The tormas were my particular responsibility; I can’t count how many tormas I made as a teenager. I had first begun to learn the art of torma making from Penjik, who was quite deft with his hands. But there inevitably comes a point in the art of torma making when adjustments and refinements are necessary, so I would go to my uncle Sang-Ngak, who taught me many of the finer points. But when Samten Gyatso brought me along to Tsikey, he told me, “The ultimate arbiter of Chokgyur Lingpa’s torma style is your grandmother.”
One day, she gave me her stamp of approval. When my buddy Dudul and I showed her our tormas, she told me, “While Dudul’s style leans more toward the Mindrolling tradition, yours follows purely the New Treasures. In the future, you can be the backbone of our ritual lineage.”
When I was nineteen, I went to visit her at Tsikey. She would have been about seventy years old by then and was slightly ill. I stayed about two months and received the final teachings from her on how to make tormas. At the end of the two months, I had become quite adept at making all the different tormas used in the rituals for the New Treasures and received Könchok Paldrön’s personal blessing. She told me, “You are actually the best torma maker in this terma tradition.” Today I have no special qualities at all, except I really know how to make those tormas.
My grandmother’s way of correcting people was not by scolding or rebuke; instead she would give advice on “what a good person would do.” It was then up to you to decide to act accordingly.
I never saw or heard of her striking anyone. I remember her saying to us children, “Using small lies as jokes to tease people is not a virtue, but hurtful and wrong. Don’t tease in a mean way. Don’t bicker.”
She would make small suggestions like, “Don’t talk with food in your mouth. Eat gently and quietly. When you talk, don’t yawn or make other unnecessary sounds. Don’t raise your voice without cause; you don’t have to yell when you are talking to the person next to you. Speak like a gentleman: take the time to find the right words, then speak. By rushing you only end up sounding like a lunatic.”
Such was the sort of advice she gave me as a small child. Every single time I went to see her, I got some such guidance.
Despite her noble heritage, my grandmother—or Precious Mother, as we addressed her—was incredibly humble, always taking the lower seat. Various lamas and important disciples of her father came to pay her their respects. Invariably she would say, “There is no need for you to come and see this old lady. What has gotten into you lamas?”
The only way anyone could bow to her was by doing so outside her room, before entering. She would never remain seated as they greeted her with joined palms; if they bowed down she would get up and move away, saying, “What kind of lamas are you—bowing down to this old woman?”
While Grandmother was living at Fortress Peak, the lamas from Gebchak, the impressive nunnery nearby, would come to pay their respects to the daughter of the great tertön. Samten Gyatso would enter her room to announce which lama had come and she would say, “Why are they here? There’s nothing they can get from me. Don’t even bring it up again! They don’t need to meet me.”
Of course, Samten Gyatso couldn’t tell an important lama to just go away, so he would arrange some seating for them in the meadow and then invite Grandmother to come outside and enjoy the weather. The lama was then told to approach slowly, from the other side, as if just strolling by, and then they could begin a conversation. Otherwise, there was no way to meet her; she was simply too humble.
Maybe her sincere humility was the reason the Chokling of Tsikey, who compiled Chokgyur Lingpa’s biography, could find no way to approach her, let alone hear her stories. Whatever the reason, he didn’t tap her memory when writing the official version of the tertön’s life story.
Despite all the great masters she met earlier in her life, Könchok Paldrön’s root guru was her own son, Samten Gyatso. He was the one who gave her the essential meditation instructions. Of course she had received transmissions from other masters, including her brother Wangchok Dorje, who passed away at an early age. But it was Samten Gyatso who pointed out mind essence to her so that she recognized it unmistakenly—and that defines a root guru.
This is quite astounding if you think about it: her own son!
Samten Gyatso told me that he was amazed by his mother’s level of meditation. When her life was drawing to a close, she had reached the level known as collapse of delusion, at which point there are no more dreams during sleep; the dream state is totally purified. Indeed, the tantric scriptures mention that at a certain point the stream of dreaming ceases, so that throughout day and night the continuity of luminous wakefulness is no longer interrupted.
She was truly amazing! People often said that their trivial thoughts and worries would immediately subside the moment they entered her room. One would feel very lucid and quiet. It was extraordinarily palpable.
This daughter of Chokgyur Lingpa was unusual in so many ways. For instance, she had three visions in which she met Tara as if in person—as though they were just having a conversation. This was not public knowledge, as she never mentioned a thing to anyone but my uncle Samten Gyatso. She didn’t even tell me herself; I heard it from him.
18. Tara—the female buddha of compassion
The local people trusted her deeply. They would often ask for some grains of barley she had blessed, to carry in a small amulet bag on their body. They would also tie her protection amulets around the necks of their goats and sheep. Some people even tested whether her protection actually worked by shooting rifles at their goats.
“Each time I hit the goat,” one of them told me, “after the impact it would cry out in pain, “Baaaaah!” But on closer inspection, I couldn’t find a bullet wound anywhere. The amulet made my goat bulletproof—and I’m not lying!”
This test was perhaps not so bad; it made people trust in her protection.
Könchok Paldrön also remembered once traveling with her mother to Old Khyentse’s main residence in Derge, when Khyentse, Kongtrul and Chokling were all still alive.
The three masters performed an elaborate drubchen practice together—continuing for nine days and nights without interruption—probably using the terma known as Embodiment of Realization.83 She and her brother Wangchok Dorje sat in. When it came time for the feast, the great Khyentse said, “As an auspicious coincidence, you two siblings must wear the tantric ornaments and bring the plates of feast offerings.”
Grandmother remembered the two of them standing up and holding the plates in front of the three masters while they were singing the slow and melodious feast song. “My brother looked like a little god,” she recalled, “and he had such a beautiful face—beyond belief!”
At the end, Old Khyentse joined his palms and said, “These children are certainly the offspring of a vidyadhara lineage.”
My grandmother also remembered meeting the great Paltrul.
Paltrul and her father,