The Life Story of the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche: Part VI

In the later part of his life, he visited central Tibet in order to meet with HH the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. HH the 16th Karmapa was very young at that time and he requested Shangpa Rinpoche to perform longevity pujas for him. Shangpa Rinpoche therefore stayed a week in retreat and offered longevity prayers to Karmapa. Later on, Karmapa was happy to receive the blessed substances from the longevity pujas for tasting. Some of the monks at Tsurphu gossiped over why Karmapa receive blessings from such a clumsy pilgrim. This was later told to me by one of the old Lamas of Tsurphu, called Lama Choying, during my visit to Rumtek in 1980.

From there he visited his hometown of Shang and met his relatives and the Lamas of the temple where he first entered into monkhood. The people in his hometown mentioned that he came with a big group of people; mainly monks and nuns but there were also many beggars. People of his hometown were very happy that he had become a great practitioner and he started to give many teachings and empowerments to them. He also told them about how he struggled for the Dharma and about the noble masters that he had met etc.

He was invited to the temple where he was first ordained and he offered many things, one of which is food and distributed money to every monk. The people there still vividly remember that he offered a beautiful pair of trumpets (Tib: Gyaling) and a pair of cymbals. While he was at his family home for a few days, his niece Karma Tseyang insisted to become a nun and become his follower. Shangpa Rinpoche finally ordained her and she joined his entourage. Subsequently, another niece call Tsognyi was also ordained by him and also joined his entourage. I met Ani Tsognyi at Dolpo when I was just 3 years old. The first time she met me, she was overwrought with emotion and cried a lot. She offered to me whatever she had. Later on, she was overly concerned for my well-being and constantly scolded my mum for spoiling me. She often disciplined me for every minor mistake I made. I was very playful as I was only 3 years old then. It was a rather hard time for both me and my mum when she was around. Eventually she left to practice somewhere else and I did not hear from her ever since.

In this way, the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche has many monks and nuns who follow him wherever he travels and he also constantly trained them to be good practitioners. Even now, some of them are still living in the remote areas of Tibet and Nepal and practicing.

He ordered many sets of Kangyur text printed from wood blocks and distributed them to temples which he had restored. During those times, the Kangyur text was very difficult to obtain in western Tibet as text printed from wood block was available only in central Tibet and eastern Tibet where there were workshops for printing from wood blocks. Once printing was done, transportation for the text had to be arranged and transportation was very costly and slow. It took almost a month for the text to reach western Tibet. After the text had been distributed, one of the temples which has received the texts, Goshar Gompa, was requested by Ganjo Gompa to lend them their set of new Kangyur texts. Ganjo Gompa said that their texts were too old and they were not able to read the texts. So Goshar Gompa lent their Kangyur texts to Ganjo Gompa. However Ganjo Gompa refused to give the texts back even after they had finished reading the texts. The relationship between both Temples worsened due to this. The village head and other people tried to resolve the issue but the monks from both Temples quarrelled and did not listen to the mediators.

Finally, Shangpa Rinpoche called the monks from both sides in front of him and as usual, they argued for their rights to own the Kangyur texts. Shangpa Rinpoche told them that as Sangha members, they should not argue over this matter as such behaviour is against the Buddha's teaching. He said that he would happily offer to Ganjo Gompa a totally new set of Kangyur texts from Lhasa using the best paper. They then agreed to return the Kangyur texts to Goshar Gompa. After several months, the new Kangyur texts arrived and Shangpa Rinpoche offered this set of texts to Ganjo Gompa. The monks from Ganjo Gompa were very happy and they requested him to give them initiations and teachings. They also invited Goshar Gompa's monks for meals together and they did a Lama Chodpa Tsog offering according to the Gelugpa tradition, headed by Shangpa Rinpoche.

Dear Readers,

You can now read a short but wonderful teaching written by himself one small piece of paper for his disciple for reminder of practice by the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche. This has been uploaded to the following webpage at Shangpa.org: http://www.shangpa.org/teachings.html

Goshar Gompa western Tibet. This place was prophecies by 15th Karmapa to Ogyen Sonam Zangpo to build a retreat place and there was a small temple for hermit and when Shangpa Rinpoche came there he rebuild and also expend the temple there as well as ordain many monks. He also passed away at this temple.