The Secret Transmission of Khyungpo
The Holy Monk and the Spirit Woman（无死的金刚心）【SERIAL】
translated by J. C. Cleary
The Secret Transmission of Khyungpo has existed all along by means of a certain mystical method, which people call “secret treasure.”
The secret treasures include treasures in the form of texts, treasures in the form of sacred objects, and treasures in the form of teachings. Treasures in the form of texts means the texts of the sutras. Treasures in the form of sacred objects means vessels of the teaching, relics of eminent monks and teachers of great virtue, and so on. The relics of [the Tantric dakini] Vajravārāhī discovered by the author are a classic treasure in the form of a sacred object. In different forms, these secret treasures are preserved in the forms of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air, and space.
The most miraculous among the secret treasures are treasures in the form of consciousness. Treasures in the form of consciousness are one kind of treasures in the form of teachings. When circumstances were not favorable and there was no way to transmit them widely, certain kinds of mantras and teaching methods and other cultural materials were hidden by the buddhas and bodhisattvas or spirits, hidden deep within the consciousness of certain people, so that the transmission of them would not be lost. Then, when the circumstances were ripe, under the impetus of a certain kind of spiritual power, they flow forth again from the minds of those who hold these treasures of consciousness.
The Secret Transmission of Khyungpo thus belongs to the category of treasures in the form of consciousness. It takes the spiritual quest of Khyungpo Naljor and preserves it in a certain mysterious place. At a certain moment in time many years ago, I encountered it.
In that instant, I suddenly thought of Khyungpo Naljor. I very much wanted to know his path to experiencing enlightenment. When we speak of those people who are seek freedom, what is more meaningful is in fact not the outcome, but rather the process of overcoming the self and reaching the Other Shore of freedom. I very much wanted to know what kind of life and process of practice Khyungpo Naljor, who had been an ordinary man, had gone through so that he became a sage.
At this point, I relied on a realm of experience that goes beyond nature, that goes beyond the distinctions of time and space, and I reached the place I wanted to reach. At that time, I had undergone many years of cultivating the Great Mudra of Light, and I had already broken through the barriers, and my discriminating mind had begun to merge with the realm of light. In that kind of boundless clear light, I began to pray and observe. Soon I saw a point of light – it was like a firefly fluttering around on a dark night. At the beginning, it moved back and forth, seeming to be there for an instant, and then seeming to be gone. Later it came to rest, and it was like a star in the night sky, fixed in one spot. At that point I was observing it in the midst of clear emptiness. Before long, the point of light changed into the light of a candle. At first, the candlelight was swaying, but gradually the brightness opened up, and finally the light radiated out in all directions. At this point, I saw a candlestick, and I also saw a hand lifting the candlestick. Following along from the hand to the arm, I saw the whole body of the person holding up the candlestick. An old man with a penetrating vision was looking right at me. He was very lean. He told me that he was Khyungpo Naljor. I felt this was strange, because the Khyungpo Naljor depicted in the tanka paintings was a fat lama. But he told me that the real Khyungpo Naljor was a gaunt old man. He told me that the form I was seeing was how he looked as a one-hundred-forty-eight-year-old man.
So in this manner, in this realm of light, we managed to communicate. I inquired about his past, I heard his story, I asked him everything about himself. Many years later, when I mentioned this story to a disciple of the tenth Panchen Lama, he laughed mysteriously. He said I should not take this as a dream.
One day that old man set out a book before my eyes – this was the Secret Transmission of Khyungpo. The pages of this book seemed to have already yellowed with age. He opened it to the first page. I earnestly read it. Every night I could read through several dozen pages. The days passed, and I read through this book and finished it. A person who had experienced enlightenment told me that this book was written using dakini characters. In this respect, it is very similar to Milarepa’s Songs of Enlightenment. The story goes that the book we are familiar with as the Milarepa’s Songs of Enlightenment was passed on by an adept from the dakini characters.
Over time I came to understand clearly all the content set forth in this book. Later on I came to thoroughly understand all the esoteric meanings that lay behind the text in this book.
Still later, the frost of dualism truly melted away in the light of wisdom, and all the barriers between me and the old man were gone. From this time on, I no longer had to use this text, and I could communicate with this wise old man.
As they say in the practice of yoga, I was in accord with this old man.
This “being in accord” is a very meaningful phrase. It is a little like people transmitting data over the internet. He presses “send” and I press “receive” and the transmission of the message begins from this.
What is transmitted between that old man and me, besides the contents of this book, also includes something called “experiencing the light.”
Thus, at a certain point, my vessel of wisdom was filled up, and this book was born by it pouring out.
This then is the origin of the present book.
Professor Chen Xiaoming of Beijing University has called this kind of writing “comprehending past lives.”
Xue Mo’s works are obviously not the same. … It’s like tasting a story in a dream that completely disarranges the present logic, and goes beyond the boundaries of the present space and time at will. What is called “comprehending past lives” means comprehending the outcome of one’s whole fate – that is, everything is within the calculation of fate. It is something that can see through fate, and has a serene spirit. The narrator himself is a spirit within the programming of the calculations of fate. He is a ghostly auxiliary who can calculate fate. He loves this movement of fate, he stays close to this movement of fate – this is comprehending past lives.
Xue Mo uses his sincerity for religion, and his experiences come near to the extreme limits of life. Thus there is a sort of intoxication of the spirit in the body, a kind of madness in the manner of Dionysius, the god of wine. This kind of work also is like a kind of spell, a kind of final mantra. Only by using this spell-like writing can he give forth his own inner life experience – experience facing death. … The meaning of comprehending past lives lies in this: only such extreme writing can reveal the basic substance of contemporary writing.
(from Chen Xiaoming, How Can Literature Be Free: From Culture to Religion; from the lecture on Xue Mo’s Spells of the Western Xia)
When I saw the passages above, I exclaimed: Professor Chen has good insight!
In the time when critics have been alienated, [someone like] Professor Chen Xiaoming is really very hard to find. Mr. Chen, being full of so many contemporary terms and influences, has still not been cut off by the times from his spiritual wisdom.
This is right. In reality I have gone through a kind of supernatural writing process. I have experienced “that kind of pure Dharma bliss that never for a moment leaves me.” I have merged into “that realm that is bright and empty as the sky, pure as the ocean, without waves or ripples, without clouds, like a dream or an illusion, a mind without obstructions.” “When I write there are no words in my mind, it is bright and empty as the sky, empty and spiritual to the limit, yet I am able to let all sorts of writings flow out from within inherent nature.” (from The Great Mudra of Light: the Heart of Real Practice)
But I do not cling to this, because according to the standards of what is called “the Supreme Truth,” everything in this world is an illusion. That is to say, the basic substance of all things and appearances is in reality all illusory transformation. It is like something in a memory.
In all the activities of humankind, except for memories, we cannot find any real substance that does not change. Yet those memories dissolve away, like yellow dogs running away in a dust storm – it is very hard for us to catch them. However, because the present book appears, those many historical memories will certainly become just the opposite, and last forever. This is the meaning of Xue Mo being alive.
