History of the Rangjung Peme Nyingtik

The Rangjung Peme Nyingtik has an inspiring history. Whenever he was in retreat in , Kyabje would recite a prayer composed by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo based on the Eight Herukas. When Rinpoche was twenty-one, while practicing at dawn, he perceived his body as the yidam deity with the eight herukas abiding in various parts of his body. This experience remained for a long time. Later, he went to Dzongsar Monastery to receive teachings from one of his main masters, Jamyang Khyentse Chokyl Lodro. While there, a group of people asked Rinpoche for the transmission of Guru Rinpoche's Seven-Chapter Supplication. In the annotations between each chapter are various stories about Guru Rinpoche. As Rinpoche was reading one of these, all of phenomena changed and the place became Samye during Guru Rinpoche's time. Guru Rinpoche's forms in various sizes showered down and dissolved into him. This brought back some visionary experiences he had had while doing retreat on the Eight Herukas. Suddenly, the text and practice containing the Three Roots came clearly and completely into his mind: the Rangjung Peme Nyingtik, with Guru as the , Hayagriva as the yidam, and Vjaravarahi as the . Rinpoche wrote it down and offered it to Chokyi Lodro, who said that the wording was very similar to that used in ancient . He said that this practice was supposed to have been revealed by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, but circumstances had not allowed it then, so it had come to Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Chokyi Lodro asked to receive the empowerment, and Rinpoche later wrote a daily sadhana. During the Cultural Revolution, a student hid the text in a cave to protect it, but it was destroyed in a fire. Many years later, when Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche visited Yanglesho, the sacred cave of Guru Rinpoche in , he was performing a ganachakra offering with Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, when suddenly he realized that this was the cave he had often seen in his childhood dreams. Trulshik Rinpoche did prostrations and insistently requested Rinpoche to write down whatever came into his mind. This is when he wrote down the Rangjung Peme Nyingtik for the second time. Many years later, when Tibet became more open, a monk from Surmang came with copies he had made of the original texts before they had been destroyed. The words were almost identical to the ones Khyentse Rinpoche had written at Yanglesho. Many people began to request teachings on this terma cycle, and Rinpoche gave the empowerment, reading transmission, and commentary to his close students a number of times. Now we have the opportunity to enter into the enlightened vision of this sadhana and transform our lives. Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche