“We will never give up our search for him!” retorted the monastery’s representative, who wasn’t one to take no for an answer. “Our teacher was so precious; please give us some unmistakable details regarding his whereabouts.”
“All right!” said Khyentse. “Go to such-and-such place near Derge, where there is a rich family with plenty of cattle. Stand near their house and call out your lama’s name at the top of your voice. It will be clear to you where your ‘tulku’ is.”
The party went off in the prescribed direction and reached the rich man’s property. There they began calling their lama’s name as loud as they could. As they were yelling, the calf of a huge cross-bred yak and cow let go of its mother’s teat, bellowed “Moooooooo!” and ran toward them. It walked around them and wouldn’t leave. The monks were at a loss as to what to do. On their return, they stopped to see the great Khyentse once again.
“What did I tell you? Didn’t I say it would be useless? Nonetheless, you did find your ‘tulku.’”
Old Khyentse had the habit of asking every visitor one particular question. I know this from old people in Nangchen, because everyone there without exception who could afford the time to make the pilgrimage over to Derge had been to visit him and pay their respects. My mother’s uncle, a lama who was quite old when I was a child, told me this story about one such visit he had.
“Well, well, where are you from?” Khyentse would first say. Then, “why are you here?”
“I came to meet you, Rinpoche,” replied this old lama.
“There is nothing special in meeting me,” said Khyentse. “Have you seen the Jowo in Lhasa?”
“No, I haven’t,” replied the old lama.
“What a pity! What a waste of a human life. Well, then, have you received the reading transmission for the Kangyur?”
“No, I haven’t, Rinpoche!”
“Oh, no! What a terrible shame! In this day and age, the Buddha is represented by the Jowo statue and the Kangyur. That’s what he has left behind. If one dies without meeting those two, I would consider it just as if one had returned from a jewel island empty-handed. If a big sinner, even someone who has killed eighteen people, receives the reading transmission for the Buddha’s Kangyur, this old man here swears that such a person will not go to the lower realms.”
Khyentse said that to almost every person who came to visit him.
Once, in the later part of his life, Khyentse was served poison mixed in curd by a malicious old man from eastern Tibet. He accepted the bowl and drank it on the spot. As the man was leaving, Khyentse called out to him, “Hey, you! Are you satisfied now that I’ve swallowed your evil drink?”
The old man panicked and began to cry with great remorse.
“Please vomit it out immediately!” the old man wailed. “I don’t know what vicious spirit took hold of me, but all of a sudden I had this thought to poison your food and didn’t seem able to resist. The moment you drank the bowl, it was as though I woke up from a dream. Please, purge yourself of this poison!”
“No,” Khyentse said. “I have repaid a karmic debt to you, so I won’t vomit—there is not enough to kill me. I drank it to help you.”
Earlier in his life, Khyentse had been very handsome and stout. People said he looked like Longchenpa. But soon after being poisoned, he fell ill and never totally recovered; his skin turned slightly dark. The toxin had also injured his throat, and every so often he would have to clear his throat with a loud hacking noise, even during teachings. “It is from being poisoned, but it didn’t kill me,” he would explain to the curious.
Grandmother, who had met the two masters as a child, once told me, “The great Kongtrul was neither tall nor fat, but he did have a prominent nose, very straight and square. Old Khyentse, on the other hand, was very large, with big eyes.”
My father later added, “After Chokgyur Lingpa and his son Wangchok Dorje had both passed away, I too went with Lady Degah, my mother and some siblings to visit Old Khyentse. When we approached his quarters, we discovered that the great master had come outside holding the traditional incense and white scarf to receive Lady Degah—an unusual sign of deep respect. Led by Old Khyentse bearing incense, we were escorted inside his rather tiny room. Samten Gyatso and your uncle Tersey were both there as well. I remember Khyentse as having a bigger-than-life, majestic presence in that small room.”
My father continued, “Khyentse was conducting an empowerment for my grandmother. Next to him was a little portable hearth, with a big kettle perking away on top. There was a Khampa-style bellows made of hide, and every once in a while during the empowerment Khyentse would reach over and fan the fire. He had a large bowl, and during the empowerment he put a couple of spoonfuls of tsampa—parched barley flour—and dried cheese into his bowl. Then he poured some hot tea on top and, using his large bone spoon, had a meal right there and then. He didn’t drink butter tea, just black tea.” As you may know, it is the tradition in Tibet that while a lama drinks tea during a ceremony, he always takes off his hat—but Old Khyentse was a yogi and left his hat on while he ate.
“He was such an imposing figure in that small room,” my father added. “The fire was making it quite warm, and I sat near the hearth. He just went about his business and looked very comfortable eating and drinking at his leisure.”
Khyentse was a great siddha, incredibly realized. Yet probably because he held the position of “king of Dharma,” ruling over a vast domain of spiritual activity, he did not manifest a rainbow body upon his departure.52
Instead, here is how he passed away.
All his life, Old Khyentse never sat idle; at the very least he would usually have a rosary in his left hand, chanting various mantras. One day, he told his servant, “One’s final words should be like those of Terdag Lingpa, the great master of Mindrolling.”
“And what were they?” his attendant asked.
Sights, sounds, knowing—deva, mantra, dharmakaya—
Play of kayas, wisdoms, boundlessly they merge.
In this deep and secret practice of great yoga,
Be they of one taste, nondual sphere of mind!
While chanting the last line, Old Khyentse rolled up his rosary, put it in its proper place, straightened his back and stopped breathing.
Kongtrul often said of his friend Old Khyentse, “Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo is the only one who can truly distinguish between what is Dharma and what is not.” Kongtrul would turn to him for advice in all matters of importance, calling him “the ultimate pandita”. In this sense, the most important of the three amazing masters—Khyentse, Kongtrul, and Chokgyur Lingpa—was Khyentse.
So when Khyentse passed away, Kongtrul exclaimed, “The omniscient Dorje Ziji has left us!” using another name for Khyentse. “Now we are left behind in pitch-black darkness, not knowing right from wrong!” Khyentse had made it clear that he didn’t want anyone to preserve his body after he died. He had explained, “Don’t keep my body around. I want it cremated, because in this degenerate age, one should no longer keep an entire body as kudung (sacred remains). Of course, in earlier times it was the custom to do so with some