第一世噶奇美多傑仁波切 The First GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche

The First GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche

Life

While he was still in the womb his mother's dreams were unusually peaceful, and the birth itself was without pain. He was born in Nangchen, in Tibet, and auspicious signs appeared around him from his earliest years.

Soon after the birth the family invited Gar Thrinley Yongkyab, the previous Garchen Rinpoche, to their house to perform a ceremony. Garchen Rinpoche saw at once that this child was unlike any infant he had seen before.

He took the boy on his lap, blessed him with a white khata, and told the parents: "This is my child.
He is far more remarkable than other children. You must look after him well and keep him pure. He must not be defiled by meat and the like."

He instructed them to raise the child with a pure mind. Then he looked at the infant for some minutes and said: "He should be named Chimi Dorjee, which means indestructible life."

As time passed many people began to notice how different he was. His mind was quick, he was exceptionally intelligent, he spoke fluently and gently, and whatever he did, people found themselves drawn to his kindness. Local people began to call him a buddha of great compassion, or a bodhisattva, and to say that this small boy must be someone quite exceptional.

Compassion was boundless in him from the beginning. Even at play with children his own age he would be softly humming or reciting the mani, the mantra of Avalokiteśvara. If he saw an animal being killed needlessly he would break down completely, weeping and heartbroken, as though he might faint. Sometimes he would wail aloud or beat his chest until the animal was released. When a killing was about to happen he would plant himself on the spot and refuse to move, until people had no choice but to let the animal go simply to comfort him. The moment they released it, all his grief turned into joy and love and hope. He came to believe that in this one life he could put an end to the suffering of every human being and every animal, and from that day he gave his life to every creature living on that land. The things this accomplished master did as a small boy saved a great many lives. Even as a child, great compassion was already complete in him.

In childhood people took advantage of this. They would threaten to kill insects unless he did what they wanted, usually fetching water. He would beg them not to kill and say he would do anything they asked. The seed of boundless compassion was already rooted deep in him. People constantly heard him singing the mani to a beautiful melody, and felt that his heart must be full of happiness. Because of how he behaved as a child, people were sure he was no ordinary boy.

More than that: when he was small, whatever he said came true. So when a villager's livestock went missing, or someone in a family fell ill, they would come and ask him. His father did not like this. He worried that if his son said something wrong there would be trouble, so he told the villagers not to believe what the boy said and tried to stop them coming. Some of them went on believing that Chimi Dorjee had real powers.

At six he was ordained under Gar Thrinley Yongkyab and became a monk of Gar Monastery.

He kept every monastic vow he was given, exactly. He was so moved by the extraordinary lives of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and by the hardships and the lifelong dedication of the great masters, that an immeasurable and almost unbearable devotion to his teacher arose in him, and brought him to tears.
He was struck too by the ultimate emptiness of worldly affairs, and an overwhelming renunciation arose.
He cried out: "Kind teacher, look upon my request. I ask you now: give me all the empowerments and all the pith instructions."

His teacher agreed, and gave him most of the pith instructions and empowerments. He then entered thirteen years of the strictest retreat, entirely cut off from the outside world. Sometimes he came out to meet his teacher and offer him his insight and realisation without passing through door or window.

His teacher would smile broadly and say: "How extraordinary! Now even a great lock cannot hold Chimi Dorjee!"

Not long afterwards his teacher gave him the second half of the pith instructions of the unbroken lineage of masters.

He then took up the four reliances. Among the ten most essential possessions of the Kadampa masters, these four are the very heart:

Send the mind to the Dharma. Send the Dharma to a life of poverty. Send poverty to death. Send death to a lonely ravine.

These four became the next milestone of his life.

One day he noticed his teacher walking towards his retreat hut, furious, looking about him, stamping loudly on the ground. He could see that the teacher was scolding him, but he could not hear it or understand why; he could only feel the anger. Then the teacher turned straight back. Chimi Dorjee was frightened and unhappy, and also wanted to know what had happened. A little later he climbed slowly onto a large rock near his hut so that he might catch sight of his teacher.

He saw the teacher coming towards him again from a distance, and climbed down at once, and it was in that instant that he noticed he had left footprints in the rock. Thinking that his teacher would scold him again, he quickly turned the rock upside down and hurried back inside.

He kept silent, as though he had noticed nothing and nothing had happened, and waited for his teacher to speak. The teacher shouted angrily: "What has happened to that rock? It does not look the way it did. Chimi Dorjee, who turned it over?" He came quickly before his teacher, prostrated on the ground, and explained.

His teacher told him to turn the rock back. When he saw the footprints he cried out in amazement:
"Excellent! This is extraordinary! Child, I knew this would happen, and from the first day we were together I knew you had great capacity."

His reputation as a great meditator spread. People travelled from far away simply to receive his blessing, and many other displays of his powers were witnessed.

There was, for instance, a man named Sonam Wangyal who had great devotion to him. On his way to see Rinpoche he found him sitting under a pine tree not far from the retreat hut, bright and clear, reciting the mani. He was delighted to see Rinpoche so full of joy, and prostrated at once. Rinpoche gave him a great deal of advice, ordinary and extraordinary, and his devotion grew, his confidence went deep, and he threw himself at Rinpoche's feet.

Later, for some reason, he had to pass by the retreat hut. Seeing a crowd of devotees outside, he asked in curiosity: "What are you all doing here?" They answered: "We are waiting to see Rinpoche," and went straight in to meet him. Sonam Wangyal was astonished. How could this be? Was he hallucinating? He had only just seen Rinpoche under the pine tree. He ran back to check, and found Rinpoche still sitting in the same place. It is exactly the story told of Milarepa.

At last Thrinley Yongkyab said to him: "From now on you may lead limitless sentient beings on an endless journey, helping all beings in saṃsāra without partiality and without tiring."

He prostrated to his teacher and asked: "How should I help sentient beings?"

His teacher, knowing that Chimi Dorjee had been born with a connection to Avalokiteśvara, the Great Compassionate One, said:

All the immeasurable blessings of all the buddhas are in Avalokiteśvara, and the essence of all the teachings of all the buddhas is in the six-syllable mani.

With this, without any doubt, you can help sentient beings.

From that day he began to teach the practice of Avalokiteśvara, and helped a great many people. During one mani retreat the conch in the main hall stood upright of its own accord and sounded beautifully, and everyone marvelled at it. Rinpoche told them: "This is a sign that we have completed a hundred million recitations of the mani. Rejoice."

People say that whoever went to see this accomplished master came away with a full heart. Many travelled a long way simply to receive his teaching and his blessing. His life blessed and benefited a great many beings; for the detail, read his full biography.

Source: told by Chimi Dorjee Tulku, typed in English by a dharma friend, translated into Chinese by Claudia, proofread by Hueiling and Serena. Completed October 2014, posted online August 2017. May all who read it give rise to the highest confidence in the Dharma, and so come finally out of suffering into happiness.

Garchen Rinpoche's Chinese biography, told by the master himself and illustrated with his own photographs, is available for download. Volume one, chapter nine contains a great deal about GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche, the previous incarnation, and is well worth reading.

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Story One · Devotion to the guru

The present Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche is the reincarnation of the teacher of Garchen Rinpoche, the master acknowledged across all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and is regarded as a compassionate emanation of Avalokiteśvara. To understand that lineage we have to go back to the first GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche, and to what passed between him and his own teacher, the Seventh Garchen Rinpoche.

Gar Thrinley Yongkyab, the Seventh Garchen Rinpoche, had many students. The two who stand out are the first GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche and Lama Tenkye, and of those two the more important was Chimi Dorjee.

He spent thirteen years in retreat on the Six Yogas of Naropa and came out of it fully accomplished, with unobstructed powers. It is said that he could pass through walls, and that he left footprints in rock which can still be seen today.

At that time Chimi Dorjee lived in a small hut at the lower Gar Monastery, while his teacher Gar Thrinley Yongkyab lived a little higher up, perhaps eighteen metres away.

The teacher would come down to him again and again and scold him loudly, humiliating him: "All these years in retreat and you have achieved nothing. Not the faintest sign of any accomplishment."

Chimi Dorjee took this to heart. He believed he had failed his teacher, and sometimes he could not help weeping.

When the teacher left the hut he would go on scolding as he walked, and would not stop. Chimi Dorjee could still hear him cursing from inside his house further up the hill. In front of the hut stood a great boulder. One day, sitting on that boulder listening to the scolding, he stood up and found that his two feet had left prints in the stone. It was an unmistakable sign of accomplishment.

He was not sure what to make of it. He supposed his teacher would be displeased and would scold him again.

"This is no good," he thought. "He must not see these footprints." So he scattered dust over the rock and covered them.

Later the teacher came round again, looking about him, muttering and cursing. He had of course known all along. He brushed the dust off the boulder and saw the two footprints. He laughed and called out:
"Ha! Now that is an extraordinary sign!" From that day on Chimi Dorjee never heard his teacher scold him again.

Photograph: Claudia Huang.

The footprints of the first Chimi Dorjee Tulku. The photograph shows the footprints he left in the rock outside his retreat hut. They are kept today in the main hall of Gar Monastery in Nangchen, Qinghai.

The story goes that the tulku climbed the rock outside his hut to catch sight of his teacher in the distance. Seeing the teacher walking towards him, he jumped down in a hurry, and it was then that the prints were left.

Source: "The teacher of Garchen Rinpoche: an introduction to GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche and his footprints," on the blog 〈在靈感中翻譯佛法，在業力下努力微笑〉:

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Story Two

He had extraordinary abilities and never used them to prove a point. He was misunderstood and went on practising anyway.

What is real accomplishment? Ability? Reputation? Recognition? Or is it this: that even when you are misjudged, your intention to help others does not change?

Following on from the first story, here is another side of Chimi Dorjee. He had unusual powers and never once used them to show off, to argue his case, or to prove himself. Faced with doubt, misunderstanding, even persecution, he did not use them to obtain justice for himself. He simply kept on practising, praying and helping others. The story below shows an accomplished master answering suspicion with silence, and carrying misunderstanding with compassion.

Chimi Dorjee lived at the lower Gar Monastery, and every evening he would walk up to the upper monastery to turn the prayer wheel of Princess Wencheng before returning to his own room. He was genuinely an accomplished master. Sometimes the monks would lock him in his room and hide the key so that he could not get out, and each time he would simply pass through the wall, as freely as he had left his footprints in the boulder.

Opinion about him was divided. Some had complete faith in him; others were deeply suspicious of his powers. Whenever something was stolen in the town, or a house was broken into, someone would say:
"That was probably Chimi Dorjee. He means no good and he is misusing his powers." Everyone knew he could walk through a wall and take whatever he liked without effort.

In 1958 he was arrested in Chamdo and put in a camp. He was fitted with iron handcuffs; a little while later he had slipped them off, passed through the wall and vanished. Holding him was not easy. They used handcuffs and leg irons, and each time he freed himself and walked out.

They also tried binding him with rope, drawn so tight that it cut into his flesh and drew blood. He died in the camp at Chamdo, and when he passed he was still sitting upright in meditation posture. It was said afterwards that someone came into possession of a length of the rope that had bound him, and that there were relics inside the rope, because it had cut into his body.

Source: "The teacher of Garchen Rinpoche: an introduction to GarTul Chimi Dorjee Rinpoche and his footprints," on the blog 〈在靈感中翻譯佛法，在業力下努力微笑〉: