It is among Repa Karpo’s disciples that we find my ancestor, Lumey Dorje of the Tsangsar clan. Earlier, during an empowerment ceremony with a huge gathering, Repa Karpo spotted Lumey Dorje in the crowd and called out, “Hey, you! Do you want to follow me?”
Lumey Dorje approached and replied, “Certainly. How kind of you to make it so easy for me—I don’t even have to make the request.” Then and there he became a disciple of Repa Karpo.
Before long, Lumey Dorje attained a high level of realization. He also built a monastery called Nangso Chenmo to which Nangchen owes its name. It had 115 pillars, making it extraordinarily large. When it came time for the consecration, he pitched a small tent and began practicing the instructions he had received from his guru.
During the ceremonies, some benefactors offered him droma, our traditional and auspicious but very rich dish of tiny sweet roots swimming in clarified butter. Lumey Dorje consumed one large pot after another, ten in all, and the word got around that the master had done something crazy and would die, or at least become seriously ill. But when everybody had gathered, he exuded all the butter through the pores of his body, leaving him even more radiant than before. Someone said, “That can’t be an ordinary human body!” Another remarked, “Look! His body doesn’t even cast a shadow! You can see right through it. He should be called Bodiless Vajra,” which is what Lumey Dorje means. This master was truly a sublime being—like a lion among men.
When his guru Repa Karpo passed away, the funeral ceremony was a major event, a special occasion for his disciples to make lavish offerings to honor their guru’s physical form. Soon after, the great Chögyal Pakpa, a master of the Sakya lineage, traveled through the region on his way to China and visited the monastery at Nangso Chenmo.19 The followers of Repa Karpo told him, “We have been abandoned by our master, like a body without a head. You are a sublime being, the emperor’s guru and the ruler of Tibet, and we would like to offer the monastery and the Nangchen kingdom to you.”
Chögyal Pakpa replied, “This would be inappropriate because the head wouldn’t fit the body. I am Sakya while you are Kagyu. It would be like putting a sheep’s head on the body of a goat. I would rather choose the best of Repa Karpo’s disciples. I have been entrusted with thirteen emblems of power to be given to thirteen people below me; the first of these I will offer to Repa Karpo’s main disciple, giving him the rank of lachen, grand master. So, choose the one among you who is the foremost disciple, and I will invest him with this title so that he can take charge of your kingdom.”
One of the disciples replied, “My Dharma brothers are all equal; there is no difference. It would be hard for us to choose who is best.”
“Isn’t there one who is just slightly better than the others?”
“Well, there is Lumey Dorje, whose bodily form resembles a golden offering lamp, but he has gone to Central Tibet. The rest of us are all equals.”
“I am also going to Central Tibet. Send someone to find him and tell him to meet me there.”
The messengers found Lumey Dorje near Lhasa, residing at the seat of a close disciple of Marpa.20 They escorted him to Chögyal Pakpa, who enthroned him, giving him a golden seal and an insignia of precious brocade that symbolized the rank of lachen, one of the thirteen imperial priests. Upon receiving these honors, Lumey Dorje said, “I have had no other aim in my heart than to be a renunciate meditator, least of all a Dharma king, but I will not oppose your command. However, you must appoint me an effective Dharma protector.”
Chögyal Pakpa then entrusted him with the Four-Faced Guardian, a Dharma protector from the Sakya lineage, together with the accompanying empowerment and instructions. Chögyal Pakpa then said, “You can rest assured that this guardian will follow you everywhere like a shadow follows a body.”
This was not to be his only protector. Later Lumey Dorje had a vision of the female guardian Dusölma. She asked him, “What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything!” Lumey Dorje replied.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “I will protect your Dharma lineage for thirteen generations as if I were present in flesh and blood.”
Lumey Dorje had also received many empowerments and instructions from a great lama in the Kadam tradition and a disciple of the famed Indian master Atisha.21 When Atisha came up from Nepal to Tibet for the first time, a Dharma protector named Monkey-Faced Ganapati had followed him. At some point, Atisha entrusted this guardian to the lama, who later passed him on to Lumey Dorje, saying, “This protector is half-wisdom and half-mundane; often his activity is mischievous.”22 So when Lumey Dorje returned to Kham as a Dharma king, he had an invisible following of not just one but three Dharma protectors.
It is interesting to note that Lumey Dorje—as well as his descendants, my own ancestors—had no real wish for secular power and fame but preferred the simple life of the renunciate. Perhaps because of this, eventually my paternal ancestors lost their position as the kings of Tsangsar to the ruler of Nangchen.
Lumey Dorje caused the Dharma to flourish throughout Nangchen. It was primarily through his spiritual influence that the kingdom became known as a land of meditators. Lumey Dorje remained on the golden Dharma throne for eighteen years and then he passed away—or, as we say in Buddhist terms, he “displayed the manner of transcending the world of suffering.” For seven days, wonderful designs in rainbow colors appeared in the sky for all to see. On his bones, thirteen self-appeared images in the shape of the auspicious white conch were found. Even today people still retell the story of his cremation and all the wonderful, truly unbelievable signs.
By this time, Nangchen was a small country unto itself, and it was now necessary to choose Lumey Dorje’s successor. The choice fell on Lumey Dorje’s nephew, Jangchub Shönnu, who was a lama. He was a disciple of Lumey Dorje’s and was living as a renunciate meditator in the area. Messengers found him and said, “You must leave your hermitage to be king. You can continue your spiritual activities from the golden throne of the Dharma.”
“I don’t wish to do anything but meditate in retreat,” Jangchub Shönnu replied.
“What use is your meditation if you ignore the well-being of all those who live in the kingdom?” the messengers argued, and so Jangchub Shönnu became the successor to the throne.
On ascending the Dharma throne, Jangchub Shönnu received a high religious position from the Chinese emperor, along with many gifts from the imperial court. He decided to use his newfound wealth to build a magnificent castle-like palace in Nangchen. When he moved there, he transferred the three Dharma guardians as well, except for the monkey-faced protector, who vehemently refused to go to the palace, preferring to stay behind in the monastery at Nangso Chenmo.
Every morning Jangchub Shönnu would make a circumambulation of both castles and their temples. One morning, while he was walking around Nangso Chenmo, a dog attacked and bit him. People started talking. In the new castle, they said, “How can they let vicious dogs run around loose? Don’t they feed the dogs over there? The manager there is so conceited he thinks he can use our lama as food for his mongrels!”
The servants in the other camp retorted, “He may be a great lama, but what is he doing running around