Tilopa meets the Dakinis

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Palzang Jangchub
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Tilopa meets the Dakinis

Post by Palzang Jangchub »

Stumbled upon this doing research the other day. Thought it worth sharing...
The 4th Chetsang Rinpoche (1770-1862) of the Drikung Kagyu tells how the Bengali brahmin boy, Salyeu, out minding water buffalo, was visited by a "fearsome, ugly woman" who told him to "[...] herd buffalo and read scriptures. There you will find the prophecies of the Dakinis." With this, she disappeared.

Some time later, while he was reading under a shapa [hat-shaped?] tree, she returned, and asked him to identify himself to her. He gave the appropriate, ordinary information, but she corrected him, saying:

"Your country is Oddiyana in the North; your father is Chakrasamvara; your mother is Vajrayogini: your brother is Pantsapana [Hindi: Pancapana], and I am your sister, Bliss-giver. If you want to find the true buffalo go to the forest of the bodhi tree. There the stainless Dakinis hold the ear-whispered teachings."

He said, "If I go there, the Dakinis will pose obstacles and prevent me from succeeding."

She said: "Yogi, you can get the teachings. You have received the predictions and kept the samaya vows."

Realizing she was a Dakini, he said: "The path is dangerous and I do not know how to traverse it."

In reply she gave him a crystal ladder, a jeweled bridge, and a coral-handled key, saying: "I give you my blessings; depart without hesitation."

The young man, who would become known as Mahasiddha Tilopa, then crosses the country to reach Oddiyana where, using the magical tools, he negotiates a poison lake and the "iron wall of Ghandola." Then, he chooses the correct one of the three gates to the Temple of Ghandola and, using his coral key, he enters.

First, he meets nirmanakaya "stainless Dakinis Who desire flesh and blood." in their many fearsome forms that make terrible noises and threatening gestures, but he is not afraid. Frustrated, they fell into a faint, and when they regained their composure, they begged his forgiveness and admitted:

"We are to you as the butterfly to the lamp; The butterfly hopes to extinguish the lamp, But instead dies in the light[...]"

One among them continued: "I am just an ordinary being, without authority. If I do not ask our leader's permission to let you in, she will eat my flesh and drink my blood. Therefore, precious one, do not think unkindly of me."

Then, samboghakaya Loka Karma Dakinis appear, but by making the three threatening ritual gestures, Tilopa overpowers their faculties of body, speech and mind. They suffer the same as the previous group, and their leader, "a minister," goes to announce him to the Queen. When she permits him to enter, he does not even bow but rather assumes a state of meditation, so the host of attending Dakinis get angry, saying:

"She is the blessed one, The mother of the Buddhas of the Three Times. Let us beat him Who shows no respect."
The Mother intervenes saying that he is "[...] The father of the Buddhas of the Three Times. Even a rain of vajras [...] could not destroy him. Therefore I will give him the teachings."

She instructs him in prana [breath/energy] and other unrecorded things, but he insists on more, and Tilopa says that he wants "[...] the perfect teaching, the stainless bliss, the great secret of the ordinary and the extraordinary."

She then agrees to confer the three wish-fulfilling gems including the self-arising body of co-emergent Wisdom and Means united; the speech that is the 7-syllable self-arising emerald in the Dharmakara, and the 5-pointed vajra jewel of self-arising mind, but only if he can understand the signs. The host of Dakinis express their doubt that he will be able to understand the signs, but Tilopa responds directly to the Mother that he has 3 special keys [...]
The story continues at: http://www.khandro.net/dakini_orders.htm
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"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme

དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ
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