Namo Guru! I, Chökyi Wangchuk, a monk of the Pang [family], was engaged in a corpse ritual of the body of a small boy in the early morning on the tenth day of the Horse month of the Dog year at Ne Ngön Monastery. While supplicating the Three Roots, Guru Pema arrived on a sunray; he was naked with a long[-petalled] lotus hat and held a sun and a moon in his two hands.

​

He unified the sun and moon in his hands

And dissolved it into my heart—

At that time, the delusional appearance of self-grasping subsided into space,[1]

And a space-like experience dawned.

That’s when the Guru went on to state:

“If you know how to unify space and awareness as one,

Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa will be released without accepting nor rejecting—

Dharmakāya, devoid of hopes and fears.”

Saying this, he also gave the symbol to me.

Machik Jomo Tsogyal also came.

She was in the fashion of a beautiful young goddess,

With red silk garments and diadem.

Her precious jewelry jangled—si li li.

She spun a white silver mirror.

Putting the mirror to my heart,

She placed the threatening mudrā on it and went on to state:

“[When] lucid and thought-free, the knots of the mind grasping

The five sense objects unravel.

Continue without distraction and grasping!”

That’s when she recounted past events. 

The story is otherwise secret. It is contained elsewhere.

Layman She’u Khari also came,

A man with a tiger skin quiver and a fierce gaze.[2]

His silk[3] turban fluttering—char ra ra.

As he spun a magical staff overhead.

He guffawed ha ha he he! and

Shot an arrow into the ground before me.

While entrusted his staff into my hand—

“If the mind alone is realized,

The empty life-force of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa will be severed at once,

And the bhūmi of the unchanging Mahāyāna mastered.”

Saying this, he also presented the symbol.

The treasure protector Nine-Headed Nāga Demon was also there.

He had a blue spear with tiger tassels,[4]

And nine snake heads decorated the crown of his head.

In his hand, he held a precious chest.

“Na ga du na!” he proclaimed.

He entrusted the precious chest to me

And said, “It is not exhausted through generosity.” 

Thus, all in a single voice

They taught the eight symbolic teachings, and

Everything I perceived dissolved into my mind,

And a sky-like experience dawned.

Then the Guru’s retinue

Completely dissolved into the Guru.

And the Guru went into the expanse of space.

This wasn’t a vision; it was real.

It happened because Chöwang’s[5] mind was blissful.

It was karmic fortune; don’t be conceited.

COLOPHON

This is called “The Eight Symbolic Teachings.” Maṅgalam!! As such he said.  

NOTES

Sigla:

A1 and A2: Guru Chöwang (gu ru chos dbang). 1979. gu ru chos dbang gi rang rnam dang zhal gdams. 2 vols. rin chen gter mdzod chen po’i rgyab chos, vols. 8–9. Paro: Ugyen Tempai Gyaltsen. BDRC MW23802.

B1–3: Tertön Guru Chökyi Wangchuk (gter ston gu ru chos kyi dbang phyug). 2022. gter ston gu ru chos kyi dbang phyug gi ran rnam dang zhal gdams bzugs so, vols. 1–3. Edited by Dungse Lama Pema Tsewang (gdung sras bla ma pad+ma tshe dbang). Lamagaun, Nepal: Tsum Library.

​

[1] This line in A1 breaks the metre of the verse and is thus placed in parentheses in B2. The shift in the metre might suggest that the line was previously an interlineal note, as the compilation as a whole is inundated with them.

​

[2] A1: 376.6, 496.7: gziD shuD; B2: 53.11: gzig shub, 128.4: gzig shubs. As both examples in Edition A contain two retroflexes, the translation aligns with that understanding, compared to the modern Edition B.

​

[3] White silk according to A1: 497.1: dar dkar la thod phya ra ra. 

​

[4] A1: 377.1: khye thang (B2: 128.5–6: ched sdod; A1: 497.1: khyed sdod sngon po stag (A1: 497.1: rtag) gzar (B2: 128.6: gzar; B2: 53.14: gzigs) can. The accuracy of this rendition is subject to uncertainty. Please reach out to us if you have further information regarding this line.

​

[5] There is an ostensible shift from first-person to third-person narration. This is quite common in Chöwang’s literary corpus, with a couple of facets to highlight, though more could be said on the matter. Chöwang employs a literary and perhaps didactic device, one utilized by other treasure revealers, that is, the phrase bag ’dra (“like me”). He has a habit of introducing his dream self in this manner; a paraphrastic example of this is “a Chöwang likened unto myself once had a dream in which….” This not only shows his self-characterization in a literary sense of the dream but also his normative acknowledgment of not truly being the same Chöwang that existed in the dream, due to temporal-ontological concerns. It could also be stated that this device demonstrates his enlightened understanding that the personage that is “Chöwang” is merely an illusory and performative nirmāṇakāya functioning as enlightened activity. Nevertheless, it has been stated that this phrase means “me,” but that seems to be too banal to provoke any interest in the matter and disregards the literariness and function of ’dra (“like”).

​

Published: May 2024

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Guru Chöwang (gu ru chos dbang). 1979. gu ru chos dbang gis sne sngon du bu chung baM sgrub mdzad pa’i tshe gu ru dang mjal tshul lo. In gu ru chos dbang gi rang rnam dang zhal gdams. rin chen gter mdzod chen po’i rgyab chos, v. 8, 375–378. Paro: Ugyen Tempai Gyaltsen. BDRC MW23802.

Tertön Guru Chökyi Wangchuk (gter ston gu ru chos kyi dbang phyug). 2022. gu ru chos dbang gis sne sngon du bu chung baM sgrub mdzad pa’i tshe gu ru dang mjal tshul lo. In gter ston gu ru chos kyi dbang phyug gi ran rnam dang zhal gdams bzugs so, vol. 2, 53. Edited by Dungse Lama Pema Tsewang (gdung sras bla ma pad+ma tshe dbang). Lamagaun, Nepal: Tsum Library.