most ironic, i think, is that Trijang Rinpoche's predecessor wrote most extensively and clearly about this practice and this is the lineage upheld by almost all DS practitioners throughout the world now. The lamas really take on so much for our sakes and 'suffer' so many obstacles just so we can have the freedom to practice.
Seems fitting that I have just chanced upon this from
Music Delighting. His Holiness Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche really writes with so much clarity on this subject. Perhaps this is the very reason why he manifests to be in this "dilemma" - a lesson for all of us to see how we can handle even the most seemingly dead-ended situations with compassion, clarity and most important of all, by never giving up.
So much to discuss with this extract below... so I open the floor!
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Some, who have fallen under the influence of the demon of the partisanship, think and say that this supreme Deity, the great emanated Dharmapala, is no different than an ordinary gyalpo or tsen spirit who has an inferior form as a result of being a monk or lay person who died with bad karma. Leave aside relying upon him as a Protector, they even deride others who do so. There are some, indeed, who echo such claims knowing nothing about it.
Yet all this talk is nothing but babbling speculation. Why? Because this great guardian of the teachings is well known to be the precious supreme emanation from Drepung Monastery’s upper house, Dragpa Gyaltsen, arising in a wrathful aspect. The proof is unmistaken. Tulku Dragpa Gyaltsen, as is taught in the lineage, was the final birth in a reincarnation lineage that included the Mahasiddha Birwapa, the great Kashmiri Pandit Shakya Shri, the omniscient Buton, Duldzin Dragpa Gyaltsen, Panchen Sonam Drakpa, and so forth; this is proven by valid scriptural quotation and reasoning.
"These great beings, from a definitive point of view, were already fully enlightened, and even to common appearances, every one of them was a holy being that attained high states of realization. What worse karma could there be than denying this and asserting that he was born in the preta (spirit) realm?"
Therefore, for holy beings it is not at all far-fetched that they might show themselves in a wrathful form out of the power of compassion and prayer for the sake of a special purpose, and it should be recognized that they are emanations of Buddha’s inconceivable secret qualities. But for them to take birth as a sky-wandering preta through the force of negative throwing karma like an ordinary preta would be utterly impossible.
To say it were possible would be to deny the validity of the natural law of cause and effect. Why? From the definitive point of view those holy beings are fully enlightened. Moreover, even from the common point of view, they attained high states of realization in reliance upon guarding their moral disciplines as they would their eyes, from youth onwards throughout their lives.
To say that a causal factor of pure ethical discipline could result in rebirth in a lower realm of existence would be to assert that actions performed could be wasted; that one could experience the results of actions not performed by oneself; and that such scriptural statements as 'From generosity, wealth, from ethics, happiness' are invalid and so forth. As a consequence, one would be turning ones back on Buddha’s teachings as a whole.
Furthermore, from the definitive point of view, that these holy beings were already fully enlightened innumerable ages ago, is clear if one examines the accounts of their lives, and if one were to say that a fully enlightened being could take birth as an ordinary gyalpo or tsen spirit, then one would be asserting that degeneration is possible from the state of full Enlightenment or that someone could be both fully enlightened and an ordinary preta at the same time!
Or else, one would have to say that the accounts of those great beings lives are worthless. A mountain of absurd consequences, previously non-existent distorted ideas, would have to be accepted.
