When it came to debating, Karmey Khenpo was a match even for Old Khyentse.65 Sometimes at the end of a philosophical argument, Karmey Khenpo would act like the big winner, and Khyentse would play at being depressed, as if he had lost something of immense value. Khyentse would bemoan his defeat and shed crocodile tears, making everyone laugh.
There are many stories of Karmey Khenpo being thrashed by Old Khyentse. Once Khyentse even threw a torma at him, hitting him right in the head!
But it was all an act they were staging, one that made it look as though they could almost never talk without getting into an argument. Seen from the outside, they seemed to be picking a fight with each other. But from the inside, for anyone who really knew, they used this game to clarify subtle points of understanding, dispel hindrances and enhance progress on the path.
My teacher Samten Gyatso was one of Karmey Khenpo’s disciples, and he told me many stories about him, such as the following.
Once a year in Lhasa, a large tent was set up where all the major scholars, particularly from the three main monasteries—Sera, Ganden and Drepung—would gather to debate, to see who was the best that year. They would sit in rows of twenty facing one another in front of the head of Ganden monastery, who sat on a large throne. Each debate was judged until one scholar emerged as the champion.
One year, Karmey Khenpo happened to be in Lhasa at the time of these grand debates. He did not belong to any of the three prestigious participating monasteries, but one morning he had a strong sense that he should go and join the debating contest. He announced this plan to his attendants.
“Why do you want to do that?” one of them asked. “Won’t it inconvenience you?” This was a polite way of discouraging him—the attendant thought it would be embarrassing for Karmey Khenpo to lose.
“No, I must do it,” insisted the khenpo. “There’s no way around it.”
Karmey Khenpo then took a set of wooden plates of the kind used as book covers and tied them on his chest and back with some string. This was to symbolize that his body was the scripture and that he embodied the Dharma. Then he tossed his monk’s shawl over the wrong shoulder, held his rosary in the wrong hand and instead of wearing his hat with a peak like the other scholars, he flattened it on top of his head. He visualized Chokgyur Lingpa at the crown of his head and himself as the Lion of Speech, a particular form of Padmasambhava indivisible from Manjushri. Confident that he was undefeatable, he entered the debate grounds.
As his turn came, he beat one opponent after the other. When he had finally defeated them all, he found himself in front of the throne holder of Ganden, who declared, “You have won—you are victorious!”
This was quite an extraordinary feat; I doubt any Khampa had ever won before. Tradition has it that all one’s opponents must lay their yellow hats on the ground and then the winner walks over them as a sign of victory. But at that moment Karmey Khenpo thought, “One is supposed to respect even the tiniest shred of religious robes, so if I trample these hats I will be breaking my vows.”
So, instead of taking his “victory march,” he walked over into the shade, bowed his head, covered his face with his hand and slowly walked out. Still, he felt pretty good about himself, for not only had he beaten all the geshe-scholars, but he had also upheld the precepts.
Back in Kham, Karmey Khenpo met the great Khyentse, who was visiting Tsangsar Gompa at the time. After exchanging greetings, he said, “I have some really good news!” and proceeded to tell the story about the debate. He concluded by proudly stating, “And I didn’t even walk on their yellow hats!”
At that, Khyentse snatched up one of his vajras and whacked Karmey Khenpo on the head with it. “You faint-hearted coward! Instead of clinging to the idea of monastic precepts, you could have made the Kagyu and Nyingma teachings famous. What happened to your Khampa courage? Don’t you have any confidence in the view of the inner yogas? You’re supposed to be a Vajrayana practitioner! Your body is a deity, your voice mantra and your mind samadhi, so how can you cling to such low attachments? You are an utter good-for-nothing!”
Then he smacked him again. The khenpo slunk out and wasn’t seen for a while.
Just before his death, Karmey Khenpo said, “Khyentse Rinpoche beat me again and again, sometimes even knocking me to the ground with all his slaps and thrashings. Time and time again he hauled me over the coals. But by beating me he removed the obstacles to a long life; now I’m so old I can’t see—and I’m still unable to die!”
It sounded like a complaint when he said it, but actually it was praise.
Karmey Khenpo lived, I believe, into his early eighties and passed away at his hermitage above Karma Gön. He was then reborn as the son of my aunt.
There had been a prediction from the Lotus-Born master that both Karmey Khenpo and Kongtrul would manifest the rainbow body at the time of death, a sign of great realization. Perhaps it was due to their extensive efforts to benefit others—they were always busy with their many disciples—that neither ended up manifesting the rainbow body.
There are many factors involved in whether a practitioner attains the rainbow body. Karmey Khenpo, for instance, did reach the level at which all mental phenomena dissolve back into the basic nature of reality: the exhaustion of concepts and phenomena. But even though at that exalted level he should have displayed the rainbow body—the outward sign of this state of realization—he did not do so.
Likewise, the terma revelations of Chokgyur Lingpa predicted that Kongtrul would leave in a rainbow body when he passed away. But this was prevented because his activities on behalf of sentient beings were too encompassing. One major reason for this is that when there are a lot of disciples, then there are sure to be some broken samayas by some of them; broken samayas have consequences for the teacher and so can prevent the manifestation of a rainbow body. The tantric teachings describe the “rainbow body with remainder,” an occurrence that depends upon the purity of samaya of disciples and benefactors.
But there are exceptions: not too long ago, Nyagla Pema Dudul attained the rainbow body when he died in the middle of his camp of five hundred disciples; it seems none of them managed to prevent it. Still, most other teachers with the same level of realization, and who have taught openly and widely to numerous disciples, typically do not attain a rainbow body, despite the possibility that they would have done so if they had had fewer students.
That is probably why it is taught, “If you want to attain the rainbow body, don’t have too many disciples.”
Wangchok Dorje was one of Chokgyur Lingpa’s three children. One of our chant texts describes him as the “magical display” of King Jah, meaning that he was a reincarnation of the Indian king who, right after the Buddha’s passing, received the Eighteen Mahayoga Tantras from Vajrapani, the timeless lord of the tantric teachings. Wangchok Dorje and my grandmother, Könchok Paldrön, were born from the same mother, Lady Degah. The mother of the third child, Tsewang Norbu, was a niece of Old Khyentse.
After chanting hundreds of thousands of Manjushri mantras, and due to his training in former lives, Wangchok Dorje developed an incredibly sharp intelligence; his insights left people speechless. I have been told that his realization—where he was on the path and the levels he attained—was higher than even that of his tertön father. Wangchok Dorje was still very young when, entirely on his own, he spontaneously recognized the nature of mind.