Foundation for the Preservation of Yungdrung Bön / གཡུང་དྲུང་བོན་ཉར་ཚགས་རིག་མཛོད།

Anniversary of Shardza Rinpoche’s Rainbow Body

Anniversary of Shardza Rinpoche’s Rainbow Body

Today is the anniversary of the great Bönpo master Shardza Trashi Gyaltsen (Shar-rdza Bkra-shis rgyal-mtshan), who attained Rainbow Body on the 13th day of the 4th month of the Wood Dog Year, 1934.

To mark this auspicious anniversary, we are sharing the words of Yongdzin Rinpoche given in Paris 10~10~10, during a teaching weekend on Shardza Rinpoche’s famous text Kun-tu bzang-po’i snying-tig / The Innermost Essence of Kuntu Zangpo, also known in English as Heart Drops of Dharmakaya. Here Rinpoche speaks about the importance of Guru Yoga for understanding Dzogchen:

This knowledge [of Dzogchen] is something very special, you see. We are always talking about how Nature is beyond thinking, beyond thought, yet, when we study in a normal way, everything is learnt by rote. In other words, we learn things using our concentration, our consciousness.


But Nature is beyond consciousness, it is completely the opposite.


Yet still you have to try to know it, and the only way is through the prayer of Guru Yoga; this prayer is very important for having a connection with this special knowledge of Dzogchen. We can only rely on the blessing of the Lineage Masters who transmit this teaching from one to the other in an unbroken lineage. This teaching and its lineage was not created. People didn’t just study in an ordinary way and have some good ideas which they wrote in books. This teaching and lineage started from dharmakaya and have not been broken up until now. The Masters have transmitted these teachings successively one to the next. They kept them strictly without adding anything extra. So Guru Yoga is very important for developing and maintaining this connection.

From: Essential Instructions on the Innermost Essence of Kuntu Zangpo by Shardza Trashi Gyaltsen / ཤར་རྫ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་གྱིས་མཛད་པའི་ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོའི་སྙིང་ཏིག་གི་དོན་འགྲེལ་བཞུགས་སོ།།སློབ་དཔོན་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྣམ་དག་གིས་ཞལ་ཁྲིད།, Extracted from the Oral Teachings of Lopön Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, Paris, 10-10-2010, Transcribed and edited by Carol Ermakovа and Dmitry Ermakov, FPYB, UK 2014, pp. 18-19.

Cover picture: Shardza Trashi Gyaltsen. Image from Shar-rdza ri-khrod, the monastery established by Shardza Rinpoche in Derge / Sde-dge. First published in Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen, Commentary by Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya: Dzogchen Practice of the Bön Tradition, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, 1993.

 

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