Read Online Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal by Matteo Pistono - Free Book Online Page A

The script on the golden paper was the key for Sogyal to open a portal in his mind to a teaching from Padmasambhava. Sogyal remembered having been initiated into these wrathful and peaceful mandalas, which were appearing before him, when he was Dorje Dudjom. Sogyal reached for a pen and paper and wrote down liturgies associated with two of the mandalas. He then took the parchment scroll from the north and south compartments and unrolled them to discover they were prophetic guides for two treasure teachings on Vajrakilaya, one entitled The Most Secret Wrathful Vajrakilaya and the other The Razor of the Innermost Essence. In the future, these guides would lead Sogyal to the location of two Vajrakilaya practices.
    A few days later, Sogyal left his retreat at Drikok encampment to join Lama Sonam Thaye and a group of disciples on a pilgrimage to the famed monastic university of Katok Dorje Den, to receive teachings from its throne holders. Sogyal also visited the hermitage Dzahka Sangak Rabten Ling and received instructions from Dza Choktrul Kunzang Namgyal, who became one of his main teachers. He made sure to keep the prophetic guides hidden from others, even from the masters he met. Anticipation grew within Sogyal’s mind because one of the prophecies indicated that it was at Katok Monastery where he would discover the teaching of The Most Secret Wrathful Vajrakilaya.
    One evening at Katok, when nobody else was around, Sogyal entered a room at the monastery for receiving visitors and saw a wooden chair. He knew this was the location of the treasure. From the arm of the chair, Sogyal extracted a small parchment, the key to the teaching of The Most Secret Wrathful Vajrakilaya. He unrolled the parchment that had mystical dakini syllables written in the hand of Lady Yeshe Tsogyal.
    The scroll’s secret script was a mnemonic device that spurred Sogyal’s memory of receiving The Most Secret Wrathful Vajrakilaya from Padmasambhava and allowed him to reveal it in the present. As if the lock on a treasure chest were clicked open with the turning of a key, the teaching flowed from Sogyal’s mind. This is the special method of tertöns, which is a power arising from the wisdom of rigpa merging with memory. He ran back to his room and took out a pen and began deciphering the meaning of the arcane script. Words spilled forth from his wisdom mind onto the page.
    Spontaneously perfect, illusory manifestation, the “Sixth” Buddha Vajradhara,
    And, inseparable from them, the all-embodying Vajrasattva, Lord of Secrets and the rest—
    Gurus of the lineage, to you we pray!
    Pema Tötreng Tsal [Padmasambhava], fully empowered with awareness-creativity,
    Yeshe Tsogyal, Blissful Lady of Secrets,
    Dorje Dudjom, empowered to practice wrathful action, and the rest—
    Awareness-holders of the phurba, to you we pray!
    Glorious lama, embodiment of all the gurus, devas, and dakinis,
    And deities of Vajrakilaya, magical expressions of compassion,
    Together with the Vajrakilaya guardians, who weigh right and wrong, and all the treasure keepers—
    To all you glorious deities of the mandala, we pray!
    On the basis of our bodhichitta commitment to unsurpassable awakening,
    We cultivate the supreme wisdom of the great bliss of union—
    Inspire us, yogis and holders of the lineage of the Great and Glorious One,
    With your blessings: grant us empowerment, strength, and capacity!
    With the wisdom phurba, let us liberate self-clinging into all-pervading space!
    With the phurba of great bliss, let us overcome habitual patterns in subtle energy and mind!
    With the phurba of skillful means, let us transform all existence into the vajra!
    With the phurba of activity, let us steal the life-force of all who harm the teachings!
    In this way, may we gain the most supreme and wondrous of accomplishments,
    In their entirety and at this very instant!
    And, always inseparable from the great and glorious Heruka [Varjakilaya],
    May we carry out the activity of