The Nyingmapa School

The followers of Padmasambhava were later called Nyingmapa, ‘the Ancient ones’, and their doctrines were then organised as the system of a school. The above mentioned general view regarding Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen is reflected in the Nyingmapa classification of all Buddhist teachings in ‘nine vehicles’[31], which are: 1. Shravakayana 2. Pratyekabuddhayana 3. Bodhisattvayana 4. Kriya Tantra 5. Ubhaya or Carya Tantra 6. Yoga Tantra 7. Mahayoga 8. Anuyoga 9. Atiyoga The first three vehicles correspond to the Sutra teachings, the other six correspond to the Tantra. Kriya, Ubhaya and Yoga Tantra are

called Lower Tantras or External Tantras, since they are based on the visualisation of a deity as an entity that is external to the practitioner. The last three are called Higher or Inner Tantras, since in this case the practitioner visualises his own person as the deity, without any separation. The

vehicle of Atiyoga (‘primordial yoga’) in the Nyingmapa School includes the Dzogchen teachings, but this does not mean that these teachings are exclusive to the Nyingmapa School. There are Dzogchen masters and practitioners in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism as well as in Bön, the religious tradition that

existed in Tibet a long time before the introduction of Buddhism. But, as we learn from the texts, Dzogchen teachings are extremely ancient, even more ancient than Bön. In fact the Dzogchen treasury of knowledge deals with the innermost nature of reality, so it cannot be considered as exclusive to one school or tradition.

Different Modes of Transmission of The Teachings

In the Nyingmapa school there are three modes of transmission of teachings: terma, kama and tagnang. Many teachings of Padmasambhava belong to the terma tradition, although there are also terma teachings that were transmitted by other masters. Terma

The word terma means ‘treasure’ and it refers to a teaching that has been concealed so that it may be discovered in the future, when the time is appropriate and that particular teaching is needed.[32] In this way many teachings have been preserved from the danger of being destroyed during the

periods of chaos that Tibet had to go through. Padmasambhava himself, helped by Yeshe Tsogyal, a yogini who was his consort,[33] concealed most of the terma texts in many different areas of Tibet and predicted places and circumstances where their

finders would be born. A discoverer of a terma is called a tertön, ‘discoverer of treasures’. The most important tertöns are reincarnations of the twenty-five main disciples of Padmasambhava who made an aspiration to be reborn in the future to rediscover the teachings that he had concealed, but there are

also many others.[34] There are two main kinds of termas: sater and gongter. Sater means ‘treasure of the earth’, since these teachings are found in material places, such as in a cave, in a statue, in a pillar of a temple, etc.[35] One characteristic kind of sater is the ‘yellow scrolls’ (shogser), scrolls of yellow paper that contain a text, often written in ‘symbolic writing’ (dayig) which does not resemble any commonly known writing. Only the tertön or a highly realised practitioner can understand it. Often the tertön finds nothing but a few syllables of this script, from which the whole text

develops while he is deciphering it, because this script has the power to change while the predestined person is reading it. Also a sacred object, such as a statue, can be a sater. Gongter means ‘treasure of the mind’. This refers to teachings that are not hidden in a material place, but in the nature of mind

of realized practitioners, who at the right time will discover them through dreams or visions.[36] The lineage of transmission of a terma is a short one, because in this way a teaching is transmitted directly by Padmasambhava - or another master - to a tertön who comes to this world many centuries later. Kama

Kama means ‘word’, ‘pronouncement’. This refers to a mode of transmission of the teachings in an uninterrupted succession from master to disciple, for generations from the origins of that teaching. An example of a teaching of Padmasambhava that belongs to this tradition is The Garland of Views of the Secret Methods.[37]

Tagnang

Tagnang means ‘pure vision’, which refers to teachings that are transmitted, through dreams or visions, to highly realized practitioners directly from enlightened beings, divinities or masters who lived in the past. It shows some similarities with the gongter, but in this case the teaching is transmitted at that time for the first time, instead of being hidden and then rediscovered.

Different Kinds of Birth in Relation to the Terma and Kama Traditions

There are two different versions of Padmasambhava’s birth, that of a supernatural birth and that of a birth from the womb.[38] The supernatural birth version is more or less the same in most of his biographies: it relates that the Buddha Amitabha, who is red in color and resides in the pure dimension of

the west, called Sukhavati, out of compassion for human beings who needed a guide to overcome suffering, emanated a red ray of light that took the shape of an eightyear-old boy, who appeared within the petals of a lotus flower, in the middle of the Dhanakosha lake, in Oddiyana. At that time King Indrabodhi[39]

was already old and had no son to become heir to his kingdom. One of his ministers saw the boy and told the king about the miraculous apparition. The king, understanding that the boy had a divine nature, took him to the palace, to be his adoptive son and heir to the throne. He was named Padmasambhava[40] or, according to other versions, Padma Akara,[41] both of which mean ‘Born from a Lotus Flower’. As he grew up, he manifested the will to abandon wordly life

and dedicate himself to spiritual practice. So he left the court and started his training as a monk and then as a Tantric practitioner, travelling through many countries to spread the Dharma and protect it from its enemies. The lotus is a very important symbol in all of oriental cultures. It is very widespread in Tibet, Persia, India, China, Japan and Thailand. Many Tibetan deities are represented sitting or standing on a lotus flower, or holding

one in their hands. This symbol is adopted in Buddhism because a lotus flower, although it is born from mud, is not tainted by it, just as Buddhahood, present in all beings, is not sullied or altered by the cycle of conditioned existence. It seems that most of the terma biographies of Padmasambhava that

are presently known report the version of a magical birth, whereas those belonging to the kama tradition report that of a human birth or both. Among these terma texts there is one exception: the one discovered by the tertön Pamkal Mugpo, who lived in the 12th century, which, on the subject of the birth of Padmasambhava relates as follows: [42]

Regarding this teaching, we are now going to remember One who came as a supreme marvel And became a refuge for the whole world, Padma Gyalpo[43], One who, as regards his birth, was born to the king of Oddiyana One who in India eliminated all doubts (about the Doctrine) And at Shitavana[44] obtained the two kinds of siddhis[45], One who spread the Doctrine in Tibet And subdued the Rakshasas at the south-western border[46], Only spiritual guide of those who

have not overcome the condition of suffering, Supreme Vajra Heruka[47] of the three bodies[48], Spiritual teacher of the three times[49] equally. The version of the kama tradition is probably less known. Taranatha’s biography relates that he was the son of a member of the royal family of Oddiyana, called Srado in Oddiyana language and Srigdhara in Sanskrit. Sogdogpa Lodrö Gyaltsen (1552-?) in his history of the cult of Vajra Kilaya,[50] written in

1609, almost contemporary with Taranatha’s text, says: In general this great Guru Padma is considered to have been born in a miraculous way, but, in order to spread this teaching of the Purpa of Action,[51] he manifested through a noble birth from the womb. The reason for this is that it is not possible for someone who was born in a miraculous way to convert beings born from the womb, therefore even Buddhas must manifest through conception.[52]