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published by Snow Lion, an imprint of Shambhala Publications

Tsadra Foundation is a US-based nonprofit organization that contributes to the ongoing development of wisdom and compassion in Western minds by advancing the combined study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

Taking its inspiration from the nineteenth-century nonsectarian Tibetan Buddhist scholar and meditation master Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye, Tsadra Foundation is named after his hermitage in eastern Tibet, Tsadra Rinchen Drak. The Foundation’s various program areas reflect his values of excellence in both scholarship and contemplative practice, and the recognition of their mutual complementarity.

Tsadra Foundation envisions a flourishing community of Western contemplatives and scholar-practitioners who are fully trained in the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. It is our conviction that, grounded in wisdom and compassion, these individuals will actively enrich the world through their openness and excellence.

This publication is a part of Tsadra Foundation’s Translation Program, which aims to make authentic and authoritative texts from the Tibetan traditions available in English. The Foundation is honored to present the work of its fellows and grantees, individuals of confirmed contemplative and intellectual integrity; however, their views do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

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© 2002 by Tsadra Foundation

This edition published in 2024

Cover design: Jesse Townsley and Sidney Piburn

Interior design: Gopa & Ted2

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The Library of Congress catalogues

the previous edition of this book as follows:

Ngawang Zangpo, 1954–

Guru Rinpoché: his life and times by Ngawang Zangpo.

p. cm.

isbn: 978-1-55939-174-0 (alk. paper)

eISBN 9780834845794

isbn: 978-1-64547-348-0 (pbk.: 2024 ed.)

1. Padma Sambhava, ca. 717–ca. 762.

2. Lamas—China—Tibet—Biography. 3. Priests,

Buddhist—India—Biography. I. Title.

bq7950.p327 z36 2002

294.3’923’092—dc21

2002003143

a_prh_7.0a_149002928_c0_r0

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note on Phonetic Renderings

Introduction

Buddhism, History, and the Truth

Buddhist History after the Buddha

Tibet and Asia on the Eve of Guru Rinpoché’s Arrival

India in Guru Rinpoché’s Era

Guru Rinpoché Now—in Print

Timeless Guru Rinpoché and Wisdom Bridges to the Present

Translations of Texts on Guru Rinpoché

A Biography of Guru Rinpoché by Jamgon Kongtrul

The Immaculate White Lotus by Dorjé Tso

The Indian Version of the Life of Guru Rinpoché by Taranata

The Bön Version of the Life of Guru Rinpoché by Jamyong Kyentsé Wongpo

Supplications to Guru Rinpoché in Seven Chapters by Guru Rinpoché

Visualizations to Accompany the Supplications by Jamgon Kongtrul

Appendix 1: Notes to the Supplications

Appendix 2: Buddhism and Poetry

Appendix 3: A Lotus-Born Master before Guru Rinpoché

Notes

Bibliography

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To the people of the Himalayas,

who introduced me to Guru Rinpoché

and who embody his courage and wisdom.

Preface

Soon after I encountered Tibetan Buddhism, I became convinced that my teacher, Kalu Rinpoché, was Guru Rinpoché incarnate. This did not represent a thoughtful conclusion on my part; it was an emotional response to what I perceived to be his character and impact on my life. Such impressions are entirely personal; others felt his presence more evocative of bodhisattvas such as Great Compassion or Tara, whose meditations he taught worldwide; or of the great yogis Milarépa or Tang-Tong Gyalpo, whose lives he emulated. There is no right or wrong in these perceptions; they inform and enliven our faith. My appreciation of my teacher as Guru Rinpoché, while an entirely personal and perhaps unreasonable conclusion, has stayed with me to the present day and explains much of this book. During periods of retreat, I searched for prayers to Guru Rinpoché and found the text of Supplications to Guru Rinpoché in Seven Chapters, which quickly became a treasured companion, as have many diverse versions of Guru Rinpoché’s life story. My discovery that Tibetan accounts of their first major Buddhist master are not free from contradictions has not dampened my enjoyment of them. If nothing else, my life with Tibetan lamas has proved to be a rich education in de-structuring and widening my imagination of enlightenment or enlightened beings, beginning with Guru Rinpoché.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to share with non-Tibetan readers these stories and supplications. To them I have added some information concerning the Buddhist view of history, and a few relevant details of India, China, and Tibet’s life during that era. I have lived in India for five years and in Taiwan for three, and I am always immersed in the Tibetan world, which no longer has borders to restrict it. I deeply appreciate all three cultures and hope to show how they intersected in surprising ways before and during Guru Rinpoché’s fateful visit to Tibet.

Finally, I observe with immense happiness the coming of Guru Rinpoché to new lands, particularly the wild West, my birthplace. Buddhism is still in its infancy outside Asia, yet it has already had a major impact on many people’s lives. We cannot measure Buddhism’s development in new environments by its acquisition of land, bricks, and mortar, but by changes in our minds, lifestyle, and deathstyle. Such changes take time. Yet where once Guru Rinpoché seemed an impossibly inscrutable foreigner, he is now coming into clear focus. I hope that this book will contribute to this process.

Acknowledgments

Yudra Tulku and Lobpon Jikmé (Chadral Rinpoché’s main teaching assistant) of Nepal’s Katmandu Valley and Tulku Thubten and Khenpo Orgyen Trinlé of Santa Cruz, California, answered many questions concerning the Tibetan texts. Completing this book would have been impossible without these four lama-scholars’ time and patience.

Tsadra Foundation sponsored this book and has incorporated it into its Tsadra Foundation Series, for which I am deeply grateful. Eric and Andrea, thank you.

Lama Drubgyu Tenzin again accompanied me in this project, both as an invaluable editor and as a friend who knows how to prod, coax, and encourage with the skill of a seasoned diplomat.

Snow Lion Publications’ team has always been a pleasure to work with. Sidney Piburn and Steven Rhodes are the two kind persons whose attention to every detail nursed this book to completion. Thanks as well to Minette Mangahas of Berkeley for her help.

I have dedicated this book to the women and men of the Himalayas, lamas and laypersons, who have kept Guru Rinpoché’s presence alive. I have written this book with a non-Tibetan audience in mind; but I have often been conscious, as I write, of a thousand years of Guru Rinpoché’s followers reading over my shoulder. Do my words do their faith justice? Am I helping new, non-Tibetan Buddhists share their wavelength? These are the questions they ask by the example of their devotion to their first Buddhist tantric master.

I do not idealize Himalayan culture and society, or look down upon Western culture. Yet I do admire the effort of Tibet’s people to put their faith into practice, as difficult as that might be. To illustrate this, allow me to relate a story:

The Great Stupa in Nepal’s Katmandu Valley is a magnet for all Himalayan Buddhist pilgrims, as they believe it was the site where Guru Rinpoché vowed in a past life to take Buddhism to Tibet. People worship there all day long, either with offerings of lamps or incense, or with prostrations and circumambulations, since a stupa is said to symbolize the Buddha’s mind. In such a place, to renew the structure’s paint and decorations, making them more attractive to everyone, is considered a good deed, a public service with a spiritual dimension. A French friend wished to sponsor such a whitewashing and decoration of the Great Stupa, and asked me to arrange it.

I had chosen the day December 10, 2001 at random and I was surprised that morning to find a group of Tibetan Bönpos in the stupa’s inner courtyard, bright and early. They offered incense and prayers; many other Tibetans followed them. I finally asked what the special occasion was. The answer: the anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

With each passing minute, the stupa area, inside and out, filled with Tibetans of all faiths, regions, and ages. It was a major event; I had never witnessed such a large congregation of people at the stupa. Finally, hundreds of schoolchildren filed into the inner courtyard and sang while the adults prayed. For many hours after the main crowd had dispersed, a large group of older men and women sang and danced in the styles of their lost homeland.

We might see this as a moment of pure folklore, gentle tribes re-living their quaint past, but that is not my view. Those who gathered were refugees, men and women who had unwillingly fled their homes and country on foot, over mountain passes and into foreign lands. The climates and diseases of their destinations killed more of them than did the dangerous journey. They were forced to learn new languages and ways of life. Those who survived often managed to do more than eke out an existence: some thrived. They reconstructed temples, printing presses, and schools. We might put ourselves in that picture: could American or Canadian refugee families arrive penniless in Mexico, without a word of Spanish, and succeed? Could destitute European refugees with children reach the shores of Morocco and hope to prosper?

Most Tibetans have lost friends and family members to violent or premature deaths, due to having stayed in occupied Tibet, or to hardships during their escape, or to transplantation to totally foreign and sometimes hostile environments. Yet they gathered that day in a festival of peace. Not one person shouted anticommunist slogans; no one made speeches denouncing those who seemed to have caused their nation’s tragedy. These people are not dupes; they are perfectly lucid about what they have lost and the sacrifice it has taken to preserve what is left. They may remain attached to their irretrievable past—clans, dress, and music—but they are often astute citizens of the world. So are their children, who watch MTV, dress as modern Asians, and find new clans in internet chat rooms.

Young and old gathered that day to pray for a peaceful solution to their people’s tragedy. I think most were conscious that it is they themselves who pay the price for those peaceful prayers. Theirs were not wishes for world peace coming from the cozy suburbs of some well-defended nation. The folded hands and bowed heads that day were of stateless refugees, first and second generation, who have chosen the hard path of love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity in the face of unacceptable loss. Each member of the Tibetan nation has drunk deeply from their recent history’s wells of sorrow and rage. Yet each eventually tastes the other, more powerful flavors of their collective memory, the nectar of past and present bodhisattvas, who help them use their life experiences as food for awakening and buddhahood, not for victimhood or schemes of revenge.

That day was a poignant moment for me, a study in contrasts. My beloved West was at that moment stymied by shock, panic, and lack of imagination. It could find nothing better to do than to try once again what no religion advises in the face of others’ aggression: demonizing enemies and raining death and destruction upon them. (What part of Thou shalt not kill do theists on either side not understand?) Meanwhile, my beloved Tibet was celebrating peace at Guru Rinpoché’s home monument, and elsewhere throughout the Himalayas and the world. The Tibetans do not have all the answers, but they have embarked upon a collective search for peace, justice, and freedom without violence, be it physical, verbal, or mental. It is a slow and extremely demanding process, one that does not come with guarantees of success during the course of anyone’s lifetime. Nevertheless, the search for an efficient way to kill evil human beings is a path equally long and fraught with uncertainty.

I am deeply grateful to my Tibetan friends, high and low, young and old, male and female, who have assimilated Guru Rinpoché’s blessing into their personal spiritual lives and have woven his message into the fabric of their society. These ambassadors of Guru Rinpoché’s courage and wisdom are the Himalayas’ priceless export to a world in dire need of their influence. As they would say, May all beings without exception enjoy happiness and any acts that foster continued happiness. May all beings live free from sorrow and its causes. May all beings’ true, unadulterated happiness never fade. May all beings live in even-minded serenity, free from hatred or attachment toward those near or far.

A Note on Phonetic Renderings

In a Note on Transliteration that opens Twilight Goddess, Thomas Cleary and Sartaz Aziz wrote, Various academic transliteration schemes have been developed for individual languages, but we have chosen not to adopt them in this context because their complications pose unnecessary problems for readers without actually making accurate pronunciation possible, while specialists and students do not really need academic orthographic conventions to recognize words. (p. ix) Perhaps it takes scholars of their stature to state such an obvious truth.

Students writing their master’s or doctoral theses are required to conform to the academic transliteration schemes mentioned above. However, the same schemes are unwelcome in a book destined for an educated, yet non-specialist readership because they give the reader no guidance as to pronunciation. How are we to pronounce the Tibetan in a book sub-titled, The Enlightenment of Ye-shes mTsho-rgyal, written by Nam-mkha’i snying-po? What would any reader surmise about pronunciation when reading the following line, chosen at random from another excellent book, Thu’u bkwan and Lcang skya’s other mentors wanted Khri chen Blo bzang bstan pa’i nyi ma to be appointed as his tutor. (Among Tibetan Texts, p. 137) (Would you like to hazard a guess how to pronounce the last name mentioned here? If you guessed Tree-chen Lo-zong Ten-pé Nyi-ma, you were probably a Tibetan in your past life.)

I would conclude that these authors or translators did not intend their books to be released to the general public, but wrote for a hermetic community of scholars. I further imagine that their publishers are so well funded that they are unconcerned with book sales. Lastly, it seems clear that such projects were not conceived with the larger Buddhist community in mind. Modern Buddhists throughout the world are often well educated in the secular realm and sophisticated in their spiritual lives. Yet when we translators write in our in-house codes, we exclude many intelligent readers who have no calling to become Buddhist scholars but who read to deepen their understanding of Buddhism, their chosen faith. I do not believe scholars need to dumb down or unduly popularize their work for the larger Buddhist community; rather, they need to rise to the challenge of writing clearly and intelligibly outside of academic conventions.

A small step in that direction is using an easily comprehensible system of phonetic rendering. Buddhist writers do not need to reeducate readers in how to read English; we need to render foreign names in ways that can give a reader a fair chance of pronouncing them. Too often, Buddhist books are prefaced with guides that remind me of George Bernard Shaw’s directions on how to spell the word fish: g-h-o-t-i, he said. Gh as in laugh, o as in women, and ti as in dictionary. For example, one current eminent scholar presents us with this guide for pronunciation of vowels: ‘a’ indicates the vowel sound of ’opt’; ’i’ of ’it’ or ’eat’; ’u’ of ’soon’& and so on. This obviously amounts to cruel and unusual punishment to the reader.

In this book, I tried to write Tibetan words as an Anglophone reader might pronounce them without prompting from such a pronunciation guide. While I have aimed for consistency, I have not devised a complete set of hard and fast rules. English embraces so many words of diverse origins that a foolproof set of rules may forever elude us. Yet we can probably guess that most readers will normally read ph as an f sound, and th as in the. I have dropped the h’s from such combinations, where it indicates a sound that does not correspond to a sound commonly suggested by the same letters in English. Thus, you will read Taranata, rather than Taranatha. This may shock and dismay Buddhist scholars, yet even the venerable New York Times now spells the capital of Nepal Katmandu.

Likewise, e’s at the end of most English words are either silent or pronounced ee. Left to our own devices, we read may and me differently, although the present conventions in the phonetic renderings of Tibetan would have us read them as homonyms. The old system asks the reader to learn and perform a wholly unnatural mental gymnastic. An accent on e’s that are pronounced ay is an imperfect solution, but you read in this book of Guru Rinpoché, not Rinpoche. (Again, the New York Times spells the name of one of Canada’s figure skaters as Salé, whereas many publications seem to have taken a page from Tibetan scholars and write Sale. This, to my eyes, can only be read by an English reader as rhyming with whale.)

The u’s in Tibetan phonetic renderings indicate an oo sound, as in boom. Yet, in works seemingly written for the general public, the u sometimes remains, leaving us with names like Gyaltsen Bum. What is a normal, well-educated reader to assume? A Tibetan man one day asked me about his name’s spelling in English, as he had discovered that the orthodox rules do not work outside the small world of Tibetan scholars. Some well-meaning person had taught him, correctly, to spell his name Thubten. Had he dared change to the incorrect and less elegant Toobten, he might have found his name pronounced closer to a sound his mother would recognize. Thus, you will read, should the occasion arise, boom and not bum, toob and not thub.

I’s that end words in Tibetan phonetic renderings function like ending e’s in English. If you were to read hi in scholarly works, this would not indicate the sound of the word high, but, perversely, a sound closer to he. When this sound must be indicated in the text, I have written it as ee. This is far from ideal in many respects, and you will still find some exceptions, such as dakini, rather than da-kee-nee, but the latter would probably be kinder to readers.

Another visual speed bump I feel obliged to include in the text is ö, to indicate to the reader that the sound is unlike our common English pronunciation of an o (i.e., a long o) but is closer to the vowel sound we make in book. The same scholar I mentioned above wrote in his pronunciation guide that an ö in his text indicates the vowel sound of ‘er’ (minus the ‘r’). I have long wondered if our name for Tibet comes from just such a phonetic rendering. Tibetans call their country Bö (again, book minus the ‘k’). The first traveler to Tibet who asked a native what country he had reached probably heard, "This is Tibet (di bö ré)." If we delete from the sentence the verb ré, we are left with di bö, which is written in Tibetan ‘di bod. Change the d’s to t’s and have an e stand for the ö, which indicates the vowel sound of ‘er’ (minus the ‘r’) and we have a name for a country which no native would recognize as his or her own—Tibet.

Finally, you may recall a brand of computers now relegated to distant memory, Wang Computers. It was surprising to hear it pronounced on television as rhyming with sang or rang, but we have only correct transliteration to blame for this wrong wang, which would be wong in a phonetic rendering. Likewise, we should probably replace the yang in our diet not with yin but with yong.

Questions of apt styles for the representation of the sounds of words are related to the larger movement of serious Buddhist translation out of a strictly academic setting. Many translations, prepared as theses or as the scholarly production expected of tenured teachers, remind me of tantras enunciated by a Buddha or bodhisattva to an audience composed of enlightened beings who shared the same mind stream. That is a perfectly acceptable level of Buddhist discourse. Nevertheless, expressions of enlightenment exist in other contexts in which it is assumed that the speaker and the audience were not of one mind. Such forums demand that the speaker or translator employ a usage attuned to the listener. It seems not a question of choosing between right or wrong usages; our work asks us to choose among a number of correct options the style appropriate to the occasion. Thus, you find in this book an attempt to conform not to a set of rules, past or present, but to what I imagine my Anglophone sisters and brothers need to find on the page if they want to pronounce Tibetan words included in this text.

Introduction

Guru Rinpoché succeeded in implanting the practice of tantric Buddhism throughout the Himalayan region, particularly in Tibet. Although he left the region well over a thousand years ago, he is still remembered vividly and invoked regularly by Tibetan-speaking Buddhists, for whom his presence remains alive. Except for the Buddha Shakyamuni, no other human being is so deeply venerated by the Tibetans; Guru Rinpoché is often referred to as the second Buddha. He towers above all later masters who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet or those Tibetans who went to India in search of instruction. The many tales told of his life, such as those included in this book, portray him as an individual who had overcome human limitations and could act freely for the good of the world. Whether or not we choose to believe what might seem only legends, Guru Rinpoché was undeniably responsible for transforming the spiritual and secular life of the people of the Himalayan region and he remains the single most significant influence in modern Himalayan tantric Buddhism.

The main portion of Guru Rinpoché: His Life and Times contains translations of Tibetan texts written on the subject of this great Indian Buddhist master of the eighth and ninth centuries. Guru Rinpoché’s arrival in Tibet marked a radical change in the country’s religious and political orientation. And it is he whose presence still accompanies Tibet’s Buddhists, and those who practice Himalayan tantric Buddhism, whenever they turn their hearts toward the refuge of their faith. He is their, and our, second Buddha.

How can we express in English what effect Guru Rinpoché had on those who met him? The word charisma does not even begin to cover it. A fitting image is this: We see the stars and the moon at night, but when the sun arrives, they disappear. We may be able to see the moon in the daytime, but it seems inert. The stars do not leave the heavens, the moon always shines with the same intensity, but the sun shines so many times brighter that the other lights of the heavens seem to vanish.

The Tibetans have a word for that, pronounced zil-nün (written zil gnon), literally, to overwhelm with brilliance, although the Tibetan definition is to render others weak. This might be close to a very simple and unused verb in English: to cow, to make timid and submissive by filling with fear or awe; intimidate (Webster’s New World College Dictionary). Tibetans use zil-nün in conjunction with another word to name one of the most popular forms of Guru Rinpoché, Nong-see Zil-nün, literally he who overwhelms existence’s appearances with his brilliance.

That was and is Guru Rinpoché. His awe-inspiring presence had nothing to do with the media or publicity, political power or wealth. In the eighth century, he walked over the Tibetan border from Nepal accompanied by a few Nepalese craftsmen whom he soon sent on ahead to Lhasa. He was a foreigner, from an area of India that had fought wars with Tibet not long before, and he traveled alone on foot with what he could carry. As we will see in the translated accounts of his life below, he set about transforming Tibet, from the underground (the spirits, gods and demons) up. While no consensus exists for the duration of his stay, this much is clear: he left Tibet’s Buddhists with the indelible feeling that their land was now blessed. As Jamgon Kongtrul was fond of saying whenever he broached the subject, There was no area of Tibetan soil larger than a horse’s hoof untouched by Guru Rinpoché’s feet. And, he might have added, no Tibetan Buddhist heart untouched by his spiritual influence. This was Guru Rinpoché’s effect.

This collection joins a number of translations devoted solely to Guru Rinpoché’s life, notably The Lotus-Born, The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, and The Legend of the Great Stupa, and many others that contain long passages describing his acts and teaching, such as the indispensable Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoché, the many wonderful works by Tulku Thondup, including Masters of Meditation and Miracles and Hidden Teachings of Tibet, and the precious translations by Eric Pema Kunsang, including Dakini Teachings.

In general, the books just mentioned speak in unison of Guru Rinpoché’s life—they provide the traditional lotus-born account that is common to the treasure texts. Easily the most outlandish and extravagant version of Guru Rinpoché’s life and acts, the account of his life that begins with his birth from a lotus remains the most important to practicing tantric Buddhists. To that classical picture of Guru Rinpoché this book adds two very different versions of his life: the Tibetan non-Buddhist (Bön) account and an account based on Indian and early Tibetan chronicles. While these short texts share their main subject and unanimously accord Guru Rinpoché his rightful place of honor, they diverge from the traditional account in significant ways. The main point that begs for attention and explanation is that of his birth. The treasure texts recount unanimously his birth from a lotus; other sources provide details of his human parents. How can we resolve this?

To begin with, it should be obvious that belief in Guru Rinpoché’s miraculous birth is not an article of faith. Among the six classes of beings identified in Buddhism, beings in hell and the gods in heaven also take parentless, miraculous birth, but no one regards them as a spiritual refuge on the basis of their unusual mode of birth. We take refuge in the Lotus-Born Master because his enlightened mind is suffused with inconceivable wisdom and compassion, because his teaching leads us from here to enlightenment, and because his continued presence in countless forms, including our instructors and spiritual companions, accompanies us each step of the way. A person’s total disbelief in the Lotus-Born’s lotus birth shocks and dismays no one; another’s total confidence in his miraculous birth is picturesque but not spiritually significant in itself.

On a worldly level, we might consider Guru Rinpoché’s birth story as skillful means. His visit to Tibet had been preceded by that of Shantiraksheeta, a great master from the Indian kingdom of Zahor.[1] The venerable preceptor and scholar taught the king and tried to assist in the construction of Samyé Monastery by consecrating the ground, but his efforts were in vain. Whatever we may believe about non-human spirits’ mischief that undermined the building project, it is clear that Tibet’s human natives were also displeased. The king asked Shantiraksheeta to return to Nepal. Faced with failure, the peaceful master contemplated his lack of progress in gaining the hearts and minds of Tibetan humans and non-human spirits, and concluded that only a master who had been born from a lotus would succeed. He advised the king to invite Padmasambhava, the Lotus-Born.

What is the implication of Shantiraksheeta’s statement that only a lotus-born master could succeed where he had failed? He undoubtedly had Guru Rinpoché in mind, in the knowledge that the tantric master’s spectrum of skillful means went far beyond his own, those of a peaceful Buddhist monk. He may also have been admitting to the impossibility of any foreigner, particularly one from India, having a significant impact on Tibet in the current political situation. Shantiraksheeta was declared persona non grata by the same powerful persons who would later ask Guru Rinpoché to take his religion elsewhere, and for the same reasons: a foreigner’s detrimental influence on the king and the people. However, the extraterritoriality that a lotus-born person enjoys probably bought Guru Rinpoché a little more time in Tibet.

Skillful means aside, I find that the story of the miraculous birth of Guru Rinpoché is the most appealing, an admission that could be taken as a sign of serious brainwashing. For me, his story is that of awareness one hundred percent alive from the first moment of his appearance in the world. Whether or not in fact Guru Rinpoché had parents is not germane to his biography: his is the story of the display of fully awakened, primordially pure awareness in life’s every circumstance. Guru Rinpoché was not an individual who followed a spiritual path until illumination. He was an enlightened being who appeared in different guises entirely as a manifestation to help others, including the guise of an individual who followed the spiritual path.

We think of ourselves as being the child of specific parents, as belonging to a certain gender and race, as a citizen of a specific nation, and as a member of a caste, class and community within that country, etc. Our identification with these transient reference points, be they racial, linguistic, cultural, conceptual, or gender-specific, can become lifelong love affairs, hate affairs, or guilt affairs. What Guru Rinpoché’s birth symbolizes for me is the fact that from the first moment he recognized the unborn and undying nature of his mind, primordially pure awareness. He identified with that, rather than with his body, wherever it may have come from, be it a womb, a