Transforming Suffering into Pure Joy

The Venerable Ribur Rinpoche, in San Jose, California at the Medicine Buddha’s Healing Center since September last year, talked about his life to a group of students at Vajrapani Institute in Boulder Creek on October 4, 1996. The talk was translated by Fabrizio Pallotti.

Rinpoche was confined in Lhasa, Tibet from 1959 until 1976. During those years, he experienced relentless interrogation and torture during 35 of the infamous struggle sessions. “The things they used to do to us are something you would never witness in your life. If I told you what happened on a daily basis, you would find it hard to believe,” Rinpoche said.

“Although these experiences were very painful,” he told students at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala in 1991, “They were also very beneficial, because I was using up all my negative karma from previous lives. So then I prayed that the suffering be as intense as possible. As a result, my experiences in confinement were transformed into nothing but pure joy.”

At the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Rinpoche was given a job with the Religious Affairs Office in Tibet, working with the Panchen Lama to recover what they could of the holy objects that had been dismantled and shipped to China. “I managed to bring back to Tibet 600 huge boxes containing thousands of statues and pieces of statues.” The most precious of these was the statue from the Ramoche that had been brought to Tibet during the reign of Songsten Gampo.

During his remaining years in Tibet, and since his exile in Dharamsala in 1987, Ribur Rinpoche, a great scholar and prolific author, has written biographies of great lamas, and an extensive history of Tibet, which includes his autobiography. He is working closely with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on a biography of the Great Thirteenth, the previous Dalai Lama.

Rinpoche lives at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s monastery, Namgyel, in Dharamsala, India.

So this old monk you see is called Ribur Tulku. My name comes from my monastery, Ribur Gompa, Ribur Shedrup Ling, which is in a region of Tibet called Kham. It was a very, very old gompa, established more than 700 years ago by a great Sakya lama, Drongong Chogyel Pagpa. It is talked about in the lineage and stories contained in the Heruka practice.

Ribur Gompa was one of the three or four great monastic universities established in this vast area of Eastern Tibet before the coming of Lama Tsong Khapa in Kham. Even so, the philosophical system and debate were already well developed there.

When Lama Tsong Khapa came and spread the teachings in this world, one of his main disciples was a monk from Kham, the bodhisattva Sherab Tsampo. He received a lot of teachings from Lama Tsong Khapa and went back to Kham and established a big monastery in Cham, the Chamdo Monastery. He went for a rains retreat at Ribur Gompa, which was Sakya at the time, and taught lam-rim for one and a half months. Within that time, sort of naturally, the whole monastery embraced Lama Tsong Khapa’s teaching.

When the bodhisattva Sherab Tsampo went back to his monastery, he left one of his disciples at Ribur Gompa as the main teacher. This monk, Kunga Osel, is said to be my first recognizable reincarnation.

Until he was very old, Kunga Osel spent many years teaching the monks and then at a certain point he just left the monastery and went into retreat in the mountains. The retreat place is still there. He spent twelve years in strict seclusion, and passed away there in retreat. From Kunga Osel, the first reincarnation, up to the fifth, all were the principal teachers at Ribur monastery.

The fifth reincarnation, my predecessor, was extremely knowledgeable, a great scholar at Sera Me. After going through his studies in the monastery, he enrolled in the Upper Tantric College and eventually became the main debate and philosophy instructor of a very famous lama.

So probably my predecessor wasn’t like me. He was really someone very special. The way people talk about him – I have to say, Was he really like me or not? I can’t tell, I don’t know. Even when he was recognized, it was done by a very famous lama, Lodrup Dorje Chang, who was known not only for his philosophical and practical knowledge, but also for his clairvoyance and power to manifest magical emanations. He wrote a poem, a praise to this young reincarnation, saying, “You will come down from the pure land of Vajrayogini to benefit sentient beings in this world.” So that’s why I say probably my predecessor was really someone exceptional. He lived to a very old age. When he passed away, for a while my reincarnation wasn’t found, but then at a certain point I was found.

I was born in Kham, in Makham, in 1923. In that particular area, the majority of families weren’t big or affluent, but the family into which I was born was the most influential there. At the age of five I was recognized by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of Ribur Tulku. The oldest monk of Ribur Gompa came and we had an enthronement ceremony. I still remember sitting there, wearing the robes of my predecessor; they were so big! Of course I couldn’t really wear those robes so they just put them on me. I remember I was given offering scarves and drank tea while they were reciting the prayer of the Sixteen Arhats.

After that I started to wear a yellow robe, a chuba. For some years I stayed at home with my parents. I started to study writing and so forth around the age of seven.

My father was very good in business. He had only two children, me and my sister, so he started to think, Well, this is my only son and if he is recognized as a tulku and I send him to the monastery, who will take care of the business? He didn’t want me to go to the monastery and become a monk. So I stayed home until I was twelve, just studying literature and writing. No matter how many times the monastery pleaded to let me go, he kept me there. Actually, this has been useful in the later part of my life. Now that I live very close to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he uses me to write histories and biographies; I spend most of my time writing.

When I was twelve, all of a sudden my father died, for apparently no reason. Then my mother was able to send me to the monastery. What happened, as the story goes, is that the protector of the monastery, Four-faced Mahakala, the Brahmin form, hadn’t been pleased at all about my being kept at home.

I had the formal enthronement in the monastery, and you know how the Tibetan tradition is, they really exaggerate all that protocol: people coming and meeting and seeing, and khatas and so forth! I’ve been through all that!

I spent two years in the monastery, studying with two main teachers, memorizing scriptures of sutra and tantra and a particular lam-rim text I was close to, written by a great scholar of that part of Tibet.

When I was fourteen, I went to Lhasa. At that time, 1935, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had passed away and the regent was Reting Rinpoche. I had to make a pilgrimage around the stupa of my predecessors, making so many offerings, doing this and that, and meeting the regent. I had to go through much of this; that’s called a pilgrimage.

That was the time of the great lama Pabongka Dorje Chang, who was the most outstanding unsurpassable lama of that time. It was him and nobody else. I’m not saying there weren’t any lamas except Pabongka – there were Kyabje Kansar Rinpoche, Tatra Rinpoche, and many other great lamas – but he became the principal teacher, the one who was giving continuous teachings. It was also the time of the young Ling Rinpoche and Trijang Rinpoche, but they hadn’t yet manifested very extensive deeds.

Probably due to past life connections, when I was a kid in Kham, I really had a strong wish to meet Pabongka. Eventually I did, when I went to Lhasa, and for the first time I climbed up the hill to meet him at Tashi Chöling Monastery.

We went by horse, and I took with me some offerings I had brought from Kham. He was residing in the upper part of the monastery, which is like the penthouse. I arrived there and did everything very nicely: making all the offerings and everything that has to be done in a very auspicious way, one by one. Then I went up in his room, which was very small, just the extent of his bed-throne, where the lamas normally sit. Next to the bed there was a small throne all decorated with silver on which he had placed a very small statue of his lama, Dakpo Lama Rinpoche Jampel Lhundrup Gyatso, made of gold, all surrounded by amazing offerings, very neat, very well done.

I made three prostrations, and immediately it looked like he was very pleased, very happy, with lots of affection coming from him. “Finally! We’ve heard so much about this Ribur Tulku, Ribur Tulku, here and there. Finally, I’m able to meet him!” And then he said, “Okay, sit.” He started to give me tea and everything, one by one, the ritual that goes on between lamas. He was very knowledgeable about my monastery. “Oh, you have this monastery, the Ribur Gompa. It’s on the top of a mountain, the protector is Four-Faced Mahakala.”

Right at that moment, one monk who had gone through the training at the monastery and just become a geshe brought up to Lama Dorje Chang a pot of noodle soup he had made to offer him. Pabongka immediately wanted to share it with me, and said, “Oh, this is really auspicious. It means that you’ll definitely become a geshe. Receiving tukpa from a geshe like that means you’ll definitely become a geshe, you’ll definitely be able to finish your studies.”

He was so pleased with me, he had so much affection. Then all of a sudden he called his attendant, a bald man, and said, “Bring the calendar, bring the calendar, I want to look at the calendar!” And he started to look at the calendar. “You’re going to become a novice monk, right? So let’s check the auspicious day.” I hadn’t asked him anything. “This is an auspicious day, okay? We’ll do it this day, I’m going to give you a getsul ordination, okay?” I was so happy just thinking about how much affection he had shown me. And exactly on the day he told me, I went up and I became a getsul. We were only three. The other two monks were staying on a permanent basis at the retreat center of Pabongka.

I went to Sera to study, and because my predecessor was considered very high, I was taken on a tour all around the holy places there, making offerings, the various shrines above the monastery, accompanied with sounds and music. Because you are a lama, you have a particular relationship with the monastery, and you have to come with a procession – it’s not like nowadays – with the horses all dressed up with brocade and ornaments on their heads and ears and saddles. I had to be involved in all that rigmarole: that was the tradition in Tibet.

It’s not easy to enter a monastery like Sera, being a lama. It’s very expensive! Many times you have to offer everything – food, tea and this and that – and there were seven or eight thousand monks at the time. Very expensive! Anyway, all the expenses were covered by my family. In the end I was placed in the room of my predecessor in the branch of the monastery called Tsawa, in the top room.

I had this teacher called Tsawa Lama, who was very knowledgeable in philosophy and in the teachings. He was actually the predecessor of Tenzin Rinpoche, my present attendant. I was in the middle upper class in the lama situation at the monastery. I wasn’t the top and wasn’t the bottom. I studied a lot. After three years of intensive study, I had to give my first public examination, in front of the assembly of Sera. This is the tradition. And it went quite okay.

Then after five years, when I was nineteen, I had to give the examination of the Perfection of Wisdom, and again it was so expensive! Any time I had to give an examination I had to undertake the expenses of offering food and tea, and I had to make a little offering to each monk. There were so many monks! Thousands and thousands!

After nine years I had to give another big examination, and after another year another one. This is the way of going through examinations in Tibet. You go through classes in which you study great texts, like The Perfection of Wisdom and The Middle Way. In The Middle Way you have many levels, and at every level you have to give an examination, if you are a lama, anyway. It was quite difficult. During the examination you face maybe seven, eight thousand monks altogether at once – alone. I gave the first part of my examination on the subject of generating bodhicitta.

Actually, it went quite well. You see, we don’t do written examinations as you do. We actually debate. I had to debate philosophy with members of the top classes of the various monasteries of Sera Je in front of all the monks. My companion was chosen from among the best philosophers. He was a monk from Amdo, who was so much better than me in philosophy and in debate, and on top of that he was a real, pure monk, someone really content, an example. He knew what I could handle in debate, and he chose my opponents so I could face them without difficulty. He was very good to me. So my exam went quite well.

My opponent for the second exam, the more difficult one, was from Amdo again, a big monk with a beard. My classmates thought, Okay, last year’s opponent was much better than this year’s but he has a very good attitude. Now this year you should take care because although he’s not very knowledgeable in philosophy, he’s a nasty one! The way Tibetans debate in philosophy is really very complicated. It’s a combination of physical performance with actions that you do in combination with what you say, questions and answers. It is full of tricks. Mine went very well.

In 1948, when I was twenty-five, I became a geshe. The year after I would have become a geshe lharampa, but I was heavily pressured from my house and my monastery in Kham to go there as soon as possible and teach. For the geshe lharampa you have to meet all the monks four times for several months in a row. I did it only twice and then I left; I went to Kham.

During all those years at Sera, whenever I could, I went to take as many teachings as possible from Pabongka. The first teaching I received was The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, and the first initiation I received was the Great Compassionate Thousand-armed Chenrezig.

At a certain point I had heard that Pabongka was giving the initiation into the full set of the seventeen forms of Four-faced Mahakala at his retreat place. I sent a message up requesting if I could attend the initiation. I was only fourteen at the time, so he called me up and said, “Have you received a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation yet?” And I said, No, I hadn’t. So then Lama Pabongka Dorje Change remained silent for several moments, contemplating. Then he said, “Well, this is something special. This a protector of your predecessor and a protector of your gompa. I think you don’t need a Highest Yoga Tantra initiation; you can come and take this initiation.” I was so happy, and I went there and received the full set of Four-Face Mahakala.

Again, Pabongka came to Sera Me to give the commentary on the eight great lam-rim texts, like the three lam-rims by Lama Tsong Khapa – small, intermediate and great expositions of the stages of the path – and all the lam-rims written by the Fifth Dalai Lama and the First Dalai Lama. He went through a full four months of teachings on the lam-rim, as well as all the biographies of the lamas who had written them, which I attended.

At the end he gave lots of blessings and initiations, like the White Umbrella Deity and Medicine Buddha, and lots of initiations, like Guhyasamaja, Heruka and Yamantaka that are normally given three at a time, in a set, one after another, and a special form of Amitabha, and the Highest Yoga Tantra of Vajrapani, called the Great Wheel. I took them all.

Trijang Rinpoche came to take the Vajrapani Great Wheel initiation. So then Pabongka went on with the initiation of Heruka, the Body Mandala, with the full teachings, and Vajrayogini, with the full teachings.

When I was young in the monastery, I went through the general studies like everybody else. I was very lucky, though, because my gen-la, my close teacher, was a good one. On top of that, I had this incredible exposure to Pabongka Rinpoche as my direct lama, so my general frame of mind was quite good, it developed quite well. My close teacher was extremely kind, probably the most kind. You see, generally speaking, for the young incarnations the teacher is extremely important; the way the relationship develops, the way they train. My teacher was so kind, he would just tell me, “Okay, don’t worry, we’ll go through the text slowly slowly, at ease, and whenever Lama Dorje Chang is teaching, we’re going to attend.” This is something quite uncommon. When you’re a child, a young lama like that doesn’t go around taking teachings from the high lamas unless you’ve completed certain studies. So I was able to take all these teachings and to continue my studies thanks to his kindness.

Luckily, he was very good in philosophy, very well-versed, but not only that, he was a great practitioner, a Kadampa-style lama. He used to tell me stories about the old Kadampas, all the stories concerning guru devotion and so forth, to inspire me. So I was raised within the framework of this intense Dharma practice, with an atmosphere of strong affection from my teacher, who was himself a great meditator, a great Kadampa practitioner, and taking and receiving teachings and inspiration from Lama Dorje Chang a lot.

It looked like my mind was going to develop quite well. I used to study during the day, and for long periods of time, I didn’t sleep at night. It was so nice just to stay up and look at the texts and stop every once and a while to meditate on them; and then when the early morning arrived, to rejoice, thinking that everyone else has been asleep and you’ve been up and meditating and studying Dharma. You feel you really used your time in the best, most useful way, and you feel like sleep is a waste of time. You would develop the habit. I used to rejoice a lot for that.

And when His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at four years of age, was brought to Lhasa in 1939, I was so lucky. I was there, I could see him, I went to receive him. During that time I thought my mind was quite good.

I wouldn’t seek teachings from any other teachers besides Lama Dorje Chang, Pabongka. I’m really quite stubborn. Then came a moment when Pabongka was due to leave for the southeastern part of Tibet for a long teaching tour in Lokha. I went to see him and I received some initiations and blessings that I needed. And before we parted I told him that I’d had in mind to go to Lokha to receive teachings from him, but that for some reason it wasn’t possible, and asked if he could please grant all his blessings so my mind would become Dharma and the Dharma become the path and the path would be without obstacles forever. He said, “Yes, I’m going on this tour, but don’t worry, you should receive teachings from Trijang Rinpoche.” So, you see, Lama Dorje Chang already knew he was going to pass away, that I wasn’t going to see him again, and it was his wish that I begin to receive teachings from Trijang Rinpoche. I hadn’t done that yet.

Lama Dorje Chang arrived in Lokha at the monastery of Dakpo Rinpoche, Dakpo Shedro Ling, which is, I think, in Gyatsa. He gave lam-rim teachings for a long time, and all of a sudden he passed away. We all were terribly devastated by the news, myself and all those lamas, like Pari Rinpoche and Latsu Rinpoche and so forth. Finally I went to see Trijang Rinpoche and explained to him that lama Dorje Chang had told me, before leaving, to receive teachings from him. So from that moment onward I began my relationship with the late Trijang Rinpoche.

After my geshe examination in 1948 I went to see Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and expressed to him my wish to dedicate all my thoughts for at least one year just to lam-rim practice; and he was very, very pleased. He immediately gave me the instructions on how to meditate on the lam-rim, what subjects I should emphasize and so on, and I left for Takten Ritrö, the retreat place of Kyabje Pabongka, on a mountain behind Sera called Parongka. I went straight into the cave where he had achieved realization of the two stages. You see, at the time my only thought was of spending my life, no matter how short it would be, in a cave and meditating. I didn’t have any other thought crossing my mind.

Then after one year, since I had finished my geshe degree, my people from Kham really wanted me to go there to teach, so I went. From the moment I arrived in Kham, my mind became worse and worse.

It was the tradition that when a lama arrives in his place after study, he arrives in pomp and circumstance with all the music and people playing instruments and so forth, and everyone bringing many offerings. Yes, they asked me to give Yamantaka initiation in one place, Mahakala initiation in another, and so forth. And after every initiation I would be made more and more important, with more and more things coming, and there was nothing else for the mind to do but get worse and worse and worse. So that’s really not good. Everybody coming in and asking this and that and with an attitude of refuge, and myself thinking that maybe I’m better and better. This is really bad; there’s nothing that damages you like that.

Then the Chinese invasion began, at the beginning of the ’50s. Slowly, slowly they came into Kham, and I had lots of delegations of Chinese coming and talking to me to do this and that. I had the clear impression that they wanted to pull me to their side. So what I did was I had a meditation hut built in the forest, and I just ran away and did my retreats. Actually they went quite well.

I began with the preliminary practices in retreat, in solitude. I went through all of them quite smoothly. I was very happy. I did the mandala, prostrations, Vajrasattva, Dorje Khadro, all those preliminaries. I had done Yamantaka, the Solitary Hero retreat, so then I began with the Thirteen Deities Yamantaka, and after that I did one deity after another. I did all those retreats, lot of them.

When His Holiness the Dalai Lama was invited to China for his first tour, he traveled through Chamdo, another region of Tibet, and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who was accompanying him, came to Kham, so I invited him to stay three days with me. He stayed in my room for three days, and I had a chance to ask him for teachings. He gave me teachings and initiations.

I had time to discuss with him what would be better for me to do in the wake of the Chinese invasion. Would it be better for me to stay in Kham or go to Lhasa? Trijang Rinpoche told me that if I stayed in Kham I would stick out, because nobody else was like me, like a lama; but if I went to Lhasa, I would mix in with many others and not be so obvious, so that would be better. Therefore, in 1955 I left for Lhasa.

At that time I began to take teachings from Ling Rinpoche as well, and Ketsang Rinpoche, the root lama of Ling Rinpoche and many other lamas. One year later, in 1956, I left for my first pilgrimage to India. Between teachings I did retreats, so I was able to get back the good thinking.

In 1959 we had this big eruption of circumstances, when everything degenerated with the Chinese. I was in jail for several months, not for a long time. Anyway, I didn’t really experience the slightest difficulty during those adverse conditions. And this was due to the kindness of Lama Dorje Chang. From him I had somehow learned some mental training, and in those difficult times, my mind was immediately able to recognize the nature of cyclic existence, the nature of afflictive emotions, and the nature of karma and so forth. So my mind was really at ease.

I was placed in this prison, I don’t remember the name now, and it was full. There were at least two hundred important politicians and nobles there also, and all of them were really in great pain because they didn’t know how to think. Generally, those people didn’t practice Dharma. They were connected with the government and so forth, but they use to have a good time all the time, a really good time. You used to see them picnicking outside the Potala Palace, or coming through Lhasa. They had very rich houses and so forth; they were used to living the affluent life.

So at that time, they were really devastated, they didn’t know what to do or what to think or what was going on. But people like me didn’t have the slightest doubt about the nature of cyclic existence, so being in prison wasn’t really a big deal.

For some reason I knew the Chinese translator in prison, so I was able to get out very quickly. Later on, I was put in charge of the religious organization of Tibet, under the Chinese, naturally, and given a very, very small salary for that. Around eleven or twelve dollars a month. It wasn’t enough, but people used to help me. Anyway, I didn’t experience much difficulty.

The difficult time arrived around the beginning of the ’60s, when there was a reprisal, and the situation really deteriorate. The Chinese started to tear down all the monasteries; there was a moment when they began to do really professional destruction. I heard and I witnessed them pulling down all these images, the great holy places, like the Jowo Chenpo and the Ramo Chenpo, these big, very famous statues in Lhasa in the two temples, the Jokhang and the Ramoche, which are supposed to have come from the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. Monks were being put in prison and forced to marry and forced into labor camps or to work in fields and so forth. All this caused a great deal of pain in my mind, witnessing all of this. That was really the worst period. Sera, Drepung and Ganden monasteries were completely torn apart, virtually razed to the ground, and that was very painful.

The Chinese probably razed around six thousand monasteries and holy places, and we lost around 100,000 ordained people. If you keep hearing things and seeing things, then sooner or later your mind becomes unhappy. Whatever hardships I experienced myself – I was beaten, forced to do so many things – that really didn’t matter because you know whatever you experience yourself is your own difficulty to get through, is your own karma ripening, and it’s just your business. The point is, you accumulate karma, which brings forth those results, and you are bound to face them, so if you know this when you are experiencing difficulties, you are actually happy that those things are happening because you are able to recognize that in this way you’re getting rid of a big load. And nobody else loaded this big load upon you but yourself. So I was even able to think, Yes, the more that comes to me to experience, the more I’ll be happy to receive it and to get rid of whatever load I have from the past. So from that point of view, really, there wasn’t the slightest problem.

Also, knowing that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the two tutors, Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche, were able to escape and arrive safely in India was a huge source of happiness. I was very satisfied that they were safe, so whatever happened, it didn’t matter.

The real suffering, the real pain, was seeing and witnessing this destruction of the holy images and places, so full of history, so important. The places of Lama Tsong Khapa, the statues, so blessed over centuries and centuries. But there was nothing to do and I just thought, Okay, it really doesn’t matter, I just hope I die soon. But you see, there wasn’t the karma; I’m still alive.

So my state of mind was like this. One day I was looking at the sky, and I saw this big vulture flying west towards India. I looked at him and thought, How lucky is this vulture, he’s free to fly towards India. Tonight he’ll probably be resting in one of the forests behind Kalimpong, which borders Tibet, and tomorrow he can fly in India. I was in that state. So many times I found myself thinking in that way. I was just hoping that something would happen that I could die, in one way or another. I thought that many times, but it never happened, obviously.

We Tibetans were going through a really bad time. The Chinese officers were really nasty. The things they used to do to us are something you would never witness in your life. If I told you what happened on a daily basis, you would find it hard to believe, in terms of nastiness from the officers, not from the general Chinese population.

I was thinking every day of dying, that probably the next day I would be dead. During that period I just concentrated on keeping my vows as purely as possible, so I’ve done without interruption more than 2,000 self-initiations of the Body Mandala of Heruka. And so much tong-len, taking on the suffering of others and giving away one’s happiness. So I thought even if I die tomorrow, it really doesn’t matter, at least my vows and everything are pure.

After the Cultural Revolution stopped, around 1976, the Chinese thought they could use me a little bit for some of their work, so I was employed for various things and I started to get a little money.

At a certain point I had a strong urge to preserve whatever was possible from all this destruction, at least those things from our history, especially the holy places of Lama Tsong Khapa, all the statues and so forth. So I wrote down the histories of all these places and the statues. I didn’t care about becoming famous myself, I just didn’t want everything to be completely lost. I did deep research on the Jokhang temple and the Ramoche temple, the two places in Lhasa with the two very important statues of Buddha Shakyamuni in the sambhogakaya aspect that the two queens of Songsten Gampo brought with them from China and Nepal. I did a great deal of research and I wrote down so much.

There was a place in Ganden Monastery where there used to be a huge stupa containing Lama Tsong Khapa’s holy body, which of course was completely destroyed. In the same place, I put together another stupa, the same as before, with as much gold as I could and a statue of Lama Tsong Khapa in it.

His Holiness the Panchen Lama was there, and I had this incredible connection with him. I was working in the Religious Affairs Office of Tibet, in charge, along with him, of recovering whatever possible of what had been taken to China.

I was very concerned about the Jowo Chenpo and the Ramo Chenpo. It would take a long time to tell you how I went to China, how I got there, how I searched for these things among thousands and thousands of places filled up with broken statues and so forth. The point is, I managed to bring back to Tibet 600 huge boxes containing thousands of statues and pieces of statues. And finally I was able to re-establish the two statues in Lhasa.

Also I made one big statue of Lama Pabongka. I was able to recover the bones and ashes of his holy body from some of the old nuns who were left there in the retreat place of Pabongka. They gave them to me. There was a big statue of Pabongka made of silver in the monastery, and just the head was made of brass. The silver was gone, of course, but I was able to recover the head, which was left somewhere half broken, and I put it together. This was already 1981.

I didn’t know what was going on in India with the exile community, but I knew there were so many things missing, and I was really sad. I wanted to compose one very accurate history, an historical account of the 99 Ganden Throne holders, from Lama Tsong Khapa and all his successors up to the ninety-ninth. And also the life story of the great lamas, like Ketsang Dorje Chang. I spent a great deal of time writing. I didn’t know if these biographies had been put together or not.

I was able to somehow communicate with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and at a certain point I asked him, “Maybe I’ll come over.” And he said, “Yes, come over,” and so I went.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama told me that we’d been going through so many hardships, especially people like me who had been left there and witnessed all the destruction. He said they’d heard all the things that were going on, and it would be highly beneficial if I could write a life history of myself, right from the beginning up to now, so I did. I put together two books, altogether around 800 pages, that were published in Dharamsala by the publishing house of the Tibetan exile community.

I’ve written the most important things with a great deal of detail; for example, about Ganden; how Ganden was established from the beginning, and under what circumstances; how Ganden was during the reign of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, its organization and everything else, and how its destruction began around 1959; and how in 1969 it was completely destroyed, and under what circumstances, and so forth. I wrote all this down with many details.

And the story of the Ramo Chenpo, how the statue was brought to Tibet the first time, the history of the statue itself, its powers and so forth, and how the temple was taken over, destroyed, the statue taken out of the temple, opened up, completely emptied out, taken to China, how it remained in the corner of a factory storehouse for seven years and was brought back to Beijing and stored in a different place for another ten years. Seventeen years of history of the statue in China.

If we had time to go through and translate these two books, you would come to know many facts about Tibet, about the mind of renunciation, and a little about myself. So much you’d see about the dissatisfaction of cyclic existence; about the fact that there is no stable place; once you’re up you go down, once you’re down you go up; and so forth, like real facts; the history connected with Tibet, the Dharma, myself. Also for that it’s beneficial.

I always carry with me a very small stupa containing whatever bones and holy hair of Lama Tsong Khapa were left, and a little of Pabongka as well. I have the container here with me. I brought it from Tibet. When I think of all my possessions, of everything precious I have in my life, this is it.

So now my biography account is finished.

The Precious Conch Shell

Some time in 1995, an old Tibetan man showed up at Rinpoche’s room in Dharamsala, saying something about a precious conch shell, which someone he knew had smuggled out of Tibet. This conch is believed to have been a gift of the King of the Nagas to Shakyamuni Buddha.

Buddha prophesied that in the future, a monk in the Land of Snows – in fact, Lama Tsong Khapa – would spread the Dharma in the ten directions, and while doing this he blew this conch. Buddha instructed Maudgalyayana, one of his closest disciples who was famous for his psychic powers, to take the conch and bury it in the snow mountains.

After his long retreat, when Lama Tsong Khapa went to the mountain where Ganden was to be established, he found the conch buried there. It was here that he established his first monastery, Ganden.

Ribur Rinpoche recognized the conch when the man brought it to him the next day. Before taking it to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he kept it in his room for a few days. Its sound is very powerful, he said; he blew it several times.

When His Holiness received the conch, he was so pleased that he raised the conch above his head and stood for some time in meditation while holding it.

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