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Shaman of the Glorious Copper-Coloured Mountain

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THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html hether seen from a Buddhist or shamanic Wviewpoint, Padmasambhava is a being who is able to manipulate reality and the beings who dwell in it in a very magical way, and there is no doubt that the teachings left by him have great power. He is an extremely important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, being the tantric Buddha, and sometimes is reffered to as Padmakara or Guru Rinpoche. As the ‘First Shaman’ he provides a role model for practitioners and the many legends that surround him link back to the pre-historic shamanic world of the Himalayas. These legends were recorded by his Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal after he came to Tibet in the 9th century, and his birth was predicted by the Buddha, who, before he died, said that one even greater than himself would be born in a lotus flower to teach the ways of tantra. PADMASAMBHAVA’S LIFE Guru Rinpoche’s story began at the ‘Ocean of Milk’ or Lake Danakosha in the Land of Odiyana on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where according to legend, in the reign of king Indrabodhi, he appeared miraculously in a beautiful red lotus blossom, as an eight-year-old child holding a dorje (see picture) and a lotus. He immediately began giving teachings to those around. Indrabodhi the king did not have a son, but had been doing ceremonies and spiritual practices for some time in order to gain one. On the day of a full moon, he opened the doors to his three thousand treasuries and gave all the treasure to the poor and needy until it was gone. But still the poor kept coming, even though he had no more to give. The poor who had not received treasure told the king that if he did not give treasure to them, then all the giving he had done in the past would be meaningless. When the king heard this he decided to get endless treasure to give away, and so he travelled to Lake Danakosha to seek a wish-fulfiling jewel held by Charumati, the Shaman of the daughter of Naga the serpent spirit. After he had found the jewel, the king came upon the miraculous child in the lotus. The king Glorious was so delighted at finding the son he had prayed for, that he took the boy home, made him Copper-Coloured a prince and named him Padmasambhava, which means ‘The Lotus born one’. The prince grew up and married princess Mountain Prabhadhari, but in time realised he would not be able to teach and empower people, or bring them to Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche is considered enlightenment if he remained a prince. So he asked to be the tantric Buddha who first brought King Indrabodhi’s permission to leave the court. Buddhism to Tibet, but to many shamans in the Himalayas he is considered to be the ‘first shaman’ Top: a gilded bronze statue of Guru Rinpoche. Nicholas Breeze Wood In the complexities of Tibetan Buddhist art he can quite easily identified by the way he sits and by what he holds. A katvanga (tantric staff) sits in the crook of his left arm, while his left hand holds a kapala (a bowl made from the top of a human skull). His right hand holds a dorje or vajra (diamond thunderbolt), and his hat sprouts three eagle feathers. S 12 H WINTER 2005 THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html His request was refused. So in he travelled over gradually taught Tsogyal all of his Below Left: order to escape, Padmasambhava the whole country, spiritual teachings and rituals, and the Katvanga, deliberately let the trident he was when she had achieved spiritual or tantric staff carrying fall and kill the son and and is said not to have maturity, she began to travel on which Guru wife of one of the ministers of the left ‘even the space her own, gathering followers. Rinpoche carries court. This liberated them from the of a horse-hoof’ where Padmasambhava remained in has a mixture of Buddhist, negative karma they were carrying, he didn’t walk. As he Tibet for some years, during which but because of this ‘crime’, time he travelled over the whole shamanic and Padmasambhava was banished. travelled, he blessed country, and is said not to have left Hindu symbols upon it He travelled to Bodhgaya, the all the mountains, ‘even the space of a horse-hoof’ place of the Buddha’s lakes and caves in the where he didn’t walk. As he The top part of the staff begins enlightenment, as well as many land as places where travelled, he blessed all the other sacred places, in order to mountains, lakes and caves in the with a double inspire others with the Buddha’s it was possible to land as places where it was dorje which is in effect four teachings. As he travelled he gain sacred power possible to gain sacred power. He stylised eagle received teachings from many founded the Nyingma tradition of claw wands great Buddhist scholars. different lands where he Tibetan Buddhism, the oldest which face the He then took princess conquered spirits and demons, school of Buddhism in Tibet. four directions, Mandarava, the daughter of the before eventually coming to Tibet. He also gave many predictions above this are king of Zahor, as his spiritual for the future, and concealed three human partner. The king was outraged, ARRIVAL IN TIBET countless hidden secret teachings heads, a freshly and one day, while begging, In Tibet, the King, Trisong Deutsen and magical objects, or terma. He severed head, Padmasambhava was arrested, had a longing to spread the hid these terma to prevent the a decomposing and burned alive. But teachings of the Buddha, so he teachings from being destroyed in head and a Padmasambhava showed his invited a great teacher from India, the desperate times to come. skull. These represent power by transforming the blazing Khenpo Bodhisattva to teach there. For each of these hidden amongst many pyre into a cool lake, in the centre As soon as the people of Tibet treasures Padmasambhava other things, of which he sat on a lotus flower. heard the Buddhist teachings, predicted the time of their finding, the three This so impressed the king that they wanted to make a great the person who would find them, worlds and the he allowed his daughter to go temple. However, the old and the person who would keep three times with Padmasambhava, and spirits of Tibet interfered, the teaching or object. (past, present together they went to the and stopped the temple Some of these terma are actual and future) mountain cave of Maratika from being built. So the physical objects and texts (sa- At the very tip in Nepal. According to king sent messengers to gter), others are teachings that of the staff is legend, it was here that they invite the renowned come through visions (dag-snang), generally found performed rituals to make master Padmasambhava or the voices of invisible beings a trident, the themselves immortal. to come to Tibet to help (snyan-rgyud). Others are ‘mind symbol of Shiva, When they had achieved them. treasures’ (dgongs-gter), but on some immortality, they went to The king and channelled directly through divine katvangas (such convert the people of Padmasambhava met in inspiration and automatic writing. as the one here) Padmasambhava’s home in the year 809 C.E. at the Perhaps the most famous terma there is an extra dorje Odiyana to Buddhism. Again Tamarisk Forest in central text written by Padmasambhava is whilst begging, he was Tibet, at a place called the Bardo Thodol, widely known as Below: An Native recognised as the banished Red Rock. Here the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’. American eagle’s prince, and was once more Padmasambhava Padmasambhava bound all of foot bundle and a burned in a huge pyre of performed a ceremony the spirits in Tibet under oath to dorje to show sandalwood. to bring all the gods, serve the Buddhist teachings, and the similarity between them Yet again he quenched spirits and demons of the entrusted them to guard the the flames, and both he and land under his command. terma treasures. He Mandarava appeared He then laid the also left physical unharmed on a lotus flower foundation for the great signs of himself at in the centre of a lake. temple of Samye and many places to This time they each wore employed all the gods inspire future a garland of skulls to and demons who had generations, such as symbolise the spiritual earlier stopped the imprints of his body, goal of freedom from the building, to help him. hand prints and cycle of death and rebirth. In gratitude the king footprints.
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