyen Dolpopa (see below). The first edition of this book was published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (2019). As I write in the Introduction:
“Toward the end of Bamda Geleg’s life, a vision of Mañjuśrī appeared to Bamda Gelek and told him that, ‘Even though you have not been of extraordinary benefit to others in your own lifetime, you will be of great benefit in the next one, when you will be reborn in the northern kingdom Shambhala as one of its rigden (rigs ldan) kings.’ Shortly after this vision of Mañjuśrī, in his sixty-first year, he passed away in meditative equipoise (thugs dams). His physical remains were placed in a stūpa that was built for him at Dzi-sib Monastery (‘dzi sribs dgon), a small Jonang monastery north of Dzamtang. Bamda Gelek wrote extensively on many subjects, but especially on all aspects of Kālacakra practice and theory. These writings are counted among the most extensive and authoritative works on Kālacakra to the present day. He also wrote widely on Prajñāparamita, on various Shangpa Kagyu subjects, on mandala drawing and construction, and his works on the Six Yogas of Nāropa are considered among the best and most detailed extant writings on the subject. His entire literary output is collected in twenty-two volumes.”
Copies of the book will be launched for purchase on all Amazon online outlets (from 18th May onwards) covering printing and paper costs, with a small proportion going to myself, the author, which is all used for more Dharma activities and research). One should only read it if one has received a Kālacakra empowerment from a qualified and recognised lineage master, and should be read with the guidance of a qualified lama or teacher.
A genuine Ri-mey (non-sectarian master): Bamda Gelek Gyatso (1880-1940)
Born in the village of “Bamda,” a few kilometres from Tsangwa Monastery in the Dzamthang valley of Amdo, Bamda Tubten Gelek Gyatso was educated within the Jonang tradition at Dzamthang as a child. Then, as a young man, Bamda Lama traveled to the Derge district of Kham in eastern Tibet and became immersed in the Ri-mey eclectic movement. While in Kham, he studied closely with Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye (1813-99) and Dzogchen Patrul Rinpoche (1880-87).
After several years of staying in Kham, Bamda Lama returned to his home in Dzamthang where he received extensive training in the Dro Kālacakra system (as held and practised by Dagpo Kagyu lineages, and Jonang). At that time, he studied intensively both Chogle Namgyal’s and Lochen Ratnabhadra’s instruction manuals (khrid yig) on the six-fold vajrayoga, the details concerning the specific yogic techniques and postures (‘khrul ‘khor), and the entire cycle of ancillary practices involved in the completion stage process of Kālacakra.
Bamda’s comprehension and experience of these complex subjects are made clear in his own writings, especially his writings on the Kālacakra practices. These remain some of the most extensive and authoritative works on the Kālacakra according to the Jonangpa.
The book, The Chariot that Transports to the Kingdom of the Four Kayas, contains a short biography of Bamda Gelek Gyatso, pulled together from primary and secondary sources, including the excellent paper, A Late Proponent of the Jo nang gZhan stong Doctrine: Ngag dbang tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho (1880–1940) by Dr. Fillipo Brambilla (University of Vienna) and the Treasury of Lives biography on Bamda Gelek, including some sections I translated from the Tibetan sources.
What is clear from these sources is that Bamda Gelek Gyatso was most certainly a ‘Ri-me’ (non-sectarian) master. Not as it gets misused these days in only words. Gyatso was not only an expert scholar learned in all the main Tibetan Buddhist traditions, of Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug (as well as Jonang) but he was a master-practitioner of Nāropa’s Six Yogas, Dzogchen and Kālacakra. He was considered to be a major tulku within the Gelugpa lineage too. As is detailed in the introduction to the book, Bamda Gelek, wrote it towards the end of his life in 1903, when he was 59 years old. He refers to Je Tāranātha’s texts in his commentary as well.
Oral transmission and Instruction by Chokyi Nangwa Rinpoche (Jonang Gyaltsab): Blissful central channel, Innate Kālacakra and heated disagreements about women, meat and more
I was given the oral transmission and instruction on the Bamda Geleg Kālacakra text in 2018, by Jonang Khenpo Chokyi Nangwa Rinpoche (now often referred to as Jonang Gyaltsab and considered by some to be the head of Jonang in exile). He kindly gave me one-to-one oral instructions on it, as well as the bigger and more detailed Hundred Blazing Lights text by Je Tāranātha, coming alone to my apartment in Norbulinka for a couple of hours, over about four to five months every other day. He would also respond immediately and quickly if I ever messaged him on Wechat messenger, and gave detailed, helpful answers.
It was my first Vajrayana teacher-translator close connection, and I remember thinking how fortunate but also strange it was for a English woman like me, to be able to spend such time on such a text with a Jonang Kālacakra practitioner and teacher from Amdo (with quite a strong Amdo accent too), mainly due to my having translated Je Taranatha’s Commentary on the Heart Sutra for my postgraduate thesis.
Chokyi Nangwa Gyaltsab was also the first teacher (in this lifetime) who gave me the innate Kālacakra empowerment (2017) and introduced me directly on the inner/subtle/secret level to the nature of bliss-emptiness and pulling up the orgasmic bliss energy by opening of the heart chakra and central channel. I also remember his hand mudras were beautiful and elegant indeed. And my endless passion and love for the beauty, danger, challenging vajra bliss path Vajrayana was sealed from that moment on.
We had disagreements for sure, I was an independent-thinking, intelligent, educated passionate young western woman not used to the male-dominated privileged and patriarchal ways of Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana (not much has changed there I suppose ha ha). I challenged Rinpoche a few times in person on the lack of women in positions of influence in Jonang in Tibet and in exile for example, and on his eating meat. Like Edward Henning, the main translator before me, I was also not impressed with the “shoddy” and inaccurate treatment of the translation of the teachings by Rinpoche’s monk attendant, who didn’t like me much because of it obviously. In some of my private meetings with Rinpoche I would ask him questions, that he did not want to answer, and he would sometimes yell, threw a book at me, raised his fists, but he always remained open to our connection despite that. On another occasion, his monk attendant yelled at me in a taxi in front of everyone “You are too sexy!”. One time, I even stormed up to the monastery and hammered the gate door with a big stick demanding answers as to what I considered disrespectful treatment as a woman. Although afflictions, obstacles, and wisdom-passions flared up, with Rinpoche even rushing to defend me physically, by punching a monk who had charged in to drag me out of the room I was having a meeting with Rinpoche in, there were no bans, court cases, or massive smear campaigns and online deception and bullying that followed it. In hindsight, Rinpoche kept his samaya with me (and all beings), and thus so did I.
As the disagreements/obstacles were getting intense though, after finishing the translation of the two Kālacakra texts, as well as some other Jonang texts on the Noble Tārā four-fold mandala offering in the Jonang tradition, I decided it was wiser to leave and go to Nepal to get some Kālacakra transmissions from the Kagyu lineage from Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche in late 2018 Due to my ongoing devotion and connection to the first teacher I met and took refuge vows from, 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley in 2015. Interestingly, when I first arrived at Benchen Monastery, I got a call from Chokyi Nangwa, I did not answer and blocked the Whatsapp. The rest as we say is history….into the frying pan into the fire!? Maybe I should have taken that call in hindsight….that said, it was a relief in some ways, as Sangye Nyenpa spoke fluent English, so we could converse in both English and Tibetan.
In any case, all’s well that ends well as Shakespeare said, and Rinpoche did not break his samaya with me it seems (and vice versa), and he introduced me many times to the nature of bliss and innate Kālacakra during our intense times together. Hence this small tribute of thanks and commemoration to him here. I will certainly try and get a copy of the new edition to him and his monks at the monastery near Norbulingka if possible. For my article about the Jonang and Shentong lineage holder (and consort of Je Tāranātha), Kunga Trinley Wangmo, whom some Jonang teachers at the time said I was like a manifestation of, see here. More on this perhaps in a future autobiography!
The text and new descriptive images of the Kālacakra visualisations
In the Introduction to the text, I write:
“This text ‘The Chariot that Transports One to the Kingdom of the Four Kāyas: Stages of Meditation that Accomplish the Excellent Path of the Six-Branch Yogas of the Completion Stage of Glorious Kālacakra’ [commonly referred to as ‘Stages of Meditation of the Excellent Path’] by Jonang master, Bamda Thubten Gelek Gyamtso, is a commentary and guiding instruction manual text of major importance in the Jonang tradition of the Six Yogas of Kālacakra. In this text, Bamda Gelek gives practical and clear guidance on how to practise all the stages of the Kālacakra: the common preliminaries, the uncommon preliminaries and the completion stage six vajra-yogas.
I found three publicly available editions of this text but have referred mainly to the modern book edition published by the Jonang Well-Being Association in India in 20101. The other editions of the text are an U-Med block print in the Collected Works of Bamda Gelek published by the Dzamthang monastery2 and another modern book edition published by the Sithron Mirig publishing house, in a collection of works of various Jonang masters3. I have not approached the text in an academic context and thus I have not produced a critical edition or extensive footnotes.
The study and preparation for the translation of this text began in October 2016, after attending the first year of a seven-year course on the Preliminaries of the Six Yogas of Kālacakra given by the Jonang Gyaltsab Chokyi Nangwa Rinpoche at his Jonang Kālacakra Six Yogas Meditation Monastery in Dharamsala, India. This was the first time I had come across the work of Bamda Gelek and these particular preliminary practises of Kālacakra.
Here, the five common preliminaries of the Kālacakra tradition according to the Dro lineage, contained in this text, are translated and published into written English for the first time. This was done at the request of Chokyi Nangwa Rinpoche who asked that the common and uncommon preliminaries be published separately. The instructions on the completion stage, the six yogas themselves, are only supposed to be given and disseminated in a private retreat or group situation, with students who have completed all the preliminaries and whom the lama thinks are ready to practise the completion stage.
Bamda Gelek states that he wrote the text ‘after being encouraged to do so by the Gelong Tsultrim Zangpo in Jayurti (bya yur tis)’ in the 15th year cycle of the water female rabbit [which is 1903], on the 8th of the third month. This means the text was written at the end of his life, when Bamda Gelek would have been 59 years old, one year before he passed away.
The translation of the text itself, is not based on a critical edition and has not been treated in a scholarly way, albeit there are footnotes and annotations where necessary.”
I also commissioned some new graphic designs from Felipe Zabala (who very kindly provided his service for free) using line drawings I produced of the descriptions of the Kālacakra Cosmos in the Mandala Offering practise. I hope these will be of benefit in visually making sense of the detailed descriptions of the Cosmos given by Bamda Gelek Gyatso and Tāranātha , and thus make it easier for practitioners to meditate on.
The history, origin and philosophy of the six Vajra-Yogas of Kālacakra and the common and uncommon Preliminaries is explained more in Je Tāranātha’s One Hundred Blazing Lights (which I also translated in 2018). Je Tāranātha explains there are seventeen lineages that came from India to Tibet, an excerpt from that text on those seventeen lineages has been already given on this website here.
Apologies any errors in the book that are mine and hope that this publication will be the start of more publications and translations on Kālacakra and that the teachings and practise of Kālacakra will flourish and survive.
Original Translation and Publication of Chariot to the Four Kāyas (2017) and Je Tāranātha texts on Kālacakra
The translation of this text was commenced in March 2017, at the request of Chokyi Nangwa Rinpoche, a Jonang teacher from Tibet, living in exile. During that time, I spent several months with Rinpoche alone going over the explicit and secret meaning of this text, as well as the other major Kālacakra text, One Hundred Blazing Lights, by Jetsun Tāranātha. The book was originally published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (2019) , translated and edited by myself and the print was sponsored by the Jonang Lama Yonten Gyaltso and Russian followers.
The only unpublished, translation I had seen on the Kālacakra Common Preliminaries was the short, root text by Jetsun Tāranātha called Seeing the Meaningful (mthong ba don ldan), translated by the late Edward Henning (see my memorial to Henning here). Before Henning passed away he sent me his translation of that short text and told me that the other two main texts on the Kālacakra practises, this one by Bamda Gelek Gyatso, and the heftier and more detailed commentary on ‘Seeing the Meaningful‘ by Tāranātha called One Hundred Blazing Lights, had yet to be translated. I prepared both of these and published them here, with the transmission and instruction of the same Jonang Rinpoche (but these have yet to be published as a hard copy book).
Foreword by Dr. Cyrus Stearns
The foreword for the book was provided by Dr. Cyrus Stearns, an eminent Tibetan Buddhist scholar and translator, and expert on the life, philosophy and history of Jonang masters, particularly that of Kunkhyen Dolpopa, one of the main founders and lineage holders of Jonang.
Stearns explained to me that he had previously done a draft translation of the Seeing the Meaningful, from teachings he had received on the Kālacakra Preliminaries and Six Yogas in the late 1980s. He stated that was was able to study that text in Nepal with his teacher, Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, and translated it orally three times when he taught the entire work in Nepal, Borneo, and the U.S. He explained that text, and the One Hundred Blazing Lights supplementary commentary, ‘are two of the most amazing works I’ve ever studied’. Stearns says of this new publication that:
“…students who wish to practice these profound instructions finally have a reliable source in English…the graphic illustrations of the Kalacakra worldy cosmos are also a beautiful addition to the work. Adele Tomlin’s fine translation of Bamda Gelek’s work will be of great benefit to anyone who studies and practises these teachings.”
I have specially re-created this image for the launch of the new book in gold and black as a tribute to the Kagyu lineage of Kālacakra via 3rd Karmapa and Ogyenpa (his teacher). For more on the Karmapas and Kālacakra, one of the main lineages that came into Tibet via Ogyenpa, see article the Karmapas and Kālacakra.
Copyright laws apply and any public use, reproduction or translations of the book/translation must have the specific permission of the translator/copyright holder.
Written by Adele Tomlin, 16th May 2026.