Tsā ’dra Rin chen brag

In various autobiographical sources Kong sprul recounts how Tsā ’dra evolved from a dilapidated area that he had adopted for longer personal retreats into a schooling station for

meditators.²²⁷ In 1843, Kong sprul moved to an abandoned retreat site nearby that lie above the already existing, dPal spungs-bound meditation center (sgrub sde) by the name of sGrub brgyud dar rgyas gling. Hence Kong sprul’s designation of the new site as a “farther retreat site” (yang khrod), as opposed to the lower and less remote ri khrod mentioned above.²²⁸ The term itself marks Kong sprul’s gradual rise toward more independence as a meditator and instructor.

According to Schuh, Kong sprul’s position in the religious and social hierarchy was elevated through founding an institution.²²⁹ When Kong sprul moved into Tsā ’dra, his prominence was still on the rise, and he had less than meager provisions for his retreat there, further augmented by the fact that he was rather determined to become completely financially independent from his home monastery.²³⁰ He completed a three-year retreat cycle in 1845, and never came back to dPal spungs but remained at Tsā ’dra composing, practicing intensely, and meeting various important ecclesiasts of the day to exchange teachings. In 1853, his high position as a sovereign ritual master and scholar, who had developed a non-sectarian activity outside of the established religious institutions, must have become uncomfortable for his root guru Si tu. The latter made an attempt to reconnect the young intellectual to his home institution, and Kong sprul’s autobiography relates, not without distaste, how the dPal spungs administration proclaimed Kong sprul to be “a rebirth of a certain Kong po lama.”²³¹ However, the title only paved the way for the newly appointed incarnate to more autonomy at his own location.

The fact that his hermitage was a major power place and a revelation site played a great role in his recognition. The ritual importance of Tsā ’dra as a copy of Tsāri, one of the twenty-five special places of Padmasambhava in Khams and an independent revelation site has been discussed above.²³² Equipped with such certificates of origin and association, Kong sprul’s established seat was ready to make a lasting contribution in the history of Khams pa Buddhism as soon as the renovations, reconstruction work and the necessary consecrations began in 1859. Though Kong sprul had been living at Tsā ’dra for sixteen years already, these

227 For the detailed history and ritual significance of this hermitage, see Ngawang Zangpo 2001, which is a monograph dedicated to Tsā ’dra.

228 Schuh 1976: xlv-xlvi. For a brief comparative history of the different hermitages of dPal spungs, see Karma rgyal mtshan 2007: 607-610.

229 Schuh 1976: lxiv.

230 Schuh 1976: xlvi.

231 It is uncertain whether Si tu made this move to actually gain control over Kong sprul, but the haste and awkwardness with which the nomination was put forward might suggest ulterior motives rather than a genuine recognition for the talented young lama. Kong sprul, et al. 2003: 23-4.

232 See Huber 1990: 414-5.

basic restorations still had to be carried out. Consequently, in 1860, the hermitage infrastructure was ready to embrace the first group for Kong sprul’s own three-year retreat program.²³³

Contemporary Eastern Tibetan hermits, as they start their teaching activity, are also expected to establish a venue dedicated to training and practice. When that happens, their status in the social and religious hierarchy rises in a way that is no different from Kong sprul’s recognition process. As I will demonstrate in the case study chapters, the new meditation masters also make use of the three-year retreat model developed at Tsā ’dra as a means for training in the unique Ris med fashion.

III.4.1.1.1. The three-year retreat

As I have mentioned previously, Tsā ’dra had originally been a deserted place that served as a solitary meditation site only for Kong sprul. However, with mChog gling’s explicit encouragement and support, Kong sprul felt personally responsible for arranging it to suit the requirements for meditative training in seclusion.²³⁴ Kong sprul initially had no funds to accomplish this, but while the site’s ritual position was on the rise, he could request dBon sprul lama of dPal spungs that the administration of the monastery help with his task of financing the construction of a new temple and later also his meditation school.²³⁵

Having prepared the necessary conditions at Tsā ’dra, Kong sprul especially revitalized the institution of the three-year, three-fortnight retreat program (lo gsum phyogs gsum) for monks.

In order to facilitate the administration of the two dPal spungs hermitages, he composed his influential retreat manual for guidance during the three-year seclusion.²³⁶

The retreat manual informs us about its curriculum, clearly a display of Kong sprul’s affinity for eclecticism and unification. The program, designed for three years, three months and three days of consistent individual and group meditation practice and ceremonies within a ritually sealed enclosure (sgrub khang), included liturgies from seven out of Eight Great Chariots.²³⁷ Since the curriculum also included the nearly extinct rituals of the Shangs pa

233 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 49.

234 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 136.

235 Concerning the financing of the three-year retreats, see Kong sprul, et al. 2003: 128-9, Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 47, Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 139-41, Schuh 1976: lxv.

236 Kong sprul 1975-6: 257-320. Translated into English and commented on in Ngawang Zangpo 2001.

237 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 31.

bKa’ brgyud lineage, noteworthy is also the fact that the three-year retreat was an important factor in reviving this transmission.²³⁸

Just as the outline for this type of seclusion become a display of Kong sprul’s ideology, it also became central to his heritage. Although the first groups of retreatants amounted to a few individuals and the master himself only oversaw the curriculum of seven or eight groups in the course of his life, it quickly became fundamental for training at most bKa’ brgyud pa sgrub khangs until the 1950’s.²³⁹ Moreover, the three-year training has been widely revived again today – not just in Khams, but also outside of the PRC.

The success of the three-year training was undoubtedly fueled by the graduation spectacle performed by the trainees, which I mentioned briefly in Chapter Two, while discussing Kong sprul’s fascination with Mi la ras pa. Ringu Tulku describes the occasion in this manner:

On the fourteenth day of the first month of the Water Dog year [1862], the three-year retreatants performed their first cloth-drying ceremony. This ceremony tests the degree to which the retreatants have mastered the yoga of Inner Heat. In the cold winter weather the practitioners remain all night wearing one layer of cotton cloth. In the morning they walk in a procession and many spectators come to watch them. On this occasion there was a lot of heat, so the people felt very blessed and joyful.²⁴⁰

This manifestation of yogic proficiency gained as a result of the gtum mo yoga, which was incorporated into the three-year meditative training, later evolved into a custom, repeated in a cyclic fashion at many sgrub khangs of the bKa’ brgyud and other schools until the 1950’s.

Just as mChog gling’s public revelations assisted him on his way to recognition and fame from 1857 on, the gtum mo spectacles helped popularize and perpetrate Kong sprul’s program beginning in 1860.

According to the Tibetan historiographic tradition, the idea of meditating in isolation for a period of three years and three fortnights stems from the Kālacakra-tantra and has to do with inner workings of the subtle energy body. Kong sprul states in the Shes bya mdzod:

If entire wisdom prāṇa of one hundred years [which flows through the nāḍi] is added up, it is [equal to] three years and three fortnights. When all kinds of karmic prāṇas are transformed into wisdom prāṇa, [the state of] buddha is accomplished.

238 Holders of that lineage today, such as Kalu Rinpoche even claim that the establishment of Tsā ’dra had to do with Kong sprul’s commitment to a Shangs pa master. For more on the Shangs pa school see E. G. Smith 2001:

54.

239 The information on the number of retreatants varies. According to Kong sprul’s autobiography there were five meditators plus a retreat master and a lama responsible for protective rituals, meaning seven in total (Kong sprul, et al. 2003: 129). The same is reported in Ngawang Zangpo (2001: 49). Kong sprul, et al. (1994: 358) enumerates only four.

240 Ringu Tulku 2007:132-139; also in Kong sprul, et al. 2003:13.

This is the reason why it is said that [the level of] Vajradhāra can be reached by way of [meditation practice during a period of] three year and three fortnights.²⁴¹

As the main founder of the retreat curriculum, Kong sprul already had experiences with the three-year meditation training. He had originally begun it in 1835 at dPal spungs, though he was unable to complete it since he was invited to teach Sanskrit to Theg mchog rdo rje, the 14^th Karma pa, only a year after he began his undertaking. Six years later, he was able to maintain his solitude for three years, when he first took up residence at the hermitage of Tsā

’dra. Having realized his aim, he put his curriculum in writing for others to use.²⁴²

The history of the convention of the three-year meditation retreat is vague.²⁴³ Basing their information on the emergence of the Kālacakra-tantra in the 10^th century,²⁴⁴ several Tibetan scholars today claim it was known in India.²⁴⁵ Another important voice among past authorities on the subject matter belongs to Rang byung rdo rje, the 3^rd Karma pa (1284–1339). His Zab mo nang don also brings up the relation between a lifespan of one-hundred years and

“wisdom prāṇa.”²⁴⁶

Tibetan historiography occasionally mentions gTsang smyon’s biography of Mar pa Lo tsā ba (1012-1097) as the source of information on the history of the three-year retreat. According to this claim, the three-year retreat was transferred to the Tibetan areas along with other Buddhist teachings at least in the later dissemination phase.²⁴⁷ However, the validity of this argument poses some questions, since this text, as much as other writings belonging to the rnam thar genre, was not composed to narrate historical facts, rather intended to be a piece of devotional literature that usually also includes some sectarian polemics and political debates from the author’s time. Therefore, the only certain conclusion one can draw from studying this source is that the three-year meditation period was known in the 15^th century, at the time of the composition of Mar pa’s biography.

241 lo brgya’i ye rlung thams cad bsdoms na lo gsum phyogs gsum yin la las rlung ji snyed pa ye rlung du gyur nas sangs rgyas thob pa’i phyir lo gsum phyogs gsum gyis rdo rje ’chang ’grub par gsung pa ’ang de’i don yin no/ (Kong sprul 1982, 2: 640).

242 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 39-41, also see Schuh 1976: xxxv.

243 It would make an interesting topic for further study, unfortunately it exceeds the scope of this thesis.

244 See for instance an entire chapter on the prāṇa-winds and drops: Nor bzang rgya mtsho, et al. 2001: 177-194 or V. Wallace 2001: 56-108.

245 For instance mKhan po Nges don, a young scholar of the Karma bKa’ brgyud school, trained at a bshad grwa at Rumtek monastery in India who is now living in Spain (interview from 16.04. 2010).

246 See: Rang byung rdo rje (n.d).: fol.12r.

247 Interview with Lama Lhundrup of France, 19.01.2010. Also see footnote below.

Other sources on the institution of three-year retreats are sporadic, which is perhaps why no consistent historical explanation is known even by its practitioners today.²⁴⁸ There are many claims in emic literature to this or other master who performed a three-year retreat, but indeed, it was Kong sprul who first systematized this practice, as much as sGam po pa pioneered in integrating the caves of the hermits into the structured environment of the monastery.²⁴⁹

Prior to his outline of the retreat, the isolated three-year practice period was carried out by many schools, though without the fixed guidelines, the fixed syllabus or the characteristic sgrub khang enclosure. Kong sprul’s originality had to do with designing the characteristic U-shaped retreat edifice with its square courtyard, determining the number of meditators as well as their daily, monthly and yearly schedule as well as the rules and vows to abide by during the seclusion period. Kong sprul was the one who delineated the structure of the miniature community headed by a retreat master (sgrub dpon) and supported by a cook; he also pioneered in defining the liturgical essentials and in ensuring the regularity of cohort intakes for the training.

His careful planning of the first three-year schooling period indicates that already at the beginning of his project, he had a precise idea of the potential of such meditation seminars.²⁵⁰ Kong sprul’s personal involvement in the preparations included such minute details as the gathering of ritual implements, furniture and household utensils for the individual trainees.²⁵¹ He created additional supportive literature, such as the aforementioned retreat manual, and insisted the trainees study his work, the Shes bya mdzod, before entering the enclosure.²⁵²

All of this helped form an environment, which, as Kong sprul believed, would shape ideal practitioners with a solid understanding of Tantric practice and a non-sectarian outlook.

Through their specific structure, the experimental retreats at Tsā ’dra became a standard intensive training course for prospective religious instructors. Since the graduates of the three-year program were entitled to educate others, some of them founded additional three-three-year retreat centers.²⁵³

248 Kalu Rinpoche, Kong sprul’s emanation from Tsā ’dra, or Lama Lhundrup, disciple of Gendun Rinpoche (=dGe ’dun rin po che, 1918-1997) of sKyo brag who established the three-year retreat enclosures in Europe.

249 Some other examples can be found in Snellgrove 2002, 2: 496.

250 See Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 140-1, Kong sprul, et al. 2003: 129 and Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 49-51.

251 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 140.

252 Ngawang Zangpo 2001: 51.

253 Kong sprul, et al. 1994: 358.

Thus, five hundred years after sGam po pa, shamanic practices again drew closer to a clerical environment. Corresponding to the situation in the 12^th century, when structure was needed if the new lineages were to survive on Tibetan soil, in the second half of the 19^th -century Khams, a new style of meditation practice in retreat had to win moral and financial support of the religious establishment and possibly become incorporated into the monastic curriculum. Tsā ’dra’s training program and its systemic concept developed into the model curriculum at virtually all bKa’ brgyud pa monastic and independent hermitages – it is even said that they form a basis for the attainment of the lama title in the bKa’ brgyud schools.²⁵⁴ The case study chapters demonstrate how modern revivalists reconstruct this institution and how the sgrub khang can coexist with other types of retreat within the boundaries of a meditation school (sgom grwa).²⁵⁵

III.5. The hermitages as sources of new teachings: the Treasures and