Guru Padmasambhava

Guru Padmasambhava was not an ordinary person on the path or just a noble being on one of the bodhisattva levels but an emanation of both Buddha Amitabha and Shakyamuni who appeared in order to tame the human beings and evil spirits.

In fact, Guru Padmasambhava has, by nature, attained perfect enlightenment in the dharmakaya realm of the Luminous Vajra Essence since the very beginning as the liberated ground of primordial purity. Then, in the self-manifest sambhogakaya realm, he spontaneously manifested as the boundless wisdom array of the five families of Buddha Immense Ocean possessing the five certainties. As the external manifestation of this self-appearing display, he appears in countless words of the ten directions as the magical apparition of nirmanakayas who tame beings. In this world of Jambudvipa, Guru Rinpoche is known as just one nirmanakaya who tames beings but according to the different mental dispositions of people, he is perceived in many ways.

In the tantra of secret Heruka, it is said: The authentic and precious teacher possessing the treasury of three secrets will be born miraculously from the heart of a lotus in the lake of Kosha.

Accordingly, Guru Rinpoche has come to this world in order to propagate and spread the teachings of the Dharma in general, and particularly the secret mantra and Dzogchen teachings; he appears to every being of the three thousand billion world systems in a form to benefit them according to their personal karmic vision. There are different interpretations regarding his birth. Some Indian historians affirm that he was born to a minister or a King of Oddiyana, and some claim that he appeared instantly from a thunderbolt on the summit of Mt. Malaya in Sri Lanka. But Guru Padmasambhava’s treasure teachings confirm the version which states that he was born spontaneously from a lotus. Guru Rinpoche appeared extraordinarily as a small child eight years of age holding a vajra and a lotus and adorned with the major and minor marks in the blossom of a lotus in the lake called “Ocean of Milk” in South West Oddiyana, which is also known as lake Danakosha located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, on the tenth day of the sixth month of the Monkey year. The child remained there teaching the profound Dharma to the devas and dakinis. At that time, Indrabodhi, the king of the country, had no sons. He had already used up his entire treasury by making offerings to the Three Jewels and giving alms to the poor. As a last choice, in order to find a wish-fulfilling jewel, he embarked on a journey with his minister, Krishnadhara, to the ocean. On their return, King Indrabodhi met the miraculous child and regarded him as an answer to his prayers for a son and brought him to the palace where he was given the name Padma Jungne, the Lotus Born.

The legend goes that Guru Rinpoche was come to tame the beings of Tibet. When Lord Buddha gave Avalokiteshvara the responsibility of taming the barbaric land of Tibet, Avalokiteshvara gazed upon the land and shed tears of infinite compassion, from which the two Goddess Ganga and Gangchungma were born. One day, Goddess Gangchungma stole some celestial flowers. Owing to her decline in merit, she fell to the human realm and took birth as the human woman, Dechogma, the daughter of sale from the Chyajima caste.

Being born from Avalokiteshvara’s tears, she inherently had great faith in the Buddha Dharma and thus implemented the construction of a magnificent stupa in Boudha Nath, Nepal. However, she expired before the stupa was established. Her four sons vowed to complete the unfinished stupa. Upon completion of the stupa, they each ardently prayed to be reborn as a Dharma king, a great learned Khenpo, a powerful tantric master, and a messenger that would bring the previous three together. During the construction of the stupa, a wise donkey who was also commissioned to carry stones and sand overheard the four sons’ prayers. The donkey, who was not remembered during the prayers of the four brothers, got annoyed and vowed to counteract the fruits of their prayer. According to their aspirations, one son was reborn as Trisong Deutsen, the 38th king of Tibet and an incarnation of Manjushri. One son was reborn as the Kings’ messenger, Ba Salnang, who invited both the great Khenpo (Abbot) Shantarakshita and the tantric master Guru Padmasambhava from India, who were the reincarnations of the other two sons. The donkey was born as King Langdarma.

King Trisong Deutsen, an emanation of Manjushri, invited Khenpo Bodhisattva from India, who taught about dependent origination and the ten virtuous actions. A year later, the foundation was laid for a huge temple but the evil spirits of Tibet created obstacles and prevented the construction. In accordance with Khenpo’s prediction, the king sent five messengers to invite the great master Lopon Padma Jungne to come. Having foreknowledge of this, Guru Rinpoche proceeded to central Tibet. On the way, he bound under oath the 12 Tenma Goddesses, the 13 Gurlha and 21 Ge-nyen as well as many other powerful spirits. At the Tamarisk Forest at Red Rock, he met with the dharma king of Tibet.

Then, the king, Guru and Khenpo together held out construction and established Tibet’s first great monastery at Samye and fully furnished it with statues. In addition, they ordained Tibet’s first seven monks, regularized the translation methods that most of the sutras and tantras were translated from Sanskrit to Tibetan, and for the first time in Tibet, firmly established the order of study, reflection and meditation, thereby spreading the rays of Buddha Dharma in Tibet like the morning sunshine.

Not leaving even the space of a horse hoof untouched, Guru Padmasambhava miraculously walked upon the entire land of Tibet and generally blessed all the mountains, lakes and caves as places for accomplishment. Specifically, in the Ngari region of upper Tibet, he blessed twenty mountain caves. In Uchang, he blessed twenty-one sacred places of accomplishment.

In Dokham, he blessed twenty-five sacred places. In addition, for the sake of beings to be tamed in the future, Guru Padmasambhava concealed eighteen varieties of treasure, which include treasure texts, material wealth, holy images and so forth, and gave explicit prophesies regarding the future manifestation of these treasures, including the revealer and protector of the treasure, as well as the time of revelation—as a result of Guru Padmasambhava’s activities his twenty-five disciples and eighty other disciples attained rainbow body. In addition, three enabled million disciples achieved stability in tantric generation stage practice, one hundred thousand disciples showed signs of accomplishment, ninety thousand disciples achieved the uncontaminated Illusory Body, and eighty million disciples had some attainment. Having accomplished these great activities, knowing his personal beings to be tamed on Earth were exhausted, he finally gave each of them extensive advice and teachings and departed from the pass of Gungthang, riding on a horse, for the South-western universe of the magical cannibals, to help the beings there and to protect Earth from their harm.

Guru Padmasambhava is said to have lived for three thousand and six hundred years in India, upholding the Buddha’s teachings and benefiting sentient beings. But for his stay in Tibet, there are many unreliable versions claiming he stayed for three years, six years, thirteen years and so forth. Despite these differences, according to Guru Padmasambhava’s own kama teachings, it is said that he actually stayed for fifty years and three months in Tibet, benefiting countless sentient beings in incredible myriad ways in accordance with their desires and propensities.