His Holiness the 10th Panchen Lama with His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Dear friends around the world,

I found this beautiful picture that radiates warmth, love, spirituality and great gentle power. His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche to me was a living Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. Everything he did was to benefit others. He spent his whole sacred life learning Dharma, practicing Dharma, accomplishing Dharma and disseminating Dharma. When you were in his presence you felt so much compassion and wisdom radiating from him. I had the pleasure and honour to meet him once in Kathmandu. He blessed me by placing his huge soft holy hands on my head. I never received teachings from him, but that does not matter, to me he was a very holy being.

His Holiness the all knowing Gyalwa 10th Panchen Rinpoche underwent so many obstacles and physical challenges in Tibet. He never lost his presence of mind and he tirelessly worked for the welfare of others. He is considered an emanation of Amitabha Buddha and I have no doubts about that. He traveled, taught, and upheld the holy Dharma. He was the 10th Panchen in a long line of immaculate incarnations that traditionally reside at the glorious Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, Tibet. To me he seems like Tsongkhapa himself.

Here in this picture Panchen Lama presents a gift to Dilgo Khyentse. Dilgo Khyentse is so humble and crouched forward to receive it. This is a sign of having no ego, a truly attained being. This picture is such a testament to two great beings interacting for the benefit of us sentient beings. I am blessed to see this picture and I had to share it here. I am moved to see this. I treasure beings like these. For me it is as if Lama Tsongkhapa (H.H. 10th Panchen Lama) is meeting up with Guru Rinpoche (H.H. Dilgo Khyentse) in this photograph.

This is a beautiful picture showing harmony between such highly attained lamas from differing traditions. This is even more so since the ban on Dorje Shugden began. Since that time there have been accusations of religious intolerance against Dorje Shugden practitioners. His Holiness the 10th Panchen Lama was, however, a very strong practitioner of Dorje Shugden. In fact he has a large chapel dedicated to the protector in his Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, and even composed prayers to Dorje Shugden which can be found in his sungbum, or collected works. Seeing these pictures is testament to the fact that such religious intolerance did not exist before the ban. This is an example of what true practitioners are like, when you practice the teachings correctly, there is no disharmony. There is only love, care and tolerance towards each other.

Tsem Rinpoche

A warm photo of His Holiness the 10th Panchen Lama with His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Biography of His Holiness the 10th Panchen Lama

Lobsang Trinley Lhundrub Chokyi Gyaltsen was the 10th Panchen Lama of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism. He was often referred to simply as Chokyi Gyaltsen. He was born and given the name Gonpo Tseten on February 19, 1938 in today’s Xunhua Salar Autonomous County of Qinghai, to his parents Gonpo Tseten and Sonam Drolma.

When the 9th Panchen Lama entered clear light in 1937, two simultaneous searches for the 10th Panchen Lama produced two competing candidates, with the government in Lhasa (who had selected a boy from Xikang) and the 9th Panchen Lama’s officials (who picked Tseten) in conflict. The government of The Republic of China, then embroiled in the Chinese Civil War, declared its support for Tseten on June 3, 1949. Guan Jiyu, the head of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, joined Kuomintang Governor of Qinghai Ma Bufang in presiding over Tseten’s enthronement on June 11, as Chokyi Gyaltsen at Kumbum Monastery. The Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa still refused to recognize Chokyi Gyaltsen as the legitimate incarnation of the Panchen Lama.

Ma tried to persuade the Panchen Lama to accompany the Kuomintang government to Taiwan as they were losing the war, but the Panchen Lama declared his support for the Communist People’s Republic of China instead. In 1951, the Panchen Lama was to invited to Beijing as the Tibetan delegation was signing the 17-Point Agreement with the People’s Republic of China. He was officially recognised by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama when they met in 1952.

In September 1954, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama went to Beijing to attend the first session of the first National People’s Congress and to meet Mao Zedong and other leaders. The Panchen Lama was soon elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and in December 1954 he became the deputy chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In 1956, the Panchen Lama went to India on a pilgrimage together with the Dalai Lama.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru, His Holiness the Panchen Lama and Maharaja of Sikkim

When the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the Panchen Lama publicly supported the Chinese government so he could remain in Tibet to protect his people. The Chinese government made him chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region. After a tour through Tibet, in May 1962, he met Zhou Enlai to discuss a 70,000-character petition that dealt with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. The initial reaction was positive, but in October 1962, the Chinese authorities dealing with the population criticised the petition. Chairman Mao called the petition “… a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords.”

In 1964, he was publicly humiliated at Politburo meetings, dismissed from all posts of authority, declared ‘an enemy of the Tibetan people’, had his journal confiscated and used against him, and then imprisoned. He was 26 years old at the time. The Panchen Lama’s situation worsened when the Cultural Revolution began. The Chinese dissident and former Red Guard Wei Jingsheng published a letter in March 1979, written under an anonymous name, denouncing the conditions at Qincheng Prison where the 10th Panchen Lama was imprisoned. In October 1977, he was released but held under house arrest in Beijing until 1982. After his release, he was considered by the Chinese authorities to be politically rehabilitated, and he then rose to important positions once again. He served as Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India with His Holiness Panchen Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama

In 1978, after being told to give up his vows of an ordained monk by the authorities, he traveled around China and the authorities had arranged a wife (consort) for him. He began ‘courting’ Li Jie as recommended, a soldier and medical student at Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an. At the time, the Lama had no money and was still blacklisted by the party, but the wife of Deng Xiaoping and widow of Zhou Enlai saw the strategic alliance that a marriage between a Tibetan Lama and a Han woman would bring. They personally intervened to wed the couple in a large ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in 1979. One year later, the Panchen Lama was given the Vice Chairmanship of the National People’s Congress and other political posts.

Li Jie bore a daughter in 1983, named Yabshi Pan Rinzin Wangmo. Popularly known as the ‘Princess of Tibet’, she is considered an important person in Tibetan Buddhism and within Tibetan-Chinese politics because she is the only offspring of a 600-year history of the Panchen Lama incarnation lineage. Early in 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama returned to Tibet to consecrate some of the recovered bones from the graves of the previous Panchen Lamas. These are graves that had been destroyed during the destruction of Tashi Lhunpo in 1959. Unfortunately, he died from a manifested heart attack in Shigatse at the age of 51, on January 28, just five days after delivering a speech in Tibet during which he said: “Since liberation, there has certainly been development, but the price paid for this development has been greater than the gains.”

According to one story, he foresaw his own death as in the case of very high lamas as himself in a message to his wife during their last meeting. In another, a rainbow appeared in the sky before his death. Some people, including the Dalai Lama, believe that his own medical staff poisoned him. His daughter Rinzin Wangmo refused to comment on the conspiracy theories, attributing his early death to his general poor health, extreme weight gain, and chronic sleep deprivation.

His Holiness the 10th Panchen Lama was a staunch upholder of teachings in the Gelug tradition. In fact, he composed many prayers and texts. These are contained in his sungbum, or collected works, and include prayers to Dorje Shugden, who he considered to be a very important Dharma protector. In fact his monastery of Tashi Lhunpo has a large chapel dedicated to Dorje Shugden, where monks engage in his prayers every single day. The Panchen Lama encouraged this, as he knew this practice can bring benefit to many people.

Biography of His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse

His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was born around 1910 in Tibet. He was the undisputed head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism from 1987 and remained so until his passing in 1991. He was a powerful tantric master, scholar, poet and teacher. As the holder of the lineage of teachings stemming from Jamyang Khyentse Wango, Dilgo Khyentse’s role was pivotal within the Nyingma tradition, especially after the 1959 events in Tibet, which saw thousands of Tibetans escape into India, Nepal and Bhutan. From that time onwards it was due to his kindness and perseverance that many Nyingma teachings were preserved and spread. Many practitioners all over the world consider him to be the archetypal spiritual teacher. His inner journey led him to an unparalleled depth of knowledge and enabled him to be a fountain of loving kindness, wisdom and compassion for all those who met him.

He was born in Denhok Valley in Kham Derge, Eastern Tibet in a family that descended from the 9th century King Trisong Detsen, and his father was a minister to the king of Derge. While still in his mother’s womb he was recognised as an extraordinary incarnation by Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche, an important lama in the Nyingma tradition. As a young boy he manifested a strong desire to devote himself to spiritual life entirely. Although his father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps, he finally relented to his son’s wishes.

When he was seven years old, he was recognised as one of the reincarnations of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo by Sechen Gyaltsab Rinpoche at Shechen Monastery, which is one of the six principal monasteries of the Nyingma tradition. Over the years Dilgo Khyentse received a full education from over 50 teachers from the Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug traditions. He spent time training in meditation and studied the Dharma in general but had a specific focus on tantra. Completing his ngondro, or preliminary practices, he spent the majority of 13 years in silent retreat in remote hermitages and caves near his birthplace.

When he had finished his retreat, at the age of 28, Dilgo Khyentse studied with Khyentse Chokyi Lodro and received many teachings and initiations from him. He then requested his teacher to spend the rest of his life in solitary meditation but his teacher instructed him to teach others and spread the countless teachings he had received.

Following 1959, he lived in Bhutan at the request of the king, who welcomed him and provided for him. He even became the king’s spiritual advisor. Soon his outstanding qualities began to draw many students, from the highest ministers, to the humblest farmers and westerners. Following this Dilgo Khyentse travelled all over the Himalayas, India, Southeast Asia and the West to give teachings and spread the Dharma. He was considered one of the masters of the Dzogchen, or Great Perfection, teachings and was a principal holder of the Nyingma lineage known as Longchen Nyingtik. Over the course of his lifetime, he even sought out teachings that were on the verge of disappearing, received their oral transmissions and initiations, and passed them on to his students in order to preserve them.

In addition to these, he composed numerous poems, meditation texts and commentaries. Throughout his life, he showed himself to be a true embodiment of enlightened activity. He would regularly work on several projects or work at the same time, although whatever he did, it seems to flow effortlessly from his meditation and actions. His teachings and his life had become one and the same.

In 1980 he founded a monastery in Nepal, called Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling. It is located near the Boudhanath stupa in the northeast of Kathmandu. There, he revived the Shechen tradition and taught the Dharma countless times to other lamas, disciples and students all around the world.

He built a stupa in Bodhgaya, the place of Buddha’s enlightenment, and built several temples and stupas in Bhutan. In Tibet itself he re-consecrated Samye monastery, which was the first Buddhist monastery established in Tibet. He also inaugurated the rebuilding of Shechen Monastery, and contributed to the restoration of over 200 other monasteries and temples throughout the country.

Up until his passing in 1991, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was involved in publishing over three hundred volumes of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, especially from his Nyingma tradition. This ensured that the teachings were preserved for future generations to come. His cremation ceremony was held over a three-day period near Paro in Bhutan and was attended by hundreds of high lamas, the royal family and ministers of Bhutan, over five hundred of his western students, and fifty thousand other devotees.

 
For more interesting information:

• Various prayers to Dorje Shugden composed by His Holiness the Omniscient 10th Panchen Lama (download PDF)
• Dorje Shugden
• Panchen Lama’s Sungbum
• Puja at Naropa’s Cave, Kathmandu, Nepal
• Tashi Lhunpo Monastery
• The 14th Dalai Lama’s Prayer to Dorje Shugden
• Why Visit Holy Pilgrimages

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